Author Archive | Lawrence

You hired someone to do some writing for you. Problem is, the writing itself isn’t exactly what you’re looking for. Or maybe it’s just not written well, or you need some changes…

Or perhaps a marketing colleague has asked you for feedback on their writing, and frankly you hate it.

What can you do to help the person make the appropriate changes, without offending them?

Try making it about you and not about the writing.

For example, instead of saying, “The chronology is confusing,” you tell them that you got confused by the chronology.

Instead of, “The dialogue sounds too contrived,” tell them you’re having trouble relating to the dialog, and give them a specific example of what you mean and how it could be changed.

By making it about you, you’re not insulting the work or the author. You’re simply offering your own experience of the writing.

This helps no matter what you’re critiquing – software, artwork, a website, etc. You can also use the phrase, “Have you considered…” to make a suggestion they can think of as their own.

Business is a people sport, and you must develop skills to successfully communicate with and offer honest and sometimes painful feedback to others while maintaining rapport if you expect to be successful.

Apply some of the tips above and be sure to give feedback without hurting feelings… Of course, these same strategies can be helpful in your personal relationships as well. 😉

There is an American expression that if you are starting at the bottom of something and working your way up, then you are, “Low man on the totem pole.”

A totem pole is a Native American sculpture that is generally quite tall, with carvings of animals, symbols and people stacked one on top of the other.

But Native Americans are smart. They know that on a 30 foot pole, no one is going to see the top carvings very well.

So they place the most important person or carving on the BOTTOM.

That’s right – if you’re on the bottom and just starting out, you are the most important marketer in the room. Do you know why?

Because everything is wide open for you. You have the chance to do anything you want, target any sub-niche, become an expert in any topic and so forth.

And you have the opportunity to turn the niche completely on its head and make it your own.

Being new is a positive. No one has pegged you as the “So-in-so” guy or gal yet. Your reputation is pristine. Your future is incredibly bright. And there are no limits to what you can achieve.

So if you’re new in a niche, then celebrate – you are indeed the “Low wo/man on the totem pole!”

Next time you write a headline, see how many of these you can incorporate.

Self-interest – This is the obvious benefit that keeps the reader on the page, reading what you have to say. For example, “Revealed at Last – 13 Perfectly Legal Ways to Make Money in Your Pajamas”

Believability – Placing some kind of ‘proof’ in your headline. For example, “Diabetes Cured in 2 Weeks – A Chicago Hospital Confirms Shocking New Remedy. No Pills, No Surgery, No Prescriptions” In this case, the third party evidence dispels skepticism and keeps the reader’s attention.

News – Anything targeted and newsworthy tends to work really well. For example, “Warning! Don’t Even Think Of Calling Your Broker Before You Read This Startling Report about What’s Happening in The Market Right Now.”

Curiosity – This might in fact be the most compelling force in human nature. The best headlines build curiosity to the point where the reader is forced to look within the article or sales letter to quell their curiosity. For example, “What Never to Eat on an Airplane.”

Quick and Easy – If you can offer a quick and easy solution to a pressing problem, let them know in the headline. For example, “Lose a Pound a Day Just by Eating this Fruit.”

The more of these qualities you can combine in your headlines, the better they will tend to work and the higher response you’ll get.

I was looking through an old copy of the magazine ‘Wildlife Art’ when I saw an ad for limited edition prints for a particular artist.

At the top of the ad were thumbnails of 5 of his previous works, and each one had the words, “GONE” in red ‘stamped’ on top of them.

The headline read, “Joe Smith’s limited edition prints are the most endangered species.”

Next was a big image of the print they’re currently selling, and underneath that was the sub-headline, “Better get this one before it’s gone.”

Of course, this got me thinking how this same technique might be used in IM. What if we showed images of our last 5 programs (assuming they are no longer available) and then used similar wording to indicate that time was short and customers better act fast?

It’s definitely something to test – and I think it could be quite effective.

It could be done with affiliate products as well, if you show the product creators previous offerings that are no longer available.

In another copy of Wildlife Art, I found this headline: “Only .000042% of the world’s population has the chance to own this.”

Showing prominently is a picture of the planet to bring home the point that so few people will get to own one of these limited-edition prints.

If you are selling a product with a finite number of copies available, this could be extremely effective wording.

Why sell $10 of stuff when you can sell $20?

Or to put it another way… if you normally sell $5,000 of products a month, and you increase that amount by just 20%, you’re selling an extra $12,000 of products per year.

Here are some tips to make it happen painlessly and nearly effortlessly:

1: Offer additional offers on the order form, after they start to put info on the form. By waiting to make the offer until after they’re begun the checkout process, you greatly increase the odds they won’t abandon the cart and they will take the extra offer.

2: Let them know that customers who bought product “X” also bought product “Y.” You can do this before the actual sale, during the checkout process or afterwards in an upsell or follow up.

3: Another way to word the “X” and “Y” product proposition is this: “Successful [investors] who bought “X” also bought “Y”, and as a result saw an additional [12%] increase in [profits.]

4: After the sale, send them an, “Important Alert: Because you bought “X,” you get to try “Y” at a preferential rate. Because it will do [benefits] we highly encourage you to try it immediately. And with our no excuses guarantee, we’ll take all the risk and you get all the benefits.”

5: Make a deal with another product owner to sell one of their products on the order page at a steep discount. “Special Bonus for my customers ONLY: When you order right now, you can add [Joe’s Colossal Traffic Course] that normally costs $299 for just $19 more.” You make more money and Joe gets to add to his list of buyers.

6: Add a subscription bonus into the sales package. “When you buy today, you get a [3] month free subscription to [The ABC] membership. If you like it, do nothing and you will be billed $29 a month starting in month 4.”

7: Add a subscription bonus with no auto-billing. If you have a subscription – such as software – that people love and get addicted to, you might add it as a free bonus without the auto billing. People use your free subscription, get hooked and then they have to subscribe to the paid version when their trial runs out.

8: Offer an upgrade to a premium version of your product, such as a physical copy that is mailed to them, or a deluxe version that includes tutorials, case studies, etc.

9: Marketing test bump: At the end of your offer and before the purchase, because they are a first time buyer (or whatever reason you want to use) and you want to ensure their success, you’re going to let them also have “X” product, which usually sells for [$], for only [$]. This works really well when the second product provides help in implementing the first product. For example, if your product teaches someone how to build a website, the bump could be a hosting package or a WordPress theme.

10: Add an interpersonal, interactive experience. For example, you might offer an upgrade that includes live conference calls or even live one-on-one coaching.

11: If applicable, offer continuous updates for a certain period of time for a larger price.

12: If your price is big, offer to take payments. For example, you might offer to take 5 payments of $99 instead of one payment of $447 for your course.

13: Offer templates as an upgrade. “It took me years to develop this, to learn exactly what to do, say, etc., and it’s made me [$x], but you can have it for only [$].

14: Offer a critiquing service as an upgrade. For example, if you’re teaching coding, website building, copywriting, how to create a dating profile that works, etc., then offer to critique their work for an added fee.

15: Offer advanced training in the form of teleseminars, webinars, live in person seminars, etc. And by the way, you don’t have to be an expert – you can get experts to do this for you. For example, if you’re selling someone else’s product, ask them to do a live webinar for your buyers.

BONUS Method: Presell a product you’re about to launch. If you’ve got a related product that’s coming out in the next 1-3 months, offer it at a discount to your buyers today. This method is so powerful, Jay Abraham used it to sell $2.5 million of a subscription that didn’t even go live for 6 months after he started promoting it.

Your results will vary 😉

There are two ways to start a business.

Method #1 is the method chosen by nearly all online marketers, and it goes like this:

You have a great idea. A terrific idea. The idea of the century.

Or just a good idea.

In any case, you think about it. You do some research. You talk to your friends and see what they think.

And then you go for it.

You execute the idea, make the product or service, and wait for people to buy.

