I was chatting on skype with my good friend
Marlon Sanders this morning on skype. In
addition to being the king of step by step
marketing, he’s also probably the sharpest
mind I know for coming up with “Big
ideas”.
He gave me one this morning about a topic
I believe is so powerful, that it could
be the next “made to stick” or “tipping point”
or a Seth Godin style hardcover biz pop
book.
If you know me, you know I have an “implementation
fetish”. As soon as I hear a good idea, I have
to act on it since I’ve conditioned myself
to do so.
This new book is on a very clever, hypnotic
way to get attention. I’ve actually been
using it a LOT lately and have seen a healthy
increase in sales, and also in face to face
communication outside of the business
world.
Anyway, here’s where you come in. I want to
include a lot of anecdotal stories to support
the different principles in my book about
getting attention.
The book is going to be interrupting people’s
natural patterns.
See, one of the flaws of the human mind is
our incredible ability to generalize stimuli.
Something happens to us once or twice – and
then we pretty much generalize is as an
inevitable outcome.
For example, a lot of people will set a big
goal… work at it for maybe a week (or less!)
and then it won’t work.
And then they often conclude either that
goal setting doesn’t work, or at least it doesn’t
work for them.
A had a client recently who told me that.
You know what my response was? “Yep, you’re right,
you’re absolutely horrible at setting goals. I don’t
think you could set a goal you could ever reach.
Ever. In fact, if you set a goal to be a miserable
failure, you’d probably fail at that, too!”
And guess what? They went on to argue with me
that they COULD set a goal and achieve it if they
went about it in the right way.
So I said “what would it take for you to start
out the RIGHT WAY this time?” And they proceeded
to tell me exactly what they needed to do differently.
At the end of the call the person thought I was
a genius. Can you believe I get paid $250 for this
stuff?
Awesome.
Back on tangent: what I did was interrupt their
pattern. Almost everybody else they would talk to
would say, “Goal setting does work. You just aren’t
going about it right. Blah blah blah”… and that’s
not as effective because they are so USED to hearing
that it doesn’t jar them, doesn’t challenge their
model of reality and doesn’t get them to THINK in
a different frame.
So here’s what I want from you – please post a response
with a time when you did something completely out
of the ordinary to help someone get a different result
or a different response.
It doesn’t have to be just business – it could be with
your children, a college at work, or even when you were
in school writing a paper.
Whatever.
It could even be an ad you saw. I just read an old
ad this morning with the headline “lingerie for men…”
Tell me that is NOT impossible to read on. That’s a
great way to interrupt someone’s normal pattern of how
they look at advertising – because it totally shocks
their system!
Anyway, if you have a great idea or story you’d like
to share with me, reply to this blog post and share it.
If I like it and want to use it, I’ll contact you
for permission. If I do use it, I will make sure to
give you credit in the book.
I’m excited about this! Looking forward to your input!
I had just tasted my first bit of Internet marketing success.
I was ghostwriting, and had made enough to move out of my
dad’s two room apartment and into my own.
It wasn’t much mind you – about 350 square feet – a garage
converted into an efficiency apartment. But it was a start.
The first day I moved in there, I decided to sit down and
write my goals.
The first one was that I’d do $100,000 in the next 12 months.
I accomplished that.
The second one was that I’d own my home in the next 18 months.
I accomplished that.
Another was my “give back” goal to donate a certain amount
of my time/wealth to noble causes.
I accomplished that.
My last goal was my role model goal. At the time, there was
a guy I listened to that had a more positive impact on my
life than anyone else. His motivational trainings got me
through so many hard times…
And I listened to them so often… I could literally repeat
them word for word.
My goal was to meet and have a conversation with him in
the next 2 years. That man was Jim Rohn.
On December 5th Jim Rohn passed away.
I’d like to honor the man by sharing some of the wisdom and
experiences I had while listening to him.
The FIRST TIME
I remember when I first heard him speak. I had just got
bitten by the “self help” bug and someone loaned me a ton
of self help audio programs. I loaded them into my iPod.
At the time, I was running a music record label by night
and managing a retail flooring warehouse by day. In the
warehouse, I had my iPod on while I worked and listened
to those self help programs.
Most sucked. But then one popped on – a motivational speech
given to a group of network marketers.
Who the hell was this guy? I thought I knew who the greats were,
guys like Zig Ziglar, Brian Tracey & Tony Robbins. Who was
this?
I looked at the iPod – it said Jim Rohn.
Even though I was broke at the time, on lunch break I went home
and ordered his “Take Charge Of Your Life” audio training course,
which I still listen to this day.
Teachings Of The Great Man
Jim is speaking, and is sharing a story from the Bible, which
he calls “a story from antiquity”. It’s about two nice guys…
one builds his house on a strong foundation, the other on sand.
The one on sand doesn’t last. Two nice guys. Both do-gooders. Both
have “good karma”. But the guy who built his house on the sand
lost it.
You have to do more than be nice and know that if you do good,
then good things will happen to you. To think otherwise – as Jim
Rohn put it – is naive.
The Story Of Cookie
On one of his programs, Jim talks about how – in order to be a
more effective communicator – he spends a day or two on the
“other side”.
He spends a day down in a seedy place in San Diego, CA called
the “Tenderloin”. There he talks to this bartender named Frank.
Frank says, “You see that woman over there? That’s Cookie. How
old do you think she is?”
Jim Rohn guesses 45… Frank tells her she’s 25… and that she
used to be a dancer back in the go-go days. Then she developed
some sort of bone disease and she can no longer dance and is crippled.
