Podcast: Download (Duration: 41:22 — 38.1MB)
Get Notified Of Future Episodes Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Amazon Music | Android | Blubrry | TuneIn | Deezer | Anghami | RSS | More
Kevin Rogers
In the interview:
03:21 – What is it exactly you’re offering?
05:28 – A formula to establish your offer
06:15 – The most powerful line
09:40 – A story on product dumping
12:37 – Men vs. women
16:56 – Who are you?
21:16 – Do these cliches still work?
26:07 – Establishing urgency
33:20 – Quantifying time
39:16 – Chewbacca goes viral
Powerful business resources await you inside JamesSchramko membership. Click HERE
Transcription:
James: James Schramko here. Welcome back to SuperFastBusiness.com. I have my good friend, Kevin Rogers a.k.a. CopyChief.com on the call. Welcome Kevin.
Kevin: Thanks for having me James.
James: Kevin, you’ve been here before, and you still came back.
Kevin: I did. Yeah. Well it took me this long to heal. But a lot of talk therapy and I have decided to give it another go.
James: The reality is of course that you came over to Australia and presented at SuperFastBusiness Live event. Your presentation was rated as one of the top presentations we’ve had at the event because the content was incredible. You have an ability to explain things in an easy-to-understand way. I’m not saying that you’re simple. I’m just saying that you explain things clearly.
Since the event, we managed to have the recordings and members to SuperFastBusiness who didn’t attend the live are still being able to watch it and I constantly get great feedback from your presentation. In fact, recently, I pulled out the 4×6 cards and used them for a project that I was working on because it’s still one of the most tangible, easy sales systems to use when it comes to writing up some copywriting or putting an offer in a way that makes sense.
So today, we’re going to specifically cover, of the elements of that, so 10 components that you need to know to have great copy. But there are four essential components that I don’t think you talked about too often. Maybe one or two of them but certainly a couple of them are overlooked by a lot of marketers. Are you ready to share these with us?
Kevin: Yeah, happy to.
James: This will be awesome. I know that it’s hard to sort of compress things down into little jewels because I mean you make a full-time living from CopyChief.com, where you have a copywriting forum. You have lots of copywriters and business owners in there talking about this stuff all day long. Anything we talk about today, if a listener wanted to find out more and dig deeper into any of these topics, I do recommend CopyChief.com. It’s the solution that I’ve been sending people to, whether they’re a business owner looking for copywriters or whether they’re really interested in tuning up their own sales muscles and wanting to be able to write good copy.
With that said, let’s talk about these four essential elements in your 4×6 system. Let’s start with the first one.
Kevin: Great. Just to quickly establish, these are the four things that if they’re not covered in your sales copy it’s very difficult for your prospect to complete the purchase. Like you said James, some of these are overlooked, some of them are obvious but still not executed as well as they could be, and some are a little less obvious.
What is it?
So number one is the most obvious thing in the world. Simply what is it? What is this thing you present to me? And you will think, well of course, I’m telling people what it is. And then to that I would say, really, are you? Are you making it really clear and are you establishing it right away? That’s the key because when people first arrive at your sales letter, your landing page, whatever action it is, whether you’re selling just an opt-in for somebody to get on your list and get more great value from your or you’re directly asking for a purchase. They just really want to know first of all what is it? What is it you’re offering me, and is it something I need?
I’ll give you a formula here for how to succinctly get across what this is so that they can just tick off that box and then get into the real juicy stuff.
One thing I want to establish is you can do this as simply as they do with television. Think of Netflix James, right, you use Netflix, right?
James: Yup.
Kevin: So when you’re scrolling through deciding which movie to watch, and you watch like a movie a day. I’m really, really envious of that, by the way. [laughs]
James: We all have the same 24 hours.
Kevin: It’s true. It’s me. It’s my shortcoming. But you look at what they call the log lines, right? So you’re scrolling through the image of the cover and then there’s a little synopsis of what’s going on in the movie. That’s what we call a log line, and that’s how succinctly you can get across what your product is and what you’re offering.
James: So it’s like a trailer.
Kevin: Yeah, but even shorter than that. Just a little bit. I’ll give you an example of a log line.
James: A trailer for a trailer.
Kevin: Let’s see, I’m going to read you this log line, and you see if you can guess the movie OK?
