Sell Like Crazy
Page 10
to do this as long as you provide a link back to their business).
HVCO Types
FREE Consultation
Coupons
Checklists
Cheat sheets
Quizzes
Videos
Video course
Toolkit
Calendar
Podcast
Interview
Live demo
Tickets
Email course
Physical product
Swipe file
Infographic
Custom pricing
White paper
Ebook
T-Shirt
Industry statistics
Case study
‘How-to’ guide
PDF download
Webinar
E Course
Phone call
Assessment
Action Points
Using the comments and concerns you discovered in Phase 1,
brainstorm a HVCO you can produce to answer the questions keeping
your ideal customer up at night.
Choose your best idea and create a solid High-Value Content Offer (a
free report, video or cheat sheet, etc.) that gets your dream buyer to
raise their hands and identify themselves as being interested in what
you’re selling. The content and title of this HVCO should address the
#1 most common ‘hair on fire’ question or concern your market is
having and that kept coming up from your research. The HVCO
should be positioned to solve that problem or answer that question.
Ensure your copy contains a bold headline and a strong call to action.
Speak to your audience in the same language as the questions they’re
asking.
Don’t be afraid to directly address how your products and services fill
the gap.
When you connect with your audience this way, you’ll resonate on a far more
influential level. In fact, your customers will feel as if your products or
services are tailored specifically for their exact needs and desires, making this
the most effective way to grow your business.
PHASE 3:
Capture Leads And Get Contact
Details
This is where I see 99% of businesses getting it wrong. They approach
their prospects like an army would attack a walled city - with a full
frontal assault. They send traffic straight to a landing page, or even
worse, their homepage, and attempt to go straight for the sale and pray they’ll
make a profit.
They simply disregard all the necessary steps that take place to turn a stranger
into a satisfied, paying client. They are far too eager to make a sales pitch.
They make the wrong assumption and treat everybody in their market as if
they’re already eager to buy.
No wining, no dining... nothing! They are doing the equivalent of walking
into a bar and asking a stranger to marry them!
As discussed already, we must follow a proven process in order to turn
strangers into high-paying clients; and the next step in this process is to get
them to ‘opt-in’.
Yes, the single purpose of the opt-in page is just that: to get people to give
you their contact details in exchange for what it is you’re ‘selling’, typically a
HVCO.
‘Selling’ in quotes is not a typo. I use the term ‘selling’ even though you will
be giving this away for free. Why? Well, this is the very first transaction that
takes place between you and your prospect. While there may be no exchange
of money, the currency in which they’re paying for this piece of information
consists of their name and email address. And you must wow them. If you’re
simply handing them a crappy promotional report about how great your
products and services are, you’ll lose all trust and will be pedalling uphill
from the very beginning.
Just because you’re not collecting cash for your free report doesn’t mean you
shouldn’t make it the type of quality someone would happily pay money for.
The information you’re giving away on your opt-in page must be so good that
it leaves your prospects saying, ‘If they’re giving away such valuable content
for free, imagine what their paid products and services are like!’
So, what should you put on an opt-in page to make it so irresistible and
bursting with so much intrigue that it practically forces visitors to quickly
cough up their contact details in exchange for what you’re offering?
Well, the good news is that we’ve already done the heavy lifting when we
completed the Halo Strategy and uncovered your market’s deepest pains,
fears, hopes and dreams. This is where you can use this information to hit
your prospects’ hot buttons to motivate them to opt-in for your HVCO.
Everything You Need To Create A
Killer Opt-In Page
When building your opt-in page, you should include these elements:
A headline that grabs your reader by the throat.
A subheadline that restates your offer and what they’re getting.
Ultra-compelling fascination bullets: Short and punchy explanation of
how the content is going to help your prospect and make sure they’re
oozing with intrigue.
A visual representation of what they’re getting – a free report, cheat
sheet, etc.
A basic form for people to enter their name and email to access the
content.
The Opt-In Headline
The headline should snap your reader’s eyeballs to the screen and promise
them a specific, vivid benefit. Focus on solving one specific pain point for
your prospect. If it’s too vague it will roll over your prospects like water off a
duck’s back. It should focus on your prospect’s exact needs and then offer an
immediate solution to their problem.
When you’re writing opt-in copy, you’ve got to have energy behind it. Turn
up the volume and take it to the extreme. Why?
