I've been in business for 14 years. We spend tens of millions of dollars per year in paid advertising.
And in this video, I'm going to share something I've never shared before. which is that I have 12 internal hacks that we use whenever we write any piece of advertising or copy that goes out to sell stuff.
And I'm going to give you all of them. All right, this is very exciting.
I haven't shared this publicly ever before.
And so I wanna give you, 12 persuasion hacks to get anyone to buy.
And I'm calling it that, but fundamentally I have rules of copywriting that I have as an internal document that I check when I write every piece of copy.
And so fundamentally, no one knows you exist.
They don't care about you or your product.
And so you have to convince them. And so I've spent tens of millions of dollars on ads, just like last year alone.
And these are the commandments that I check off for every single piece of advertising. that we write, every piece of messaging, every video sales letter, every landing page.
And this checklist is my internal checklist, and I'm just going to give it to you.
So there are 12. Let's start with number one. which is headlines come first for a reason.
And the reason I have it as the first one is that it is the first and most important.
So to quote David Ogilvie, once you've written your headline, you spent 80 cents of your advertising dollar.
And so that means that the vast majority of people will only see the headlines in whatever it is that you make.
And it almost feels unfair that a headline is just... a phrase or one word or one question but it is also the thing that is ultimately to get the most people or have the biggest lever on whether your advertisements do well.
So think about it like this, because it's the law of small numbers, which is, If you go from, let's say a 1% click-through rate to a 3% click-through rate, you triple the amount of people who are also going to see everything else that you have.
And so there's very little things that happen in the rest of the entire funnel that have the ability to triple.
Sometimes you get 20% lifts, 50% lifts. That'd be a monster split test.
But a banger or killer headline can absolutely outperform the control by two, three, sometimes five X.
That is why it's so important. And it feels unfair because it's so short.
But the thing is, the best advertisers...
The more they've been doing it, the more they obsess on the hook.
They obsess on the headline because they know that's where the money's at.
If you have a winning hook for your ad campaigns, you keep using it to death and you try and beat it.
And so here's some of the things that I write down, which is curiosity is king. different is ideal and sexy works.
And never run an ad without a headline. Because the thing is, all ads have headlines.
There's just bad ones and good ones. Because if you don't write a headline, you do have a headline.
It's just not very good. And so fundamentally, the headlines serve to give us a different wrapping paper for the same offers.
And you want this headline to be so powerful, and I like this visual, it grabs the reader by the throat.
And so bonus points is how can I know that something's going to work ahead of time?
One of the best ways to test headlines and hooks is to look at your organic content or other people's organic content or other people's ads.
Look at the first three seconds. visually and verbally.
What are they saying and what's happening in the background?
And those are the first places that I'm going to look in order to model what headlines apply to me.
Now, the really sexy hack around this is can I steal like an artist from a different industry?
Can I look at ads that are working well in the travel space and use them in business?
Can I look at ads in the weight loss space and use them in business or whatever space you're in?
And so some thoughts I have are curiosity, quotes, questions, are there kind of emotional outcomes or experiences that I'm describing?
One of my favorite headlines of all time is how to yay without boo, even if you biggest insecurity, right?
I'll say that again. How to yay, good thing, without boo, bad thing, even if you biggest fear. how to speak confidently in front of strangers without ever practicing, even if you're deathly afraid of speaking in public.
FYI, there are entire books written on each of these 12 pieces that I'm going to talk about.
I'm trying to give you the 80-20 because at the end of the day, when you're writing ads, you're not going to read 12 books before you write the ad.
You have a little mental checklist that you go over and that's the checklist I'm giving you.
And so each of these bullets are kind of like the best converting nuggets. that I have on each of these kind of mini topics.
And so this is like my little cheat sheet.
So whenever I get stuck writing a new idea or for a new image or a video or copy, this is what I use to kind of remind myself.
Number two, say what only you can say. So if you've done something remarkable or different, you want to say it.
