Don't Be This Guy.

This is CRITICAL to effectively selling anything…

And it’s one of the biggest mistakes I see marketers, both newbies and veteran guys alike make.

When I worked in sales jobs, a lot of the older sales guys I worked with were “old school”, they talked about all of those selling concepts like…

- “ABC, Always be closing.”

-”Be aggressive, don’t let them leave without a commitment.”

-”Dial for dollars, it’s a numbers game.”

The classic “used car” selling tricks are a waste of time and energy. I’m not saying they don’t work, they do, but ultimately you’re working much harder than you need to in order to close the deal.

And I see these same tactics being used online. People focusing on a one-off sale as opposed to building relationships.

For those of you who don’t know, I’m a marketing consultant and copywriter.

I don’t go out begging for work. I don’t manipulate my clients into hiring me when I’m on the phone with them for the first time.

I have my whole business set up so that I don’t need to cold call, or chase down potential clients.

I’ve positioned myself so that clients come to me… And when they do I make sure to do everything I possibly can to make them clients for life.

I could cold call. I could spend my days hunting down potential clients. But that’s a massive time suck, and selling is A LOT more fun when you don’t need to sell at all…

When your potential customers want to buy what you’re offering, and you position yourself as the best place to purchase whatever it is they’re looking for, there’s zero resistance.

It doesn’t matter what you’re selling, you can apply this to your business…

Gary Vaynerchuck sells millions of dollars worth of wine, books and speaking gigs every year using nothing but his personality.

If you’re an affiliate, you can do the same thing. Go beyond direct linking. If you’re selling weight loss try setting up a blog, forum and newsletter with entertaining/informative content. Give people what they want. Keep them coming back with awesome content, and when they’re ready to buy they’ll buy from you.

Positioning yourself as “the best” in your industry does a TON of things to make your life easier and make you more money…

1. It immediately makes your business competition proof. If you’re an authority in the fitness vertical, and you have a loyal fan base who listens to everything you say, you’re 100x as likely to land the sale for that new supplement than some affiliate testing the niche for the first time.

2. It builds a lifetime business. The first sale is ALWAYS the most expensive. People who buy from you in the past are VERY likely to buy from you again in the future. If you’re going for a one-off sale instead of creating customers for life, you’re 100% leaving money on the table.

3. It forces you to provide real value. If you’re promoting garbage products, yes, you can make a lot of money very fast. But not one of those people you ripped off is ever going to spend another penny with you.

4. It allows you to charge premium prices. If you’re known as “the best”, at whatever you do or sell, you separate yourself from selling a “commodity”, people will pay a premium to work with and buy from the best.

And it’s ALL about positioning…

Think about it. Say you wanted to start a consulting business…

Would you rather be the guy doing $100 web design or the guy doing $20k/month contracts? They both exist, and what they charge is entirely their decision.

How can you be the best in your niche?

How can you position yourself so that instead of chasing customers down and hard selling them, they line up ready to pay premium prices to buy from you?

It starts with great content. It starts with giving people what they want.

It’s about building communities. Building relationships.

It’s about knowing what people want, and positioning yourself/your company as the obvious choice to buy from.

That’s what separates the boys from the men in this business.

Something to think about.

Now go hustle,

-Scott Murdaugh

P.S. If you have a product or service you need help selling, if you want to position it as “the best” in your niche, I can help. Drop a comment or fill out the form at ResultsCopywriting.com.

Don't Murder Your Marketing.

I field quite a few inquiries every week.

This week I’ve had 5 people contact me saying “this is my website, it’s not converting well. How much would you charge to fix it?”

If that’s the first question you ask me or any copywriter, then we’re probably not meant to be.

It’s bad business for both parties involved, this is why…

I’ve Been Shot… How Much Do You Charge?

A man calls up the hospital, says “I’ve been shot, how much do you charge?”… What do you think the answer is going to be?

It’s definitely NOT going to be a number. It’s going to be “We’ll rush an ambulance over” or “where were you shot?”

Now, if I’m the doctor operating on you… It’s going to depend on a lot of factors. But a small flesh wound on the arm that just needs patched up is going to cost a lot less than a chest wound…

Dozens of factors will come into play… How do I stop the pain? Will surgery be required? How much blood did you lose? Will you be in the hospital for an hour or a few months?

And in some cases, the damage will be too much for the doctor to do anything at all.

It’s The Exact Same Thing With Marketing…

Every single client a copywriter takes on has different needs.

Some clients are launching a brand new product and they need help with positioning, branding, marketing funnels, traffic and plenty of other things.

Other clients have positioned their products all wrong and need a complete overhaul.

