Business Ideas

Welcome your prospect to the Hotel California

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Two days ago, on a dark desert side road, I checked into the Hotel California.

That’s not what it’s really called. But that’s what it makes me think of, whenever I step outside my room.

The place in question is a 10-storey complex with five or six apartments on each floor. My guess it has a 10% occupancy rate.

There is staff floating about without ever seeming to do anything. They don’t speak English, and they don’t seem interested in dealing with guests.

There’s also a tiny pool and a basic gym on the top floor.

And as a curiosity, the sides of the building are open. In other words, as you climb the stairs, you first see a normal hotel… and then the walls disappear to give you a direct view to the city below.

For me, it all has a surreal feel. That’s why I liken it to the Hotel California. You know, in the Eagles song. “You can check out any time you want… but you can never leave.”

Because this place is convenient enough, but nothing spectacular. And yet, some small barriers to actually leaving, such as the grave-digger staff, might keep me here for eternity.

So what’s my point?

I’m not sure. Perhaps only a reference to an eye-opening insight from Gary Bencivenga, who was called the “world’s greatest copywriter.”

Gary said that wealth is an income stream. In more detail:

“You don’t build great wealth by merely creating a great product for a hungry crowd… not even a great product for a hungry crowd and a great piece of copy to sell it.

“No, you build great wealth by creating a product for a hungry crowd, plus a built-in way to keep that hungry crowd frozen in place and buying from you again and again whenever they’re hungry. In other words, you want a marketing system that rewards you with substantial income right away, and then — much more important — rewards you repeatedly with an automatic back-end revenue stream.”

And speaking from personal experience — as a buyer rather than seller:

It’s not that hard to get your prospect to check in and never leave.

Of course, he might resist at first at the possibility of having to pay forever.

But a sexy front-end offer and urgent copy will often get him over that hurdle, at least for a one-night’s trial.

And later, all you really need is something like my Hotel California to keep your customer frozen in place. A product or service that’s nothing spectacular, but is convenient enough… and some small barriers to actually leaving.

And now for the coda of the song:

“Relax”, said the night man. “We are programmed to receive.” You can sign up for my email newsletter any time you like… and you can also leave whenever you find you don’t want to receive it any more.

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.

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.

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.

A sales letter with negative traffic cost and highest quality leads

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“Ogilvy & Mather has had more success with editorial layouts, than with addy layouts. Editorial layouts get higher readership than conventional advertisements.”
— David Ogilvy, How to Create Advertising that Sells

One of the turning points in my marketing career was hearing a talk that Hollis Carter gave at Mindvalley.

Back then, Hollis was already a successful entrepreneur. His venture at the time was a publishing house for Amazon Kindle books.

You can do anything with a Kindle book, Hollis said.

You can rank on Google for a competitive keyword… you can build authority… you can prospect for leads.

Hollis did a reframe to drive the last point home. A Kindle book is basically a sales letter, but Amazon distributes it for you to their huge audience… and even pays you for getting your sales message out.

Sounds pretty good, right?

And it ties into what I talked about yesterday, on how to write a magalog. Magalogs were a powerful sales format precisely because they looked and read like magazines. Camouflage works, just like Ogilvy says above.

Do you want to camouflage your sales message into a Kindle book? If you do, then much of yesterday’s advice on how to write a magalog will apply straight up.

But beware.

With a Kindle book, you’ll want to cut down the sales even more than in a magalog. And you’ll want to stuff your pitch towards the end of the book. Otherwise, you risk a ton of bad reviews.

For example, I once created a Kindle book called The Little Black Book of Essential Oil Scams. The goal was to promote another book I’d written about aromatherapy.

Inside the “Scams” book, I put a bunch of interesting and valuable content for anyone new to essential oils. I also added three mini sidebars throughout, promoting the second book I was selling.

Result?

Amazon reviewers were ready to lynch me. “Just a shameless sales pitch!”

So I learned my lesson. And when I published the 10 Commandments of A-List Copywriters this last September, I put my shameless pitch towards the end of the book.

I also shamelessly asked people just to sign up for my email list, rather than to buy anything outright. A bunch of people signed up for my email list… and I haven’t had any bad reviews yet.

So let me wrap it up for you. A few days ago, a reader of my daily emails named Yusuf wrote in to ask:

“What would you be doing if freelance copywriting made you zero dollars?”

I told Yusuf that if freelance copywriting completely dried up, I’d probably start writing books on Kindle.

​​I’d make a bit of money from the sales of the books themselves… and then get readers to sign up for an email list and sell them something else.

Because people who have read your book will be some of the highest quality leads you will ever find. That is, assuming that you’ve given them unusual value in your book… without scratching their itch all the way.

Speaking of which, I sometimes share things in email that I never put on this blog. If you’d like to be part of my exclusive and valuable email community, click here to subscribe.

Why every project I’ve ever launched has failed

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I’ve tried launching a dozen or more projects or businesses over the years. With the one exception of my copywriting service business, they’ve all failed.

When I look back on what happened, the conclusion is clear:

I focused on making a great product, hoping that would be all the marketing I would need. It was not.

I just launched another project last week (my email newsletter on corona travel). So I want to remind myself, and perhaps you also, of the advice of a very successful entrepreneur.

This is a guy who has launched or helped launch dozens of multimillion-dollar businesses… including one that’s gotten to the billion-dollar level.

The amazing thing is he’s been willing to share much of what he’s learned about starting and growing a business. He’s even taken the trouble to write it all down in an A-Z book, so you dont have to hunt for his wisdom across various interviews, or buy $50k+ coaching or masterminds.