Proof will always outdo promise. So the reason at the very beginning of this video, I said we spent tens of millions of dollars on ads last year between our portfolio companies.
So this isn't like we don't have an agency.
That's actually us spending money in our actual companies.
So it's not like me taking credit for all the clients that I have.
It's not that. It's like these are the companies that I own that we spent money on to generate revenue.
So we risk real money behind these things.
Now, if you're the only triple black belt in your local area, say so.
If you're the only person who's helped moms over 35 who are vegan powerlifters, say so.
If you're the only person... who like the thing is, is that what you want to do is you want to be one of a kind, but the beauty is that you get to control what the pond that you're one of a kind is.
And so. Friendly reminder here is that competitors can copy your offer, but they cannot copy your proof.
That has to be earned. And so one of the big reasons, the big defenses that I believe exist for people who have done stuff, which is why you should do stuff. is that it doesn't matter how many AI avatars come out, the AI avatar can never have done something in the real world.
They can lie. but they can never have done something.
And so no one can take your story or your experiences away from you.
And this is one of the things that excites me about the future of AI is that story is still going to be paramount. why should I listen to you is still going to be a question at the top of everyone's mind.
And in a world where trust is going to get diminished very rapidly, where we're not going to know what's real and what isn't, verification of facts is going to be even more important.
So say what only you can say. Number three, always call out who you're looking for.
Bonus points. who you're not looking for, which is actually even more powerful than the original call out.
So because it's one thing to say, hey, you know, I'm looking for business owners.
But if you say, hey, if you're below, $250,000 a year.
You're below $500,000 a year below a million dollars a year.
Hey, this isn't for you. Go consume my free content. it communicates very strongly where you position yourself in the marketplace.
And so if you only want to help people who want to lose a lot of weight, not a little bit of weight, Like there's a big advantage.
You know, it's funny. I've actually never seen anyone in weight loss do this, but just say like, Hey, only for people who are trying to look, lose over 30 pounds.
Here's the crazy part. there's enough people who are trying to lose over 30 pounds that you can say no to the people who have less than 30 pounds to lose.
Here's the other great thing about people who have over 30 pounds to lose. is that you might only need a couple hundred customers in order to make your business work.
And there's like a billion people, many billions, but maybe only a billion that speak your language.
It doesn't matter. Point is... is that most people are afraid of saying no to customers.
But when you say no to customers, you polarize the customers who are the right customer to move even more towards you.
What you don't want to be is vanilla. If you say, I'm everything to all people, I accept all customers, then it means no one feels pulled to your marketing because they're never gonna think, oh, this is for me.
That is the result that we wanna have happen from our advertising, that someone self-selects, they raise their hand and be like, wow, I feel like this person's talking to me.
And so when you advertise, you never advertise to the masses.
You advertise to one person. And so you want to be very clear when you're writing your copy, who is that one person?
I want to identify the reader. I want to identify the viewer or the listener.
You want them to think, how does he know my secrets?
Well, you can only be that specific if you're talking about one person.
Right. And so as you go through this, you can go through different levels of awareness, which is like at the top level, someone can be completely unaware.
So you have to hook them with curiosity.
At a level underneath of that, you have to have somebody who might be problem aware.
Hey, do you get up at night to pee more than two times?
Hey, have you ever had someone cancel a contract before it comes due?
These are problem-aware. Then you have solution-aware, which is like, have you ever tried to collect using some of these softwares and it hasn't worked the way it was supposed to?
Have you ever tried a supplement and it hasn't gotten the results that you want?
That's solution-aware. Right? Underneath of that, you have product aware.
Okay, have you ever tried this type of creatine versus this type?
Have you ever tried an ad agency before that's done meta ads?
Right? These are... very, very more aware customers.
And finally, the most aware customers are people who already know about you and about your product, and then you have to make offers to those people.
But all the way through the stack, We want to talk to people as though we know who they are because you probably do.
And the crazy thing is that customers, this is the crazy part about customers.
We all, you want to lean into the fact that everyone is selfish.
