The Article Writing 2015 Course Page Is Live

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It’s finally here: The Article Writing Course 2015
If you want to be on the course, you’ll need to get to the page below.

As you know, we’ve sent you the prospectus and the sales page (without the ‘buy now’ buttons well in advance) so you could do your due diligence. Well, here’s the final step. To book your spot, you need to make your payment.

The page link
http://www.psychotactics.com/articlewriting-details

 

Best of luck getting on board,
S-
P.S. Once the seats are filled, they’re filled. And you’ll only get a seat in the rare chance that someone backs out.

P.P.S. If you’re having any trouble, email me, Skype me at “psychotoon” or send me a message on Facebook. My details are below. You can also safely call me if you need to, as it will be 9am on Saturday here in NZ, and at least today, I will be at my computer for an hour or so.

How to connect with me
Email: sean@psychotactics.com
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/sean.dsouza
Skype: psychotoon
Phone: 64 9 449 0009


The Article Writing Course 2015: Why Bother Reading This Prospectus?

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How do you benchmark a course?
Do you benchmark it based on one superstar?
Or do you benchmark it based on the fact that everyone gets to the other side successfully?

When you read the prospectus, you’ll find out for yourself.
You don’t have to read 70+ pages of testimonials to find out that from the year 2006, clients have gone from utter struggle and frustration, to becoming stunning writers.

Part of the stunning results comes from the sheer determination
Part of it comes from the structure of the course–and the philosophy of “tiny increments” instead of an information overload. And the fact that I’m there every day, several times a day, critiquing, working with you–making tiny adjustments.

So read the Article Writing Course prospectus, because it shows you how the Psychotactics “tiny increments” system gets results for everyone–not just one superstar.

How do you benchmark a course?
Let the detailed experiences of the alumni tell you the story.
Have a look at the prospectus and judge for yourself.
http://tinyurl.com/prospectus2015

Warm regards,
s-
P.S. We don’t accept more than 25 on the course. It’s intense. It’s tough.
We open registration on Saturday 8th Nov, at 3 pm Eastern (US).
The course fills up incredibly quickly (often in matter of hours).

Make sure you put at least a couple of alarms so you don’t miss out.
Here is the sales page with all the details about the course.
http://www.psychotactics.com/article-writing-course-how-to-write-articles/


What You Can Learn from “Snake Oil” Gurus

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Snake Oil Gurus

You probably don’t like snake oil gurus.

They pad their products with fluff, promise you the earth and don’t deliver. And yet, the next time someone says: I’ll show you how to convert thousands of people to your blog without doing more work—boof, you’re in.

So why do snake oil gurus work, when your business doesn’t?

It’s a simple understanding of pre-sell. One of the core elements of pre-sell is philosophy and methodology. Philosophy is mostly what you stand for, and methodology is how you get it done.

And the snake oil merchants have a sound understanding of philosophy. They know that they want to get rich, rich, rich and have tens of thousands, even millions of people treat them like gods. In short, money with a solid dollop of power.

Now whether you like it or not, you like that philosophy

You can indeed see yourself as someone reasonably powerful, maybe like J.K. Rowling. Lots of money, lots of power. Everyone bowing and scraping, without the need to be out there flaunting it all. Or maybe you like to flaunt. Maybe you’ll be a Kim Kardashian kinda character with helicopters, opulent mansions—all the stuff that snake-oil promises.

There often is just one problem with snake-oil

It doesn’t deliver. The methodology is where it all falls apart. You get the philosophy, you buy right into it, but even as you’re buying into it, you know the methodology is not going to work for you.

That’s because the methodology is going to involve a lot of schmoozing, a lot of tricks, a lot of selling—almost pummeling customers to buy into your system.

And you don’t like that. Besides most of the methodology doesn’t boil down to much. All you really have to do is fight your way into a similar snake-oil inner circle and you’re away.

All of this creeps you out—it sure does.

