Thanks so much for your advice @bradleytmorris I really do appreciate it. I think I sat for so many hours and days putting together clip after clip that in the end I found it hard to see what was what anymore. So it’s really nice to get fresh eyes and perspective on it.

I think you’re spot on about the transition to the starting title of ‘escape from nicotraz’ it does need some kind of audio there doesn’t it? I have taken a break from looking at the video today so I can try and view it with fresh eyes too and I see exactly what you mean. I think there are a few other bits I need to tighten up also and will take a look at re-editing it tomorrow to correct.

As for the price I feel happy to bow to your better judgement on that one. You know the ecourse game and pricing far better than I do and if it makes people F-YEAH! then I’m in! 😉 Thank you for giving it some thought for me.

I started on the sales page today but my day got taken from under me by a friend in need that I simply couldn’t not be there for. You can see the ‘so far’ edition at escapefromnicotraz.com However, I really wouldn’t waste your time as there’s not much to see. I’ve just tried to get to grips with thrive, get my text in and start to position it all. No designing as yet and still many of the template elements and text are present.

I feel the likelihood of me finishing this all in enough time to get some sales through is looking rather bleak as I haven’t even looked at setting up payment processor etc, but I’m still going to give it a good go.

Down, but not out!

Thanks @andyfreist aaah, input/output I get it now! Perfect for your audio alchemy and in a lot of ways…perfect for hypnosis and mindtrix – very clever! I’ll have myself a look on namecheap to see if I can get the name cheap! 😉

@davidj & @laurakoller I really appreciate you both taking the time to give me your brilliant feedback. It’s so helpful to get other perspectives. And actually, your points have made me do a lot of thinking and questioning of my path.

I am probably thinking out loud here, so sorry if I ramble and go on too much…(edit: I am at the end of writing and jeez, I have gone on and on!! I am so sorry, but honestly and truly I have found this so cathartic for me to do. So thank you so much for bringing all this forward in my thoughts.  It has really made me think and realise a lot. I have pondered deleting it all, but actually I wonder…and hope…that in some way it might help you guys in some way..however small.

The vaping issue is a bit of a headache for me. It is a huge thing now here too. We have two vaping shops that have opened on our village high street in the past 6 months! Add to that, that every few months another announcement will be made on the local news that smokers are dropping in their numbers. More and more people are quitting every day. I suspect those two situations are inextricably linked!

They are not stopping smoking, they are simply substituting it for something else. I do not have a great deal I can throw at the vaping issue. My heart tells me it is wrong, and the fact that people are swapping one crutch for another tells me the ‘issue’ within them still remains and needs fixing. This issue will raise it’s head elsewhere, no doubt. Which, leads me nicely on to other courses in confidence and esteem etc etc. However, I do not have the scientific evidence or clout to tell them that vaping is bad…just a heart felt instinct. And I also feel that (with the lack of much scientific evidence) that I suppose vaping has to be better than smoking? So I am at a complete loss as to what to do about this situation. 🙁

That said, there are many smokers who cannot get away with vaping and still remain trapped. The numbers of smokers in the world is still very high. Tobacco companies are still multi billion dollar industries and ‘health’ products like nicorette are still doing a roaring trade despite their 5% success rate!!

However, that brings me to another issue. Not very many of those smokers WANT to stop smoking. Getting them to want to is a task in itself. And you can’t make people do what they don’t want to do – not even with hypnosis. If I could, I’d be out there robbing banks by asking them to give me their money instead of sitting here creating ecourses! lol

This issue (the wants of smokers to quit and the vaping one) also raises another thing in my mind. I have ‘sat’ on the creation of this course for 15 years. I can hear the clock ticking on it’s success, I feel my time is running out. Some of those reasons are to do with my own personal situation and others are because I see, that smoking is not going to be the big issue it once was…the market for stopping smoking isn’t what it was 15 years ago when I had my own practice. Do i think I can make money from it? Yes. Do I think it will be there in 5 years time still making me money? No. So I need to get this out of my system and now so I can move on to bigger and more pertinent issues in our society. I need to help those still remaining.

You see, this lack of want, that smokers have, is why vaping has been so massively successful. It doesn’t ask them to stop their relationship with cigarettes. (Yes, relationship. I will get to this in a moment) It asks them to transfer it to something else. Like, if you give a smoker a different brand of cigarettes. At first, they will be ‘eugh’ I hate this brand, but eventually they get used to it. And if it’s a choice between a different brand or giving up smoking they will of course, choose the new brand. Vaping is the new brand in my opinion.

So it gets around the issue completely that smokers do not want to stop. When I had my own Hypnotherapy practice this ‘want’ in smokers was my biggest obstacle. Usually, they were there because their partner really wanted them to stop, or their doctor had told them they should. Not because they wanted to. I had to convince them to want it for themselves because, unless they did, it wouldn’t matter what I did, they simply wouldn’t quit.