James: Yup.
Kevin: A small time boxer gets a once-in-a-lifetime chance to fight the…
James: Rocky.
Kevin: Yeah, right. So… [laughs] so that’s what it is. It’s about a sentence long, and you know what this movie is about. You go, “That sounds interesting. I’ll give it a whirl.”
So here’s the formula for writing out what is it. I’ll give you some homework. Grab your notebooks everybody.
An effective formula
It’s a blank that helps blank do blank by blank. And now we’ll fill in the blanks. It’s a product description that helps the customer avatar do a benefit action by unique product feature. You can listen back if that was too fast for you. But I’ll give you some examples so it comes in a context for you.
James, you mentioned my forum, my community CopyChief. So what is that? How would I explain that using that formula? It’s a training series that helps product owners increase their sales by writing better copy with templates, exercises and coaching from pros. That simple. There’s so much more I could say but none of that matters right now. They just want to know what is it.
James: So one of the key elements, from my own sales experience, I understand that one of the most powerful lines there is the benefit action. I think that’s because people tend to product dump or just talk about all of the features of a product, and they don’t talk about what that actually means to the customer.
Generally, a customer is approaching a sale with a self interest mindset. They just want to know what’s in it for me. How does this help? But to be able to understand what’s in it for them, they have to know what category to put it in. Where does it fit according to their problem? Can I recognize this even as a solution so that I can understand how it might be able to help me?
Kevin: Right. Yeah, great point. That’s what our buddy Dean Jackson talks about, compel versus convince, right? If you stated correctly, they will fill in the gap themselves and that is much more persuasive than us trying to hammer the message into them.
“If people can fill in the gap themselves, it’s far more persuasive.”
James: It was also in the Cult Persuasion manuscripts by Blair Warren. It was such a great product, and he ended up removing it from sale. But I read the Cult Persuasion secrets and if people can fill in the gap themselves, it’s far more persuasive than if you have to spell it out for them.
Kevin: Yeah, huge. I’ll give you another quick one. It’s a subscription service that helps men save money on razors by delivering discount razors to their door monthly. You know that would be the Dollar Shave Club.
James: I think our listeners probably filled in the gap as well.
Kevin: Yeah. So that’s what it is. Number one. Really simple. And again, you’ll notice that this is all about being incredibly succinct because when you’ve thought through the elements of your product, your offer, your copy and you understand the market you’re talking to, you want to start broad and dial down. How succinct can you get this message? That’s why I love using 4×6 cards to write out these things because it forces you onto a small surface.
James: And you know, the marketer who’s self-absorbed in their own solution, they get tied up in the product description part. I saw a whole discussion recently. People were talking about platforms and the particular nuances of them. They were trying to describe or even compare, say yours or my product by platform type. So you wouldn’t go to the extent and say, “Oh, my community is built on a Xenforo platform and it integrates with a shopping cart using an API.” Customers don’t care. They’re not interested.
Kevin: Right, right.
James: That’s not a good way to describe the product. It’s too specific. It’s irrelevant and doesn’t really cover the part about how there’s a benefit action for the customer, and certainly, it’s not unique if you’re talking about off the shelf platform software.
Kevin: Yeah, right. Good point. But I guess it will be a little different with cars where you started your sales career.
James: Well this is where I learned about this.
Kevin: Yeah. But there, they want to hear about the particular parts, if they’re real enthusiasts then that becomes important.
James: Well, the interesting thing, you know, I once had an interaction with [bleep] and I went to meet him in a basement at a hotel in Sydney where he was checked in as a guest, “Mr. Black”, all very mysterious. And we met in the basement and he was looking for a car for his mom. And when we got there, and this is the only time this has been flipped on its head, he said, “Alright, what do you recommend for my mom?” I said, “Well, what does she have now?” And he goes, “What do you mean?” I said, “Well, if you can tell me what she’s got now, then I can figure out what she’d like to change about it, and then we can talk about what we’ve got that would match.” He goes, “You’re the worst salesperson I’ve ever spoken to.”
Kevin: [laughs]
James: “Just tell me about the M-Class.” “Alright.” And I did a product dump, which is the exact opposite thing to what you’re supposed to do. “It’s got ABS, EPS, it’s a twin-cam, V6, 165 kilowatts, 400 newton meters of torque…” And he goes, “Sold.”
