The Client Letter
April 10, 2013
The Northland
Gray 29 Degrees
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About 10 years ago I got my first taste of “the drug…”
I was sitting in my apartment in Scottsdale Arizona at a crappy little computer table with an eMachine computer on it. There’s a picture of it right there.
I had just checked my email. That’s when I saw it.
I had a new order. Not just any new order, my first order over the internet… ever!
Money had flown from someone else’s pocket, over the interwebz and deposited itself squarely in my lap.
Shazaaammmm…
I would never be the same.
I still remember the website I designed that got that first order.
Guess what was on the home page?
Was it some crafty headline that sucked my reader into a powerful story? Nope.
Was it some powerful marketing strategy to build a list of potential customers? Not even close.
The entire homepage of my website was filled with the logo I had designed for the business. The logo was the ENITRE page.
Back then, I was clueless about selling just about everything.
By the second or third version of the website, I was getting a little bit smarter.
I spent a LOT of time writing that first long form salesletter (thank you Cory Rudl).
Getting the headline was hard. I’m not sure how long it took, but it took a while.
I was selling oboe reeds in that business. Oboe reeds are a handmade item that oboe players need to make (or buy) in order to play their instrument.
I still remember asking my wife, but what do they GET because of having a great oboe reed?
She’d give me an answer. And then I’d ask the question again to dig deeper.
I finally got the REAL answer. I zeroed in on the emotional benefit. I zeroed in on what my customers were REALLY buying.
What did they really get by ordering an awesome oboe reed?
Freedom and peace of mind.
To you, that might not sound exciting. But to an oboist looking for their next great reed, it means everything.
Orders took off after that. All because we started selling what our customers wanted to BUY.
These days, I could have come up with that answer in a few seconds. But back then, it was hard work.
I was exercising a new muscle. It’s the “put myself in someone else’s skin muscle.”
The bigger this muscle gets, the more powerful your marketing communications get.
This serves as the foundation of everything. And it’s an absolute must if your sales copy is going to motivate your reader to act.
I came up with a straightforward process to help you train this muscle.
I call the process “pre-work.” And there are two flavors. As a service provider, you want to work on both types.
If you’re ready to strengthen your “put yourself in someone else’s skin muscle,” you’ll find the “training program” here.