How to Write Great Sales Copy that Sells Any Info Product (Even if You Flunked English) With Lisa Rothstein

Welcome to this edition of the Real Fast Results podcast! 
Today, you are going to learn something that's vital to
your business, and that is the ability to actually use words to
persuade people to do what you want them to do. 
That, in the business, is called sales copy.  A very special
guest is joining us today, and she is actually going to share how
to go about writing sales copy that sells.  The really cool
thing from your standpoint is that this will be presented to you as
though you were a complete newbie in order to make sure that each
aspect of this is made clear.  Please welcome Lisa Rothstein
to the show... Even if you think that you can't write
anything, you're going to be able to learn how to write sales copy
to sell your information products or courses.  You
may have flunked high school English class, but you'll still find
that you are able to do this. Benefits of Writing Your Own Sales
Copy Here's a great question to start with: "What are the benefits
of actually putting time/effort/energy into this?" A lot of
people want to just outsource their copy to a copywriter like
me.  I have written copy professionally for years and years,
both in the advertising industry, business and in the digital
marketing space.  There's a time for that, but if you
don't know how to write your own copy, it sometimes means that you
don't really even understand your own business. A lot of
times people will come to me and ask me to write some sales copy or
a sales page for them, and they won't have their target market
figured out and a lot of other elements of their business figured
out.  They just expect someone else to figure their business
out for them.  It's kind of a diagnostic tool to see
how well you're selling and why it's good and beneficial to
people. I've also taught people to write their own sales
copy to the point where they end up seeing the value of what they
have to offer, way more than they did before.  That's because
when they have to write out all those bullet points telling people
why it's great, it makes them go, "Wow!  This is pretty
awesome.  I'm going to double the price of the product." 
If they hadn't of written it themselves, I don't think they would
have had that experience. Obviously, the big benefit of
knowing how to write better sales copy is that you will sell more
of your stuff.  But, there's also a lot of other
ancillary benefits.  For instance, the confidence you have in
what you're offering is so exponential when you have crafted the
message yourself.  When someone asks you about it, you'll be
able to talk about it because you have a grounding in what you're
selling.  That's why I'm so passionate about helping people
learn how to do this themselves. I often tell people to write their
sales pages before they even decide what to put into the product
because as they're doing that they'll say, "Hey, you know what
would be really cool?  I should put this bonus in here because
it feels like it would fit right here..."  In other words, it
gives them the idea to put it into the product.  So, it's a
symbiotic relationship. It's not a separate process, and that's
why, I think, some people delegate too early. The other big reason
to write your own copy is that, even though a professional might
have a little better way with words, but they could also just dial
up a little of what you've done yourself.  So, you could give
them a really good first draft of what you want to say in a clear
way, they could do so much better of a job.  Plus, it's still
your ideas and your work, whereas if you just hand it off you
advocate.  I don't like that.  I don't think it's a good
idea for people to do in business.  I thoroughly agree with
that. 3 Reason Why People Feel Writing Sales Copy Is Hard Before I
get to the five steps I'm going to tell you about for the actual
page itself, I want to share three reasons why people think this is
so hard.  A lot of people are probably thinking, "Yeah, yeah,
yeah, but I couldn't write my way out of a paper bag. I can't do
this.  I've sat down and tried, and I just can't."  There
are three reasons why this is hard, okay? It's Difficult to
be Objective About Yourself - The #1 reason why it's
hard is because it's difficult to be objective about
yourself.  I'm sure that many of the people out there could
turn into their best friend or colleague and figure out ways to
talk about that person's product, but when it comes to selling
yourself, whether you are a coach, or a consultant, and so on, it's
hard to see the forest through the trees.  Also, especially if
you're a woman, you don't like to brag, so there can be some
resistance going on.  That's one reason.  Being objective
is tough. There Is No Sales Copy Secret- The
second reason is that there are a lot of copyrighting gurus out
there, and I really don't count myself as one of them, but they'll
tell you that there are all these secrets. Maybe there's this
secret handshake or this secret world that you have to know about
in order to write great copy, or maybe that you have to be a really
amazing writer and only certain people with the talent to do this
can do it. That's absolutely not true.  We've already talked
about that.  It's really not true. While there are some
people that enjoy it and are skilled at it, there's a big
difference between writing this kind of copy that we do in the
digital marketing space and the kind of Madmen "creative" stuff
that I used to do in the advertising business.  That's a whole
different animal you don't need. You shouldn't be doing that kind
of clever, slick stuff in our space anyway.  So, all the
secret stuff, what I'm going to teach you today is really going to
blast that out of the water. The Challenge of the Blank
Page - The third thing is the challenge of the blank
page, which is true for everyone, professional writers
included.  That blank screen paralyses everyone.  You
don't know where to start or how to start.  What I'm going to
teach you now is going to help you with all of those things. 
