Sales Come First

Many business, especially startup ones go about testing and checking their idea by starting their marketing small, seeing who responds and making adjustments slowly along the way.

This is completely wrong. It’s a bad idea and this is why.

In business, and in anything in life for that matter the one thing that is most valuable and can NEVER be replaced is time, right? I mean, if you lose money it’s a bummer but you can make it again.

But time is the most important thing we all have, so we don’t want to waste it. And I’m not saying its important for your business, although it is. It’s also important in your life.

So unless you want to miss out on seeing your kids grow up, or you’re not fussed about moving into your dream house or owning a sports car when you’re 60 (instead of 40) then take this seriously.

OK. So lets take this one step further and accept that we’re going to fail several (possibly many) times before we succeed. That means… …when we fail, we have to fail fast! No point dragging a dead idea around for months and months, letting it get smellier and dirtier looking. If it’s not gonna work then find out straight away and cut it loose. I’m going to explain in copywriting terms because hey, I’m a copywriter and it’s easy for me to explain this way.

So let’s say you’re launching a new product or service. Could be online or offline, doesn’t matter. Now, conventional wisdom is that you write a small sales letter yourself and see if it works. And then you wait a few weeks for some response, maybe dabble in a bit of SEO, get some traffic. And the results are reasonable. Not too bad considering you’re not getting really targeted traffic, your sales copy is average and you haven’t really put much effort into your offer.

So you try again. This time after you’ve made a couple of changes. And things keep looking reasonable but not enough to say it’s defintely a winner.

So you try again…

All of a sudden the leaves have started to fall from the trees and you realised you started this whole thing off when the trees were starting to get green! 6 months are gone and what have you got to show for it?

Probably a product which MIGHT be a go-er. You just need to do a few more tests and changes. But what have you LOST?

For a start you’ve lost a heap of time you COULD have spent working on a winning idea instead of this one which might still turn out to be a flop. And you’ve probably blown more money than you’d care to add up. But just like the casino its “just one more thing” to try. But worse than this, you’ve lost all that time you could have spent with your family, and you’re 6 months older with nothing to show for it.

Wouldn’t you rather spend your time working on a successful project instead of looking for one?

That’s why you need to fail…and fail FAST. Come up with the idea, do everything you can to test it out and see how it goes.

Get a professional website. Get professional sales copy. Get the best product and make up a completely irresistable offer. Because if it fails after you’ve thrown everything at it…

…you’ve got a dud. Forget about it and move on. If your best efforts couldn’t make it work then nothing’s going to help this little sucker.

But if it makes money, then start testing different things and see if you can make it even more profitable.

No point wasting 6 months on a failure when you can try and fail quickly, then do it all over again. Often in the space of a few short weeks.

That’s why the biggest entrepreneurs keep making money. They try out things quickly and if they don’t work that’s too bad. They get the next one going. In fact they could have several ideas on the go at once. Each being tested quickly and rejected just as fast. But the general public only ever hear about the ones that make it, not the dozens that get quickly discarded.

Hope I’ve given you something to think about.

Next week I’m going to tell you why repelling certain prospects is almost as important as attracting other ones. It’s not often discussed but it’s critical if you want to make more money in less time.

All the best,

Hugh

PS If you’d like to run your project past me, you can take me up on my new offer here: http://tinyurl.com/2awsek6

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

A friend of mine used to sit in her office and just stare right ahead.

 “Hugh” she said, “Sometimes I sit and think. Sometimes I just sit”.

Got me thinking that people all over the country are paid a lot of money to sit in offices and DO stuff. As long as you’re banging away at a keyboard or yacking on a phone you’re working. But you can’t actually think while you do this, can you. And since people are surprisingly intelligent I figure businesses are paying a lot of money to smart people…

…and not letting them think.

If you sat there just thinking, you’d probably get your arse hauled into your boss’ office and yelled at for not working. The irony is that most breakthroughts come when you you’re thinking, not trying to write an email while calling someone and doing your internet banking.

As a copywriter thinking is critical. Same goes for anyone in business too. Just a little bit of thought and planning goes a long way.

I write quite a lot of email sequences for clients. And the key to emails is that every email needs a ‘THEME’. There’s got to be a central idea that you build the email around. And that theme has to fit into a sequence. So I thought I’d let you in on my thinking around an email series I wrote for a client for an upcoming product laungh. Once you get the idea you can easily do it yourself.

First, there were 5 emails. So I decided to do 2 pre-launch emails, 1 for the launch and 2 post-launch.

Email 1 – An announcement that the launch is imminent. Tell them the theme of the product, which is if he had someone to teach him what he’s put in his course it would have saved him years. And tell ‘em there’s a limited offer, so watch out for it.

Email 2 – Tell them a story. It’s one of many client success stories, but it’s the most compelling I uncovered. Then tell them that everything he did for the client is in the course being released shortly. And again, remind them of the limited offer.

Email 3 – Launch day. Hit ‘em with other success stories and testimonials. REmind them again that what he did for these clients is the same as what’s in this course, and it’s a fraction of his fees. Remind them of the offer.

Email 4 – A bit of take away selling and attraction strategy. Tell ‘em about a world famous entrepreneur who made it with hard work and the right information. Everyone in business wants to be known as a hard worker, and relates well to this person. This course requires some hard work, but now we’ve made the work atractive. We repel the lazy people, and attract the ones prepared to pull their sleeves up.

Email 5 – FAQs. We tackle the most common objections people have. Again, lots of repel/attraction strategies here. Plus it’s a chance to show the value of the product.

So you see how critical a bit of staring at the walls was? If I just wrote 5 emails without planning them out it’d be a mess and the results would be worse. I’m not sure how sales are going, but I know a good number had been sold in the first few hours of the launch which was earlier this week so it looks really good.

Sure, there is a lot of swiping and re-using ideas in copywriting and marketing. The big breakthroughs come when you stop mindlessly following templates and think about what you’re doing before you start.

Incidentally, his course is an SEO course. I don’t like promoting other people’s products here so if you’re interested in it, let me know.

Next week I’m going to tell you the best way to find out if your ideas have merit. And yep, I’m probably going to completely blow everything you’ve been told out of the water.

All the best,

Hugh

www.salescomefirst.com

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

Don’t you love those hypey sales letters? You know the ones that promise you…

… instant jaw-dropping results that’ll have you astounded and jumping up and down with ecstasy with how brilliantly amazing you are?

Now, truth be told, all this hype does work well for low priced products for newbies in certain markets. Particularly weight loss and making money. It almost feels like a contest to out-hype the next person.

Here, check out this wonderful example. http://buymystupidebook.com/ OK, its an oldie but a goodie.

But step out of this newbie pool, (and it’s a very hotly contested pool) too and start selling something a bit more expensive to a more sophisticated crowd (ie where the real money is) and you’ll get your head cut off pretty fast. Especially if you’re in a conventional business.

Reality is, people want value. They want to spend their money with someone who offers them something that solves a problem for them. And to do this you’ve gotta tell them how you do it. Lots of big, empty-promise words wont do it if that’s all you’ve got.

Problem is, a lot of people are too lazy to dig beneath the surface of their product or service to find out the value that’s hidden in it. So they start throwing around a lot of empty hype to distract their prospects. Hoping that some of it’ll stick.

But let me clarify something here. I am not saying don’t use emotional sales copy. No way. Emotions sell and you have to connect with people on an emotional level to get the sale. What I am saying is to replace any empty hype with something that shows the REAL VALUE you offer. It’ll be far more powerful.  

So here’s a couple of tips to finding out the real value that’s hidden in your product or service.

1. Ask your buyers and customers what THEY got out of it. Often the answers will surprise you. Even ask them for testimonials or success stories.

2. Look for the benefits your products provide. Then pick out the top 3 and feature them prominently. Use the #1 benefit in your headline. Oh, and make sure you rank your benefits on how your customers see them, not how you want them to see them.

3. Go through your product or service in great detail. Write down tons and tons of things about it to spark ideas. If it’s an information product then write down loads of bullet points about everything people will learn. Then use all this to replace any meaningless hype.