And she has a son who is 5 and is dying of leukemia. To try to
cheer herself up a few times a week she comes down to this bar
in the Tenderloin… plays a little music… usually drinks too
much… and Frank has to call a cab to take her home.
Jim concludes this story by saying “Why did her life turn out like
that, and mine turn out like it did? How is it that I get to travel
the world, yet Cookie has trouble even getting home?”
Affected By Two Things…
Jim Rohn says, “You’re affected by two things. What you know and
how you feel about what you know.” This really helped me both as
an information consumer and as an information producer.
See I could give you the best training in the world. But if you
felt nervous, unsure, scared or uncomfortable acting on it, then
that will affect the value of the information.
So the lesson is twofold. First create products that remove as much
of those “uncertainties” as possible, so your clients will get results
(that’s one of the big “secrets” of how I’ve created such high
value training programs…)
And the other is to learn how to FEEL really good about learning
new things. That’s why I made it a point to study and use NLP and self-hypnosis, so I could feel good about acting on new ideas.
Two Pains
Jim Rohn says we all experience one of two pains in life: the pain
of discipline and the pain of regret. The pain of discipline weighs
ounces, but the pain of regret weighs tons.
This is something I always think about when things get hard, and
I want to quit early, put something off until later, procrastinate,
or when I’m about to finish up a big project.
It’s easy to put things off. But if you make it a habit, what would
you life end up being? You’d regret so many things. That pain is
worse than the “pain of discipline” to finish up the task at hand
and give it your best, so you have no regrets.
Profits Are Better Than Wages
Jim Rohn says wages make you a living but profits make a fortune.
Most people earn wages which is good enough to get a pair of shoes,
a piece of bread and a place to get out of the rain.
But those who wish to enjoy the higher pleasures of life, work for
profits, not wages. That means they create and utilize enterprises.
It means teaching your children to have two bicycles. One to ride
and one to rent out.
See it doesn’t take long to start making profits. A bit of ingenuity
and you’re on your way.
The Magic Of Part-Time
And you can start making profits part time. And best of all, you
can start today. You can begin telling people “I’m working full
time on my job to earn wages, but I’m working part time on my
profits to earn my fortune! And it won’t be long until I’ll be
working full time on my fortune…”
That’s how I started – working part time on my profits with
ghostwriting, and full time painting houses to earn my wages.
Within a short period of time, I no longer had to work for
wages to earn a living… but could work FULL TIME for profits
to earn a fortune!
Profits are better than wages. Wages make you a living but
profits make you a fortune! I teach kids to have two bicycles:
one to ride, one to rent. How long does it take to start making
a profit? A bit of ingenuity and you’re on your way.
Perfect. Jim Rohn said it best, “Work harder on yourself than
you do on your job.”
Wishing
Jim Rohn says, “Don’t wish it was easier; wish you were
better. Don’t wish for less problems; wish for more skills.”
The key takeaway Jim Rohn gave me was that you can’t “pursue”
success. That’s like trying to change the order of the seasons.
Instead, you must ATTRACT success, by becoming an attractive
person. People who “pursue” success wish things were easier.
People who attract success decide to get BETTER instead of
wasting their time wishing it was easier.
People who try to pursue success wish there were less problems
and challenges to obtain it. People who attract success wish
for more skill to handle those problems and challenges, more
wisdom to turn opportunity into wealth.
Or as Jim Rohn says, “To get more, you have to become more.”
FAILURE
Jim Rohn says failure is often not some single, cataclysmic event…
But a few small errors in judgment repeated every day.
This always has rung true for me. Some people make a small error
in judgment when they almost finish something but “put it off until tomorrow…” They make it a habit, and repeat it every day. No
wonder they can’t make progress!
Some people decide to spend their limited free time watching DVDs
and playing video games. And they do this every day. But what if
they spent some of that time reading more books? As Jim Rohn
said, “The book you miss can’t help!” And as he also said, “Formal
education will make you a living; self-education will make you a
fortune!” And he also said, “Miss a meal if you have to, but don’t
miss a book!”
What if these people instead spent some of that time improving
themselves and their skills? That could be the whole difference!
One of the things I did after listening to Jim Rohn say this is
write down a list of “small errors in judgment” I was repeating
every day. And then I worked on each one to improve it or reverse
it.
SUCCESS
Jim Rohn says, Success is doing seemingly “ordinary things” extraordinarily
well.” It’s not that I’m a naturally gifted and great writer. It’s that I
sit down and write EVERY SINGLE DAY. That’s the secret.
It’s not that I have some incredible, deep insights and some sort of genius
that makes me create great products for the marketplace. It’s just
that I create a lot of products, one after the other. I’m good at
creating ordinary products extraordinarily well.
I’m good at acting on good ideas immediately. I’m good at reducing complex
tasks down to simple systems. These are really just ordinary things that
I’ve learned to do – through discipline – extraordinarily well.
Or as Jim Rohn says another way, “Success is nothing more than a few
simple disciplines, practiced every day.”
Dedicated To Jim Rohn
I’d like to close this by expressing my thanks to the man who has had
one of the biggest impacts on my life – Jim Rohn. You have been a blessing
on this world and it has become a better place because of you.
And the way you’d close most of programs now rings truer in my heart
than ever.
You’d often finish a program by saying, “I go with you in all the experience
that we’ve had. But I promise you this as we leave here, I will not leave
you behind. I’ll take you with me in my thoughts and in my heart.”
You’re right Jim. Even in passing you are still here with all of us
you have positively helped.
