Why Most Sales Letters Never Convert (And the One Fix That Changes Everything)

Like, is there a five-part, you know, the five-part step, the 10-step part, whatever it is, to a news?

Okay, here it is, what is that? That's one, too, I can't even-- Those are the building blocks of a great sales letter. Don't worry, Alex, I'm on great sales letter. And we're back with the king himself, the king of marketing, Jim Edwards, and I'm excited because today is all about the written word, the sales letter.

“So I'm going to jump right into it and ask the biggest question, what makes a great converting sales letter?”

And how do we get one? Wow, that's a two-part question. So what makes a great high-converting sales letter is a sales letter that gets the right people to stop what they're doing and pay attention to your message. And then it guides them through a natural sales, called a sales presentation, a sales argument,

down to a call to action that they can engage with and pull out their wallet and give you money without you interacting with them at all. That is what you want. In other words, your sales letter is your 24-hour today, seven-day-week, 36-five-day-year sales person, that doesn't call in, sick.

Always gives the perfect presentation every single time.

Doesn't ask for a raise and is all around awesome. That is what a great sales letter is.

“Now, the next question might be what can you use them for?”

Can you use them for pretty much anything? And then somebody might say, well, is there a limit on a price point as to what somebody would be able to sell? Like, you know, I can use sales letter all the way up to $676.99 cents and that that point has got to be a sales call. I will tell you that I personally have had sales letters, that the sales letter did the entire sales job. And we sold something that was $8,000.

Okay, so does that mean $8,000 is the upper limit?

No, that means that's the most, if I could, I mean, that's like the highest price thing I've done with a sales letter that required no interaction, like no sales call, no webinar, no nothing. Okay, yeah, I think there, I do, I mean, I could have a, and I'm open to saying it, I can have a fixed close mindset on that. I think there is a limit.

“But I think there's also tons of nuances in there.”

Like, who's the sales letter for? How, how comfortable, how much are they in your pipeline? What have they done with what they got with this newsletter? Before we get all the way there, because I know we're going to dive right in and I'm just, I'm excited to get right into it. Um, I want to ask you to get the question to is, as we're thinking about what makes a great sales letter is also, well, what makes a bad sales letter? You know, why would a sales letter not convert as well?

Because I think there's a lot of people that write sales letter thinking it's going to change their lives and it does nothing. And there's a fundamental piece before I believe a sales letter that must be met before the sales letter to even work. I'm just wondering your thoughts on that. So what makes a sales letter work is you know who your avatar is. You've got your, you've got your offer planned out really, really well, and you can answer the question for them. Uh, inherently why the hell should I buy from you? Okay, that's, I mean, if we're really getting basic, it comes down to your avatar, your offer and you.

And you got to know their emotional hot button so that you can press the right levers to get them to say yes in the sales letter. You got to have an offer that has a value that's all the way up here and perceived cash that you're asking for down here with a like hell, that's a hell of a deal. And then how you factor into this you as the attractive character you as the company. This is where your story ties in has to make sense to buy from you. And also make sense that you are able to provide and deliver on this offer.

I mean, this is just really getting down to basics. And so if you don't know the avatar, you're not going to say the right stuff. So they're going to feel like you're at best. You're talking at them rather than with them. If you're off for sucks, well, you're off for sucks and nobody's going to want it. Okay, it's like me. And then if you don't make sense, if it doesn't make sense, something's going to be off.

Your story doesn't quite job. It just, it just doesn't make sense. It doesn't pass the sniff test.

You're not able to use prom meditate, eliminate solves the right way. You're off her stack. You don't even have one. It's just all the thing, you know, it's too expensive. That's the biggest thing. And it sounds pretty good, but it's too expensive. You know what somebody's actually saying when they say that? Oh, well, in sales, I believe, is they, they're, they're, you haven't gotten the justify the value.

I mean, if correct, if, yeah, right, if it takes a value exceeds price, you'll never have the objection, right?

“Correct. 100%. So, so anyway, that's why a sales letter doesn't work.”

Your headline sucks, your offer sucks, your story sucks, your call to action sucks. Pretty much you just suck and need to go work in a billion dollar industry where you put on a hair and that stand a window and say, Would you like a hot apple pie with that and perhaps some fries? Or, or the new one, which is welcome to Starbucks, what can I get started for you today? So, I mean, it's, it's, this is important to learn.

I think the first one is, is where I see a lot of business owners, especially in a startup, like, Guys that are doing 50k months, even I've seen this, where the avatar, they just don't actually understand the avatar they're speaking to. They think they do, but there's like that nuance. There's that ideology is like, do you know the avatar's problem more?

“Can you speak to them, like they are speaking themselves in their head?”

Yes. Even though people think that they are, they're still, I always, there's, like, a mismatch just by a millimeter.

And as you know, in this, especially competitive world, we're in and we're talking about written word, We're off a millimeter on a long-form sales letter that, that goes a long way. Yeah. And there's, there's two reasons why people do that. One, they confuse demographics with psychographics. So, they say, oh, my avatar is a dentist who's 44 years old, makes 269,000 dollars a year, has 1.2 wives, 2.3 children.

I just feel bad for 0.3, Timmy, you know, that, that 0.3 kid is like, he's the shorty. But it's like, no, demographics help you find people, meaning like, how do I find them to put a message in front of you? What a message in front of them. Psychographics are the emotional hot buttons that get them to, um, that get them to react and get them to engage in a conversation. So, what happens though is that they, even if you get into the psychographics, a lot of it is assumed.

