Awkward, Embarrassing & Uncomfortable Moments That Can Fill Your Bank Account!
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 🙂
The surprising trigger that fires you (and your customers) into action
The main emotions I try to hit are:
