I used to live in an apartment block when I was growing up

And there were these twins: Wayne and Dwayne.

And as you’d expect, it was common for me to make a mistake. I’d call Wayne, Dwayne. And Dwayne, Wayne. And sometimes get it right, without knowing if I got it right or not.

Writing subheads for stories are a bit of a Wayne-Dwayne situation

You think you’re writing subheads, but in fact you’re writing a kind of headline instead. I say, kind of headline, because it’s not really a headline, but for the purpose of this exercise, let’s call them headlines and sub-headlines.

When you force a headline into the space meant for a sub-headline, it’s kinda like mixing up names. And mixing is bad enough, but it slows down the pace of the stories without wanting to do so.

Of course, this is all gibberish unless you see an example

But let’s start writing the sub-heads the wrong way to begin with. And let’s take a story like Goldilocks and the three bears.

Note: What follows is a story, not an article—we’ll deal with articles later. OK, let the story begin.

Once upon a time, there was a little girl named Goldilocks. She went for a walk in the forest. Pretty soon, she came upon a house. She knocked and, when no one answered, she walked right in.

Her stomach was growling

At the table in the kitchen, there were three bowls of porridge. Goldilocks was hungry. She tasted the porridge from the first bowl.

Now the fun part begins

“This porridge is too hot!” she exclaimed. So, she tasted the porridge from the second bowl.

“This porridge is too cold,” she said. So, she tasted the last bowl of porridge. “Ahhh, this porridge is just right,” she said happily and she ate it all up.

Size Matters

After she’d eaten the three bears’ breakfasts she decided she was feeling a little tired. So, she walked into the living room where she saw three chairs. Goldilocks sat in the first chair to rest her feet.

“This chair is too big!” she exclaimed. So she sat in the second chair. “This chair is too big, too!” she whined. So she tried the last and smallest chair. “Ahhh, this chair is just right,” she sighed. But just as she settled down into the chair to rest, it broke into pieces!

Nap Time

Goldilocks was very tired by this time, so she went upstairs to the bedroom. She lay down in the first bed, but it was too hard. Then she lay in the second bed, but it was too soft. Then she lay down in the third bed and it was just right. Goldilocks fell asleep.

The Bears Return

As she was sleeping, the three bears came home. “Someone’s been eating my porridge,” growled the Papa bear.”Someone’s been eating my porridge,” said the Mama bear. “Someone’s been eating my porridge and they ate it all up!” cried the Baby bear.

Did you notice what was happening in the sub-heads above?

They were being used almost like titles/headlines. One title announced that it was “nap time”. Another noted the “return of the bears” and so on it went, announcement after announcement. And that’s not what the sub-head is supposed to do. A sub-head is supposed to smoothen the path between the previous paragraph and the next.

So let’s take the story again, and this time chop off all the headlines/titles, OK?

Once upon a time, there was a little girl named Goldilocks. She went for a walk in the forest. Pretty soon, she came upon a house. She knocked and, when no one answered, she walked right in.

Her stomach was growling

At the table in the kitchen, there were three bowls of porridge. Goldilocks was hungry. She tasted the porridge from the first bowl.

Now the fun part begins

“This porridge is too hot!” she exclaimed. So, she tasted the porridge from the second bowl.

“This porridge is too cold,” she said. So, she tasted the last bowl of porridge. “Ahhh, this porridge is just right,” she said happily and she ate it all up.

Size Matters

After she’d eaten the three bears’ breakfasts she decided she was feeling a little tired. So, she walked into the living room where she saw three chairs. Goldilocks sat in the first chair to rest her feet.

“This chair is too big!” she exclaimed. So she sat in the second chair. “This chair is too big, too!” she whined. So she tried the last and smallest chair. “Ahhh, this chair is just right,” she sighed. But just as she settled down into the chair to rest, it broke into pieces!

Nap Time

Goldilocks was very tired by this time, so she went upstairs to the bedroom. She lay down in the first bed, but it was too hard. Then she lay in the second bed, but it was too soft. Then she lay down in the third bed and it was just right. Goldilocks fell asleep.

The Bears Return

As she was sleeping, the three bears came home. “Someone’s been eating my porridge,” growled the Papa bear.”Someone’s been eating my porridge,” said the Mama bear. “Someone’s been eating my porridge and they ate it all up!” cried the Baby bear.

As you can see, we didn’t need those sub-heads at all

The story ran just fine without any intervention at all. So does that mean we can write stories without any sub-heads? No, that’s not what we’re getting at. Instead, you should first look for the sub-heads in the next line itself.

Once upon a time, there was a little girl named Goldilocks. She went for a walk in the forest. Pretty soon, she came upon a house. She knocked and, when no one answered, she walked right in.

At the table in the kitchen, there were three bowls of porridge

Goldilocks was hungry. She tasted the porridge from the first bowl.

“This porridge is too hot!” she exclaimed

So, she tasted the porridge from the second bowl. “This porridge is too cold,” she said. So, she tasted the last bowl of porridge. “Ahhh, this porridge is just right,” she said happily and she ate it all up.

After she’d eaten the three bears’ breakfasts she decided she was feeling a little tired

So, she walked into the living room where she saw three chairs. Goldilocks sat in the first chair to rest her feet.

“This chair is too big!” she exclaimed. So she sat in the second chair. “This chair is too big, too!” she whined. So she tried the last and smallest chair. “Ahhh, this chair is just right,” she sighed. But just as she settled down into the chair to rest, it broke into pieces!

Goldilocks was very tired by this time, so she went upstairs to the bedroom

She lay down in the first bed, but it was too hard. Then she lay in the second bed, but it was too soft. Then she lay down in the third bed and it was just right. Goldilocks fell asleep.

