Gil-Ad Ignores Halbert's Advice and Suffers the Consequences
Posted 11-21-2009 at 06:33 AM by ghyphena
Tags copywriting, sales
Ever bought any of John Carlton's stuff?
He'll send you the material and at the beginning of every binder there'll be 5 or so pages full of testimonials.
Polish, Schefren, Kilstein, not to mention a whole array of random unknown people -
Inspirational.
But why now? The sale is made already. The money's gone. Even *if* I was hugely dissatisfied, the odds of me actually packaging the binders up.... actually poddling down to the post office... and actually mailing the damn thing back to the US of A.... are close to zero.
So why waste 5 A4 pages, printing costs, extra shipping (5 A4 pages = 25 extra grams of postage!)... on a sale that's already been made?
Because John Carlton known that the first thing you have to do when you deliver a product is to...
Reinforce the buying decision. Remind them they're doing the right thing.
Important.
But, as you may have guessed from my post's title - and taking into account my habit of long-winded, vaguely relevant preludes.... John Carlton reselling his customers is not what this post is all about.
No. This post is about something the late, great Gary Halbert learned back in the days when he was a door-to-door encyclopedia salesman.
He'll send you the material and at the beginning of every binder there'll be 5 or so pages full of testimonials.
Polish, Schefren, Kilstein, not to mention a whole array of random unknown people -
they'll all smile up at you and tell you
how much money Carlton's advice made them.
how much money Carlton's advice made them.
Inspirational.
But why now? The sale is made already. The money's gone. Even *if* I was hugely dissatisfied, the odds of me actually packaging the binders up.... actually poddling down to the post office... and actually mailing the damn thing back to the US of A.... are close to zero.
So why waste 5 A4 pages, printing costs, extra shipping (5 A4 pages = 25 extra grams of postage!)... on a sale that's already been made?
Because John Carlton known that the first thing you have to do when you deliver a product is to...
sell the customer on it again.
Reinforce the buying decision. Remind them they're doing the right thing.
Important.
But, as you may have guessed from my post's title - and taking into account my habit of long-winded, vaguely relevant preludes.... John Carlton reselling his customers is not what this post is all about.
No. This post is about something the late, great Gary Halbert learned back in the days when he was a door-to-door encyclopedia salesman.
Extremely sound, common-sense sales advice which...
I spectacularly ignored.
Now, as easy as it would be for me to pretend on internetland that everything I do is successful and that I am as flawless as they come... it's not nearly as much fun as sharing my embarrassing (and often completely amateurish) marketing blunders.
Here's Halbert's advice:
In order to get the customer to buy, you have to make
All of the Sale,
All of the Time.
All of the Time.
Meaning: You can't cut corners. You have to lay out the entire persuasive presentation. Make no assumptions when it comes to demonstrating your product's benefits... the irresistibility of your offer... or your own credibility.
Even when dealing with your own previous customers.
So, here's how I ignored that advice:
A while ago I posted an entry named "Major Tom to Ground Control: I'm stepping through the door" where I mentioned that I was looking for testimonial-givers.
Response has been underwhelming.
And here's why:
1. I didn't sell the product itself. I listed features rather than benefits, no hooks, and in short my sales presentation couldn't have given it away... let alone in return for some actual time-consuming action on the "buyer's" part.
2. I imposed an extremely Soviet 7-day deadline... which surely didn't help things.
3. Most importantly -
I didn't SELL anything
Yes, it's sort of a repeat of number 1. But it's important enough to warrant reiteration. I didn't sell bloody anything. I just said here's 5 hours of video you can watch and then you can record me a testimonial.
Stupidity.
Perhaps tomorrow or the next day I will post another entry asking for testimonials - not to get you to agree to review my product - just to demonstrate what I think I should have done, so that you can benefit from my massive screw-ups.
Go back and read the "Major Tom" post. See if you can spot the wonderful persuasive-less-ness of the whole thing.
But - and this is a giant caveat - the bit about wishing me luck was entirely serious. Watching those double digit numbers on my view counts gives me a lot of moral support. It's nice to think you're keeping your fingers crossed for me as I step forward to launch.
So when you re-read my Major Tom post and laugh at my complete ineptitude, be sure to send some good thoughts my way.
I will appreciate it to no end.
Gil-Ad
Total Comments 0