Once upon a time little Jason Fladlien was so shy… he wouldn’t even look people in the eye or say hi to strangers on the streets. He was so awkward, he didn’t learn to tie his shoes until his was 6 years old (thank god for Velcro!).
And he was so scared he didn’t get his license until his was 21 years old.
Flash forward to now and little Jason Fladlien is confident – he can even look a maitre de square in the eyes without blinking
He travels the country, speaks to hundreds of people at a time and he’s constantly trying out new things without fear of failure.
What changed? What was the one key thing that transformed this introverted, shy nerd into somebody so confident in their ability to manifest wealth out of thin air, who can act on a good idea without “paralysis by analysis” because he’s learned to trust intuition and instinct?
If you’re asking yourself that question – you’re asking the wrong question.
There NEVER is ONE key thing.
Here’s something interesting I’ve noticed over my journey from broke house painter to “top 3% Income Earner” in the United States…
When I studied sales techniques – I didn’t really “get them” until about 6 months later. Sure, there was one or two things that gave me some immediate benefit. But it wasn’t until about 6 months later did most of what I study and practice become almost second nature.
The same was true when I started using NLP. At first it was hard and tedious… then things I hadn’t even looked for many months I could do almost effortlessly.
Same was true with sales copy – when I first started, I couldn’t finish an ad in a week. Even though I had studied the masters… had read over 5000+ pages of copywriting instruction… handwritten out ads for hours… copied, one by one, one thousand bullet points onto 3 by 5 notecards.
Only after about 6 months could I really use the stuff effortlessly. Now I can write sales letters in my head, and create a sales letter full of world class bullet points in seconds.
See the secret is this: I didn’t do ONE thing to overcome my “disadvantages”. I did everything I could… used every resource I had. Continued to use them – because I didn’t expect any of them to work hardly at all when I first applied them…
But I knew if I could stick with them for 6 months – then they’d become “a part” of me.
Now here’s the neat thing: when you master one of the skills to make yourself stronger… you accelerate complimentary skills. It didn’t take me 6 months to learn how to sell from the stage. Since I had already cultivated the talent of writing good sales copy… It took me days… not weeks… not years.
Days.
Now I can master most anything I want in business in 17 days or less. Because I paid my dues.
Since I’ve experienced a decent amount of success in Internet marketing, I’ve made many friends over the years. I can probably count 15 close marketing friends I talk with at least once a month. Each earns over six figures a year.
Everywhere I look around me I see wealth. It seems to me everyone is getting rich because I hang with the right crowds. Think of what that does to your mind state.
But here’s what else is interesting about these high achievers – everyone of them has a similar story to mine. Each had to overcome several “mental” limitations such as shyness, fear, anxiety, a poor mental image, etc.
And they all did. Because they wanted it bad enough.
What’s the moral to this story today? It’s this: I don’t care what you have going against you… I don’t care what has previously happened to you in your attempts to meet your monetary goals with Internet marketing… I don’t care what challenges you have facing you in the coming months ahead…
I do know that everything you’ve done up until this point can be used as experience, knowledge and power to get you to the next level.
And I do know that your dogged determination to make it happen will fuel you to do the things TODAY that will pay off in spades 6 months from now. Then that’s another skill you have in your tool bag. Do that with just a handful of skills… and you’ll be able to achieve your goals.
A certain three letter US agency has announced that on December 1st, new laws will go into place regarding using testimonials, claims and endorsements in advertisements.
Now, I’m not a lawyer, so don’t take the following as legal advice. Actually, when I was born God made me allergic to becoming a lawyer, so you don’t have to worry about that. Like anything, do your due diligence. I’m just offering my commentary on the matter.
From my understanding, the old law with testimonials is you could lead with the people who got great results, as long as you put a simple disclaimer under them that says ‘results not typical, yours may vary’ or something to that effect.
With the new law, any time you disclose a results based testimonial, you also have to disclose what the average person’s results were. Exactly how you go about determining average is, of course, wildly vague - so who knows?
Here’s how I plan to change my business to take these new laws into account.
First, when using testimonials I will be using “character based” testimonials, and completely get rid of “results based” testimonials. It sucks, but I think it’s necessary to do this.
So I’ll run testimonials that says “Jason is a caring, down to earth person…” or “Jason’s support is great…”, things of that nature.
I will be using more video. Why? Because the written word lacks certain abilities to use sarcasm, humor, and light-heartedness that you can do in video.
So if I explain in video “what the average user can expect” I can do so in a way that is so incongruent with the message, that when I disclose average, it will have little to no impact on my sales message.
I will use more hypnotic language patterns and NLP in my sales copy – focusing more on creating and anchoring certain emotional states in the reader, than on proof, testimonials, etc.
I will be using more $1 trials, so I don’t need as much copy to sell it, and focus more on the quality of product as the sales device.
I will up my customer support to another level. Here’s the thing about these government alphabet agencies – they only respond to the “squeaky wheel”. They have no time to go out and police everyone.
So the ones that get the most complaints are the ones they investigate.
What this means: I will be hiring a full time staff person just to call people on the phone after placing their orders to make sure everything is okay. I will have “live” IM chat support at least 8 hours a day during business hours.
While nothing you can do will completely eliminate complaints (there are a lot of unreasonable people out there!) hopefully it will cut back on them enough to “fly below the radar.”
The other thing I’m going to be doing is expanding more into tiny, little niches that only do $2,000 to $3,000 a month – that way, again I can make a good amount of money without becoming “famous” in any one niche.
These are just some of the things that I will be doing to best handle the new changes that loom on the horizon.
If you think that you’re an honest person with a quality product and run an ethical business, and that’s all you need to be safe – you’re dead wrong.