Everyone thinks they're the center of their own universe.
And when you can say something that actually affects many, many people. but you can see it as though they think that they're alone in the universe.
When you are specific, that is what creates compelling copy specificity.
And so if I say, Hey, Are you overweight?
That's that's trite marketing. You don't want to use terms like marketing ease, like like like marketing speak, marketing lingo, right?
You've read ad copy before and been like, oh, this is ad copy.
The way that you get out of that is by taking words that people use and breaking them down into chunks.
And so by saying, hey, instead of saying, are you overweight?
It's, Do you have trouble getting upstairs or going on a walk for a long period of time without a rash forming between your legs and sweating in places you didn't know you could?
When you say that, that's much more specific.
And so what we want to think about is what are the moments that someone's going to experience fatness?
What are the moments someone's going to experience What are the moments someone's going to experience frustration in their marriage or their friendship or loneliness?
Like we talk about the moments because the moments is what they remember.
No one remembers the vague words. and that's not what gets them to emote or have an emotion and then ultimately lowers the action threshold so they take the next step.
And so for example, I just had a Cash Cows episode with a gentleman who does bar consulting.
So he helps bars become more profitable, like restaurant bars.
And so when I looked at the copy, it looked generic.
It looked like he was just using marketing lingo rather than saying, Hey, When you look behind the bar, does it look like a bomb went off, right?
Does it look like this is a homeless shelter behind your bar, right?
The thing is, is that you probably get a laugh, but the person's probably like, yeah, my bar looks like that.
It's a mess. Right. And the thing is, is that that's a moment when they walk in or they look behind the counter and they're like, what happened?
That's the moment we want to pinpoint because they probably had that happen the last seven days.
And if that pain is fresh, the likelihood that they then take that next action is high.
So the next one is number four, always have a reason why.
And this is big. So I like to use the fraternity party planner perspective, which is that it doesn't actually matter what reason you use, but more so that you have a reason to begin with.
And so the first point when I started adding this in was, I think I read one of Chialdini's things ages ago.
We talked about how when people were cutting other people in line, if they had a good reason, people were more likely to let them cut in, which is basically a persuasion win.
They said, hey, can I get in line in front of you?
And he's like, hey, I've got this paper I've got to turn in.
I need to copy it quickly. And so people said yes.
But later they tested it where they just said, hey, I have to get in line because my cat is back.
It has nothing to do with getting in line or needing urgency around the copy.
They just basically said, because insert random reason.
But having a reason in general for most people makes it better than no reason at all.
And so the word because is one of the most influential words in the English language.
Use it because it works. And so if you are going to use a reason, great.
Now you get bonus points for a reason if you can tie it back to urgency or scarcity in some way, which I'll talk about those two in more depth later.
And so when you're giving your reasons why, what I encourage you to focus on is giving them the reason why to do the next step.
And just that, right? Every line of copy sells reading the next line of copy.
And then those lines of copy sell the click.
And then the landing page that after comes from the click, the headline of that page sells the opt-in. from the opt-in itself showing up to the next thing.
It's that we just want to be very clear about our messaging one step at a time because someone can't take nine steps.
We want to sell one step and be very clear about what we want them to do next.
A confused mind does not buy, and a confused mind certainly does not click.
And so when I say thinking about this as a fraternity party planner is, What reasons does a fraternity party planner need in order to plan a party?
Not many at all. The bar for having a reason to party is quite low.
Timmy got his wisdom teeth out. Kegger. John broke up with his girlfriend.
Kegger. It's Tuesday. Let's drink, right?
And so the idea is that you don't actually have to have a reason That's good in your mind.
You just need to have a reason in general.
It could be your birthday. It could have been your birthday last month.
It could be your wife's birthday. It could be your dog's birthday.
It could be the anniversary of the business.
There's four dates that you can run for a whole month. right is my dad my dog's birth month this month and for that reason we're running this offer right it does not matter now How do we make it even more compelling?