So is there a way out of this mess?

Yes, there is. It’s called pre-sell. Your customers need to get your philosophy first. Instead, you’re all stuck into improving—not talking about your methodology Which means you aren’t communicating either the philosophy or the methodology, both which are probably a lot superior than the snake-oil merchants. You probably have a method for getting about 50 new customers a month, but does that sound sexy?

Nooooo it doesn’t. 10,000 new customers, a list of 750 people signing up every day: those are the things that sound super-sexy, right? But waitasec, back up that truck, because you’re wrong.

50 new customers a month is sexy.

14 new customers a month is amazing.

In certain cases even 2 customers a month is enough to blow the customer’s
mind.

Provided the customer understands your philosophy

Why are 14 new customers so much better than 750 a day? What do you look  for in those customers? How does it help to treat those customers better, differently even.

Take for example, a guy called Jiro. He runs this little sushi bar in (get this) a basement of the subway station of Ginza, Tokyo. And he takes on just 10 new diners a night. Yup, just 10.

And his philosophy is to give you the freshest sushi experience ever

Going to a Jiro dinner is almost like a final exam. You actually feel the need to prepare to get the best of the evening. And you do, because at $375 per person, and having waited 3 months to get your seat, you’re quite into the philosophy long, long, long before you show up. You’ve bought into the person, his philosophy and his methodology long before you pay for your meal.

We all make the same mistake

At Psychotactics, our products are 3% filler. What does that mean? If you buy a book or audio or workshop, there’s going to be 3% filler. I’d call it breaks (e.g. the pages between the chapter, or the music in between or the breaks at a workshop). But strictly speaking 97% takes you from A to B in a super-elegant way, with “tiny increments”.

Our philosophy isn’t world domination. It’s not to spread twenty-thousand kilometres across the planet. Instead it’s depth. We want to explore a topic one inch wide and twenty thousand feet deep.

And so when we create the products or training, it’s always incremental. It’s always filled with dozens of examples. The examples always pertain to successes and mistakes. They always strive to cover not just products, but services and training too. And the products are always sandwiched with summaries, cartoons with captions that summarise and yes, our passion: food.

But do you get that idea before you buy our products?

Of course not. We’ve gotten so busy with our methodology that we’ve never stopped to talk about what drives us to create this stuff. Our methodology is solid—and doable. And so we fail to realise that it’s not enough for us to know who we are, we have to tell the story. The philosophy must go hand in hand with our methodology.

And the snake oil merchants are good teachers in this respect.

They realise that philosophy matters more

That why something is being done is more important than the way you do it. So they get away with just the sizzle and not the steak. You on the other hand can’t bear the thought of promoting your products without the steak, but forget the sizzle. And this is why we all have to take a step back if we want customers to really love our products and services like we do. We need to drive home the philosophy—first. Then explain our methodology.

You don’t ever have to be a snake oil guru

You don’t ever have to care about world-domination. You love what you do, and you want to do a lot of it. But your customer needs to know.

So yes, pre-sell

Pre-sell your philosophy first. Don’t let the snake oil guru get there before you.

Next Step

If you haven’t read the free report—Why Do Most Headlines Fail? (And How To Create Headlines That Work Every time), subscribe to get your copy.


Why You Need To Treat “Amazing” Marketing Strategies With A Little Caution

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Amazing Marketing Strategies

There’s an episode on the TV comedy series, “Everybody Loves Raymond” and it involves a recipe.

It goes like this…

The daughter in law wants a recipe.

The mother in law is keen to show that’s she no Scrooge and offers to give the recipe. There’s just one thing missing—yup, the secret ingredient that makes the dish like it should be made.

Most marketers give you their recipe

And often it’s not like they hold back the secret ingredients. They just fail to give you the exact details. Let’s take for example a marketer that tells you not to send out newsletters so often. Maybe he boasts that you don’t need content, that you don’t need to send out a newsletter except one every few weeks, maybe even months.

