Buzz And Awe, Part 2
Monday, 1:31 p.m.
Reno, NV
“Is there gas in the car? Yeah, there’s gas in the car…” (Steely Dan, “Kid Charlemagne”)
Howdy…
Some things are just important enough to go over several times.
Especially when FREE life-changing goodies are involved.
Here’s what’s up: Those of you in the loop know we’re launching the coaching program of the Simple Writing System again.
I’ve lost track of how many of these programs we’ve now hosted. This is the eighth or ninth one — we’re calling it the Fall 2010 edition.
We only offer this hand-holding, personalized, one-on-one mentoring rarely. The last one was all the way back in the Spring of last year. (They’ve all filled quick, too.)
No idea when another one will come around… if it even does.
We take this one program at a time.
One of the main benefits of this unique coaching program… is also why we focus only on the session we’re producing now: It’s extremely interactive.
Which is perfect for anyone who knows that hands-on mentoring is the best way to learn.
This is the simplest possible system (crammed with short-cuts) for creating all the sales messages you need for a profitable business…
… including all your ads, websites, video scripts, emails, AdWords, blogs and other social media broadsides…
… and everything else that pumps eager prospects into your Sales Funnel.
So you can close the heck out them. And get prosperous and happy.
Most marketers wander through the wasteland of Bad Business Practices their entire career…
… and never figure out how to SELL anything.
So, no matter how totally hot and good and righteous your product or service might be…
… you still struggle.
Or go under.
ALL the top marketers you know about, online and offline, know how to write their own sales messages.
And when it’s really, really, really freaking important that it gets done right…
… they almost always actually DO it themselves.
Now, yeah, sure, they also hire out some of the writing, too.
But not because they are clueless about what needs to go into a killer sales message.
No way.
In fact, the top guys are the WORST clients a freelance writer can have. Because you can’t bullshit them.
They know EXACTLY what a good sales message looks like.
They are armed to the teeth with salesmanship chops. A freelancer cannot lollygag around with those guys, or he’ll get thrown to the dogs.
You know what the BEST client is for a freelance copywriter?
It’s the fool who hasn’t got Clue One about what goes into a decent sales message.
The freelancer can toss off the laziest piece of garbage possible… something that barely resembles advertising… and still collect his fee.
And when the ad fails and dies a horrible death?
Well, who’s to say why it happened.
The clueless client sure doesn’t know.
And consider this: Say you somehow manage to hire the most promising copywriter in the universe to come work for you.
Exclusively. He becomes a member of your team. And you teach him all the secrets of your biz, right down to the specs of your product.
I’ve seen this soap opera go down often.
Here’s how it plays out: Once that brilliant young writer gets some experience with you… and learns all your secrets…
… yep. He leaves.
And either starts working for the competition…
… or BECOMES your competition.
And let’s see. Hmmm. You had the biz first. It was your baby. Your product.
But he knows how to create the sales messages that sell it. And you just taught him all your secrets.
Who do you think wins in that match-up?
People… you MUST learn how to create a decent sales message, if you are to survive and prosper in business today.
Otherwise… you’re toast.
And this is why we’re hauling out the Simple Writing System personalized, one-on-one coaching program again.
However… you cannot join yet.
No matter how much you bribe us, or cajole us, or cause a ruckus…
… you cannot yet sign up.
Here’s what you CAN do, however:
Sign up for the amazing mini-course we’re calling “The SWS Express”.
For one week (starting today, September 7), I’m giving away several of my bestest and most favorite (and powerful) short-cuts to creating massively successful sales messages.
Free.
www.simplewritingsystem.com/blog
PLUS… I’ve convinced most of the SWS faculty to help me do something completely insane:
We’re going to dive into the comments section of this “Express” course blog…
… and interactively provide real feedback to selected posts that offer the best insight into the lesson exercises.
This is FREE coaching, from professional writer/teachers with long, glistening reputations as SWS faculty members and as working copywriters in the biz world.
I’m getting involved, too. I’ll be providing solid, practical feedback right along with them.
Why are we doing this?
Let me explain with a quick story: One of the teachers asked me if I wanted him to provide feedback equal to a dry martini, or a nice cold beer.
Neither, I said.
