Good morning!

Okay, so I thought I was done with my series about common lead mistakes…

But then, yesterday I realized there was actually one more biggie needed to go over with you.

I’m going to share it with you in just a second…

But, before I do…

If you didn’t catch the Zoom Call we did recently…

I posted the replay on my YouTube channel.

Here’s a link to my YouTube channel in case you’re not subscribed to it yet.

I taught for like an hour straight about different lead mistakes and showed a ton of examples.

So, if you didn’t get a chance to see the video yet…

It’s worth checking out when you have time.

—

Okay, and with that being said…

Let’s move on to today’s blog post…

Lead Mistake #6: “Selling Too Soon”

I’m thinking maybe the reason I forgot to mention this one previously…

Is because it seems kind of obvious.

But then, I was going through a ton of offers on Clickbank yesterday…

And I found that a LOT of writers are still making this mistake.

Remember what I’ve been saying in previous blog posts:

The point of the first sentence is to get the prospect to read the second…

The point of the second is to get them to read the third…

And so on.

The entire point of the lead is to evoke curiosity…

Call out the prospect’s pain point…

Promise to credibly solve that pain point…

Connect with the prospect emotionally…

And tease them with fascinations.

When you do those things in your lead…

It’s hard to screw up…

But, nowhere in this list do we find “try to sell the product.”

Why?

Because that’s not the job of the lead.

We don’t want the prospect thinking they are being “sold” at the beginning…

In fact, we don’t want them even thinking about our product PERIOD until pretty close to the end of our sales letter.

It’s the same thing when you do a sales call too btw.

Or when you’re quoting a client.

Or making a pitch.

You don’t jump right into the pitch…

You build an emotional connection…

1. Demonstrate understanding of the area where the prospect is struggling…
2. Prove you have the competency and mastery required to solve this struggle…
3. Dismiss alternative solutions as being inferior…

And, only then is it time to start telling the prospect about your product or services and asking for the sale.

So don’t be in a hurry to make the sale here, take your time.

—

Now, there are a few exceptions to everything I just said…

In Direct Mail, where you send a prospect a physical sales letter…

It makes sense to talk about the product earlier on.

I still don’t think the product needs to be on the front page…

But, you don’t need to wait until the very end either.

Why?

Because with a physical piece of mail…

The prospect is probably going to be leafing through it anyways.

Much in the same way they’d leaf through a magazine or the newspaper…

And, you might as well not wait until the very end to share about the product.

When it comes to online sales letters, though…

The prospect’s journey is more linear.

They’re either watching a video that they can’t skip forward in…

Or, they’re at least scrolling down slowly through your copy…

And, in these cases, you can take your time.

Another exception is with eCommerce pages (sort of)…

If you have a really short eComm page for a product…

Then yeah, maybe it’s okay to show what the product right away…

But, even in those cases…

If you can begin by teasing the problem/solution…

And then inject a brief emotional story into your lander…

Typically, it’s going to convert better than if you just jump right into the features and benefits of your product.

—

Hopefully, this makes sense to you.

I do enjoy writing out examples for you guys…

But I have a call in fifteen minutes, so I’m gotta cut this one short.

Have a great Saturday!

-SPG

P.S. Last night Laura and I drank some White Claws and then spent 40 minutes dissecting a random Clickbank sales letter while recording ourselves doing it. We had a TON of fun and I think we also provided some killer insights. By the time you read this, the video should be uploaded to my YouTube channel, so make sure you check it out here!

P.P.S. This post originally came from an email I sent to my private list. If you want to see more stuff like this from me, you can apply to join my list using this link.

The post Big Lead Mistake #6: “Selling Too Soon” first appeared on Stefan Georgi.

Hello, hello 🙂

Today, we’re going to keep going with my series about the most common mistakes I see copywriters make in their leads.

If you’re new to my blog and want to see the previous posts in this series, you can check them out below:

Big Lead Mistake #1
Big Lead Mistake #2
Big Lead Mistake #3
Big Lead Mistake #4

Okay, so let’s jump right in…

Lead Mistake #5: “Forgetting to Fascinate”

Fascinations are also sometimes referred to as Curiosity Bullets…

Which is an apt synonym…

Because the point of fascinations is to stimulate curiosity and intrigue.

There are at least 21 different types of fascinations according to Tony Flores and Clayton Makepeace…

And they include the “How To” bullet, the “Why” bullet, the “Secret” bullet, the “What Never” bullet, and so many more.

So, let me give you some examples of what these fascinations look like, and how they apply to the lead.

Pretend we’re selling a digital guide about “Survival Real Estate”…

Where the premise is ultimately that AI is going lead to the destruction of major cities…

And you need to have a bunker on several acres of remote land…

That way, you can escape to it when stuff hits the fan.

It’s kind of an out-there premise, I know…

But I do want a bunker at some point in my life…

So, just indulge me for now 🙂

If that was the Big Idea behind the product…

Then some of the fascinations you’d find in the lead might include:

• Why you should NEVER have any appliances made after 2005 in your emergency bunker…
• The sneaky way to buy up to 10 acres of land, with direct access to freshwater, for less than $10,000 cash (no matter what state you live in)…
• How you can cut your connection to the internet but still send messages to friends who are up to 1,300 miles away in less than an hour. HINT: It has to do with a “forgotten” technology first invented by a famous German Mathematician back in 1829.
• 4 little known secrets that small-town real estate agents are PRAYING you never discover. (Knowing just one of these can cut their commission in half and put the savings directly into your pocket).
• When you’ll know it’s time to leave your home and “head for the hills,” according to the world’s premier expert on the dangers of AI.
• Plus, the TRUTH about 5G technology…
• And, why an obscure 2014 Patent issued in Hong Kong all but guarantees the U.S. Economy will collapse by 2022.

These are all examples of fascinations…

They were super fun to write.

And hopefully, you can see how powerful these can be…

Along with how they can evoke curiosity.

