Making money.

“Will you be having our Tropical Sunrise Margarita or a glass of our Strawberry Lemonade?”

The waitress looked at me expectantly. For a second, it felt like those were my only two choices - and I almost said, “Margarita please.”

But then I shook my head and asked for a water.

I’d almost given in to a classic sales strategy. Expert copywriter John Forde calls it the “Foregone Conclusion” technique. And you might want to put it to work in your marketing efforts.

The idea is not to offer your prospective customers a choice between buying or not buying. Instead, you offer them a choice between buying one thing… or another.

“The door to deciding whether or not to buy at all is already closed,” says John.

With this technique, you make the assumption that the customer has already decided to buy something that you’re offering. Then only decision left for him to make is whether to choose option A or option B.

[Ed. Note: You can get weekly insights into the world of copywriting and marketing from John Forde just by signing up for his e-newsletter Copywriter's Roundtable. And you can learn a dozen of the most effective marketing strategies around just by picking up a copy of the Amazon.com best-seller Changing the Channel: 12 Easy Ways to Make Millions for Your Business by Michael Masterson and MaryEllen Tribby.]  

Comment on this article

When I was first getting into the business of selling educational programs, a famous zero-down real estate guru asked me, “Do you know the thing people who take my courses want most?”

I had a sneaking suspicion I was about to get it wrong, but I gamely answered: “To be successful real estate investors?”

He laughed. “You’ve got a lot to learn, my friend.”

I took the bait. “So what do your customers want?”

“They want to avoid taking action.”

I told him I wasn’t sure I understood. He was kind enough to clarify. “Most of the people who take my courses and who will be buying your programs want to feel like they are on the road to success. But they don’t want that road to end. They like the journey. They fear the destination.”

“And why would that be?” I asked.

“To tell you the truth,” he said. “I don’t know. But I can tell you this. After our real estate students have gotten the knowledge they need to succeed, few of them get out there and get to work. Most of them just buy more programs. If they don’t buy them from us, they will buy them from someone else. So we sell them extra programs.”

“That’s sort of depressing,” I said.

“If you give one of my customers - someone who has completed his real estate education and is fully prepared to start investing profitably - a choice between actually getting to work and buying another course to learn more, he will buy the course.”

“Are they afraid of failing?”

“Could be that,” he said. “Could be they’re afraid of success. As I said, I don’t know.”

Since then I’ve thought a lot about this failure-to-get-started problem. I’ve read dozens of books and talked to many of my colleagues and posed the question to hundreds of my customers. The theories as to why people don’t take action are many and varied. The three that make most sense to me are:

• Lack of Confidence: People who haven’t yet been successful in life don’t believe they can be, even if they are fully prepared to succeed.

• Fear of Pain: Some people see taking action as work and work as a form of pain. These are usually people who have never experienced the pleasure of working on something they value.

• Laziness: Besides the fear of work, human beings are programmed to be lazy. Being lazy means trying to get what you want with the least amount of effort. Some people don’t take action because they want to find an easier way.

If these are the main reasons why so many people don’t take action when they are ready, what is the solution?

There’s no mystery to that. Behavioral scientists know that the way to change a person’s behavior is by motivating them through positive reinforcement. This is what B.F. Skinner had to say about it in A Brief Survey of Operant Behavior: 

“It has long been known that behavior is affected by its consequences. We reward

and punish people, for example, so that they will behave in different ways. … Operant reinforcement not only shapes the topography of behavior, it maintains it in strength long after an operant has been formed. Schedules of reinforcement are important in maintaining behavior. If a response has been reinforced for some time only once every five minutes, for example, the rat soon stops responding immediately after reinforcement but responds more and more rapidly as the time for the next reinforcement approaches. … Reinforcers may be positive or negative. A positive reinforcer reinforces when it is presented; a negative reinforcer reinforces when it is withdrawn. Negative reinforcement is not punishment. Reinforcers always strengthen behavior; that is what ‘reinforced’ means.”