It's going to help you with your objectivity.  It's
going to help you realize that there really are no secrets because
if you do these five things that you're about to be taught, you're
really 99% of the way there, to having really great sales
copy.  This will also help you with the "blank page"
phenomenon because it will give you five different ways to get
started.  Starting is the hardest part. 5 Steps to Writing
Great Sales Copy I actually learned four of these five steps on the
first week on the job in the ad business.  I came out of
college, and I didn't know what I was doing, and all of these old
men, with their pipes and their bow ties, were there, and you know,
I was totally intimidated.  But, my boss took me to the side
and gave me this piece of advice, that I've been using ever since
all these years.  He said, "Lisa, there's really only four
steps to writing great copy."  Now, that was advertising, so I
added a fifth step. You're not going to understand them right now,
but you will when I go through them.  The five steps
are: "Oh dear!" "Good
News" "Here's Why" "That's
Right" "But wait...There's More!" I'm
going to teach you this, but learning is remembering.  The
fact of the matter is, you see this every single day. 
It's just like any other kind of structure. 
Like, if someone teaches you structure and then you go to the
movies and you say, "Oh my gosh!  There's Act II...And there's
the inciting incident."  You learn the structure and then you
see it everywhere.  So, whenever you watch an infomercial,
you'll see this.  Next time you're up at 3:00 in the morning,
turn on the television, and you will see this in action.  You
may not want to be as blatant as they are in your work, but it's
what's underneath even the most elegant sales copy that you'll
see.  It's in the framework. Step 1 "Oh Dear!" The
first expletive, "Oh dear," is where you'll state the
problem.  You've got a ring around the collar, and
you have tried soaking and scrubbing.  This works for both
Madison Avenue and digital marketing.  Basically, this
is where you explore why the reader's life sucks right now without
your solution.  One of the things that I like to do
with my own clients that you can do too, which it helps to do it
with a partner, is to actually pretend to be your ideal client and
sit with someone else and pretend that person is your therapist.
So, you're their client, and you come to them with a problem, and
they're like, "Okay, what seems to be the problem?"  You might
say something like, "Well, I'm 40 and I haven't had a date in
years.  I'm afraid that I'm never going to meet anybody. 
I'm afraid that I'm always going to be alone and my biological
clock is ticking, so I'm not going to be able to have any
kids.  And, every time I go on a cruise, I have to go as a
single person, and every time I go visit my family for Christmas or
Thanksgiving, everyone asks me, 'So, when are you going to settle
down,' and it's just horrible and I hate it." The more you talk
about the problem, the more you'll express all of that stuff, and
the more that will feed your ideas.  When you go to write your
copy, your ideas will flow more easily, and you'll end up saying
something like, "Are you worried that you'll be single
forever?  Do you hate going to family functions because people
are always asking about when you're going to meet someone?  Do
you feel like a third wheel with your friends, and when you go on
vacation, do you have to be all alone?  Are you concerned that
it's going to be this way forever and you're just going to die
alone and never have any kids?" You can put the ideas you've had
during your role playing right into your sales copy, and the
readers of that copy are going to be like, "Oh my God!  How do
they know I feel this way?"  So, really try to sit
down and explore all the reasons why the person would need to use
your product.  Think about every area of a person's
life when you are thinking about how their problem affects
them.  How does it affect their health?  How does it
affect their career?  How does it affect their financial
situation?  You know, all of these sorts of things.  Just
brainstorm and download all of this misery, and then you pick and
choose the juiciest ones to put into your sales copy. It's
about illuminating, expanding upon, and explaining how that problem
is affecting the life of your prospect, and in an emotional
way.  Sometimes you have to be talking for a while
before you actually hit the emotion.  Something that has
happened to me and some of my clients is that they go through this
practice and actually start crying.  They are so closely
identifying with that person, and they're like, "Oh, it's so
terrible that she's never going to meet anyone, and she'll never
have kids, and she'll always wonder what life could have been like
if she had been able to find a partner."  That's just one
example, of course. The problem is that a lot of writers, and a lot
of writing teachers, will tell you to say what keeps them (your
prospect) up at night.  That has become so cliché and
intellectually based in people's minds that people really can't
reach any kind of depth that way anymore.  This process helps
you to get into the emotional space a little bit better. 
