There are talents in life and there are skills. Talent is generally something we are born with and skills are something that thankfully can be learned. We often confuse skills with talent. It’s easy to say how Lebron James has tremendous talent on the court but certainly some of that is skill. What I mean is Lebron would never have found his talent without thousands of hours with a ball in his hand, or more importantly without throwing the ball at the hoop.
In sales there is a skill, if refined will net you more sales, more jobs and more net profit than any other skill in selling. This skill is so powerful that it does all of this without you ever speaking a word.
The sad part is, this skill is rarely being taught and certainly very few are spending the time and resource to refine and sharpen their skill.
I’ll prove it to you.
Have you noticed in the past 15 years there are very few blockbuster movies? Very few great story lines, few if any “must see” movies. Have you noticed most if not all of the sit-coms in the past 15 years have been total failures? Must see tv? What a joke. I typically don’t read novels but if there were a lot of great novels we’d have some great movies.
Do you wonder why?
I believe people are no longer working on the one skill that has driven more sales and given us all of the blockbuster movies, sitcoms and books. It’s an old and forgotten art and if you will practice this skill it will change your future forever.
All right already Dave, what’s the skill?
The forgotten skill of copywriting.
Copywriting is the skill of selling in print. But there are specific techniques that when refined become very powerful skills when it comes to copywriting.
Movies and books have a specific story line they follow AKA the plot. It’s referred to as the hero’s journey. In nearly every story you have a hero, an enemy and a guide. A story starts out with a call of the hero to adventure. It then moves to acceptance and sometimes a reluctant acceptance of the call. Then the story moves into the action, this is where the transformation begins. The story then moves into the hero’s understanding, a revelation which causes a death and rebirth. A time of atonement where the transformation is completed and then the journey home to their new life. There are countless courses on the hero’s journey but suffice it to say this is the outline used for every one of the most successful books ever written. For the sake of brevity I won’t go further in depth explaining the hero’s journey.
So what does this have to do with sales Dave? Great question. Selling in media, AKA print, video or audio, is a skill that follows a format. When this skill is used it can generate huge amounts of income for your business. It’s important to note there are some that do have this skill and they are some of the wealthiest people of our generation.
Steve Jobs started out awful at this. If you look at the first ad for Macintosh (Google it) you will see the ad’s headline is “Apple Introduces the First Low Cost Microcomputer System With a Video Terminal and 8K Bytes of Ram on a Single PC Card.” The ad then goes on for a full page to discuss geek speak for the entire ad. No one, except for programmers had any idea what Jobs was talking about or what Apple was selling. The ad was a flop and Apple struggled for years and Jobs eventually left. Technically he was asked to leave.
Skip forward to 2001, Jobs is back at Apple and he launches the iPod with these words, 1000 Songs in The Palm of Your Hand and the rest, as they say, was history.
Do you see the difference? Anyone could understand the 1000 songs in the palm of your hand but does anyone understand 8K Bytes? People don’t buy music players, they don’t buy music they listen to songs.
Copywriting conveys a message of transformation. The transformation of what is done for the prospect if they purchase your product or service. Just like with the way novels are written, there is a sequence that is followed in copywriting. One of my business coaches, Ray Edwards, refers to this as the PASTOR sequence. Ray is one of the most brilliant business copywriters of our time. He has written for Tony Robbins, Michael Hyatt and many others. Ray has been paid upward of $150,000 for a single sales letter.
He follows the PASTOR sequence which goes like this. You start out by describing a “problem” your prospect has, you then “amplify” that problem and make them feel worse about it, you then tell a “story” of how you were affected by this problem and came to the solution. You tell about the “transformation” for yourself and others and then “offer” help and give a call to action to get a “response”. This can be done in short form of a page or two or over 20 pages.
Does it work? It does if you practice. The important part is not the sequence but who the focus is upon. The focus is on the customer and how you solve their problem with your product or service and how your product or service transforms their lives. When your focus is on your customer instead of on your company you will never have trouble acquiring customers. Everyone is concerned with themselves so put your focus on them and your sales will increase exponentially.
There’s an old expression. A musician was asked, how do you get to Carnegie Hall? His response, practice.
Practice this lost art by figuring out what problem your products solves instead of what features they provide and you will be on your way to increased sales with less effort than you ever thought possible.
To your lifelong prosperity,
David Mulvaney
P.S. Do you need help in your business? I can help. Schedule a call and let’s talk about it. Click here.