Sounds like a superb plan, right?

I mean, c’mon, who really wants to write newsletters frequently? It takes so much time to write it, then format it, then send it out. A strategy that involves none of this work, sounds like heaven. And yet, you’ve only heard what you want to hear because that’s what we do as humans. We tune in to what we want to hear and tune out the rest.

In this case, part of the strategy is to stop writing so many newsletters. But a second part of the strategy also involves contacting dozens, maybe hundreds of other bloggers and getting them to comment or at least point to your blog.

So wait, how do you get those hundreds of bloggers?

Oh that’s easy. You just get in touch with them.

See the problem, yet? Of course you do. Where do you find the bloggers? Is there a strategy? What if the bloggers don’t respond to your comment? What if they don’t point to your blog? Since everything truly hinges on those bloggers, it would make sense to focus a lot on that part of the system, right?

Oops, looks like an ingredient got left out of the mix!

And this is often what happens. People are people and even when they don’t tend to leave stuff out of the mix on purpose, they do.

And some do so, on purpose.

I once went to a workshop with a world-renowned painter. He was very helpful, but he left out the minute details. Since I was quite friendly with him, I asked him why he left out those details: “Oh that’s easy,” he said. “If I give them everything, they’ll get as good as me”.

But let’s not be cynical—not everyone is cut from the same cloth

All the same, when buying an info-product or course, you’d want to do your due diligence—mostly after you buy the product. Before you buy the product/course, there’s little chance of knowing what the product is going to deliver (yes, even the best sales letter in the world is designed to get you to buy, it’s not a prospectus).

But once you’re in, and you don’t find the answers to your questions, you need to get those answers. Without that precise ingredient, things don’t fall apart—but they don’t work either.

In order for the whole system to work, you need more than a few videos and some fancy notes

You need step by step precise strategy. Every time the marketer tells you: do this or do that, they’re moving into a new rabbit hole. And that rabbit hole is very deep indeed. If they just touch on the concept and move along, you can be sure you’ve missed out on a great deal. You’ve actually missed out on a whole chunk that would make the strategy work.

The way to analyse a product or course is to start with the bird’s eye view

Can you locate the main topics? For instance in the info-products course we have three topics: Structure, Stories and Summaries. Now when you look through each of those topics, is each section explained in detail? Are there enough examples, case-studies that enable you to understand each part in the greatest detail? Does each section elaborate on the mistakes you could make—and which mistakes to avoid?

Think of what would happen if the creator decided to skimp a bit on the topic of “summaries”

You wouldn’t know how critical it is, would you? I mean, what’s the big deal with “summaries” anyway? And yet, it’s super-crucial. The only reason why a marketer or teacher will bring up a topic is because there’s a nice, big—and deep rabbit hole. And if they don’t take you down that rabbit hole, tah, dah—you’ve seemingly got the entire strategy, but there’s an ingredient missing.

It’s easy to say, don’t write so many newsletters.

It’s easy to say, do this and do that.

But it’s also easy to leave out tiny bits out of the recipe—often quite by mistake.

And then you end up like the daughter in law in the “Everybody Loves Raymond” series. You think “you’re” the problem. You think “you’re” the one that is hopeless and not talented. You think “you’re” the one who needs to rethink your future.

When all that’s missing is the secret ingredient.

A tiny, seemingly inconsequential ingredient.

Next Step

If you haven’t read the free report—Why Do Most Headlines Fail? (And How To Create Headlines That Work Every time), subscribe to get your copy.


Sidestepping: Why Testimonials That Stay On Point May Be Boring

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Boring Testimonials

When you think about testimonials about a product or service, you think the client should talk about the product or service, right? Wrong—well, not entirely wrong, but not quite entirely right either. When a client reads a testimonial, sure they want to know about your product or service. But they also want to know about the ancillary issues. So you need to sidestep the product or service as well.

So what is sidestepping?