This law isn’t about honesty. Every testimonial I’ve ever used was honest. It’s about “typical”. There’s a difference. While it’s my not my responsibility beyond giving you what you need to guarantee your results (YOU have to apply it!) I am liable for you now under the new laws.
Think a high quality product will save you? Think again. High quality is subjective. Day in and day out I’ll get one person demanding a refund saying my product sucked, and 10 minutes letter someone will email me saying that same product was the best product they’ve ever purchased.
I’ve heard people criticize Mother Theresa, Martin Luther King, Gandhi, etc. If they find fault in them, surely it’s easy to find fault in us marketers.
Let’s call a spade or spade. You are in the direct marketing business. There are a lot of scam artists in this business. You’re guilty by association. The public looks down on you, even though you are the backbone of the economy.
You don’t get in this game to win rewards and gain respect. You do it because you know you can provide immense value to a large number of people, and in return you can be rewarded greatly for providing that value.
So you can’t wear rose colored glasses. You must learn to adapt with the times and the laws. Reagan used to say “trust, but cut the deck anyway” That’s how you run your business.
Deliver high quality products. Be honest. Run your business ethically. But also operate it as if someone has made it their sole duty to find a way to persecute you. Because they have.
Adapt to it – take your precautionary measures now, so you’ll be less likely to find yourself trying to win a battle in court while all your assests are frozen and the general public looks down on you like you’re a petty criminal.
There’s your cup of sunshine for the day!
Please reply to this post with your comments and thoughts.
Thanks!
Jason “I’m not a lawyer nor do I play one on youtube” Fladlien
A week ago I did a webinar with hundreds of people on it. I was sick as a dog.
Literally, it was all I could do to get out of bed to do the webinar. I gave it
my best shot and somehow pulled it off.
The next day I went to the doctor. While I was there I told her I was also having heart pains, so she ordered a cholesterol test. I got the results back Tuesday, and it was 256. And I’m a freaking 26 year old vegetarian!
Coincidentally, three days prior I was reading an ad by one of the greatest copywriters of all time, Gary Bencivenga. In it he talked about how a landmark study showed that if you had cholesterol levels below 150, you were virtually heart-attack proof.
So that’s my goal – by the next checkup (2 months from now) I WILL have my cholesterol down to that level.
Now here’s what’s instructive: when I want something, I do EVERYTHING in my willpower to achieve it. That’s the real secret behind my success.
I’m a living, breathing example of massive action. So here’s what I did in this case to achieve my goal.
First, I went back to my vegan diet, meaning I cut ALL animal products out of my diet, not just meat.
Second, I researched and found the foods that were considered the best for lowering cholesterol. A lot of sites said that oat bran, almonds, walnuts, blueberries, blackberries and flaxseed are all excellent.
So now for breakfast, here’s what I eat: organic oat bran cereal with ground flaxseed, mixed with almond slices, crushed walnuts, blueberries and blackberries in vanilla soy milk.
And for dinner I eat the other major cholesterol reducers such as legumes, garlic, foods fortified with omega 3’s and plant sterols/stanols, and black soybeans, etc.
In addition, I make sure to get 5 servings of fruits and vegetables a day.
We’re just starting… For a while my exercise routine fell to the wayside as I found myself working day and night. Not anymore. The first thing I do in the morning when I wake up is exercise for 30 minutes.
And finally, I do a heavy dosage of NLP and hypnosis on myself as well, because the mental mind controls the physical body tons more than most people realize – so I literally visualize my arteries in peak condition and my vital organs working perfectly and so forth.
When I want something, damn it, I don’t do one or two things to try to get it. I do everything in my willpower TO get it.
When I talk to most of my coaching clients, they will want something specific in their business. Like traffic, for example. I ask them what they are currently doing to generate traffic. They usually list one or two things. And on expectation, those things are executed very poorly.
If I wanted traffic, I’d create a “traffic schedule”, where first thing in the morning that is what I’d go through. The traffic schedule would take roughly 3-4 hours to execute and would be 3-4 different traffic strategies that I would use and I would max out every different way to use them. That way, even if 90% of them didn’t work, then I wouldn’t care, because the other 10% would be good enough to start with.
ANY improvement is better than no improvement.
When I wanted to write articles consistently in 7 minutes, I approached it with the same tenacity. Ads in 3 hours? Same tenacity. Products in 48 hours or less? Same tenacity.
You need to condition yourself to approach whatever you want in Internet Marketing with the same tenacity.
You know why most people don’t succeed? It’s not because of lack of information. It’s not lack of opportunity. It’s not lack of skill. It’s not lack of time.
They just don’t want it bad enough. How bad do you want it?
I remember when I first got bit by the Internet Marketing bug. I was painting houses for $12 an hour and living with my dad in a tiny apartment.
When I got exposed to Internet Marketing, here’s what I did. I’d wake up
two hours before work to devote time just to Internet Marketing. Then after painting houses all day, I’d come home and work until bedtime.
Repeat the process…
That was less than 21 months ago! And now look where I’m at. And I know
you can do the same, if you want it bad enough.
So today is the day where you sit down and write down what you want
more badly than anything and when you will get it. Then don’t just do
one, two, three or four things to “try” to get it, but do everything
in your willpower TO get it.
Then after you get it, send me a thank you card in the mail for being
the person who kicked you in the butt to get you started down the right
path.
I’ve been doing a lot of split testing lately, and it amazes me how
little things make a big difference. If you’re at a point where you’re
driving a lot of traffic and/or you need to try to fix a page that
isn’t converting well, do you know what you test first?
