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[Sean] Yeah, that’s what I’m saying. You see, I think that what happens a lot of times, and, by the way Carl, I don’t want to say that there’s not a place for expert copy writing, I think that there is a place for expert copy writing, especially when you’re getting into really big business, and you’re launching a new product every single week, or if you’re the type of person who really wants to be the person that’s overseeing a business. But, when you have a business like mine, that is, it’s really centered, the voice of my business is centered around me. Obviously, what I teach is the topic of what I teach. Coaching program systems. My business is sort of centered around the coaching program systems. But, the voice is from me.
If I had a business that had, say, 10 different voices, then maybe we released a new product every month, and then one voice was from Carl, next month it was from Julie, next month it was from Tamarin, next month it was from Jonny. Well, it would be different, and then maybe what we could say, boy let’s go hire a professional copy writer to write all of this. Also, somebody’s just starting out in the business. Let’s say they’re starting out in the business, they’re starting small even, and their expertise is creating a certain type of training, but they don’t communicate well. They don’t write well, they can’t. They just don’t write well, they don’t even talk well, they don’t communicate well, with other people. But they have a genuine skill, which is whatever the training is. They’re teaching or training a specific thing. Then, for that individual, I would say, absolutely. You, because you don’t have a skill at communication, hey, maybe your best bet is to outsource that particular skill. Just like you might outsource articles, or you might outsource your audio uploading. Maybe, you’re a good teacher, but you don’t know how to turn on a video recorder. So, you outsource the video recording part of that. Then in that case you’re probably outsourcing the emails, you’re probably outsourcing the article. And, then in that environment, I believe we say great, we want the sales person, the sales letter writer, we want the email writer, we want the article writer to be able to communicate with each other. So that we get as close to possible the same voice.
But, if you’re talking about someone like me, like you, like hundreds of others in the world today, that are entrepreneurs, that have a business that is centered around the personal, I don’t even want to say the personal relationship, but the character that comes with a certain person. And, that person has the ability to communicate, now I’ll dig into that deeper in just a second Carl. Has the ability to communicate. I believe that, that person can do the writing, and I believe that they can do it without any fancy copy writing technique, any fancy copy writing training, anything like that.
Carl, I’ll tell you, when you asked me to do this, you remember, I specifically and I initially, I said. Hey, I’m not a copy writer, I don’t remember the exact words that I used. But I’m not really the kind of person you should be interviewing. I get requests to interview for different things, and I take some of them, and I turn some of them down. And yours was just a classic turn you down. There’s no good reason for me to teach on copy writing. Of course, you came back and you said, obviously you write copy, I’d love to hear it from the perspective of an ordinary person. So, I started thinking about that, well, you know, that would really add a lot to this, and so that way, you take a person that says, boy, I really, I’m confused by 17 different parts to my sales letter. I’m confused with 19 different swipe headlines I need to learn and then choose one. I’m confused with all of these things. I might be able to say, hey, maybe there’s an easier way to do it. It’s something I’ve taught my clients for years, but generally, I haven’t taught them necessarily under the umbrella of copy writing. I think I normally teach it under the umbrella of communication.
What I mean Carl is, I believe that if someone can communicate, in a way that gets the point across. Just like we are right now. We’re just chatting here. I’m just sharing with you, my thoughts on this. Based on your questions, we could write down the exact words that I’m using, and it would have the same impact. And the only thing we would have to do is clean it up, because when people read things, they see the ums, and the ahs, and the pauses, and the incomplete sentences. I just used the words, “you know”, I would pull that out if we were writing sales copy, but if you think about it. Just us discussing this, is the exact same communication that could be set down on the sales page itself.
[Carl] You carry on, you just started a couple of things in my head which John Carlton actually said to me. I’ll let you continue, we can elaborate on that later.
[Sean] Excellent, excellent. I’ll share with you one more idea, because I don’t want to dominate this conversation or anything like that, but I want to share with you. An illustration that I use with my clients, and then we can dig as deep as you want, and you can ask me as many questions as you want to set this foundation. So, sometimes folks will come to me and they’ll say hey, I’m not really a good copy writer, and there’s a part of me that’s tempted to go out there and say, okay, what I would love for you to do is to, go take somebody’s intense copy writing course. And, in fact, I used to do that.
