Mountains of Arizona
Clear 74 Degrees
6:16 a.m.
How do you get people to buy what you have?
For a few years, I thought I knew some answers to that question. Later, I learned it was the wrong question.
But when you’re a copywriter and you “drink the Kool-Aid” about what a cure-all skill that is, you begin to think that the answer to everything is sales, marketing, copywriting and persuasion.
Got a problem? Just sell something to someone!
This is an extremely simplistic view of the world, but I had it for a while.
The ability to persuade is a powerful tool to have at your disposal. But sometimes, wielding that tool does more harm to your future than good.
Especially if you are in the business of advising people and you want them to actually trust you.
In that context, many of the traditional copywriting strategies and tactics often feel like little more than brute force to exert your will onto another.
The goal isn’t to “get the sale.” It’s to engineer a sale to happen the smart way. And the smart way is when it happens on the terms of the buyer.
When they buy what they want, when they want it, under their own steam, you win. Because the feeling that gives to them forever flavors the rest of the relationship.
But if you coerce them into buying, they KNOW IT. Even if people don’t know it on a conscious level, they know it unconsciously. And that’s worse, because they can’t forget that. So by doing that, you seed the relationship with THAT self-fulfilling image blueprint for the future. This is not smart.
In a world where someone has probably 30+ choices for solving any one problem (including doing nothing about it), there are better paths to travel.
So if you aren’t supposed to force anyone to do anything at any one particular time, how do you make your business work?
You shift your mind from “selling” to creating opportunities to buy. This is very different. This is what the media platform and the supporting systems do:
They engineer opportunities to buy in a timely fashion.
Is there a good reason for your clients to buy X today vs next week? If not, then you need to create one. And I don’t mean running a sale.
I mean by creating some type of rhythm where making a Yes/No decision is naturally called for.
This can take a lot of forms, but one I use often is the enrollment window.
The client applies to work wth you, the enrollment window opens. At some point, the enrollment window closes. There’s a need for a decision. And all of this has been made plain to the prospect before things ever get started. The most important part is that the prospect initiated the process, not you. You did nothing but wait. But once the process began, you were there to see it run its course.
There are no secrets when you do this. Everything is out in the open.
“Do you want to hop on the train or not? If not, I’m sure it’ll be around again. For now, this is the opportunity on the table.”
It’s a very non-emotional, detached kind of feeling you’re after. The system is just running and people are free to engage with it or not.
If you look on this page, I’ve tried to make it very clear the steps you take to do this. First you get your mind right, then you build your media platform and supporting systems, then you fill it with people.
What’s the hardest part? Step 1. Tuning your mind to know the truth: that despite physical circumstances, feeling NEED is a choice you make that is within your ability to control.