Thursday, 12:02am
Reno, NV
Howdy…
How would you like to frustrate the hell out of all your competitors… and get so good at sales that people start believing you’ve made a pact with the Devil?
Okay, that’s too many satanic references in one sentence. (Though Frank Kern would dig it.)
But the analogy holds, once you learn this one simple salesman’s tactic I’m about to share with you. Other biz owners will swear at you, and fresh customers will swear in appreciation of your (Continued)
Wednesday, December 5, 2007
Sunday, 5:49pm
Reno, NV
Howdy…
One of my favorite hobbies is to go into stores and be insulted by clueless sales staff.
It used to offend me… until I realized all the really good marketing lessons inherent in every face-to-face encounter with anyone selling anything. (One of the coolest taxi rides I ever took was in Vegas, many moons ago, when the driver spent twenty minutes trying to pimp out his personal line-up of hookers. He used every salesman’s trick possible — including take-aways, upsells, cross-sells, urgency, guarantees and special offers. I actually took notes.) (And no, I didn’t become a customer. Shame on you for thinking so ill of me.)
For online marketers, the offline sales encounter might not seem relevant, but it is.
Your ad is your salesman, and your ordering process is your checkout experience.
All the things that can go wrong in the store, can and do go wrong in the online virtual sale process.
Quick example: I’ve been hot to get a Nintendo Wii gaming console since, oh, about five minutes after the product was announced last year. (I’ve been a gamer longer than you, and I don’t care how old you are. Back in (Continued)
From: Reno, NV
Thursday night, 9:26pm
Subject: Going off on The Man, Part II
Howdy…
One of the talents I’m most proud of is my knack for naming stuff.
I’m good at it because I love all forms of language, and I’m not afraid of mixing up forbidden slang with fifty-cent words to arrive at something fresh and compelling.
I could, for example, have called my first course “A Really Good Tutorial on Creating Ads” and written it in proper English … and it would have promptly (and justifiably) sank to the bottom of the barrel of courses on advertising.
Fortunately, I eschewed mediocrity and — instead — went for the jugular.
And the slang-ridden, take-no-prisoners course I did write — “Kick-Ass Copywriting Secrets of a Marketing Rebel” — hit a nerve among entrepreneurs and small biz owners world-wide.
The lesson: Words matter.
Never confuse “smart sounding speech” with real (Continued)
Friday, November 30, 2007
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