Almost everyone gets this wrong…
You don’t test the headline first… or the price… or the opening
paragraph… or even the design…
You Test The OFFER!
Let’s say you’re selling an ebook for $37 on how build chicken coops.
You want to increase the conversion. The first thing you might consider is… A $1 trial for the first seven days, then they pay the balance.
Same price… just different presentation. What else can you do? Add
more bonuses or change the existing bonuses. Here are some hot tips
for you to increase the power of your bonuses.
First, each bonus should be a different “modality”. I like to do a video, an audio and a worksheet. See how I’m hitting all the different angles people
like to process information. It also makes the offer more exciting, because you’re giving so many different types of things in so many types of different
forms, leaving a bigger impression of value on the reader’s mind.
Second hot tip with bonuses: you should have one bonus be something
that people really, really want, but would probably never pay any
money for. Example – at http://internetmillionairerecipe.com I have a
bonus about wealth attraction. People love that bonus. It’s really
good stuff. But it’s also what’s called “soft content” – meaning it’s
more philosophy than “in the dirt” money making tactics. So I’d have a
very hard time selling it on its own. But as a bonus… it really gets
them excited because it’s something they’ve been interested in, but
never have acquired before.
Nice.
There are other things to test in your offer, and I’ll cover one more
in this blog post – your guarantee. I was recently speaking at Joe
Lavery’s seminar in Atlanta, and I was the ONLY ONE who had a double
your money back guarantee tied to specific results. My guarantee had
the most impact. It absolutely helped increase conversions.
The tip to testing the guarantee is to make it much more powerful, and
then make sure to highlight it in the “deck copy” (copy underneath the
headline but before the opening paragraph).
After you test the offer of your sales page, there are two things you
want to test next. The second thing is your headline. I remember I was
working with a coaching client once, and we split tested two
headlines… all the rest of the copy was the same… and we increased the
conversion from 7% to 17% (I wonder why more people don’t hire me for
coaching? I’m a steal for $250 an hour).
Here’s how you test headlines. Write your best one out the gate. Then,
if that doesn’t work, test it against an “opposite headline”. So let’s
say your headline is “How to grow upside down tomatoes for mere
pennies in only a few minutes a day”. Good headline until you tested
it. So what’s an opposite headline? It’s highlighting the negative instead
of the positive. The new headline might go like this… “Only the
ignorant and naive spend more than a few minutes a day and mere
pennies to grow upside down tomatoes…”
See what I did? Completely flipped the angle of the approach. I test
both sides of the spectrum and then work from there. Other headlines to
test are headlines where proof is the main emphasis, story headlines,
and “incongruent juxtaposition” headlines. Let me show you what those
look like.
Proof headline: “I will show you on this very page how I grow
wonderful, large upside down tomatoes in only 1 minute 32 seconds per
day…”
Story headline: “One eyed Georgia Sharecropper discovers a simple way
to grow large upside down tomatoes in 1 minute 32 seconds per day…”
Incongruent Juxtaposition headline: “Would you believe that cat urine
can help you grow the largest upside down tomatoes you’ve ever seen?”
And so on.
One last trick for you. Design is very critical, especially to cold
traffic you don’t have a previous relationship with. You want to test
this in two instances: after you’ve tweaked the above, or if your “bounce
rate” on your sales letter is high. Bounce rate refers to how quick
the average visitor leaves your page after visiting it. You can
monitor bounce rate with Google Analytics, which is completely free.
Here’s how to start testing design: start with 2 very radically different
designs – i like one that’s “graphics heavy” and another one that’s
“plain jane”. Again, these are your two extremes. Then, work from there.
What do you use to split test? Google Optimizer! Again it’s free -
google it to get set up.
That’s it for today… pretty good stuff, wasn’t it? Please share your
biggest takeaways and your thoughts in the comment section below!
Today I was sitting outside on my deck, writing a sales letter in my head. That’s how I do it these days – I map it all out in my mind, and then when I sit down I let my unconscious mind write it for me. I learned how to hypnotize myself to do that after reading a book in which the great hypnotist Milton Erickson put someone in a trance and then had them do “automatic writing”. It’s much easier that way.
While sitting outside, I noticed something. There were two box-elder bugs who had somehow gotten connected together at their hind feet. It was interesting. One was trying to go one way, and the other was trying to go a different way. The result – neither were able to really go anywhere.
During my days as a monk, I developed a very deep appreciation for all living things – which is why I continue to be a vegetarian to this day. So I decided to help them out. There just happened to be a lone bird feather laying on my deck, so I picked it up, and used it to “tickle” the intertwined feet of the box-elder bugs until they became untangled – then they ran off in their separate directions.
That got me to thinking about my clients. Most of them are in a similar situation – they hold conflicting beliefs inside themselves. So when they try to do one thing, another thing jumps up and holds them back. This is especially true regarding money.
The reason most people have trouble making money is because they have not dealt with all their issues about how they feel about wealth. They are conflicted. Let me give you an example. I was at my mom’s recently, when a client called me up. She was down to her last few dollars, and really wanted to buy one of my higher ticket coaching programs. But by doing so, she wasn’t sure if she’d be able to afford rent next month.
What did I do? I told her that she especially should involve herself with my program, because she had the proper motivation to make it work, and having it work for her would help her climb up from the financial situation she was currently in. I made her buy it right there on the phone to make sure she was committed.
When I got off the phone my mom asked me, “How can you take someone’s last bit of money?” First, let’s examine that word. In my mom’s mind I took something. However, I didn’t. In reality, I gave something far greater in value than the cash my client exchanged for it.
