3 reasons to 3+ your prospect

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Negotiation expert Jim Camp promoted a technique he called 3+. Camp said to cover each point of your negotiation at least 3 times in slightly different language.

“So you’re saying you want to subscribe to my email newsletter today. Is that right?”

“Are there any reasons you’d rather wait to subscribe?”

“And if you do get to the end of this post where the optin is, would you still be interested in subscribing? Are you sure?”

Camp did 3+ because he wanted to get to a decision that sticks, rather than just a flaky agreement.

But you can do something similar to get a click or a purchase from a prospect, even a flaky one. All you have to do is repeat your basic promise at least three times.

Don’t worry about annoying your reader. You won’t annoy him, as long as you surround your promise with new info. Phrase your promise in a new and surprising way. But keep hammering away at it.

Really? Yes. Because there are at least three reasons why this 3+ stuff works in sales copy.

One is that repetition creates belief. It shouldn’t, but it does. Just look at the stump speeches of politicians, or the headlines of the major news outlets. Repeat an outlandish idea one, two, three or more times, and people will adopt it as their own.

But that’s not all. Because repetition also creates desire. You’re greasing the groove.

Promise me something once, and I only hear your words. Promise me something twice, and I’m starting to imagine your promise being a reality. Make the same promise three or more times, and I’m getting impatient for the outcome.

But there’s a third and possibly most important reason to repeat your message over and over and over. And that’s the fact we’re living in a noisy world. Your reader doesn’t hear your whole message. He is distracted. He skims. He checks his phone. His mind is elsewhere.

You think you have his whole attention. You don’t. But you can still get your message across, if you keep repeating it. How many times? At least three. More is better.

None of this is new. Almost 300 years ago, Samuel Johnson said:

“Promise, large promise, is the soul of an advertisement.”

You might already know that quote. What few people know is that Johnson kept talking after the dictaphone stopped recording.

“Yes,” Johnson said, “promise is the soul of an advertisement. But repetition, constant repetition, is the body of an advertisement. So keep repeating your promise to make it more real. Even if you get tired of it. Over and over. Because eventually, your prospect will hear you. And then he will buy.”

By the way, remember that 3+ from the start of this post? About subscribing to my email newsletter? You do?

Well, I’m not sure if you’re still up for subscribing. In case you are, here’s where to go.

BEJ cage match: Derek Johanson vs. John Carlton

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Over the past 24 hours, I got two interesting emails in conflict with each other.

The first email is from Derek Johanson, the guy who created Copy Hour. Derek’s email is about how much of direct response copy is “over-the-top bad,” with claims of “effortless” results. Or as Derek puts it, “pop a pill, overnight success type stuff.”

Derek’s message is that we can and should do better.

Then there’s an email that John Carlton sent. Carlton probably needs no introduction. But if you’re new to direct response, then know that John Carlton is one of the most successful and influential copywriters of all time. He writes:

“Most humans are a walking shrink session, with all their deepest and most humiliating secrets just spewing off of them all the time. […] Most folks just stumble through life half-asleep. Too caught up inside their own heads to realize what’s actually going on at the meta-level. […] Knowing this, you automatically have an enormous advantage in all negotiations. Something to put in your tool kit, anyway.”

Of course, both Derek and John are right. Most direct response copy is pretty awful. And that’s because, if it works, it probably speaks to your prospect’s deepest and darkest insecurities.

Prod at somebody’s insecurities… and you’ll see him at his most grateful, passionate, engaged, hopeful, and willing to spend money.

But are you doing your prospect a service in this way?

You can claim you are. Obviously he responds intensely… and you might be able to help.

Or you can claim you are not. After all, you are poking into a wound and making sure it never heals.

So what’s the conclusion?

I think it’s a personal choice you have to make. And I think it runs deeper than just how ugly and hard-hitting you are willing to make your copy.

Should we look for acceptance and gratitude of what we have, like a cow on a pasture? Or is there value in endless striving, like a hamster in a wheel?

