Why don’t people like salesmen?

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I was walking through the streets of an Eastern European capital this morning, when I heard a pleasant melody.

Keep in mind today is Saturday, and this morning at 9:51am there was practically nobody out and about.

But among some sycamores in the center, I heard an accordion playing. An old man had taken a bench by himself in an otherwise empty park, and was playing a nostalgic tune. He wasn’t playing for money. Just for himself.

I found this very pleasing. Better to sit outside in a warm and sunny park than to play your accordion in a tiny apartment with the neighbors banging on the wall to get you to quit.

But here’s the dark thought that occurred to me:

It wouldn’t be so quaint if the guy were playing for money. Then it would be desperate. Right? ​​Sitting in abandoned park, while everyone else is having breakfast at home, playing an accordion in the hope somebody will pass by and like your squeezing and buttoning enough to drop a few coins in your leather case. It’s like a scene from some 1950s Italian melodrama.

So what’s the moral of this story?

I’m not sure. But I think it has something to do with how people see you if you are in the position of selling yourself or your services, and in particular, of appearing needy.

Because selling something and appearing needy are not the same. But for many people and in many cases, they seem identical. That’s why salesmen are often so unpopular.

But you can get rid of the neediness and the stigma of salesmanship, while still continuing to sell.

There are lots of ways to get to this desirable place. The easiest in my opinion is to introduce standards — who you sell to, what you sell, how much you charge — and to not deviate from that. Suddenly the aura of desperation lifts from you, even if you could use a few extra coins in your leather accordion case.

For more tips for selling yourself and your services, you might like my daily email newsletter. It’s free. It’s for freelancers, copywriters, and business owners. And you can sign up for it here.

Sexy stories = dogs and cats living together

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“You could believe Mr. Pecker,” says Bill Murray, “or you could accept the fact that this city is headed for a disaster of biblical proportion.”

That’s from a scene in the original Ghostbusters. The Ghostbusters are at the mayor’s office, trying to convince the mayor to let them do their work. But what’s this biblical proportion stuff?

Dan Aykroyd: “What he means is Old Testament, Mr. Mayor. Real wrath-of-God-type stuff. Fire and brimstone coming down from the skies. Rivers and seas boiling…”

Harold Ramis: “40 years of darkness, earthquakes, volcanoes…”

Ernie Hudson: “The dead rising from the grave…”

Bill Murray: “Human sacrifice, dogs and cats living together, mass hysteria!”

Funny scene. But here’s something deadly serious:

Have you heard it’s good to include stories in your copy? That the human brain loves stories… and that stories have a way of sneaking around our inborn “So what?” and “Bullshit!” detectors?

It’s true. But here’s the deadly serious thing a lot of people fail to grasp. Your stories have got to be sexy. And what is sexy?

Well, all that stuff the Ghostbusters talk about.

Of course, maybe your story doesn’t literally involve fire and brimstone, or dogs and cats living together. So that’s where your job lies. Even if your story covers a mundane event, you’ve got to find the drama… the high stakes… the life and death in this situation. Fail to do so, and your sales letter is headed for a disaster of biblical proportion.

And here’s something even more deadly serious:

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A VSL lead idea from the Harmon Brothers Agora ad

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I watched the Harmon Brothers Agora video today.

​​You might know what I’m talking about. It’s a humorous, viral-style video by the same people who made the one for Purple Mattress — except this one is selling an Agora stock-picking service.

This video is deadpan because it moves so quickly. I counted 17 jokes — visual, verbal, and physical – in the first 60 seconds alone. That’s a joke every 3.5 seconds, and I might have missed some.

When I first saw this video, I thought it was mostly a ripoff of Will Farrell movies. But I now realize it’s actually inspired by The Simpsons, which had the same rapidfire sequence of jokes.

​​Each joke might not be spectacular in itself. But the jokes are staggered in such quick fashion and edited so tightly that your brain starts to play along.

Unfortunately, the type of humor in the Harmon Brothers video is hard to replicate in writing. Instead, this might be a good way to write a lead, particularly for a VSL in gotta-wow-em markets like bizopp or weight loss. Here’s the recipe:

Take everything you want to say, all your promises, open loops, proof, objections and rebuttals, and write an obnoxiously long lead. Don’t be shy. Then boil it down through merciless editing by at least 10%, preferably much, much more.