And this one's nasty. This may be if I had a favorite, which is hard to say because it's like picking between your kids, which, of course, everybody has a favorite child.
Kidding. Calm down. Anyways, is damaging admissions.
All right. There is probably... I mean, in my experience...
Nothing more powerful than imaging missions.
Now, what's very interesting about this is they've done research on on basically the persuasiveness of somebody who admits their bias upfront.
So if you say, hey, I make money from these videos in the following ways.
People even though they know that you admit you have a bias they are now more likely to believe you Because you said you have a bias.
Because you've actually been truthful. And so you want to own your flaws.
And damaging admissions in my... opinion are so powerful because they're actually just rooted in truth.
So you want to always own your flaws. Of course you have them.
Of course your product is imperfect. Say so.
And what you'll sacrifice and promise, you'll gain in trust.
And trust trumps promise. Think about the promises that you have to give to a referral.
Very little. Why? Because you are borrowing the trust of the introduction of the person.
So when you get a referral, you're like, yeah, You help my friend Sandy, so I'll buy.
You don't need to promise much at all because they trust you.
And so I would rather always sacrifice promise to gain trust.
And so there's, you know, the famous Eminem story of he figured out when he was rapping that if he owned all of his flaws.
And he said, I'm short and I'm white and I'm blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, right?
He says all these things about them. The other person has nothing left to say.
He pulls all the wind out of their sails.
He pulls all the punches because he punches himself with that.
And then they have nothing left. And so basically, we want to address all of the concerns they have up front. in our damaging admissions.
And so what happens is the linguistic power of this is that you have statement but other statement.
And the statement that comes after the word but is the part that is the thing you want them to believe.
And so you say something that is true and believable and damaging to you so that they can believe that thing that comes after but.
So let me show you how this works. So if I said, hey, these markers smell like shit, but they write four times longer than other markers and they don't dry out. you're gonna be like, wow, I now believe that more than if I just said, these markers last four times longer than other markers before they dry out.
If I said they smell terrible and, or, but, They do that.
It's more persuasive. Now watch this. Let's flip it.
These markers write four times longer than others, but they smell like crap.
What am I emphasizing? I'm actually emphasizing the fact that they smell bad, not the fact that they write longer.
And so we use the first part to gain trust for the second half of the statement.
Viagra only works for four to six hours, but You're going to have the time of your life, right?
And so it might raise your blood pressure, but you're going to have an amazing night.
Right. Our websites are ugly as hell, but they convert.
Right. Our systems are incredibly boring, but they work.
If I said our systems work, but they're incredibly boring, I'm going to emphasize on the boring part, not on the fact that they work.
And so by how you organize your language around words like but, which are amplifiers, it allows you to say damaging admissions in a way that's compelling.
And so right now, what I would like you to do is write down all of the flaws, all the things that people complain about, the things that you know you could do better. and claim them.
Because the thing is that the prospect is already thinking them.
But if you can claim them, instead of them thinking them, you acknowledge them, gain trust, and then when you make your statements, they will believe you more.
So if you want to stand out in a crowded marketplace, tell the truth.
It makes you more authentic. And if you can do with humor, you get even more bonus points.
So it's like, listen. Our gym has honestly pretty terrible parking.
Our AC is kind of on and off. I don't have the best equipment, but our sessions are more fun than everyone else's because it's all we've got.
If I said that, you now believe me, right?
The thing is, is if you saw an ad that said that, you'd be like, I kind of believe this guy.
He's probably not so bad. Right. He's telling the truth.
And I'll bet you his classes probably are fun.
Now, if I just said we have the most fun sessions, you wouldn't believe me because anyone can say that.
But what people won't say is the truth. So number six, show, don't tell.
Now, this one is one of those ones that you will probably nod your head on and be like, yes, of course, show, don't tell.
But the thing is, is when I say show don't tell, I'm actually talking more about breaking down the reasoning.
So kind of like I was alluding to earlier, which is instead of saying get more sales. describe what the experience of getting more sales means or what that moment would look like.