I have my own esoteric opinion on this matter. But that’s getting into quirky stuff… and it’s probably not why you signed up for these emails.

Still, this topic is something to keep in the back of your mind as you navigate your own career. If you come clean to yourself with your own feelings about it, you might find yourself both more successful and more at peace with what you’re doing. “Something to put in your tool kit, anyway.”

Anyways, maybe you want more stuff like this. Maybe you are afraid to miss out on good ideas. Or you just want to always improve, and are looking for any good way to do so.

In that case, you might like to subscribe to my email newsletter on persuasion and marketing. Here’s where you can do that.

The dumbest way to make more money?

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A few weeks ago, while researching one of these posts in which I mentioned premier marketer Jay Abraham, I came across a great story.

It was told by a guy named Andrew Wood. And it’s about the easiest, and possibly dumbest, way to make more money. The story goes like this:

Back in the early 2000s, Andrew Wood ran an info publishing business, teaching marketing to karate schools. Wood knew what he was talking about, because he had previously created and then sold a chain of 400 karate schools.

Wood’s info publishing business was pulling in good money, around $30k each month. The trouble was, Wood’s expenses — business, car, wife — totaled $40k each month. In other words, he was leaking money like a beached tanker leaks oil.

So in a moment of desperation, Wood got in touch with Jay Abraham. The two met.

Over the course of a morning, Jay Abraham grilled Wood all about his business. After each question, Abraham came up with suggestions. And Wood replied he was already doing that — or he had tried it before but it didn’t work.

As the meeting wore on, Jay Abraham grew more and more frustrated. Eventually, he stood up from the table.

“You’re so fucking smart,” Abraham said, “figure it out for yourself.” And he walked out.

Wood sat there stunned. But before he had a chance to do anything, Jay Abraham came back and apologized. And he asked Wood to run through the numbers one more time.

“What are you taking in each month?”

“$30k.”

“How much are you spending?”

“$40k.”

“And how much do you want to make?”

“$60k would be great.”

“Okay,” Jay Abraham said. “That’s easy. Just double your prices! Find something you can add to the program to increase the value and double the price.”

And with that, Jay Abraham said goodbye.

Silence. Do you think Andrew Wood sat there thinking, “What a great insight!”

Of course not. He thought it was a total lack of advice. But on his way home, he stopped for a beer. A few of his employees joined. And after the third pint, one of the employees said,

“Just imagine, if we did double the price, what could we put in the box to get them to pay twice as much?”

Wood says the ideas came slowly… but after more beer, they started to flow a bit more freely. And I guess you can see where this is going:

A couple weeks later, Wood stood on stage in front of his two hundred customers. And he announced a new monthly program.

It would cost $200, twice as much as what they were already paying. The contents were not much more than what they were already getting.

And yet, people bought.

In part, because they knew and liked and trusted Wood already. In part (I suspect), because the value of what they were getting was still much higher than the price he was charging.

Wood says that in three months, he went from taking in $30k a month to $100k a month. More importantly, he went from losing $10k each month to making a profit of $60k. By Christmas, he was entirely debt-free and owned his first Ferrari.

The end. Except, what’s the point of me retelling this entire Andrew Wood story?

I just want to point out that Jay Abraham’s idea was very simple. And that Andrew Wood was very resistant to it. And even when he and his employees started playing what-if, the ideas came slowly.

And yet, according to Wood, this one dumb idea was worth $5 million to him. So I want to leave you with a question or two to ponder:

Could making money be simpler than you think?

Could a dumb idea, probably one you’ve heard dozens of times, be all you need to turn yourself from a failure to a success?

Probably not. But just pretend for a second. What if?

​​Even if the ideas come slowly, keep at it. A few million dollars might be hiding on the other end.

And for more rehashed stories, you might like to subscribe to my email un-newsletter.

Want more energy, willpower, creativity? Try “walking the dog”

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I just got back from walking the dog around the neighborhood.