Give ’em the full load. The equivalent of a bottle of Mad Dog 20/20.
This is a metaphor, of course.
I’m telling him to go for the jugular with his comments and feedback to people. Give everyone a complete “taste” of the kind of killer, personalized, nothing-held-back coaching that happens every day in the actual SWS mentoring program.
If we do this right… and I’m positive we will…
… the effect will be “Buzz and Awe”.
Exactly the kind of attention we want out there.
Because too many people desperately need the serious, proven help we offer…
… yet somehow manage to miss hearing about the coaching program when it becomes available. Or they aren’t clear on what “one-on-one personalized mentoring” means.
And they miss out.
It’s a shame, and I want it to stop.
That means getting the message out.
Students come into the SWS stubborn, sometimes terrified, often so clueless they actually DARE us to help them…
… and we’ve proven, over and over, that we can pull them ALL through to the other side, easily and simply.
Come in clueless…
… and leave totally clued-in. As another snarlingly-good marketer able to write everything necessary to bring in the Big Bucks.
So… if we can deliver some Buzz and Awe, to alert folks to what’s available here…
… we’re gonna do it.
Just do NOT assume there will be other opportunities to get involved.
We look at each SWS coaching session as the last one… so we never pull any punches, and we go all-out each time.
It’s a pleasant surprise when we realize we can get the faculty together for one more session later…
… but there is ZERO guarantee that will happen.
There may never be another opportunity like this.
At any rate…
… the thing to do now is get over to the SWS blog…
… and get involved in the mini-lessons.
www.simplewritingsystem.com/blog
And see if you can’t score some interactive feedback in the comments section for yourself.
Are you ready for a ride that can change your life forever?
We’re gunning the engine, holding the door open for you…
… but you gotta take that first step on your own.
C’mon.
It’s serious fun (and an eye-opening revelation) to dive in with crazy writers who know how teach you the secrets of excellent salesmanship.
Again — we’re offering these lessons for free right now.
Stay frosty,
John
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Consider me a little biased but I agree. Perhaps the most valuable skill you can learn is copywriting. As a great copywriting once said… copywriting is salesmenship in print.
And, when you think about it, how do you make money? Selling stuff. Kinda makes sense to learn how to do it more effectively.
Cheers
Dave
Ps. Look out for me in Sydney… I need a new photo to update the one I have on my blog.
Thanks for the note, Dave.
I forget — did you get that photo or not?
I got one at the speaker’s dinner but it wasn’t very good… I’d planned to come to James’ BBQ but got caught up with a client and then had a flight back to Melbourne. It’s a shame since I hear it was pretty good. Anyway… there’s always next time.
Cheers
Dave
Ps. Hope the SWS launch is going well – I think I’m #7 or something at the moment.
PPs. What’s the best way to get in touch with Stan? Just wanted to chat with him about some stuff.
Hi John
This express course is so awesome.
I have just completed the first exercise to this free course, I got a great reply to my first attempt a “wow and excellent job” from Leah Carson one of the Instructors a SWS.
The other comments and replies that follow and precede in response to all the other budding Copy Writers are helpful too, you can immediately tell that they really look at each one thoroughly and give valuable and without holding back deliver great advice in their feedback.
Its funny really I am blaming John for awakening me to this new world that I was somehow blind to.
For me this is very much like discovering a new world or magical kingdom that was always present but hidden to me.
I wish that I had discovered that I actually like writing sooner in my life.
Anyway I find it exciting and challenging to think that with the right words you can sell anything with great effect.
This is what has grabbed my attention not so much the money but the thought of having the skill to having pulled it off.
In a strange way I think it will be just like you have created something special when you can do that.
So John, I for one am looking forward to the next exercise coming into my inbox.
And then there is the full deal of the full course later I Can’t wait.
I’m imagining a hurricane of sales coming in from using this skill that you are going to implant.
Have a great Day
Ian UK Word Rider
Ps This actually doesn’t seem like work maybe because that its so much fun to do.
Imagine a job like that.
Hi John
This express course is so awesome.
I have just completed the first exercise to this free course, I got a great reply to my first attempt a “wow and excellent job” from Leah Carson one of the Instructors a SWS.
