Click through to the good bits.

00:00 Introductions.

03:35 Who is Jack Ma?

04:45 Forrest Gump strategy.

06:13 The Pratfall Effect.

07:14 Jack Ma’s three secrets to success.

08:03 Conclusion.

Martin Henley: Hello there. My name is Martin Henley. This is The Effective Marketing content extravaganza and if you’re new here, you won’t know that I’m on a mission to give you everything you need to be successful in your business. Providing, of course that is that what you need to be successful in your business is to know more about sales and marketing and to be implementing that knowledge more effectively in your business. So what goes on here is I give you everything I know about sales and marketing as part of the what the series I bring in, anyone I can find with experience to share that will be useful to you if you are looking to be more successful in your business. In the Talk Marketing series, Melanie Farmer comes along every two weeks and we speculate wildly about what the marketing news might mean for you in your marketing life. And I am responding to the very best and the very worst of marketing content on the Internet, which is what today is about. Today is Reaction Time. But before we do that. If you think all of that sounds interesting and useful, you need to take a second to like, share, subscribe and comment because that will give us the motivation to continue on this epic, thankless journey. So today is Reaction Time. There is a little bit of what’s the word? I’m not feeling great today. I’ve got a bit of a headache, but what’s the word? Jeopardy? That’s the word. So I have absolutely no idea what I’m going to be reacting to today.

Martin Henley: It will come as a complete surprise to me. So what has happened is that Clay has put together The Claylist. So what we do is we roll the dice to pick a number between one and six, and the number is three. The number is quite often three. So then what happens is we come to The Claylist, here is The Claylist, and we highlight number three and we copy that and bear with me while I put that into the worldwide web and what happens is that you’re going to. Well, whoa. Okay, cool. So here we are. Jack Ma, success story, success strategy, The Pratfall Effect and Forrest Gump strategy. Well, I can tell you, quite honestly, I have never heard of this in my life. I have absolutely no idea who Jack Ma is. I don’t know what the pratfall effect and Forrest Gump strategy are. So we’re going to be learning here together, friends. Oh, this is good. This is only 3 minutes and 30 seconds. That will suit me because of my headache. And that has something to do with Alibaba. Okay, cool. So I have absolutely no no idea. I have no bias. I have no previous experience. I have absolutely nothing. This video has had 17,300 views only the channel has had 12.6. It’s been produced by Alex Berman Cold Email and something is his channel. So we will have a look and we will see who Jack Ma is and what The Pratfall Effect and Forrest Gump strategy are. Let’s go on this journey together.

Video: There is the opening bell and Alibaba with its much anticipated IPO today on the podium.

Narrator: Jack Ma is the founder of Alibaba, a business that made him the richest man in China when an IPO and gave him a net worth of over $23 Billion.

Martin Henley: Okay, So now I’m feeling like I should have known who Jack Ma was. $23 Billion. Quite a lot, especially if it came immediately on IPO. Huge Alibaba. I’m not even going to pretend to know much about Alibaba either. I’m sorry. It seems like Alex Berman is an Australian. Am I getting that right? Let’s see what he has to say.

Narrator: Other folks have covered Jack Ma’s secrets to success and his backstory, but in this video.

Martin Henley: Okay, So it turns out I do know who Jack Ma is. I recognize him now.

Narrator: I want to focus on one specific concept, what Jack calls his Forrest Gump strategy, and how feigning ignorance or showing mistakes can get others to trust you more. I’m Alex Berman from Inspire Beats.

Martin Henley: OK cool. So this is interesting. Is this like a vulnerable vulnerability thing that he’s saying? If you show vulnerability, then people will trust you? I don’t know. Let’s see what he has to say.

Narrator: Here’s what Jack Ma told CNBC on the first day of his IPO.

Video: The hero I had is Forrest Gump. 14 years ago, when I walked the chocolates. You know, he’s a fictional character, though. You did like that guy. I’ve been watching that movie for about ten times. Every time I went home frustrated. I watched the movie and I watched movie before I came here again. You know what? Yeah. For for coming to the New York I because I. I watched the movie again and telling me that no matter whatever changed you are you.

Narrator: Embracing who you are isn’t the only lesson Jack Ma took away from the film. Here he is giving a speech to Stanford University students.

Martin Henley: All right, brilliant. It’s worth having some humility, isn’t it? It’s definitely worth having some humility, I would say. Yeah. Okay, good. All right, So I’m quite enjoying this. What did you do? $23 billion.