It’s a beautiful spring morning outside. The streets are mostly empty because there is a 3-day lockdown in place. But a few other dog walkers were out in the jungle that makes up the heart of this city, enjoying the sun and the dew and the quiet.

The dog and I came across an empanadas place that was open, in defiance of the lockdown orders. We each had an empanada — him a chicken, me a cheese. I also got a coffee (none for him). We then came back to the apartment. I’m now ready to sit down and work.

If you love dogs like I do, you might want to know more about mine. In that case, I have to tell you he is entirely made up. I don’t have a dog and I probably never will. Even so, I tell myself each day to “go and take the dog for a walk” at least once.

I do it because I’ve found going for a walk each day is important. Otherwise I become a useless sponge at home.

But if I just tell myself, “Go outside, you lazy louse,” I will often find an excuse to not do so. It’s cold, I’m tired, I don’t feel like it, it’s better for me right where I am.

Maybe you’re wondering how this might be relevant to you. So let me explain.

Different parts of the human brain are involved when we make decisions that involve ourselves and decisions that don’t.

If you need proof, then look up cases of people like Phineas Gage. Gage got a large iron rod shot through his head and lived.

People like Gage can suffer brain damage that makes it impossible for them to make sound personal decisions. And yet, when facing an impersonal problem, they can still reason and decide effectively.

And vice versa. There are people — perhaps you know some of them in real life — who are very skilled at navigating social situations and profiting as a result. But when presented with an abstract or impersonal problem, these people suddenly turn dull or even stupid.

I believe my “walking the dog” strategy takes advantage of this quirk of the human brain. I might not want to go for a walk, even though it’s good for me. But the dog? He needs to go, or he’s going to whine and pee all over the place. So I put my shoes on and we go out together so he can do his business.

You don’t have to go all crazy like I do. But you too can use a trick like this.

If there is something you know you want to do, but cannot force yourself into… then reframe it as an impersonal problem.

Imagine you’re making the decision for someone else. Or convince yourself you’re being controlled by an outside force. Or do it for the human race… for your family… or just for your pet — even if you have to make him up.

Figure out something that works for you. Because you might find you have reserves of energy, willpower, and creativity you never could access before. And you might even meet some cool people at the dog park, while you’re sitting alone and yelling at the air that it’s time to go home.

Woof.

Would you like to subscribe to my email newsletter? It’s where I share copywriting and marketing advice, along with pictures of my dog as we travel the world together. Click here to sign up.

Can this A-list advice replace your customer avatar?

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You’ve probably heard the ancient advice to write your sales copy to a customer avatar.

In other words, rather than thinking of your market as a gassy cloud, without substance or a face… you come up with a real person to represent your ideal customer.

So you have their name… a little blurb of who they are and what they want and what their problems are… and maybe even a photo you can look at.

And the advice is to write to this one person. Because instead of writing something vague and unbelievable… you will write something specific and real.

Sounds good. Except:

Your target audience might not be one single type of person. It might be two or three or more. For example, this daily newsletter I write? It goes out to business owners, marketers, established copywriters, and newbie copywriters.

Also, even though a customer avatar should be based on research… I find that in practice, it’s often an invention of the marketer’s mind. Because of this, a customer avatar can be misleading rather than helpful.

And as a third problem, a customer avatar might focus on the wrong things. Demographic info is often not relevant to making your sale. On the other hand, an avatar might miss crucial information to making the sale that is relevant. Two people standing shoulder by shoulder in the same market can be very different from each other.

So should you take your avatar and set it on fire, like the “Año Viejo” doll that Colombians burn on New Year’s Eve?

I’m not saying that. But there is an alternative to a customer avatar for you to consider.

It’s something I heard during a recent binge of listening to interviews with A-list copywriter Parris Lampropoulos.