My practice was to ask for a £1oo non refundable deposit when they first booked their appointment on the phone. On the phone I would make it very clear to them that whilst Hypnosis was incredibly effective, and how fantastic my success rate was, that unless they wanted to stop smoking for themselves and their own reasons, they’d be wasting their time and money because it wouldn’t work. If I’m honest, most of that phone call was me trying to talk them out of coming!

Do you know what the maddest thing is? Out of all those phone calls I made, 90% of them would still book an appointment. However, I would get a a significant number of people who would get there, sit in my chair and then I would see fear and panic come across them. They would practically go white. They’d say, ‘actually, sorry, I’ve decided I don’t want to do this. Can I leave now?’ Despite the fact they’d lose their £100 deposit if they did so – they still wanted to walk out!?!

Their reasons wasn’t because  of their lack of faith in me or hypnosis. Most of my work was spread by word of mouth so they knew friends etc who had just stopped easily with me. Their panic and need to flee arose from the fact that they realised…this is it. They have to give this up for good, and that made them fearful. Even though they could see how great their friend was looking and doing – they were scared of leaving behind cigarettes! Their fear of leaving behind cigarettes was greater than their fear of continuing to smoke and this fear was no match for the pleasure they would get if they quit.

For a long time I fought this issue, and continued only seeing people who genuinely wanted to stop smoking for themselves. I would turn away a lot of people. Refuse to see them unless they could convince me of their genuine want. But it always bugged me….why do smokers react like you’re trying to take something precious away from them….why do they not want to stop? They can see how happy it is to be a non smoker because they see how well their friend has done and yet, they still don’t want to stop!?!  Purely and simply, it’s because they have a relationship with cigarettes. It’s their friend, their companion. They share secrets with it when stood outside in the cold alone smoking. It sees them through the happy times. Consoles them in their sad ones. Calms them when they are worried. The biggest thing they have to give up is not nicotine or addiction…it is a friend.

Yes, an abusive friend, but a friend none the less. The trouble is that, much like a man or woman in an abusive relationship, whilst we can all see they are being treat badly and need to leave,…until they reach snapping point they will not. Abusive relationships are not all bad, there has to be some good bits, some benefits, otherwise the abuse wouldn’t work. And it is the same with cigarettes. The trick is in getting them to see their relationship for what it truly is, then they want to walk away.

Of course, some people in an abusive relationship end up leaving only to find themselves attracted to another abusive partner…..like moving from cigarettes to vaping? 😉

So…that leads me to two other things you have mentioned….the feel of the video and the pricing.

The reason I want to make the video dark, scary and edgy is that it’s those kind of things make people want to stop smoking, not the lovely heavenly pictures, or the examples of their friends who have stopped smoking and are loving it. For a smoker those things don’t seem to matter.  Of course,  I need people who want to stop smoking otherwise they won’t sign up for the course. So I have to do something that creates that want within them. I have to redress the balance of the problem that I came across when seeing them face to face – I have to make the fear of continuing to smoke greater than the fear of leaving them behind.

Maybe I’ve got it wrong, and my ‘mindtrix’ on this video simply won’t work – but that was the thought process behind it.

I believe that pain and fear are our bigger motivators. In fact, they are the biggest drivers of our overall behaviour. Fear moves us subconsciously too, which is why I need to use it…because I need to work with their subconscious to make changes. My aim with my video was to make it hypnotic like…the flashing images…the jumping around…to engage the conscious so I can speak to the subconscious…or at least, that was my aim.

Pain is the best motivator to use for short term motivation…and the aim of the video is to motivate them only for the short term…only long enough to get them to sign up. Pleasure is for long term motivation. I am aware I will need to use that within the course itself to achieve success with people.

I have tried to use pain in the video to get peoples attention, to motivate them enough to want to stop smoking, because unless they want to I can never help them and they will never sign up. So for my mind, the fear must be there and must be the major card I play in the trailer.However, I recognise completely that pleasure has to play a part too, which is why I wanted to reference some glimpses of freedom in there.

There are horrible pictures on cigarette packets now trying to frighten people away from smoking them. Yes, it frightens smokers. However, when our fear is evoked we go in to fight or flight mode…with a cigarette packet in hand there’s nothing to fight with…no welcoming hand offering to help them not smoke so they flight from the horror of the pictures by lighting up. Because also, neuro scientists have shown us when smokers are shown scary pictures like this, the ‘craving spot’ in their brain lights up, their need to comfort themselves somehow becomes overwhelming…and of course…right there in their hand…is the thing that has always comforted them in the past so there’s only one thing they will ever do…continue to smoke!

