Sales Come First

Hi there,

I know we’ve been talking about different emotions, but I just got off the phone from someone who was after some help and it actually inspired me to write this instead.

Its all about how to get started.

You see the most common problem people have in making money online, or in their own business is actually getting started. I guess its called ‘paralysis by analysis’ and it means people think there’s so much to learn they never know where to start…and they don’t!

Instead 6 months passes and they’ve spent so long trying to work out all the technical bits that they’ve forgotten what they learnt about making money and, quite often thanks to negative pressure from family members and friends are starting to give up.

Look, this guy was new to computers and needed help getting a website set up. And the best advice I could give him was…

…pay someone ELSE to do it for him.

Yep. I did NOT tell him to go on a course, do a whole lot of research or anything like that.

That stuff takes time and quite frankly, if the technology side of things isnt for you then leave it well alone. What’s important is that they get something up and running, and then it will develop a life of its own. But you have to get it going first, and FAST. Fortunately its not hard to do.

Actually, whenever I hang out at internet marketing events the #1 thing I hear is that people understand what the experts are saying, but they don’t know how to get started. They dont know how to get a domain name, get it hosted, build a website, accept money, deliver products. But here’s the really cool thing. You don’t actually need to know.

And that’s because the best business men and women dont know either. The real skill of being in business is controlling other people doing the work. So, to take an extreme example, to make money online you have to come up with a market that’s hot.

Once you’ve got your market you hire someone to write your product, or do interviews with.

Then you hire a copywriter to write you the sales copy to sell it. Maybe even come up with the marketing strategy to maximise your income as well.

Then you hire  a web person to register a domain name, put the sales copy up and organise your merchant facilities.

Now, how much work have you done here? Not a hell of a lot actually. And at the end of it you’ve got a working business. All you’ve got to do is come up with the actual business, and you probably have to get involved with the merchant facilities, and you get someone to help you with this. And that’s just make sure you keep your confidential details private.

OK, I know what you’re thinking. “That’s going to cost me MONEY!”.

Yep. Sure is. But not a huge amount though when you think about how much you could make in return. And besides, how much will the 6 months you spend doing it yourself cost you in lost income.

There are people out there who launch new products almost every month. You think they do it all themselves? No way. They’d go insane. They get other people to do as much as they can.

REMEMBER – making money online is not a hobby. Its a BUSINESS. So treat it like one.

Hey, you think I manage my own website? Nope. And I have an IT background!!!

I just email my web developer, she makes the changes and sends me an invoice. But you should have seen my first website. It was quite frankly terrible. But I got onto www.bigpixie.com and threw it together because I needed it for a promotional opportunity I’d been offered. And just having something done meant it grew a life of its own.

Now I KNOW for a fact that a lot of you reading this are in this exact position. You want to get going but just don’t know where to begin.

So my advice for you is this.

- If you want, use a tool like www.bigpixie.com to put a website up, do the e-commerce side of things etc. And if you find its not flexible enough long term then change it later. This is how my website started. It was using BigPixie and was very basic (crude). I’ve moved it and overhauled it since then but at least I got going.

- If you aren’t confident, find somebody to do it for you. I can even recommend people if you contact me

- But above all, get it going. Because once you’ve started it will become so much easier. And in 6 months time you’ll be working on new traffic generation methods, different products and new offerings. If you don’t, you’ll be stuck trying to just get it all started still. As Dan Kennedy says “Movement beats meditation”.

And that’s going to cost you big time.

Next week we’re back to looking at different emotional hotspots and how you can tap into them to get your prospects to take action.

All the best,

Hugh

NOTE # If you want to take action right here and now, then here’s an offer for all my subscribers and readers. It’s a one on one Profit Explosion session. You and me for 20 minutes going through your current sales copy or discussing your business so we can put together a plan for getting a whole load of new leads into your business or website. Go check it out here: http://salescomefirst.com/free-critique-request/ (just select ‘Other’ for how you heard about the offer).

<Are you looking for a copywriter for your next project? Contact Hugh at www.salescomefirst.com to discuss your needs>

Today I found out that my plans to build our new house have been rejected.