Except that they don’t. No, it’s not your marketing – your marketing is fine.

No one is buying because you are just one more bit of noise in a very noisy world.

You’re just one more person trying to sell something.

And they don’t have time for you.

It’s nothing personal. It’s reality.

Then there is method #2:

You have a great idea. You do some research, talk to your friends and so forth.

You decide to go for it.

But you don’t start with making the product or service.

Instead you focus on finding the audience and building a list.

You build a list of a few hundred people interested in this exact thing.

Then you build your product, and you tell your list.

And your list pays attention to you.

You are no longer an interruption in their day.

They asked you to email them.

And they buy.

You can even use this list to tweak your product, validate your product, presell your product… Do you see how powerful this is?

Here are two examples of putting this method into action, courtesy of Video Fruit.

Case Study #1: 250 subscribers and a $10,000 product launch.

John buys a WordPress theme from Michael Hyatt. John realizes the theme is difficult for new users, and people could use help with it.

So John creates an email list around this theme, and then creates a course on how to use the theme.

He got 250 people who were interested in getting help with Michael’s theme, and sold $10,000 worth of the product.

From the time he thought of the idea to the time his product launch ended was 30 days.

The product itself was sold for 7 days.

Imagine if you got the same results and repeated this every month.

Case Study #2: 2,000 subscribers and a $325,000 product launch in 90 days.

Katherine wanted to create a journal that boosted productivity. So she built a list around the topic of journaling for productivity, and created and sold her journal. From start to finish it took her 90 days.

She launched on Kickstarter but used her list to jumpstart the campaign. Thanks to her list, her campaign received $40,000 in 4 days from her list, and the campaign took off from there.

She succeeded because she didn’t try to get everyone on Kickstarter to buy her product. Instead, she focused on her email list, and once she got them to buy, everything else fell into place.

Building your audience first, and then creating the product to sell to them has tremendous advantages.

Plus it’s just plain easier than building the product first, and then trying to find an audience.

Here’s what to do:

• Choose your niche – something profitable with lots of interested people, like health and wellness or self-improvement or business.
• Choose your sub-niche – the small niche within a niche that you can be the master of, making you the sub-niche ‘leader’ if you will.
• Create an offer they crave – this will be your lead magnet to attract people to sign up. NOTE: Sometimes it can be as simple as an announcement list that will tell them when the solution to their problem is available.
• Cultivate relationships with your audience. Keep your readers interested by continuing the conversation you’ve already started.
• Cultivate real relationships with your peers, so you might gain access to their audiences later.
• Validate your idea or offer with your subscribers, to make sure you’re on the right track. Ask for feedback and make any adjustments you see fit.
• [Optional: Do a pilot run selling a very limited number of copies at a discount, to get feedback and further refine your product.]
• Launch when you have enough subscribers to make it count. The actual number will depend on your topic and niche. You saw from one of the case studies above that it can be done with just 250 subscribers if the topic is narrow enough.

Does this all sound somewhat backwards to you? We’ve been conditioned to think we should make the product first and then find the customers.

But if you do it the other way around, you’ll know in advance if you’re on the right track.

And when you do launch, you’ll be making sales from Day 1, which is far better than launching, then scrambling to get traffic, and finally realizing you’ve wasted your time.

The next time you have a great idea, give this technique a shot.

There is no reason in the world why you can’t have your own $5,000-$10,000 launch in 30 days if you follow this plan.

If you have the same offer with the same amount of traffic but you double conversions, then you’ve just doubled your sales and profits, too. Here are 3 methods to do just that.

1: What’s in a Name? Everything

You pour your heart and soul into a blogpost, article – even an entire book – and nothing happens.

No one reads it. No one comments. No one shares it on social media. No one buys your book.

Yet the content is excellent, it’s well-written and it’s entertaining.

People SHOULD be reading it.

So how do you fix it?

9 times out of 10 it’s as simple as changing the title.

That’s right – relaunch with another title and see if you don’t do a whole lot better.