People browsing online are basically sleepwalking zombies. They roam from
site to site until they find something that strikes them. Your copy must be like
a thundering bolt of lightning that shoots through their bodies and shocks
them awake from their slumber.
To do this you must turn up the volume full blast.
Headline Formula:
Finally! How to Get [DESIRED RESULT] Without [THING THEY FEAR
MOST] in [SPECIFIC TIME FRAME] - Guaranteed.
‘[PROBLEM]? Get My [SOLUTION] and [RESULT]’
If you’re struggling to come up with a unique headline, this little puppy
works a treat, every, single, time. Guaranteed.
The Opt-In SubHeadline
The subheadline simply restates your offer and what they’re specifically
getting, such as this: ‘26-page Paleo cookbook including 16 delicious Paleo-
friendly recipes you can make in under 20 minutes PLUS beautiful high-
resolution pictures’.
It should then go on to explain how this will be delivered, and leave nothing
to question, such as: ‘Simply enter your email address below and a PDF copy
will instantly be sent right to your inbox’.
Ultra-Compelling Fascination Bullets
Bullet copy or fascination bullets are small nuggets of tantalising teaser
information that intrigue the reader while offering or implying a benefit
.
They’re designed to crank up the curiosity of your prospect and make not
opting-in virtually impossible. It’s what can give that last nudge required to
push your prospect over the edge.
The number one thing that impacts the effectiveness of your bullets?
It’s curiosity.
‘Curiosity’, said the legendary American advertising pioneer Claude
Hopkins, ‘is among the strongest of human incentives’.
So instead of barraging prospects with blatant benefits, you want to craft
bullet copy that teases, tantalises, and tempts prospects — intensifying their
curiosity to almost unbearable levels, and then inviting them to satisfy that
curiosity for free, simply by opting in.
Writing great fascinations is an art form demanding a great eye, well-
developed skill, and tremendous creativity. It’s an endeavour that can take
years to master.
To circumvent this arduous task, I’ve included my fascination bullet copy
formulas for writing compelling bullet copy in minutes.
Fascination Bullet Copy Formulas
How to X without Y: ‘How to get washboard abs without doing a single sit-
up’. ‘How to meet single men without speed dating or hanging out in bars’.
‘How to invest in real estate with no money down’.
You need X, right? Wrong! Address a common belief and then create
massive curiosity by talking against it. ‘Drinking 3 litres of water a day is
healthy, right? WRONG!’
‘Discover the number one thing you can do to stay 20 times more hydrated
than drinking water’. This creates massive intrigue.
X ways to Y: This is the most classic of all, ‘Five ways to meet single
women in Melbourne’. Classic, straight forward copy.
Where to find Y: ‘Where to find the most ravenous hyperactive buyers
online’.
How to eliminate X: ‘How to stop joint pain forever’. ‘How to never pay
another cent in tax’.
What you should never: This is a great one, as people are more compelled
to know what they shouldn’t do than what they should. Fear of loss (pain) is
greater than fear of attainment (joy).
‘What you should never say to a woman on your first date’. ‘What you
should never do when trying to win over a prospect’.
Say goodbye to X [frustration]: ‘Say goodbye to calorie counting and hour-
long cardio sessions’.
The truth about Y: ‘The dirty truth about fish oil revealed’. ‘The truth about
flossing only after you’ve brushed your teeth’.
Have you been doing X wrong? (And does it really matter?) ‘Have you
been boiling your eggs in the wrong pot? (And does it really matter?)’
‘Show, Don’t Tell’: Visually Represent the Value of the Opt-In
It’s not enough to just tell your prospects about what they’re going to get.
You need to show them, and make it polished so the perceived value is very
high. Just the same way an online shopper wouldn’t buy something online
without seeing high-resolution images, your prospects will be reluctant to
hand over their contact details without seeing what they’re getting.
If it’s a free report or ebook, show them a physical book or brochure mock-
up. If it’s a cheat sheet, show them how many pages they are getting.
Collect Their Name and Email Address
Don’t ask them, tell them where to put their contact details to get the mouth-
watering content you’re offering in exchange.
The less information you ask for, the higher the conversion rate on your opt-
in page. I suggest collecting just two pieces of data: their name and email
address. All we’re trying to get our prospects to do is raise their hand and
identify themselves as being interested in what we’re selling. We’ll then use
email automation to nurture these prospects over time.