As she was sleeping, the three bears came home

“Someone’s been eating my porridge,” growled the Papa bear.”Someone’s been eating my porridge,” said the Mama bear. “Someone’s been eating my porridge and they ate it all up!” cried the Baby bear.

And here’s an example of an article

Notice how the story mostly creates its own sub-heads. And all you have to do is let the story run as it normally would and then highlight the sub-heads when you move to a new paragraph.

I graduated from University in the spring of 1983 with a Bachelors in Technical Theatre. I began working building scenery at a couple of small theatres. One was called The Empty Space Theatre and the other was The Bathhouse Theatre. Both were on again off again sort of jobs… not really enough to live on. I was really hoping to get a full time job at one of them, but it was not working out. By the fall I was feeling frustrated.

Then in mid December I got a call from California

Richard, the Technical Director at the Berkeley Repertory Theatre had spoken to Jeff, who was the technical director for the Empty Space and not only did he offer me a job… he offered me the position of lead carpenter in the shop! It was a real job! I was thrilled and ready to start as soon as I could.

Except that he wanted me to start on December 26th

This was a bit sooner than I expected. My enthusiasm was treated to a bucket of cold water when I figured out that I would have to leave in a little over a week! I would miss hanging with my friends in Seattle for the holidays. It seemed a bit abrupt, but I really wanted the job, and I could see that the job market in Seattle was not working out. I told him I would do it.

I packed up my possessions into a one way U-Haul rental truck and headed out

See how David simply used part of his article to create the next subhead. The flow was already in place. He didn’t have to insert anything new. All he had to do was highlight a line to create a sub-head and that got the job done, and done well.

And that’s what you can do too, but let’s pull into the pitstop for a summary.

So what did we cover?

1) Putting in titles/headlines where sub-heads should exist is not a good idea.

2) A title/headline randomly put in creates an interruption, when you just want flow.

3) The way to create flow in a story is to simply use the flow of the story to create sub-heads.

It’s more than likely that we may find ourselves in this Wayne-Dwayne situation

But in time, I found out who was Wayne and who was Dwayne. And you too will see that a headline/title stays at the top of the story. And the sub-heads are located within the story itself.

When you do, you’ll see they’re different and the obvious will make you slap yourself.

I certainly did.

P.S. Do you have a question or comment? Write it here and I will respond.

Top Selling Products Under $50

1) Testimonial Secrets: Powerful Techniques to Get Better Clients-And Sales
2) Story Telling Series: How to suck your audience right in, in a matter of seconds
3) Sales Pages: How To Write Benefits and Bullets That Speed Up Sales
4) Article Writing: How To Speed Up Article Writing With Simple Outlines
5) Visual Basics: How Visuals Help Increase Sales Conversion On Your Website
6) Design Clarity: How to put sanity into your design with some really simple tweaks
7) Chaos Planning: How ‘Irregular’ Folks Get Things Done

1) Black Belt Presentation Series: How to completely control the room—without turning anyone off?
2) New! Online Membership Sites: How To Build A Powerful, Community-Driven Membership Website

1) Follow up.

2) Follow up.

3) Follow up.

4) Follow up.

5) Follow up.

6) Follow up.

How do I know this to be true?

Because recently we launched a book on Membership Sites. As is the norm, we give the best price to our members at 5000bc. We also let them know about the product a lot in advance. They read it in announcements, on the forum etc. So what price would your members choose to buy the product at? The lowest possible price or a higher price?

You’d be surprised at what you’d find…

Our logical minds would tell us that the lowest possible price is when you’d pick up a product. But that’s not the case. Yes, many members do pick it up at the member’s price. But at least 15% or more pick up the product/service/workshop at a higher price.

Now why would they do that?

We can’t say. And neither can you. Maybe they weren’t convinced. Maybe they didn’t read the earlier emails. Maybe they were on vacation.

Maybe—and the maybes don’t matter.

What does matter is that a reasonable number of buyers (and we’re still talking members here) do buy at a higher price, and on a later date. Which means that if we didn’t follow up, those sales may not have happened.

And this little insight shows you that if your closest, tightest band of followers aren’t paying that much attention after being reminded over and over again, how will the rest of your audience react?

Yup, you got it right

The rest of the audience is more skeptical, more distant and so yes, logically they would react much slower. The less connected your audience is to you, the more they’d hesitate to buy your product. And hence, if you don’t follow up, you miss the chance of getting the sale from this audience for sure.

But that’s not all.

When you miss out on a sale, you don’t just miss out on one sale

I recently bought a series on “how to draw trees, how to draw skies” etc. I bought that product about three weeks ago. Yesterday, I bought some more product from that very same instructor. So what are the chances that I’d buy the second series, if I’d not bought the first?

It doesn’t take much to guess that you don’t get to second base, unless you slide to first. And yet the first would have never got my interest if it wasn’t for the consistent follow up.

Which is all very fine in theory, but how do you follow up without being a pest?

Well, it depends. There are several ways of following up. Yes, the most effective way is to be direct and to the point. That means an email that says: “Announcing the book on XYZ…” is going to get far more response than anything else you can send to your list.

That single announcement that is pure sales and nothing else will get a far greater open rate than any other email. Yes, it’s salesy, but customers want to buy from you. So if you have something to sell, they want to see it.

But being direct and to the point continuously, isn’t the best of ideas

If you keep pummeling someone with sales offers, they’ll soon tire of you, and stop paying attention no matter how great your offer. You can however, follow up with other methods. E.g. a book excerpt. Or a few testimonials from clients embedded in your weekly newsletter. Or an interview where you talk about your book.

As you can tell, there are many ways to follow up for a single product

And you don’t want to do them all at once. The mistake that rookies make is that they send out the excerpt, the testimonials, the interview etc. all in one email.

Well, fine, so now what do you have left to send to you list, when you want to follow up? Not a lot, huh! So keeping the follow up sequence ready is pretty darned critical. And yes, make sure you create this sequence well in advance.

