Frank Kern

Unique, slightly gross positioning through “whale fall”

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A whale is denser than water. When a whale dies and stops breathing, it sinks to the bottom of the ocean. It then forms something called a “whale fall.”

A bunch of shrimps, crabs, and sea cucumbers suddenly appear. Some of these creatures specialize in eating the whale’s soft tissues. Some suck the fat out of whale bones. Others colonize the whale skeleton. In short, a whale fall creates a whole new ecosystem, which can last for many years.

Do you think this could be a way to create a business?

I once read Craigslist was basically an Internet whale that sank to the bottom. When it did, a bunch of creatures crawled out and started feeding off its carcass. So Airbnb scarfed up the vacation rentals. Indeed.com sucked in the job listings. Tinder ate the “casual encounters” section.

Maybe that’s a way for you too to start a business right now. Today’s whales like Facebook and Google are becoming less popular. Many of their services don’t work well. Maybe you can peel one off, and simply do a better job.

Or if you want personal positioning, why not turn your hungry eyes toward a whale influencer?

Guys like Jay Abraham or Frank Kern have been around for a long time. Over the years, they’ve had lots of different angles and ideas. They can’t focus on all of them. So you could pick one that appeals to your appetites, chomp into it, and make it into a steady stream of nourishment.

Maybe this whale fall discussion is getting a little gross. But the basic idea is sound. Few things are new in the world. We mostly take what came before us, and recycle it to new purposes. So go forth and prosper, you ambitious sea cucumber, you.

Are you still here? I don’t have any more whale facts for today. But if you want more marketing and business ideas, click here and subscribe to my daily newsletter.

Suggestion: “Play rabbit” in your copy and one-on-one dealings

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Rabbits can pretend to be healthy even when sick. They can mask it so well that they go from looking perfectly normal in one second to dead on the floor the next.

In other words, rabbits can cover up their neediness.

​​Neediness is when you feel threatened, and you enter survival mode. All of God’s little creatures, including you and me, experience neediness now and again, whether real or imagined.

The next time you feel needy, I’d like to suggest that you “play rabbit.”

​​In other words, suck it up and cover it up. Because being seen as needy makes you also look weak, vulnerable, and desperate. That’s not the profile of someone that people want to shake hands with, in business or in private.

I was reviewing a Frank Kern VSL today. It was for a big launch he did a few years ago for his Inner Circle coaching program.

​​I don’t know whether Frank was desperate for this launch to succeed. The VSL certainly doesn’t make it seem so.

Except for some fake urgency (a timer above the VSL), there’s not much pressure to buy. No “You need this NOW.” No “You’re at a fork in the road.” Instead, there’s just a voluptuous, sleepy-eyed seductress of an offer, lazily smiling at you and showing off her many attractions.

I’ve written already about my 3-sentence method for applying for copywriting jobs. It involves no friendly banter, no big life story, and certainly no explaining or apologizing.

Back when I applied for copywriting jobs, this method worked great. And one big reason is that I didn’t look needy, regardless of how I felt. (By the way, if you want more on this, I wrote up this article about it.)

My point is that, in your copy and in your one-on-one dealings, don’t telegraph your neediness and vulnerability. If anything, do the opposite. Play rabbit. Don’t let anyone know what’s going on inside your beating little chest.

But perhaps the above examples didn’t convince you. So let me leave you with the words of the godfather and midwife of modern advertising, Claude Hopkins.

For his first advertising job, Hopkins had to sell 250,000 carpet sweepers. I don’t know what a carpet sweeper is, but apparently it was an important but unsexy household product.

So Hopkins wrote a straightforward letter to dealers. It outlined why his product is unique. It listed conditions in case the dealers wanted to sell it.

Take it or leave it.

So what was the result? From Hopkins himself:

“I offered a privilege, not an inducement. I appeared as a benefactor, not as a salesman. So dealers responded in a way that sold our stock of 250,000 sweepers in three weeks.”

One last point:

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How to sell a broccoli-of-the-month subscription program

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One of my copywriting clients has a marketing conundrum:

He sells an app that helps real estate investors track down info on vacant houses. He charges $49 a month for the app. It’s a good product and customers love it. But it’s too practical and too unsexy to sell to people who just click over from YouTube or Facebook.

So what to do?

I had an idea. I told him to create a course on getting hot seller leads… price it at 10x the cost of the app… and put it up for sale on his site.

It doesn’t matter if anybody buys the course. What matters is that he can now legitimately say, “Here’s how to get my premium $497 course on getting hot leads for FREE.” The answer, of course, is that the prospect has to sign up for a trial of the app.

This is not my idea, by the way. It’s been in use in one form or another since prehistoric times, when some Neanderthal started selling a newsletter on mammoth-hunting strategies. But I thought of it because I once saw a Frank Kern VSL that did this exact same thing.

Frank was selling a $397 membership program for consultants and clients. That’s a tough sell to cold traffic.

What wasn’t a tough sell was getting somebody to accept a FREE gift of Frank’s $4k course on getting clients. Of course, the way to get this FREE gift was with a risk-free trial of the $397 membership course.

My point is this:

If you’re in the business of selling a broccoli-of-the-month subscription program, give away a FREE 10-layer chocolate cake to get people to sign up.

You can even offer crazy bribes if you’re giving your broccoli away.

For example, I write a daily email newsletter. It’s totally free to sign up for it. But if you sign up for it here, and you reply to the welcome email and refer to this blog post, I’ll give you a FREE half-hour consult on any topic you may want — such as writing horror-story advertorials… daily emails that bring in the bacon for ecommerce businesses… or getting started as a copywriter and marketer.