The other comments and replies that follow and precede in response to all the other budding Copy Writers are helpful too, you can immediately tell that they really look at each one thoroughly and give valuable and without holding back deliver great advice in their feedback.
Its funny really I am blaming John for awakening me to this new world that I was somehow blind to.
For me this is very much like discovering a new world or magical kingdom that was always present but hidden to me.
I wish that I had discovered that I actually like writing sooner in my life.
Anyway I find it exciting and challenging to think that with the right words you can sell anything with great effect.
This is what has grabbed my attention not so much the money but the thought of having the skill to having pulled it off.
In a strange way I think it will be just like you have created something special when you can do that.
So John, I for one am looking forward to the next exercise coming into my inbox.
And then there is the full deal of the full course later I Can’t wait.
I’m imagining a hurricane of sales coming in from using this skill that you are going to implant.
Have a great Day
Ian UK Word Rider
Ps This actually doesn’t seem like work maybe because that its so much fun to do.
Imagine a job like that.
Hi John and everyone else.
I’m probably over thinking this but anyway.
Since I began to do the free SWS express course I have noticed some changes in my thinking already.
Within the free course you get a free presentation video of John talking about story telling which took place at a Frank Kern seminar, I’m not sure when that took place, but it’s the content that found highly applicable today regardless of the age of the video.
Brilliant video you must watch it if you haven’t already done so.
I haven’t mastered the concept yet but it’s awoken me to a few thoughts.
John mentions about that each word has to earn the right to be on the page.
This led me to this thought as I have been thinking over that statement.
Each Sales letter, headline or what ever medium you use, the collective whole of that medium is just like a real business.
Every word employed is just the same as an employee within the business, they have a role to play, to earn their wage, they can’t just be there and not fulfil their duties other wise the business wastes money and no longer is current or effective.
My company that I work for is an international company and most of you would know it if I said their name.
We have people within it that are just there and get paid a fortune, to do nothing it seems, and they do it very well.
However, multiply that a few thousand times world wide and what do you have?
A company that is ceasing to utilize each employee in the right way, and by not removing the unnecessary ones, that are draining money, ultimately impacts the company’s overall effect upon the world.
With that thought in my mind, I am seeing that each sales letter I do is just like a separate business with employees with various functions that constitute a successful business.
My employees are the words that I choose to put into each piece of content whether they are good, bad, right, wrong, stupid, or clever, even the effective and non effective that are taking just taking up space I employed them.
This fact alone shows me that anything that I have done so far just pure Crap yep Pure Crap!
No wonder I was failing, I was employing the wrong People/Words to do a job they couldn’t do.
My Personal Home business is the right business, I just have the wrong people/Words working for me or not working for me.
A typical business has some of these jobs in it Admin, Managers, Workers, Secretaries, Salespersons, Customer service/support, Ceo’s plus your premises with a never ending list of business requirements.
You can translate these elements to you own selling medium.
So for me each sales letter is no longer just a sales letter it’s a business with a purpose.
What’s the job of our businesses… To supply what the customer wants or needs not what we think they want, we have to know precisely what it is they want, then supply it in the way they can easily receive it from us.
And I have been doing that all wrong I have used logical arguments of why they should buy, people, I have discovered from this course don’t buy that way,
Just go and look in your Wife’s wardrobe what’s logical about that, or on your own desk with all those gadgets and magazines etc what’s logical about that.
Nothing!
I’m still working all this out in my life, I haven’t arrived but, I am on my way.
Anyway that’s it for the moment.
Warm Regards
Ian UK Word Rider.
Hi John and everyone else.
I’m probably over thinking this but anyway.
Since I began to do the free SWS express course I have noticed some changes in my thinking already.
Within the free course you get a free presentation video of John talking about story telling which took place at a Frank Kern seminar, I’m not sure when that took place, but it’s the content that found highly applicable today regardless of the age of the video.
Brilliant video you must watch it if you haven’t already done so.
I haven’t mastered the concept yet but it’s awoken me to a few thoughts.
John mentions about that each word has to earn the right to be on the page.
This led me to this thought as I have been thinking over that statement.
Each Sales letter, headline or what ever medium you use, the collective whole of that medium is just like a real business.