Kevin: [laughs]
James: So basically, within a minute of telling me I’m the worst salesperson he’s ever heard from, he’s writing out a cheque for me. He said, “You know, I’m [bleep]. You should be giving me a car.” I said, “No, I really think you should be paying for it.”
Kevin: Beat it out of me!
James: Yeah.
Kevin: Is that what he said, really, “You should be giving me a car?” Wow. What a jerk.
James: Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Anyway, for most other people, product dumping is not the way forward, especially if they’re acronyms that people don’t even know what they mean. Most people don’t even know what ABS mean. They know it’s got something to do with braking but they don’t understand why it’s good for them or how it works. So I spent a lot of time explaining what that actually means for a customer. Everyone else is interested in the benefit outcome.
So one thing we would do is find out what people are actually interested in first, and hopefully, any marketer has gone through this exercise, whether it’s a Ryan Levesque deep dive survey or whether it’s an intimate understanding of your customers through a conversation or participating at a deep level with them.
You should know their main core categories or as Ryan calls buckets. We used to have an acronym in the car industry called SPACED. It was Safety Performance Appearance Comfort Economy Durability. Generally, people will be interested in one or two of those more than the other aspects, and once we found out what that was, then we would be able to talk about benefits that related back to them.
So to answer your question in the longest possible way, yes. If someone was interested in performance, then they may be quite interested in the engine capacity and the fact that it’s got sodium valve lifters or chrome vanadium in there somewhere and all this sort of stuff.
Kevin: Yeah. And the difference obviously between men and women comes into play here, right, because guys typically want to be able to spout that stuff off to their buddies you know at the gym, and women just want to hear five-star safety rating if they’re moms, right?
James: Well, that’s a very broad sweeping generalization.
Kevin: It is.
James: For the most part, the industry is guilty of ignoring the woman altogether and focusing on the man, even if the man is there to protect the woman from being bullied by the aggressive and ignorant salesperson.
Kevin: I’m a sexist. I’m just going for my own experience.
James: And I’m sure we’re going to get comments about this. But that’s the number one complaint. You know, the car’s for the lady, it’s her decision, it’s her car, and they just keep talking to the man and ignoring the lady. It’s like…
Kevin: Yeah, that’s bad.
James: …101. You’ve got to find out who the vehicle is actually for, and you direct your attention to the decision maker. By the way, the woman is pretty much always the decision maker, even if the man thinks he is. I think 80% of the time, the woman is influencing the decision.
Kevin: That’s what they say. I don’t believe it, but I think it’s true. [laughs]
James: I know plenty of women who are interested in the tech and the performance.
Kevin: Yeah, absolutely.
James: I know a rev head convertible driver who drives stick shifts and would hate to be put into a safety bucket.
Kevin: Right, exactly. I agree with that. I’m backtracking now. You made me feel sexist. A good salesperson, when my wife and I go, he says, “Who’s the primary driver of the car?” I say, “My wife.” He says, “OK, great.” He immediately ignores me, turns right to her and says, “What’s the most important thing for you in a car?” And she says, “Safety.”
James: That’s right on track. Then what I would be doing is I used to actually say, “Why don’t we go and pick the kids up from school and you can drive it over the speed humps and get used to the feel around between your house and the school run where you’re driving every day.” Because you ought to have been investigating, and you know that they’ve got kids, they do the school pick up and drop off, and that’s why they want it safe to carry the kids around. So you take them to their direct experience. So in this case, the benefit action is that they can transport their kids in better safety.
Kevin: Right.
James: In fact, I remember one of the best sales that I ever had was this old couple, and they were comparing the Mercedes to the Jaguar. He had this sort of old childhood reminiscing about the Jaguar and stuff and at the end, when it was just down to the wire, I said, “Mr. such and such,” I won’t say his name just for privacy, “You did say earlier that you’re using the vehicle to pick up your grand kids from school.” And he said, “Yes.” I said, “Well, really then, it’s not a choice at all.” And he said, “What do you mean?” I said, “Well Mercedes Benz pretty much wrote the book on safety. If that’s the primary reason for the vehicle then I think your choice is made.” They ordered the car on the spot. It was lovely.