Parris said to find the top 3 psychographic characteristics of your list. For example, for the Boardroom offers Parris often wrote for, these three characteristics were:

1. Paranoid (typical angles: What your bank doesn’t want you to know, 12 smiling swindlers)

2. Looking for an “angle” (a secret, a loophole, a way to get over)

3. Like to brag about how smart they are

When you figure out these top 3 psychographic characteristics, you can use them to inform your offers, your headlines, and your body copy. Take a look at any Boardroom control ever, and you will see it in practice. Something like, “Money-saving secrets your CPA is too dumb to know about.”

But your market might be different. Maybe they are gullible rather than skeptical. Maybe they need more proof than promises. Maybe they want a push-button solution, or maybe they have been trained to believe only hard work produces good results.

You can find all this out. Just look at what they’ve bought before… the copy that worked to sell them… and the copy that bombed.

Odds are, you will see patterns, unique insights, which might be different from standard copywriting dogma about what buttons you should push.

Write to these characteristics instead of to a made-up customer avatar… and you might develop magical persuasion powers, by tapping in to your prospect’s deep and unconscious triggers.

And for more information like this:

I have an email un-newsletter, full of age-old wisdom like what you just read. If you’d like to subscribe, click here and follow the simple instructions.

The primacy of feeling

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Imagine you wake up tomorrow, lying in bed.

Your family is around you, looking both relieved and concerned.

“What’s the matter?” you ask.

A doctor steps forward from somewhere.

“You’ve just come out of a coma,” he says, “and I have some bad news. You’ve suffered severe head trauma resulting in total paralysis.”

“No, come on,” you say with a chuckle. “I feel fine.”

You try to sit up to show everyone how fine you are. But nothing happens. Your body doesn’t respond. Still, you don’t feel any sense of panic.

“Ok,” you say, “so I can’t move right now. But I’m not paralyzed. I feel fine.”

Now imagine this goes on week after week. You cannot move. But you don’t get upset over it.

​​And when your family and doctors try to confront you with the fact that you’re paralyzed… you insist there is nothing wrong. Soon you even forget that you tried to move and couldn’t.

This might sound like a bizarre scene to paint. But the fact is, it’s something that does happen in real life.

It’s a condition known as anosognosia. It’s caused by just the right kind of brain damage. And it makes people who suffer from it unaware of their disease or disability — even paralysis or blindness.

I read about anosognosia in a book called Descartes’ Error, by neuroscientist Antonio Damasio.

​​Damasio’s book is all about the role of emotions in normal human functioning.Because anosognosia isn’t just about thinking you’re fine when you’re not.

This condition also comes with a strange emotional bluntness. ​​You don’t get upset about the whole situation.

​​And while you can be forced to accept through logical means that something isn’t right — “just try to sit up — see?” — the realization that something is wrong soon disappears.

​​Because the same neural circuitry that gets damaged in anosognosia is also involved in experiencing normal emotions.

And as Damasio says:

“Somehow, what does not come naturally and automatically through the primacy of feeling cannot be maintained in the mind.”

That’s why a person with anosognosia can be forced to face the fact something is wrong with his body… but that awareness soon disappears.

So what’s my point?

Well, my own mental image of myself is as a very logical, unemotional person.

And when I first heard the advertising mantra that people make decisions based on emotions first, and only then justify them using logic, my own logical mind rebelled.

​”Ok,” I would say, “so I made an impulsive decision once. But I’m not emotional. I make decisions based on logic.”​

Maybe you are the same.

So let me tell you, the truth is out there.

Damasio’s book is full of stories of people who have their emotional processing damaged in some way. Their brain goes haywire in all kinds of weird ways.

It turns out having no emotions can even make it impossible to make any kind of a decision. And what we think of as being logical decisions were mostly made long before… by the emotional parts of our brains.

​​In other words, all those advertising and persuasion gurus are right. Emotions trump logic all the way. And there’s science to prove it. If you’re ever trying to persuade, that tells you where to focus your efforts.

But that doesn’t mean you only have basic emotions like fear and greed to appeal to. Surprise is also a good emotion to stimulate. If you tell people something new, odds are good they will be moved later to do what you ask them to do.

