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Posts Tagged ‘marketing’

 

Strange Yet Powerful Motivators!

December 10th, 2013 |

Strange Yet Powerful Motivators!

turtle vignetteThe surprising trigger that fires you (and your customers) into action

I’m not sure if this is bragging or embarrassing?

Here’s the story…

Every morning at 8am sharp I have a Skype meeting with one of my gun Copywriters, Selise.

Objective? To sort out my $#%!

Or to say it in more ‘proper’ terms, “To plan out my daily schedule.”

I swear my task list is the secret breeding ground that multiplies offspring faster than rabbits on heat!

Nonetheless, something strange happened yesterday that’ll surely help you…

It’s very rare (like extremely rare) that I ever tick everything off my list for the day.

Don’t ask me why… When you’re managing a team of copywriters, multiple projects… plus your own personal clients… stuff just happens!

No surprises, right?

Anyway, on yesterday’s call, Selise said something different to me as her final comment…

I’ll tell you want she said in a minute, but first, understand this…

I’ve had simple tasks on my list where, if I’d finished them, I could send an invoice for tens of thousands of dollars.

But sometimes even those tasks get pushed back. You’d think $10K or $20K would be a good incentive, right?

Not always. Yesterday, as we were ending the call, Selise casually said, “I dare you to tick everything on your list today.”

We both laughed and said good-bye.

But something happened. I was challenged.

Maybe it’s ego? Or pride? Whatever the case.

By 6:30pm last night I completed all my tasks and couldn’t wait to show-off my amazing feat.

Lesson for you is this…

Emotion is 1000 times a more powerful motivator than logic.

$20K was a logical reason.

Conquering a challenge was an emotional reason.

Look what won? Interesting.

So when you next need to motivate your clients or customers… or yourself… make emotion your most dominant trigger.

In your call to action… headline… bullet points… chasing money… motivating staff… or boosting your own productivity.

Remember this… Let it sink in…

Emotion is ALWAYS more motivating and persuasive than logic.

It’s a funny thing psychology and emotion, isn’t it?

I dig deeeeeeep into how YOU can use emotion in your marketing in my book Client Rush on pages 93 – 99 under the “Be A Story Teller” section.

Client Rush 3D BookThe main emotions I try to hit are:

Love

Fear

Greed

Pride

Guilt

Envy is another powerful one.

I’ve crammed stacks of stories and examples in my book for you to read so you REALLY “Get It”.

I’d feel like I’m cheating you if I didn’t give you a chance to order it now.

Especially since you’re probably racking your brain for Xmas gift ideas, true?

Fair enough, here you go…

Go here to grab a personally inscribed book from me

And who knows… there might be a special unannounced Christmas surprise in there also…

That’s all I’m saying…

Think big. Be different.

Bret Thomson

P.S. If you want to order multiple copies for Xmas gifts, simply reply to this email and I’ll let you know about the package discount. Talk soon 🙂

Thtupid Copy Blunder (with an easy fix)

October 15th, 2013 |

man embarrassed iStock_000016203165XSmallThtupid Copy Blunder (with an easy fix)

A Copywriting Clanger That’ll Misfire Your Marketing Off Target

I critique a lot of sales copy.

Even from fellow professional copywriters.

I can’t say I like it a whole lot… it’s just part of what I do, running my “Project Success” team.

… And the occasional client who pays me to review their marketing materials…

Here’s a common blunder most people make.

I want you to look at your offer. Particularly, look at the list of what goods/services you are promising in your offer.

Now… look how you’ve worded it.

If you’ve got a bullet point list that reads like…

(Example)

Here’s a preview of what you get…

–       We will do… XYZ

–       We will give our entire…. blah, blah

–       Our system will automatically… yadda

–       We make sure that… dribble

–       I will send you daily reports on… blaaaah

(End of example)

Look familiar? Okay, lean in closer for this…

If you want better engagement and response… if you want to evoke emotion, believability and excitement, here’s a smarter way to write it…

(Example 2)

Here’s what you can look forward to…

–       You can look forward to us doing… XYZ

–       You will have everything you need when… blah

–       You won’t have to lift a finger because… Yadda

–       You’ll be amazed when you get our … dribble

–       You can relax knowing that our system will automatically…

(End of example)

See the difference?