Good fascinations make the prospect think: “Well damnit, now I have to keep going so I can find out the answer to these riddles.”

That’s the whole goal of fascinations.

Especially in the “lead.”

And, as far as where to place fascinations in your lead…

That’s kind of open-ended.

For me, personally…

I typically put most of my fascinations towards the end of the lead.

I’ve got my emotional story or my big hook at the beginning…

I call out the prospect’s pain point and tease a unique, contrarian solution…

I tell the prospect that this solution is backed by proof…

And I assure the prospect that they’ll get the full solution in just a minute.

Then, I tell the prospect that in addition to all of that…

In the next few minutes, I’m also going to show them…

Why…

How…

What NEVER to do…

Etc.

I really like doing it this way…

Because even if my lead is a little bit off…

Or my big idea isn’t hitting as hard as I thought it would…

Throwing in those fascinations at the end drastically increases the chances of the prospect sticking with me.

And, the longer they stick with me…

The more invested they become…

And the more likely they are to ultimately buy.

—

Make sense?

And also, because I know you might be curious…

When it comes to using fascinations to actually sell your product…

It’s the same concept.

Except that in this case…

You’re teasing all of the stuff that they’re going to discover in the book/course/training/webinar/live event/etc…

That way, they read your fascinations and think: “gah, I have to buy this product now or I’m going to go crazy with curiosity.”

—

Okay, that’s it for now.

I’ve got a super busy day ahead of me…

Plus, at some point, I need to run to BestBuy.

My Macbook died yesterday and I had to go buy a new one…

Which is fine…

Except the trackpad on my new Macbook is so large…

That my hands keep touching against it…

And it’s screwing with my typing.

So I gotta go buy myself an external keyboard here…

Before I go insane.

-SPG

P.S. If you missed the private Zoom call I did with Stefan recently on the 5 biggest mistakes with leads that are hurting your conversions, I have the replay for you today.

The call covers things such as…

• Clearing your throat, and not hooking the reader right away (I see this ALL the time)
• Why explaining too much in your lead spells doom
• The result when you use statistics in your lead
• How to avoid talking about yourself (or your guru) too much in the lead
• Not piquing their curiosity enough with your fascinations
• Plus a whole lot more…

You’ll hear all of that when you watch the replay.

The replay is posted in our Facebook group “Justin & Stefan Talk Copy”.

So you’ll need to join the group to see it.

If you’re already in the group, you’ll see the replay pinned at the top of the group.

If you’re not a member, then head on over and join now (it’s free).

Here’s the link to join the Facebook group and see the replay…

P.P.S. This post originally came from an email I sent to my private list. If you want to see more stuff like this from me, you can apply to join my list using this link.

The post Big Lead Mistake #5: “Forgetting to Fascinate” first appeared on Stefan Georgi.

Good morning!

This blog post is being sent a bit later than usual…

Mostly because I ended up leaving my car at the Las Vegas Strip last night…

And had to Uber back this morning to get it.

I HATE doing the morning “Uber ride of shame”…

But I’m pretty sure I’d hate getting a DUI even more…

So, ya know, it is what it is.

Anyways, I’m at my office now crafting this blog post to you…

And today, we’re going to continue looking at the common mistakes people making when writing their leads.

So, let’s jump on in…

Lead Mistake #3 – “Ron Burgundy Syndrome”

If you’ve seen the movie Anchorman…

You know that the main character, Ron Burgundy, is completely self-obsessed.

He talks about himself, only cares about himself, and has little empathy towards other people or their problems.

When a character acts this way in a movie it can be very funny…

But, when the spokesperson in your copy comes across this way…

It’s disastrous.

Why?

One of the most important things you can do throughout your sales letter (and especially in the lead)…

Is to continue to relate whatever you’re saying back to the prospect.

And yet, one really frequent mistake I see writers making…

Is that they come up with what they think is a compelling and emotional story…

Start their sales copy with it…

But then forget to relate this story back to the reader/viewer.

In other words…

These writers fall so deeply in love with the story…

That they assume anyone who is engaging with their sales copy will feel the same way…

Which isn’t necessarily true.

Since, as we’ve discussed in previous blog posts…

The number one thing a prospect is thinking about as they begin to view your sales copy…

Is “what’s in it for me?”

Now, this certainly doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t use stories in your sales copy…

In fact, I personally love starting sales copy with a good story.

The secret, though…

Is to frequently be relating the story back to the reader and the pain point they want solved.

Let me give you an example of a bad story lead:

“I’d been homeless for two months and things were only getting worse.

At the start I’d been living out of my car…

But after it was vandalized in the middle of the night – with me sleeping in the back seat…

I felt safer sleeping on the street than I did inside my Honda.

So each morning I’d wake up on the cold concrete…

Scrape together change for a cup of coffee…

Then walk two miles to the nearest community shelter…

To see if there were any new job postings.

I must have applied to at least 47 jobs in that two-month period of time…

But no matter what I said or did…

Nobody wanted to hire a guy who was living on the street.

It seemed like I’d hit rock bottom…

I felt hopeless…

And yet little did I know that just two weeks later…

I’d be getting sent a check for $2,329…

Or that this check was just the first of many…

Or that, in a matter of just four months…

I would go from homeless and scared…

To living in a guard gated community…

In a 4,600 square foot home that backed up to the 18th hole of one of Los Angeles’ most prestigious golf courses.

What’s even crazier is that I didn’t win the lottery or anything like that…

Instead…

It happened because of a chance encounter with an eccentric but brilliant Real Estate Maverick…

Someone who had found a way to leverage other people’s money to purchase premium real estate at bargain level prices…

And who ultimately caved and shared his secrets with me.

Blah blah blah.”

As usual, I just made that story up on the spot…

But I do think it has some compelling elements.

With that being said, however…

This lead ultimately falls flat.

And a big reason why…

Is because it doesn’t relate anything the speaker is saying back to the prospect.