Kevin: Nice.
“Nail the benefit action.”
James: So it’s very important to nail the benefit action that’s relevant to your customer.
Kevin: Yes. And we’ve established something important here. And that is that [bleep] could never survive selling Mercedes to women.
James: Probably not. He’s an interesting character.
Kevin: Yes. Alright great. So you want to move on to number two?
James: Yes please.
Kevin: Perfect. That was really fascinating by the way. I love going back into your archive like that.
James: Oh, there’s so many stories. And our common friend, John Carlton, and I say common because we share him as a friend, not because he’s anything less than ordinary. He says to me often, “Schrak,” because he can’t say my name properly, “You should be talking about these stories, not all the other sh** that you talk about from stage or whatever.” So I will try and bring some blast from the past, some interesting anecdotes if it’s relevant. But sales is where I spent two decades, plenty of ammo in the chamber there.
Point number two.
Who are you?
Kevin: Alright, point number two. So we covered what is it. Number two is the second, most obvious one, which is who are you. Once you’ve established what you’re offering and they’ve agreed that it’s something they need, of course they want to know, well who are you and why should I trust you?
So here’s where there’s a lot of formulas, I’m pretty well known for helping people create great, little sales stories with like the 60-second sales hook and other things that I pulled for my date.
James: And where can people get that, just out of curiosity?
Kevin: They can find that at CopyChief.com.
James: Beautiful.
Kevin: They can get a free download of the book.
James: One stop shop.
Kevin: It is. I learned from the best. That’s where I take a joke formula for my standup comedy days and turned it into a sales formula just by changing the last part. It’s very effective. So that’s something you could use here for who are you. But I’ll give you an even simpler formula.
So you don’t need to give your whole story right here. You just need to help them have some context about you. So it can be as simple as, you know, I’m Kevin Rogers, a former blank turned blank. So for me, I’m a former standup comic turned direct response copywriter. People go, “Wow, that’s interesting. Tell me more about that. How did that work out? How did you end up becoming a copywriter?”
With you James, so we just talked about your interesting past. What was your official title at Mercedes? You were the sales director, the regional sales director?
James: The last job, last two jobs, I was the general manager.
Kevin: General manager, OK. It probably would be simpler to say, a former Mercedes Benz car salesman turned internet business leader.
James: I don’t think there’s ever a situation on this earth where I would self-identify as a car salesman.
Kevin: Former though.
James: No I mean, still, it’s very tainted and scarred. It’s ranked below prostitutes and lawyers. It’s not that I’m not proud of what I did. I was very good at what I did and I helped people.
Kevin: Yeah, you’re right though.
James: But that’s fine. But the industry is its own worst enemy, full of misogynistic dinosaurs.
Kevin: Yeah.
James: I would say now, “I’m James Schramko, I’m a surfer turned business consultant to rich people who need help.” I don’t know, something like that. I think I’d go back a little bit. “I’m a former general manager who now helps business owners avoid the various pitfalls on their extreme growth from multi six figures to seven-figure businesses.”
Kevin: And I surf. And I’m photographed from my own balcony as I surf.
James: And I surf.
Kevin: Yeah, so you know, whatever, something in your past is just a nice thing to bring in because it gives some context. It’s a reason to bond, it helps people think of you more dynamically. So that’s like the simplest version you could do of that.
‘I’m Bryan, a former rock guitarist turned invention industry leader.’
James: So in my variation, which is close I think, I just replaced turned for used to. If I think back to the way that I would’ve described myself in the past, I would say something like, “I used to run a 100 million dollar a year business and then decided to help other people build their own businesses.”
Kevin: That’s a good idea. So just keep the credibility all in house.
James: Yeah. Well it’s harder for me. I don’t have the rags to riches depth that other people do, having not being a bankrupt or out on my ass in such a bad way that some people have. So I have to go for a slightly different tack. But the context-setting is the point here isn’t it? It’s like what are we dealing with? Who is this mysterious person? Who are you?
Kevin: Right. And again, the reason we’re being so succinct with it, because we could go into more complex story formulas here or sort of personal branding formulas, but again, it’s just about ticking off the box so that these sort of gaps can be closed and there’s no mental block to them making the purchase, right? I see what it is, I see who this person is who’s selling it to me, they’ve told me something personal about themselves, OK, great, let’s move on.
