Imagine yourself in this scenario…

You’ve tried to make a life change: grow your business, boost your career, lose weight, quite smoking, increase your income, improve your relationships.

Sometimes you’ve had limited success, and sometimes none at all.

Oh, you can make a temporary change, but it never seems to last.

Until…

You read that one book… or attend that one workshop… or hear that one piece of advice from a friend… and something clicks.

You make the shift instantly.

How do you do that?

Wouldn’t it be nice to have the ability to replicate that experience so you could just draw on it whenever needed?

I think I know why it happens, and I think I have at least part of the key to replicating the experience.

What finally makes the shift for you, and gets you to make the change you desire… is not that you discovered some long-sought “secret” that had always held you back.

No, it’s much simpler than that.

It’s this: you finally found a story that you believed deeply enough, and then the change became effortless.

That’s why we can read 10 books on getting our financial act together but make zero progress; and then something about book #11 sparks us to action and suddenly we’re doing what we should have been doing all along.

And that’s another key thought: usually we knew what to do all along, we just couldn’t get ourselves to do it. For instance, most people who want to get rid of that extra fat around their midsection know what to do: eat less, exercise more. Yet there’s a new diet book, plan, or pill every day. The reason is, we’re all looking for that story that will finally make a believer out of us… and spur us into action.

The message to consumers: don’t feel bad that you bought 20 books on marketing before you found the one that got you to actually do something… celebrate the fact that you took action until you found the story that worked for you.

And the message to marketers is: the story you tell your prospects is crucial to your success. Find a story that connects with your audience, one that gets them telling the story to their friends (Zappos, Disney, Four Hour Workweek, Trust Agents)… and you can transform your business.

Story. More important than you thought.

I’m reading a book about Teddy Roosevelt.

I wanted to share something with you I just read from President Roosevelt.

Stick with me, Hoss – it’s worth it.

If you’ve ever been falsely accused…

If you’ve ever had anyone spread lies or deceit about you…

Celebrate!

Vocal critics are sending you a signal…

The signal is: you’re on the right track.

Don’t take my word for it – here’s what Theodore “Teddy” Roosevelt had to say about critics:

“It is not the critic who counts: not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes up short again and again, who spends himself for a worthy cause; who, at the best, knows, in the end, the triumph of high achievement, and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who knew neither victory nor defeat.”

- Theodore Roosevelt

Now don’t get me wrong.

I’m talking about UN-JUST criticism.

I’m assuming you’re doing good things, with right intentions, and you’re being honest and fair in your dealings.

If you’re doing BAD things, you have bigger problems than being criticized.

So let’s say you’re creating value.

You’re being honest and fair.

And then for some reason – WHAMO! Somebody you never even met starts criticizing you.

Congratulations!

The only reason you’re a target for these trouble making complainers is… you’re DOING something.

Most people never do ANYTHING.

Especially the critics.

In fact, in my mind, the letters of the word “C.R.I.T.I.C.” actually stand for:

C – an’t
R – eally
I – nvent
T – hings
I – nstead
C – riticizes

And rest assured, the only way to be sure you’re never criticized is: don’t do anything.

CERTAINLY, if you’re having any success at all, you’re going to get criticism.

Welcome it.

And remember the business twist on all this that President Roosevelt certainly understood.

Your place “shall never be with those cold and timid souls who knew neither victory nor defeat.”

’nuff Said,

Ray Edwards

(NOTE: This is an update of a previous post… enhanced with video. Please be sure and let me know what you think of this “multi-media” approach, okay? It’s quite a bit of work, and I’m happy to do it if you think it’s worthwhile.)

[flashvideo file=http://rayedwards.s3.amazonaws.com/x11Video1.flv image=http://rayedwards.com/images/forge.png /]

Every piece of your website is a link in the sales chain.

Each link leads to the next, and at the end of the chain is the sale – and profits for you and your business.

Of course, as we all know, any chain is only as strong as its weakest link.

One way to get quick sales boost is: find the weak or broken links in your sales process and strengthen or repair them. And almost every website has at least a few week or broken links. I’m not just talking about hyperlinks, here… I’m talking about any crucial part of the sales process.

No website is perfect – no website is ever optimized fully. There’s always room for improvement. In most websites I look at for clients, there are some basic fixes that can pay off in a big way.