Second, far be it for me to think I’m morally superior to tell someone else what they can and can’t do with their money. Remember, this client wanted to buy… and what she really wanted was just some confirmation she was making the right move.
And in my opinion she was, because I know if she uses my system she truly will get great results – otherwise, why would all my stuff come with such strong money back guarantees?
Now let’s say she buys it and does nothing with it. She ends up being broke and unable to pay the rent. Is that the end of the world? Hardly. In fact, her options are either to get tougher or to wither and wallow away, and stay in mediocrity. If she can’t get tougher, then there is nothing that I or anyone else can do for her. If that experience helps her, then I would’ve done her a disservice if I let her stay in her comfort zone, barely scraping by on the rent.
See, the point is I have no qualms about asking people to give me money, because I have no conflicts with wealth coming from inside me. So I’m able to more quickly, accurately and efficiently move toward my goal.
I know for a fact most people wouldn’t be able to do what I just did above. And that’s because they have an inherent conflict regarding wealth. And it’s no wonder it’s so hard for them to attract it in their life!
You know you have a problem if you rarely email your list or customers with an offer. You know you have a problem if you equate value to time. For example, this is what I tell my copywriting clients. My fees are usually $2,000 to $4,000 depending on the scope of the project. It will be $2,000 if I feel I can get the ad done in less than 3 hours. $4,000 if I think I have to spend all day on it. And I won’t take jobs if I have to spend more than one day on the ad.
Sometimes I do ads for clients that only take me 45 minutes to write and I get paid $2,000 to do it! And I don’t feel one ounce of guilt for it. Because I know that ad will either bring back multiples of that amount if properly used, or if it doesn’t, part of my agreement is that I will go back and tweak it up to three more times until it does.
I actually turn time into a competitive advantage. In reality, the level of my copywriting ability usually goes for $10,000 on the market. I know because I’m friends with a lot of copywriters who charge that much for a sales letter (or more). The difference is I can do the same quality in far less time and with far less effort as them, so I can pass that savings on to the customer. In reality, I’m giving them more value. It’s a great deal for them (which amazes me why more people don’t try to partner with me for their project).
Could you, with a straight face, ask to be paid $2,000 for something that might only take you a couple hours to do? And even more, could you tell the client that fact, and then turn it into a selling point? If not, you have a wealth conflict going on inside yourself.
Here’s what you need to do. First, get out a piece of paper and write down all the potential conflicts you think somebody could have about wanting to get rich. Then come up with rational responses about how those conflicts are illogical. You don’t have to share them with anyone. But just by doing this, you’ll have an innate congruency to attract more wealth in to your life.
Let me give you one more example to get you started. Some people are afraid of wealth because they think money will isolate them from others. Here’s my personal rational as to why that’s not a problem.
First, I recognize money will isolate you from others. Some people will be jealous, or think less of you behind your back. To that I say – great! Those aren’t the people I really want in my life anyway. So wealth is like an insurance policy against them. Also, the reason money will change some of your current relationships is because to get more wealth, you have to become more. And as you become more, you grow as a person… while a lot of those around you stay the same. So if you continue to fit in with the current crowd you’re with, it means you’re not growing – and that you’re going to get the same “wealth results” they are getting.
Are you cool with that? I’m not. So it’s a good thing that money will isolate you from some of your current associates, friends and family members. But here’s what it will also do. After my brother passed away, my mom was pretty much tapped out for money. So I helped her get back on her feet by giving her nearly $7,000. I told her she didn’t even have to pay it back to me. Of course, she will because she’s that kind of person, but still – the fact is I was able to step in to help the family members who needed it most, and who were my well wishers. I couldn’t have done that if I first hadn’t laid the groundwork many months earlier by getting clear about my attracting wealth.
Please share your thoughts on this by posting a comment below.
I just got back from putting on my first seminar in Dallas, Texas with
Robert Plank and Mary Wilhite. We ended up bringing in about 30 people
to the event, which I consider pretty good for the first time. On
Friday I did two presentations, and on Saturday I spoke for over 5
hours!
Every time I’m at seminars, I always walking away with some new
insights, which I’d like to share with you. The first insight is
thanks to Mary, who is a genius at planning, it only cost us less than
$1600 to put on the whole event. I never dreamed it would be so cheap
to do one of these things. We’d already made our money back just from
the sales of the seminar tickets.
The second thing I learned was that most people who attended these
events seems to operate their online business with the breaks on! What
gives? Dan Kennedy once said something that stuck with me – you can’t
be a WUSSY and make money. It’s so true. In fact, the second day I
spent about two hours just mentally toughening up the audience. Some
people have trouble asking for the order. Other people are afraid they
might break something when they go out and try a new skill. Others
still are just plain shy.
Now, it’s natural to feel all of those things – but that doesn’t mean
you should accept them. You need a strategy for learning how to deal
with them.
Take me for example. I presented with NO POWER POINT or ANY NOTES.
Actually the only preparation I had done was in my head. In fact,
before my last presentation on Friday I had no idea what I was going
to say until 10 minutes before I stepped on stage. Which leads me to
share a funny story with you. Robert is not only a great business
partner, but also someone I consider a great friend. So we joke like
friends do. Robert bet me $5 that I couldn’t seamlessly work the word
“wagon wheel” into a presentation.
I had forgotten about it until ten minutes before that final
presentation. I was going to talk about email marketing. I have my 6
step approach to email marketing, but that sounds boring doesn’t it?