James: By the way, have you found that there are other successful formulas other than the very cliched ones? I’m sure, like if I said these, what do you call them, roles, link roles, you’d probably be able to identify them. Can you still have a who are you that doesn’t involve having been in a car crash, being dead broke, such-and-such, maxed-out credit card, or bankrupt, sleeping on a park bench? Can you still be successful even if you haven’t suffered these misfortunes?
Kevin: Yeah, you absolutely can, but I think there’s definitely proven power in sharing a struggle, right?
James: Right, of course.
Kevin: It does turn cliched because people get a little dramatic with it. But it’s proven effective. I mean, we’re annoyed at hearing those stories because people use them so often, but the reason they use them so often is because they work really well.
“Be careful what story you want to attach to.”
James: Yeah. I guess you’ve got to be careful what story you want to attach. Like, some people are committed now to having to cry from stage repeatedly and relive car crashes.
Kevin: Oh, I know. Yeah.
James: To me, that seems like unbelievably traumatic to have to keep going back there and extraordinarily manipulative.
Kevin: Yeah.
James: So I guess you’ve got to be careful what you self-identify with, and that’s where you go for deeper study, get some more research going, be comfortable with your story, but it’s really important to establish who you are. I think that’s the point here, right?
Kevin: It is. And to just add some color. Like, a great one for you would be, and you know, you couldn’t build a career off of this, you’re far from this now, but more interesting than the Mercedes sales was being a…
James: Debt collector.
Kevin: …debt collector. You know? So now you’re going, “Wow”, because you instantly go, wow, there’s some stories there. Right?
James: Oh, yeah.
Kevin: And you’ve got to have heard some of these stories.
James: They’re the stories.
Kevin: And so that’s the one I would grab. Just for the context of one particular campaign, where it was most relevant, and let me also say that most people in our industry are in a second career with this, right? We’re not talking to people fresh out of college, for the most part. And so people are often former several things. So grab the one that’s most relevant to the topic you’re on for this sales page.
James: Yeah, I think I’d take debt collector over car salesman.
Kevin: Yeah, it’s more interesting.
James: Yeah. I mean before that, I was a laborer. Before that, I was an accountant. I might be on my fifth career. At one stage, I was in the tech sector.
Kevin: Wow, really, interesting.
James: Yeah, I used to work for Vodafone when digital telephony came to Australia in the early 90’s. So I guess I could pick and choose.
Kevin: There you go.
James: The debt collector one, you’re right. I learned probably the most about human behavior with that job, and definitely, that’s the period of my life where I was most threatened to be killed, and I probably worked the hardest for the least reward in that role as well.
Kevin: Right. So there’s a lot of emotion there, attached to all the things you experienced.
James: And it definitely gave me a leg up in business after that. If you go from that to sales, it’s such an easy progression. At least with sales, you still got to get the money, but they haven’t yet got the goods, so it’s just an easier task. In debt collection, you’ve got to get the money and they’ve already experienced the goods. So there’s really no leverage on your side, other than legal recourse or having a very clever tongue, and you come up with the right words at the right time.
Kevin: Yeah. And you represent every current failure they’re experiencing in life, right? You come to take their car.
James: Yeah. I’m the failure materialized, so this is the point, this is where the car gets put on the tow truck and their family and friends get to see it, or their workmates.
Kevin: Yeah, and the only proper thing would be to chase you down the street with a machete. My only way to save face.
James: Well, often I just had to steal it without their permission first, and then ask for the money. And I might add, I was technically and legally allowed to repossess the vehicle. I just didn’t have the conversation with that in advance. I soon learned it was easier to get the money after the car’s on the tow truck than before.
Kevin: Yeah, good point.
James: So that actually lends itself nicely into the third topic.
Why can’t I live without it?
Kevin: Yes. So number three is where we start to get a little deeper, and the wording is critical here. And so number three is, why can’t I live without it? And that’s important to think of it that way, because that is exactly how your prospect is coming to the negotiation, right? It’s not enough to say, “Hey, I think you’ll really like this. You should give it a try, why not check it out.” You’ve got to say, “Look, you and I both know why you’re here. You have this problem, it’s a serious problem, let me show you some ways that it’s more serious than you might even realize, and let me show you how I’ve seen that it can be solved.”