Like selling so many that you're running out of order forms because customers are reading their credit cards to you over the phone too fast.
That is the experience of getting more sales, right?
So you want to note the descriptions of what's happening and the emotions they might experience, the overwhelm. of having too many phones ring and not enough salespeople.
That's the experience of getting advertising that works.
Don't just say get more leads. Describe the experience of what getting more leads means.
That's what they want to experience. They want to see their gym full.
They want to know what it's like to have a line around the corner.
They want to know what it's like where they actually have to reorganize their gym so that they can actually make room for more people at the session.
Those are the good problems that we want to describe, which also, yes, they're problems.
But if we describe the future problems they would prefer to have than their current problems, those are arguably some of the most compelling things you can include in copy.
Because if you can describe the problems they haven't thought about yet, then it's likely that you've experienced them or how other people experience them, which then increase the likelihood that they believe it will happen for them.
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And so the big thing here in terms of show don't tell, obviously from a creative perspective, you want the videos to demonstrate it.
You want your creative, your images to demonstrate it, but your actual copy itself, you want to use more descriptive language that is specific to the experience they're going to have the moments and i'm going to repeat this theme because it's big what is the moment that someone's going to experience that they got more sales.
What does that moment feel like? What does it look like?
When, what moment will they realize that this has actually occurred?
Show me that sales has occurred. Describe to me that scenario.
That is how you write exceptional copy. And what's cool about this is if you want to write unique copy, the way you describe that moment will always be unique to you. compared to other people.
And so you can always have fresh copy that sounds different and interesting because you're not just going to use the same words everyone uses.
Number seven, tie benefits to status whenever possible.
So a lot of people talk about benefits, not features, which is true, but I like to take this a step further mentally. which is a cookbook so fast and easy that all your friends will wonder how you found the time to be fit and cook for your family.
Right. That would be OK. That's one level of benefit.
But the idea is what is the like in that benefit?
What we tied in is we tied in their friends.
Their friends are going to give them status because of this thing, which is just a cookbook.
Right. So rather than say, hey, you're going to cook meals fast and easy.
Sure. That might be an element of it. Right.
But so fast that their friends are going to wonder how they're doing it is another level of this.
And so whenever we can tie status and this is why in the in the leads book, I talk about this.
On page 140, I talk about the what, who, when framework.
This is where this becomes incredibly important.
And so what we want to do when we're thinking about status and the reason that this framework works so well is that we're thinking about the who.
Right. Obviously, it's them. But who is giving them the status?
Because their status within different realms is it.
Is it their family who's giving them status?
Is it their friends? Is it their colleagues or coworkers?
Is it their rivals? Is it their competitors?
Who are they vanquishing? And so humans are a competitive species.
We do desire status because it increases the likelihood that we're able to procreate and create more kids and acquire resources, right?
And so we want to tie all of our benefits to what it's going to do, what they ultimately want, which is going to be status.
What's interesting is that the status that people get is going to be unique to that person within their subgroup.
So if I'm going to try to describe status to a mother...
It's going to be probably from kids that excel and other parents wonder how they're parenting, not from getting a Lamborghini.
Now, if I'm trying to talk to a hustle bro who's 20 years old, then probably talking about a Lamborghini might convert.
Now, it might not convert the type of hustle bro that I would be looking for, but nonetheless, it would convert some person personally. who's interested in that, right?
I'm all about Mosley mobiles and having cash cars that you can buy for seven grand and then not have to worry about car payment.
So you can actually get rich in your bank account rather than in other people's eyes.
But Point being, if we're writing copy, we have to meet them where they're at.
And so the wording that we think about this, and also just to give you more color on this, is that we think past, present, future.
So how am I going to create status for them with their spouse, them with their wife today? and in the future and in the past.
So now I have multiple different people who are giving and awarding status to this person through the copywriting. and different time periods.
So it gives you endless variations and angles to approach the benefits.
All right. And so you want to think the lines so that you can, or so that your friend's mouths will drop with envy.