People justify with logic, but they buy on
emotion.  So, if you can connect with them
emotionally, and you can articulate to them even better than they
could even explain it themselves, what the problem is, why it is a
problem, and what it feels to have it, they are going to believe
that you have the solution.  It's just a psychological reflex
for people to subconsciously think, "I believe that you have the
answer because you've been able to explain the problem so well, so
clearly, and so emotionally." The most important thing to
remember, when you're writing any kind of work, but especially
sales copy, is that the creative process is to brainstorm
everything.  Don't write; just get it all out
there.  What options would you have.  It's like smearing
the paint onto the pallet, if you were a painter, and then saying,
"I'm going to take a little bit of the red that I squeezed out, and
a little bit of blue that I squeezed out, and dab it onto the
picture."  You're not going to use it all, but until it's all
out there, you don't know what you have to work with.  Often,
people go straight into the writing, and then they wonder why it's
flat and paralyzed.  You aren't writing at first, you're just
squeezing the paint onto the board.  That's it. Step
2 "Good News" Now you've gone wait deep into the problem, and
why it sucks to be them, and all the effects it's going to have on
their life.  "Well, guess what?  You've got this
problem.  Well, good news!  There's a solution!
Introducing my brand new, handy-dandy whatever it is...That is
going to solve all those problems."  Now you might want to
paint an opposite picture by imagining when you have this problem
solved, imagining what it's going to be like when you bring the
love of your life to Thanksgiving dinner and everyone loves him,
and you plan your vacations together, and there are all of these
memories that you get to share.  I'm just making stuff up, and
you don't necessarily have to go into all of this detail.
You've stirred the pot in your "Oh Dear" section to the
point where people really want to believe that you have the
solution that they need, so they are just waiting for you to prove
to them that what you have to offer works.  They want
to believe you.  This leads into Step #3, which is "Here's
why". Step 3 "Here's Why" This is where a lot of people mistakenly
start.  "Here's why it works.  Here's how it works. 
Here's why I know what I'm talking about...Because I went through
the same thing too, and here's my story.  Here's why you can
believe me...Because it worked for all these other people who are
going to give you their testimonials right here.  Here's
another reason you can believe me...Because I'm going to give you a
money-back guarantee.  Here's the process.  Here's all
you're going to get." You might offer to give your prospects 8,000
hours of MP3s, and workbooks, and workshops, and live events,
etc.  A lot of people start with that.  Nobody wants a
workbook.  Nobody wants a DVD.  But, when you
tell them, "You've got this horrible problem that I understand
better than anyone, and I've got the solution to solve it," you'll
have their attention.  Then, you simply go on to tell
the reader why it's going to work.  You're going to have all
of this proof that what you have worked for other people, and it's
kind of like calling for witnesses at a trial if you're a
lawyer.  I like to use analogies because I think that it helps
a lot. So, you know, here's the character witness, and here's the
glove that doesn't fit.  It's like the demonstrations, when
you see the guy driving his truck over the flashlight and it
doesn't break.  Before and after pictures are often used in
this capacity if you're selling a weight loss product, or a fitness
product, or something like that.  They'll show a before and
after, and that's part of the proof.  You hear about social
proof a lot, but there's all kinds of other proof.  "Here's
why this is important, and here's why my process is kosher. 
Just look at all the statistics out there that show that you're
more likely to be shot by a terrorist than to find a mate after the
age of 40."  You know, I didn't make that statistic up, but I
call it in as part of the evidence that I am presenting in my case.