So, here’s how we could fix the lead to make it more compelling:

“Imagine being homeless on the streets of Los Angeles for two months.

Hopefully, it’s not something you can easily picture…

But it was my reality back in December of 2017.

Hi, my name is John Doe…

And just two years ago I was living out of my car in LA.

It was the roughest time of my life…

Because not only was I having an impossible time finding a job…

But I came close to dying on three different occasions.

(I’ll share the scariest of those occasions with you in a minute, and it’s gonna really freak you out).

As awful as being homeless was though…

I’m not writing to you because I want sympathy…

Or even because I think should care about my time living on the street.

Instead, the reason I’m here talking to you today…

Is because of what happened to me on January 27th, 2018.

That’s the day I received a check for $2,329.

It was just the first of many checks I’d begin receiving week-after-week…

And the checks haven’t stopped since.

In fact, the only difference is that today…

Those checks are a whole lot larger.

Now I know what you’re wondering, and the answer is “no, I didn’t win the lotto”…

And I didn’t get “job” in the traditional sense either.

Instead…

These checks are all the result of my chance encounter with an eccentric but brilliant Real Estate Maverick…

Someone who had found a way to leverage other people’s money to purchase premium real estate at bargain level prices…

And who ultimately caved and shared his secrets with me.

This man, who I’ll be introducing to you in just a few moments, utterly changed my life…

And I’m willing to bet he can change your life too.

For me, personally…

I went from sleeping on the cold concrete…

To living in a 4,600 square foot home that backed up to the 18th hole of one of Los Angeles’ most prestigious golf courses…

And while I know that sounds like a pretty incredible turnaround…

The truth is…

I truly believe that anyone can follow in my footsteps…

Because all I did was to start using a simple but genius ‘Water Rights Loophole’…

Something that exists in all 50 states in the U.S….

And that allows you to scoop up highly valuable properties…

For just pennies on the dollar.

It’s actually crazy that more people don’t know about this…

But it’s also probably for the better…

Because if this loophole went too mainstream, it wouldn’t work as well as it does.

So, while I am going to show you what this loophole is…

Along with how it works…

Right inside of this letter…

I also need to urge you to read every word that follows right now…

Without any distractions or interruption…

Because I doubt this website will stay online for very long.

Blah blah blah.”

See the difference?

We basically told the same story and even hinted at the same promise…

But in the second version of this lead…

We continuously related what we were saying back to the reader…

We focused on grabbing their attention…

We built rapport with them…

And then, most importantly, we answered the question of “what’s in it for me.”

In other words, we spoke to their inner Ron Burgundy…

Instead of acting like Ron Burgundy ourselves.

A final note on this…

The idea of relating what you’re saying back to your prospect or audience has a wide range of applications.

It’s the same thing when you’re writing blog posts… doing public speaking… going on a podcast… etc.

At the end of the day, we all have a little bit of Ron Burgundy in us…

And the secret is to speak to others’ self-interest…

Rather than focus on only serving our own.

– SPG

P.S. A little over a month ago I went on my friend Josh Felber’s Podcast. The episode just got released recently, and if you want to hear it you can listen here.

P.P.S. This post originally came from an email I sent to my private list. If you want to see more stuff like this from me, you can apply to join my list using this link.

The post Big Lead Mistake #3: How “Ron Burgundy Syndrome” Screws Up Your Leads first appeared on Stefan Georgi.

Some of you may know that my wife, Laura, has been working on a skincare brand called Eden Beauty.

During her first six months, she hardly made any sales…

But over the last month, she’s been making several sales a day.

What’s the big difference been?

Skin in the game.

You see at first, Laura wasn’t doing the marketing for her skincare company…

Instead, she was relying on a third-party agency…

And it just wasn’t working.

Constantly tweaking things for no reason…

And you kind of got the vibe that he thought her campaign wasn’t going to work anyways.

When he left to go join a new company…

Laura decided to take media buying into her own hands…

So, she went through Justin Brooks’ Media Buying Course (I bought the whole bundle a while back)…

Used Google to supplement any knowledge gaps…

And started setting up her own Ad Campaigns on Facebook.

Sure enough, within a few days, she made her first sale…

And now she’s making 3-5 sales per day on average…

Which may not sound like a huge deal…

But it is.

Why?

Because now we know that she’ll be able to scale significantly once she’s ready.

You see, so far she’s been purposely keeping her ad spend low…

And letting Facebook’s AI optimize her ad campaigns.

She’s also been split testing like crazy…

And playing with different price points, ad creatives, variants, etc.

Yesterday she added a subscription to one of her funnels (I wonder who gave her that idea??)…

And, she’s already started making conversions there too…

Which could lead to a LOT of money for the ol’ Georgi household down the line.

So, the point is…

Now that Laura knows her funnel works and her campaigns work…

It’s only a matter of time until she scales to 20 sales a day…

Then 100 sales a day…

And then potentially a whole lot more.

—

And this brings us back to the concept of skin in the game.

In the six months of working with an agency, I don’t think they made a single sale.

In the last two weeks, she’s made dozens.

The reason why is because she took matters into her own hands…

And decided that instead of waiting for someone else to solve her traffic problems for her…

She was going to figure it out herself.

Pretty sexy, right?

—-

I also want to point out that Laura spent maybe 3 days doing the training on FB Ads before she was setting up campaigns and making sales.

That’s a big eye-opener for me…

Because I’m always thinking, “oh buying media on FB is complicated now, I wish I had the time, I don’t know what to do” etc.

In reality, it’s not that complicated…

And, this reminds me of an important lesson I learned a few years back…

Which is that we tend to exaggerate the “unknown”…

When in truth, the unknown is rarely actually all that complex.

I made the same mistake with my health company HLH.

For the first year, I was afraid and resistant to working with affiliates…

Because I didn’t know the space and thought it was complicated.

Finally, in May of 2016 I decided to try working with some affiliates…

And in the year that followed my revenue went from $1MM to $23MM…

Plus, in that same year, I started numerous other health offers that were all driven by affiliate traffic…

And many of which reached 8 figures as well.