In advance?

Yes, in advance. When you’re first selling a product/service all your cylinders are firing. Yes, you may be exhausted from having to put the product together, put the sales sequence etc. but that’s the point when you’re most focused on your product.

If you put together the entire sequence—or at least six follow up steps, you’ll get those follow up steps out of the door on time. If you don’t, you’ll soon get distracted with taking a break or just launching something else, and your existing product will get bounced to a black hole on your to-do list.

So follow up:

1) Follow up many times. Six is a good starting point.

2) Even your best customers don’t pay attention the first time, or even the fifth time.

3) A great starting price is often not incentive enough. Your best customers are likely to buy even when the price rises, so keep at it.

4) If your best customers are not paying attention, ahem, guess how much more work you have to do for the rest of your customers.

5) So it’s one sale. Nope, it’s not. If you don’t make this one, you miss out on future sales as well.

6) You can indeed follow up without being a pest—provided you plan your sequence of follow ups.

7) If you front-load all your follow-ups in one email, you have nothing to follow-up with. So yeah, space them out.

8) Plan and put the follow-ups in place at the time when you’re most exuberant (and yes, most exhausted). It may not make sense to work when you’re so fed up of everything, but once the moment passes, it will be even harder to put any sequence together.

And that’s it

You now have the 6 Most-Important Lessons in Marketing.

Unless you follow up 9 or 10 or 15 times.

Amsterdam Brain Audit Workshop: 2 Seats Left!

“Sitting at home and reading The Brain Audit is quite a journey.”

But getting to the workshop, well, believe me that’s quite something else. You will not only have the most intense learning experience, but also have the most fun you’ve ever had in a workshop.

Find out for yourself. Register today and let’s meet in June.
http://www.psychotactics.com/workshops/brain-audit-workshop-amsterdam

Top Selling Products Under $50

1) Testimonial Secrets: Powerful Techniques to Get Better Clients-And Sales
2) Story Telling Series: How to suck your audience right in, in a matter of seconds
3) Sales Pages: How To Write Benefits and Bullets That Speed Up Sales
4) Article Writing: How To Speed Up Article Writing With Simple Outlines
5) Visual Basics: How Visuals Help Increase Sales Conversion On Your Website
6) Design Clarity: How to put sanity into your design with some really simple tweaks
7) Chaos Planning: How ‘Irregular’ Folks Get Things Done

1) Black Belt Presentation Series: How to completely control the room—without turning anyone off?
2) New! Online Membership Sites: How To Build A Powerful, Community-Driven Membership Website

I don’t.

I create an outline.

And with the help of that outline I can usually write about 500-800 words.

Then I stop.

If the outline has a lot more elements then the article goes on forever

You can indeed write an article that goes deeper and deeper, but for the most part, you definitely want to stop around 1000 words—and without needing to count. Because the outline will do it for you.

So an outline like this will get me about 600 words

“First 50 Words”.
Why I get stuck.
How I use outlines to get stuck.
Why outlines help me in article writing.
How professionals use outlining in every field.
How much time do I put into my outlining?
But can outlining go awry?
Summary.
Next Step.

An outline like this gets me about 500

“First 50 Words”: Making a moussaka.
The stages involved—and how tiredness sets in.
How the same applies to article writing-causing a block.
How to side-step that block with separate stages.
Why the separate stages is just what the brain wants—and needs.
But I don’t have time to go through these stages.
Summary.
Next step.

But how can I tell which outline will send me spiraling vs. holding back?

If you look above, you’ll notice that both outlines are approximately the same points. So how do you know if one outline will get you 500 words vs. another that goes on for 800? That’s easy to answer.

If the concept needs little explanation, and is just making a point then you’re going to get in fewer words. Making a moussaka, building an article in stages etc, is not hard to understand. So it needs little explanation. All you’re really driving home is an understanding of how to change behaviour.

However, an article that has a lot of new elements in it, will require a lot more words

So if I were to do an outline like the above, but I’m explaining a concept like “consumption” or “yes-yes pricing” then I can’t just jump in. I have to bring in a bit of the concept, explain it and go into a fair amount of detail. This adds weight to the article and hence the article has between 200-300 words more.

The key to an article is never to worry about the length

Instead work to getting the message across as effectively as possible.

Most folks worry about length

I don’t.

I worry about the ability to keep the reader engaged.

If your reader feels your article is too long, then there’s a problem with the article. The reader should just flow from one point to another, one sentence to the other, never noticing whether your article is 500 words or 800 words, or 1200 words for that matter.

And then when the article is done, that reader should want more.

That’s the true benchmark of a great article.

Live Psychotactics Workshop in June 2013

Yes, The Brain Audit Amsterdam workshop is still on. And because we’ve moved to a different room at the Marriott, we still have space for 3 more participants.

A Psychotactics workshop is a learning experience that is a ton of fun and yet different. Find out for yourself at
http://www.psychotactics.com/workshops/brain-audit-workshop-amsterdam

Top Selling Products Under $50

1) Testimonial Secrets: Powerful Techniques to Get Better Clients-And Sales
2) Story Telling Series: How to suck your audience right in, in a matter of seconds
3) Sales Pages: How To Write Benefits and Bullets That Speed Up Sales
4) Article Writing: How To Speed Up Article Writing With Simple Outlines
5) Visual Basics: How Visuals Help Increase Sales Conversion On Your Website
6) Design Clarity: How to put sanity into your design with some really simple tweaks
7) Chaos Planning: How ‘Irregular’ Folks Get Things Done

1) Black Belt Presentation Series: How to completely control the room—without turning anyone off?
2) New! Online Membership Sites: How To Build A Powerful, Community-Driven Membership Website

On 12th May, two Psychotactics courses will be launched. You’ll want to read more about these courses, so here goes.