The resulting copy will have so much momentum, that even if none of your individual claims or promises is all that unique or impressive or believable, you will simply blitz your reader’s brain into sticking with you through the first few minutes. And that, as they say is, 50% of the battle.

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Sweet inconsistency in copywriting education

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“The most important thing — you can know every copywriting technique in the book, you can read every book — the most important thing is to understand your audience.”
– Parris Lampropoulos

At the start of this year, I got a job to rewrite a VSL for an upsell of a successful offer.

A bit of background:

The offer was in the real estate investing space. It basically showed newbie investors how to get their leads for free using a secret resource.

​​Once people bought the frontend offer, they were shown the upsell. The upsell was about how to hire virtual assistants to automate much of the work involved in the frontend offer… so you can make more money in less time.

The question was how to position this upsell VSL.

My copywriting coach at the time said something like, “This training is the quickest way to become a millionaire real estate investor.”

That might be true. But my feeling was, for this audience, it was not believable. Most of these people had never even completed their first deal. Lots of them were retirees, or people who just wanted to quit their crap jobs and spend more time at home.

If these folks heard “You can be a millionaire,” my gut feeling was they would say, “No, that’s not me.”

And so I wrote that VSL around the promise of, “Get your first deal faster by doing less.” And that positioning turned out to be a winner. It beat out the control by 50%.

Here’s why I bring up this story from my client annals:

Copywriting wisdom is full of sweet inconsistency. Many top copywriters will tell you to make the biggest promise you can — and they will show you million-dollar ads to back up their case. Here’s a famous one from John Carlton:

“Amazing Secret Discovered By One-Legged Golfer Adds 50 Yards To Your Drives, Eliminates Hooks And Slices… And Can Slash Up To 10 Strokes From Your Game Almost Overnight”

But then you have other top copywriters, who will tell you the opposite — to make modest but believable promises. They will also show you successful ads to back up their case. Here’s one from Gary Bencivenga:

“Get Rich Slowly”

So who’s right? The “biggers” or the “modests”?

Neither, of course. Instead, it’s Parris who’s right.

As he says in the quote above, you’ve got to know your audience. Some audiences will believe any promise, so the larger it is, the better for you. Other audiences won’t. So make the biggest promise you can — as long as you’re sure your audience will find it believable.

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Self-loathing in Hollywood and direct response copy

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A holstered gun comes flying through the trailer door and crashes into the opposite window. A furious Rick Dalton follows.

He’s just been humiliated on set, or rather, he’s humiliated himself.

“You forget all your lines,” he screams. “You embarrass yourself in front of all these people. You been drinking all night. Eight goddamn whisky sours. You’re a fucking miserable drunk.”

Maybe you know this scene. It’s from Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.

Dalton, played by Leonardo Di Caprio, is a fading Hollywood actor. Regardless of what he does, he can’t seem to turn things around.

After forgetting his lines on set (even though he practiced them), he’s disgusted. He proceeds to trash his trailer. And then he sets himself an ultimatum.

“You’re gonna show that fucking girl, you’re gonna show that goddamn Jim Stacey, you’re gonna show them all on that fucking set who Rick Dalton is.”

And if he doesn’t?

“Let me tell you something,” Rick says while looking at himself in the mirror. “You don’t get these lines right… I’m gonna blow your brains out.”

A while back, I wrote about psychological shortcuts our brains like to take. Specifically, the ones that relate to direct response copywriting.

Well, there’s one for you in that Tarantino scene above.

When things aren’t going well for your prospect, even though he’s tried and struggled to turn things around, his brain jumps to a conclusion.

The conclusion is that he is a fuckup, and everybody knows it. Or if you want it in quotes:

“It’s my fault because I’m worthless.”

Of course, your prospect probably won’t say it out loud like Leo above. He might not even admit it to himself consciously.

But it’s there, beneath the surface, roiling around in his brain. You’re gonna have to address it. You’re gonna have to fix your prospect’s self-esteem, if only for a few moments, if you will have any hope of selling him.

Perhaps you’d like to know how to do this. Well, I’ve just finished writing a book on A-list copywriter wisdom, and chapter 7 tells you one technique you can use.

This book isn’t out yet, but it will be soon. If you’d like to know when it’s available, you can sign up for my daily email newsletter.