If you travelled to New Zealand, surely you’re going there for the amazing landscape, the food, the wines etc. And so the main topic is indeed all of these elements. But if you simply stick to all of these elements in your testimonial, you’d be missing on the magic of sidestepped testimonials.

Sidestepped testimonials are those that don’t talk about the main product or service at all. They skip the mountains, the scenery, the yummy stuff and go into areas that are slightly off tangent. Go for the experience, instead.

Let’s take a look at this testimonial for instance…

Ok, here it comes…

I had to kick and scream at myself for a day or two, before I decided to go for the (name removed) workshop!

The first thought I had was: “Ugh! I had just cleared my schedule of travel… I want to stay at home.” I’d had a schedule the last five years of travelling once a quarter for a week or more, and I thought that was all over. When (name) announced the workshop, I said to myself: ‘I don’t want to travel – this was going to be my first quarter off!”

But, the only reason that thought came up was because I knew I had to be there- it wasn’t really an option to not go- and I just had to kick and scream to myself for a day or two. wink.gif.pagespeed.ce.xNzc1zr8-l

But once I was at the workshop, I found so many things

Validation for the path I was on, plus concrete new steps and clarity on the larger picture, and seeing parts of my business strategy that were missing that I had no idea I needed. Amazing. Incredible! Better than ‘Cats’.

What made this workshop different was the heart

Yes there was useful, mind blowing information- great- but I’ve encountered mind-blowing information before. But the caring that (name) brings to the work is so evident- he wants us to succeed so much, you can feel it with every fiber of your being.

What can I say? (Name) is a madman

A lovable, effective, irrepressible, genius of a madman, but a madman nonetheless- and his system of training brings sanity to the madness in a delightful way- it works extraordinary well. I found myself swept along, engaged from the very get-go, and productive, too. Mad, he’s raving mad… and the world would be better off with more nutters like (Name).

So what was the name of the workshop?

You don’t know, right? You don’t know the name, the name of the presenter, the contents of the workshop, where it’s being held, what’s the price and if it’s within your budget. And yet, you feel this magnetic pull towards the event. And that’s because the testimonial has almost completely sidestepped the product itself.

Now instead of feeling the pull of the content, you feel the pull of the teacher. You feel the frustration of the attendee. You feel all of this stuff that you’re kinda feeling and it has diddly squat to do with the product itself.

This is what you call sidestepping

This is what you need to get from your clients. What really matters to you is the product, product, product. What really matters to the client is experience, experience, experience. They don’t want to be sold to, they want to buy into something. And the best way to create experience is to specifically ask the clients that are not related to the product or service itself.

So how do you do you figure out the questions you need to ask about?

Your product, service, workshop or course will have elements. Let’s take a course at Psychotactics for example. The lis of elements would run like this:

- The material itself.
- How it was presented
- The different media and how it helped (audio/video/text)
- The groups (why they mattered)
- The forum design (how the groups worked together)
- The teacher
- The system used
- The safe zone (how safe and encouraged did they feel?)
- The pace
- Their before and after situation

We could go on, couldn’t we?

But surely clients won’t answer all of these questions. I mean that’s a lot to cover. And no they won’t. If you’re a scam artist, just putting a course together and then not being around to help, to answer questions, you’re going to get a pathetic response.

Most people out of courtesy will say nothing to you. They may not complain or ask for their money back, but they won’t feel obliged to give you a testimonial, let alone a testimonial that sidesteps you into a whole new experiential zone.

But doing a really good job of your product/service/course is not enough

You need to analyse the elements of the product/service and specifically ask questions  about those elements. That’s when the client’s real experiences come to fore. That’s when you get the magic you’ve been looking for—and more importantly the client has been looking for.

When we think of testimonials, we think of product, product, product.

Sidestep a bit, will ya?

Next Step

If you haven’t read the free report—Why Do Most Headlines Fail? (And How To Create Headlines That Work Every time), subscribe to get your copy.