1) The “First 50 Words” Course
2) The DaVinci Cartooning Course

1) The “First 50 Words” Course
You know how they say “first impressions count?” Well, they do. They count a heck of a lot. And most of us use up our first impression by being utterly boring in our articles, presentations and yes, even audio and video. The reason is simple: We’ve never mastered the ability to start our message with impact. Impact that strikes you between the eyes in matter of seconds.

So how do you create this impact? 
http://psychotactics.com/first-50-words

2) The DaVinci Cartooning Course
The DaVinci course has been easily amongst the most popular, because guess what? Everyone can draw. Everyone, no matter who you were, had about four years of drawing practice and then when you were about 6 or 7 years old, you gave up.

The proof, they say, is in the pudding. And this pudding (the DaVinci Course) has been proven to be amazing to turn anyone, yes anyone, into a solid cartoonist. And you can see just some of the results in
just six months.

But don’t take my word for it. Check it out for yourself.
http://psychotactics.com/davinci

Warm regards,
Sean

I remember flying to Pittsburgh in the year 2004

It was a 7am presentation in front of about 40 people who I didn’t know. And who didn’t know me, either. And by the time the presentation was done at 7:45am, I asked the crowd a simple question.

“How many of you would like to buy this product?”

And over 50% of the hands in the room went up. Which, by the way, wasn’t the most interesting part. The most interesting part was that I hadn’t told them much about the product, or the price, or the delivery. So why were so many of those in the room willing to buy the product?

The answer lies in a discussion I had early in my career with an amazing salesman

I was new to sales and marketing back in the early 2000s. And I ran into this multi-millionaire called Brian Tracy. And his advice on sales was the best definition of sales I’ve ever heard. He said: Sales is a transfer of enthusiasm from one person to another.

Oh darn, so that’s what was happening—enthusiasm was being transferred!

Indeed, I’d made a good presentation. Yes, the content was very interesting and useful. But it’s the enthusiasm that caused people to brush aside the rest of the details and make a decision to buy the product.

But it’s one thing to say “be enthusiastic” and quite another to do it. So how do you create enthusiasm?

The answer lies in a concept called “isolation”. It doesn’t matter if you are selling offline or online, you can’t be enthusiastic if you’re bogged down with seven hundred features and benefits. So instead you isolate just one. Just like Steve Jobs did when he presented the MacBook Air. Instead of simply rattling off every feature, the drama was centred on just one thing: the fact that the MacBook Air was so thin, it could fit in an envelope.

The BBC presenter, David Attenborough, creates this same moment of enthusiasm

There he is, standing in the middle of the forest, surrounded by thousands of trees, bushes, insects chattering endlessly and what does he do? He drops to his knees and he shows you a flower. And then his eyes light up as he goes into detail about that flower, while ignoring everything else around him. What he’s doing is zapping that enthusiasm right into you, but he does so by creating isolation first—and then getting his message across.

Enthusiasm doesn’t mean you have to be loud or boisterous

The best sales people aren’t those who get in your face. Enthusiasm means you feel very strongly about that one feature of the product. So much so, that you’re willing to drive home that point in detail. And if you’re exciting enough, the audience feels this surge of excitement. Yes, your product has a ton of features, but they want that one feature, and they’re willing to raise their hands for it.

This method of sales can be done both online and offline

Offline, you drive home the point in person by demonstrating or showing a particular feature. Similarly, online you pick that one feature and drive it home using more pictures, more explanations, thus isolating the importance.

Sales is a transfer of enthusiasm from one person to another

To feel that enthusiasm you need to isolate one feature of the product that’s extremely exciting to you.

You then transfer this enthusiasm to your audience.

And then, like the Pittsburgh audience, watch as their eyes light up and their hands go up.

Yup, just like that.

Top Selling Products Under $50

1) Testimonial Secrets: Powerful Techniques to Get Better Clients-And Sales
2) Story Telling Series: How to suck your audience right in, in a matter of seconds
3) Sales Pages: How To Write Benefits and Bullets That Speed Up Sales
4) Article Writing: How To Speed Up Article Writing With Simple Outlines
5) Visual Basics: How Visuals Help Increase Sales Conversion On Your Website
6) Design Clarity: How to put sanity into your design with some really simple tweaks
7) Chaos Planning: How ‘Irregular’ Folks Get Things Done

1) Black Belt Presentation Series: How to completely control the room—without turning anyone off?
2) New! Online Membership Sites: How To Build A Powerful, Community-Driven Membership Website

I just wanted you to know that 5000bc is now at  the point where we have to restrict entry. However from  16-19 April, 2013 you can join 5000bc without having to endlessly wait in the wings. But the wall will only be down for three days.

That means that after April 19th 2013, you will not be able to simply register and join. And will have to go on a waiting list. And only a limited number will be able to join every month.

So why the waiting list?
1) The activity in 5000bc Forum (the Cave) is incredible.
2) The content is (did we say incredible already?) incredible.
3) There are products that non-members pay for, and 5000bc members
get complimentary.
4) There are action groups that are unlike any other (you actually
complete long-delayed work projects).

So why is the activity incredible?
Think of it this way: Imagine you asked a question. And you needed the answer to that question. e.g. How to create Strategic Alliances. In 5000bc, you have two options. You find detailed articles that tell you how to go about things. Or if the articles don’t exist, I write them for you (Try finding that kind of service online). And the activity speaks for itself.

In March 2013 we had  4549 posts in the month.
In Feb 2013 we had  3873 posts in the month.
In Jan 2013 we had 2138 posts in one month.

What does all this activity mean?
Are we adding more members all the time? Quite the opposite. We’re restricting membership and our members are actually using up tons of resources to grow their business (when was the last time you actually used up any of the info-overload stuff you get these days?)