The coming brand marketing rapture

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When I first found out about direct response marketing, I felt enlightened.

I’d chuckle when I saw businesses trying to impress with their branding. “Where are the benefits?” I’d ask. “Tell me what’s in it for me!”

I’d shake my head. They obviously hadn’t A/B tested their message.

A big eye-opener came a year or so later (I was still very much a newb). I got sucked in by an ad to plop down $5 for a free + shipping offer:

Frank Kern’s book Convert.

In Convert, Frank revealed the secret to his massive success in Internet marketing. It was precisely that he created a brand around himself… rather than selling nameless benefit-based offers.

So this was brand marketing and direct response marketing… melded together.

Interesting.

And it keeps getting more interesting still.

Because in the past week, I’ve seen two successful direct marketers (Brian Kurtz and Ben Settle) say some pretty apocalyptic stuff. They admitted they don’t track much of what they do… and that, while their marketing should always “pay,” the currency doesn’t have to be sales, clicks, or opens.

In other words, these two masters of direct response seem to be dropping their bread-and-butter… and getting back into the horrible, laughable, ineffective world of brand marketing.

I think more direct response businesses will be making this switch in the years to come.

One reason is that people like Brian and Ben prove it’s possible. Both of them make good money. And they make it seem enjoyable.

But there’s more.

Because in a connected world full of free ways to reach your prospects, it’s hard to know what really created the sale. Was it your slick sales letter? Or was it when the prospect heard you interviewed by his favorite trusted authority?

A big business like Agora can handle both branding and direct response. But many businesses can only do so much. And I suspect some direct response outfits will find their time is better spent creating great offers and making those podcast rounds… rather than tweaking their copy and optimizing their funnels.

And like I said, it might be more enjoyable. Because direct response marketing can get pretty obnoxious, and even bad for your own mental health. I’ll reveal the shocking truth about that is in just a moment, but first…

Let me make it clear I’m not predicting the end of direct response. There will still be straight-up DR businesses… and there will be demand for direct response copywriters.

But I prophesy there will be a rapture. For every two direct response businesses in the field… the one will stay as is… the other will be taken up into brand marketing heaven. And maybe, if you start to prepare now, that business can be yours — assuming that’s what you want.

That’s what I’m trying to do. And that’s why I’m writing posts like this, day after day, for over two years now. They haven’t paid off yet… but maybe they will.

Anyways, if you want to sign up to get my posts by email each day, click here and subscribe to my newsletter.

Scientists and Tony Robbins agree but I don’t

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I read some interesting scientific research just now:

People often prefer to hear really bad news rather than somewhat bad news. So for example, “You’ve got a shattered patella” can sound better than the objectively less bad, “You’ve got a trick knee.”

The reason?

Supposedly, it’s certainty. When things get really bad, you’ve got your back against the wall. You’re committed, and you’ll do whatever it takes to make things better. Surgery, rehab, rest, whatever.

On the other hand, when things are only somewhat bad… they’re likely to stay that way. And deep down, you know it.

I also watched a video today in which two Internet marketing gurus — Frank Kern and John Reese — “spontaneously” drop by Tony Robbins’s house. Frank and John want to know why so few of their customers take any action after buying IM products, and what can be done to get more people to succeed.

And Tony Robbins tells them basically the same thing that scientific research said:

The best way get motivated is not to imagine the positive outcome and how swabulous it will be. Instead, it’s more powerful to really imagine all the bad things — the despair and the pain and the self-blame — that will bubble up if you fail to achieve that outcome.

So there you go. A scientifically proven, Tony Robbins-endorsed technique to achieve master levels of motivation.

You can try it right now. Either on yourself, or on a sales prospect. Simply take the red door marked “Failure” and paint it really, really black.

If it works, great.

If it doesn’t, don’t worry. It didn’t work for me either. So in my email tomorrow, I’ll talk about some other viewpoints on this matter, and why the advice above does not always work. If you want to get that email, you can subscribe to my newsletter here.

Unique, slightly gross positioning through “whale fall”

by

A whale is denser than water. When a whale dies and stops breathing, it sinks to the bottom of the ocean. It then forms something called a “whale fall.”

A bunch of shrimps, crabs, and sea cucumbers suddenly appear. Some of these creatures specialize in eating the whale’s soft tissues. Some suck the fat out of whale bones. Others colonize the whale skeleton. In short, a whale fall creates a whole new ecosystem, which can last for many years.

Do you think this could be a way to create a business?

I once read Craigslist was basically an Internet whale that sank to the bottom. When it did, a bunch of creatures crawled out and started feeding off its carcass. So Airbnb scarfed up the vacation rentals. Indeed.com sucked in the job listings. Tinder ate the “casual encounters” section.

Maybe that’s a way for you too to start a business right now. Today’s whales like Facebook and Google are becoming less popular. Many of their services don’t work well. Maybe you can peel one off, and simply do a better job.

Or if you want personal positioning, why not turn your hungry eyes toward a whale influencer?

Guys like Jay Abraham or Frank Kern have been around for a long time. Over the years, they’ve had lots of different angles and ideas. They can’t focus on all of them. So you could pick one that appeals to your appetites, chomp into it, and make it into a steady stream of nourishment.

Maybe this whale fall discussion is getting a little gross. But the basic idea is sound. Few things are new in the world. We mostly take what came before us, and recycle it to new purposes. So go forth and prosper, you ambitious sea cucumber, you.

Are you still here? I don’t have any more whale facts for today. But if you want more marketing and business ideas, click here and subscribe to my daily newsletter.