Here are a few real-life examples:
NOTICE:
It’s crystal clear this offer is aimed at people looking for a childcare
centre.
The use of numbers.
Answers the top questions in that market: How will my child fit in at a
childcare centre? What should I be looking for in a childcare centre?
NOTICE:
It’s crystal clear this offer is aimed at people looking for refinance.
The use of numbers.
Answers the top questions in that market: How can I best refinance
my home? What should I be looking for?
NOTICE:
It’s crystal clear this is aimed at people looking for a financial planner.
The use of numbers.
Answers the top questions in that market: How do I find a decent
financial planner? What should I be looking out for?
NOTICE:
It’s crystal clear it’s aimed at people looking to be healthier, and the
method is by consuming green smoothies.
The use of numbers.
Answers the number top questions in that market: How do I get
healthier? How do I make tasty and different green smoothies?
NOTICE:
It’s crystal this offer is aimed at married people who don’t want to get
divorced.
The use of numbers.
Answers the top questions in that market: How do I avoid a divorce?
How can I improve my marriage?
Follow-Up
Now we’ve used a HVCO to appeal to the largest percentage of your market
and collected their contact details via our opt-in page, we now have the
ability to follow up and nurture these prospects via email and make them
offers (that is where the majority of the sales will be made).
But right now, we have the opportunity to capture the ‘hyper-active buyers’ –
by making them an offer so good they can’t refuse – using a technique called
The Godfather Strategy which we’ll cover in the next chapter.
You see, once a prospect downloads your HVCO they will automatically be
redirected to a thank you page, which we’ll be using as a landing page to
make your Godfather offer.
PHASE 4:
The Godfather Strategy
This is the single most powerful, most effective, and most profit-
generating strategy I have ever discovered….
This is the one secret I’ve been reluctant to reveal. It’s
unquestionably the biggest secret I have ever uncovered in my 17 years in the
trenches of sales and marketing.
This secret is so powerful, it instantly doubles or triples the profit of almost
any sales message, selling any product or service in any market.
It can make the weakest and most unprofitable traffic sources into your own
personal t of the most ravenous and ‘itchy-to-buy’ customers available.
It’s my secret weapon. And it has allowed me to invade and conquer multiple
industries in multiple markets with multiple businesses and crush much more
established competitors into a fine powder that scatters in the wind.
This is the Godfather Strategy:
Make Your Prospects An Offer They
Can’t Refuse
Simple, isn’t it?
An ‘offer’ consists of two things:
What your prospects want when they respond to your marketing.
What they have to do to get it.
And it’s where 99% of businesses get it wrong. They generate lea
ds, or, if
they have their head screwed on right, offer a free report. Then they’re
surprised when people don’t show up at the door waving a credit card, or
don’t whip out their wallet and buy straight away. And that’s because they’re
not motivating their prospects with an irresistible offer.
Less than 1% of the businesses I consult with have this right before I work
with them. They don’t have any resemblance of an irresistible offer. Instead,
they are using resistible offers and wonder why their business is stuck.
The Godfather Strategy is about making an irresistible offer with balls. It’s
about making some huge claims and some big promises. It’s about having an
offer so white hot that it melts objections and obliterates any friction between
you and the sale... and... almost forces your prospects to buy.
Sadly, what I see all the time is that most business owners start in a position
of weakness. Their promises are weak and watered down.
They have no resemblance of a compelling offer. Instead they have an
impotent offer that looks something like this: ‘Use our service and you might
see some sort of benefit sometime in the distant future’. Or, ‘Download this
free report, and we’ll tell you how great it is to have our products and
services’.
These horrible, weak, and frail offers are simply not good enough to
withstand the competitive gale force winds that rage through online
marketplaces.
Here is how you create a hair-raising offer that stops your prospects in their
tracks and demands their attention and practically forces them to buy.
Grab a cup of coffee or tea and get comfortable. Because unless your offers
are already radically different from the tens of thousands of businesses I’ve
seen, we’re about to add big bucks to your bottom line.
The One Unbreakable Rule Of
Marketing That Can Ensure Your
Success
In the old days, merchants and customers hammered out most purchases face-
to-face in the town square. The merchant yelled out their offers, the buyer
haggled for the best price, and asked the merchant to sweeten the pot by
adding something extra or discounting the price.
The advent of mass marketing changed all that, of course. Today, digital
consumers are accustomed to having your best offer presented to them on