You don't necessarily have to do all of these things in
this exact order, but you could do worse than to do them in this
order.  Watch an infomercial and you'll see
that.  Even if you watch television commercials that
are 30 seconds long.  When you're doing the brainstorming
section of your sales page, and you realize that you don't have a
whole lot in the section, that means you really need to go out and
get some more facts and evidence to bolster my case.  Where
can I go back to my clients to get testimonials?  Where can I
call in a statistic?  Where can I strengthen my guarantee and
show why my process works? Where can I pull in my own story to
prove that I've been through this myself.  A lot of people
will create products where they have solved a problem for
themselves, and now they are bringing their system or intellectual
property out to the world.  This is where you might start to
talk about your story and how you were in the same place they were,
and that's why you can talk about it now, saying something to the
degree of, "I discover this process, and lo and behold, it
worked.  Then, I tried it with my clients and it worked for
them.  Now I'm bringing it to you."  That's part of the
"here's why" section.  People are going to start to believe
what you're saying because there is some credibility there. Step
4 "That's Right" You've told them that you understand the
problem, and you may have made them feel a little horrible, but
also hopeful because you may have the solution they're looking
for.  At this point, you've proven to them that your solution
is probably going to work.  So, you have now reached Step 4,
which is kind of a recap.  You'll essentially say, "That's
right.  You're going to solve this problem that's been
bothering you forever, that you thought was insoluble, and you're
going to have this amazing solution instead.  You're going to
get all of this stuff, that I talked about in the previous section
and all of these reasons why it's going to work." Now
you're starting to talk a little about components and more about
the actual physical stuff they are going to get and how they are
going to be delivered.  The idea here is that your
prospect will be thinking, "Well, how much is this going to cost
me.  It sounds so great that I'm afraid it's going to be too
expensive."  That's why you'll sometimes see the value of each
individual item listed out for a total value of a bazillion
dollars, but you only have to pay $197, or something like
that.  I'm exaggerating to make a point, but you've seen this
on infomercials 100 times over.  Usually, in regular
advertising, that's where it starts. I wrote an ad a long, long
time ago.  It was a TV commercial that did very, very
well.  This was way back in the day, before there was liquid
dishwashing detergent to put into your dishwasher; there was only
powder.  So, one of my commercials launched the first liquid
that went into dishwashers.  In this case, it was like, "Oh
no!  Your dishwasher powder didn't dissolve and your dishes
aren't clean.  Good news!  We have this great new
Palmolive automatic dishwasher detergent that's going to solve that
problem.  Here's why it works.  It's a liquid, so it
dissolves and doesn't leave powder all over your dishes. 
That's right.  You'll never have this problem again." I mean,
that's pretty much how it went, but in the visual people are
throwing out their dishes and throwing them against the wall
because they were so mad that their dishes weren't clean.  It
was the 80's, so it was a little bit cheesy, but the idea is that
this is still the same structure.  At this point, in the
traditional advertising world, you would stop.  If you're in
the infomercial or digital marketing world, you're going to move on
to Step 5, which is "But wait...There's More!" Step 5 "But
wait...There's More!" This is where you would throw in all
of the bonuses.  It's where the infomercial will say,
"But wait!  We'll double your offer.  We'll give you two
of the things you didn't even know you needed one of five minutes
ago.  We're going to give you two of them, just pay more
shipping and handling."  Obviously, we are in the digital
space, so if you have an info product, you'll offer bonuses. 
The best bonuses in this space are things that help people consume
the product and/or that add value to the product.  It should
be something relevant. A lot of times I will tell my
clients that they have given way too much value in their products
and that they should take something out of there and make it a
bonus.  Put it on a little velvet pillow, and now
it's like, "Oh, and now you'll get my amazing spreadsheet that's
going to help you to keep track of your progress."  Anyway,
the point is that you were including that before, but by offering
it separately you can make your offer seem even more valuable and
irresistible.  The best thing is that if it's a digital
download, it doesn't cost anything to deliver, but it's
super-valuable to your prospect.  So, there's this other extra
thing, and sometimes people will buy it just for the bonus. When I
take people who can't write sales copy through what we just did I
ask, "How many people thing they can write their own sales page
now?"  Pretty much, the whole room raises their hand, whereas
in the beginning I'll ask, "How many people think it's impossible
to write copy," and pretty much the same people raised their
hand.  Once you get into the details, you may have to
scratch your head a little to find the right words, but you
probably don't have a problem with writing but a problem with
clarity.  Now that you know what these five things
are, as long as you just do: "Oh dear!" "Good News" "Here's Why"
"That's Right" "But wait...There's More!" Then, you just fill in