And they’re using it in away that allows those who areserious (yes, we don’t care about people who just want to be “inspired”) to really get things done. The activity means that customers are asking questions–and getting replies from me and the rest of the members, leading to a rich, helpful environment.

But what if too much activity is not your cup of “chai”
If on the other hand all this activity scares you then be assured that we have private mastermind groups. 5000bc attracts both introverts and extroverts.

And introverts get drained with too many people. In 5000bc we’ve created systems that will allow you to be part of a smaller group while still having access to the content (or the big group) whenever you choose.

You’ll get immense support.
You’ll get reports that non-members pay for. And you’ll get access to courses that are not available to non-members.

Plus you’ll be part of a community that you’ve always wished for.
Of course all the explicit details are on the sales page. But you’ll only get entry to 5000bc for the next four weeks. After that it’s closed. And you go on the waiting list.

If you don’t want to be shut out, have a look today.
http://www.5000bc.com

You won’t regret it.

Warm regards,
s-
Motto of 5000bc: Be kind, Be Helpful or Begone.
P.S. April 19th, 2013 is the last date. But if we get too many sign-ups before that date the waiting list may begin before that date arrives. No we’re not kidding. We want to ensure the best for our clients, and this is one of the ways we can pay attention to a group that’s interested in their own future.
http://www.5000bc.com

Olive oil
Aubergines
Onions
Garlic, Cinnamon, Oregano, Minced lamb, Tomato purée, Parsley
And red wine.

Writing an article is like making a yummy dish called moussaka

And making the moussaka takes a bit of work. The first port of call is of course, the ingredients. You have to make that all important trip to the supermarket, the butcher and the veggie store to get the ingredients.

Then there’s the prep work, the cooking and finally, the serving.

In short, four major steps.

Article writing is a lot like making a dish

There’s the outlining, the research, the writing and then finally the editing. And the best way to get frustrated and head right into Writer’s Block is to do all four steps at once.

And when you think about it, it’s crazy. Just doing the outline would get you a bit tired. Then maybe it’s time for a bit of research, but even a little can get you pooped. By the time you get down to writing the article, you’re all wrung out. Who the heck is thinking of editing or formatting right now? All you want to do is get out of your misery.

But this misery is pretty easy to avoid if you understand your brain

If you notice, the brain works just fine in batches. It functions nicely when handling one thing at a time. But try and do all the stages at one go, and you get physically and mentally tired.

Then you start making mistakes and of course the entire article often falls apart. You can’t think, you’re too tired to act, and now you believe that you’re not a writer after all.

Instead all you need is a bit of planning

And yes, I know that you may believe that you don’t have the time to break up a single article into several stages, but that’s the most efficient way to write.

- You outline.

- Then you do your research, if needed.

- Then possibly next morning, you write.

- And finally, let it sit for a while, then edit and tidy it up a bit.

Cooking, writing, dancing—any activity that requires brain power also requires the brain to power up and power down. To have rest periods so that the enthusiasm and energy come flooding back. And the time gap gives you time to think and percolate the ideas, instead of just trying to turn it out in one go.

But can you get it all out in one go?

Yes you can. There are times when you’re all fired up and turn out that dish from start to finish. But in most situations, you want to work with your brain and work in stages.

Stages allow for much better, less frustrating articles.

And yes, yummy moussaka.

Bon appétit.

Or should we say, “kali orexi!”

P.S. The Brain Audit Workshop is coming to Amsterdam this June!
(Only  7  seats remain)


http://www.psychotactics.com/workshops/brain-audit-workshop-amsterdam

Top Selling Products Under $50

1) Testimonial Secrets: Powerful Techniques to Get Better Clients-And Sales
2) Story Telling Series: How to suck your audience right in, in a matter of seconds
3) Sales Pages: How To Write Benefits and Bullets That Speed Up Sales
4) Article Writing: How To Speed Up Article Writing With Simple Outlines
5) Visual Basics: How Visuals Help Increase Sales Conversion On Your Website
6) Design Clarity: How to put sanity into your design with some really simple tweaks
7) Chaos Planning: How ‘Irregular’ Folks Get Things Done

1) Black Belt Presentation Series: How to completely control the room—without turning anyone off?
2) New! Online Membership Sites: How To Build A Powerful, Community-Driven Membership Website

When you walk into an ice-cream parlour, something weird occurs. We look up to the board and find twenty or thirty flavours of ice-cream. And to most of us, this doesn’t even seem weird. We expect to have tons of choice.

But notice what you’re doing as you step up to order your ice-cream

Your’e scanning the board, looking through all the different flavours. Why on earth would you do that? Most of us already know what we’re going to eat long before we order it. But our brain still goes through the list.

Have you figured out what your brain is doing?

It’s eliminating. That’s what it’s doing. If you have 20 flavors and you’re going to choose just one, it has to eliminate 19. And that’s work. A lot of work. This same concept plays out when writing articles. We have way too much choice and this choice factor works against us. So let’s stop and explore where we go off target, shall we?

The three problems of aplenty

1) Too much time.

2) Too much knowledge.

3) Too many topics.

1) Problem 1: Too much time

You’re either laughing madly at this idea, or shaking your head in disgust because we don’t seem to have time. Time, it seems, is the most precious resource and we run out of it—well, all the time. So how can we have too much time?

But we do.

When you sit down to write, you don’t have a fixed amount of time

So sit down with a timer. Because now you’re going to write in a fixed amount of time. Let’s say you allocate an hour for writing. Well, how is that hour split up? Right, you’re going to think for about 25 minutes, aren’t you? And then in a classic ice-cream situation you’re going to battle with the topics. And the clock doesn’t care. It ticks away ruthlessly.

But what if you did a bit of an outline in advance?

What if you sat down and made a list of the next 6 articles you’re going to write. And briefly outlined those articles. And let’s say that took you that full hour and you ended up not writing a word.