And so when you think of it in those terms, “Why can’t I live without it?” it really ups the game on your sales copy.
James: A lot of discussions in sales around this. You might have heard it as agitating the problem, creating a gap, emphasizing the fear of missing out. It’s the sliding door moment, you know, the tale of two fortunes, one guy goes this way, another guy goes that way. There’s so many little tactics you can use in this part. And the whole point is, this is the part where you get to magnify the problem and really delve down deeper into the emotion.
So let’s give an example. When I was repossessing the cars, the why-can’t-I-live-without-it part, why they should pay me the monthly payment instead of me taking the vehicle was that, without the car, it’s harder to get to work, and without the work, it’s harder to get the money to make the payments to feed yourself and accommodate yourself and have transport. So now it becomes a much bigger problem than just a few hundred bucks for the monthly payment. This is impending doom. No car, no job. No job, no money. No money, well, it’s over, isn’t it?
Kevin: Spiral. Total spiral downward. Yeah. And that’s what I call a red alert situation. That’s the other thing for you to establish, to what level you need to go into sort of the pain, with why can’t I live without it. Decide first, what kind of product are you offering here? Is this a red light, a yellow light or a green light scenario?
James: What’s a green light product?
Kevin: A green light product would be Dollar Shave Club.
James: Right.
Kevin: So a problem you weren’t thinking about. Yeah, it does suck to pay so much for razors, it would be nice if I didn’t have to. But you were never walking around with that as your first thought, right?
James: Yeah. Oh my god, I’m overpaying for razors.
Kevin: “What’s got you down, Larry?” “It’s the damn razors!”
So that’s a green light problem. That’s why when you make a really witty commercial, it goes viral, and people go, this is a great idea, and this guy seems cool. So you see how we’ve ticked off the boxes.
James: Well, like you could live without a Chewbacca mask, until you saw that crazy lady’s video. And now they’re sold out, worldwide.
Kevin: Right, exactly. So that’s a green light problem.
Yellow light is where most of us live. It’s the thing that’s bubbling just under the surface, it’s on the to-do list to get it handled. That last 10 pounds, you know, get yourself in shape, eat better, take some dance lessons. This is where infoproducts really live, in that yellow light. Learn to save more on your taxes. All the product your can imagine.
James: I’m hearing things like, “Kevin, I’d love to join your CopyChief, I just don’t have a lot of time right now.” It’s like they sense that they need it, but they haven’t yet understood that the time would come, if they didn’t have to write their own copy, or if they didn’t have to read 50 books to find out what they could find out in one hour of watching a training video.
Kevin: Right. And so like for me, as a copywriter, I get red alert calls all the time, and it’s usually three days after somebody’s launch, and it’s tanking. And I go, “Well, you know, it really would have been good if you’d called me two months ago.”
James: That’s like black. That’s ashed, burnt to the ground.
Kevin: That’s really bad, yeah. That’s beyond red. But red is what you mentioned, like something where something’s happening and everything else in life stops. Right? You come home, and the closet’s empty and there’s a note on the bed that says, “We’re getting divorced.” Wow.
James: Well, like when I was surfing in California and I came back to my vehicle and all my sh** had been stolen. That was a crisis.
Kevin: Yes, that was. Right. You immediately go to, until that’s solved… And so you don’t need a sales letter right there, right?
James: Well, even if we’re hungry. We’re hungry and we need food, our body’s starting to scream at us, you’ve got to eat. You have to eat. And it just becomes an overriding focus, and nothing else matters until you’ve eaten.
Kevin: That’s why McDonald’s has a drive-through.
James: Right.
Kevin: Because nobody would make a sane choice to dine at McDonald’s. But when your body’s screaming at you to “Please put something inside me…”
OK, good. So why can’t I live without it? First, establish green light/yellow light/red light, and then you can start to craft that message. And so just some framing around this. When can I expect results? Find a timeframe. Find a timeframe to tick off this box. You may think, well my product doesn’t have a timeframe, but I’m sure it does. Like you could give a 10-day test drive of something.
James: It doesn’t work, by the way.
Kevin: What do you mean?
James: For cars.
