Recent Updates
Sell Based on Value, Not Price
Let's say you went to the store and saw two parachutes, side by side... one looks okay and costs 50 bucks. The parachute next to it looks HALF as good and costs 25 dollars. Which one do you choose?
The "regular" $50 one, right?
Then you notice there's also a 100 dollar parachute on the shelf. It comes with an extra emergency backup chute, a checklist for what you should check for before jumping out of an airplane, and a DVD with skydiving tutorials. You also get one free skydiving lesson included... and one free issue of "Skydiving Magazine." (Ok I'll admit, I've taken this analogy way too far.)
NOW which parachute would you go for... the regular one or the fancy one?
You might be able to get by with the regular parachute, but you'd feel a lot better if you had that checklist, the DVD, the magazine, and the lesson.
People will pay more for handholding. Don't try to sell the smallest amount for the lowest price, try to sell the most USEFUL stuff for the highest price.
But not at first. Put out a small product for a low price with a few features... if people buy that tells you it's worth your time to work on it... add value and increase the price.
That's exactly what I did with this week's launch of Time Management on Crack. 17 dollars JUST for the report.
After 150 people bought, I bumped the price to 27 dollars... and added videos with the same content as the book... so you get the same info with less work and in less time.
Another 150 people and the price is now 37 dollars... I added an additional three hours of video showing me writing a sales letter in one sitting, and gave a TON more details on productivity and articles.
When the price gets to 47 dollars, I'll throw in the recording of the 90 minute webinar where Jeanette Cates grilled me on everything time management.
Start with low ticket stuff... see if they buy... add more stuff and increase the price. But aim for that high price. A couple people missed the $17 offer and asked if they could still get that low price. My response: tell me what one bonus I can add to this package to make it worth $27 for you.
It's so easy to compete based on price, but you're killing your profits. Most people would have paid $100 for that $50 parachute you're selling... if you only included hand holding.
If you're worried about pricing too high, offer a barebones downsell.
p.s. You can still get Time Management on Crack for under $47... for now.
What do you guys think about selling based on value instead of price?
How to Write One Article Every Day for The Rest of Your Life
You need to write one article every single day. This might be an article you post on your blog, submit to article sites, post on a forum, mail to your list, or add to a book. If you write just one article per day, you will be able to express yourself with crystal clarity and never run out of ideas or content.
If you have any piece of information that you can share, even if it's something off the wall like a new way to build a birdhouse or a type of bread you discovered at the grocery store, you should write an article about it. This trains your brain to shape your thoughts as articles, and if you adopt this practice, you can easily share information on these subjects in the future. Even if you forget and need to re-acquaint yourself with information or a specific procedure, you only need to read one of your own articles on the subject.
Many courses about creating products will give you their "systems" and their "secrets" for writing articles but the only thing you need to do is: sit down and start writing. If you stick to this daily writing schedule every single day, you'll have to STOP yourself from writing.
Just open up a web browser and type your article in the submission box. If you're submitting an article to Ezine Articles, type the article directly in the article submission form. If you're adding to a blog, type the article in the blog post box... the same for forums and so on.
I am very much against writing articles in a form that allows you to save and put up later, such as Notepad or Microsoft Word. When you put yourself on the spot, and force yourself to finish that article before you close the web browser, click on other links or even get up from the computer, you'll finish ALL the articles you start and clear those ideas out of your head... so you'll have room for new articles!
Challenges
A big part of why I can get so much accomplished is from challenges. I consider a challenge to be something somebody dares you to do that is totally ridiculous.
Remember the Daily Video Challenge? I dared you guys to record one video a day for 30 days to get the hang of it. Most people didn't get through all 30 days but they still recorded a handful of videos they otherwise wouldn't have made.
I attempted a challenge this last weekend. The challenge was to record 100 videos in one work day. I "failed" and only made it to 50. Now I have a handful of videos I can market on YouTube as video responses, I can insert a few in my sales letter and I have a ton of very easy to implement pre-sale and post-sale follow-ups for a couple of my products.
Most of the stuff I did this month was the result of a challenge... the 30K Month challenge... and I'm close to $20,000 for the month so far... I might even break over it today when our PHP Copywriting class fills up -- there are still a couple of slots for people eager to learn how to write sales copy the easy way, and add a few conversion-boosting PHP scripts without any real work.
Heck, on the phone last night, I challenged my business partner Jason to speak at an internet marketing event within 30 days. He kept talking all kinds of NLP tricks he could use onstage, so I finally said, "Just DO it!" I don't care if he presents at a super crazy big Armand Morin style seminar if a speaker backs out or if it's at a tiny little Terry Crim event where no one attends. If he has to give 100% of the commission to the seminar host, or donate whatever percentage of his backend sales to a charity, even PAY to speak there... it's got to be possible.