What I found, people would come back, and they would have all this information. I would say, great, go write your sales letter. And they would write a sales letter with all of the 17 points, but it would be so stiff, it would be like reading cardboard. It was using the masters lines, and I don’t want to name any masters, we all know the masters. If you were to read those lines in the masters sales letter, it’s really smooth. So, you can’t say, oh, they’re using bad lines. You can’t say they’re using a bad story. But when you read it, it doesn’t feel right. It’s like it’s wooden. Or stiff.
And so then, I asked the questions, I go, let me ask you this, whatever it is you’re selling, let’s say that you’ve recently learned to reduce heart rate just a little bit, by doing the special 20 minute aerobic thing 3 times a week. Let’s just say you’ve created a little video training to show other people how they can aerobics 3 times a week and it will help their health. I would say, let me ask you this, if your best friend called you up, and your best friend said to you, hey, I see that you seem to be more calm, and you’re a little bit more in shape lately, what have you done? You would probably say, oh, I’m doing this 20 minute cardio, 3 times a week. And your friend says, hey, can you tell me about it? And why I should maybe do this 20 minute aerobics just like you’re doing. You’re going to say, you know, friend I’d be more than happy to, why don’t we meed at the local coffee shop, can you meet this afternoon? Your friend says, yeah. And so you sit down. Now, you don’t bring a script with you, you don’t bring a sales letter with you, you don’t even bring maybe any ideas with you. But, you sit down and you ask your friend, you say, hey friend, why are you even asking about this? Are you struggling with something? Your friend says, well, you know, I feel like, I feel like I just don’t have as much energy as I used to have, and you look like you have a lot more energy. And so then maybe you say, well what else do you think this aerobics might do for you? The friend might say, you know, well, I’ve gained an extra 10 lbs. Lately, and I’d love to be able to get it off. You might say, well, let me ask you this, have you been frustrated lately?
Maybe a little bit of road rage, maybe irritated with your husband, your wife. You friend says, yeah, I’m struggling with that too. You say, well, the thing is, this 20 minute aerobics, 3 times a week that I’ve been doing, it’s really been amazing. I’ve lost 10 or 15 lbs, and I no longer get that road rage, and I’m no longer yelling at my husband (or wife), and I have more energy, I’m able to play with the kids (or grandkids) more. If there’s a 4 floor stair or elevator, I just take the stairs, instead of taking the elevator up 4 floors. What do you think about that? And your friend says, wow, can you tell me more about it? So, you just tell him all about your aerobics then. And then your friend says to you, well, how can I learn how to do this? And you say, why don’t you just come join me, I meet over there at the gym, 3 times a week, Mon, Wed, & Fri. I meet for 20 minutes, I meet at noon, and just join me over there, and I’ll show you what I’m doing. Your friend says, okay.
This sounds really simple and easy for someone to do if they were just talking to their friend.
[Carl] It sounds extremely simple. I’m getting a gist of what you’re doing here, I’m just marveling at the ingenuity of it, and the simplicity of it at the same time. I’m building up the picture in my head. If you took your friends conversation away, you would have a sales letter, wouldn’t you?
[Sean] Absolutely, you would have a sales letter. I would say, hey, are you struggling, or are you frustrated, because you don’t have as much energy as you used to have? If you feel like you’re getting older, faster than the clock is ticking. Are you feeling frustrated because you’ve been snapping at your husband, or your wife? Have you been getting road rage lately? And, by the way, have you gained an extra 10 or 15 lbs lately? Then, you just transition maybe, to if so, I would love to tell you what I’ve done recently. You know in the last 6 months, I’ve started this little aerobics program, and you tell a little bit about it. Wow! After about 2 months of doing this aerobics program, I’m not snapping at my husband or wife anymore, I don’t have road rage, I’m a much calmer person, I’m having more energy, I can walk the stairs, and all of those kinds of things. And maybe you just ask the question in the sales letter. You say, would you like to learn how to do that? If so, I’ve got an … we’ll just roll with exactly the same thing. Mon, Wed & Fri at noon, I meet, online, and I do this aerobics. We set up this little video camera, and you do it in your house, and I do it here, and well, we do this aerobics. And, these are all the things that will happen while you’re there. That’s how it
works. And, then, if we take this thing one step further of course, we say, of course there’s going to be a price to join. Who knows, maybe you’re writing copy for something that’s free, it’s an intro session so that you can up-sell later on, or whatever. But, the price is irrelevant, you just say, hey, there’s a price. If you’re meeting your friend for coffee, and the friend says, how much is it going to cost? Well, since it’s your friend, you might say, well, it’s not going to cost you anything. But, the gym requires a $5 entrance fee. So, your friend would pay that. Let’s leave it at the friend example.