Affiliate marketing is NOT hard…

Honestly, it’s stupidly easy.

But I used my fear of the unknown as an excuse…

Something that held me back from reaching my goals…

Until one day I finally said “f**k it.”

—-

So again, you need skin in the game.

Especially at the beginning, when you’re first launching a new venture.

It just makes so much sense to be involved…

Because when you’re trying to get a new business off the ground…

Nobody is going to care as much as you do.

Or try as hard as you will.

Then, once you have momentum…

That’s when you can start to extricate yourself from the day-to-day…

And that’s something that should be your goal…

Because that’s how businesses scale and become the most valuable.

The key, though…

Is to make sure that you extricate yourself in an intentional manner…

You can’t just wake up one day and arbitrarily decide you no longer want to show up to work…

Or immediately hand off all your responsibilities to some new person you just hired after two interviews.

That’s abdication, which almost ends in disaster.

We want to be strategic.

Because, in the end…

Great Strategy + Well Coordinated Execution is how you win.

—

I could write a whole book about this topic…

But fortunately, Nassim Taleb already wrote one…

And it’s titled… Skin in the Game (surprise surprise!)

So, if you’re interested in going really deep on this concept…

It’s worth giving it a read or listen.

– SPG

P.S. This post originally came from an email I sent to my private list. If you want to see more stuff like this from me, you can apply to join my list using this link.

The post The Power of Skin In the Game first appeared on Stefan Georgi.

One of the fastest way to motivate another person…

Or yourself…

Is to win.

Sounds obvious or cliché…

But it’s true.

Quick case in point:

I have a new weight loss offer with my partner, Cody Bramlett, that I knew was pretty strong.

But, up until recently…

We’d only been testing it and hadn’t driven a lot of sales.

Recently, though, we did over 100 sales on the offer in a single day for the first time…

And this was driven by an email affiliate who dropped to her list and saw a 5.8% conversion rate and a $5.41 EPC over 36 sales…

Along with Jason Kutasi, who drove 39 sales on Facebook at a 3.9% conversion rate.

In addition to these two folks…

A few other smaller affiliates also tested the offer yesterday…

And we saw conversion numbers like 6.7%, 4.1%, and 6.9%.

So, in other words…

Last month, it became very clear that this offer is a big winner…

And that Cody and I are going to make a LOT of money from it.

—

And guess what?

Suddenly I started feeling really freaking motivated.

Up until then…

I’d been wanting to rework parts of the close for this offer, so I could increase the Average Order Value…

But I kept putting it off.

Then I saw the sales rolling in yesterday…

And, wouldn’t you know it…

I suddenly became a lot more motivated to make those changes…

So immediately after putting Eden down for her afternoon nap…

I rushed to my computer and made copy edits to the close…

Then sent those to Cody and his design team to get them live ASAP.

Total these edits maybe took 30 minutes…

But, they could easily increase our AOV by $30 – $50.

That’s a big difference.

Yet I just hadn’t felt any urgency to tackle them…

Until suddenly I saw sales coming in…

And realized that if I didn’t take action very quickly…

It was going to cost us a ton of profit over the coming weeks and months.

Once I made that realization though…

I was quite motivated…

And the changes got done.

—

This is just one example, but there are many.

As a leader…

The best way to motivate your team is to show them how their actions are helping your organization win.

As a “client”…

The best thing you can do for a copywriter you have on retainer is give them data and feedback on how their offers are doing.

As an individual…

The best thing you can do to be effective in your life is to create an environment where success and wins are the norm. Even if these are small wins too, that’s fine because those small wins add up.

—

That’s it’s for today.

I have a few more emails to respond to, then am going to be waking up Eden.

– SPG

P.S. I’m gonna take the Packers today a +7.5. I feel pretty good about it, but of course, what the hell do I know?

P.P.S. If you have a list and want to test this weight loss offer let me know. I can link you up with Cody and his affiliate manager, Savannah.

P.P.P.S.This post originally came from an email I sent to my private list. If you want to see more stuff like this from me, you can apply to join my list using this link.

The post The Fastest Way to Motivate Someone Is to win… first appeared on Stefan Georgi.

I saw something awesome recently.

My call center has done outbound phone sales forever – mostly to partials and declines.

But just in the past few weeks…

We also hired a new team to do Welcome Calls…

Which are calls to people who just recently bought…

Where we sell them additional packages and bundles.

The new Welcome Call team has a solid script.

They’re following it closely…

And are making some sales.

But, as you might expect…

Some agents are off to a much better start than others.

On my end, I’ve been out on the floor a lot working with the new team…

And, what I quickly noticed…

Is that one of the Welcome Call agents is already outperforming everyone else.

Specifically, this guy is having thousand-dollar days, every day…

Even though he’s only been doing this for a little over a week.

And today…

As I was pacing around the sales floor and listening to his conversations…

It quickly became obvious why this dude is having more success than everyone else.

This agent future-paces like a MOTHER-F.

In other words…

As I listened in on his conversations…

I realized that throughout his conversations with his prospects…

He’s constantly painting a picture of what life could be like if their pain point went away.

For example…

He was talking to a woman about buying some skincare products…

And I heard him say something along the lines of:

“The whole goal is that it’s six months from now, and you’re at the beach, and you feel so confident and proud. Your skin is radiant. You have no worries about blemishes, you feel so relaxed, and so free. That’s what we want for you. Can you imagine that?”

I don’t think this guy has ever studied sales copy…

But he’s naturally using one of the most powerful copy techniques on earth…

And, sure enough…

That prospect turned into a $531 sale during the call.

—

What’s really cool, is that the more I’ve been listening in on our agents…

The more I’ve been reminded of how transferable of a skill copywriting is.

It doesn’t matter what medium.

The same sales techniques that work in a sales letter…

Also, work on the phone…

Or during an in-person conversation.

