Who’s on the other end of your red phone?
I had a very interesting conversation earlier today.
As with my most interesting conversations, I’d feel awkward telling you who it was with. I don’t want to abuse their trust or privacy.
But I will tell you this. He’s a top business and marketing guru/expert, whose name you likely know.
We got on the phone under the guise of a copy review.
We chatted about the copy for a while.
But the copy was already good. For the most part, he didn’t need me to look at his copy.
I couldn’t help but make a few proofreading suggestions — tiny stuff I marked up as I read. That wasn’t the reason for the review.
The headline was great — really no comments there. The entire first half, in fact, was hard to improve.
There were a couple areas I had objections bubble up, and gave comments with tiny tweaks to keep the reader hooked and moving forward. Especially as the letter came around to the proposition and offer. We spent the brunt of our time there, in terms of actually reviewing the copy.
All of that took maybe the first 25 minutes of our one-hour call.
That’s when we got to the good stuff…
The sales letter I was reviewing was, perhaps, the most interesting offer I’ve seen in the marketing/business space… Well… Ever.
Most gurus are content to make a mint off serving the bottom feeders. Wantrepreneurs and novices who might have a future. A $37 product. A $97 per month subscription. Maybe even a $3,700 seminar that just stokes your desire for whatever they want to sell you at the back of the room.
Occasionally, for the biggest spenders (whether or not they’re actually successful), a $25,000 mastermind or coaching program.
There’s a lot of money to be made by selling the dream of marketing and business success, and many in this space are willing to create an entire business serving that.
Sure, most try to get results for their clients…
Most think they’re selling valuable advice, information, products, and services — and are probably right.
And most are happy to only occasionally deal with more sophisticated, successful business owners who’ve risen above the fray and started to enjoy some success.
But fundamentally, their businesses are built on serving the independent entrepreneur building a business up to about $10 million…
Seldom more.
(And with MOST being sub-$1-million businesses, run from home, with no office and no staff.)
I can’t tell you exactly what this offer is, but this guy is taking a totally different approach.
He knows that within his world mostly populated by folks running $10 million or less businesses, there are a few that are — or are going to be — much bigger. Folks sitting on $100 million, $1 billion, or greater potential.
He knows because he has personally met, spoken with, and gotten to know many of the folks in his customer base who’ve reached those heights. And he really likes to deal with them, so…
Instead of serving the bottom en masse, he’s focusing on how he can massively serve the top…
And for the rest of our phone call, we walked through exactly what it’s going to take to really get those folks to raise their hand. To engage with a much higher level of service to help them take their business to dizzying heights. (And, he’s got the clout and team to make these claims.)
In about 35 minutes, we laid out a brand new approach and offer.
We largely restructured the sales process.
We defined a couple different approaches to the “funnel” that would sift and sort out the exact kind of prospects this offer would appeal to — and discussed when, why, and how to use each approach.
I don’t know what’s going to end up in the final offer… Or even the initial one. But I do know that there was a combination of clarity and useful questions by the end of the call that will lead to this being even more compelling and effective.
Sure, a lot of what we discussed was in his head before this. He’d talked to a few other folks, who each had the experience and expertise to offer up some solid suggestions.
But as we walked through, I gave new perspectives and dimensions and recommendations and considerations for how to implement — both in the copy itself, and in structuring the offer and sales process. These will be invaluable both in avoiding mistakes and in maximizing opportunity.
I went well beyond copy, and offered myself as a member of his “mastermind.”
One of the most valuable things you can do in your business is to have a trusted group of advisers who you can turn to for feedback on your most important projects.
These are the people who you can tell what you’re doing — or show, in the case of copy — and trust that they will give well-informed feedback.
Ideally, each brings a set of skills to the table that you don’t… Experience that you’re missing… Or, both.
And by turning to them on the most important things you’re doing, you can add important dimension to your plans, strategies, and specific execution (such as copy, offers). This is depth of perspective you wouldn’t otherwise have — that it’s impossible to get from inside your own head.
The smartest entrepreneurs and business-builders have multiple people like me in their Rolodex. Folks they’re willing to buy an hour or two of their time, just to talk. A copy review is a convenient excuse for a conversation about what’s below the surface of the copy. The thinking, the offer, the audience and how it all speaks to them.
My question for you:
Who is in your Rolodex? Who do you call for feedback on important projects? Who do you rely on to help you refine your best ideas?
The quality of your thinking — and then, the quality of your results — will improve dramatically if you start building your mastermind now.
Yours for bigger breakthroughs,
Roy Furr
Editor, Breakthrough Marketing Secrets