But, as you said Carl, when we’re doing this, we are simply talking to a friend, when we’re writing that letter. In my personal opinion, it doesn’t need to be any deeper than that. It doesn’t need to have any N L P any special highlighting any super duper scientific persuasion language that’s going to make people feel like being bit by the snake behind the snake oil. I don’t believe that we need to use any special super power language to be able to communicate the humaness of what’s going on. In my opinion, and in the way that I like to write a sales letter, I want it to be like a conversation at a coffee shop. Obviously, if we take that coffee shop conversation to the next level, then we might add a price to it, we might tell our friend, let’s just imagine we’re talking with our friend, but instead of just inviting them to meet us for a private meet, because it’s just my friend, maybe I say to my friend, here’s the thing, I meet with about 12 other people, on Mon, Wed, Fri at 12:00, and they each pay $50/month to be able to meet with me. And, you know, friend, if you would like to join me, I would love to have you join me, come over for the 1st meet. It won’t cost you anything, and you’re my friend, so it won’t cost you anything at all. Now, it wouldn’t be fair to everybody else that’s paying, for you to come and not pay, so the only thing I ask is that you’ll enroll just like everybody else. So, that might be the only difference if it’s a real friend, vs it's the friends we’re making online.
You see Carl, I don’t believe we should sell anything to anybody that isn’t in some way our friend. Because, let’s say, when you’re holding this copy writing interview series, let’s just say that’s what you’re teaching people, and when they purchase this training, they’re getting copy writing training. When somebody purchases my coaching program to get some training, they’re getting coaching program knowledge. But the thing is, I don’t want to sell my coaching program system to an enemy. And, I don’t think you want to sell your copy writing system to an enemy? Am I correct in saying that Carl?
[Carl] Yeah, absolutely, yes.
[Sean] You want to help people, you’re in the business of helping people, right?
[Carl] Yeah, definitely.
[Sean] I’m in the business of helping people. If anybody buys my book “Anybody Can Coach”, I want their life to be changed. In fact, if they just read the introduction to the first chapter, their life is probably going to be changed. Even if they don’t read the rest of the book and learn how to do it. Their mindset is going to be changed. I want to change peoples lives. I want to change peoples lives. I want to help people. So, if you think about it, when we have a friend, what do we want to do, we want to maybe change their life. We want to help them, with a genuine, personal. I have 3 or 4 friends we have in our life, our real friends, not acquaintances, but our real friends, they help us too. When we’re building our online business, whether we’re teaching people copy writing, we’re teaching people coaching programs systems, we’re teaching people aerobics. Whatever the case is. I believe that the perspective should be, I want to change your life. I want to help you. I want to be your friend. Even if our business is so big, that we can never talk with them personally. We still want to be that face that says when you purchase my training, you’re getting it from someone, who, I may not be your friend, but we have friendly characteristics here. I want to help you. I want this to be like it is friend to friend. And, I’ll tell you Carl, what I just shared with you, and I’ll take all your questions now, but what I just shared with you Carl, is my feeling about how easy it can be ordinary folks to write copy. Because, to me, writing copy is no different than you and me chatting, me and you meeting at a coffee shop, my wife and I meeting at a coffee shop, and having a chat or a conversation about something. It’s no different than me attempting to convince her that we really should do X, Y or Z. It should be no different than her trying to convince me that we should do X, Y or Z. It should be no different than me talking with a friend, and, trying to persuade him that maybe he needs to lose 10 lbs. Or trying to persuade someone else that he’s spending too much time with the wrong friend. Me, when I’m writing a sales letter, for let’s just say, hypothetically, my expertise is teaching people how to set up a really easy coaching system in their business, if I’m writing a sales letter about that, I just want to genuinely impart to you, look, here’s the thing, your business is ticking right along, but if you don’t have a coaching program, you’re probably missing something in your business. You’re not able to help everybody that you would like to help. What I want to do, I want to convince you, that if you’ll add a coaching program to your business, 2 things will happen. #1 your income will go up. #2 you’ll change more lives.