So what I did was drew a wagon wheel on a piece of paper, and said
“this is the wagon wheel approach to email marketing”. I did it to win
$5. But what I discovered was a huge, happy accident. People
immediately tuned in. Attentive rate was 100%. It stuck with them.
They talked about the wagon wheel for the rest of the event.
So I’m going to be using more visuals – on purpose – because it was
actually very helpful to the audience.
Which brings me back to my main point – I went out and tried something
new, just to see what would happen and got a great result. I’m sure
the same thing would happen to you if you just quit focusing so much
on the fear of failure, and instead tried to approach new things in a
state of curiosity.
Another big takeaway I got, which I’m going to start implementing at
future seminars, is to have people come up with their goals before the
seminar. Whenever I personally attend a seminar, I always write out a
one sentence goal on a piece of paper of what I went to get out of the
seminar. It might be something like “set up 3 joint ventures with
people who have a list of 2,000 or more subscribers”. Or, “schedule
three guest webinars”. Or “come up with an idea from one of the
presentations that you can create into a product and launch it in the
next week.”
In the future, I’m going to get seminar attendees on an autoresponder
and help them define their goals in advance of going to the seminar. I
don’t think one person there had a clearly defined and written down
goal going into the seminar of what they wanted to get out of the
seminar. My goal was to sell at least 30% of the attendees to join the
last webinar training program I’m doing with Robert Plank (it’s
already sold out!). So the whole time I was asking myself what I’d
have to do meet that criteria, and created my close around that goal.
I ended up getting 50% of the attendees to sign up.
Here’s a technique that will be useful for you, regardless of whether
you attend a real live seminar, a webinar, or a teleseminar. I call it
the “1 page of notes” technique. Les Tatum, a client and friend of
mine, was telling me that he took over 20 pages of notes for the two
day seminar. I told him he should take those 20 pages, and go through
them, and condense them down into 1 page. Then ACT on everything on
that one page.
Keep the rest of the notes around just in case you might one
day reference them – but let’s get realistic – even I can’t act on 20
pages of notes. But everyone can act on one page. So it forces you to
take the best of the best stuff and immediately implement it.
Anyways, thanks for reading. Was this helpful for you? If so please
leave a comment. Also, when you leave a comment, let me know where’d
you like me to do my next seminar at, and if there’s enough demand for
one certain area, I’ll put it on the map, as we have at least 3 more
scheduled for this year.
Let’s talk big business breakthroughs. I’ve had my share of them over the last 19 months. One thing I learned from perhaps the sharpest mind in direct marketing, Dan Kennedy, is that most business breakthroughs happen like this:
Something, without a lot of effort and little to no optimization starts working reasonably well.
Usually it’s something that, by accident, is getting okay to even good response. It’s not something you engineer, by intent… but once you notice it, you say… hmmm…. What if I actually focused more of my efforts here, and by deliberate intent, optimize it…
The result is a breakthrough.
For example, when I started email marketing I had no clue on how to do it. And I didn’t want to study other email marketer’s guides because frankly, I wasn’t that impressed. So I made it up as I went along. What I tried to do, more than anything, was to be different.
What I discovered was that if I came out and said I’m thinking about doing ______…. what’s your thoughts? It was much better than some fancy sneak upon them approach. Etc.
Once I realized that my down to earth email marketing tone was working like crazy, I then MADE SURE to optimize it, and as a result, my tiny list gets responses that are unheard of in our industry.
Here’s another breakthrough I figured out early in my career. The focus on this industry is information. We are in the information business, after all. But get this. I meet this copywriter Steve Schwartzman. He likes me, so he promotes something of mine to his list.
Roger Haeske, who happened to be a client Steve wrote for, liked my offer so he took me up on it. Roger has since bought several other products from me, including high end coaching. Roger liked me, so he referred people on his list to me. One such person was Martin Messier. Martin then went on to buy several of my products and one of my coaching programs, and became one of my star students.
Mainly because I met Steve Schwartzman, I’ve made several thousand dollars. I met him at the first seminar I went to, the Warrior Event last year in Austin, Texas.
Also at the seminar I met Robert Plank, PHP marketer wunderkind. We didn’t talk much, but we knew who each other was, and we got along pretty good. Then I went to another seminar in Philadelphia in June (JV Alert by Ken McCarthur) and met Robert again. That was the launching pad for our first joint venture.
We’ve since went on to do over one hundred thousand dollar in business together!
That’s the power of people. In this business, people are far greater than information and don’t you forget that. So I noticed, by almost accident, that going to those seminars and just casually meeting people was starting to make me a ton of money. So I started doing it by deliberate intent, to put my profits on steroids.
And it paid off. For example, my little brother Ryan, who was only 8, died of brain cancer on January 25th of this year. I was devastated. I knew if I didn’t do something great in his name, I’d go into depression. So what did I do? Organize one of the best webinar offers in history.
I started pulling out all my old business contacts that I had met at seminars. Called them one by one. In a few short days I had people promoting my offer, offering donations, volunteering as guest speakers, and just spreading the word. And we raised almost $15,000 which I used to pay for all the funeral costs and other incidentals.
I couldn’t have done that if I didn’t go to those seminars.
Let’s switch gears. Not only do I make good business connections, I make friends. I met Jaiver Diaz at a seminar, and to this day I still talk to him. You also get exposure. I met Armand Morin at a seminar, and he tried to set me up with 4 beautiful girls. Then he told his whole mastermind group about it the next day. Ryan Deiss saw the whole thing go down. You think either of those two will forget me?