Funny how two pensioner couples can stop you doing something like building a house.

Especially when you consider I’m paying for their pensions which they use to stop me, and I’m paying a public servant to help them.

I’m the poor mug in the middle who’s paying his hard earned money to other people so they can screw you over. But hey, welcome to Australia. I guess its the same everywhere.

Thing is its made me really angry. I mean angrier than I’ve felt for years, possibly even ever. I wont go into details of why the decision sucks so badly, because you’d be reading 3 pages before I get to the point of this article.

And that point is that now I’m angry, I’ve been spurred into action like never before. And so I got to thinking that when people are angry they’ll also take ACTION.

I was reading a post online about fear this morning in fact. And what you usually find is that fear is not enough to spur someone to action. You’ve gotta get them scared, cowering in their little corner first. But as the bully keeps coming after them, they’ll just keep cowering, trying to avoid the blows.

No. If you want that person to fight back you have to make them angry.

If you get them worried about their health, then get them angry at the doctors and the system that’s let them down.

If you get them worried about their finances then get them angry at the banks, stockmarket, financial advisers etc who got them there in the first place.

You have to motivate people to act.

So the question I’m putting to you here is “Is there anything your prospects are angry at, or should be angry at?” If there are then use it in your marketing efforts. Push it in your emails and newsletters. Use it in your sales letters.

Get them angry and then tell them that you’re going to help them get the results that have been held back from them.

Now, there are plenty of other emotional triggers, and over the coming weeks I’m going to go through them and give more specific examples on how you can work them into your marketing. Not each trigger is needed in each market, but where they can be used they should be. So I think the next few weeks will be a real eye opener on how a copywriter goes about their business. And you’ll discover a whole heap of ways you can create far stronger bonds with your prospects AND encourage them far more easily to do business with you.

All the best,

Hugh

P.S. If you’d like me to include some specific examples over the next few weeks for your market, please contact me via the website below, or add in some comments and I’ll be more than happy to do it.

<Are you looking for a copywriter for your next project? Contact Hugh at www.salescomefirst.com to discuss your needs>

Its time to get down to where the real money is. And that’s inside the hearts and minds of your prospects.

So it makes sense to get inside their hearts and minds and find out what’s going on.

Because unless you really understand what’s going on there then you’re headed for a trainwreck.

I mean its all well and good for you to think you know what’s going on inside their minds but unless you can genuinely tap into their raw emotions and hit them right between the eyes with your promotion then you’ll be leaving most of the money on the table.

So let me ask you…How much research have you done? Can you honestly answer questions like these?

What’s really going on in their life?

What are their fears, worries, hopes and dreams?

What problems are they facing in every day life?

What frustrations do they face?

What’s their dream? How will they feel when they get it?

When I write sales copy the questionnaire I send out pushes this point heavily. And you need this info for two very important reasons.

First, you need to develop a relationship with your prospect, otherwise they wont trust you enough to buy, and

Second you need to target your sales copy on the problems, hopes, dreams, frustrations they’re actually having. As opposed to, of course, the ones you might think theyr’e having.

So where is all this information? Well, here are the 3 best ways to get it (plus I’ll give you a fourth way that’s a bit unconventional).

1. Talk to them. When they’re on the phone just get them talking and listen to what they have to say. Ask them leading question and then ’shut up!’ Let them do the talking. Trust me, they’ll keep talking as long as you say NOTHING.

2. Go to the newsagent and look for magazines in their niche. If its a broad cross section of people (like people with bad backs) then you wont find anything but often there are magazines on specific topics. Even grab magazines on your market if you’re a mortgage broker or financial adviser because they may have survey results, or trends that specialists have noticed coming through.

3. The good old internet. The best place to start is with forums (just stick the word ‘forum’ in your search term’) and WHAMMO! Instant market research from REAL prospects who are posting on the things that are important to them! Seriously forums are PURE GOLD! You can even register and ask a few leading questions to see what response you get. Just be careful because if people think you’re not a genuine poster your post might get deleted. Then there’s just general sites on your market, plus check out any sites that look like they’re selling stuff to your market because there’s a good chance they’ve done a whole lot of research already. But of course don’t place all your faith in the research of other people but its always a good resource to check out.