Here are three examples of things you might want to do on your own website:

• Fix Broken Links. The most obvious example is actual broken links. These are frustrating at best for your visitors, and for many it will kill the sale instantly (“if they can’t get their links fixed, what must their product be like?”).
• Remove Inconsistencies. In the world of direct mail, there’s a proven response boost when the message on the outside of the envelope matches the message on the headline of the letter inside; the reason this is so is, we are wired to respond positively to consistency. We like getting what we expect. Even seemingly small inconsistencies send a subconscious signal to your prospects that all is not right. Some specifics to look for: different typefaces or look & feel on your pages; lack of consistent layout from one section of your site to the next; jarring differences between your major sales pages (opt-in page, salesletter page, order page, thank you page). Get fanatical about consistency.
• Remove “Mind Stoppers”. Some things just cause us to “stop our mind” when reading a website. For example, strange or unnatural wording can cause us to stop in the flow of reading and ask “What? Huh?” Even though these “Mind Stoppers” may only cause a pause of 1 or 2 seconds, they interrupt the flow of your sales message. Avoid “Mind Stoppers” at all costs. The best way to find them: read your copy aloud, to another human being, in a natural tone and at an easy pace. Then have them read it aloud back to you. In each case, mark any section that causes you to pause or stumble. Re-write those sections and remove the “Mind Stoppers”.

When you forge stronger links in your “Sales Chain”, you’ll increase your sales results. And that means more profits for you and your small business.

Funny story.

Back in my radio days, one of the shows I was in charge of was a morning radio team.

And this particular morning team had a regular feature where a couple of psychotherapists woud come on each week.

When I say a “couple”, I mean it. They were actually a COUPLE, and they were both actually THERAPISTS (can you imagine the dinner table conversations?).

Anyhow, I knew this couple only as characters on this particular morning show. “Judith and Jim” was how I knew them. And I knew only their voices.

Fast forward a few years later.

I had left the radio business, and was at an Internet Marketing seminar.

During one of the presentations, I noticed this couple sitting near the front, and I noticed  they were asking lots of questions. And their voices sounded familiar. And their names were… Judith and Jim.

We connected for the first time in person, and we’ve been friends ever since. (Okay, so it was “funny” as in “coincidence” and not funny as in “LOL”).

To continue my story…

I discovered that Jim and Judith ventured into online marketing just four years ago. Along the way, they had to overcome their technical deficiencies and learn to make friends with their computer. Even more so, they had to, in their own words, “open our minds to an entirely new way of being in the world, a whole new and very different mindset-a marketing/business mindset”.

But there was a problem. As they attended lots of marketing conferences, they felt something was wrong.

According to Judith and Jim, “We always felt a sense of displacement, a feeling of not belonging, of somehow being outsiders.”

As they connected with people at those same  conferences they learned that others had the same complaint. And they noticed a pattern: All those who voiced this kind of discomfort were service providers, care-givers, change agents of some kind, men and women who had dedicated their lives to helping others-heart-to-heart.

“It became clear that there was a segment of the Internet marketplace that was not being served,” says Judith.

Jim chimes in, “That segment is peopled by soft sell marketers-all of us who are care-givers and life-change artists as distinct from accumulation artists whose focus is money first and foremost.”

And now these two friends of mine have written a book on the subject of soft sell marketing for service providers… and for people who don’t like hard-sell approaches. I recommend you get a copy of The Heart of Marketing.

It had been a long day on the road, and last night I was wiped out. Tired. Exhausted.

So I was not thrilled when my wife called to me from our home office saying I just had to come watch this video on YouTube.

Yet, a few minutes later, I was watching it with tears in my eyes.

I decided I would write a post about the video today, only to find my colleague Clayton Makepeace beat me to the punch. Read Clayton Makepeace’s post on Susan Boyle here.

And watch the video for yourself by clicking here.

In the Internet Marketing world, a 10% conversion rate is often considered outstanding.

But is it?

Not really.

Online retailers do much better.

Check out Futurenow’s posting on “the top 10 converting websites for December 2008“.

Here are the top five:

1. ProFlowers 31.1%
2. LL Bean 25.7%
3. Amazon 23.7%
4. VitaCost 23.0%
5. Coldwater Creek 22.4%

Hmmm.

What do they know that you don’t? Something to think about.

If you’re not already getting at least 10% conversions, I suggest reading this site.

There is money hidden in your business. Money that you could be using. Money that, unless you do something about it, will slip through your fingers and vanish without a trace.

Where is this money – and how do you get it?

Most businesses have many hidden opportunities for discovering “windfall profits” – but I want to focus on just one of those opportunities in this article.

That “opportunity pocket” is: marketing and advertising.

In my experience, almost every business – whether it be retail, service, professional practice, or “business to business” in its nature – is unconsciously letting profits slip away.