Right. That's what we're trying to describe here.
Number eight is that we want to use urgency and scarcity.
All right. Now, to be clear, urgency and scarcity, people lop them together, but they're actually different things.
So scarcity is a function of quantity. Urgency is a function of time.
So that means that I have an unlimited amount of widgets that I'm trying to sell.
But I'm only running my promotion until midnight.
It's a function of time. That's urgency.
If I only have 100 widgets or I'm only choosing to sell 100 spots, which scarcely you can choose to have.
Then at that point, once a hundred spots, maybe that takes a year to sell, or maybe it takes five seconds to sell that line in the sand, no matter how many people want to buy it after that point, cannot buy it.
Now you can't have both. But fundamentally, all we're trying to do is show that other people want it and that they have to act quickly.
What we're trying to do is decrease the action threshold so they take action.
The key to making urgency and scarcity work is making it legitimate.
There's actually... I don't even know if there's really... much more to it than actually having it be legitimate.
There's really not another secret. Now, there's different types of urgency and scarcity, which I talk about in the offer's books.
So I have a whole chapter in the offer's books.
So page 104 for scarcity. And then the next chapter right afterwards, I have for urgency, which is page 112.
And so I talk about four different types of urgency and different things that you can do to include scarcity in your offerings, whether it's products or services.
But no matter what, you just need it to be real.
That's all I can tell you. And the part that people struggle with is they're like, but what if someone wants to buy after midnight?
What if someone wants to buy when I already said I have 100 spots?
It means you say no. And you say no so you can maintain the reputation so that the next time you have scarcity, guess who the first buyer is going to be?
The one who wasn't able to buy the last time.
So you're digging your well before you're thirsty.
I would always prefer to undersell my demand, so I always have more later.
Otherwise, you're always going to be looking for the next kill, the next sale, and you're going to be putting the scarcity urgency up, but everyone knows it doesn't matter because you're not going to sell out.
And that's where you start losing power.
Now, number nine is implied authority. All right, now this is a nasty one in a cool way.
So this actually goes back to number one.
So if you're the only double seeker black belt in the area, say it.
If you've transformed over 1,000 people to black belts, say so.
If you have a pro athlete client and they allow you to say it, say it.
All of these things imply authority and people listen to and trust authority figures more.
And so that's how we've helped 5,000 gyms or 6,000 gyms over the last seven years.
And so part of authority is also just longevity.
If you say we've been in business for 40 years, the likelihood that you are a legitimate business is pretty high.
That's actually a pretty rare feat. So if you've been in business for a while, that's a big thing.
Now, maybe you and your co-founders in aggregate have done over 20 years of advertising.
Maybe it's four of you guys have all done five years. but it sounds better to say in aggregate, we've done over 20 years of advertising, right?
Now, again, The key here is if you have something as a hook, like as seen on Oprah's Best Boot Camps or best bootcamp in Vegas or best chiropractor in Vegas or best whatever is this is why these tiny little awards matter so much because you can actually even start a sales conversation with, did you find us? on the Vegas Best Boot Camps list.
Now, you might know that no one even knows that this list exists.
And that's okay because that list just gives you applied authority when you actually have the conversation with the prospect.
And so at the end of the day, this is where proof does beat promise.
All right. And so we're now getting into the believability of the claim, right?
So this is why it's further down on here because someone has to want the thing that you're offering first.
Once they offer it, then all their warning bells are going to go off like, why should I believe this person?
And that's where you want to have the proof that they can believe you.
And this is why documenting and substantiating the things that you have done and the people that you have helped ultimately makes you more likely to be persuasive.
If you have 1,000 people, you have 1,000 testimonials versus somebody.
Imagine you're looking between two restaurants on Yelp.
One has a five-star with three reviews. That's three.
There you go. Three reviews, right? Or you've got 3,000 reviews.
Why not? Let's just stick with it. All right.
But you've got a 4.6. Which one are you going for?
