How’s your business been treating you so far this year? Is it the friend you can’t wait to wake up to? Or the beast looming in the next room? People with “real jobs” don’t quite understand how it can be. This relationship we have with our business. It’s complicated. Sometimes you can feel like you […]
The 15-Minute “Focus Card” That Will End Your Stress and Fatten Your Wallet Read More »
My buddy John, a veteran cop, got kicked out of his house recently. He’s a tough guy, but I’ve never seen him so down in the mouth. Things don’t look good. His old lady just accepted a job on the other side of the country. But John’s a fighter. So he decided to make one last try. He
[Story Sells] Every Great Story Has This… Read More »
I’m slowly introducing my daughter to the Disney movies of my youth. But it’s tough to get my hands on them all because of the dratted Disney Vault. You may know that Disney only sells their best movies some of the time … the rest of the years these movies are locked up in the “Disney Vault.”
[Story Sells] How To Write Great Story Openers Read More »
My nephew recently asked me how The Flash got his super-speed powers. My answer: “Barry Allen was struck by lightning while standing in front of a shelf of chemicals. The combination of the chemicals and the lightning gave him super speed. Lightning is very fast, after all.”* This story made sense my nephew. Lightning is fast,
[Story Sells] Sell On Emotion, Justify With This … Read More »
When I was a teenager, I stood in a long line to watch the first Jurassic Park. I had just read the novel in one big gulp and I was dying to see real dinosaurs on the screen. I wasn’t alone. The movie brought in over 1.02 billion dollars. Steven Spielberg, the director, knew how to tease
A few years back I followed my buddy to a multilevel marketing event for a health supplements company. It was a big event, designed to bring curious seekers into the fold. Presenters talked up the company and the products … but what I remember most were the testimonials. And when I say testimonials, I mean ‘testimonial’ in
You can ramp up the intensity of the stories you tell when you insert one basic theme. My friend Michael Hauge revealed this to me recently. According to him, nearly all stories in the world revolve around this central dilemma. And, so too, do our lives. When you put this theme into your stories –
[Story Sells] How to harness the power of “Authenticity” for your sales story Read More »
My wife came across a story about a man who slipped a $1500 tip to a waitress at Denny’s. Why? He saw she was a struggling single mother. Plus he picked up the tab for 7 families to the tune of an even grand. Maybe you’ve seen the story on Facebook. The tagline reads “a Love What
[Story Sells] Rip Those Heart Strings To Shreds Read More »
“Story sells…” “Your customers connect with stories, not features and benefits…” “Thou shalt not bore thy customers…” If you study sales copy, you’ve no doubt heard variations of the above…that you should be telling stories. Stories are what people remember, and the way to your audience’s heart. And you can probably name at least two
5 Steps to Transform Your Personal Stories Into Sales Machines Read More »
Walt Disney failed for years. Until he overcome a fatal weakness. First, he tried desperately to draw comic strips for newspapers. Rejected. Then he attempted to bluff his way into a job on a Hollywood set. Denied. Finally, he got close to success. He began making animated movies himself. He created a popular character called
[Story Sells] The Hero’s Fatal Flaw Read More »
There I am innocently perusing Facebook and then… woah! Good copy alert. Yes, I’m a nerd, buuuuuut… Check it: So I did what completely normal people do (right?)… and broke this down quick by asking 4 questions: What are they saying? Who are they speaking to? What is the voice? Does it work? 1. Why are
Conterintuitive Copy – Why this company reveals how to make their product on your own Read More »
The 60 Second Sales Hook can ignite a timid prospect into action. Or it can freeze ‘em faster than the Ice Bucket Challenge – if you’re telling the wrong story. In a sec, I’ll give you a simple rule on how to chose which story to tell. First, a brief refresher of the Hook by way of
[Story Sells] Exposing the 60 Second Sales Hook: When Your Story Sucks Read More »
When I was a kid, I was an unashamed ad junkie. (I’d love to tell you I always wanted to be in advertising, but that wouldn’t be true. I wanted to be an airforce pilot.) In my ears, I can still hear every note of the catchiest theme songs and the excited delivery of ad slogans. But
Ray Bradbury fumbled his early stories. They took him a long time and were boring to read. Until in his twenties he stumbled upon a “trick” that gave him an endless supply of story ideas … giving us Fahrenheit 451, The Martian Chronicles, and creepy tales like Something Wicked This Way Comes. With this trick, he
[Story Sells] The Bradbury Trick for Spinning Easy Story Copy Read More »
Wanna be happy in your work? Apparently, here’s the secret: Just do one thing well. That’s the message of Greg McKeown’s book Essentialism. When you pursue too many things at once, you burn out. (Or maybe even worse, never make an impact anywhere.) If you own a fancy garden hose nozzle, you know what I mean:
[Story Sells] Happiness Sauce in this 2016 Superbowl Commercial Read More »
In today’s hyper-connected cyber world, we’ve become “copy blind.” People are reading so much copy… they tune out, go numb, and become blinded by the sheer number of ads they encounter day after day. The New York Times reported that, 30 years ago, people saw up to 2,000 ad messages a day. Today, people
Beating Copy Blindness: Weaving story into every part of the sales letter Read More »