The entrepreneur in question is Mark Ford. His A-Z guide on lauching and growing a business is called Ready, Fire, Aim. And here’s what Mark says:

“For most entrepreneurial businesses, it is enough to have the product and customer service just okay at the outset. Perfecting them can be done a little later, after you have gotten feedback from your customers.”

Aha. That’s where I’ve been going wrong. So what should I, and maybe you, do instead at the outset? Here’s Mark again:

“To be a truly effective entrepreneur, you must become your business’s first and foremost expert at selling. There is only one way to do this: Invest most of your time, attention, and energy in the selling process. The ratio of time, creativity, and money spent on selling as opposed to other aspects of a business should be something like 80/20, with 80 percent going towards selling and only 20 percent toward everything else.”

Speaking of selling, here’s a pitch:

I write an email un-newsletter about marketing and copywriting. If you’re interested in starting or growing a business, you might find it valuable. Here’s how to subscribe.

Premier positioning (War is over)

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Gary Bencivenga held his farewell seminar at the St. Regis Hotel.

Bencivega’s motto was, Why not the best? That’s why he chose the ritzy St. Regis.

The St. Regis hotel holds Forbes five-star and AAA five-diamond ratings. It’s been home to a bunch of famous guests and residents, including Alfred Hitchcock, Salvador Dali, and John Lennon, who recorded a demo version of “Happy Xmas (War is Over)” in his room. At the time of Bencivenga’s seminar, 15 years ago, a room at the St. Regis cost $750/night.

But let’s get back to Gary Bencivenga.

He got excellent results as a copywriter. Perhaps better than anyone else. But I believe his farewell seminar is why we’re still talking about the guy 15 years after he retired.

That “Why not the best” attitude gives Bencivenga a position in the mind. He remains the premier A-list copywriter, while other A-listers of his generation fade into obscurity.

Now here’s another positioning tidbit for you to mull over:

Jay Abraham won’t speak at an event unless he’s the keynote speaker. Jay positions himself as the world’s premier marketing consultant. Why would he ever accept anything less than top billing?

Rolex. Rolls Royce. Harvard. Like Gary Bencivenga and Jay Abraham, these are all premier brands. That means 1) they charge a premium over what their competition charges and 2) they occupy a clear position in the prospect’s mind. Why not the best?

Of course, there’s a problem.

You can’t simply wave a wand, claim to be the premier choice, and make it true.

Conditions have to be right. There’s got to be a soup of good options — you one of them – but nobody to  claim the premier position yet. Or you can think of it as a war, with many warring parties, but no clear winner.

Now here’s the good news:

If those conditions exist, you don’t have to wait and hope for the “premier” label to land on your shoulders.

You can proclaim yourself the premier choice.

Start charging never-before-seen prices.

And adopt the attitude. Why not the best?

War is over. Your prospect finally has a clear winner to keep in his mind.

Ok, so much for the ritzy part of the marketing spectrum. Now for the down-and-dirty:

Want more ideas about positioning, copywriting, and persuasion? Then you might like to sign up for my email un-newsletter.

To be Home Aloned

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The original Home Alone movie cost $18 million to make. It went on to gross over $476 million.

For a while, Home Alone was the third highest grossing film in history. For an even longer while, it was the no. 1 money-sucking comedy of all time.

According to screenwriter William Goldman, Home Alone was such a success that Hollywood insiders began to use the term “to be Home Aloned.” It meant to have your movie screwed because it was released at the same time as a runaway blockbuster.

The point being that success can have more to do with who else is in your market… than the inherent quality of your product. This is the essence of why you need positioning. Many fine films, including Look Who’s Talking Too and Hamlet starring Mel Gibson, never got much of an audience because they competed head-on with Home Alone.

But that’s enough on the matter of positioning for this holiday. I only bring up Home Alone because, as I publish this post, I too am home alone. Except my home is an empty room at an airport hotel, with probably no other guests on the same floor.

But much like Kevin in Home Alone, I’m making the best of my situation. In fact, I’ll try to use the fact I’m traveling on Christmas (again) as fodder for my new side-project.

I wrote about this project yesterday. It’s an email newsletter about travel during corona. In case you’d like to see it, or you’d like to subscribe, here’s the link:

https://masksonaplane.com/

Hidden gold inside crap online properties

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Last week, I wrote about about my plans to start rehabbing distressed online properties. To which a reader named Josh wrote:

“It seems like the only enduring ‘property’ aspect of a ‘web property’ is its rank on the Googles. The other aspects — web design, copywriting, product development, etc. — are all ‘disposable’ parts in the sense that an underperforming site will likely need a clean sheet in those areas.”

Actually, I can think of a half dozen “gold” assets that a crap online business can have. Each can be worth many times what you pay for that business.

I shared three specific such assets with my email subscribers. But even if you have no interest in flipping blogs and online stores… this is something you should think about.

Because if you have a business, chances are you have too unused assets.  Don’t leave those assets unused, and don’t wait for a hostile private equity takeover. As Jay Abraham says, get everything you can out of all you’ve got.

But what if you got no business? What if you’re a lowly copywriter looking for work?

In that case, your chances of getting hired (or rehired) are much better if you know a bit about marketing.

Like Dan Kennedy said in that quote I shared a few days ago… you don’t need to be brilliant. Just know enough to pull out some hidden value from your clients current business… and you will look like a genius.

But maybe you’re wondering what gold assets a crap business could possibly have. Like I said, I only shared this with my email subscribers. If you’d like to get on my email newsletter, here’s where to go.