I know of one fellow (retired now) who spent his career finding under-appreciated books, buying the rights and retitling and re-releasing them.

He made a fortune doing this before the Internet blew up.

So go back and find your content that didn’t do as well as it should. Polish it off, do any necessary updating, and most of all give it a new title that is irresistible.

You just might have a new best seller on your hands.

2: Stop pushing your customers

BUY THIS! DO THAT! DO IT NOW!

“This is the greatest so-in-so ever and you will fall in LOVE with it, even though you don’t even know what the heck it is yet…”

Let’s face it – in the name of brevity and enthusiasm we tend to tell our customers what they should be doing and how they should be doing it.

We have their best interests at heart – don’t they see that?

Actually, no they don’t.

Imagine someone standing on the other side of the room from you.

They’re screaming at you that you should do what they say.

What’s your reaction?

My reaction isn’t fit to print, so I won’t.

Now imagine that same person smiles at you across the room, walks over, extends their hand and introduces themselves.

Next they start talking about this problem they have. That’s funny, it’s the same problem you have. And they sound just like you. They even have the same thoughts about the problem, the same worries and fears that you have.

How do you feel? Like you just met a kindred spirit perhaps?

They invite you to walk with them, and without even thinking, you are right there with them, side by side, going for a short walk.

By the end of the walk, they’ve shown you how they solved their problem. You’re elated. There is a solution! You ask if you can buy the solution and they graciously sell it to you.

What just happened?

Instead of feeling like someone was trying to command you to buy something, you voluntarily bought it because you wanted it.

All because they came over to where you were, talked to you in your own words and then walked with you to the solution.

That’s how truly great sales work. You don’t shout from the rooftops or across the room.

Instead, you go to where they are. You feel what they’re feeling, say what they’re thinking, and become a kindred spirit. Then you gently guide them to where you want them to go.

Use this technique in all of your sales materials and I guarantee your conversions will at least double, if not triple.

3: $40,000 a Month via Phone

Why do you suppose you see so many $10 products, and so few $10,000 products?

It seems like it would be harder to sell a $10,000 product.

But what’s easier – selling 1,000 $10 products, or just ONE $10,000 product?

Odds are, it’s going to be much easier to sell one big product than 1,000 small ones.

John Chow opted to sell the big products and it paid off big time. In just 2 years, he grew his blog from $0 in revenue to more than $40,000 per MONTH.

To do this, he worked a whopping 2 hours per day.

And he didn’t even do his own selling. Instead, he licensed a phone team to sell big ticket items for him.

If you want to sell big ticket products, I would highly suggest hiring or licensing a professional phone team. They’re going to be able to convert prospects at a much higher rate than you can through online marketing.

Offer a free product that totally ROCKS to get the prospect’s information.

Work on building that relationship and let your phone team do the rest.

And in two years? If you follow in John’s footsteps, maybe you can be making $40,000 a month as well.

These are three very different methods that all have the same end goal – to increase your conversions on everything you sell. Use them wisely and the sky is the limit!

How many people sitting in coach on an airplane wish they were in first class? Odds are, most if not all of them.

First class flyers get fancy lounges in the airport, preferential boarding, comfortable and roomy seats, their own special first class flight attendants, real food and drinks, blankets, pillows… just about whatever they want within reason.

The first time I flew first class, it was on a complimentary upgrade for having made me miss my connection due to an airline delay. (Those were the days when airlines thought of you as a valued customer instead of cattle.)

I was shocked at how well they treated the first class passengers, even bringing hot moist towels so we could wash our hands, free drinks, completely edible food, a soft pillow… I never wanted the flight to end.

And I was hooked, too. Who wants to go back to coach after flying first class? Not me!

Which makes me think – what if we offered our best customers a complimentary upgrade?

Think of it this way: You’ve got prospects, you’ve got customers, and then you’ve got SPECIAL customers who spend lots of money with you.

So what do you do?

You create special perks just for these customers.