Announcing: How to join 5000bc (Without Being On The Waiting List!)

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5000bc is the membership site of Psychotactics
And from Saturday 4th October to Tuesday, 7th October 2014, you get the chance to join (without being on the waiting list). The last time we opened up the waiting list was in late 2013.

Yup, a long, long time ago.

But how do you know if 5000bc is the place for you?
You read the testimonials. Do your due diligence and read the testimonials and you’ll see for yourself why our members join–and more importantly why they stay. And how you can be part of that select group as well.

The doors are open for a few days.

Have a look and judge for yourself.
http://www.psychotactics.com/5000bc

Warm regards,
s-


3 Reasons Why Projects Fail

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Projects Fail

Imagine you have 20 days left.

In those 20 days, you have to write about 300 pages of notes for a course.

Will you make it?

The answer may seem slightly ridiculous, right? Having to write about 15 pages of content a day is hard enough without having to do everything else in your life. And it seems very much like your project is headed right into the iceberg. Incredibly, a lot of high achievers reach seemingly impossible goals.

So what’s their secret?

The secret lies in preparation—not one, but three separate types of preparation

1) Mental preparation

2) Physical preparation

3) Chaos preparation

Let’s start with the first: mental preparation

A lot of mental preparation starts on paper. Yes, paper. You make a plan and then the plan spins around in your head. As you go to work, take a walk and do all the daily things, that outline or plan starts to unfold and become richer. But it also gets you in a state where you’re ready to take on the task.

You already know that top performers will go through a lot of visualization before they step into a situation. But part of the visualization is also to start creating a complete picture in your head. Without such mental preparation, you’re hardly in a good state to get to the second point—physical preparation.

But physical preparation is something that we don’t always spend enough time on…

Physical preparation is about keeping things ready to go. So if you’re about to start on a fitness regime, it’s not much use having your shoes locked up in a safe with a 27-string combination. If you’re going to paint today, your watercolours need to be out, your page needs to be open and all it needs is for you to plonk yourself down on the chair and start painting.

Most people never get this simple fact—to be able to start something, you have to have done some amount of preparation the night before. Even the smallest hurdle can stall you for a few minutes and it’s easy to slip into a water slide of procrastination.

If you’ve already done the plan, you know exactly how your day is going to unfold

Keeping things ready to go enables you to go for that jog, listen to that audio book while jogging, learn a language on the way back, write your book because you have your writing program ready—on the page it’s supposed to be.

And if you think this is all very excessive, then yes, maybe it is.

But professionals don’t just show up to work. Their preparation is obsessive because that’s what separates the average from the very best in the field. Yet, things can go lopsided in a minute.

Which of course takes us to the third type of preparation: chaos preparation

You can’t actually plan for chaos, because chaos is a wily customer. If it doesn’t knock on your door, it’ll show up on Facebook, or email—and it will keep trying to get at you. Packing your projects back to back is a guaranteed way to get into a soup, because things do go wrong.

And having that buffer in every day really matters. If nothing goes wrong, you can always chill out for a little while—even take a nap and recharge. If something does go wrong, you have the buffer.

And so fingers crossed, everything should go right, right?

Nope, because planning and preparation isn’t one dimensional. If you’re writing a book, for example, getting the illustrations for the book is a journey in itself, writing—another journey, editing, yet another.

And so every project is going to have this crazy multilevel planning. And while there’s no way you can predict everything, it’d be nice to at least know what elements are involved in the rollout of a project.

Once you’re done with all this preparation there’s still one factor—skill

So imagine you have to get to mail a parcel tonight. You aren’t going for driving classes right now, are you? You can probably drive a car pretty well and that gets you to the post office.

Having the parcel all ready to go enables you to get to the post office before it closes. But stop and think for a few minutes about how a simple act of positing a parcel on time requires planning, physical preparation, chaos to consider—and skill.