For sure. No question. You're going to the one.
That has 4,000 reviews. Now it's 4,000. with a 4.6 rating rather than a 5.
But that doesn't make sense. This one has 5.
This is a 4.6. The proof demonstrates the implied authority that obviously these people have been around.
They know what they're doing. They service a lot of customers.
It's social proof. All right. Now, number 10, always have a PS statement.
All right. Now, why do we have a PS statement?
So it's a power sentence, which is what I like to think about it.
Is that power sentence the two most read parts of advertising?
Number one, the headline. Number two, the PS statement.
And so if you have the two most red lines in all of your advertising, you better be sure you're thinking about what you're writing.
And at the very least, have a PS statement.
Right. And so always have them and make sure that they're strong.
And so I have a number of different strategies that I use for PS statements.
And I'll tell you probably my top three.
All right, so number one, in emails, I prefer to have some sort of sign-off that gets people jazzed.
They're very excited to have, I want to reward them for having read my email.
So this is where I put jokes in. This is where I put fun stuff.
That's light so that every once in a while, when I do want to put a call to action, I make this PS a call to action.
That's strong because I know everyone's going to read it and click it because I've trained them to click that link.
All right. Now, in an advertising setting, That PS statement's either going to be a disclaimer of who this is not for, which often works really, really well.
Hey, by the way, if you're just getting started, this isn't for you.
This is only for people doing X, Y, and Z. Click here.
That's very strong as a PS statement. Another PS statement that works very well is just recapping everything in one sentence.
Like we've helped a thousand people. We're good at making black belts.
If you're serious about black belts, click here.
Boom, right? And so it's like, hey, if you just read to the bottom and skip to the bottom like I do, this is the main nuggets, right? your main points of persuasion all in one place.
Now, you can also piggyback on this with a PPS statement and have two PPS statements because guess what?
The only thing that's read... Less than, or sorry, the only thing that's read more than the normal copy, but less than the headline in the PS is the PPS.
So it's the third most read statement in copy.
So I would also include something there too.
Number 11, this one's going to be this one.
This is like it's amazing how effective this is and also how simple it is.
And the only thing simpler is to not do it.
So you have to have clear CTAs, so calls to action.
If you do not tell someone exactly what to do next, you decrease the likelihood that they do it.
So, You want it to be stupid simple. Not you know what to do.
You know, you have to. They don't know. Right.
So if you want X, click the button and on the next page, failure information, then select a convenient time for you to come in so that you won't miss.
We want to be very clear about what they have to do and what's going to happen next.
They're not going to guess, but here's a really, really cool sub-point about this.
If you tell someone, to take an option or take a step.
And then you tell them what's going to happen next.
And then what you said is going to happen, happens.
You increase your say-do correspondence, meaning you gain influence over them because what you said... after they followed your instruction came true.
It's the reason Martha Stewart was such a powerful influencer compared to other people.
She literally gave people recipes to follow and she said if you want to bake a cake here's the 18 steps for baking a cake and when you follow these 18 steps you get a cake And then when you get a cake and the cake tastes good and then you tie it to status because other people say this cake is amazing and your family loves you for baking this cake, guess what happens?
She gains influence over you because the next time she gives you instructions, you are more likely to follow them.
And so we can embed this within the process of persuasion.
So we wanna basically make promises, keep promises, make promises, keep promises, make promises, keep promises over and over and over again, where they actually take action.
And that's the key part is that they have to take action on something you said And what you have to say will happen happens.
That's what makes it. It's not just saying, oh, open loop.
Oh, just make promises. They have to take action.
And then. Your promise gets fulfilled based on their action.
So outline step one, two, three, and outline what's going to happen next because when it does, they'll believe you the next time you tell them to do something.
And like, I believe in this so much. The reason I called my whole company acquisition.com was said that the name of my company was the call to action.
So if someone's like, hey, how do I find out more about acquisition.com?
Number 12. And this is so good. This is so good.
I mean, all of these are good. This is why I use these.