Positive reinforcement is a big part of my life. I reward myself constantly and for almost any sort of accomplishment, big and small. By attaching rewards to my desired behavior, I increase the likelihood that I will repeat that behavior in the future.

When I “master planned” my life for the first time, I had to spend some time thinking about how to reward myself. I gave myself all sorts of incentives for all sorts of objectives. Some of them worked. Some of them didn’t.

Some success coaches suggest big rewards for big accomplishments. You might, for example, reward yourself with a sports car when you make your first million dollars. Big goals like that never worked for me, because they were too far off in the future. What motivates me are short-term goals. And I have a feeling that short-term goals will be better for you, too.

Over the years, I developed a reward system that works very well for me. Here it is:

• I keep a daily list of every task I want to accomplish. When I complete each task, I cross it out (or change its color on my screen) to “signal” that I have accomplished it. This little gesture is like a tiny shot of adrenaline. It picks me up and gives me energy to attack my next objective.  

• When I’m working at the office, I set an egg timer for 30 to 60 minutes, depending on my workload for the day. When it goes off, I get up from my chair, walk outside, and spend a minute or two stretching out my back. I’ve found that 30 to 60 minutes flies by - especially when I’m writing - and so these half-hour or hour-long periods seem very short.

• After I sprint in the morning, I reward myself with 10 to 15 minutes of yoga. Doing yoga might seem like more exercise to some, but to me it feels like a reward since it is so much more relaxing than sprinting.

• After completing my first half-hour of writing fiction or poetry in the morning, I reward myself with breakfast.

• After wrestling at noon, I treat myself with a tasty protein shake.

• At 5:30, I take my laptop to the cigar bar down the street, and work on my writing there for another two hours. When I walk in, they have an espresso and water waiting for me. I look forward to this.  I’m still doing work, but it’s a reward because I’m doing it in a new place.

• After two hours of writing at the cigar bar, I reward myself by going home, breaking open a good bottle of wine, and having dinner with K.

• If I do any work in the evening, I reward myself afterward by reading a good book or watching a movie.

• I reward myself every evening by climbing into a great bed with silky sheets and a pillow that fits my head perfectly.

These rewards, as you can see, are pretty mundane. But that’s the thing about rewards. They don’t have to be big or even special. They need only be enjoyable.

It would be easy for me to consider these little things - my breakfast, the stretching, the protein shake – as simply an ordinary part of my ordinary day. But by looking at them differently, by seeing them as pleasurable rewards for specific, desired behavior, they motivate me.

I think that is the key - identifying little pleasures you already have in your life and using them as behavior-changing rewards. It’s very easy to do once you recognize that these little pleasures are blessed gifts. Truly speaking, you are lucky to be able to enjoy them. Be happy about that. Use them pragmatically.

[Ed. Note: Giving yourself small rewards can help you make the achievement of big goals easier and more pleasurable. And before you know it, you'll be accomplishing things you always dreamed of. Discover how you can get more specific advice - including success secrets, actionable techniques, and tons of motivation - on how to turn your dreams into reality right here.

As a special thank you to our best customers, Michael has started a new VIP service in which he gives insider business-building advice usually reserved for his private clients - a twice-weekly newsletter called Ready Fire Aim: The Michael Masterson Dispatch. If you have bought an ETR product or attended a conference and are not receiving Ready Fire Aim, please let us know by sending an e-mail to Michael@ETRfeedback.com.]

Comment on this article

I don’t like the Wall Street bromide to “buy when there is blood in the streets.” It encourages inexperienced stock investors to jump into the market at the first sign of panic.

Little do they know what a bunch of Nervous Nellies occupy Wall Street’s trading desks. You can easily get caught up in one of their “the world is ending” tantrums and decide to buy, hoping to catch the next mega-rally on its way up. And the market can indeed go up at that point. But too soon it starts to fall again. Only this time it falls to new lows… and you’re sitting on giant losses.

