The Unexpected Benefit of Taking Things Personally
I’m in the middle of a few different copywriting projects right now, and if you’ve ever juggled multiple projects (which I’m sure most of you have) you know that there is a fine line between working quickly while maintaining a standard of quality.
I was chatting with my friend Stuart Tan the other day about copywriting, marketing, and Web 2.0 (what else, right?). Stuart is a phenomenally successful business owner who runs an NLP and Success Training company out of Singapore.
Many of his friends and clients have dubbed him “Superman” because of his “go-go-go” attitude and his ability to do great amounts of work in a fraction of the time it takes most people to do it in.
I met Stuart personally at JV Alert Live in Philadelphia a few months ago, and truly, he was engaging in some Superman-ish behavior.
Never mind the jet lag from the time difference in Singapore, never mind the 14 hour plane flight, Stuart was the first one up and the last one to leave the networking functions in the wee hours of the morning.
He personally outlined an astonishingly simple but insightful business plan for me over a few glasses of wine, and I was scribbling notes the whole time on a bar napkin.
Regardless… he’s a wise dude, and when he talks, people listen.
While talking to him he asked me, “James, how long does it take you to finish a long copy sales letter?”
I asked him, “Research included?”
“Yes,” he replied.
“Mmm… if it’s in a niche I already know about, I’d say about a week or so? If I’m totally unfamiliar I’d need a few more days to crank out a 12 - 16 pager” I told him.
“I write 30 page sales letters in 4 hours,” Stuart told me.
I asked him how this was possible — and in reply, he told me one of the biggest secrets he uses to be able to finish such a large amount of work in such a short period of time.
He takes every letter ‘personally’.
Stay with me for a moment because this is interesting.
He gets all of the information he needs to write the letter, but right before he sits down at the computer, Stuart actually imagines a close friend or family member about to buy a similar product or service — but that the product is absolutely horrible.
The friend or family member would be making a terrible mistake and would be wasting a lot of money by purchasing this product.
Stuart imagines this person’s pain and anguish and he crafts his sales message around why HIS PARTICULAR product or service is going to create such a huge benefit in his friend or family member’s life.
He takes it personally.
By the time he’s done thinking about this, he’s so worked up that the words just flow from his mind and onto the screen.
And he finishes 30 page letters in 4 hours.
Not only does this get him “in state” it does the job of helping Stuart dimensionalize the prospect, and speak to this person one on one, rather than in general, muddled language.
All in all I think it’s a brilliant technique.
And it’s one I’ve started using.
I’ll report on results in a future post.
In the meantime why don’t you start ‘taking things personally’? — you might find yourself being more productive as a result.
Hope this helps.
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment