If Billy Budd is real, I haven’t met him in my 39 years on this planet.
Billy Budd, as you might know, is the eponymous main character of Herman Melville’s last novel. He’s “the handsome sailor,” which is shorthand for saying he is beautiful, brave, optimistic, strong, kind, likeable, healthy, and noble.
Quite a combination.
Not often seen.
Especially in real life.
For example, I’ve only ever come across a few people — fewer than 5, either men or women — who I thought qualified to be a real-life Billy Budd. And that was only at first sight.
Because whenever I got a chance to know these people better… it turned out they were not really “the handsome sailor.” These perfect-seeming people all had secret problems, conflicts, and scars lurking beneath the surface.
And so it is with all of us.
All of us have problems. Usually bunches of problems.
And along with these problems, there’s almost always shame. This shame doesn’t have to be conscious. But it’s there. And it’s powerful.
That’s why a hackneyed copywriting phrase crops up in so many sales letters, year after year. You might think this phrase is hokey… but it works. It soothes shame, cleanses sins, and opens up the reader to the possibility that their problem can be fixed.
Do you wanna know the phrase? Here goes:
“It’s not your fault.”
Try using this phrase in your copy in some form. And watch your conversions rise like a sail in a full breeze.
Because like I said, most of us are not handsome sailors… we’re shame-filled sailors. Not that that’s all bad. In Melville’s book, Billy Budd pays for his perfection with his life — though he dies a noble, admirable death. But who wants that?