—

Let me give you another example of this:

An issue I saw come up today …

Was that this same agent was about to close another sale…

And the customer’s card got “soft-declined.”

Normally this occurs because the bank doesn’t recognize the MID that is processing the transaction…

And, when that happens…

The customer needs to call their bank and tell them that they are trying to make a transaction, and to let the charge go through.

Well, when this happened today…

The agent basically said, “okay, well you need to call the bank and then call me back.”

Then he got off the phone!

Let’s be honest: the chances aren’t great the prospect is going to call him back…

But, there’s a way he could have increased the likelihood of her calling him back dramatically.

What is it?

He could have told her EXACTLY what she needs to do.

Instead of saying, “call your bank and call me back”…

He could have given her step-by-step instructions for how to call her bank…

And then set an expectation about how long it should take…

Why she should do it…

And what’s going to happen after she does.

If he did that, the conversation would have gone something like this:

“Okay, well it looks like there was a processing error with the bank. You’re going to need to give them a quick call and let them know that you are trying to make an important investment and that they need to get this resolved right way. Is that something you can do?

 

 

Great. Now typically these calls to the bank take fifteen minutes or less. And while I know even fifteen minutes can be a bit annoying, you have to think about why you’re calling them. You’re calling the bank because you want the chance to achieve beautiful, glowing, crystal-clear skin for years to come. Do you think it’s worth fifteen minutes of your time if it means you could have that chance? Me too.

 

 

Okay great, so we’ll just have you call your bank really quickly. To do that, you’ll need to dial the number on the back of your card. Do you see that number? Perfect.

 

 

So go ahead and give them a call right now so we can get you on the path to beautiful skin. Then I want you to call me back in fifteen minutes once you’re done talking with them, and we’ll get this taken care of for you.

 

 

I’m going to give you my number right now too, so it’s easy for you to call me back. Do you have a pen and paper? Perfect, I want you to write this number down. Got it? Perfect.

 

 

Go ahead and call your bank right now, and if for any reason I don’t hear back from you in the next 15 minutes, I’m going to call you back at this number just to make sure you’re taken care of. Sound good? Awesome, thank you NAME.”

You tell me…

Which response is more likely to get the prospect to actually take the time to call her bank?

Unless you’re smoking crack, it’s the one I just wrote out.

And the reason why, is because while it might seem painfully obvious…

The truth is, people need to be told exactly what to do.

It’s the same thing in your sales letter, by the way.

You need to tell them to click the button that says “buy.” You need to tell them what happens after they click that button. You need to walk them through the whole process in their minds, step-by-step…

You should have them visualizing making the order before they’ve ever actually completed it…

Because doing so increases the chances of them converting significantly.

—

Remember…

When you get good at selling through copy, you get good at selling PERIOD.

This doesn’t mean you’re immediately a smooth operator on the phone or in-person…

But you’re still lightyears ahead of most other salespeople…

Because you know all of the proven tricks and secrets that get people to say “yes.”

It’s a superpower.

An unfair advantage.

A skill we should really value and be glad to have.

—

K, that’s it for now.

I just wanted to share these thoughts with y’all.

– SPG

P.S.This post originally came from an email I sent to my private list. If you want to see more stuff like this from me, you can apply to join my list using this link.

The post There’s Copywriting Gold In This Post first appeared on Stefan Georgi.

I was talking with Jeremy Reeves recently about the power of subscriptions.

During our conversation, I wrote out a pretty cool breakdown…

And I figured I’d share it with my blog readers too.

What you’re about to read is in reference to a health supplement funnel…

But the same concept can be applied to pretty much anything you’re selling.

Check it out and enjoy 🙂

When it comes to subscription revenue, here’s what I did in the past:

1. The checkout is your standard one, where they have the option to get 1, 3, or 6 bottles.
2. On that checkout page, you give them the option to subscribe and get a 10% discount.
3. When giving them that option, you explain clearly that they are enrolling in an auto-ship, and that they can cancel anytime.

When my health company did this in the past, we’d get about a 20% take rate for the subscription.

For those who subscribed…

We would not show them a 6 bottle “stock up” up-sell or a 3 bottle “last chance” down-sell…

Instead, we’d take them straight to cross-sell pages, where we sell them different products.

Now when it comes to the details of subscription billing and how it was executed, here’s what we did:

When the customer’s is rebilled is dependent upon how many bottles they took.

So if they took 6 bottles, then they get rebilled towards the end of month 6.

And here’s the SUPER IMPORTANT part:

Before the customer gets rebilled for the first time…

I would have my team send them an email AND call them…

To confirm they were good with getting rebilled.

We found that about 50% of people were good with the rebill…

But of those 50%, they tended to stick with us for a very long time after (aka, multiple rebill cycles).

And now let’s get to the fun part, where we do the math on this:

Say you’re doing 100 sales a day, total.

That means 20 people are subscribing per day (20% of people check the box).

Out of that, let’s say:

• 50% of those people take your 6-month option
• 30% take your 3-month option
• 20% take your 1-month option.

We know that half (10) of those people who subscribe will actually rebill.

So, this means that each day you’re getting:

• 5 people who are going to rebill at a 6 bottle package (let’s call it $240 in rev per person, per rebill)
• 3 people who are going to rebill at your 3 bottle package (let’s call it $120 in rev per person, per rebill)
• 2 people who are going to rebill at your 1 bottle package (let’s call it $59 in rev per person, per rebill).

That’s an extra $1,678 in expected revenue you’ll get from those customers on their FIRST billing cycle.

Realistically though, most of them will rebill more than once.

And, here’s the crazy part…

Even if they only rebill two times – we double the future expected revenue to $3,356.  

As in you’re generating an extra $3,356 in expected revenue PER DAY.

Every day that you do 100 sales, and add 20 new subscribers…

That’s another $3,356 you can expect to collect in the next year (realistically it will be a lot more).

