12 Persuasion Hacks I Use to Sell Anything | Ep 927

0:00I've been in business for 14 years we spend tens of millions of dollars per year in paid advertising and in this video I'm going to share something I've never shared before which is that I have 12 internal hacks that we use whenever we write any piece of advertising or copy that goes out to sell stuff and I'm going to give you all of them.

0:21All right this is very exciting I haven't shared this publicly ever before and so I want to give you 12 persuasion hacks to get anyone to buy and I'm calling it that, but fundamentally I have rules of copywriting that I have as an internal document that I check when I write every piece of copy. And so fundamentally, no one knows you exist. They don't care about you or your product. And so you have to convince them. And so I've spent tens of millions of dollars on ads, just like last year alone. And these are the commandments that I check off for every single piece of advertising that we write, every piece of messaging, every video sales letter, every landing page.

0:58And this checklist is my internal checklist. then I'm just going to give it to you. So there are 12. Let's start with number one, which is headlines come first for a reason. And the reason I have it as the first one is that it is the first and most important. So to quote David Ogilvie, once you've written your headline, you spent 80 cents of your advertising dollar, right? And so that means that the vast majority of people will only see the headlines in whatever it is that you make. And it almost feels unfair that a headline is just a phrase or one word or one question, but it is also the thing that is ultimately to get the most people to, or have the biggest lever on whether your advertisements do well.

1:38So think about it like this, because it's the law of small numbers, which is if you go from, let's say a 1 % click-through rate to a 3 % click-through rate, you triple the amount of people who are ultimately going to see everything else that you have. And so there's very little things that happen in the rest of the entire funnel that have the ability to triple. Sometimes you get 20 % lifts, 50 % lifts. That'd be a monster split test, but a banger or killer headline can absolutely outperform the control by two, three, sometimes five X, right? That is why it's so important. And it feels unfair because it's so short.

2:11But the thing is, is the best advertisers, the more they've been doing it, the more they obsess on the hook, they obsess on the headline because they know that's where the money's at, right? Like if you have a winning hook for your ad campaigns, you keep using it to death and you try and beat it. And so here's the, here's some of the things that I write down, which is curiosity is king, different is ideal and sexy works and never run an ad without a headline. Because the thing is, is all ads have headlines. There's just bad ones and good ones. Because if you don't write a headline, you do have a headline.

2:45It's just not very good. And so fundamentally, the headlines serve to give us a different wrapping paper for the same offers. And you want this headline to be so powerful, and I like this visual, it grabs the reader by the throat. And so bonus points is, how can I know that something's going to work ahead of time? One of the best ways to test headlines and hooks is to look at your organic content or other people's organic content or other people's ads. Look at the first three seconds, visually and verbally, what are they saying and what's happening in the background? and those are the first places that I'm going to look in order to model what headlines apply to me.

3:21Now, the really sexy hack around this is can I take, can I steal like an artist from a different industry? Can I look at ads that are working well in the travel space and use them in business? Can I look at ads in the weight loss space and use them in business or whatever space you're in? And so some thoughts I have are curiosity, quotes, questions. Are there kind of emotional outcomes or experiences that I'm describing? One of my favorite headlines of all time is how to yay without boo, even if you biggest insecurity, right? I'll say that again. How to yay, good thing, without boo, bad thing, even if you biggest fear.

3:54How to speak confidently in front of strangers without ever practicing, even if you're deathly afraid of speaking in public. FYI, there are entire books written on each of these 12 pieces that I'm going to talk about. I'm trying to give you the 80-20 because at the end of the day, when you're writing ads, you're not going to read 12 books before you write the ad. You have a little mental checklist that you go over and that's the checklist I'm giving you. And so each of these bullets are kind of like the best converting nuggets that I have on each of these kind of mini topics. And so this is like my little cheat sheet.

4:21So whenever I get stuck, or I need a new idea, or for a new image, or a video, or a copy, this is what I use to kind of remind myself. Number two, say what only you can say. So if you've done something remarkable or different, you want to say it. Proof will always outdo promise. So the reason at the very beginning of this video, I said we spent tens of millions of dollars on ads last year between our portfolio companies. So this isn't like we don't have an agency. That's actually us spending money in our actual companies. So it's not like me taking credit for all the clients that I have. Like, it's not that.

4:55It's like these are the companies that I own that we spent money on to generate revenue. Right. So we risk real money behind these things. Now, if you're the only triple black belt in your local area, say so. If you're the only person who's helped moms over 35 who are vegan powerlifters, say so. If you're the only person who, like the thing is, is that what you want to do is you want to be one of a kind. But the beauty is that you get to control what the pawn that you're one of a kind is. And so the friendly reminder here is that competitors can copy your offer, but they cannot copy your proof.

5:30That has to be earned. And so one of the big reasons, the big defenses that I believe exists for people who have done stuff, which is why you should do stuff, is that it doesn't matter how many AI avatars come out, the AI avatar can never have done something in the real world. They can lie, but they can never have done something. And so no one can take your story or your experiences away from you. And this is one of the things that excites me about the future of AI, is that story is still going to be paramount. Why should I listen to you is still going to be a question at the top of everyone's mind.

6:01And in a world where trust is going to get diminished very rapidly, where we're not going to know what's real and what isn't, verification of facts is going to be even more important. So say what only you can say. Number three, always call out who you're looking for. And bonus points, who you're not looking for, which is actually even more powerful than the original call out. So because it's one thing to say, hey, you know, I'm looking for business owners. But if you say, hey, if you're below$250 ,000 a year, you're below$500 ,000 a year, below a million dollars a year, hey, this isn't for you, go consume my free content.

6:35It communicates very strongly where you position yourself in the marketplace. And so if you only want to help people who want to lose a lot of weight, not a little bit of weight, like there's a big advantage. You know what's funny? I've actually never seen anyone in weight loss do this. But just say like, hey, only for people who are trying to lose over 30 pounds. Here's the crazy part. There's enough people who are trying to lose over 30 pounds that you can say no to the people who have less than 30 pounds to lose. Here's the other great thing about people who have over 30 pounds to lose. Is that you might only need a couple hundred customers in order to make your business work.

7:03And there's like a billion people. Many billions. But maybe only a billion that speak your language. Doesn't matter. Point is, is that most people are afraid of saying no to customers. But when you say no to customers, you polarize the customers who are the right customer to move even more towards you. What you don't want to be is vanilla. If you say, I'm everything to all people, I accept all customers, then it means no one feels pulled to your marketing because they're never going to think, oh, this is for me. That is the result that we want to have happen from our advertising, that someone self-selects, they raise their hand and be like, wow, I feel like this person's talking to me.

7:34And so when you advertise, you never advertise to the masses. You advertise to one person. And so you want to be very clear when you're writing your copy, who is that one person? I want to identify the reader. I want to identify the viewer or the listener. You want them to think, how does he know my secrets? Well, you can only be that specific if you're talking about one person, right? And so as you go through this, you can go through different levels of awareness, which is like at the top level, someone can be completely unaware, so you have to hook them with curiosity. At a level underneath of that, you have to have someone who might be problem aware.

8:04Hey, do you get up at night to pee more than two times? Hey, have you ever had someone cancel a contract before it comes due, right? These are problem aware. Then you have solution aware, which is like, have you ever tried to collect using some of these softwares and it hasn't worked the way it was supposed to? Have you ever tried a supplement and hasn't gotten the results that you want? That's solution-aware, right? Underneath of that, you have product-aware. Okay, have you ever tried this type of creatine versus this type? Have you ever tried an ad agency before that's done meta-ads, right? These are very, very more-aware customers.

8:31And finally, the most-aware customers are people who already know about you and about your product, and then you have to make offers to those people. But all the way through the stack, we want to talk to people as though we know who they are, because you probably do. And the crazy thing is that customers, this is the crazy part of our customers. We all, you want to lean into the fact that everyone is selfish. Everyone thinks they're the center of their own universe. And when you can say something that actually affects many, many people, but you can say it as though they think that they're alone in the universe, when you are specific, that is what creates compelling copy, specificity.

9:03And so if I say, hey, are you overweight? That's trite marketing. You don't want to use terms like marketing ease, like marketing speak, marketing lingo, right? You've read ad copy before and been like, oh, this is ad copy. The way that you get out of that is by taking words that people use and breaking them down into chunks. And so by saying, hey, instead of saying, are you overweight? It's do you have trouble getting upstairs or going on a walk for a long period of time without a rash forming between your legs and sweating in places you didn't know you could? When you say that, that's much more specific.

9:40And so what we want to think about is what are the moments that someone's going to experience fatness? What are the moments someone's going to experience brokenness? What are the moments someone's going to experience frustration in their marriage or their friendship or loneliness? Like we talk about the moments because the moments is what they remember. No one remembers the vague words. And that's not what gets them to emote or have an emotion and then ultimately lowers the actions for that role so they take the next step. And so, for example, I just had a Cash Cows episode with a gentleman who does bar consulting.

10:07So he helps bars become more profitable, like restaurant bars. And so when I looked at the copy, it looked generic. It looked like he was just using marketing lingo rather than saying, hey, when you look behind the bar, it doesn't look like a bomb went off. Right. Does it look like this is a homeless shelter behind your bar? Right. The thing is, is that you probably get a laugh, but the person's probably like, yeah, my bar looks like that's a mess. Right. And the thing is, is that that's a moment when they walk in or they look behind the counter and they're like, what happened? That's the moment we want to pinpoint because they probably had that happen the last seven days.

10:36And if that pain is fresh, the likelihood that they then take that next action is high. So the next one is number four, always have a reason why. And this is big. So I like to use the fraternity party planner perspective, which is that it doesn't actually matter what reason you use, but more so that you have a reason to begin with. And so this, the first point when I started adding this in was, I think I read one of Chialdini's things ages ago, where we talked about how when people were cutting other people in line, if they had a good reason, people were more likely to let them cut in, which is basically a persuasion win.

11:12They said, hey, can I get in line in front of you? And it's like, hey, I've got this paper I've got to turn in. I need to copy it quickly. And so people said yes. But later they tested it where they just said, hey, I have to get in line because my cat is back home. It has nothing to do with getting in line or needing urgency around the copy. but they just basically said because insert random reason. But having a reason in general for most people makes it better than no reason at all. And so the word because is one of the most influential words in the English language. Use it because it works. And so if you are going to use a reason, great.

11:43Now you get bonus points for a reason if you can tie it back to urgency or scarcity in some way, which I'll talk about those two in more depth later. And so when you're giving your reasons why, what I encourage you to focus on is giving them the reason why to do the next step. And just that, right? Every line of copy sells reading the next line of copy. And then those lines of copy sell the click. And then the click sells, and then the landing page that after it comes from the click, the headline of that page sells the opt-in. From the opt-in, it sells showing up to the next thing. It's that we just want to be very clear about our messaging one step at a time because someone can't take nine steps.

12:18We want to sell one step and be very clear about what we want them to do next, right? A confused mind does not buy and a confused mind certainly does not click. And so when I say thinking about this as a fraternity party planner is, what reasons does a fraternity party planner need in order to plan a party? Not many at all. The bar for having a reason to party is quite low. Timmy got his wisdom teeth out. Kegger. You know, so John broke up with his girlfriend. Kegger. It's Tuesday. Let's drink, right? And so the idea is that you don't actually have to have a reason that's good in your mind. You just need to have a reason in general.