Sad Kermit noises in Bejakoland

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Whenever a big tennis tournament finishes, nerdy tennis fans shift in their armchairs and take to their keyboards to post the same sad Kermit meme.

The meme consists of a few pictures of Kermit the frog.

So there’s Kermit looking wistfully out of a rain-streaked window…

Kermit fishing alone on an empty riverbank…

Kermit leaning on a lamppost and staring off into the bleak distance.

I bring this up because I just wrapped up my new book on A-list copywriting commandments. This is something I’ve been working for the past month. And now it’s done.

I’ve asked a friend to read over it and give me final feedback… I’ve ordered a cover for it online… and inshallah, I will publish it in the next few days.

And then what?

I’m grunting those same sad Kermit noises right now. Or if you prefer, I’m looking for ideas for the next one-month project.

Now here’s a quick lesson I want to share with you:

I heard it from Ben Settle. Ben, who makes a play of being contrarian and dismissive, said you should never survey your audience or your customers about the next product you should create.

It’s the old Gary Halbert movie/play argument. Gary would give lectures and he’d ask the audience which they preferred, going to a play or to a movie.

Everybody said they preferred plays.

Bull, Gary would say. And to prove it, he’d ask people to raise their hand if they’d been to a play in the last week.

No hands.

How many had been to a movie?

Many hands.

That’s why Ben, himself a big student of Gary Halbert, says that if you want to ask your list anything, ask them what they bought recently.

I asked this question today of the people subscribed to my email newsletter. We will see what the responses will be.

By the way, I don’t only ask and query my list for ideas. Lots of time I give out ideas, and sometimes even more tangible things, too.

Of course, you have to be on my email newsletter to get any of this. In case you’d like to subscribe right now, click here.

Making missed opportunities hurt

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I’m at the seaside for a few days. Last night, after the fortieth glass of aperol, the decision was made to go for an “early-morning swim” today.

Today however, thanks to that same aperol, morning came later than usual. And then there was breakfast and some packing and a bit of standing around on the balcony. The early-morning swim plans turned into mid-day swim plans.

And then it started to rain. There would be no swimming after all.

Typical. At least in my life. Because in my experience, you can screw up in two ways:

You can take action and do something dumb… or you can not take action and miss an opportunity.

I’ve noticed in my own life that I’m much more likely to not take action, just like this morning, than to get overeager and get into trouble.

And I guess I am not the only one.

I read in Daniel Kahmenan’s Thinking Fast and Slow that we humans have a reliable bias in this direction.

It’s not just laziness.

But somewhere deep down in our monkey and lizard brains, we believe we will regret a mistake much more if we actively did something to bring it about… rather than if we just sat by, staring out the window, watching the clouds gather.

If Kahneman is right — and why wouldn’t he be, the guy’s got a Nobel Prize after all — then it’s another notch in favor of writing over-the-top, emotionally supercharged, manipulative sales copy.

Because sales copy, in spite of what many people will tell you, is not just like an ordinary conversation. You can’t just present a sober, reasoned argument and have people jumping out of bed.

Instead, you’ve got to create such desperation and fury in your prospect’s mind not only to overcome his natural laziness… but to overcome his fear of trudging all the way down to the beach, and then getting drenched in ice-cold rain. That’s gonna take some hyperbole. It’s gonna take some drama.

Finally, here’s a vision I want to paint in your mind:

I have an email newsletter. Each day I write a short email about copywriting and marketing lessons I’m learning.

If you like, you can sign up for the newsletter here. Or you can just wait. The opportunity will still be there tomorrow. And the day after. And the day after that.

The unmasking of a copywriting replicant

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“You remember when you were six, you and your brother snuck into an empty building through a basement window, you were gonna play doctor? He showed you his. When it got to be your turn, you chickened out and then ran. Remember that? Did you ever tell anybody that?”

I had a Blade Runner moment a few days ago.

I was watching an episode of The Copywriters Podcast and vague suspicions started bubbling up in my mind.

I realized many of my own ideas, my memories, the advice I keep peddling to others… I realized they’re not my own.

Instead, the guy on this interview, a successful copywriter, well, somehow his ideas seeped into my mind and had influenced a lot of how I write copy, specifically those cold-traffic advertorials I’ve done a million of for the past few years.

The thing is, this copywriter doesn’t have a book or a course for sale, as least as far as I know.

