I Almost Flunked English But Went On To Make Millions of Dol
I Almost Flunked English But Went On To Make Millions of Dol
The Guinness Book of World Records listed Joe Girard as the “World’s Greatest Retail Salesman” for 12 consecutive years. He holds the singular distinction of having sold an average of six cars a day over his career. Recently, Joe Girard told me:
“Joe, I can sell in person to individuals in a personal way – in fact, I can sell more cars per day than anyone else. Yet, I can’t do what you do — you sell millions of products to masses of people through the sheer power of print.”
Salesmanship in Print
When seen from the perspective of Joe Girard, it is difficult to deny the awesome power of writing good sales copy – called
This is why many people how to make money that my brain is hard – when you are trying to baffle me the news racks looking at the face of the right to find the biggest opportunities. What's more strange, please do not use the property to check for your own personal, given that these very same people to present a creative approach to writing copy to sell when I get a skill.
Flunking English
Not many people know this, but I almost flunked English back in high school. In addition, I don‘t know many big words, unlike the rest of my advertising and marketing colleagues — and my writing style is quite unsophisticated to boot. Yet, by learning to incorporate into my sales copy all the things about how the human mind reacts to certain words and phrases that I’ve learned over the years, I have made millions of dollars for myself.
The most important lesson you must remember is this: If you learn nothing else but the proper use of psychological principles in writing sales copy, you will always make more money than you’ll ever need.
The Million-Dollar Grapefruit Farmer
If you’re one of those people who believes that you’re not a good enough writer — and that you couldn’t possibly learn to write ad copy that sells — I want to tell you the story of a man who attended one of my seminars. This man was a grapefruit farmer who had never written sales copy prior to attending my copywriting seminar. In fact, he expressed his doubts that he would get anything at all from the copywriting lessons he learned. Yet, by the end of the seminar, he was able to write direct mail copy to sell grapefruit by mail which, over a period of ten years, has earned him millions of dollars.
Success Leaves Clues
For many years I specialized in “space-age” products, and my claim to fame was in building and selling “the better mousetrap” — from state-of-the art smoke detectors to chess computers to new-fangled calculators — and more recently — to BluBlocker? sunglasses.
But you don’t need a space-age product to make a million dollars. In fact, that is the downfall of most people who enter the marketing field. They find a product, fall in love with it, and try to get the market to buy it. With an unproven product, you could lose a lot of money in the process.
Instead what you should do is find a product that’s already selling well — and use compelling copy to sell it better.
Harmonize with the Marketplace
One of the psychological principles I describe in my book, “Triggers,” is simply this: Your product needs to harmonize with the marketplace.
Here’s a tip that you would definitely find useful: When you’re looking for a product to sell, go to the library and flip through the back issues of magazines — particularly the tabloids. Note those mail order ads that are running week after week, month after month. There’s only one reason why those ads keep running — they’re making money. Those products are already proven to sell well — they’ve demonstrated that they harmonize with the marketplace.
Even if there are many companies that are already competing in those product categories (example: weight loss, hair restoration, and wrinkle products, etc.), don’t worry. If you apply good copywriting guidelines, your marketing efforts will fare better than those who are making money, despite their poor sales copy.
“Splish Splash I Was Takin’ A Bath”
Take a clue from Bobby Darin, a popular singer of the ’50s. Darin was a young singer in New York who, for a long time, tried unsuccessfully to break into the music business. He would go from record company to record company trying to convince them to make an album of him singing popular jazz oldies. He was rejected.
So one day, Darin sat down and wrote a song that fitted or “harmonized” with what the public was buying at the time. What was popular at the time was good old rock and roll sung by black artists — it was called the Motown sound.
The song he wrote was called “Splish Splash” and the words started out, “Splish splash, I was takin’ a bath/ ‘Round about a Saturday night.” It had a good old Motown rock and roll sound — and it became a smash hit, selling millions of copies.
Darling is a recognized market wants, he has created a harmony with the market for something completely dominant. From his performance, he has he really is – making a record Jazuorudizu popular genres of music. His song,
To summarize, you must first have a product that harmonizes with your market. If you haven’t made a substantial amount of money from your marketing efforts yet, sell only products or services that have a ready market — this is the path of least resistance. Afterwards, with the money you make, you can blaze new trails with other products of your own preference.
Joe Sugarman, the best-selling author and top copywriter who has achieved legendary fame in direct marketing, is best known for his highly successful mail-order catalog company, JS&A, and his hit product, BluBlocker Sunglasses. Joe’s new breakthrough book, “Triggers,” reveals 30 powerful psychological triggers that influence people to buy what you’re selling. http://www.roibot.com/tk_psy.cgi?ptyg2