One time at a seminar Marlon Sanders came down to visit me, and for 5 hours gave me some of the best coaching I’ve ever received. One time at a seminar, one of my clients Les Tatum came down to see me, and I took him and his wife out to dinner and it made their whole month!
I met Joe Lavery at a seminar and he shared with me a whole slew of strategies that will probably double my bank account this year.
I met Mary Wilhite at a seminar in March. Because of that meeting, she got us booked to do a one day workshop in Orlando, which was a smash success. Everybody in attendance loved it pretty much, so that led us to do another seminar. It’s in Dallas, Texas and takes place on May 29th and May 30th.
Not only do we have a lot of great information lined up for (10+ hours of content) but we’ve also got some great people there. People you can meet and later do wonderful things with as I have done. And it’s only a measly $97 to attend an event that has the power to completely change your life for the better.
I hope you go so I can meet you personally. You can check out the information at http://actionseminar.com. We only have a few more spots left because the conference room can only hold 50 people in it so please check it out and act on it. I have went to several seminars, and each one has paid off for me at least ten fold.
I’m about to share with you an advanced copywriting tactic that I’ve never really seen talked about by any of the great ad writers.
It has to do with “flow” in your sales letter. How you introduce new selling points in a certain order that not only gives your copy momentum (thus sucking the reader in) but builds a persuasive case almost by accident.
A little warm up: the average copywriter tries to convince you that whatever he’s pitching is the latest, great, absolute best thing in the world, and you should buy it. The top level copywriters write with more finesse. They instead, lead you down a path that allows you to draw your own conclusions that what they are writing about is the latest, greatest absolute best thing in the world. But they don’t exactly come out and say it right away.
One more key piece of wisdom: the best approach to writing copy is the “rave review” approach. This is the “art” part of copy, but if you can master it, you should never have money worries again. Just think if a well known, famous blogger discovered your product, and without any motive other than just falling in love with your product, he wrote a rave review on his blog.
If you can get that tone in your copy, your sales should go through the roof.
There are several tricks I know that can help you do this, but here is one of the most effective I have ever discovered.
I figured it out by meticulously studying Gary Halbert Ads when I was putting together my Gary Halbert Swipe File (halbertswipefile.com).
Let me show you an example from an ad Gary Halbert Wrote:
Think about what this means: Even if the city where you live does a perfect job (it doesn’t; it doesn’t even come close) of purifying your water supply…
Your Water, After Traveling Through Several Miles Of Pipes,
Is Still Likely To Have Lots Of Horrible Stuff In It
When It Comes Out Of Your Faucet!
But, very likely, your city simply can’t do a perfect job of cleaning up your water supply. The problem is just too overwhelming. So, what they do is, they dump chlorine in the water! Which, in a way, is good… because… chlorine kills a lot of those nasty, disease-causing bugs in the water. But hey, you know why it is able to kill all those bugs? It’s very simple…
It’s Because Chlorine Is Poison!
That’s why most U.S. citizens have fewer cavities in their teeth these days: It’s because the chlorine in our drinking water kills those little organic microbes that eat away at the enamel on our teeth. However, using a poison like chlorine to kill the “bad guy” microbes is sort of like undergoing chemotherapy when you have cancer. In other words, not only do the cancer cells get zapped; many of your non-cancerous cells also get zapped… and often… your hair falls out, you get extremely tired and your zest for life is considerably diminished.
Speaking of cancer, there are five different articles in certified publications from the EPA, Massachusetts General Hospital, University of Alabama, University of Georgia, and the University of Florida that all prove…
Drinking Chlorinated Water
Increases Your Chances Of
Dying From Cancer By 44%!
Did you catch the example? It is the “oh by the way” transition from using the cancer metaphor as an example to illustrate a point to saying “speaking of cancer…”.
Damn, that’s brilliant.
Do you get what’s going on here? If Halbert just came out and said that drinking chlorinated water increases your chances of dying for cancer, it wouldn’t have as much power. Instead he used a set up. He’s taking the role of “rave review” and not “hard pitch sales person”.
This “oh by the way” set up is one of the most brilliant ways to weave in persuasion laced copy into your sales letters.
So how do you use it in your copy? It’s simple. Take that one big point you think is extremely powerful and persuasive. And instead of coming right and hitting your prospect over the head with it, try the “oh by the way” set up.
For example, let’s say you have a set of housecleaning supplies that are not only far better for the environment, but they get the job done quicker as well. No more waiting a long time for the dishes to “soak”, or for the chemical solution to “cut the crud” off your stove top or bathtub.
You might set it up like this:
these new house cleaning supplies work faster. Think about it like this: there are two ways to paint a house. You can do it by hand, or by sprayer. The sprayer will get the job done roughly 5 times as fast. Now get this: with a sprayer, you also get a better paint job because it applies much more paint. So it’s the best of both worlds. That’s what it likes with these cleaning products – quicker and better.
Speaking of paint, a recent study was done where they found several “carcinogenic ingredients” shared by the deadliest paints… and guess what? Those are also found in most common household cleaning products. What’s this mean? It’s simple: not only are you killing the environment with these cleaners… You’re killing yourself!
Okay, not the greatest example, but strong none-the-less. Far better than coming out and saying “you’re killing yourself!” The build up makes it much more natural. Hits the same benefits. But in a way that will allow them to come to their own conclusion before you even present it.
This is powerful, powerful stuff. All I did was follow a formula. Found a compelling piece of evidence. Set it up with a metaphor. This allowed me to then use it as a transition to present that compelling piece of evidence.
Now you tell me any other copywriter out there that is giving away secrets like this for free. Aren’t you glad you’re on my email list?