Speaking of which:

I write an email un-newsletter about marketing and persuasion. “Un-newsletter” because most of this knowledge has been around for decades or centuries. Still, it might be news to you. So if you’d like get those emails I send, here’s where to go.

Chanelling mass muppet behavior to make yourself a millionaire

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I don’t know if you heard the news… but there was a kerfuffle in Washington, DC yesterday.

A bunch of men and women dressed like muppets took off-piste selfies all around the Capitol building, in spite of the meek protests of Capitol building security.

What gets me is that this kind of thing can happen in 2021.

We have a large state built around national security.

We have billions of cameras blanketing every inch of our nation…

​We have tens of millions of authorized and unauthorized wire taps to get secret info while it’s still secret…

​​And we have millions of highly trained men and women sitting in dark offices, all around the country, who are supposed to detect and predict this kind of thing and stop it before the muppets even take their first step towards a riot.

And yet, it doesn’t work. That’s why we still get spectacular and unpredictable kerfuffles like the one yesterday.

One useful thing I learned in college is that there are systems that are so complex that their behavior is pretty much impossible to predict. The only way to know what these systems will do is to let them run. Large groups of autonomous agents, such as humans, often fall into this category.

So if we can’t predict or prevent massive events like this, what can we do? Well, all we can do is run with them when they happen, and try to end up on the surface when it’s all over. As marketer and copywriter Gene Schwartz put it:

“The scientist did not create the energy of the sun; hut he can direct that energy into the explosion of an atom bomb. The speculator did not create the enormous growth of the electronics industry after the war: but he can ride that growth to produce a fifty times increase in his capital. And the copy writer does not create the desire of millions of muppets all over America to storm the Capitol; but he can channel that desire onto a particular product, and make its owner a millionaire.”

You might think that’s a callous and cynical thing to say. You’re right. But it’s also true. If that’s something you can stomach, then you might like unpleasant truths I write about regularly. You can get these bitter pills when you subscribe to my email newsletter.

Slow readers of the world, unite and take over

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It’s one of the most upsetting ideas I’ve read recently:

James Altucher wrote a few weeks ago that we each have maybe 1000 books left in us to read, for the rest of our lives.

The math checks out: 20-30 books per year, for about 40-50 years more of living and reading.

That’s a depressing thought to me. Books are one of the main ways I get any ideas and insights. But it gets worse:

Because when I read, I’m as slow as a tortoise after lunch.

Last year, I read only 10 non-work related books (“Le Morte D’Arthur” took me 5 months to finish) and maybe another 7 work related books (some of which I was reading for the second time). And that’s in spite of taking time out to read every day.

By Altucher’s calculation, at this rate, I will only read 799 more books by the time I croak at my pre-appointed moment of 87 years young.

That’s depressing.

But wait, you might say, surely there are ways to learn to read faster?

I guess there are. But I am resistant to them. For a long time, my only justification was stubbornness.

But then I thought about why I rarely get any value out of “Cliff’s notes” summaries of books, even ones I’ve put together myself.

And that’s why I want to leave you with a throwaway (but valuable) idea that Dan Kennedy shared once during a seminar.

This idea might make you feel better if you too are a slow reader like me.

And if you are not, and you whiz through text, or you have clever hacks to condense and speed up content so you can consume more of it faster, it might make you consider slowing down.

Anyways, here’s the idea. At the start of a seminar DK once gave on being a more successful copywriter, he said not to worry about taking notes.

Kennedy said that if you come away from the seminar with 20 pages of notes, then he has failed. But if you come away with three or four things you are determined to change, then he has succeeded. And he summed it up with the following insight, which I want to leave you with:

“You don’t get value out of what I say, but out of what you think of when I say it.”

Here’s a final warning:

If you are focused on getting the most quality reading done for the rest of your life, it probably makes no sense to read much stuff on the Internet.