Every word employed is just the same as an employee within the business, they have a role to play, to earn their wage, they can’t just be there and not fulfil their duties other wise the business wastes money and no longer is current or effective.
My company that I work for is an international company and most of you would know it if I said their name.
We have people within it that are just there and get paid a fortune, to do nothing it seems, and they do it very well.
However, multiply that a few thousand times world wide and what do you have?
A company that is ceasing to utilize each employee in the right way, and by not removing the unnecessary ones, that are draining money, ultimately impacts the company’s overall effect upon the world.
With that thought in my mind, I am seeing that each sales letter I do is just like a separate business with employees with various functions that constitute a successful business.
My employees are the words that I choose to put into each piece of content whether they are good, bad, right, wrong, stupid, or clever, even the effective and non effective that are taking just taking up space I employed them.
This fact alone shows me that anything that I have done so far just pure Crap yep Pure Crap!
No wonder I was failing, I was employing the wrong People/Words to do a job they couldn’t do.
My Personal Home business is the right business, I just have the wrong people/Words working for me or not working for me.
A typical business has some of these jobs in it Admin, Managers, Workers, Secretaries, Salespersons, Customer service/support, Ceo’s plus your premises with a never ending list of business requirements.
You can translate these elements to you own selling medium.
So for me each sales letter is no longer just a sales letter it’s a business with a purpose.
What’s the job of our businesses… To supply what the customer wants or needs not what we think they want, we have to know precisely what it is they want, then supply it in the way they can easily receive it from us.
And I have been doing that all wrong I have used logical arguments of why they should buy, people, I have discovered from this course don’t buy that way,
Just go and look in your Wife’s wardrobe what’s logical about that, or on your own desk with all those gadgets and magazines etc what’s logical about that.
Nothing!
I’m still working all this out in my life, I haven’t arrived but, I am on my way.
Anyway that’s it for the moment.
Warm Regards
Ian UK Word Rider.
Hey John, If i took your course, honed my skills and came back in the real world with a killer instinct for creating copy. Would you encourage me to go and find somebody who’s got a great product, spy on him, get to know his secrets and then kill him off? I could sell something similar to his his thing and kick him to the dust, but i’d much rather attract clients and make them a shitload of cash and create mututal relationships. Does your course explain how to attract not just clients, but clients with killer project who just need a little salesmanship to set off?
I am still a little confused about what copywriters bring to the table, thanks…
It would be super cool if you could give me an example of what actually happens when a top-marketer like you meets with a client, hows the interaction unfolding.
This is the stuff that seems a little mysterious to me. May the karma help whoever can adress this specific issue, thanks.
Hi Mathias. No, I do not recommend you go out and rip stuff off.
There’s plenty of room for everybody, especially online. And you do not need the bad karma that comes with frothing predation.
I have a course called “The Freelance Course”, which covers the essentials of getting good as a freelancer, finding clients, and getting paid well. You can check out the details at http://www.carlton-freelance-course.com/.
“No idea when another one will come around… if it even does.”
What a joke.
You’ve advertised SWS several times since spring of 2009, so no, “Spring of last year” wasn’t the last time you offered this course. Hell, didn’t you just offer a summer version just a few months ago?
No joke, Mike. Since the spring of ’09, we did one in the fall of ’09, and then again this past spring. We decided on each one just a few weeks before announcing it.
We did offer a very small summer class — it was a single classroom, with one teacher. And only folks on our house list even knew about it. It was nowhere near this kind of full-blown program, with hundreds of students and over a dozen classrooms online.
Believe what you want, Mike. This large program is a different animal — I have to corral over a dozen teachers… who are all professional copywriters and/or active marketers, who must commit a HUGE amount of time to their classes.
The interaction between a crowd of international students (in all kinds of different businesses and entrepreneurial situations), and the opportunity to go check out multiple other classes (to see how other teachers’ feedback looks), and just being part of a large, organized, ongoing program… which requires massive planning and coordination among a small army of staff and colleagues and affiliates…
… makes this Fall 2010 version unique, and highly recommended.
We may indeed offer smaller versions, but most people will never hear about them… because they are offered only to select lists, with little or no public announcements. And, again, they are one class, with one teacher. A completely different experience. Still valuable, but different.