These little rallies are called “sucker rallies,” and you can see why. Since the market peaked last October, there have been eight of them.

A better way to take advantage of the mini-rallies that occur during a bear market is to sell the stocks or mutual funds you don’t like when their prices get pushed higher. These rallies have been lasting 2-3 weeks. Getting rid of unwanted stocks 10-12 days into a rally is a good way to prune your portfolio while keeping your losses down.

[Ed. Note: You can make money on companies that are ready to crumble. Learn how to spot the "red flag" signals that could predict (with as much as 92 percent certainty) when a company's stock is going to tank.] 

Comment on this article

Charlie Byrne offers a simple strategy that can help you attract more customers, write stronger sales copy, and make more sales.

Comment on this video

Brian Edmondson (www.InternetMoneyClub.net) shares how you can double, triple, or even quadruple the profitability of your business in 2009 just by focusing on two strategies.

Comment on this article

With the markets getting clobbered over the last year, traditional methods for measuring the value of a stock have been thrown out of whack. That doesn’t mean you can’t rely on those indicators, but it does mean you need to keep certain things in mind.

Let’s take dividends as an example. Many companies have slashed or completely eliminated dividends to keep more cash on hand to weather the downturn. Does this mean their current dividends should be used to measure their future income streams? Of course not.

It’s better to isolate this period from your analysis and look, instead, at a company’s historical dividend payments. Take a look at what the company has paid out over the last five years or so. If it has a steady and/or increasing dividend - with the only blemish being the most-recent quarters - then it is probably safe to assume that once the economy gets turned around, its dividend stream will return to normal. 

Don’t forget that we are in the midst of the worst market in decades. Strange things are happening, but it will eventually return to normal. Don’t miss out on long-term investment opportunities by focusing too much on current conditions.

[Ed. Note: Finding fundamentally strong companies is a good way to prosper despite the market's condition. But you can also make money on companies that are ready to crumble. Learn how to spot the "red flag" signals that could predict (with as much as 92 percent certainty) when a company's stock is going to tank.]

Comment on this article

“How do I get more traffic to my website?” “How do I build a list?” “How can I make more money online?” These are three of the most common questions I get from aspiring Internet entrepreneurs, as well as seasoned online professionals.

Marketing guru Jay Abraham teaches that there are really only three ways to grow any business: Increase the number of customers, increase the number of purchases they make, and increase the average amount they spend on each purchase.

In the world of online marketing, this translates into getting more traffic to your website, increasing your sales conversion rate, and following up with your prospects and customers to make additional sales.

The easiest and most cost effective way to follow up with your prospects and customers is through e-mail marketing. This is why your primary objective with first-time visitors to your website should be to collect their contact information so you can build your own in-house e-mail list. You’ll also find that you’ll make more sales to repeat traffic that comes from your own e-mail list.

That’s why one of your resolutions for 2009 should be to get more traffic to your website. Today, I’m going to show you how to do it.

There are literally hundreds (possibly thousands) of ways to get traffic to your website. The way I see it, all of them can be broken down into three primary categories: free traffic, paid traffic, and what I call leveraged traffic. Let’s take a closer look at each one…

1. Free Traffic

As its name implies, free traffic is traffic that you don’t have to pay for. The main benefit of this type of traffic is pretty obvious: It’s free - and because of that, your potential return on investment (ROI) is almost unlimited.

The downside (relative to the other two types of traffic) is that it usually takes time to get a consistent, steady flow of visitors to your website, and it does take some work. The good news is that once you get it going, it builds on itself and the effect is long-term.

Here are my two favorite methods of generating free traffic …

• Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is the practice of optimizing the amount of traffic you get to your website from the search engines’ natural or “organic” search results. In human language, that means getting your site listed by Google, Yahoo, MSN, and other search engines when people search for information related to your topic.