Replace “We, we, we, or I, I, I, with… “You, You, You”… Get it?

The word YOU is one of the most used words in the world’s most famous converting headlines.

It instantly conjures a feeling of ownership for your reader… Even if it’s just a splinter of a feeling… A small projection that puts your reader into feeling and experiencing it for real.

You see… us humanoids are built to be self-absorbed. So play to it – Any chance you get.

Doing it the WRONG way is a missed opportunity to put your prospect in the picture.

And a missed opportunity to inject emotion into your copy…

Remember, people BUY with emotion.

Any chance you get to add emotion… TAKE IT!

You don’t have to be wordsmith… in fact, if people say to me, “Wow Bret, I love your writing and the words you used; it’s so well written.”

I’ll tear it up and start again.

You don’t want people to remember your words.

You want them to “FEEL” compelled to keep going… So they hardly even realise they are reading…

And to seamlessly motivate them to take action, not applause.

Thought I’d share that little bobby-dazzler with you…

For selfish reason actually… You see it’ll probably save me hours in the future if you ever want me to review your copy.

Or… if you ask my project success team to work on your next project

Do something with today’s tip.

Or share it with others…

Think big. Be different.

Bret Thomson

P.S. I’ve got something cool brewing up for you shortly… and it won’t cost you anything! – Those who grab my Client Rush Book will see first hand what I’m up to. Stay tuned…

Awkward, Embarrassing and Uncomfortable Moments That Can Fill Your Bank Account!

September 16th, 2013 |

Awkward, Embarrassing & Uncomfortable Moments That Can Fill Your Bank Account!

Awkward iStock_000014821397XSmall

The Untold Truth About My 7-Year Journey
To Become An Overnight Success

I was interviewed by an Internet-marking-gun from the UK last night on Skype.

He interrupted my perfectly scripted story with this curve-ball question…

“Bret, this doesn’t make sense. If you hardly read books growing up… and you pretty much partied yourself to oblivion for years… How did you become an overnight copywriting success?”

Then it came out.

A part of my story I rarely share, if ever.

In my early twenties… whilst keeping many a pub afloat with an award-winning partying career… I lived a double life.

I was also a clean-cut, wide-eyed, robotic, network-marketing fanatic.

Cringe all you like… We’ve all got horror network marketing stories… Be it with Amway, Herbal Life, USANA, Avon, Tupperware, yadda, yadda…

Save your breath… This isn’t a slinging match. You’re about to see how life changing this was for me…

Sure, I busted my @$$ for more than seven years… I was in game-mode five, six, seven nights a week.

I could barely meet a stranger without an ulterior motive…

If anyone asked me how i was doing, i was alway “FANTASTIC” – Yep, every day for seven years!!

Any given night, wearing a suit two-sizes too big and a mismatched tie, I’d drive 3-4 hours from home, show up to a stranger’s house, whiteboard under arm, marker pens ready, and show a room full of sceptics my amazing business plan…

This is me (draw a circle)

This is you (draw another circle)

These are your friends (draw a bunch of circles)

And these are their friends (draw a bunch more)

And so on… you probably know the spiel, right?

After 7 years of constant hard-yakka, persistence and dedication, I think I made around $42,000 (collectively over 7 years).

For a little while I was making around $2,500 a month… but it was only short lived… and most months i would spend more than i made.

From a business standpoint… After 7 years slogging away… some would call it a disaster.

Not me.

No way.

From a personal development and sales training point of view… Well, it was EASILY the GREATEST training I’ve ever done in my life.

You know, it was more than the “school-of-hard knocks”, ha, friend…

… It was pure “Salesmanship-Bootcamp-On-Steroids!”

… Where YOU became your own hard-nosed, battled-hardened, drill sergeant for success.

Yet, it’s a part of my story that I’ll be forever grateful for with zero regrets.