And now for the extra source of info. Its a funny one but boy it works like crazy.

Its infomercials! Here in Australia we get heaps of them after midnight but in other countries they’re on 24/7. Just remember to look for the ones selling the feelings your prospects are after, even if its not the same product. For example I watched one on a ‘dance your way to fitness’ product when I was writing an anti-ageing promotion recently. After all, the target market is very similar. So are the outcomes prospects are seeking. You’ve got to keep in mind that the best infomercials have been researched and developed by THE smartest marketers going around. They’ve gone to incredible lengths to get these just right and they way they tap into their target markets is incredible. So watch them and watch for the emotion-grabbing words they use, the feelings and outcomes of the people giving testimonials and the benefits the presenters keep referring to. The market research they’ve done is incredible and you should be tapping into it.

Now once you’ve done all this research your promotions should virtually write themselves! After all, now you know what’s going on inside your prospects’ heads you can tap into it to develop your relationship with them and show how your product helps them with what’s important to THEM!

Next week I’m going to give you some great ways to charge a HEAP more money just by altering your position in the market. Look out for it.

All the best

Hugh

<Are you looking for a copywriter for your next project? Contact Hugh at www.salescomefirst.com to discuss your needs>

Thanks to Dean for his feedback last week on email marketing versus paper and ink.

I hope you go back and read his comments, he makes some good points.

I actually believe email has a place in your marketing systems. A major place in fact. Lets face it, if your business is entirely online you’ll probably never send out a letter in the mail. Its great for reminding people of offers, getting information to them quickly and even sending people your latest blogs and articles. Hey, this article goes out to my subscriber base via email.

I’m concerned that people are losing that personal touch in favour of saving a few bucks and sending out their newsletters and offers via email. When you’ve got a customer base you can easily get to via snail mail then you shouldn’t think twice. I used to get an industry magazine in the mail, and a couple of years ago it changed to an email newsletter. When it came in the mail I used to grab a cuppa and spend the time reading it. But when it became an email newsletter I rarely even looked at it. And if I did it would be brief. Now, that company lost the opportunity to get in front of me for 15 minutes. Totally dedicated to them. I gave them my time…I was a FAN! They’ve lost that now.

Anyway, my point is to use the BEST medium every time you communicate with your clients and prospects. Not the cheapest but the one which develops the best relationship and the most profit!

OK, now onto this week’s article. And its something you should incorporate into your sales copy whenever you can.

Its a story!

OK, I know what you’re probably thinking…why would I want to tell a story???

Actually we’ve been conditioned to love stories from our infancy. We were read and told stories by our parents and our teachers. Movies and TV shows tell stories. We’re curious and we satisfy our curiosity with stories people tell us.

So when people tell a story…we listen! Its in our instincts.

Stories also help us tell our prospects about our product or service. We can tell them about the success a client had. We can tell them about how easy they found it and what happened along the way. In a lot of ways, stories are a bit like testimonials in that they tell a real life situation in which your product or service helped achieve an outcome.

But here’s another thing you can do with stories. You don’t just talk about the success your client had. You ALSO tell them the before story. What problems did they have? How did these problems make them feel? If your prospect is in the same boat then that’s a hell of a way to bond with them.

The most powerful word combination is “Let me tell you a story”.

Next week I want to tell you why you need to research your market. Yes it sounds like a boring task, but as a copywriter its often really exciting because this is where the BIG breakthroughs occur that’ll pile cash into your pocket.

But don’t worry, I’ll let you know some sneaky ways to get inside the head of your prospect really easily.

Until then, take care.

Hugh

PS I used to think the word “You” was the most powerful selling word. Now I’ve got kids (and just been to 2 kindergarten sessions in about 5 days for Father’s Day) I can tell you the most powerful word is “Daddy”.

<Are you looking for a copywriter for your next project? Contact Hugh at www.salescomefirst.com to discuss your needs>