If we don’t know what else to do in the face of fear we are most likely to choose whoever shows us a path to go down. When those pictures are on cigarette packets, the cigarettes offer a path for the smoker to go down. It is my hope that when I offer fear, they will choose my path to go down. I believe that to use fear successfully as a motivation tool you must offer a solution with it.

The use of the prison metaphor I have chosen with the course is not just an apt one because of how well the name alcatraz works with nicotraz.  It was because it is so relevant to the smokers position..but when they spend so long in that prison they cannot see the reality of their situation anymore, they lose their fight to leave. They ‘forget’ how bad it is, and begin to see it as a companion. This stops them from wanting to leave (wanting to stop smoking) they need to be reminded of the truth of their situation, that they are in fact trapped, that they are dictated to, abused, etc etc….By nature, most smokers are rebellious. This is why they started smoking in the first place, usually as a teenager (the rebellious years) to rebel against their parents, teachers etc etc. So, the prison aspect also calls up their rebellious streak…trying to prod them and poke them and say ‘hey, are you going to stand for this?’ ‘Do you realise what they are doing to you’

I want them to feel angry and fearful and starkly aware of their situation because only then, do they stand a chance of standing up and being counted, of wanting to stop smoking. I need to play to their character traits, fears and worries to entice them into action

Seeing pleasurable pictures of people who are free from smoking can of course inspire them, but sadly doesn’t motivate them to take action. Action is what i need. Motivation not inspiration. Pain will always trump pleasure. Add to that, that most smokers, when shown pictures of someone who has stopped, do feel they would like it to be them but it doesn’t evoke them to take action. I suppose this is a bit like if we were to see someone we were really attracted to…the person of your dreams. We can see them, smell them, feel them…imagine everything that being with them would be like but do we go up and ask them out….Hell, no! I mean…they might reject us right? No matter how wonderful it ‘could be’ we won’t do it because the pain of possible rejection (pain) will stop us from taking action towards pleasure.

Of course, most smokers, by the time they get to trying hypnosis to quite have already tried 100’s of other ways. So they know only too well how painful trying to stop is, and so, will associate that pain of stopping with those pleasurable pictures too…even though we don’t – they do.

I see here also a great deal of relevance to where a lot of us find ourselves in our ecourse creations…suddenly we become frozen…we are frightened of what might happen if we do succeed. Yes, we can see success, we can picture it etc, dam, we want it! BUT the fear…that overrides everything UNTIL we connect with the fear of what will happen if we don’t do it…what if we don’t try and succeed? How will we feel then?  Once we feel that fear and it becomes great and strong enough, then we move forward again!

I think my video has to evoke the pain and fear in continuing to smoke and then my sales page has to offer a solution to the fear and pain they believe they may feel if they try to stop (that pain they have experienced so many times) I think this will address the psychological fight in their mind when it comes to quitting and actually wanting to quit.  I hope.

Oh dear, I hope I’m making sense!

As for the pricing. This is a psychological issue too. When I started up doing face to face Hypnosis in my local area I charged £250 per person. This was 15 years ago. No other hypnotherapists were charging this much and I was bloody scared being the only one. I didn’t think anyone would pay that much. How wrong I was? I had a waiting list – a very long one! I also had a very high success rate. Higher than anyone else.

Thing is, I don’t think I was any better than the other hypnotherapists around me. I questioned my methods constantly. I think…what the pice did was twofold. Firstly, it gave a higher perceived value. If I was charging that much and the other hypnotherapist round the corner charging £30, who do you think people thought was the better hypnotherapist.?

Secondly, it separated the wheat from the chaff. When a  hypnotherapist charges £30 they get smokers at their door who think ‘yeah, I may as well give that a go, why not, it’s only £30’ When I got people to my door, they were determined people, People who were highly motivated to do this, no matter what. £250 was a big investment for an hour of work and so they were bloody sure they were going to quit no matter what I did. The parting with the money was almost part of the therapy if you like.

So…the final price will be £250. This has to mean something to them…not just be a ‘yeah, why not?’ However, I am naive in the workings of ecourse sales and so am prepared to drop it to the £97 as per Brad’s suggestion for the initial pre sale phase.

As for the Mindtrix name. My initial reaction is to be stubborn and say I need to stick with Mindtrix. That’s my gut reaction. However, I know that my gut reaction isn’t always the best one and I usually come up with my better ideas when I allow it to process and slow cook in my mind! 😉 lol So…that’s what I shall do.

I understand what you are both saying about how important the .org etc extensions can be in peoples perception of your website but I also feel that it is becoming less of an issue as time moves on, as we are becoming more and more accustomed to seeing others. I know I used to feel that way about unknown extensions but now, I don’t even look anymore. I base my opinion on the look and feel of the site itself and what it has to offer. But as I say, I’ll think on it.

If you’re still here now…reading this….thanks for sticking with me to the end. It’s been a long ride…but you’ll be pleased to know it’s over! lol.