all of the blanks.  You'd have the basis of a pretty
good first draft after doing this.  In fact, it would
be better than most people's and even better than some
copywriters.  And, how much more will you feel connected to
what you're selling once you have actually done this? The
"Here's Why" section is probably where you would put your bullet
points.  I haven't gone into all of the features, and
benefits, and stuff like that.  I'm bringing out a course soon
that talks about that.  There's lots of people who talk about
features and benefits, but I mean, all of that stuff fits into this
process.  It's going to make you feel much more confident
about what you've got.  That's why so many of my clients raise
the price of their products after they do this.  They may not
have had that kind of confidence before, and they were just hoping
that someone else would figure out why this thing was good and how
to say it, you know?  It's better if you do it, at least in
the first draft. Testimonials When you're actually creating your
page, after you've basically collected all of this material, if you
have enough testimonials a great thing that you can do is dot them
around and use them to break up the page visually.  Also, you
might put a testimonial right after a bullet point when you have a
testimonial that illustrates that point.  For example,
if you said something in a bullet point that let people know your
product will increase their income, you can follow that with a
testimonial where someone says that they had an increase in
sales.  This essentially tells the reader, "I'm not
just saying this, look what he has to say." It's a luxury
to have testimonials that boaster your product's track record, but
even if it doesn't have that kind or track record yet, there are
still ways that you could go about borrowing credibility or get
folks to say nice things that will allow your reader to connect the
dots and figure out you're someone they should be listening
to.  I work with people on that too, because some
folks are just getting started, and they are like, "But, I don't
have testimonials."  There are things that you can use
instead.  They may not be as valuable, so you should always be
collecting that kind of proof, anywhere you can find it.
One thing that you can do is use beta testers to try out
your products.  No one has to know if they paid for
it or not.  They got results, and that's what matters. 
As far as the reader is concerned, it's none of their
business.  So, that's awesome. Where To Place the
Guarantee I like to put it near the order form, or near
where you are going to be asking for the sale. Because, at
this point they want to click "Add to Cart," but maybe they're
scared.  People always ask, "What if someone asks for their
money back, and they just want to take my product and use it."
 You know what?  That's the cost of doing business, and
the number of people who are going to be made to feel safe enough
to do business with you without knowing you far outweighs the two
or three bad apples who are going be thieves.  So, I always
tell people not to worry about that. There is a way that you can go
about taking a person off of your list if they refund too
much.  For example, if a person refunds three times, you might
take them off of the list and you send them an email that says
something like, "We're obviously not the company for you, so we've
taken you off of our list.  If you do buy something else from
us, you will not ever be refunded again."  That's how you can
handle that, but there's no reason to advertise this. You may have
to deal with this once or twice a year, if that.  It's a
really tiny percentage of people that you might have to do this
with. I would put it in more than once.  I'd
put it any place where I thought people would need to be
reassured.  The guarantee is there to make people
comfortable enough to press "Buy Now".  It's not
there because you just really want to give people their money
back.  Obviously, you will if they ask you to, but the idea is
this as a risk reversal.  Also, you need to believe in your
own stuff to say, "You know what?  If you buy this and you use
it, you should be really happy, so why wouldn't I offer you a
guarantee?" I know some people who never offer a guarantee, and
that's their policy.  I think that since we are
talking about writing sales copy that works, guarantees
work.  That's why people put them there.  So,
most people won't come back, and if they are legitimate "refunders"
like, "I've tried it, and it's not for me," then I don't want their
money.  Neither should you. Actually, I've had to refund a
couple of things that really weren't what I thought they were, and
the people were super-cool about refunding it.  I went on
social media and said, "Oh my God!  These people were so
awesome.  You know, I asked for a refund, and they said 'no
problem'.  They just gave it to me."  They probably got
more mileage out of me saying how great they were that it was worth
way more than the sale would have been to them. Connecting With
Lisa If you go to LisaRothstein.com/RealFastCopy, I'm going
to give you guys a downloadable cheat sheet that will help you fill
in the blanks on these sorts of things.  This will
make it even easier for you, and I use it with my own
clients.  It's really fun and easy to fill in, and it's
something that you can keep with you and use it as a place to kind
of capture all of your ideas for your next sales page.  You
can use it over and over again.  I really hope that you enjoy
that.  You can find me on social media too.  I spend a
lot of time on Facebook, and of course, my website is
LisaRothstein.com. Resources Lisa's Free Sale's Copy
Brainstorming Kit Real Fast Results Community If you are
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