To get the most bang for your buck, you should identify the specific keywords that your prospects and potential customers are actually typing into the search engines, and create content on your website based on those keywords. Tools like SEO Book and Word Tracker will help you do this.

The idea, here, is that if you consistently add valuable content to your website, the rankings will follow.

For more SEO techniques, read Alexis Siemon’s article “Build a Rock-Solid SEO Foundation”
and Edwin Huertas’s article “Targeting the RIGHT Keywords for Your SEO Campaign.”

• Article Marketing - submitting your articles to other websites and article directories (like EzineArticles.com) - is another good way to get free traffic to your website.

As with the content you create on your website, write useful articles based on the keywords that your prospects and potential customers are searching for. Also, to get even greater visibility for your key terms, use “anchor text” with your keywords.

When submitting articles, I like to find websites related to my niche that already have high rankings in the search engines and already get a lot of traffic. Let’s say you run a business that sells stationery. To find likely websites to submit articles to, you might go to Google, type in “wedding stationery,” and make a list of the search results for that keyword. Then you’d do another search, this time for “bridal shower note cards.” You’d repeat the process for 10 or 20 related keywords. Once you have a list of top-ranked websites, contact them and offer to submit articles in exchange for a link back to your site.

2. Paid Traffic

The advantage of paid traffic is that it is immediate. Also, as compared to most free traffic, it is very quantifiable and easy to tell whether a paid traffic campaign is profitable or will be profitable in the future. The disadvantage is that it costs money, and you’ll probably experience some losses up front when you begin testing.

Here are two of my favorite methods of generating paid website traffic…

• Pay-Per-Click (PPC) advertising works in a way that is similar to SEO. When a user types a phrase into the search engine, they get a list of organic results. On the same page, they see a list of paid results - ads placed by advertisers based on the keywords that had been typed in.

Getting started with PPC is fairly simple. Set up an account with one of the major PPC networks (Google, MSN, or Yahoo). Select the keywords you want to bid on and get listed for, and write a short ad that will entice qualified prospects to click on your ad and visit your site. You can begin driving traffic to your website within minutes.

There are many factors that will determine your success with PPC, including how much you bid for the keywords, your ad copy, and your landing page copy. To make this method work, you have to constantly test, test, and then test some more. It may take some trial and error, but once you find a winning combination, you can roll it out and be more aggressive.

For more advice on how to get started with PPC, read Alexis’s articles “How a Google AdWords Campaign Can Help You Rev Up Your Sales” and “Seven Ways to Improve Your PPC Campaign.”

• E-zine Advertising can help you reach a large group of highly targeted prospects. You can find e-zines and online newsletters that are related to your niche simply by doing a search on Google. Let’s say you are in the credit repair niche. You might search Google for: “credit repair newsletter,” “credit repair e-zine,” and “credit repair e-newsletter.” Then check with the e-zines/websites that come up to see if they run paid advertising. In most cases, there will be several options, including short, inexpensive classified ads and more-expensive dedicated e-mail blasts.

Before testing an ad with an e-zine, I would first subscribe to it to see what it’s like to be one of their subscribers. Do they send out good, useful content? Do they publish regularly? And do they have ads for products/services that are similar to those you plan to advertise? If the answers to those questions is yes, then that publication is a good candidate for you.

Another tip is to look at the top ranked websites for your niche and see if they are acquiring names with any type of lead capture or subscription box. If they are, contact them to see if they would be open to running your ad to their list.

3. Leveraged Traffic

What is unique about leveraged traffic is that it has all the positives of free and paid traffic without the negatives. It is both free and immediate - and highly responsive, to boot. There are several ways to get leveraged traffic, including viral marketing and affiliate marketing. But I want to talk about my favorite form of leveraged traffic: joint ventures.

Joint ventures (JVs) give you a quick and powerful way to get traffic to your website, build your list, and make sales. It’s one of the methods I used to start and grow my online business - and it’s a key strategy for big, growing companies like Early to Rise.

