“This is my job, Eddy.”
“You think so? Hm. See, I don’t think so. I think it’s your problem.”
A few emails ago, I referred to the movie The Color of Money. I want to do it again today because there’s a scene that illustrates a powerful copywriting technique — or really, more of an attitude that can turn your copy from a loser to a winner.
It’s right there in that bit of dialogue up top.
In case you haven’t been reading my emails carefully — shame, shame — here’s what this dialogue is about.
Fast Eddie Felson is a former pool shark. He comes across a young and very talented pool shark, Vincent Lauria. Eddie tries to convince Vincent to go on the road together and make a lot of money.
But Vincent isn’t convinced. He has a steady thing going, working at the local Toys R Us. That’s his job.
You already know what Eddie says to Vincent to convince him.
But consider what Eddie doesn’t say.
He doesn’t say, “Oh, come on, Vincent! Please come with me? Please?”
He also doesn’t say, “Can’t you just take unpaid leave for a few weeks? The job will still be here waiting for you.”
Which brings me to that attitude I talked about. It’s something I learned from copywriter Dan Ferrari.
Dan likes to say there are moments in sales copy to turn defense into offense. To take something that’s basically a problem, a risk, a liability… and to turn it into an asset.
That’s what Fast Eddie did in that scene above. Steady pay and decent work at Toys R Us? That’s not your job. That’s your problem.
But maybe that short clip doesn’t really illustrate how to use this in copy. So let me leave you an with example from one of Dan’s sales letters.
The sales letter sold an anti-aging supplement.
The problem was that most people who took this supplement had vague and weak results to report – “I feel better overall.”
That’s something you, as the copywriter, could be defensive about. But here’s how Dan goes on the offense with it:
Practically everyone over the age of 50 describes the rejuvenation they experience the same way: “I feel better overall.”
It sounds vague…
Yet if you’re getting older, you know EXACTLY what they mean.
It’s that top-to-bottom, all-over feeling of being in your prime again… and not headed downhill fast.
Of being healthy from head to toe, inside and out.
Of having a body that works wonderfully… instead of struggling to “get by.”