And think about how it could all fall apart without that skill. This means if you’re going to write a book, you jolly well take a course on writing and then write, write, write. If you’re going to make your mark in art, take that course and learn to paint, paint, paint. Without skill—and all skill is acquired—almost everything falls apart.

This is why when you’re faced with 20 days and 300 pages of notes to go, you might not quite make it to the finish point

Maybe you’ll get to 200, but you’ll be way ahead of the pack. But all of this high-level work requires a ton of preparation and skill. And that’s what high performers do. They get their act together and keep it together.

As the saying goes: If you fail to prepare, prepare to fail.

Next Step

If you haven’t read the free report—Why Do Most Headlines Fail? (And How To Create Headlines That Work Every time), subscribe to get your copy.


Why “Flipping” Testimonials Helps Increase Sales

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Flipping Testimonials
You’ve had the feeling of walking past a shop that’s suddenly closed down, right?

You know there was this shop, and you know they sold something, but now that it’s gone you’re suddenly noticing it.

The same concept applies to testimonials—when they disappear.

You’ve seen the Psychotactics newsletter, haven’t you?

And you’ve seen how we put in a few links to products for sale. But what you’ve probably not noticed, is that we run those links for a while, sometimes as often as two-four weeks. And after a while a blind spot sets in.

Clients scan those links and then move on. But the moment the testimonials on the links change, they get clicked on again, and the sales go up.

Sales soar, right?

Not exactly. They don’t soar, but they definitely show a uptick. And what that tells you isn’t that you shouldn’t exactly give up on your product sales, if you’re finding the sales dipping a bit. It’s probably just that your clients have seen the same-same for much too long. Like the store on the street, they see it, but they don’t.

And then when the testimonials suddenly disappear and different ones replace the old testimonials, they pay attention and click through.

And it’s not just the jadedness that has caused them not to click, before…

You might think that it’s just that the customers are jaded with the testimonials. Yes, that’s a possibility, but pay close attention to the fact that when you put in a different testimonial, you also put in a different voice.

That “different” testimonial speaks in a different tone, and talks about different results about your product/service. The result may well be just what the customer is looking for at that point in time.

But flipping the testimonials also has a big benefit

There are some testimonials that work better than others—and they do so consistently. If you don’t flip testimonials on a regular basis, you’ll never know which are the winners and which ones are less effective. But even the winners have a limit.

You can run them for a while and then there’s a drop. And at that point, you need to bring in newer, different testimonials.

At Psychotactics we have hundreds, even thousands of testimonials for our products

When The Brain Audit was first written, we had over 800 testimonials in the first couple of years itself. Since then over a decade has passed, and we still collect testimonials. So you could safely say we’ve got a few thousand in our archives.

But even for the newer products, we may have tens, or hundreds. Yet, like crazy stamp-collectors we still collect those testimonials. And there are two reasons why.

1) People feel good to give testimonials.

2) You not only feel good to receive the testimonials, but you can also flip them to test them.

It’s easy to think that your sales are going down because no one wants your product/service

It’s easy to believe that others are doing better than you, when in fact, it’s just as easy for clients to get in a blind spot when it comes to your products or services. And yes, over time, keep your winning testimonials together and flip them after a few weeks.

It doesn’t take a lot of monitoring and yet it brings results.

So flip away.

Next Step

If you haven’t read the free report—Why Do Most Headlines Fail? (And How To Create Headlines That Work Every time), subscribe to get your copy.


Announcing: How to Sell Without Selling (Special Offer)

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quick presentations

Marketing provides thousands of ways to get and keep customer’s attention…
But you don’t want thousands of ways. You just want a simple system that’s effective. A system that has been tested for over 12 years and  got results. And most importantly a system  that you don’t have to pull up a 675 page manual to even work out.

Announcing: The Brain Audit Kit + Special Goodies worth $158 (Valid until 16 Sept. 2014)

The Brain Audit is the book that gives you a system
The Brain Audit is a step-by-step system that enables you to understand what’s going on in the brain of your customer. It’s a system that is based on a deep understanding of how our mind works, and why we do what do.