While there is no one way to do joint ventures, the most common JVs in the online world involve cross promotions, also known as e-mail swaps: Your JV partner sends an e-mail to their list promoting your product, service, or squeeze page - and in exchange, you send an e-mail to your list promoting their product, service, or squeeze page.

What you will find with the kind of traffic generated this way is that not only will you get a lot of it fast, but it will be much more responsive to your offer because it comes as the result of an endorsement from your partner (assuming you selected a good JV partner). As you do more joint ventures, you’ll build your in-house e-mail list and will be able to leverage off of that to do more joint ventures with the owners of larger lists.

So how do you find a joint venture partner? It’s as simple as sending an e-mail, picking up the phone, or meeting someone at a conference or event. Introduce yourself, develop a relationship, and see if it makes sense for you to do business together. Once you experience the power of a joint venture, you’ll never look back.

For more on how to set up a profitable joint venture, read “Nine Strategies for Successful Joint Ventures” by Michael Masterson and MaryEllen Tribby.

In this article, I described five specific ways you can start driving traffic to your website and build your in-house e-list - five of the most effective methods used here at Early to Rise. As you can see, we use a multi-channel approach to online marketing, and so should you.

I hope one of your resolutions for 2009 will be to focus on building your e-list by using multi-channel marketing. Improve on what you are already doing, and continue to learn new ways to generate more traffic, more subscribers, and, ultimately, more sales.

[Ed. Note: You can help speed your business to profitability with the five traffic-building strategies Internet Money Club Director Brian Edmondson revealed today. And you can discover more powerful, profit-accelerating marketing channels that can take your business to new levels of success. All you have to do is pick up the Amazon.com best-selling book by Michael Masterson and MaryEllen Tribby, Changing the Channel, to get a crash course in 12 money-making secrets... and how they can turn you into a cash producer for any company you work for. Learn more right here.]

Comment on this article

As I create these columns, I often encounter interesting errata that don’t fit into a specific category. So here’s a potpourri of miscellaneous misuses:

• Recently, I read the obituary of a prominent Japanese mathematician. The subhead announced that he was “a curious man whose models are used in finance and biology.” I assumed that the deceased scholar was odd or eccentric. Then I read the text, which revealed that he “had an intense curiosity, whether focused on math theory or world affairs or shoeing horses.” The word “curious” has a double meaning, and my initial interpretation proved to be mistaken.

• From a review of a nonfiction espionage book: “Mr. Chapman was feckless and erratic but, in his own way, dependable. ‘Slowly at first, and with great care, Chapman began to build up a stock of secrets that would be of supreme interest to British intelligence’… .” The primary meaning of “feckless” is ineffective - a characterization that seems inapplicable in this case.

• In a letter to the editor: “Authors subjected to a critical review face a Hobson’s choice: [If] they complain they sound thin-skinned, but if they remain silent the reviewer’s judgments stand unchallenged.” The writer is describing a dilemma, not a “Hobson’s choice.” This useful expression means no choice or, more precisely, only one choice. As the story goes, a livery stable owner named Thomas Hobson (1544-1630) had a policy that the customer must take the horse in the stall closest to the stable door - or none at all.

The above examples illustrate several important principles of effective communication: Be clear. Avoid ambiguity. Check a dictionary. Be sure it’s right. Or to paraphrase Dr. Seuss’s Horton the Elephant: Say what you mean, and mean what you say.

[Ed Note: For more than three decades, Don Hauptman was an award-winning independent direct-response copywriter and creative consultant. He is author of The Versatile Freelancer, an e-book recently published by AWAI that shows writers and other creative professionals how to diversify their careers into speaking, consulting, training, and critiquing.]

Comment on this article

You might think that the best way to sell your house in a slumping market is to price it low and then just get it listed on every website you can. But you may find, like many of my neighbors have, that is not enough.