Like, I've really tried to 80-20 this for you guys.
Third grade reading level. Most copy doesn't convert because people have to pause to understand it.
And the moment they pause, they stop because it takes more horsepower than they're willing to dedicate to it.
So we have to assume that the prospect is in a rush, doesn't care about what you have, has below a third grade reading level and is distracted.
And that's the person we have to grab by the throat and bring into our world.
All right. And so. sentences that are too complex or use too big of words, you're not writing a college paper, right?
You're writing an ad that has milliseconds to catch someone's attention.
So make the process as frictionless as possible.
So if you want to make easy copy, you want to make light copy.
The way that you do that is you look at everything that makes copy hard to understand, your writing hard to understand, and remove it.
So great copy. The words fade into the background.
No one's actually thinking about the words.
They're just understanding what it says and then ultimately being more likely to be persuaded by it.
So if I have something that's written at ninth grade reading level or third grade reading level, so many people cannot read at a ninth grade reading level.
Many people can read, but they can't read at that level.
And so if we want to automatically disqualify two-thirds of the people who read the copy, keep it at ninth grade.
But if you want everyone who can read to read, then keep it at third grade.
Look at the most popular books in America.
They are purposely written because the authors know what they're doing at a level that most people can understand.
So fancy equals friction. simple equal sales I put every ad that I write through free reading level tool and I continue to edit the copy it as if it is third-grade reading level now I'll give you a couple quick tips on this.
All right. So number one is you want short sentences, small words, big promises, right?
Big proof. You want few adverbs and better verbs.
Meaning instead of he quickly ran, say he sprinted.
And so we want word concision. We want to have as few words as possible to communicate the point, but we want to keep the words themselves as simple as possible.
Now, if you're like, wait a second, sprinting versus running fast, sprinting is a more advanced word.
And this is why writing copy is difficult.
We have to think, is there another word that people also understand that I don't have to use two words and I can use one?
Now, at the highest levels, I will never prioritize concision over simplicity.
So simplicity trumps concision. meaning fewer words.
Concision itself is like a ninth grade word.
All right. Which is using fewer words to say the same thing as many words.
Feel better? but you probably understood it better.
That's what's crazy is this stuff actually works.
All right. And so these are 12, but you know, I do like over-delivering.
So I'm going to give you one more bonus.
Lucky number 13. All right, so instead of 13, because that might be unlucky.
So we'll put bonus here. I don't believe in superstition, but let's just roll with it.
Is whenever possible, use humor, all right?
Because if you look at the Old Spice ad, the highest converting ad of all time, to my knowledge, in terms of it took something that was not a market leader and made it the market share dominator, it was funny.
And the thing is that if you can entertain and educate at the same time, you win.
Right? Because entertainment makes something significantly broader.
Education is what's going to change someone's behavior.
And so we want our ads to both entertain and educate, entertainment to go broad, education to go deep.
The education changes the behavior, meaning that they take the click.
That means that they do what you want them to do.
This is why. Now, if I had to pick one thing to cut out, it would be humor.
Because you can make ads that convert with the other 12.
But if you want the extra sauce, right? Tickets to that thing you've always wanted to go to, right?
If you want that extra sizzle, then you can add humor in.
The difficulty is how do you make something funny for everyone?
And this is where testing is so important, right?
If you look at how comedians, I'm a big studier of comedy because I really enjoy it, how comedians make their whole specials is that they will go to many, many clubs, test new material, and they might find when they do a 60-minute set that there's only eight minutes that people really liked.
They then front load the first eight minutes of their next set and then they have 52 minutes of other stuff and they find two more minutes that people like and they put it there at the front for the next one.
Now they've got 10 minutes. And that's how they build their sets until the whole 60 minutes is hilarious because they've tested it in North Carolina and New York. and Mexico and internationally.
And so they've got something that just converts.
And by converts, it means it gets people to do what they want them to do, which in the context of comedy is laughing.
And so if we can make something that's both funny and educational, ultimately we win.