The math on this is pretty simple:

No matter if they are rebilled every 1-month, 3-months, or 6-months…

If we assume two re-billing cycles…

That means they’ll be rebilled twice in the next year.

Additional Expected Revenue Per day = $3,356….

365 Days in a Year…

That’s $1,224,940 in extra revenue you are generating…

And it’s coming from just TEN customers per day!!!

Talk about the 80/20 Rule in Action (or in this case 90/10).

Plus, don’t forget…

You’re not having to pay a CPA when these customers rebill in the future.

So your costs are very modest.

At most maybe $200,000 – but probably it’s a lot lower than that.

All of which is to say that subscriptions are one of the fastest ways to become a millionaire.

A couple more notes on this:

1. I’m sure other people are better with subscription than me, but this is what I’ve done.
2. We were super transparent about our rebills when we used this model in the past, and our chargebacks did not increase AT ALL. They stayed below 1% on average.
3. No joke, I still have customers from 2017 who are on rebill today 🙂
4. Extrapolate this out to 1,000 front ends a day. Suddenly it’s $12,249,400 in additional revenue you’re getting. Realistically, your profit margin on this is probably 80% too. So you’re looking at close to $10MM in additional profit PER YEAR. That’s how you become a centimillionaire within a decade.

Pretty dope, right?

And if you’ve ever noticed that Justin and I spend a lot of time talking about the importance of getting your offer to scale on cold traffic…

That’s why.

100 sales a day can be life-changing…

1,000 sales a day can make you rich beyond your wildest dreams…

It’s that simple.

– SPG

P.S. If you know someone who would find value in blog posts like this one, feel free to share. Also, they can apply to join my list using this link here.

The post How 10 Customers a Day Can Make You a Millionaire In a Year first appeared on Stefan Georgi.

Laura is going to KILL me for this subject line 😂

So, before I officially cement my place in the guestroom for the next few nights…

Let me go ahead and explain what I mean. 

It’s no secret between my wife and me that Selena Gomez is one of my celebrity crushes…

And occasionally, she’ll come up in conversation… or I’ll see her in a movie… or hear one of her songs…

And I’ll tease Laura about how in love I am with Selena. 

Of course, I’m not actually in love with Selena Gomez…

It’s just fun to tease Laura…

And I do think Selena is very talented. 

So anyway…

This morning, as I was drinking my coffee and reading the Wall Street Journal…

I came across an article titled, “The Ballad of Selena Gomez.” 

It’s a long piece about Selena and the things she’s been through…

And it had a lot of stuff about her that I didn’t know. 

For example, I remember hearing that she had lupus for a while…

But I didn’t know that it developed into a more serious condition that required her to get a kidney transplant in 2017. Or that there was a complication during the surgery and it ended up lasting 9 hours and she almost died. 

I also didn’t know that Selena has suffered from various mental health issues, including anxiety and depression. Or that she’s seen numerous therapists and gone to multiple in-patient treatment facilities for these issues. I was especially surprised when she said: “I got on the right medication, and my life has completely changed.” 

I’ve dealt with depression (never super severe) at various times in my life too, so I could relate to that….

But, what really resonated with me is the part about getting on the right medication. 

In November of 2018, I got re-diagnosed with ADD and decided to go on Adderall. It was a big and difficult decision for me – because I really try not to take “drugs.” But it has absolutely and utterly changed my life. I’m on a relatively small dosage, but it’s made a night and day difference. I’m more pleasant to be around, more attentive with my family, and have dramatically less social anxiety.

I need to write a whole article about my ADD in the future. But the point is, when I read that quote about medications from Selena, I totally got it. 

Also, while I knew Selena had a lot of Instagram followers, I didn’t realize she’d taken a year-and-a-half break at one point because: “I’d rather stay away from anything that’s going to make me feel like shit.” 

And I found it interesting that Selena’s not religious in the traditional sense, but does say of her spirituality that, “it’s about my faith and connection to God.” That’s how I approach spirituality too: I don’t go to Church, but I do cultivate a personal connection with God.  

Oh, and finally…

I liked hearing how Selena needs alone time, ideally a few hours each day, to fully recharge. Personally, I’m probably about 55% introvert, 45% extrovert. So I’m fine in social situations (especially now that my ADD is better managed), but it’s also very important that I get some downtime each day. 

Okay, so what’s my point?  

Well, as I was reading this article about Selena Gomez…

And learning all of these things about her…

I found myself thinking, “man, I love Selena Gomez!” 

But I didn’t mean this in a romantic way.

Or even in the sense that I was attracted to her.

She just seems really cool…

Like a badass…

Like someone, I could admire, because she’s gone through a lot and has a unique perspective on things…

She seemed like someone I could relate to.  

Now, here’s the part where I wave my magic wand and tie this all back to marketing and copy.

This article about Selena Gomez, and my response to it…

Reminds me yet again of why personal stories are so effective in our copy and marketing. 

Getting personal and vulnerable…

Being authentic and honest…

This is what allows our audience to truly become connected to us. 

If we tell our story well…

Then the reader will see parts of themselves in us…

Which, in turn, makes them feel less alone. 

That’s a powerful thing…

And when your audience truly feels understood…

It becomes so much easier for them to want to take action.

In fact, they’ll want to take action…

You don’t even have to ask them – they do it proactively because they like you. 

For me personally…

When I read this Wall Street Journal article…

It made me want to listen to Selena Gomez’s new album. 

Normally I would never do that since I don’t really listen to pop albums…

But now that I’ve read about Selena’s experiences……

And learned the stories behind some of her new songs…

I probably will put her album on at some point today…

Because now I’m curious and feel connected to her story. 

And, make no mistake about it…

That’s really what the point of this Wall Street Journal article was, to begin with.

It was to present Selena in a certain light…

And to expose her to an audience beyond her core demographic…

With the goal being that people would read this article and find Selena interesting…

And then go stream her music… or attend a concert… or watch one of her movies… or engage with her in some way.  