For example, maybe you give them:

• Their own member’s area full of fun and useful stuff
• Discounts on all of your products
• First dibs on new products – they get to buy your new stuff before anyone else
• Discounts you’ve negotiated on other people’s products
• Special videos you made just for them
• Insider’s info on your niche
• And whatever else you can think of that they would love

There are two different routes to take in creating your preferred customer program.

Either you charge customers to be a preferred customer. This might be an annual fee that gets them in the door and gives them all the perks of being a preferred customer.

Or perhaps they have to EARN preferred status through the purchases they make from you.

For example, you could require that they make a certain number of purchases or they spend a certain amount of money with you in a time frame you choose.

In the first case, anyone can become a preferred customer. In the second case, as long as they continue to make the necessary number of purchases, they get to retain their status.

So why would you bother to create a preferred customer program?

Your preferred customers feel special. They get better treatment and get fussed over and pampered, and who doesn’t like that?

Your preferred customers will become your best advocates on social media. One happy preferred customer has the power to tell many, many others.

Your preferred customers will look to YOU, first. Whether it’s to buy something, get advice or whatever, you will be the person they turn to in your niche – which is exactly what you want.

You will set yourself apart from everyone else in your niche. When you offer the premier preferred customer program everyone talks about, you become an instant authority in your niche, which helps to bring in even more customers.

Your preferred customers will sell products for you, as well as preferred memberships. Simply by doing what’s natural – bragging about the great deals and treatment they get – you will likely get new customers coming to you through social media with no extra effort on your part.

You’ll get feedback to grow bigger, better and faster – a team of your best customers who will give you feedback on how to improve your products, as well as telling you what they would like to see next.

Any way you slice it, a preferred customer program is a great thing for both your customers and your bottom line.

Suppose you could give away free access to a course to anyone and everyone.

And further suppose that by giving away the course, you could make $10,000 a month.

Interested? Here’s how one guy (we’ll call him Jim) is doing exactly that:

Jim created a large, comprehensive course aimed at newbies who want to start an online business.

Mind you, he didn’t create it from scratch. Rather, he took the best PLR he could find and repurposed it into a massive course that teaches people all of the main methods of online marketing, such as PPC, affiliate marketing, list building, flipping websites, Amazon, selling software, creating info products, blogging and so forth.

In the course, he includes the basics of each method and encourages his students to choose a method and get busy building their business.

Then for each method, he promotes an affiliate link for the ‘best’ in-depth course in each category.

Now pay attention to this next bit – he only promotes recurring courses. That is, membership type courses and sites that bill month after month.

So when he makes a sale, he’s going to continue to get paid on it for as long as that person remains a member.

It gets even better, because he also promotes related products such as web hosting, autoresponders and so forth. Anything that makes sense, works and bills monthly is a product he’s likely to promote.

And he doesn’t even stop there. He is also creating his own recurring courses on each topic. Once he finishes a course, he puts it online and then changes the corresponding affiliate links to his own course.

He likes to make each course a set length of time such as six to eight months, because he’s found the students tend to stay longer and pay more when there is an ‘end’ in sight.

And of course inside each of his own courses, he promotes corresponding products that help his students build their businesses faster and easier.

He does all of this by first building trust with his list, showing that he knows what he is talking about, and being the reader’s advocate and teacher.

Creating the trust is crucial, and it’s pretty darn easy, too. When you tell your readers the good and the bad of any money making method, they start to trust you. Remember, most marketing emails for online business type products are only telling the subscribers how great something is. They don’t tell what’s not so great. But he always gives his opinion, both good and bad, and because of that people love him, trust him and pretty much do whatever he says to do.

So by the time he gets around to promoting affiliate links, his readers are taking his suggestions without a second thought.

I know he’s earning at least $10,000 a month with this method, and frankly he’s not working all that hard, either. The main thing he focuses on is continuing to bring new people into his free course, knowing that eventually he will make one or more sales to many of them. And when he does, those sales will be recurring.

It’s a great business model and one that almost anyone can duplicate. Remember that your target market is newbies and folks who haven’t seen much success yet in their online business.