Even if he doesn't do it, even if it takes 60 days to speak at an event, that's still an accomplishment!
You have to have unrealistic goals to get a lot of stuff accomplished... you just have to.
Okay, your turn. Can you try something for me... choose one of the 7 choices below, and DO that thing by this time tomorrow. Knock TRY to knock out just one of the tasks below... it doesn't matter if you can't go all the way. If you choose to write 10 articles, and only write 3, that's probably 3 more than you would have made... if you didn't have that pressure.
- Write 10 articles and have them published by this time tomorrow.
- Write a quick report (and launch it) by this time tomorrow.
- Write and schedule the next 5 e-mails you're going to send to your list.
- Record 10 quick videos by this time tomorrow and upload them all to YouTube.
- Host a webinar or teleseminar by this time tomorrow, even if it's a freebie call-in gift to your list.
- Interview someone (or be interviewed) for 20 minutes before this time tomorrow.
- Take a product that's been lying around on your hard drive collecting dust... and freaking launch it!
Are you going to try out my challenge? Which item did you pick?
750 Days of Free Updates
Today's tweak to your sales letter:
Do you have any overused words like "unlimited" ... "lifetime" ... or "fast" in your sales copy? Those don't get attention because everyone uses words like that.
- If something is unlimited, tell visitors instead they can get "50, 100, even 10,000" of something.
- If something gets unlimited updates, make it 365 days or 1000 days or 10 years of updates.
- If something is fast, tell people your technique works within 5 minutes or 20 minutes, whatever applies.
- If something is easy, share the success rate (percentage), a testimonial, or a case study...
I guess it comes down to the show-not-tell approach!
As Jason Fladlien would say, if you're telling a story about how mean and tough a guy is... don't TELL people about how he's mean and tough.
SHOW them how he weighed 280 pounds, wore a big leather jacket, had a huge beard, and you could hear his Harley Davidson motorcycle coming a mile away... he screeched to a halt in front of your house leaving a thick rubber skid mark... and even today, 7 years later, you can step outside and see the rubber mark still in the street... cracked over the years but still there.
In my last few sales letters, at the very end, I've been saying one or both of these things:
- You can check out my product and get a refund at any time within the first 30 days. If you're still undecided, try it out for an ADDITIONAL 30 days before deciding if you want to keep it or return and get your money back. (This language is a lot more specific than the usual "60 day refund" explanation.)
- You get 750 days worth of updates. I used to tell people they get lifetime updates, but everyone says that, so I tried saying 365 days of updates... but that seemed too ordinary, so I made it 750 days of updates.
"Lifetime" is too ambiguous. Is it your lifetime, my lifetime, the lifetime of the product? (Is it Lifetime: Television For Women... with weekly made-for-TV movies starring Meredith Baxter?)
Does the "lifetime" only count for versions 1.0, 1.1, 1.2, etc... and when I switch the book over to version 2.0, that counts as a different lifetime? (I'm having Scott Bakula Quantum Leap time travel flashbacks here... "oh boy.")
You have to be different. Using your own numbers makes you unique. In your headlines, bullet points, offer, guarantee, even your update policy. Remember the movie "There's Something About Mary?" Harlan Williams says there is a how-to video called 7 Minute Abs ... so his big idea is to create a how-to video called 6 Minute Abs. "If you aren't satisfied with the first six minutes, we'll throw in an additional minute for free!"
When I told my subscribers that moving my upsell to AFTER the original sale boosted conversions from 2.6% to 5.5% it had a lot more impact than just saying, "It improved conversion rates."
As I close this up, the ultimate irony of today's story is that I didn't split test the "lifetime" versus "750 day" update offer. There just isn't enough time in the day to split test every little thing.
I'm a sloppy copywriter. My Fast Food Copywriting method says write it quickly and sloppily... get it out there... then go back later and fix it up. A really quick and easy patch-job is to remove ambiguity and add imagery... add numbers!
What's your best technique to add specificity to your sales letters? Comment below to tell me!
All You Need is Six E-Mails: The R.A.T.G.U.M. Blogging Strategy that Obliterates Writer’s Block
Quick update on the 30K month: I left it in a blog comment but here it is again. The launch of WordPress Crusher (how to make your own WordPress plugins using my fill-in-the-blank PHP templates) made me $6500 in 24 hours, income for the past 4 days is now over $7000 (so I'm very close to hitting my goal for the week).