I’m six years old and everyone is staring at me. The whole class is restless. Mrs. Brown, at the back, nods her head in encouragement. I see Eric in the third row fidgeting in his seat. He’s crumpling up paper for a spitwad. No more stalling – time to pull out the big surprise. It’s Show and
[Story Sells] Why Morgan Freeman destroys this storytelling ‘rule’ Read More »
The STORY Let me tell you about my first lesson in marketing. (It was painful.) See, when I was a kid, I wanted to be in pictures. The moving kind. And one windy day in Chicago, I got my shot: an audition for a bona fide major network TV pilot. My parents signed me up
The “Eyebrow Test” for Sales Stories Read More »
The STORY When I was 19 years old – the age of a man’s sexual peak, I’m told – I watched a play about inappropriate touching. The play unfolded during a religious retreat meant to mold young minds. And to show what proper behavior was. Case in point: on stage, a teenager began to give
How to Infect Your Readers with the “Trust Drug” Read More »
Want to engage your audience with story — but without breaking a sweat? We talked about the extreme short story, the parable. Parables make storytelling easy because you don’t need any fancy description or back story. But today I’ll share the easiest and fastest form of storytelling of all. When done properly, you can tell
[Story Sells] The 4-Second Story Read More »
You should always be clear in your marketing, right? Not so, my friend. Sometimes you want to throw a little confusion into the mix when you tell a sales story. Hollywood knows how it’s done. The STORY I just got done watching a slate of Christmas movies. And my current favorite – Love, Actually –
[Story Sells] When It’s Good To Confuse Your Readers Read More »
The STORY After Steve Jobs got canned from Apple in the late 1980s, he was licking his wounds, deciding what to sink his fortune in. After buying a small computer division from Lucasfilm (called Pixar), Jobs focuses on his real business: He would build a new computer company called NeXT. Eventually, he produced a groundbreaking
[Story Sells] Why Steve Jobs shelled out $100,000 to a freelancer for 14 days of work Read More »
Last column I reprinted the Wall Street Journal’s classic “Two Young Men” story and talked about the power of parables. Brief, punchy stories. Short on plot but long on meaning. Another lesson to yank from the Two Young Men story is the power of the Comparison Story. One life-path reaches Heaven and the other descends to
[Story Sells] Netflix shows you how to have a happy family Read More »
The STORY Last column I proposed you write a book to sell your message. I admit: that’s a lot of work. So today let’s be lazy. How does a couple of paragraphs strike ya? Very short stories – specifically, parables. Martin Conroy did it with his “Two Young Men” letter for the Wall Street Journal,
[Story Sells] A $2 billion Story in 11 sentences Read More »
Many business owners I know cower at the prospect of emailing their customers. If they don’t have something to sell, they’re not sure what to say. When they do have something to sell, they don’t want to annoy them. And if they have any type of subscription model, they’re afraid an email will only serve
How Cards Against Humanity Writes Emails Their Customers Can’t Wait to Open Read More »
Let’s take a virtual walk-n-talk, eh? I have a little exercise I think you’ll like. It’s about how you can really connect with the people you’re trying to reach. But first, I’d like to tell you about a couple copywriting origin stories. Once upon a time, there was a copywriter who grew up in a
The power of less-than-perfect Read More »
Love him or loathe him, there’s one accusation that can never be levelled at Donald Trump: he’s dull. You can roll out any number of metaphors for the billionaire and reality TV star’s impact on this presidential race. A tour de force, a whirlwind, whatever… But beneath the grandstanding and deeply controversial statements, there are
Trump: The Art of Division and Persuasion Read More »
“We’re doing a sequel That’s what we do in Hollywood And everybody knows that the sequel’s never quite as good!” So sings Kermit and friends in the latest instalment of the Muppets movie. Why is it that movie sequels have such a bad rap and infuriate movie critics so? There’s a sneering attitude of looking
How to use the Hollywood Sequel technique to keep prospects coming back Read More »
Time for another sneak peak into the Copy Chief private forums with this conundrum from founding member Sean Bissell on how to do the seemingly impossible… warm up a cold list. Sean wrote: Hey everyone, I hope you’re doing great! I need to write an email to a list of people who have not been
Warming Up A Cold List – How Would You Do It? Read More »
Remember Black Friday last year? If you don’t, you may not recall one of the greatest marketing pranks of all time. Cards Against Humanity – famed for its grossly offensive and utterly hilarious card games – sold 30,000 boxes of a new product called Bullshit on Black Friday. It was with some consternation that purchasers
The ‘joke’ that made a millionaire Read More »
Enjoy a sneak peak into the Copy Chief private forums via this excellent post by Founding Member Ross O’Lochlainn… Are you a fan of House of Cards? If not, you should be. I have only recently started watching it. It is powerful stuff. The writers and producers of this show deeply understand the themes of power,
House of Cards Persuasion Lessons Read More »
1. Stop traffic. Once a small crowd has gathered Joe waves his audience in closer as a “courtesy” because it “saves me shouting.” He promises, “I won’t ask you for money” to differentiate himself from the panhandlers in the streets of New York City. (And technically he does not ask for money, he asks for
The Million Dollar Potato Peeler Sales Pitch Read More »