Well, that’s time well spent, because when you next sit down to write, you’re going to spend that full hour writing. Not thinking or meandering, but writing. And when that timer starts, you’ll be off the mark.

When it finishes, amazingly, you’ll be done with your work

And if you’re not 100% done, well that’s fine. But you’ll find that the timer—and the planning works for you. Which takes us to Problem No.2, eh?

Problem 2: Too much knowledge

We know too much. We just do. Even when we’re just starting out in our careers, we have thirty-five flavours of ice-cream floating in our heads. And that ends up in a sort of icy puddle on paper when we sit down to write.

But it gets worse…

We then sit down to research. Hours later we’re tired and frustrated and have gone nowhere in particular. So the key is to simply write down your topics, narrow it down to a small section and then write. e.g. Instead of writing about “pricing” (which is a main topic), write instead about “the danger of reducing prices by 20%”. See the focus? You can’t waffle. Everything is now focused on that specific of 20%.

So now you’re using your knowledge to your advantage, which as you can tell is a good thing. But that’s easier said than done, because lurking in the shadows is the problem of too many topics.

Problem 3: Too many topics

When I sat down to write this article, I realised something very quickly. There are tons of topics to choose from, on the topic of article writing. Instead I chose just the concept of “limitations”. And then I could stay with just one limitation and drive home that point. Or take two or three limitations, and explain every one in a bit of detail.

But that’s not how I used to work

Instead I would let the topics float in my head endlessly. That’s why it used to take me two whole days to get an article done. Now I can write five articles in a morning. And you will find that the best way to go about things is to list all the topics down on paper and spend that hour (see Problem 1) listing down what you’re going to write about.

So if I were writing a personal history of my family, for instance, I would list all the topics that I could possibly write on. Just the list. Then I’d attack every topic and create a small outline.

And then I’d have limitations

I could only write about that one topic, and my “research” would be done long before I wrote a single word. And my timer would tick away, secure in the knowledge that once my allotted time quota was done, my article would be done.

But what about the structure of writing?

Surely that helps. If you understand the structure, doesn’t your writing improve a lot more? Sure it does, but remember the topic of this article? It’s about limitations. It’s about what you have right now, not what you could have in the future.

If you already understand the structure of writing, then go right ahead and use it. But if you haven’t, you don’t need a course right now. All you need is what you know. And you’ll write a lot better and faster.

I know, it sounds like magic…

Yet most amateur writers just sit down to write an article. And that’s like walking into an ice-cream parlour with ten thousand and three flavours. And then having the dilemma of picking the right one. It’s tiring, frustrating and mostly a waste of time.

But work with limitations of time, topics and knowledge and you’ll be writing faster and better.

What else could a writer wish for?

P.S. The Brain Audit Workshop is coming to Amsterdam this June!
(Only 50% of the seats remain)


http://www.psychotactics.com/workshops/brain-audit-workshop-amsterdam

Top Selling Products Under $50

1) Testimonial Secrets: Powerful Techniques to Get Better Clients-And Sales
2) Story Telling Series: How to suck your audience right in, in a matter of seconds
3) Sales Pages: How To Write Benefits and Bullets That Speed Up Sales
4) Article Writing: How To Speed Up Article Writing With Simple Outlines
5) Visual Basics: How Visuals Help Increase Sales Conversion On Your Website
6) Design Clarity: How to put sanity into your design with some really simple tweaks
7) Chaos Planning: How ‘Irregular’ Folks Get Things Done

1) Black Belt Presentation Series: How to completely control the room—without turning anyone off?
2) New! Online Membership Sites: How To Build A Powerful, Community-Driven Membership Website

A testimonial can go wrong.

Horribly wrong.

And it doesn’t take much for it to go off track. All it takes is using the wrong words. If you use the wrong words, the customer is confused. And the testimonial goes over the hill, down the ravine and smashes into a million teeny-tiny fragments.

No, we don’t like that scenario at all

So we have to understand what we’re really doing when asking for a testimonial. And at the very core, we’re asking customers for a “before” and “after” scenario. We’re asking them to give their story, in detail. And how they felt. Detail, yes, that’s it. But also the emotion. Both for the “before” and for the “after”.

But what’s good for the goose is not always good for the gander…

You may ask a “WHY” question to a client and get a perfectly wonderful story. But you may just as well run into a blank wall of logic, that you don’t want. So yeah, using the six questions is great, but hey, let’s prep up the customer a bit as well. Let’s let them know why we’re asking for this testimonial and what results we’d expect.

But first, let’s do it slightly wrong

Instead of prepping up the customer, let’s just jump into the logical question and, as you’d expect, often get a logical but worthless answer.

Here is the logical question (the first question you’d ask the customer)

Why did you decide to buy this iPad?

Why did you decide to buy this microphone?

Why did you decide to come to this headline course?

Why did you decide to buy baa baa black sheep?

And tah, dah, the answers are…

I decided to buy the iPad because I wanted one.

I decided to buy this microphone because I needed to record a podcast.

I decided to come to this headline course to learn more about headlines.

I decided to buy baa baa black sheep because I have too many green sheep.

The WHY doesn’t prompt the story in every case

It may simply prompt a quick, logical answer. Yet if you ask the scenario: What was your situation before you bought this product, you get a story.

What was your situation before you bought the iPad?

What was your situation before you joined this headlines course?

What was your situation before you bought this black sheep?

The situation brings out the story.

When the story is told, ask the next question: the “after” question.

What did you find as a result of buying the iPad?

What did you find as a result of joining the headlines course?

What did you find as a result of buying this black sheep?

Now you’re getting a complete story: “before” and “after” but it doesn’t stop there.