Three more quick things: the sales letter converted at 16 percent, all I did was send one e-mail & make one forum post, and I'm awesome.
$30,000 is a very significant number for me because it's about what I make per year at my day job, after taxes and deductions.
Speaking of day jobs and numbers, did you ever watch the 1960's TV show The Prisoner? It starred Patrick McGoohan (who just passed away a couple weeks ago) as a spy who quit his day job...
... Only to be abducted minutes later and sent to a remote island which looked like a retirement community. They played mind games on you to figure out why you quit. He never revealed why he quit, because he didn't know if "The Village" was run by the East or the West.
It was the wackiest show ever. They had cordless phones (in the 60's!), cameras hidden in statues, helicopters that flew on autopilot, and mechanical chairs that came out of the floor. Nobody had a name, only numbers. I think maybe four people in all 17 epsiodes actually had names. The main character was Number 6. You never met Number 1, and he hired a new Number 2 to run things every week.
You didn't know who was good or bad.
If you tried to escape, a giant weather balloon chased you.
Six is a very important number because that's the minimum number of blog posts or follow-ups you need. You know how your prospects need to see your message 7 times on average before they buy? They see your page, that's the first time, then get on your list and get 6 more follow-ups, that makes 7 total.
If all you need is 6 things to tell your subscribers, that's not very hard at all. Think of 6 tips off the top of your head, schedule them as blog posts a couple of weeks apart, you've got a few months of content... you don't have to blow your wad with just one post.
Got a post-sale list to fill? Think of 6 skills they should have learned from your book, and which page number they should be on, then quickly write those 6 e-mails (no longer than 2/3rds of a page each), saying... flip to this page and do this and this. Here's something extra you might not have thought about just from reading the book.
Or, even easier. Share 6 URLs on your niche with them. Go to Digg.com and type in your keyword, or even look at your own bookmarks and figure out what applies the most... make sure to stick the call-to-action to buy your product in every e-mail.
If you schedule those follow-ups about one week apart, you can just about make it to the end of the refund period AND make it seem like you keep "checking up" on your customers to see if they're ok. Plus it's a chance to upsell them to another time-saving solution they need...
That's what I'm scheduling for the follow-up content for WordPress Crusher... 6 really awesome resources for WordPress plugin developers, I send a quick e-mail and add my two cents in there. Like, did you know that item #3 on this guy's blog post could also be used for this... I bet he didn't think of that. ("He didn't think of that" e-mails and tips are my favorite kind.)
I consider The Prisoner to be one of my favorite TV shows of all time... it was like if "Lost" had aired in the 1960s and was British.
Example of a typical plot: The Village finds Number 12 (guest star), an agent who looks extremely similar to Number 6 (main character). Number 2 (who runs the village) tells Number 12 that his job is to replace Number 6... so that Number 6 comes home and finds Number 12 eating his food, using his shower and so on, so that he will doubt his identity, crack under the pressure, and reveal everything.
Number 12 doesn't do a very good job. Number 6 challenges Number 12 to a fencing match, a soccer game, and so on but Number 6 wins them all. Then... plot twist... it turns out that Number 12 (the infiltrator) is actually the real Number 6! They've already brainwashed him into thinking he is Number 12, on a mission to become Number 6. The "real" Number 6 is really Number 12, and he's working for the baddies trying to brainwash Number 6! Confused yet? Me too... and I love it!
There's another lesson to be learned here. As crazy and creative as this show is, you could really only create two types of episodes for it: one of Number 6's latest attempt to escape, and the Village's latest attempt to brainwash Number 6.
If you think of writing e-mails, sales letters, blog posts, solo ads, and so on, with this "categorized" thinking... it's a lot easier to come up with ideas. I probably shouldn't give this away as a blog post, but here are my categories to come up with content... it's called RAT GUM:
- Rant: Go on a tangent about something that makes you happy or angry.
- Affiliate Review: Review someone else's product.
- Tutorial: Explain how to perform a step-by-step task.
- Guest Survey: Ask your readers what they think about something.
- User Feedback: Spin a new blog post based on one of your commenter's suggestions.
- Monthly Summary: Talk about what you did this month.
I based those categories off of the 65 posts I already have on RobertPlank.com. Now, when it comes time to write that next blog post, it's a lot easier to say... I want to write this kind of post, and THEN think of the idea, than think about the idea from nothingness.
Just as I'm sure when Patrick McGoohan wrote an episode of The Prisoner (he wrote most of them), he first thought about what type of episode he was going to write, before writing it.
Exactly the same as the writers on "Lost" do now... pick a character, decide if it'll be flashback or flashforward, then write. Even in the current episodes where they have changed up the format of the show BIG TIME, they still have to categorize before they do anything.