12:53It could be your birthday. It could have been your birthday last month. It could be your wife's birthday. It could be your dog's birthday. It could be the anniversary of the business. There's four dates that you can run for a whole month. It's my dog's birth month this month, and for that reason, we're running this offer. It does not matter. Now, how do we make it even more compelling? And this one's nasty. This may be, if I had a favorite, which is hard to say because it's like picking between your kids, which of course everybody has a favorite child. Kidding, calm down. Anyways, is damaging admissions.

13:22All right. There is probably, I mean, in my experience, nothing more powerful than imaging missions. Now, what's very interesting about this is they've done research on basically the persuasiveness of somebody who admits their bias upfront. So if you say, Hey, I make money from these videos in the following ways. People, even though they know that you admit you have a bias, they are now more likely to believe you because you said you have a bias because you've actually been truthful. And so you want to own your flaws. And damaging admissions, in my opinion, are so powerful because they're actually just rooted in truth.

14:00So you want to always own your flaws. Of course you have them. Of course your product isn't perfect. Say so, and what you'll sacrifice and promise, you'll gain in trust. And trust trumps promise. Think about the promises that you have to give to a referral. Very little. Why? Because you are borrowing the trust of the introduction of the person. So when you get a referral, you're like, yeah, uh, you helped my friend Sandy. So I'll buy, you don't need to promise much at all because they trust you. And so I would rather always sacrifice promise to gain trust. And so there's a, you know, the famous Eminem story of, uh, he figured out when he was rapping that if he owned all of his flaws and he said, I'm short and I'm white and I'm blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

14:38Right. He says all these things about them. The other person has nothing left to say. He pulls all the wind out of their sails. He pulls all the punches because he punches himself with that. And then they have nothing left. And so basically we want to address all of the concerns they have upfront in our damaging admissions. And so what happens is the linguistic power of this is that you have statement, but other statement. And the statement that comes after the word, but is the part that is the thing you want them to believe. And so you say something that is true and believable and damaging to you so that they can believe that thing that comes after but.

15:16So let me show you how this works. So if I said, hey, these markers smell like shit, but they write four times longer than other markers and they don't dry out. You're like, wow, I now believe that more than if I just said these markers last four times longer than other markers before they dry out. If I said they smell terrible and or but they do that, it's more persuasive. Now watch this. Let's flip it. These markers write four times longer than others, but they smell like crap. What am I emphasizing? I'm actually emphasizing the fact that they smell bad, not the fact that they write longer. And so we use the first part to gain trust for the second half of the statement.

15:56Viagra only works for four to six hours, but you're going to have the time of your life, right? And so it might raise your blood pressure, but you're going to have an amazing night, right? Our websites are ugly as hell, but they convert, right? Our systems are incredibly boring, but they work, right? If I said our systems work, but they're incredibly boring, I'm going to emphasize on the boring part, not on the fact that they work. And so by how you organize your language around words like but, which are amplifiers, it allows you to say damaging emissions in a way that's compelling. And so right now, what I would like you to do is write down all of the flaws, all the things that people complain about, the things that you know you could do better and claim them.

16:37Because the thing is that the prospect is already thinking them. But if you can claim them, instead of them thinking them, you acknowledge them, gain trust. And then when you make your statements, they will believe you more. So if you want to stand out in a crowded marketplace, tell the truth. It makes you more authentic. And if you can do with humor, you get even more bonus points. So it's like, listen, our gym has honestly pretty terrible parking. Our AC is kind of on and off. I don't have the best equipment, but our sessions are more fun than everyone else's because it's all we've got. If I said that, you now believe me, right?

17:10The thing is, is if you saw an ad that said that, you'd be like, I kind of believe this guy. He's probably not so bad, right? He's telling the truth. And I'll bet you his classes probably are fun. Now, if I just said we have the most fun sessions, you wouldn't believe me because anyone can say that. But what people won't say is the truth. So number six, show, don't tell. Now this one is one of those ones that you will probably nod your head on and be like, yes, of course, show, don't tell. But the thing is, is when I say show, don't tell, I'm actually talking more about breaking down the reasoning.

17:40So kind of like I was alluding to earlier, which is instead of saying, get more sales, describe what the experience of getting more sales means or what that moment would look like. Like selling somebody that you're running out of order forms because customers are reading their credit cards to you over the phone too fast. That is the experience of getting more sales, right? So you want to note the descriptions of what's happening and the emotions they might experience, the overwhelm of having too many phones ring and not enough salespeople. That's the experience of getting advertising that works.

18:12Don't just say, get more leads. Describe the experience of what getting more leads means. That's what they want to experience. They want to see their gym full. They want to know what it's like to have a line around the corner. They want to know what it's like where they actually have to reorganize their gym so that they can actually make room for more people at the session. Those are the good problems that we would describe, which also, yes, they're problems. But if we describe the future problems they would prefer to have than their current problems, those are arguably some of the most compelling things you can include and copy.

18:43Because if you can describe the problems they haven't thought about yet, then it's likely that you've experienced them or how other people experience them, which then increase the likelihood that they believe it'll happen for them. Real quick, guys, I have a special, special gift for you for being loyal listeners of the podcast. Leila and I spent probably an entire quarter putting together our Scaling Roadmap. It's breaking scaling into 10 stages and across all eight functions of the business. So you've got marketing, you've got sales, you've got product, you've got customer success, you've got IT, you've got recruiting, you've got HR, you've got finance.

19:17We show the problems that emerge at every level of scale and how to graduate to the next level. It's all free and you can get it personalized to you. So it's about 30-ish pages for each of the stages. Once you answer the questions, it will tell you exactly where you're at and what you need to do to grow. It's about 14 hours of stuff, but it's narrowed down so that you only have to watch the part that's relevant to you, which will probably be about 90 minutes. And so if that's at all interesting, you can go to acquisition.com forward slash roadmap, R-O-A-D map, roadmap. And so the big thing here in terms of show don't tell, obviously from a creative perspective, you want the videos to demonstrate it.

19:53You want your creative, your images to demonstrate it, but your actual copy itself, you want to use more descriptive language that is specific to the experience they're going to have, the moments. And I'm going to repeat this theme because it's big. What is the moment that someone's going to experience that they got more sales? What does that moment feel like? What does it look like? What moment will they realize that this has actually occurred? Show me that sales has occurred. Describe to me that scenario. That is how you write exceptional copy. And what's cool about this is if you want to write unique copy, the way you describe that moment will always be unique to you compared to other people.

20:29And so you can always have fresh copy that sounds different and interesting because you're not just going to use the same words everyone uses. Number seven, tie benefits to status whenever possible. So a lot of people talk about benefits, not features, which is true. But I like to take this a step further mentally, which is a cookbook so fast and easy that all your friends will wonder how you found the time to be fit and cook for your family, right? That would be, okay, that's one level, right, of benefit. But the idea is what is the, like in that benefit, what we tied in is we tied in their friends.

21:05their friends are going to give them status because of this thing, which is just a cookbook, right? So rather than say, Hey, you're going to cook meals fast and easy. Sure. That might be an element of it, right? But so fast that their friends are going to wonder how they're doing it is another level of this. And so whenever we can tie status, and this is why in the, in the leads book, I talk about this on page 140. I talk about the what, who, when framework. This is where this becomes incredibly important. And so what we want to do when we're thinking about status and the reason that this framework works so well is that we're thinking about the who, right?

21:38Obviously it's them, but who is giving them the status? Because there's status within different realms. Is it their family who's giving them status? Is it their friends? Is it their colleagues or coworkers? Is it their rivals? Is it their competitors? Who are they vanquishing? And so humans are a competitive species. We do desire status because it increases the likelihood that we're able to procreate and create more kids and acquire resources, right? And so we want to tie all of our benefits to what it's going to do, what they ultimately want, which is going to be status. Now, what's interesting is that the status that people get is going to be unique to that person within their subgroup.