Narrator: Notice how he makes a joke about him not understanding technology? Keep in mind, Ma was the CEO of the largest technology company in China at the time.

Martin Henley: Even today, I still don’t understand what coding is all about. Even today, I still don’t understand the technology behind the Internet.

Narrator: So how does Jack Ma instill trust in his employees and customers? What’s so appealing about a tech founder that doesn’t understand technology to understand the appeal? Here’s a clip of Yale President Peter Salovey explaining the pratfall effect.

Video: This is called the Pratfall Effect that our liking for the competent person grows when they make a mistake. When they do something embarrassing, when they have a failure experience.

Narrator: So when Jack Ma makes jokes about business issues, the pratfall effect means that will trust him more. As long as this performance keeps increasing, you can use this to your advantage on sales calls, make jokes, or take customers on tangents. And as long as you have a track record to back you up, your close rate should increase. Just remember the pratfall effect can’t help if you’re actually incompetent. I’ll leave you with.

Martin Henley: Okay, so that’s interesting. I’ve never heard of the pratfall effect. But he’s leaving us already. We’re only 2 minutes and 31 seconds in and we friends are only there’s only 11 comments. This isn’t going to keep us very busy for very long. So I’ll leave you with another clip from the Stanford speech.

Narrator: If another clip from the Stanford speech, Here’s Jack Ma’s three secrets to success.

Martin Henley: There were three reasons behind our success. They were very valid points. First, we had no money. Second, we didn’t understand technology. Third, we never planned. The Harvard professors were not pleased to hear this. The students were, however, very happy to hear this.

Narrator: Thanks for watching the video. Subscribe if you want more.

Martin Henley: I want more. I want more. I want to know what the Forest Gump is. He just said that he likes the movie and he stays humble. I don’t remember. Really? Surely I thought it was going to be about persistence. Didn’t Forrest Gump run across America? You start running and just not stop.

Narrator: More videos, more teardowns like this, or videos on B2B selling like this video to encourage this type of content if you want.

Martin Henley: The thing is, what’s the thing? Let’s have a look. So this video’s had 17,300 views only. Alex says If you want to grow your business, start working with clients that can afford you. Check out our free presentation here. Email to cnn.com. This was really interesting. Great video how I do this In my day to day life. It’s easy to get the upper hand if people think less of you. Vote for me. Great video, friends. Look into the damn camera, please. Yeah, that would be good. You could get yourself a little autocue, do like I’ve got here, and then you can put the camera right behind it and you can be looking at it. I could be looking at you up here. Um, he didn’t really tell us what the pratfall of the Forest Gump strategy is. Let’s go, because we’ve got time. What is the Forest Gump strategy? Oh. Oh, I get it. So maybe just looking, making yourself look stupid. Okay. There’s another one here by the same guy. Why do you underestimate Jack, Ma? This is the same video. The hidden meaning in Forrest Gump. 537 deep or dumb. Okay, so the Forrest Gump strategy is making yourself look stupid. Is that what it is? I don’t know. Here’s what I think. I think this hasn’t been the most useful reaction time. I’m sorry, but I’m happy because I’ve got a headache and I can stop doing this. The thing is, having some humility, I think is a great idea. Not in business, just in your life. Have some humility. I think self deprecating humor is the the safest kind of humor.

Martin Henley: Nobody is going to hate you if you’re making fun of yourself. You’re making fun of other people. Especially in 2022. You can get into all sorts of trouble, but making fun of yourself really, really is safe. No one’s going to get offended. You’re the one that should get offended if you are being unpleasantly taking, I don’t know, unpleasantly something if you’re being unpleasant about yourself. No one’s going to be offended apart from you should be offended. Maybe. But what it does is it really exudes confidence. It’s like, look, I’m here. I’m happy for you to take the mickey out of me. I’ll take the mickey out of myself, you know? And that confidence, I think, gives people confidence in you. I’m really, really interested in the idea of leadership. It’s kind of creeping into what I’m doing at the moment, which is really cool because it’s fascinating. The whole subject is fascinating. So this has become a good time for me. I’m going to put the pratfall effect on my on my reading list and on my viewing list and see what there is. This has been going for 10 minutes in just under 11 minutes, which is perfect for me today. Absolutely perfect for me. Thank you for being here again. Hope you found this interesting, useful or useful. If you did, you should like share. Subscribe to all of that good stuff. This might be the shortest video we’ve made this year. You are very welcome. See you again here soon.

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