This week I’m sharing unintuitive business lessons young Derek would have rejected as bull@#%! – but that 2024 Derek swears by for building businesses and writing copy that sells products like crazy.
And for the past 10+ years I’ve been selling what many consider to be the best course for learning how to write six and seven figure copy. (Their words, not mine.)
Which might make today’s lesson sound a little strange.
But…
A while back I made one tiny mindset shift – and this shift instantly made writing copy much easier, much faster, and much more profitable.
It’s simply:
Most people who buy from your sales page were already sold before they got there.
Young Derek used to believe that your sales page was meant to persuade someone, from scratch, to want to buy your product.
As in… you had to assume that all your traffic was cold traffic.
And this was your one shot to make the sale.
As a result, I always ended up with 40 page letters that went on and on and on and on throwing every persuasion trick and sales argument possible at my readers.
And, admittedly, I made sales. Life was decent.
But ever since the mindset shift, those sales have gone up anywhere from 2x to 10x. That’s not an exaggeration.
So let me unpack this a little more.
First, I have to admit: the best copywriters in the world CAN convince cold traffic to buy their stuff.
And we study a lot of those writers in CopyHour.
However, there really aren’t many of those writers.
And the average writer isn’t those writers – and will never be.
Trying to emulate exactly what they do is hard. In fact, for some people, it’s next to impossible – even with years of experience and training.
A LOT of it also involves looooonnnnggg (longer than 1 hour) video sales letters with high-ish production value – something you won’t easily be able to reproduce in your own solo business.
But if you were to instead model how they write copy, then write that copy with the mindset that you’re just selling to people who ALREADY WANTED TO BUY before landing on your page, you will become a copy god (or goddess).
Not only that but you’ll only need to write a fraction of the copy to do it. (My longest letters are around ~4000 words these days, including testimonials and everything.)
But how exactly should this change the way you write copy?
It’s actually pretty simple.
I gave an example in yesterday’s email of running a burger shop. And, if we were to mix in the lesson from Monday’s email, it’s a burger shop that specializes in selling only the highest quality organic grass fed patties. (In other words, burgers = high-competition market… but organic grass fed patties = a need that a small section of people in that market have.)
When people come into your shop, you simply assume they’re already looking for an organic grass-fed burger.
They know that’s what you sell.
Sure, you’ll get some people who just want a burger and don’t care that it’s organic or grass fed.
But when you assume they already want organic and grass fed AND that’s why they’re coming to YOU specifically, it means you don’t need:
- Tons of infographics in your store explaining why grass fed and organic is the best.
- To give everyone an explanation of the superiority of grass fed and organic.
-
Explainers on every item of your menu about why you chose grass fed and organic – and why your customers should care.
Instead you find out what the people who seek out organic & grass fed are looking for.
And in that research, you find out their primary concern is a healthier burger with a better fat profile and more omega 3s.
So instead you focus on that – simply reiterating that your grass fed & organic is superior for reasons x, y, and z.
And leave it at that.
No need for massive amounts of persuasion.
Just essentially stating, "I know you want grass and fed organic, so just FYI, I totally get that – and my grass fed and organic is the best for all the reasons you’re seeking."
From there, you’ll likely have the sale.
When you’re writing your copy (for whatever product you’re selling), that means simply finding out what the people in your market are looking for – and simply reiterating that yes, your product is EXACTLY that.
In other words, confidently knowing they’re looking to buy – and they just need to know that you "get" their particular problems, and have a solution that will fix those problems once and for all.
I spend maybe 500-1000 words on that these days.
From there, all of my copy is focused on the product itself. Just matter-of-factly stating the modules in the course, the outcome my product is designed to guarantee, how it works to guarantee that outcome, and why you should buy it right now.
That’s it.
I hope this is making sense. What I’m trying to get at is, your copy can be MUCH simpler than you think – if you just assume people already want to buy your course, and your job is simply to quickly demonstrate to them that you "get" what their problem is and you know how to solve it.
This is something you’ll be able to deconstruct up close in CopyHour – which, by the way, is reopening in two weeks.
Which brings me to the next lesson – specifically an insight I had after being surrounded by a lot of EXTREMELY successful people, and realizing something about them that changed the way I approached business.
Talk tomorrow!
— Derek