And you can monetize this even further if you like, by promoting special deals to your readers who have been with you long enough to trust you, as well as selling solo mailings to other marketers.

One thing – if you decide to sell solo ads, I’d advise you generally only send the ads to those subscribers who have not purchased from you. It’s a way to monetize your non-buyers, without annoying or losing any of your customers.

Now you might be wondering – how do you give away your course? The fastest way to do it without relying on other list owners is to set up a funnel in which you drive paid traffic (ie. using Facebook or Google). Ideally the funnel is self-liquidating, so that it pays for itself. And you can do this by advertising your free course, and then having a backend product that allows you to break even.

There you have it… A blueprint to earning $10,000 or more per month… So what are you gonna do with it?

Well over a decade ago I bought and devoured an expensive course called “Hypnotic Writing” from Joe Vitale. If I remember correctly, it cost $1,000 and arrived in a heavy box with tons of CD’s and two thick manuals. And it was perhaps one of the best investments I ever made in learning not just good, but great copywriting that converts like crazy.

This morning I was cleaning out some old files, and ran across my handwritten notes from the course. In the notes I discovered a list of “The 7 Secret Principles of Hypnotic Writing.” They still stand the test of time today, so I thought I would share them with you here.

Please keep in mind, these aren’t so much a primer as a list of clues as to what Vitale’s “Hypnotic Writing” is. But from these clues you can discern enough valuable information to almost instantly improve your own writing, whether it’s blog posts, sales letters, emails or anything else.

1: Make it Personal

Hypnotic writing speaks to YOU, the reader. You’ll find words such as you, me, I, yours, etc. All of this makes you feel like the writing is speaking to you personally. In fact, it is. The more personal, the more hypnotic.

2: Keep it Active

Hypnotic writing is active. You’ll find lots of verbs. You’ll find little passive writing. It’s the difference between saying, “The writing was hypnotic,” and saying, “Joe weaves hypnotic writing.” The first is passive, the second is active.

3: Get Emotional

Hypnotic writing taps your emotions. You may find it doing so in a story format or in a direct narrative. Either way, the writing will pull at your heart strings. One of Joe’s most famous letters began, “I was nearly in tears…” That line engaged the emotions of readers. You had to read the letter to discover what the tears were for.

4: Be Sensual

Writing hypnotically involves your senses. You’ll find descriptions of feeling, tasting, seeing, smelling and hearing. All of this will help you become involved with the writing and therefore susceptible to what it commands.

5: Be Commanding

Hypnotic writing commands the reader to do something. As the reader, you might not detect the command as it may be embedded. But there will always be one. Ask yourself, “What do I want to do after reading this?” What you do next may be a result of the hypnotic command.

6: Curiosity

Hypnotic writing plays on your curiosity. You may find it beginning a story – but not ending it until the end of the article. You may find it promising to tell you how to do something, but it will only give you limited details, thereby urging you to order the product it’s promoting to get more information.

7: Hypnotic Writing is Hidden

You won’t find any obvious clues that signal, “Warning, hypnotic writing at work.” The writing will instead be smooth and personal, and the hypnotic aspect will sneak in below conscious awareness.

Now imagine if you actually had the power to influence your prospect’s subconscious mind.

Imagine if you could do it by using simple trigger words that activate involuntary reactions in their brains.

And imagine you can do it in writing and in speech.

You might not believe you can do this. But I’m going to tell you that you can, because over time we are all subtly hypnotized to accept certain suggestions. This process started when we were babies and has never stopped.

You wouldn’t even suspect these simple words of holding any special power. But when you use them correctly, they can dramatically improve your power of persuasion.

Yes, I’ve just given you a sample of ‘hypnotic writing.’ If you re-read the previous 5 paragraphs, and if you study it very carefully, you will notice I used three little words to great effect – “Imagine, you and because.”

If all you do is begin using these three words more often in your copy, you will experience an increase in the persuasiveness of your writing.

Imagine if you could persuade anyone of anything, because when you do, you’ll hold the power to make a fortune. Try it out next time your write, and see what happens. 😉