You’ve warmed up the customer with the first two questions

Now they’re ready to give you even more detail about other points that they liked as well. And as you go down the list of questions, they will reiterate why they feel that way, and why they would recommend you. They now realise you’re asking a “before” and “after” scenario.

But you can do even more

You can get the client to realise they’re not just giving a testimonial, but giving their experience. That you really need to know what they felt “before” and then “after”. You want to know the pain “before” and the relief “after”. The more you get the client to understand that it’s a story/experience that you’re looking for, the less chances you have of running into snappy, logical answers.

This is because the client wants to help

They truly do. They want to see you succeed and will mostly, yes mostly, give you exactly what you need. There are always exceptions. There are always clients who never stick to the point, are full of themselves etc. But for the most part, if you warm up the client, tell them what you’re expecting and then bring in the “before” and “after” questions, you’ll get a powerful testimonial.

It’s easy to simply take the testimonial questions from The Brain Audit and run it, but the results may be unpredictable

Instead spend a little time explaining your situation to the client.

Put in the footwork. It pays big time.

And both the client and you are happy.

P.S. Do you have a question or comment? Write it here and I will respond.

Top Selling Products Under $50

1) Testimonials Secrets: Powerful Techniques to Get Better Clients-And Sales
2) Story Telling Series: How to suck your audience right in, in a matter of seconds
3) Sales Pages: How To Write Benefits and Bullets That Speed Up Sales
4) Article Writing: How To Speed Up Article Writing With Simple Outlines
5) Visual Basics: How Visuals Help Increase Sales Conversion On Your Website
6) Design Clarity: How to put sanity into your design with some really simple tweaks
7) Chaos Planning: How ‘Irregular’ Folks Get Things Done

1) Black Belt Presentation Series: How to completely control the room—without turning anyone off?
2) New! Online Membership Sites: How To Build A Powerful, Community-Driven Membership Website

Yes, if it’s June, it must be Amsterdam!

And we’re planning on having The Brain Audit workshop in early June. So if you’re planning to enjoy a “summerish” couple of days in Amsterdam, this is your chance.

You could be local, or fly in–and stay a while in this wonderful country. Either way you’ll get two mind-blowing days of The Brain Audit.

But enough blah, blah. Look at the details on this page.
And I promise, you won’t be disappointed.
http://psychotactics.com/workshops/brain-audit-workshop-amsterdam

Warm regards,
s-

Every time you sit down to write an article, it’s the same story.

You really want to say something, but nothing comes out.

The longer you sit there, the minutes will tick away

And before you know it, the phone will be ringing, the distractions will be piling up and you’ll find yourself mindlessly wandering through Facebook or emails.

And that’s why you need to leave your office

Go down to your local bookstore instead. Get yourself a coffee or a drink first, and now that you’re in a different state of mind, go to the section where you can find books on your topic.

Which means that if you write about gardening, well, head to the gardening section

If your business is graphic design, well, the graphic design section it is. No matter what your profession, you’ll find a few dozen books on the topic.

So what do you do next?

Open the book to the Contents Page. And here’s what you’ll find. You’ll find a dozen topics, just sitting there for you. And you, you’re already the expert. So let’s say your newsletter is about “gardening” and there you are in the gardening section of the book store, trying to make sure no one spots that you’re drinking a coffee in the store.

And your eye falls on this book called “Raised Bed Gardening”

You open the book, swing right to the contents page, and voilà, this is what you find:

Chapter 1: Advantages And Benefits To Using Raised Bed Gardens

Chapter 2: The Proper Placement Of Raised Bed Gardens

Chapter 3: Standard Designs and Preparation For Your Raised Bed Garden

Chapter 4: Plants Suitable For Raised Bed Gardens

Chapter 5: Potential Problems That Are Avoided With Raised Bed Gardens

Chapter 6: Making Your Own Compost

Chapter 7: Best Soil Recommendations For Your Raised Bed Garden

Chapter 8: Strategies for Planting Seeds In Your Raised Bed Garden

Chapter 9: Natural Methods To Resolve Crop Infestation

Chapter 10: Crop Rotation In Gardening

Suddenly you have at least ten topics that you know quite a lot about

Well, get out that pen and paper, or take a picture of that contents page with your smart phone. And then close the book. Yes, close it, because you have everything you need. Within that contents page were about ten ideas that you could easily write about—after all you do know a fair bit about raised bed gardening, don’t you?

But we can’t write ten articles just today, so we’ll start with one

Let’s look at the topic that we spotted in Chapter 9, for instance: Natural methods to resolve crop infestation. Now the author of the book would have methods, but hey, you have your own methods as well.

And this is the important part…

The subscribers on the mailing list—your mailing list—care a hoot about what that author thinks. But they do care what you think. They do care about the way you present your ideas. Remember they signed up to your list for a reason. So even if you were to write exactly the same ideas as mentioned in the book, they would still want to hear your take on it.

So now that you have your topic, make several points about how you’d deal with “infestation”

Talk about the what: What is infestation.

Talk about the why: Why is it so much of a problem?

Talk about the when: When does it mostly occur?

Talk about the steps: Step 1, Step 2, Step 3, Step 4.

Talk about the mistakes: What mistakes does a home gardener make?

And there you have it. Your visit to the book store is super-fruitful

You got ten topics and just one topic has gotten you all fired up and still nine more to go. And you’ve just opened one book. There are plenty more to go, but let’s leave those for another day. Finish your coffee and let’s head back to someplace where you can jot down your ideas. Once you’ve done the jotting, only then do you go back to your office to complete your article.

But isn’t this plagiarism? Aren’t you just copying and ain’t that nasty?

Well yes, which is why you had to close the book right after you wrote down the contents topics. The goal was not to get “inspiration” from what the author wrote. Instead it’s just a way to get you jumpstarted on some topics. Because you sure as heck can write a ton of stuff on any of the topics in the contents pages.