Kevin: When, we actually give them the car for 10 days?
James: Yeah, it’s like the worst test I’ve ever seen, ever.
Kevin: [laughs]
James: We had this ugly car to sell, it was an A-Class. When it first came out, some journalist rolled one with a moose test. Nobody wanted to buy one. They were ugly and weird. And Mercedes-Benz thought it would just be so wise to let people borrow one for a week. And here’s the thing that happened that I thought was hilarious, of the people who took one for a week, firstly, not one bought one, secondly, about nine in 10 people who borrowed one did not return it, they had someone else bring it back as their get out of jail card.
Kevin: Oh, wow.
James: “Oh, Kevin’s busy, he just asked me if I could drop this back. He said just give him a buzz some time. Well, in fact, don’t call him, he’ll call you.” [laughs]
Kevin: And by the way, I have no money and you’ll be repossessing it if you sold it to me. [laughs] Oh, that’s funny.
Yeah. But let’s say, like with Copy Chief is a good example. I’ve done, very successfully, 10-day trials, right? I don’t just say, “Come in for 10 days and look around and see what you think.” I say, “Here is exactly what you could do over the next 10 days to get the best result out of this trial.” Right?
So you can chunk out your timeframe and then set a realistic time involvement. You know, it’s going to take you 60 minutes to watch this training, and at the end of that 60 minutes, you’ll then have the ability to do X, Y and Z. Those are some ways that you can say, “Here’s why you can’t live without it,” and then “When can I expect results?”
When will I see results?
James: When can I expect results? That’s the fourth thing, isn’t it?
Kevin: That’s the fourth, right.
James: So they kind of dovetail together.
Kevin: Yeah. I forgot to announce in the middle of it that we were…[laughs] But yeah, so number four is when can I expect results? And that’s when you establish some timeframes, right there.
James: So you used the quantification of the different results that someone might get to start highlighting the crisis aspect of how far away from success they might be?
Kevin: Right. So why can’t I live without it? So you’re establishing urgency right now, for how long they’ve had this problem, what’ll happen if it continues going on, so you’re pointing out the impending doom. And then the next question is, “OK, if I take you up on this offer, when can I expect results?” And that’s where you establish 30 days, 90 days, 10 days, two hours, whatever it is.
James: Right, so you quantify the time. So that’s like the relief. This is when the relief will happen.
Kevin: Exactly right.
James: So give me an example, like you’ve been bitten by a spider, so you can’t live without the antidote because you’ll die.
Kevin: You’ll die.
James: And when you take it, you could expect the itching and the swelling and the vomiting to stop within 30 minutes.
Kevin: Yeah, that’s good.
James: Is that right?
Kevin: Yeah, but that’s kind of a red light thing, right?
James: Well, kind of. Around here it is, pretty much everything will kill you, so we pay attention to that stuff.
Kevin: Yeah. If it sends people to Google to start trying to identify the spider that just bit them, they’re beyond worrying about stroking their chin over whether this is a good idea or not.
James: I was just shaking out my ugg boots this morning, which is what we do here, and people who visit can’t figure out why Australians always shake out their boots. And you know why I’m shaking out my ugg boots, Kevin?
Kevin: Yeah, because there could be a spider in there.
James: No, because winter is coming. But yeah. And the other thing, if you do happen to get bitten by a spider, here’s my little tourist advice: catch the thing so that you can take it in, it’ll really help them figure out what it is if you can show it to them. Show and tell. The power of demonstration.
“So what do you think bit you?”
“Think? I know. Here’s the little f***er.” [laughs]
Kevin: [laughs] Most people’s instinct is, let me get away from this thing, you know? At that point, the damage is done.
James: Here we just swat them, grab them. Yeah.
Kevin: Bring it in a bag.
James: So what is it? Who are you? Why can’t I live without it? And when do I get results? Is time the only quantifier?
Kevin: Again, these are the four things that they come to the proposition with, and they need checked off, so simple things to do, but if you miss them, then there’s an open loop for them and they’re going, “Yeah, but I don’t know how long this will take, so until I find that out, I can’t hit that Buy button right there.”
James: So maybe the quantifier applies to the result part, rather than the time part. Like, could you quantify a result in a dollar, or they got a new ability? Like, come to this cooking class, and within a week, you’ll be able to prepare a restaurant-level meal for your partner.
Kevin: Yes. Exactly right. But again, it’s that timeframe, and then…
James: Or status. Buy this SLR, and immediately, you’ll go up a notch in the eyes of your local golf club buddies.
Kevin: Absolutely.
James: When you pull up in the car park, you’re going to send a wave of jealousy through your mates. Believe it or not actually, it’s quite a motivator. Some guy once asked me to deliver his car to the golf club. He gave me his spare key for the trade-in, and he went to the golf club with his mates, they all took the stuff out of the trunk of the car ( I said “trunk” for your benefit, by the way – we call them boot).
Kevin: Thank you.
James: And they went off for a round of golf, and when they came back, his brand new Mercedes-Benz’s in the same spot where his car was, and he goes, “What the hell, looks like someone’s brought a new car for me.” And then he put all his stuff in and used the spare key and drove off. His mates are just scratching their heads like, “What?”
Kevin: That’s how cool I am.
James: Yeah. So he was very ego-driven, that customer.
Kevin: Funny.
James: He was a real estate agent. And he used prestigious cars as a sales tool to impress people. They trusted him with big property developments, because he had a nice car.
Kevin: That’s smart.
James: Yeah.
Kevin: Use the perceptions that people bring to the scenario, right?
James: Yup.
So, thank you for sharing these ideas. What I’m going to do is I’m going to take a picture of my own 4×6 cards, the one only Schramko edition. I’m going to put the pictures on the blog post, which we’ll call “The 4 Essential Elements of a Sales Offer”, would that be right?
Kevin: Yeah, that could work, yup.
James: It could work. That’s a nice way of saying, “Well, you could do better.” What would you call it, Kev?
Kevin: [laughs] Yeah, that’s a nice, tight version of it. I’d call it “The 4 Essential Elements of a High-Converting Sales Letter”, yeah, something like that.
James: I’ll put something like that. So look for that post. Four Essential Elements of a High-Converting Sales Letter, with our special guest, Kevin Rogers, a.k.a CopyChief.com, that’s where I recommend you go to find copywriters or to learn about copywriting. And as a result of being a member of Copy Chief, you’ll also probably become a little bit funnier.
So tell me, Kevin, why didn’t you do an in-car video of a Chewbacca mask?
Kevin: What is it? I don’t know what a tube…what are you saying, a tube backer mask? What is that?
James: Chewbacca. From Star Wars.
Kevin: Oh, Chewbacca. Chewbacca mask.
James: Have you seen the viral video?
Kevin: No, I have not.
James: We’ll put it in the post. Lady’s had a hundred and something million views.
Kevin: Oh, my goodness.
James: And she’s just talking about the simple joys in life.
Kevin: While wearing a Chewbacca mask.
James: She’s basically come out of the shop with a Chewbacca mask, flicked on Facebook Live or whatever, and recorded her trying it on. And then she proceeds to laugh herself silly. And it’s just gone absolutely nuts.
Kevin: Wow. We are a simple world.
James: And since then, the store went and gave her more Chewbacca masks for her family, and then apparently they’re sold out now. It’s a total green light product. That’s thing’s been sitting on the shelf the whole time, but with some good marketing, showing people how to use it, a demo… She opens her mouth, goes “Raaagh”, and the mask roars. She goes, “That’s the mask, it’s not me,” and then she chuckles about it and you know, you got to see it to believe it.
Kevin: [laughs] Yeah. This is why I’m spending less time on Facebook. But I’m sure I’ll be charmed and amused when I do see it.
James: I agree. You will be, it’s fabulous.
OK, Kev, thank you so much for sharing. I appreciate all the good work you’re doing, and also you have a podcast with John Carlton, what’s that called?
Kevin: That one is called, “Psyche Insights for Modern Marketers“, and I also have “The Truth About Marketing“, which is a podcast I’m also very proud of.
James: Right, well we’ll link those up in the show notes, and I’m sure that our listeners are going to have a little bit of fun delving into this world. Thank you very much.
Kevin: Thanks, my man, appreciate it.
Get more ideas to improve your business and your life inside JamesSchramko membership
Enjoyed the show? Subscribe on iTunes
Leave a Reply