Just like WordPress Crusher shows you 7 different types of plugins you can create in 20% or less time than it would normally take. If that wasn't enough, gives you real life working WordPress plugins created from those fill-in-the-blank WordPress plugin templates... that do everything from import articles and RSS, give prizes for comments, automate the ten comment rule... and so on...
Be seeing you... make sure to comment below. Do you have a different type of blog post that doesn't fit into the RAT GUM formula?
$30,000 in 28 Days?
My question to you today is: What's your goal for next month, as in how much money do you plan on making?
Is it consistent with your previous months?
In 2008 I logged several $10,000 months and several $15,000 months. But I've only broken above the $20K per month glass ceiling once or twice... so when we were in Hawaii, I said to Jason, "Let's make sure that in February 2009, we both make at least $30,000 profit that month."
Do you think I'll fail or do you think I'll succeed?
I don't want to reveal too much, but here's what my personal plan is:
- Co-host two e-classes, one at the beginning and one at the end of that month.
- Launch one new product per week.
- Launch one new resale rights offer per week.
- Re-launch one existing product per week.
I've never been that great at pay-per-click, joint ventures, recruiting affiliates or any of that good stuff, so the above plan will have to do.
I already have product #1 for the month finished, now I'm busting my butt to get a bunch of trivial stuff out of the way, so it dosen't take up my time during the $30K Month. Here's what I have to get out of the way in the next 48 hours:
- Record the rest of my weekly Daily Seminar videos... through the end of December 2009. (I only have content scheduled up to September 2009).
- Solve all the issues people are having with Action PopUp conflicting with other plugins. (Don't want to be overwhelmed with customer support next month.)
- Get Daily Seminar listed for sale on SitePoint. (I don't want to have to wait until March to put it up for sale.)
So, will I meet my goal? $30k per month is just $1071 per day. What is your goal for next month? Comment below and please be honest. No one will make fun of you if it's only $3k or $1k or $300...
Don’t Read This Blog Post
Whatever you do, don't read this blog post.
While you're at it, do your best NOT to think about a giant, fuzzy polar bear. Standing on a tiny little iceberg. Floating in the ocean. Drinking a bottle of Coke.
You can't do it? (At least most of you can't.) Most of you probably pictured a polar bear... and even if you couldn't you thought about what that polar bear, standing on the iceberg, drinking a Coke, would look like.
Your subconscious cannot process negatives. If you have a sales letter with phrases like, "Don't delay" ... guess what... people are going to think about delaying BEFORE they can think about what the opposite of that means.
Jason and I are both marketing nerds but he is definitely way more of a copywriting nerd than I am. When the four of us were in Hawaii having dinner, he blurted out, "By now, you must be wondering..."
Great copywriting phrase. Not only does it make people think "by now" ... it makes sure they read the copy before that sentence. It focuses the selling on "them" and reminds your prospect that you are thinking of them.
In that same conversation we also nailed the fact that the subconscious can't process negatives. So, something you can do today in 5 minutes or less is: open up the sales letter for your most popular product... search for negative words like not, don't, can't, cannot, couldn't, wouldn't, shouldn't, stop... and rewrite them quickly.
I'm definitely not over agonizing over sales copy, but this is a quick way to increase conversions.
The other day somebody bought one of my high ticket ($97) and we talked a little bit back at forth over e-mail. His signature link led to a killer non Internet Marketing niche squeeze page with a walk-on video, great headlines, perfect heatmap positioning... all the right stuff.
The walk-on video did a very good job of convincing me to opt-in and I was about to, just out of curiosity. But one of the very last sentences in the video was: "There's no reason you shouldn't sign up."
Oops... I processed the phrase, "You shouldn't sign up" ... didn't feel quite right, and left the page seconds later.
Want to know something funny? In my Fast Food Copywriting sales letter, I used to have the word "not" in the copy 14 times, "don't" 7 times, and "can't" 3 times. I just spent 60 seconds editing them all out. I never said I was perfect, just that I can write average sales copy very quickly.
Can you take a second to check your own sales copy, and see how many "nots" "don'ts" ... "nevers"... and other negative words you have in your sales copy? (A quick way is to paste your sales copy into a text file and replace the word " not " (not including the quotes but including the spaces) with nothingness just to see how many results show up.
You're probably too embarrassed by that number to post below, aren't you?
Learn Some Self Control!
Keep reading for a 10 second exercise that will boost your productivity...