Instead, all those replicant memories in my head got there after I studied a few of his sales letters, along with snippets of his ideas that appeared online.

To make things worse, The Copywriters Podcast interview wasn’t very insightful. Too much David Garfinkel, too little of this original copywriter.

But I just went online. And I found a presentation this copywriter made about 8 years ago. I watched it. My Blade Runner moment intensified. It’s unsettling. But I wouldn’t undo it if I could, because this presentation (short by the way, only about 20 mins) is so full of valuable copywriting platinum and gold.

Maybe this doesn’t mean anything to you. But maybe, if you write copy, particularly for cold traffic, you want to know who this copywriter is.

But that particular bit of incriminating information is something I only revealed to people who were subscribed to my daily email newsletter. In case you want to get on that newsletter, so you don’t miss out on any of my future unmaskings, click here.

Don’t burden busy business owners with your vague help

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A few weeks ago, a former client named Patrick sent a couple referrals my way. One of those turned into a largish project, the other might turn into something down the line.

So this week, I wrote to Patrick to say thanks. I also wrote that, if he wants, I would write some new headlines for a VSL he’s running that he could test against his control. (I’ve done this before for him as part of a project, and it had a big effect.) I offered to do this for free — just as a way of saying thanks for the referrals.

Patrick said great, and sent me a VSL that’s doing well and that he wanted to test new headlines on. I watched the VSL… wrote up a couple new headlines… sent it back to Patrick… and it’s getting tested now.

“Thanks for this,” Patrick said at the end, “and I’ll keep you in mind for future copywriting work.”

Contrary to what you might think, this email is not about greasing the groove of those client relationships with bottles of wine and fruit baskets.

Instead, I want to point out something else that can help you get work and form better relationships:

Business owners are busy. So when you make a proposal to them, be specific.

That’s why I wrote Patrick and said, “Do you want me to rewrite a headline for you as a way of saying thanks?” I didn’t write him and say, “If there’s anything I can do to say thanks, let me know.”

Don’t count on busy people to spend time and mental effort thinking about how to do business with you. Instead, put in a bit of time and thought yourself, and make a specific proposal to them.

Maybe they will take you up on your proposal… or maybe it will jog another idea in their mind that works better for them. Either way, I think your chances of making a connection jump up about a million-fold, compared to counting on them to do the work.

​​And by the way, I think this same “specific” approach is the way to go when contacting people who could be your personal mentors.

All right, enough traipsing down client lane for today.

If you want more of my ideas for how to deal with copywriting clients, you might like my daily email newsletter.

Why ecommerce list owners should beware high open rates

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Today, I checked the sales numbers for an email A/B test I sent a couple days ago.

Roughly speaking, subject line A had 50% more opens… 50% more clickthroughs… and 50% fewer sales.

Let me repeat that:

50% more people clicked through the email to the advertorial…

But 50% FEWER people actually got out their credit card and handed over their banking ones and zeros.

And yes, in case you are wondering, the subject line was the only difference among the two email versions, and the numbers were big enough to be statistically significant, whatever that means.

This is a dramatic illustration of something I’ve written about before. And that is, for this particular list of about 50,000 ecommerce buyers, we’ve seen an inverse relationship between opens and sales. I even calculated once that each 1% bump in open rates cost us about $100 in sales. But I’ve never seen crazy inverse numbers like with the email above.

So what’s going on?

Who the hell knows. My guess is that different subject lines 1) select different segments of the market and 2) put prospects into different buying/unbuying moods.

Whatever the case, I think this example is good to keep in mind.

I’m not saying that for your market, you will see the same inverse relationship. But it definitely makes sense to be wary of increasing open rates for the sake of increasing open rates.

So what should you do instead?

I heard a good piece of advice once from marketer Travis Sago. Travis has made a lot of money with his emails and is a bit of an expert on the topic. His advice is to write your subject lines as though you have to pay for each open. Qualify your email prospects. Use market-specific language. Do whatever you can so only those people who are most likely to buy will open, and nobody else.

Speaking of most likely to buy:

If you want more tested and proven email marketing advice, well, it’s not something I write about all that often in my daily email newsletter. But I do write about it on occasion. Plus I write about marketing and influence and persuasion more broadly. In case you are interested, you can sign up to my newsletter here.