Sales Come First

This is a short lesson this week, but its very important.

Its about your mind frame for writing excellent advertisements and sales letters. I know that a lot of you have your own businesses and prepare your own advertising.

Essentially, you need to be in a positive frame of mind. If you’re in a negative frame of mind, then you wont write well.
Also, you need to feel positive and energised. After all, how you you fuse your sales letter with positive energy and enthusiasm when you feel tired and dis-interested.

If you’re not in the right mood then here are a couple of things you can do.
1. Don’t write. Go do some paperwork, catch up email correspondance etc until you ARE in the right frame of mind, or
2. Go and do something else that WILL put you in the right frame of mind. Playing with your kids (if you have them) is a good one, as is spending time with your spouse. These things always get me going because they remind me why I’m writing in the first place, and that enthusiasm will spill over into your work. Maybe you can go and look at real estate you dream about, or cars you’d LOVE to own. Again, sometimes the finer things in life can easily shake you out of your slump.

Now, when you’re working make sure you’re not distracted. You need peace and quiet and if you try to write when you can’t get it, then dont even try. Just wait until things are quiet and then get to work.

I always laugh when I hear the story of the mother of 3 who started up their own business while their kids were young. Quite frankly, I find it difficult to believe they could concentrate long enough to do anything of much quality with all the interruptions. The vision of somebody furiously working away, surrounded by (but not disturbed by) a house full of noisy kids might paint a strong, emotional (almost romantic) picture of hard work leading to success, but its far from the truth.

The reality of all these distractions is a poor quality job. So dont be fooled into thinking you can bravely forge ahead despite any distractions.

If you’re running your own business, then you need to remember that this is YOUR JOB. Even if its a part time job now, you need to decide whether you’re serious about it or not. And if you are, then make sure you take it seriously and give yourself every opportunity to succeed.

When you work, you WORK. And that way you get to enjoy the time when you’re NOT working much more.
Next week I’m going back to an old favourite…testimonials! I want to give you a killer tip on making the most out of your testimonials, and what your testimonials should really say about you!
All the best

Hugh Thyer
www.salescomefirst.com

This has been gnawing away at me for some time now, and so I’ve decided its time to jump up on my soap box and have my say!
You see, its time for me to stand up and let you know what’s wrong with all the internet (and other) marketing seminars out there.

I’m sure you know the types of events I’m talking about. One or more days with either one expert, or a whole series of them.
And these events are usually pretty good. I’m NOT saying that these events aren’t top quality events, nor am I saying you wont learn a lot of secrets that’ll help you pull in more profits. Its not about what they tell you…its about what they DONT!
OK. With any business, and particularly an online one there’s a lot of things you need to know. And I’ll stick with online businesses here, but really it applies to any business.

You need to know how to generate traffic, put together an irresistable offer, get people’s names and email addresses, use auto-responders, develop the backend, create products and on and on and on.
Lots of things to do.

But the one thing that most (not all, there are some exceptions) seminars gloss over is how to write the copy to sell the damn product.

And here’s the thing. Its the NUMBER ONE thing you need to know.

Here’s why…

Lets say you’ve got 100 prospects on your website. And you’re selling a product for $27.

Now if you sell 2 products with ordinary sales copy, that’s $54 in your pocket.

But what if you could make some changes to your sales page. It would be easy to get that up to 5 sales, maybe even more.

So by not using good sales copy you’ve just LOST $81!!!

But it gets worse — because if you’ve developed a really strong backend business, each person who becomes a buyer could come back and spend $100 more! Now, lets say that 1/3 of your front end customers DO become regular customers and they’re worth an extra $100 to your business.

Well, since you lost 3 customers with weak sales copy, not only are you down $81 on the front end, you’re down an extra $100 on the BACKEND TOO!

So, now you’re down $181.

And that’s over only 100 prospects.

Now, the big question is…

…how many prospects are coming to your site and how much might you be losing with poorly written sales copy?
But I see so many seminars that claim to tell you everything you need to know about making money online. And very few of them feature any real content on writing sales copy that’s going to sell. Actually, you’re getting the car…without the engine!
I dont know why this is. Maybe because its too hard to teach people to write good copy. Hey, it would take 2 solid days to get the basics down pat. And then a lot of practice, peer review and so on to get it really good. And maybe for a lot of people its easier just to outsource this part of their business.

But the message is clear. You should be spending more time on writing the copy for your sales page and less time setting it up. A simple page with a really good sales letter will always make more money than a complicated one with a poor sales message.
And my message for all the seminars out there?

“Make sure you teach people how to write good sales copy, and tell them what they need to do after your event to continue with their copywriting education.”