When you buy the Premium Brain Audit Kit on the 13th, 14th 15th, and 16th Sept. 2014, you’ll also get “How To Identify The Right Target Audience For Your Business”.

This book will give you an instant understanding on 
-HowYou Can Get Target Audience Wrong
-How Target Profile Works
-Persona Vs Person and more…

Take advantage of this special offer of The Brain Audit Kit right away. (This offer expires on 16 Sept. 2014)

http://www.psychotactics.com/special/brain-audit-offer/

 

Regards,
Sean
P.S.Make sure you don’t miss this offer. And make a decision, based on what you read.

http://www.psychotactics.com/special/brain-audit-offer/

(This offer expires on  16 Sept. 2014)


How to get FREE: Two Brain Audit Audio Files

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Last week you got a chunky 30-page excerpt of The Brain Audit.
This week you can get two short five-minute audio files. These short audios will teach you two very important lessons which you can implement straight away.


What you will learn:
1) The critical difference between ‘The Solution’ and ‘Your
Solution’
2)  A tested-formula on how to write a powerful tag-line.


There is a deadline though
You have to get it before 14 Sept. 2014.  Then it’s gone. So get it right away. Either download it, or listen online.


Here are the links: (It make take a few minutes to load)
Each audio is 5 minutes and contains clear and actionable information. So listen to it today and implement what you  learn.

http://psychotactics.com/Brain_Audit_TaglineFormula.mp3

http://psychotactics.com/Brain_Audit_SolutionVsYourSolution.mp3
Try it today. You’ll hear for yourself what makes The Brain Audit so well-loved and mostly well-used!
Sean
P.S. Don’t forget to download the audio before 14 Sept. 2014.


How To Use “Dummy Testimonials” To Design Your Next Product/Service

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Dummy Testimonials

You know the drill for testimonials, don’t you?

You do a great job, you ask for a testimonial. And the client writes up a glowing review of your product or service.

But have you ever considered asking for a testimonial in advance?

Not just in advance, but way, way, way in advance.

So much in advance, in fact, that the product or service hasn’t even been put together. You don’t even have a name for the service/product in mind, let alone anything tangible to deliver. And yet, you’re asking for a testimonial.

Sounds weird, doesn’t it?

It is weird, and yet it’s the key to designing your product, service or even workshop. And that’s because the the client is now imagining what the product/service could be like, if they were given a free hand to design it.

And yet, a client with a free hand is a pretty hairy concept

Give a client carte blanche and they will come up with stuff that you may not be able to deliver. But slip in the six questions that you find in The Brain Audit, and you’ll be amazed at how focused the client gets. Better still, the client is more than likely to give you everything you need to create a product or service that’s an instant bestseller.

So first, let’s check out the six questions, shall we?

1- What was the obstacle that would have prevented you from buying this product/service?

2- What did you find as a result of buying this product/service?

3- What specific feature did you like most about this product/service?

4- What would be three other benefits about this product/service?

5- Would you recommend this product/ service? If so, why?

6- Is there anything you’d like to add?

Now take off your business owner’s cap and put your client cap on…

Let’s say you wanted to do a course in copywriting. Could you imagine the answers to those six questions?

Let’s say you wanted to hire a person to do your email marketing. Could you imagine the answers as if the person had already completed the project?

Let’s say you had to go to a workshop and travel to some far off city. Sure you’d be able to figure out what your optimal experience would be, right?

We’re amazingly good at imagining things when we put on our client cap

And to give you an example, here’s a “Infoproducts” workshop we’re hosting in Vancouver in September. Well, I could write the copy all by myself. Or I could ask the client to envision what the perfect workshop would look like. And while the entire “faux” testimonial would be worth going through, question 3 and 4 are the ones that tell you exactly what the client is looking for.