For me personally, at least, the article was effective…

But there was never any call-to-action in the article…

Nothing that said: “Click Here to Listen To the New Album NOW”…

And truthfully, there didn’t need to be… 

Because now that I know about Selena and her story…

It’s easy for me to want to support her. 

I’m going to be wrapping this up here in a second…

But the last point I want to make…

Is that this whole experience I’ve described…

Of reading Selena’s story…

Feeling more connected to her…

Then wanting to take an action…

It goes back to a concept I posted about a while ago in the Justin and Stefan Talk Copy Facebook Group…

Something I refer to as Emotional Response Marketing (ERM). 

This is marketing where, instead of getting people to take an external action (aka click here)…

We’re focused on getting them to have an internal reaction (a feeling). 

It can be hard for Direct Response Marketers to believe that feelings can be more important than clicks…

Yet I would argue that the former is much more valuable over time.

Because when it’s done right…

It leads to people taking an action not just once…

But over-and-over-and-over again. 

I’ll write more about ERM in the future…

But wanted to make a note about it here as well.

Okay, other than that, time to jump into my day. 

Doing some copy tweaks for the next hour…

Then I have some meetings with members of my call center…

And then this afternoon, I’m going to be spending some time working on my RMBC Course…

Which launched at the end of April.

Hope you all have a great day 🙂

– SPG

P.S. Laura’s celebrity crush has been Leonardo DiCaprio since she was 13 years old and saw Titanic.

In addition to Leo, she also likes James Franco.

And then on the flip side, she’s also into pro-wrestler looking guys with long hair and unshaven faces. 

It’s quite the contrast…

But, the point is that all of her crushes look NOTHING like me at all…

Which is another thing I frequently enjoy teasing her about.

P.P.S. This post originally came from an email I sent to my private list. If you want to see more stuff like this from me, you can apply to join my list using this link.

The post I Love Selena Gomez first appeared on Stefan Georgi.

One of the books I’m reading right now is Atomic Habits, by James Clear.

I’d heard of it for a while, but just finally started on it…

And so far, I’m really enjoying it.

One of the things James talks about in the book…

Is the difference between systems and goals.

A goal is your endpoint – where you want to go…

A system is an operating framework you follow, something that can allow you to get to the goal.

It’s important to note that:

• Different goals require different systems…
• Systems don’t just exist in service of your goals – if anything, they are more important than your goals.

Anyone can set a goal…

“I want to make a million dollars”…

“I want to lose 20 lbs”…

“I want to be a great parent”…

But, just setting a goal doesn’t do a whole lot for you.

The real art-form, and the real challenge, is how you go about achieving those goals.

That’s where having systems and processes come into play.

—

Now, this might all sound kind of obvious…

But the reason I’m writing about it…

It is because as I was reading Atomic Habits this morning…

It helped me to realize that, while I have some systems in my life that work well…

In other areas, I still don’t have clearly defined systems.

And, predictably…

In the places where I have clearly defined, well-tested systems…

I thrive…

While in the places where I don’t have clearly defined systems, things are more ambiguous.

To take a concrete example…

Look at my RMBC Method.

As many of you know, RMBC is my copywriting system.

It stands for Research, Mechanism, Brief, and Copy…

And it’s a process that, when followed, allows anyone to write predictably better copy in significantly less time.

I developed RMBC out of necessity when I was writing 8-12 sales letters a month for Lion’s Publishing, back in 2014…

Then, I taught it to the first copy team I ever built…

Along with every copy cub I’ve hired since.

It’s one of the biggest things we focus on and teach in Copy Accelerator.

Over time, RMBC has gone through modifications, revisions, and tweaks…

And today…

It’s an amazing system that, when followed, produces predictable results.

In Copy Accelerator, which is the copywriting mastermind I run with Justin Goff…

We review dozen of pieces of sales copy each week…

And, we can always tell immediately if the writer followed RMBC or not.

When they did, the copy is never bad. It may need tweaks or revisions, but foundationally, everything is there and it’s easy to make it even better.

When they didn’t, there are glaring issues. Our feedback becomes focused less on the copy, and more on big picture stuff:

Messaging, language and pain points are off – because the writer didn’t do their Research…

The copy doesn’t identify the surprising culprit behind the prospects’ problem, or present their product as a unique solution to that problem – because the writer didn’t develop a unique Mechanism…

The copy about the product is bland, or the background story is boring – because the writer didn’t do their Brief…

Or, the sales letter itself is logically incoherent and confusing – because the writer didn’t follow the sales letter outline, which is an integral part of writing the actual Copy.

In the case of Copy Accelerator…

The vast majority of our members have now bought into RMBC…

And, the result has been that their writing has improved dramatically, their offers are converting better, and their careers and businesses are skyrocketing.

But it doesn’t always happen overnight.

Sometimes, we’ll have a more seasoned writer join…

And they’ll attend every one of our weekly training calls…

Be active in our Facebook Group…

And be good about asking us for copy critiques…

Then still ignore the RMBC Method for MONTHS!

It’s crazy to see…

Especially because on several occasions…

I’ve had these writers come to me and be like:

“I don’t get it, why am I not improving? Why am I still struggling to get clients? What can I do?”

The answer is simple:

You can upgrade your system!

You see, in cases like the ones I just described…

What’s happening is that these writers are continuing to use their old copywriting system, even though that system has obvious limitations:

It got them to where they are but then they stalled… and one of the reasons they joined Copy Accelerator was to break through to that next level, which requires them to adapt new processes.

And usually, once I point this out to the writers (sometimes it takes a few times)…

They finally get it, they upgrade to RMBC…

And lo-and-behold…

“Wow — this new letter/ad/email crushed it!”

“I’m writing 5 promos a month now when I used to be able to only write one”

“I made 5x more this month than I did in all of last year as a freelancer” (A real comment from a freelancer writer in Copy Accelerator).

“Our business doubled in two months” (A real comment from an 8 figure business owner in Copy Accelerator).