I bought a laptop before the Hawaii trip, because I've been on planes before to go to seminars and hate the waiting on the plane, where you're not able to move around much. I'd have so many ideas for articles, but all I could do was write down the chapter titles on a piece of paper. I definitely wasn't going to write out articles by hand and retype them... total waste of time and easy way to get bored.
So, I bought a laptop for the flight.
If you've met me at seminars you've probably never seen me with a laptop. That's because for me, seminars were my only downtime from computer. I don't take nights and weekends off, I sure as heck wasn't going to do MORE marketing during my only vacation. I'd queue up lots autoresponders and e-mails before the trip so my business wouldn't take a hit.
I like to sit down at my computer, get my marketing work done, then get off the computer.
So why did I buy a laptop? Wouldn't that wreck that system?
Nope... because I'm making an effort to exert some self control. I set a simple rule in my head that I'm only going to use the laptop in 14 minute spurts, to either write articles or whip up PowerPoint presentations for videos. No browsing forums or checking e-mails.
How do YOU get self control?
It's simple. Pick a task that takes up most of your time and kills your productivity:
- Checking e-mails, MySpace, Facebook, Twitter, etc.
- Reading forums.
- Watching TV or playing computer games.
- Leaving the computer too much.
- Incoming phone calls.
Then choose one thing you wish you did more every day:
- Write one blog post or article.
- Write one chapter of an e-book.
- Write one sales letter.
- Write autoresponder e-mails.
- Send a joint venture proposal.
Now you're not allowed to do that one habitual productivity-killing task at ALL (the number you chose), until you do the thing on your wishlist (the letter you chose).
If you chose "1" and "A" then your 1A productivity task is to write one blog post before you even check e-mails. You turn your compulsion into an advantage... uh oh, someone might have e-mailed me something important. There might be a pressing customer service issue waiting... better write up a blog post and PUBLISH or SCHEDULE IT (important... finish what you start) before you can check that e-mail.
Sure, you tell yourself you're only going to check for new e-mails, but you'll start deleting and archiving some, replying to others, and the next thing you know it, 30 minutes have been wasted and you still don't have that article.
Or if your big habit is checking the forums, and you have a sales letter to write, then you need to be on a 2C schedule today. Finish that sales letter and have it live on the page with the order button, or submitted to your client (whichever applies) before you check the forums.
Multi-tasking is a productivity killer. Switching gears is a productivity killer. Be aware of this, like I was when I bought my first ever laptop.
Seven Things #7: Day Job Quitting Plan
Finally, in 2008, I decided to quit my day job. I haven't quit yet because there are a few things I need to do, but I answered Eric Holmlund's day job quitting questionaire, and in the Daily Seminar I've already scheduled a video explaining the way I determined scientifically when I should quit my job.
Now on to the questions... you should answer these questions too, if you need to know if it's time to quit yet!
1) Is your job hurting you?
No, actually it includes a training budget which has beefed up my resume and is giving me the initial 3-5 years of experience I'll need if I fail and need to get another job.
2) Do you have a vision and a solid plan for your business?
Definitely. I won't go into detail but I have a few high ticket items and webinars mapped out.
3) Do you already have a written goal for quitting your job?
Yes. I'll be out after March 2009, but before the end of June 2009. I want to have $60K in savings by then but even $30K will work.
4) Are you committed to the business? (Required)
The past five years would say so! I have been working on my business during my lunch break at work, after work, and every day on weekends. My girlfriend helps motivate me, and my accountability partner motivates me.
5) What do you have to lose? (If you have little or nothing to lose, it’s a good time to quit)
Not much to lose. It might be tough to get re-hired somewhere else. I could lose my house but I have savings. Worst case scenario, I could sell off some resale rights. Worst-worst-case scenario, I could freelance to get some quick money.
6) How long will your savings last?
With my current lifestyle: 6 months. If I cut everything down to the bone, 8 months. So right now I could last till June 2009 or August 2009... just that fact alone makes it seem STUPID to keep working.
7) How much income is your business bringing in?
Last year, just over $100,000. My monthly expenses are under $4000, so I am making more than double what I need every month.
*Quit your job and go full time at the point where your business is bringing in the minimum that you need to make ends meet.
8) What are you willing to sacrifice?
I have no problem cutting back on the seminar travel or not going out as often. I
9) Do you trust your gut? (And is it usually right?)
I trust it, and it's almost always right.
10) Will you dare to do what others only dream of?
Yes. My day job makes me feel extremely isolated. I want to hang out with friends more often, I want to get a laptop and hang out with my nephew before he grows up.
Can you do me a favor and answer any of these questions for yourself? You don't need to answer every single question, just the one that's most important to you.