The place you were stuck the most was coming up with the idea itself. If you chose to keep the book open, you may inadvertently copy the author’s ideas and that would be bad. Mucho bad! Instead all you’re doing is firing up the ideas in your brain and yes, ideas are free. There’s no copyright on ideas.

But hey, surely I can do this while sitting in my office—why go to the book store?

A big part about writing is getting your brain in the right frame of mind. With all those distractions in your office, it’s hard to think, let alone write. In the book store your mind is a lot more relaxed.

Everyone gets stuck when writing

Almost everyone continues to sit in their office.
Almost everyone avoids the trip to the local bookstore.
Make the trip. And make it soon.
Sure beats going nuts about writing your next newsletter.

P.S. Do you have a question or comment? Write it here and I will respond.

Top Selling Products Under $50

1) Testimonials Secrets: Powerful Techniques to Get Better Clients-And Sales
2) Story Telling Series: How to suck your audience right in, in a matter of seconds
3) Sales Pages: How To Write Benefits and Bullets That Speed Up Sales
4) Article Writing: How To Speed Up Article Writing With Simple Outlines
5) Visual Basics: How Visuals Help Increase Sales Conversion On Your Website
6) Design Clarity: How to put sanity into your design with some really simple tweaks
7) Chaos Planning: How ‘Irregular’ Folks Get Things Done

1) Black Belt Presentation Series: How to completely control the room—without turning anyone off?
2) New! Online Membership Sites: How To Build A Powerful, Community-Driven Membership Website

Haven’t you ever been in a group where there’s a slacker?

Everyone’s working really hard, but there’s this one person that won’t do much, and so everyone else has to work a lot harder.

On a sales page, or in your brochure, you’re going to have a similar problem if you have sugary testimonials

That’s because sugary testimonials are just lazy. They just tell you that the product is “great or wonderful” and they’re often hard to believe. But reverse testimonials are a lot easier to believe because they contain a critical element: objections.

When your reverse testimonial starts off with the objection, it immediately gets the attention of a prospect.

But how do you get the objections in the first place?

There are a couple of ways to achieve this goal.

Method 1: You can force an objection on a client.

Method 2: You can simply ask the client.

Method 1: You can force an objection on a client

Let’s say you have a product (and yes, the same applies to a service), but getting back to the product. And if you’re smart, you’ll already know what objections your prospects have when considering your product. So they may have a list like:

- It’s too big.

- It’s too expensive.

- It’s too blue.

- It’s too noisy.

It’s likely that you will be able to come up with about six core objections. And if you can’t, it’s not hard to ask around and get those objections from your client. And now that you have a list, and it’s time to get a testimonial, you can simply call up your client and pick one of the objections from the list.

The conversation would go like this:

“Most peoples biggest objection when buying this product was that it was too blue. Was that your objection as well?” And if it is, then the client agrees. Now it’s just a matter of digging deep and staying on that one objection.

“So why was the blue such a problem?”

“What did you feel when you realised it was blue?”

“What were the other issues with the blue colour?”

And you’ll get rich detail spilling out like a gusher

And once you ask the question and get the answer, you can move onto the second question: “Now that you have the product, what has been your experience?”

And so, you’ve randomly picked an objection from the list, the client has agreed and then it’s down to your questioning skills.

But hey, what if the client doesn’t agree?

Well, that’s easy isn’t it? If they say: “No, blue was not an issue at all”, then your next question would be: “So what was the biggest issue/objection?” And that answer will roll out and you’ve got the testimonial off the blocks.

But you don’t always have to force the issue on the client. You can just ask.

Method 2: Asking the client about their objection

This is just like it sounds. You ask the client what was going through their mind before buying the product. And the objection they had to buying it. Was it their first experience? Was it the second experience and did they have a bad experience before? What was really going on in their heads at the time?

The second method may not always get results

Your prospect may not be able to remember the objection they had in the first instance. This is why the first method may work better, because it forces the prospect to reject (or accept) your objection. And if they reject it, obviously they have to come up with the objection they had in the first place.

Be sure to also listen for emotions, as the client speaks

You don’t want to rush through your testimonial-acquisition process. One of the most critical elements isn’t just getting the objection, but also the emotion behind the objection. And you should be listening for words like “frustrated, angry, demoralised, irritated”.

If the objection comes up and you don’t get a story with emotion, your testimonial will be less powerful. So make sure that you also ask the prospect how they feel. Your question would be: “So how did that problem make you feel?” And they’ll be sure to tell you and give you that non-sugary testimonial that you were looking for.

Either way it’s a win-win

The client gets to give a very authentic testimonial. And they’re happier because at the very core they want to see you more successful. And you get a testimonial that’s worth displaying prominently on your marketing material.

Slacker testimonials make every other element work harder.

It’s about time you got your testimonials to pull their own weight, eh?

P.S. Do you have a question or comment? Write it here and I will respond.

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Announcing! Headlines Course: How To Write Amazingly Powerful Headlines (Every Single Time)
—Only 5 Seats Remaining!
Check out the details at http://psychotactics.com/headlines-course

Top Selling Products Under $50

1) Testimonials Secrets: Powerful Techniques to Get Better Clients-And Sales
2) Story Telling Series: How to suck your audience right in, in a matter of seconds
3) Client Attractors: How To Write Benefits and Bullets That Speed Up Sales
4 Outlining: How To Speed Up Article Writing With Simple Outlines
5) Visual Basics: How Visuals Help Increase Sales Conversion On Your Website
6) Design Clarity: How to put sanity into your design with some really simple tweaks
7) Chaos Planning: How ‘Irregular’ Folks Get Things Done

1) Black Belt Presentation Series: How to completely control the room—without turning anyone off?
2) New! Be Kind, Be Helpful or Begone: How To Build A Powerful, Community-Driven Membership Website