What’s more, we do NOT have another large SWS program on the schedule anywhere, and there are NO plans to do it again.
Frankly, it’s a vast undertaking fraught with trouble for those of us hosting it. It’s NOT easy, NOT something we get filthy rich doing, and NOT something to be taken for granted.
You’re jaded, dude.
Can you even begin to imagine how BUSY top freelance writers are these days? I’m stunned every time I can pull the main faculty together again.
The time we commit to this program, if spent on writing for clients, would result in a small fortune. You can count, and you know what hot freelancers earn. This program remains the best bargain in business today.
There’s nothing else like it out there.
And one reason WHY there’s nothing else like it… is because of the enormous effort and commitment by top writers and my staff required to pull it off on this scale.
So savor your bitterness, Mike, your paranoia, and your sense of superiority (because you don’t “fall” for bullshit like everyone else).
But this program remains a fragile creature in the planning stages, with no more planned right now.
Hey, I thought I would say my bit about SWS (no, not an affilate or copywriter, just someone who needed some help) so I ‘attempted’ it the Spring 2009.
The best part of the sales letter for me Mike is: ‘IF you’re willing to listen’ and John’s ‘leave your ego at the door’. SWS was a huge amount for me to pay out in one swoop, and if time permitted I would do again: this time though I really would listen and leave my ego at the door because the feedback on the forum itself is priceless. (And I say if ‘time’ permitted because I would take out the weeks and just write, write, write and allow myself to be ‘whipped’ a little more!)
No question: for me (at times) the feedback and evalutation was fecking painful to take. The words ‘being ripped to shreds’ pretty much sums it up…and those tough lessons were (I can say it now) worth every penny.
IanUkRider re: your ‘doesn’t seem like work’ comment, if you decide to purchase SWS, it’s all consuming for the weeks it runs, esp in the forums. May I suggest to you that you block out time. You’ll eat, sleep and be consumed with words, benefits and features! And the feedback I got was (one of the best) ‘Dawn, get a blog, write there and sell on sales pages’! I was a ‘waffler’, ha! (Oh, and if in the UK, John and team still ‘get’ the way we ‘do’ biz here.)
Also, I’m not ashamed to say (although others were breezing along, so my tale of ‘woe’ is not the norm) I did find it really hard going at times…and I was stunned when eventually ‘they’ thought I needed ‘extra help’ (oh the shame!) and very quickly I was speaking to John’s peeps on the ‘phone. Who offered invaluable one to one coaching and instant feedback. John and team spotted it in the writing, not my plea! That to me is a def sign of people that a) know how to teach and b) know their craft and c) are human! And no, I didn’t pay extra for this.
We probably all know that many people who sell online never actually speak to the people who have bought their product.
So, is it worth it? Yep. Am I a copywriter? Hell, no! That was not my intention. However from opt-in’s, sign ups, increase of sales, and click through rates…my business is in a much better place than 18 months ago!
Plus, even as I work right now, the little ‘white files’ of SWS are always there. A quick ‘flick’ and it’s easy to remember the details.
Now, that was a ‘thumbs up’ FOR the SWS!
Have a ball if you buy. And listen…:-)
Dawn
Thanks for the note, Dawn.
We do try to take care of our students. And while the “tough love” teaching methods we use are often a shock at first… as you point out, it works.
Thanks again for the “thumbs up”.
Check out THIS “impassioned plea” ; It takes money make money, right ? Why is it that some people just do not “GET IT” ? I have spent so much money on affiliate or product-based businesses that crash and burn in my face and I am now about to lose my home.
Sure, it all sounds GREAT, but at the end of the day I am still BROKE and the phone rings, its a “coach” or “mentor” wanting anywhere from $1200.00 to $5000.00 + to “teach” me how to operate the business I have already paid too much for. I need to advertise but I have $0.00 I can spend, I am in the process of building my own LLC but may not get a business loan because of my trashed personal credit.
I AM NOT LOOKING FOR A “: HAND-OUT”, I am asking for something that works, something that WILL help me turn my current financial situation into a positive one.
GREED GIVES FREE ENTERPRISE A BLACK EYE