Last night, Peanut and I watched Inside Man: A 2006 flick of a bank-heist turned cat-and-mouse chase starring Denzel Washingston, Clive Owen, Jodie Foster, and Willem Dafoe.
After the heist turns into a hostage situation, the rest of the movie involves Clive Owen (the leader of the heist) battling wits with Denzel Washington (the lead detective).
And Owen and his band of heisters were always one step ahead of the detectives.
Case in point:
When the detectives decided to bug the inside of the bank, Owen not only knew they’d bug it, but planned ahead for it.
(Lesson in there)
So, he set up an iPod (this was a 2006 movie…) and played an Albian speech to the bug. This caused quite the ruckus for the squad of detectives.
First, they didn’t know what language the speech was spoken in. They thought it was Russian, so they brought in a Russian language expert… only to then find out that it wasn’t spoken in Russian at all.
Perplexed, they broadcasted the speech over the speakers to the group of witnesses standing by. When someone said they knew it was Albanian, they brought him in. Only problem was he couldn't speak Albanian, he’s just familiar with the language because his ex-wife was 100% Albanian.
So they called her in too.
And here’s where the rub happens:
She knew she was the only person who could speak Albanian to translate the message. And so, she held the key to resolving the hostage situation.
In other words, she had impeccable positioning.
And so, when she arrived at the detective’s office, she went to light up a cigarette. To which, the detective told her, “you can’t smoke in here.”
Knowing she had something they desperately needed, she threatened to walk out before the detective gave in and let her smoke her cigarette.
Such is the power of positioning.
It can allow you to smoke cigarettes in places you otherwise wouldn’t.
It can allow you to charge a hefty premium in situations you otherwise wouldn’t.
And it also allows you to “get away” with sending long (and frequent) emails to your list while your subscribers thank you for doing so.
Speaking about that last point…
If you need help crafting persuasive emails that your audience loves reading almost as much as they love buying from, hit let’s chat.
John