Who wins in a cage match of Carnivores vs. Vegans?

The online nutrition influencer space is wild.

You’ve got the carnivores - those that only eat meat and from what I can tell, it’s almost 100% steak.

Then you’ve got the vegans who as you know only eat non-meat products. They don’t even touch milk.

Then you’ve got this new guy, a cardiologist who’s out there telling us that apples are “sugar bombs” and you might as well have a Snickers bar or something like that.

Seems like the only thing all these so called “influencers” can agree to is that seed oils are bad - eat/drink olive oil is the solution.

I’m not at all sure if they are right. But, what I am sure is that pretty much every person out there is confused.

Is meat good or bad? Are vegetables the enemy? Is olive oil really as good as people say?

Here’s what I do know:

People are confused and people are skeptical.

And they should be skeptical because there are bad actors everywhere.

This is all to set the stage for what I want to discuss this morning: negative strip lines.

If you’re been here a while, you’ll know I wrote about this back in July 2023.

First off, we’ve had so many more people join since then, and

Two, this is not a set-it-and-forget-it kind of thing. Plus, there is more I want to say on the topic.

In case you’re new ‘round these parts. Let me give you a breakdown of what the negative stripline is.

I think it was created back in the 1960s by some sales guru. His thinking was that if you want to increase trustworthiness and reduce skepticism, you need to use the negative stripline.

So what is that exactly?

Well, its you want to be more negative than people think you should be in a certain situation.

Let’s say your job is to sell insurance. People would expect you to be very positive on the product, it’s attribute, features, etc.

This is what people expect of you since you’d benefit from a sale of insurance.

But, that also lowers your trustworthiness and increases skepticism, as people know your opinion is biased.

They know you are trying to sell them.

But if instead you flipped the script and became far more negative about the product than people are expecting. I’m not saying you need to be a complete Negative Nancy here, but just be more negative than someone in your position would normally be.

They don’t know what to think. It immediately makes people “lean in” and listen more intently. Their reptilian brain is processing all this and wondering, “why is this person being so negative when they surely would benefit from being more positive.”

It confuses that part of the brain.

It’s incredibly powerful when done right.

And, here’s the part I love about using this with life insurance.

Not only can you use negative striplines to your advantage in meetings, but they are also true.

They are simply the right thing to do.

You can go on your whole life insurance spiel and how it’s the greatest thing since sliced bread and then drop the negative stripline:

“But, it’s not for everyone. You need to be a good fit for it, and you need to be healthy. I’m only bringing it up to educate you, but you may not be able to get it.”

Listen. When you tell someone they can’t have something, what do they want?

They want that thing even more.

You can take someone from a natural insurance skeptic…to a ravenous insurance-buying customer in no time. One who will hound you for tax articles on the subject and lots and lots of illustrations.

It’s like a feeding frenzy.

Now, you need to be careful how you use these because they can be incredibly manipulative in the wrong hands. And not to mention that most of your best clients are also salespeople who have built their business, so they could know what you’re doing to them because they do it to their clients.

So, you’ll need to ensure the negative striplines you throw down are completely legitimate. But, I’m going to help you out here with some of the best I’ve seen:

1. You don’t just buy insurance with your wallet; you also need to buy it with your health. You might not be able to get it. It’s a great solution, but it just might not work for you.

2. I believe a lot of people would benefit from an insurance policy, but it just doens’t work for everyone. Some people aren’t ready yet, they’re still building their business. Maybe it will never work for you. Maybe its not for another decade. So keep that in mind.

I’m not sure if you already use negative striplines and just don’t think about it. But you should start using them.

I talk about these as a tool to help you out because I believe that most of the people in Canada you work with would benefit from an insurance policy. But most people's biggest obstacle to buying it is… themselves.

They are their own worst enemy.

They’ll find every excuse not to buy it, logical or not. They’ll mention that their parents never did this growing up. They’ll mention that none of their friends don’t do it. Or, they never read about it in school. Or all sorts of nonsense reasons.

We want to use a psychological tool to help them improve their situation. This means we need to get them to buy an insurance policy and to do this, we need to make them see it in a positive light.

This is why I believe you should use negative striplines. It takes away all the baggage (of at least most of it) so you can honestly discuss a product that can do wonders for them and their families.

Until next week,

Andrew

P.S. If you’re looking to up your insurance game and want to work directly with me, stay close to your email on Monday. As I’ll be annoucing my new role and how you can work directly with me. See you in your email.