4. Spend time understanding your prospect. What do they really want? What problem are they looking to solve? What’s the dominant emotion behind it? Are they angry, lonely, lacking self-esteem? There are plenty of emotions behind their reason to buy. Figure them out and show how your product or service fixes their problems.

Look, this is a good way to improve any advertising you’re running. Too often people don’t realise the gold that’s hidden in their product or service. Funny thing is, I did this recently and updated my own sales page to show the value I offer (and that lots of other copywriters don’t). You can check that out at www.salescomefirst.com and see what I did.

Next week I’m going to tell you about using themes that will underpin each sales message you do. Good lesson here for copywriters and anyone writing their own ads.

All the best,

Hugh

It’s as simple as this.

Don’t compete on price.

It’s frankly the start of the slippery slope that’ll take your business downhill.

OK. Get this. I do business with a lot of people for a lot of things. Even every day things. For example…

My hairdresser ain’t the cheapest

Either is my masseur

Or my web developer

And I pay a lot for my education. A lot more than a few eBooks a month would cost me.

But aren’t we taught that saving money is all important? Shouldn’t it be my #1 priority when I pull out my wallet?

Actually, no. The people I use in all different areas of life are simply the best. And they don’t have to compete on price.

“So why DO people compete on price?”.

Simple. They don’t have any other competitive advantage. Or they’ve been raised to think that people only make decisions with their hip pocket. Which is, of couse quite wrong. And once you go cheaper than your competition, they do the same to you. Margins get cut until they’re so damn close to zero that you can’t survive for long.

What’s important is positioning. Once you position yourself apart from your competition you’ll find people will want to do business with you, and suddenly money drops down the list of your customers priorities.

Things that affect your positioning are probably unlimited. But they include: Better results, faster results, a better relationship between the two of you (this is a big one), trust (again a big one). Perhaps you get referred by influential people, or you have testimonials from respected people in your field. Perhaps you just care more about your clients (a quick email or phone call does this and only takes a few seconds). Maybe they think you know more than anyone else (what about your monthly newsletters, or a free report or audio CD).

So here’s the big message. Differentiate yourself from your competition on as many things…except price. Have a think about the reasons why people do business with you.

Or more importantly: Think about all the good things you do, but aren’t currently promoting. These could be your secret weapon.

Here’s a great example of this at work:

http://salescomefirst.com/why-a-beer-ad-from-the-1920s-can-make-you-a-lot-of-money/

All the best,

Hugh

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

I don’t understand why this isn’t talked about more. I’ve seen plenty of copywriting courses which don’t even mention it. Books, seminars, the works. Perhaps its one of those things people like to keep to themselves. Anyway I don’t mind sharing around what I know.

Future pacing is a technique where you describe what will happen once people buy your product or use your services. But rather than just tell them what would happen if they buy, there are two things that will improve how you use this technique out of sight.

 First, assume the sale. This means instead of saying

“If you buy the ACME Road Runner Smashing Kit you could enjoy a great meal of hot road runner stew” you say…

“When you buy the ACME Road Runner Smashing Kit kit you will enjoy a great meal of hot road runner stew”.

It’s called assumptive selling and its used to put people into the future more effectively. You can’t ask them to imagine the future if you don’t paint it as real, and actually happening. So assume the sale and tell them what will happen when they order, not what might happen if they do.

Second, and this is even better. Don’t describe what will happen. Describe the FEELINGS they will experience. To connect with people emotionally you must describe the feelings they will have with your product or service. Feelings are far more emotional. After all, we all want to feel superior, stronger, more popular.

So in this example we can describe the feelings as well. For example…

“Imagine how you’ll satisfied you’ll feel when you get that pesky Road Runner with the ACME Road Runner Smashing Kit. You’ll feel it was all worth it when you tuck into your first bite of road runner stew. You’ll feel so proud that you finally did it, and you know what? You’ll deserve it too’.

So, remember that direct response is often referred to as EMOTIONAL direct response and for very good reason. It’s all about connecting with people emotionally and using those emotions to create that bond between you and your reader.

Warm regards,

Hugh

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