But if you don’t heed this warning, then you might like to read the email newsletter I write each day. Think about it carefully… and if you so choose, go here to sign up.

Snowflake positioning

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Over the past year, over a half dozen “Bencivenga baseball” A-list copywriters have put out courses and coaching programs.

And in case you’re wondering, a “Bencivenga baseball” A-lister is somebody who attended Gary Bencivenga’s farewell seminar… and got to sign the souvenir baseball that marketer Brian Kurtz passed around.

(Not everyone there got to sign the baseball. Some people at the seminar only looked at the baseball in longing as it made its way around the room. In order to sign the baseball, you already had to be well-established back in 2005… back before copywriting became a thing in the mass mind.)

Well, now copywriting is a thing, and these A-list copywriters are rightly taking advantage.

So they are putting out “how to” copywriting courses, and creating coaching offers where there were none before.

The thing is, all of these guys and girls have been successful copywriters for the past several decades…

They all wrote for many of the same companies…

And it’s very likely that much of what they will share in their courses and coaching will be similar.

Maybe you see where I’m going. Imagine you’re a newbie entering this field. Imagine you’re looking for somebody to follow. There’s not a tremendous lot to separate these A-listers from one another.

So is this a classic fail of market positioning? And should these A-listers know better?

Maybe. And maybe not.

I’m sure they will all manage to fill up their coaching spots, and sell good amounts of their courses.

Because, while the best positioning is to be first… and while it’s hard to be first for everyone… it’s easy to be first to somebody out there.

New people are constantly entering every market.

Some of them will find you first, before they find anyone else in the space.

You don’t need anything else but to be you… a unique snowflake.

It might not be inspired… and it might not be in your control.

But as long as you’re competent… and as long as you’re putting out some kind of marketing… then by chance, for a few people, you can become their Crest, their Fed Ex, their Dan Kennedy.

Speaking of which:

Are you new to copywriting? Maybe you will like my daily email newsletter. It talks about copywriting and marketing, and also about how to succeed as a copywriter. You can sign up here.

The latest run-ins with ad fraud

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Back in February of 2020, Kevin Frisch, the former head of performance marketing and CRM at Uber, said the following:

“We turned off 2/3 of our spend, we turned off 100 million of annual spend out of 150, and basically saw no change…”

It turns out that a bunch of sites, apps, and ad network were coming up with clever ways to cheat Uber of their advertising dollars.

You might think, “Stupid Uber. That’s what happens when you’re a giant corporation and you don’t know the basics of direct response.”

That may be so.

But I also read about a modest-sized company, headphones.com, which went from $1,200 in daily ad spend to $40… with no change in sales. This was in 2020 also.

So what’s my point?

I’m not sure… I just found this pretty shocking. I wanted to share it with you mainly because I worry that even small marketers can launch campaigns that do nothing… and the culprit might be fraud.

Also, i want to tell you about a seemingly well-behaved duck in this space of large and shady advertising vultures.

I’m talking about Amazon.

Yesterday, I told you about the lead-gen value of putting your book out on Amazon.

But what if your book doesn’t sell? No leads generated then, right?

Well, Amazon allows you to advertise your book.

I’ve been doing it with my 10 Commandments book ever since I published it back in September.

As of today, I figure over 50% of my book sales came from these ads.

And here’s where it gets interesting:

My average cost of selling a book is around 50%. In other words, when I spend $1 in ads, I sell $2 worth of book.

I would do that all day long, because the royalties from Amazon a typical kindle book are 70%. In other words, of those $2 worth of book sales, $1.40 are yours to keep, at a cost of $1.

So is Amazon a well-hidden way to print money with book sales?

Sadly, no. Because on most days, Amazon never gets to spending even my modest ad budget.

That’s why I say they seem to be well-behaved — at least for now — and that’s why Amazon ads (specifically book ads), might be something for you to look into.

Last thing:

I write a daily email newsletter about copywriting and marketing, much like what you’ve just read. In case you’d like to sign up for it, here’s where to go.