Your biggest opportunity most likely lies hidden inside your underperforming sales copy (copy that isn’t selling as many units/contracts/ memberships as it potentially could be).

If you want to make more sales without spending a single dime in additional ad costs, this article might be the most important document you read this year…

Make Piles of Money With “Upside Leverage”

“Upside Leverage” is a concept I learned from marketing genius Jay Abraham.

We all know what leverage is: using other people’s money to build your business, or other people’s efforts (through delegation, for instance) to increase your own productivity.

“Leverage” involves using one asset (the lever) to increase the value or power of another. The only problem with using “leverage” is the potential downside: if you use financial leverage to borrow money for a business project, the project could possibly fail, and you would be forced to pay back the money. If you use the leverage of delegation in order to make yourself more productive, there’s a chance the person you’re relying on might let you down.

“Upside” leverage is leverage that involves little or no potential downside.

It’s my belief that underperforming sales copy is the most potentially profitable of all forms of “upside leverage”.

Please read that sentence again, because it’s too easy to let the profound meaning it contains slip past you:

Underperforming sales copy is the most potentially profitable of all forms of “upside leverage”.

Think of it this way: any ad or promotion costs the same whether it performs well or not, right? If you spend $100 on an ad, and you get $500 in business as a result, you made a 5-1 return on your investment. That’s a good return. You did what you set out to do, you made a profit.

But… what if you could take that same ad, and change it in some way that made it 10 times more effective?

What if now it returned $5,000?

You spent the same $100 for the ad… but you got back $5,000.

Instead of a 5-1 return, now you’re getting 50-1! That, my marketing friend, is “upside leverage”!

Change Your Copy, Change Your Income

There is so much bad copy on the web, it’s almost laughably easy to be better than most of your competitors.

Why is that?

I believe there are a number of reasons, but here are a few of the common ones:

1. Some people just don’t realize their copy is bad. They wrote it themselves, or their brother or their niece wrote it. They think it’s wonderful – but in reality it stinks like a dead skunk.

2. Others don’t realize how important their sales copy is. This is a naive belief, and it astounds me that so many people hold it – but they do. Some people seem to think that as long at the copy has “just the facts”, that’ll be good enough. It never is.

3. Some people are just cheap. They spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to start a business, buy furniture, hire staff, provide benefits, etc., but when it comes to the one piece of communication that might actually cause someone to buy from them – they don’t want to pay for it. They “delegate” this crucial task. Big mistake.

Are you making any of these mistakes? If you are, this is your wake-up call.

Take advantage of the potential “upside leverage” that exists in every ad or promotion. Make sure you ads are performing – that they are making you sales every day. And that they are making you more sales this week than they did last week, etc.

You do this through constant improvement and testing/tracking.

You also do it by either hiring a copywriter, or investing in educational materials that will teach you how to write your own copy. Either one can work – it’s up to you. If you love to write, and you think you have a knack for it, then by all means get a good home-study course on copywriting and do it yourself.

Don’t put it off – do it right now. Otherwise, you’re throwing money away that rightfully belongs to you.

There’s a phrased in the sales world: “show up and throw up”.

It means that as a salesperson, if you don’t take time to relate to your potential customer, to get to know them and their needs…

If you just jump right in and hit them with your cheesy, canned sales presentation right off the bat…

…it’s like saying “hi” by throwing up on their shoes.

Gross analogy, I know. But apt, yes?

Jeff Sexton wrote a great little piece on how to avoid this phenomena at GrokDotCom (and that site should definitely go into your RSS reader).

Check out their post on web copy that makes you sick.

My friend Stu McLaren is getting married today. He made this kooky video to explain his “fat lip” dilemna… and to explain why he’s having this sale.

He really is offering some discounts on his products that are just… well… crazy. But hey, don’t let that stop you from taking advantage of him.

]]> http://rayedwards.com/stu-mclarens-pre-wedding-video/feed/ 4 http://rayedwards.com/first-get-their-attention/ http://rayedwards.com/first-get-their-attention/#comments Tue, 02 Oct 2007 09:12:37 +0000 Ray Edwards http://rayedwards.com/blogging/first-get-their-attention/

The Story: If your copy can’t cut through the clutter, you never be able to make the sale.

The Point: The reason the old formulae are less effective is: it’s harder to get people’s attention these days. Time to step up your game.

The Resource: Attention Age Doctrine

3 Keys To Grabbing Their Attention:

1. Change Their State.
2. Stop Their Inner Chatter.
3. Appeal To Their Greed, Lust, Or Moving-Away Values.

Click for the Podcast Audio:

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