—

And, believe it or not…

The point of everything I just wrote is NOT just to sneakily sell you on Copy Accelerator…

I’m simply using CA as an example, because it’s where I put my copywriting system into practice…

And I see it repeatedly leads to predictable results when people use it…

Which makes sense…

Because of the system flat-out works.

And, as I was reading Atomic Habits this morning and thinking about systems and processes…

It made me wonder, where else in my life I can either develop or optimize, my systems?

I’ve created a great one for copywriting…

But what about everything else?

I’ve got a pretty decent one for time management and productivity…

A pretty good one for my health…

And some good frameworks around mindset, management, entrepreneurship, etc.

I’ve already shared a few of those frameworks with you…

[For example, I shared my time management one a few blog posts back. If you’re new to my blog and want to see it, you can find it here.]

And I’ll share more of them in future blog posts…

Since you may find them helpful…

But still…

I’m pretty sure that for most of these other systems I have…

They could be dialed in DRAMATICALLY.

Because if I’m being honest with myself…

None of them are as optimized as RMBC.

So that’s going to be one of my focuses for the first quarter of 2020:

Picking a few additional areas in my life that could benefit from systemization…

Then developing strong, replicable, and easily implementable systems for those things.

I’ll report back what I discover.

And I’d also encourage you to consider applying this same approach to some areas in your life, too…

Consider asking yourself:

“What are some things that I do regularly, but that I feel could be further optimized?”

It could be copywriting…

Leading a team…

Interfacing with clients…

Building funnels…

Raising your kid(s)…

Leading a church group…

Really, anything you do could likely benefit from having a foundational framework.

So, it may be worth building out systems for at least one of these things…

Then following it faithfully (aka making it a habit)…

Because if you do…

I’m pretty sure it will lead to some pretty outsized results.

—

Okay, that’s it on systems for now.

I promise to share more on the systems I use in future blog posts…

Plus, I’ll report back on the new systems I’m creating, and how they’re going.

I’m also aware that I teased RMBC a lot in this blog post…

And you may not fully understand what it is, or how it works.

So if you want to find out more about how it works, you can check out this page that’s all about RMBC.

This page is several-thousand-words long…

And provides a very strong overview of the system…

So it might be worth it to check that out.

– SPG

P.S. This post originally came from an email I sent to my private list. If you want to see more stuff like this from me, you can apply to join my list using this link.

The post The Word “System” Turns Me On… first appeared on Stefan Georgi.

I honestly didn’t know what I was going to write about today…

So, I’m just going to share what’s going on in my copywriting career with you 🙂

• This morning I got a text from Nick Daniel saying that the new offer I did for Vshred/Sculpt Nation is looking really strong. That has me stoked. I can’t say what the offer is because Nick wants time to be able to scale it and not get knocked off. But hopefully, you’ll see it everywhere pretty soon 🙂
• Then on Skype, I heard from my ex-business partner’s team that the Vision offer I did for them is starting to really take off. Stoked about that and excited for the royalties on this one, as they are not insignificant.
• Cody and I have a weight loss offer that tested insanely well internally. Today is the first day we’ve had an external affiliate send for it and it’s looking great there. We also got a toned-down version to an FB Affiliate of ours and he’s seeing if he can get it approved. If he can, that’s going to be a tsunami of sales, so fingers crossed.
• I heard from the Golden Hippo team that the sales letter I wrote for a new product is finally starting to get tested. This one was a pain in the butt because of the spokesperson involved (not Dr. Gundry but someone else). The fact that it’s finally seeing the light of day though is really exciting, so fingers-crossed there as well!
• A friend of mine is running that Lift Factor offer on FB again. It was dormant for a while because I found the offer owner impossible to work with. My friend is now going direct with the offer owner so that the headache is gone. And the good news is that because I’m the one who connected them, my friend is giving me a second-tier affiliate comm on it (so I get a small CPA with each sale). Considering my friend is currently doing between 600-1,000 sales a day with this offer, I’m pretty pleased about that!
• GS-85 volume is back up, which is great since my agency gets a commission on every sale.
• The new promo I delivered to Lee Euler and Jeremey Hunsicker came out really strong. I got an email from Jeremey yesterday saying that they both loved it and think I’ve created a big winner. Only testing and data will say for certain, but I’ve got a good feeling. And what’s cool, is that the offer is loaded with nasty hooks, but I didn’t mention diabetes one time. Instead, it’s all about erratic blood sugar and glucose support, etc. So, the risk profile should be a lot lower than other offers in the space.
• I’ve got several more offers I wrote, or am involved with, that are being rolled out over the next few weeks, and I’m excited to see how they do. I’ll report back on those and I’ll be honest if any of them tank or bomb too lol.

Hopefully, this doesn’t come across as a brag post…

But it’s important to celebrate the wins.

Especially in the world of freelance copywriting…

Which can be a bit of a rollercoaster, at times.

This morning, though…

I’m feeling a lot of optimism.

I’ve got a bunch of good stuff happening…

A bunch of things that are working…

And I’m excited, motivated, and grateful.

—

That’s about it for today.

Laura is up now, and I’m sure Eden will be getting up before long too.

We’re going to that hockey game later today (Go Knights, go!)…

Then having dinner at Twist.

Last night’s dinner was really nice as well…

And, I’m excited to spend an action-packed day with Laura and continue her birthday celebration.

– SPG

P.S. A while back I shared a survey of all the offers I wrote in 2019 along with how they did. If you’re new to my blog and you want to read it, click here.

P.P.S. I think I’m going put a decent-sized bet on the Patriots today. They’re -4 and while I don’t think they are making the Super Bowl this year, I do think they’re going to beat up the Titans. Let me know if you think I’m crazy.

P.P.P.S. This post originally came from an email I sent to my private list. If you want to see more stuff like this from me, you can apply to join my list using this link.

The post These Offers Are Working So Far In 2020 first appeared on Stefan Georgi.