I live in a nice complex of 38 townhouses. Currently, 4 units are listed for sale. Each one is priced lower than the one before it, but none have sold.

Reading a recent Early to Rise article by Clayton Makepeace, it occurred to me that my neighbors’ realtors have all made the same mistake when it comes to creating the listings for these homes. Here’s the listing for one of them:

“Small complex located in the heart of Burnaby Heights. Rarely available beautiful corner unit at very desirable Red Brick Heights. Only two years old, this gorgeous three bedroom, 2 bathroom unit is 1375 square feet, also has a loft on the third floor. Oversized panoramic rooftop balcony with a beautiful view of the North Shore Mountains. Open plan with gourmet kitchen with real wood cabinets, stainless steel appliances with granite countertop and hardwood on the main floor. These high quality units do not last so be quick before it is gone. Low strata fee and well managed.”

As Clayton points out in his article, the best copywriters start their copy knowing what their prospect already feels about the product - in this case, the product is the house. And right now, the real estate market is scary. So it’s likely that many prospective purchasers’ desire for a home is being met with an even greater fear of what might happen to their investment if they buy one.

If you have to sell your house, you need to acknowledge that fear - not, as was done in the above example, try to create a fake sense of urgency. And you need to appeal to the positive emotions that might make someone want to buy a house even in troubled times.

Beginning with the features of the house and trusting the prospect to respond positively to the fact that it’s only two years old, with a panoramic rooftop view and a gourmet kitchen, is what the competition is selling. Instead, think about the prospect and how he might feel about those features (how it feels to cook for your family in a great kitchen… and open the door to see the mountains in the morning… and know your money is safely invested in this high-quality/well-located home). Then carefully craft each part of your listing to support those emotions and benefits - with pictures, maps, and words, all directed to get those emotions working toward the sale of the home.

I think that is exactly what an expert copywriter like Clayton Makepeace would do. And I bet that, in combination with the right price, would sell my neighbors’ houses.

[Ed. Note: In eight years, Internet Money Club member and real estate investor Julie Broad and her husband have built a multimillion-dollar real estate portfolio in their spare time with minimal cash resources. They publish a free monthly newsletter to help other rookie real estate investors achieve their investment goals. Get your free report for making money with real estate here.]

Comment on this article

As the train pulled out of station Montparnasse in Paris I was surprised by who I saw at the end of the car.

I already knew that Michael Masterson, one of the world’s top copywriters, was on board and heading to the French countryside for the three-day writing conference I was attending. But now I saw John Forde taking a seat beside him. To have Forde presenting at the conference as well as Masterson would be a fabulous extra bonus.

I walked up towards the front of the car to say hello, but as I approached, the two writers were embroiled in an animated discussion. Michael had already laid out a few pages of scribbled notes on the spare seat beside him. It turns out these were the seeds of some golden writing nuggets that I would be getting at the conference… and which I’m going to share with you today.

At 8 a.m. sharp the next morning Masterson and Forde began revealing the secrets of their copywriting craft to some 25 fortunate protégés at the conference center in Courtomer.

The first order of business?

“Introduce yourself, where you are from, and what got you interested in writing,” John Forde said.

We started going around the room.

“I was raised in a family of book lovers in Johannesburg. There was never a television. Our house overflowed with the classics, from Aristotle to Shakespeare. As a life-long reader I naturally drifted towards trying out writing myself,” said a charming young lady from South Africa.

A portly Englishman was up next. “I love rock music, and I used to read the Rolling Stone magazine from the U.S. They had some good journalists… Hunter Thompson and some others,” he said. “It got me hooked on the whole writing thing.”

Lars from Deutschland spoke next. “I read The Sun Also Rises eight years ago and immediately knew I wanted to be a writer.”

By the time we’d gone around the room, John Forde had noticed an interesting trend.

“No less than half of you have mentioned great storytellers as being a major influence or at least something you’re interested in. And maybe that’s not a coincidence,” Forde said. “Because the ability to tell good stories - even in sales copy - can be a powerful skill.”