Sometimes the problem lies more in the traffic sources than the copy…

My past clients are much more likely to get a smaller upfront fee with the majority paid in the back, or even a 100% royalty deal (more of a partnership) than some guy I’ve never talked to… In fact, if I don’t know you extremely well the latter is very unlikely.

And to be blunt again, If that’s the first question out of your mouth when you contact me I’ll probably either point you to this blog post or send you a short email saying I’ll have to pass (my old solution)…

Why? Because…

Price Shopping When It Comes To Your Marketing Is A Terrible Business Model.

If you take a bullet the first question out of your mouth isn’t going to have anything to do with price.

Now, I’m not saying that your marketing is as critical as taking a bullet, but it’s still very serious. If you take your business seriously, you need to take your marketing seriously.

Because it doesn’t matter what business you’re in, you’re not in ANY business until you’re in the marketing business.

Let’s talk copywriting and marketing…

Do you think the guy who knows what he’s doing, who delivers results… Who really understands direct response marketing and copywriting… Is he going to give you the lowest quote? Hell no.

The guy out there taking any and every job he can get… Advertising $200 sales letters before he even knows your product or market, do you think he’s a better choice? Could be, but you’ve got to be lucky.

Because if that guy has any clue about marketing and positioning, he’s not going to quote you ANYTHING, much less $200, before he knows exactly what your needs are and IF he thinks your product is even marketable.

So if you’re “price shopping” when it comes to marketing and copywriting…

You’re Shooting Your Marketing In The Chest.

So you hire a guy for $200 and save quite a bit of money on your upfront marketing… NICE.

Except that your new marketing campaign is bleeding money. And depending on how much traffic you’re getting every single lost buyer due to poor copy is bleeding cash right out of your bank account.

Could you spend 5 figures on a copywriter and have a flopped product? It’s possible. There’s nothing certain in this business.

But it does pay to put the law of statistics in your corner… And chances are that if you hire someone with a track record of results, someone who won’t beg to let you write for any product, even if there’s no market for it, someone who has experience and can predict what will work and what won’t work with reasonable certainty… You can stack the odds in your favor.

I’m not saying I’m the go to guy for any and every product. I’m not.

With very few exceptions, I’ll generally choose to avoid working with anyone who asks “how much” before they ask “what can you do for me?”

Because if that’s the first question out of your mouth it sets off a big red flag.

One, you think of what I do as a commodity rather than a potentially valuable business partner and that tells me immediately that you’re either inexperienced or just not the kind of person I want to do business with.

My favorite clients in the past have also been my most successful clients… And they’re the guys that want to know “why should I work with you” before price is an issue. They have products that they want to be extremely successful…

They have gung ho can’t fail attitudes… And they realize that “cheap” and “results” rarely cross paths.

Cheap traffic rarely converts, cheap hosting generally sucks, and cheap service providers usually  (not always) have crappy work or customer service…  And cheap copywriting and marketing rarely produces any results.

You generally get what you pay for…

So Here’s My New Answer.

It’s impossible for me to quote you a price without taking a long hard look at exactly what I can do to help you…

And I’ve been out of the “chasing down” clients game for quite a while,  I’m at a point now where I get to pick and choose my jobs and spend more time working on my own stuff.

The index page of ResultsCopywriting.com is about to be completely revamped (it’s passed due anyways) and sometime this week it’ll be completely different.

Since I need to spend about an hour with potential clients anyway, I’ll be charging a flat fee for a 1 hour consultation.

It’ll be 100% risk free, it will be a consultation, not a sales pitch, and if you do decide to hire me after the fact I’ll apply the total to the final fee.

My time is valuable, I don’t have time to field every inquiry I get now, so this way I can filter out who’s serious from who’s not, and help you with some of the “big idea” stuff without you needing to pay my full copywriting fees.

This will save me time, allow me to work on my own stuff, and only work with people who’ve shown that they’re serious about making their product and marketing campaign a success.

Peace,

-Scott Murdaugh

P.S. I didn’t write this post to offend anyone… “How much do you charge” IS a valid question. It’s just not the best question to ask upfront, for either party involved.

Here’s a video for the copywriters out there… Pretty simple, yet if you pull it off it’s highly effective. I’ll write down some additional tips after the video.

I kind of mumbled a little bit in the beginning, anyway I said “This isn’t something I invented”… Not vice versa…

Here’s a few more quick tips on selling your services…

• Stand out. They’ll be getting a lot of inquiries from bad writers and good writers… If you can appeal to what they REALLY want (a money making campaign) and show them previous success on similar projects, it goes a long way.