So, for those curious folk who are baffled at how quickly I burst onto the A-grade copywriting scene… Here’s the reality…

It took me 7 long hard years to become an overnight success

And now it’s time to share some untold gems from those days…

Little known secrets that’ll hone YOUR copywriting skills into lethal weapon for mass conversions…

You see, my days as a circle-drawing road warrior earned me a…

6-Dan Black Belt in ‘Sales Intuition’

In fact, any face-to-face selling will sharpen your intuition to make a sale.

I’ll show you what I mean…

Back in the heyday, I could be talking to someone face-to-face and if I saw just a slight twitch or the tinniest inflection on their face, I instantly knew exactly what they were thinking.

I intuitively knew the temperature of the sale. Meaning, if the sale was getting cold and I was losing them… Or if they were warming up and starting to believe me…

I’d quickly gauge the right tempo to deliver my message… and more importantly… when to balance it out and wind it back if there was a hint of resistance…

That, my sale-savvy-ruffian, is SALES INTUITION

Not all of us have it as strong as others… Yet, we use different shades of it almost every day.

You already use a form of it now with your partner… your kids… your friends… workmates… Heck, you can even spot it on a stranger immediately if by small expressions on their face.

Small microscopic expressions on someone’s face will instantly trigger a feeling in you… And you can tell if the person is interested or not.

Take note, ‘cos it’s those sometimes-awkward, embarrassing and uncomfortable moments where your intuition-throttle is squeezed full-ball.

Admittedly, not everyone harnesses this perception…

You’ll laugh, but isn’t it amazing when the shoe is on the other foot? When you’re trying to escape a conversation with someone who just “doesn’t get it” (despite your blatant signs of disinterest).

We’ve all been there… You’ll be as subtle as a Mack-Truck… even looking down at your wristwatch to check the time, yet the other person seems totally unaware and clueless.

So yeah, not everyone has it…

But since you’ve read this far, I’d bet my house on it that you do posses a level of ‘sales-intuition’…

My question to you is…

Are you using your sales-intuition in your marketing?

Or are you dishing up a one-size-fits-all, over-hyped message with no consideration of how it’s being received in every reading-second.

Or even worse… A meek, timid and soft message that lacks any urgency or strong call to action because you’re too nice?

Look, you have to intuitively know when to push the pedal to the floor and when to back it off.

Most (not all, but most) people do have this sales-intuition from their visual senses. Meaning when they look at someone’s face or body language.

Telemarketers can do it audibly, by sound. A fraction of a millisecond pause and a good telemarketer will know exactly what they’re thinking. This will then sets them up for the next sentence.

Great copywriters can do it in their mind – while they write. This is the highest level of sales intuition.

Like a psychic who predicts what someone is thinking. That’s the game we play…

And that’s why the gap between an A-Grade copywriter and a B-grade copywriter is so wide… it makes the Grand Canyon look like a pothole.

Okay Bret, But How Do I Tap Into My Sales Intuition?

Great question.

Wanna know how I do this? You do? Good. Listen up…

As I’m writing sales copy, if I get an ‘intuitive feeling’ that the pitch is coming across too strong, or the reader might have doubts and not believe it…

… I immediately intercept this thought and inject a ‘save-line’.

A successful save-line will buy you time and suspend their disbelief.

Example time… If I predict the customer would feel sceptic, I’d throw this save-line in…

“I know, it almost sounds unbelievable, doesn’t it? I don’t blame you, that’s exactly how I felt when I first heard this, but when I started to… blah, blah, blah…”

See what I did there?

I validated how they were feeling. I let them know it was perfectly normal and they weren’t alone. I then let them know it was safe to continue.

That’s what save-lines do.

I even hooked them into a story so it would be harder for them to stop reading, since people instinctively need to know how a story ends.

Easy, right? With practise, yes.

The good news is (you’ll probably hate the answer) you can enhance your sales intuition with dedicated research.

Eeeek!! Quit whinging… this is where the magic is found.

It’s about getting to know your target market so intimately that you too can predict their feelings and reactions.

Think about it… After years of marriage, you know exactly what your partner is thinking during a conversation, right?

You’ll know when to push your point… and you’ll definitely know when to back the hell away!!

That’s what I’m talking about.