“And as luck would have it,” Masterson chimed in, “over the next three days, you’re going to learn all about how to write more powerful story leads… and five other kinds of leads as well.”

An ETR Reader Faces a Common Problem

If you’re not familiar with the term, a “lead” is the beginning portion of an article. I was reminded about story leads, and my trip to the France writing conference, when I received a letter from ETR reader Heidi Walter.

Heidi writes, “I have recently started creating and selling e-books and other products online. I am a fairly good writer and an excellent editor.  But where I fall down is in getting ideas to begin the sales letter.”

She continues, “I make a list of features and benefits and write some headlines, then I stare at them and nothing happens! Do you have any tricks you use to get your own creative writing juices going?”

Well, Heidi, yes. It just so happens that thanks to John Forde and Michael Masterson, I do have a “trick.” And it’s a very powerful one that Early to Rise readers have never heard about until today.

You already know that copywriting is a lucrative career opportunity. And writing - whether it’s sales copy or articles for your e-mail newsletter - can help you become an expert, gain recognition, and make more money.

That’s why I want you to resolve - today - to use the technique I’m about to show you to write better and more often.

There are dozens of ways to begin a sales letter. But at the France conference, in a breakthrough session, Masterson and Forde explained for the first time ever that there are six core ways to begin a sales letter:

• Offer/Promise
• Invitation  
• Prediction

• How To
• Secret
• Story

So as a writer facing that blank screen, the first thing you can do is think about your product or service and then decide which approach you would like to use.

Let’s say for example you have a llama obedience training service. You should come up with some headline ideas for each lead type that would indicate how your sales letter would then start.

Examples:

Offer: “Now Raise Healthy, Happy Llamas in 90 Days or Less for Under $100 – or You Get Every Cent Back.”

Invitation: “You Have Been Selected to Join a Private Group of the World’s Leading Llama Enthusiasts.”

Prediction: “This August 15, a Global Crisis Will Strike the Animal Kingdom. But a Few Savvy Pet Lovers Will Profit Dramatically.  Here’s How to Get In…”

How To: “How to Make a Killing in the Surprising New Llama-Training Franchise Market”

Secret: “Bizarre ‘Miami Method’ Behavioral Program Shocks Experts”

Story: “We Were 15KM Outside Brisbane When the Road Began Trembling…”

Masterson and Forde went on to explain how these six leads further fall into two broader categories, direct and indirect.

An example of a direct lead is, “Here’s a pill that will lower your cholesterol level.”

An example of an indirect lead is, “John  felt a sharp pain in his chest…he bent over…”

Direct leads are more “in your face” because they come right out and tell you about the offer.

Indirect leads do NOT come right out and say what the subject is all about. The reader needs to follow the story; he needs to get into the action and the emotion before any solution (product or service) is offered.

Deciding Which Type of Lead to Use

Typically, the closer the relationship between the reader and the writer, the more direct the message is. So in your marketing, you would often use direct leads for ads or promotions to your existing customers (i.e., back-end packages).

Offers to prospects who don’t know you yet (i.e., front ends) need to be “softer” so that in the writing you have time to lay the groundwork of trust.

Entire books could be written on this topic of leads. In fact Michael Masterson is doing exactly that (stay tuned to ETR for details).

But until Michael’s book becomes available, the next time you are facing that blank screen, here what to do.

First decide: direct or indirect.

Then pick out one of the six core lead types.

At the very least, you’ll have a fairly well-defined frame of reference or starting place that can help you get the ball rolling. And as we all know, once the ball is rolling, it only gets easier from there.

[Ed. Note: Getting started with your sales letter is the hardest part. Once you’ve used Charlie’s strategy for getting the ball rolling, you need to fill your promotion with tried-and-true techniques for getting your customers to buy. Explode sales growth with a $10 million book by a true marketing master.]

Comment on this article