Well, I dont feel comfortable unless I leave you with some practical tips you can use, so here goes.
1. The headline is where you’ll generally get your biggest change in response. If you dont get your prospect with your headline, you wont get them at all.
2. The same thing applies to the opening page or screen of your sales letter. It has to be clear what your sales letter is about, and why your prospect should read it. If its confusing, its game over.
3. Improve your copywriting education. If you’re new to this blog, read some of the older posts. One of the best sites you’ll ever find is www.thegaryhalbertletter.com so spend some time there.
www.makepeacetotalpackage.com is another great one too as is.
Oh, and I CAN’T forget this one…http://bencivengabullets.com/ – brilliant stuff!
4. Go and get some copywriting courses as books or DVDs. If you want some recommendations I can certainly let you know some. Get in touch and let me know what you’re trying to do and I’ll recommend some to help you. Make sure you get something with a list of successful headlines.
5. Collect a swipe file of successful sales letters and websites that you can use as references.
6. Spend the time getting inside your prospect’s head. I’ve posted on this topic before. What you want to know is what they’re thinking about. What is it that gets them excited, or scared. What is the problem that you can solve for them?
7. Write in a conversational tone. So much so that you can read your letter out loud and it sounds like you’re having a normal conversation.
Look. Here’s the crux of it. You need to make a decision.
Do you want to write your own copy or not?
If you do, then be prepared to pay in terms of time and money. You’ll need to spend money to get an education. And you’ll need to spend a lot of time studying and practicing.
But once you’re there the pay off can be spectacular, because you’ll be miles ahead of your competition. And considering I recently did a job writing a whole bunch of emails for affiliate products on clickbank, I think I speak from a position of authority when I tell you that it wouldn’t take too much work to out-write a lot of your competitors!!!
And if you dont want to do the work, then don’t waste time on it. Your time is far better spent developing your business. Having said that, its worth doing some background reading on copywriting so you know how to spot whether your copywriter is doing a good job or not. But don’t spend too much time learning something you’re not going to use. Ultimately it’s YOUR decision on what’s the most profitable way to spend your time.
But above all else, don’t fall into the middle ground where you’re spending hours writing copy that just isn’t going to do the job. Either pay the price to learn how to do it properly…or get outside help to do it for you and spend your time on far more productive things.
Next week I’m going to let you know how to get in the right frame of mind to write copy.
Until then, feel free to contact me, especially if you want to talk about copywriting resources.
All the best

Hugh Thyer
www.salescomefirst.com

Hi there,

I hope you had a great Christmas and New Year and you’re back and motivated for 2009!
Now, 2 weeks ago I told you I’d have something special for you. Something about…motivation.

And I do! This is a vital lesson if you want to pull really BIG response from your promotions.

Now, do you know how to MOTIVATE your prospect?

The answer is…you CAN’T!

Right now you’re probably thinking that this lesson is shaping up to be one of the worst ever. How can I tell you that you CAN’T motivate someone.

Well, hold on because there’s a very valuable (and profitable) lesson here for you.

Its often been said that such and such is such a great seller, they could sell ice to the eskimos.
What rubbish. NOBODY can sell ice to the eskimos. They’re surrounded by the stuff. It doesnt matter what you try, the eskimos just wont buy ice. A smart marketer would be in there with a truckload of heaters instead.

They’re just not motivated.

Let me give you a real example. Lets say you’ve got a program on running a marathon you want to sell. Now, you could be the sharpest marketer in the world, the most prized and decorated seller. It wont matter one bit.
You see, if you’re not interested in running a marathon, it wont matter if I tell you:
- You’ll get so fit running a marathon and feel fantastic
- The sense of achievement will help you achieve anything in life
- You’ll have a great time running with lots of other like-minded individuals
- Members of the opposite sex will be drooling over you once you get all toned and fit from your training.
you wont want to run one regardless of what I tell you. There is no way I can motivate you to get out there and start training.
So, your job is to find either someone who wants to run a marathon, or someone who ALREADY wants one or more of these benefits and CONVINCE them that your program is what they should have.

That’s right. Your job is to find people who are already motivated by something, and then CONVINCE them that YOUR solution is the one they should have to fulfill their goals.

That is your JOB.

You’ve got to get inside your prospect’s head. Find out what motivates them, what they want, what they need. And then show them that your product or service meets that need.

Again, lets say you’ve got a product on making money online. Well, lots of people aren’t interested, so don’t waste your time educating them. But some of them might want to earn some more money in their spare time. So, if you understand that motivation, you should use this angle and tell them how they can use the internet to create an income at home.
This way you’re not trying to motivate your prospect. All you’re doing is unearthing the motivation that’s already there and showing them how your product on internet marketing will help them achieve what they’re already motivated to to!
In fact, even if 90% of your prospects arent interested in your product or service, don’t worry. Just ignore them in your promotion.

You’re not going to sell to them anyway.

So go find out what motivates your prospects, and write to them directly, and for goodness sake don’t fall into the trap of thinking you can educate and motivate your prospects. If they aren’t motivated by now, you’ll never do it for them.

OK, now I hope you’ve already got some goals set for 2009. If you want to book me for a promotion, I just want to let you know that I’m getting very heavily booked, so I recommend we schedule some time now for your promotion. Even if you’re unsure what you need, at least getting some time booked in means you wont potentially face a lengthy wait.

Next week, I want to tell you why copywriting is the most important skill you can learn for your business. It’ll make you or break you, and I’m going to have to let out some steam about what frustrates me so much about any marketing seminars (and the internet ones are the WORST!).

Until then, I’ll try and stay calm until I write to you next week.

Hugh Thyer

http://www.salescomefirst.com