Same goes with a gun-copywriter who is disciplined enough to know their target market… intimately… so they can craft the right sales pitch with the right flow, rhythm, tempo and pulse…

… And effectively lead their prospect to the order button to take action… Like the Pied Piper blowing his hypnotic sales flute…

Your next step? Stop thinking

Your sales intuition doesn’t live in your cluttered, million-mile-per-hour-racing-mind… no, no, no…

It’s resting in your subconscious mind… when you slow down… take a breath… relax… and create space to quietly think and feel.

…Not just think… but feel also.

So tap into your sales intuition before you steamroll ahead with your next marketing piece.

Or… If you can’t be bothered… you could scrap that idea all together and get me, and my Project Success team, to do it all for you.

That’s what we do… we spend the most part getting to know your client so intuitively that they’ll believe you, trust you and feel safe to buy from you.

Click here to enquire about us making your next project a success

Either way… there are valuable gems hidden inside this here little post, so take them, polish them up, take them to market and cash them in…

Think big. Be different.

Bret Thomson

P.S. Do you have any past stories that turned out to be a blessing for your business today? Let me know by leaving a quick comment below… and be social and share 🙂

A Desperate Mental Trick To Play On Yourself For Almost Guaranteed Instant Success

September 3rd, 2013 |

A Desperate Mental Trick To Play On Yourself For Almost Guaranteed Instant Success

A somewhat scary and gruesome mind-game eliminates time wasting and immediately puts you into laser-focus for your best-ever results

guillotineI copped a meaty, slap-in-the-face reminder from Sir Gary Halbert this morn’n.

Reading one of his newsletters, he told the story of his earlier days of direct marketing.

The days when he went from failure to failure – struggling to even keep the electricity and water running…

And then something changed.

A mental ‘click’ that snapped him into a new state.

Desperation? Possibly. Whatever the case, this newfound philosophy (that I’ll share with you shortly) led to Gary writing one of the most successful direct-response letters of all time.

A 361-word letter that generated over 7,300,000 cash-paying customers (count the digits, that’s over 7 million customers)…

… Launching a mail order company that eventually employed 700+ people.

(Often banking over 20,000 bank checks per day!)

So what led to this phenomenal success?

It wasn’t a sneaky headline trick.

It wasn’t a new medium of marketing.

It wasn’t a brand new idea.

And it wasn’t some long-lost copywriting secret of the ages either.

Well, to be fair, Gary possessed a unique brilliance that stands unmatched, but all the magic sprung from a mindset shift.

Here’s what he told himself…

“Gary, what if you could only mail one letter, and if it didn’t get a response, you would, quite literally, be beheaded?

A bit graphic for you? Look deeper at the lesson here.

Gary put this life-or-death urgency on his letter and tackled it completely differently than ever before.

Put yourself in this position – When your life is on the line, here’s what you WOULD NOT do.

  • You wouldn’t take short cuts
  • You wouldn’t get lazy
  • You wouldn’t get distracted
  • You wouldn’t take unnecessary risks
  • You wouldn’t settle for average

If you knew your life was in jeopardy if your next promotion didn’t succeed, then here’s what you would do…

  • You’d make sure you’ve researched what your market WANTS (not what you think they need)
  • You’d make sure your message would reach your hungry targeted-audience in the most effective way so it would get noticed and not lost in the clutter
  • You’d make sure your message was crystal clear with zero room for confusion
  • You’d make sure you had every single objection covered and every desire nailed
  • You’d make sure your message was irresistibly compelling, exciting and above all… believable
  • You’d contact big JV partners who you’d usually cower away from
  • You’d rally up some free publicity and all those other tactics you know you “should” do but never get around to doing
  • And you’d make sure every second was laser focused on your purpose and not wasted on trivial, time-wasting, menial tasks that don’t get results

Well think about it…

Your head would roll if it didn’t perform, right?

So my question to you is:

How serious are you taking your marketing and business?

What level of commitment are you putting towards your next promotion?

Copywriting genius, John Carlton, uses the analogy of “Putting a loaded gun to your head” to demand that level of perfection in his promotions.

No wonder he’s one of the greatest of our time.

Intense, yes, but it eliminates sloppy and lazy work.

Remember this – “The enemy of success is to be comfortable”.

The way I see it… too many people are stuck being comfortable.

There’s no urgency, desperation and adrenaline when you’re comfortable.

I’d recommend you play whatever mental tricks you need – on yourself – in order to get this life-or-death intensity in your marketing and business.

That’s the headspace my Project Success team will take if we work on your next project

Keeps us sharp.

And gets our client’s blitzing results – or our heads will roll.

Take this and run with it…

Think big. Be different.

Bret Thomson

P.S. Did this message help you today, yes or no? Introduce yourself below. I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments…

Eye-Opening Story (Censored for MA+)

July 25th, 2013 |

Eye-Opening Story (Censored for MA+)

 

perception shutterstock_96798037

Warning: if you share this story with your kids, you might want to water it down even more than I have here…

 

It’s a true story about identical twin boys.

They were interviewed later in life because something didn’t make sense.

You see, despite living in EXACTLY the same house growing up, one twin ended up in jail, while the other became hugely successful.

Let me wind it back to the start.

The twin boys were born into a very abusive and turbulent household.

Both parents were raging alcoholics. Drug taking was almost a daily ritual.

Their father was in and out of jail and frequently beat up the mother in front of the twins.

Sadly, as the boys grew older, they too became victim of regular beatings…. Often resulting in them missing out long periods of school… until their bruises faded.

While most kids their age enjoyed a family dinner, maybe a little bit of TV, even a bedtime story after being tucked-in-snug by loving parents…

… The twins had a different experience growing up.

On any given night they’d hide in their bedroom, often starving, as loud drunken parties raged through till the early hours of morning…

… Their home was a regular base for drug-fest gatherings… frequented by dangerous and soul-less criminal types (and abusive situations)… that any normal parent would never want their kids exposed to.

Let’s press the fast forward button.

The twins are in their early thirties.

On of the twins is in jail from armed robbery with a stretch of criminal charges to do with drugs, theft, violence and the like.

The other twin has a hugely profitable business, a loving wife and healthy family, contributes to the community, and by all measures, lives a successful happy life.

A journalist was fascinated about how two identical twins, living in the same environment, could turn out so majorly different.

So he thought he’d interview both twins.

The main question he asked was this…

“Why did you turn out the way you did?”

To his amazement, both twins responded with exactly the same answer.

They both answered…

“What do you expect, look at my father”

– – –

Wow.

– – –

Perception.

Lesson for you is…

YOUR inner interpretation of events will dictate your actions… and ultimately shape your life.

(That’s a writer-downer)

How does this translate in business?

Are you moaning that you’re not busy enough?

Do you think it’s hard to find clients and customers?

Are you comparing yourself to your competitors?

What are you doing about it?

Do your actions spawn from a perception of struggle… or burst out of excitement and hope?

The difference is blatantly obvious in your results.

Okay, let’s just say I took you on as a client to help you with your marketing…

You see… I’d bring more to the table than just amazing copywriting… or a breakthrough BIG idea for you…

First, you and I would spend time making sure the vision and goal for your project was set HIGH.

To the point where, just thinking about it, we’d both feel pumped-up and excited about the hitting the goal outta the park.

That’s the only way I work these days.

Enthusiasm about hitting a clear target gives LIFE to a project… an ENERGY that maximises quality, focus and results.

My team know this. That’s how we treat all our projects.

The last gig we worked on we surpassed the goal by 20% and pulled in over 600 registrations for a seminar that others doubted would even work.

Most successful campaign in their company’s history…

Slam-dunk baby.

Here’s your take-away…

YOUR inner interpretation of events will dictate your actions in business too… and ultimately shape your success.

So lift your perception about what’s possible… Inject enthusiasm into your marketing… and enjoy the ride!

Think big. Be different.

Bret Thomson.

P.S. If you want to suit-up and work with me and my marketing team for your next project, here’s what to do… Go to this page now, leave your details and let’s chat

And feel free to share this post or leave a comment below for me to respond personally 🙂