• If they ask “how much” don’t answer… Say “I need a better understanding of your project first. How much traffic do you get/how many pieces are you mailing/etc… Show that you care about the project and you know how this business works.

• Pre-qualify them.  There are a lot of bargain hunters on Craigslist… It’s a waste of time trying to educate them. Seek out the companies that are looking for results and understand the value, you’ll save yourself a lot of time.

• Get them on the phone. It’s a lot easier to build rapport on the telephone than it is through email. Talk to them about the project, offer ideas, tell them exactly what you think you can bring to the table.

• Don’t sell words, sell the value that you provide through higher conversion rates, more money, etc.

I rarely use Craigslist anymore, but it serves as an excellent way to get directly in touch with potential clients from all over the world.

If you ever find yourself in a hurting for work, get on there and start marketing yourself… You’d be surprised how much work is available out there.

Peace,

-Scott Murdaugh

Back when I left my sales job a few years ago, I was on the lookout for products that I could purchase and resell myself on the internet.

I was browsing Digital Point (a webmaster forum) and saw a thread selling a brand new script that allowed people to build a custom MP3 Search Engine for $15 a pop.

The sales copy, as is pretty normal for these types of threads, was horrible. So I decided to contact the creator and ask how he was doing….

His thread had been live for a week… And he’d made a whopping 2 sales for a total of $30. I talked with him for awhile, he offered to sell me exclusive rights to the script for $500, which might SEEM like the smart move to take, but it wasn’t , and I’ll tell you why in a moment.

Instead, I proposed a partnership. Let me handle all of the marketing and we’d split the profits 50/50.

Here’s what I did:

• Told him to IMMEDIATELY take the listing off of Digital Point.
• Completely reinvented the product… Instead of selling the scripts, I hired a designer and started having the “script” turned into full blown websites with unique designs.
• Created and promoted one of the sites on my own… This would serve as proof of concept when I brought the sites to market.
• Created a long form sales page for the product, talking about every benefit of ownership, how it’s the perfect turnkey business, ect.
• I put a limit on the number of sites to be sold… Both to conserve the integrity of the product and to build a sense of urgency.
• Wrote up a “How To Promote A Website For The Complete Beginner” type of guide and included it in every sale… This served to both reassure customers that ANYONE can promote these and significantly cut down on after sale support.
• Listed the sites on Ebay using several of the upgraded features and set an extremely low reserve price.

The result? For over a month straight we averaged 3-4 sales per day (average bidding ended at $500). I hired people to handle most of the work involved in putting the sites together, and after paying for all of the outsourced work, my partner and I were left with an average of $1k-$2k per day.

Eventually competitors caught on and flooded the marketplace with similar sites… When sales started to dwindle, even though it was still profitable, I decided to move on to other things.

There are a few lessons to take away from this.

1. How people perceive your product GREATLY influences how much you can sell it for… In this case the market was dictating the price, and since it was a complete custom website instead of a script the market decided $500 was a fair price.
2. The market you target is extremely important… The forum he was selling on is used to buying $15 scripts… They aren’t keen on buying brand new websites for $500 though.
3. You have to provide VALUE. I sold these as a long term investment strategy, and explained that there would be work involved to turn a profit on these sites… I received 100% positive feedback and numerous emails thanking me for selling them the sites.
4. Expanding on the last point, I offered a bonus that taught the basics of promoting the websites… This bonus was extremely relevant and directly contributed to the sales totals.
5. I also offered a “60 day 100% satisfaction or I’ll by it back” guarantee. Out of countless sites sold, I received 1 refund request. But because of the guarantee we probably sold 10x as many sites than we would have without one.
6. Long copy does work… I wish I still had the letter I was using (I don’t) but we were killing our competitors who were just using a few lines explaining the products.

Remember when I said that buying the programmer out would have been the smart idea? It wasn’t…

Turns out, he’s an excellent programmer and we teamed up and went on to sell tens of thousands of dollars in different products… So instead of a one off investment of $500 I formed a partnership that’s going to be worth a fortune to me throughout the rest of my life.

And that leads me to the final point… Positioning and your market is KEY.  Is your product positioned as a $15 piece of code or a $500 low risk/high reward investment?

Peace,

-Scott Murdaugh

P.S.  If you want an IMMEDIATE boost in your conversion rates check out my FREE guide “How To Increase Your Sales By 300% Or More In Less Than 5 Minutes”… You can grab it at the top right hand side of this page.

P.P.S. Do you  need an instant boost to your income? Head over to ResultsCopywriting.com for a FREE marketing consultation, you’ll be amazed at how much an outside perspective can completely transform your income and your life.