So what were would make the client really happy?

1. Scalability:  I can use this from ANY thing I want people to consume (from content marketing to $10,000 courses) in ANY client industry.

2. Design: The design bonus cheat sheet was flipping awesome!  I was able to see the role packaging played in making the content more consumable without spending hours slogging through a design class.

3. Examples and Litmus Test: The examples and litmus test to know if the product is “just right” for your audience. Not too big, not too small. Not too technical, not too flippant.

See those three points?

They give me direction. I can now focus a good chunk, if not the entire workshop/notes around those topics. If it’s a three day workshop (and it is), I can tackle one topic, one day at a time and know that it completely fits in with the client needs. And yes, the information above forms the basis for superb bullets, features and benefits—and possibly even the uniqueness of the workshop.

But surely two hundred clients will have two hundred requests…

You can’t cope with all the requests of clients, can you? No, you can’t. Your goal is to find a client (or a person) who you’d consider to be a great, but at least above average client. Go about picking a useless bum and you’ll get silly responses. But pick someone who’s practical and keen on learning/hiring you, and you have completely different results.

And while you may wonder if that client’s wish list corresponds with yours, all you have to do is go back to the three points above. If you were going to an info-products workshop, is that what you’d want? If you’re finding yourself nodding, then you’ll realise that it’s easy to ask just one client the testimonial questions and get answers that many, if not most of your clients will want to have as well.

And what if the client comes up with things you can’t deliver

In most cases, we create services, products and courses based on what we have in our heads. And sometimes the client may come up with something you can’t deliver. Let’s face it, some folks have a pretty wild imagination. But remember that the dummy testimonial contains ideas that are suggestions. They’re not set in stone. You can choose to tweak, even ignore the suggestions if they’re too bizarre.

Yet you’ll find to your surprise (and I found to mine), that most of the points actually co-relate to whatever you’re thinking anyway

In a way, the client’s answers give you a solid boost. You realise that you’re headed down the right track. And should they come up with something you haven’t thought of before, you have the chance to make changes and create products/services that are tremendously valuable.

Companies spend millions trying to do research on what clients want

And yet if you ask a client what they want, you’ll often come up with a blank. You’ll get little or no response. But put the client in an imaginary situation where they can see a finished product or service–and watch their imagination soar. They are specific and helpful. And it gives you direction with your product/service.

And it’s all from those itty-bitty six questions in The Brain Audit.

Cool, huh?

Try the “dummy testimonial”.

It’s magical.

Next Step

If you haven’t read the free report—Why Do Most Headlines Fail? (And How To Create Headlines That Work Every time), subscribe to get your copy.


Win a copy of the Info-Products Course (Currently worth $1,349)

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Daily Learning

Anyone can put an info-product together. 
All you have to do is create a sort of sandwich.

First, the opening slice.
Add a whole bunch of information in the middle.
Then put on the next slice.

And you have it–an information product!

But do you know what makes an info-product, outstanding?
An outstanding information product has one simple benchmark: clients are willing to read it, and experience it again and again. They love the way the product is constructed, laid out and how easy it is to implement.

And you’re going to get a chance to win a copy of the Info-Products Home Study Course.
All you have to do is this:
Ask one (or more questions) about info-products.
Yup, that’s it.

Where do you post your question?
Post your question in the comment section below—‘Leave a Reply’ .

Rules
1) The draw will be held on October 1st, 2014. (Postponed to 19 October, 2104)
2) If you’ve already bought the course (and it’s really stunning) you’ll get a credit for another home study course (yes, you could pick up a course like Article Writing Course or some other home study).
3) The course will be digitally delivered on October 22, 2014.
4) Anyone can enter. And you can post as many questions as you like.

P.S. The live workshop is over but you can get the home study.
It’s expensive, yes it is, but the prices are going up all the way to $1800 (so it’s still a bargain at this point in time).
Info-Products Home Study

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