So, like, oh, my, my avatar are dentists with their own practice. Well, they assume a whole bunch of stuff about that, but never express it.

“And about the only thing they do is they'll, this is the ones who are real crafty. They'll say, well, what makes them wake up in the middle, the night in a cold sweat.”

Yeah. Okay. Well, I can be a whole bunch of stuff. But, you know, again, there's, there's short-term desires, there's long-term desires, there's problems, there's objections, there's the, the, the, the hidden greedy thing that they really, really, really want. There are questions they need to address and situationally, depending on what you're selling, depending on what their level of awareness is. You have to know more than just what wakes them up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat. So, this is where investing some time up front and really understanding this can feed you for decades, because you understand them better than they understand themselves.

Because most people never go below that the surface level thing. And the problem is is that most of the AI stuff that you're going to mess around with is only going to be surface level. You know, you go to AI, you know, what are the main, what wakes a dentist up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat AI? And it'd be like, well, his wife finding out about his mistress that is his receptionist. Well, wait a minute. You know, it's, it's, you know, not making payroll and all the other stuff, you know, the dude anyway.

Yeah, no, no, no, I hear it. It's, it's, we're talking in sales. We're talking, you know, it's almost sounding like what I call is the three levels of pain, right? So there's like the surface level pain. So I always talk about traditional business owners, surface level pain being Facebook ads, all my Facebook ads aren't working.

And I say, even those sell guy on this face by eyes are not working, good luck. Okay, the second layer is their financial business pain, what I say in sales, right? So, okay, their Facebook ads are not working. As a result, they're not making the dollars. As a result, they're having, you know, having hard time paying payroll.

As a result, they can't scale, they can't figure it out. You know, they're frustrated, they're burning dollars, you know, AKA.

You get to that personal pain, that's where the sale happens.

“Well, as a result of the Facebook ads not working and not having the money, right?”

I'm going to go as extreme here because we're on the podcast. But, you know, it's like, how do you sleep that night? You know, what do you think is your wife knows this happening? Like, how long does a business have before it ends? Did you ever think that you'd be in a position like this?

You didn't know you'd be done in 30 days? Like, we get to that personal level where you need it. Obviously, gain trust before you get there, that's where the sales made. And I'm, I'm, I'm a, how do you feel about the fact that Mark Zuckerberg is the only one making money in your business? Yeah, well, there you go.

Yeah. Right.

So, I think what I'm getting at is the same thing on maybe on the written word,

maybe a little different, but this is where the sales letter comes in. Yeah, you got to be able to hit the stuff that makes them respond. You got it. They have to read that letter and say, holy crap, it's like he knows me. There was a, the Ron White did a thing where he tells a story about sitting on a beanbag chair and his underwear in front of the TV.

And he's eating cheetos. And the late night preacher comes on. And he's like, you know, you're feeling this is like, yeah, that's me. He's like, you know, you're, you're a sinner. Yeah, that's me. And he said, and now you want to get up and you want to call us on the phone and give us money on your credit card.

And he's like, wow, they almost had me, you know, that kind of thing. You, you got to take it all the way to the end so that they're like, yeah, I got it. Yeah, they know me. It's like this was made for me.

“And the only way you can do that is to know their hot buttons, know the stuff that makes them respond.”

And then if you do that, creating the offer is actually a lot easier. See, most people start with a product and go in search of an audience. And that's why they fail. But if you define your audience that you're going to serve, figure out what the real problems are, the real desires are and all the other things in between short-term, long-term, all that good stuff.

And then make them an offer they can't refuse. And then explain why you're the only one who can deliver this in this way. You're ahead of 99% of the people out there because nobody does that. 100% 100%. All right, it's a guy and it goes to me is like, again, I tell people sell it before you build it.

Because if you, yeah, so many people build thinking that's going to sell and then they spend money time. And then they spend the worst part is because they spend all that time building it. They also spend so much time in money trying to sell it because they're doing the loss. There's a word. The chunk, it's the loss.

The loss. Yeah. And it doesn't work. So back, I want to get clear because we're, you know, it is news sales letters.

“If I ask the question, okay, are there specific points that need to be on a sales letter?”

Like, is there a five part, you know, the five parts that the tense that part, whatever it is to a news? Okay, here it is. What is that? That's one, too. I can't even go. Those are the building blocks of a great sales letter. You don't worry.

That's a great sales letter.

So can we, how can we give the audience such a powerful session here that they can be able to understand it.

And potentially go even start working on their newsletter by the end of this. Sure. So you mean their sales letter, not their news letter. Sorry, sales letter. So, so here's the thing.

You got to understand that a sales letter. Okay, what does a sales letter? It's salesmanship in print. How long is a sales letter? You know, there's big long sales letters.

Don't freak and work. They're bullshit. Okay, slow down scooter. A sales letter is as long as it needs to be. All right.

So what I'm going to do is teach you the building blocks that go into an effective sales letter. And then you can expand or contract. I say it's like in one of those accordions from the Lawrence Wilk Show. You know, probably don't remember Lawrence Wilk, but I mean those those ones where they squeeze them and do and do the stuff. It can be as long or as short as you need it to be.

It just needs to have the following stuff. So the number one thing that a great sales letter needs to have is a headline. Okay, it starts with a headline and really it starts with a headline package. And so the way to think of this is what is the headline package? Well, it's usually a pre head head and a sub head line.

So the pre head, the purpose of that is to call out to the audience or to call out to a pain or problem. So attention real estate agents, attention high producing real estate agents, attention frustrated real estate agents, or you can do regarding your next commission check.

Okay, so now you're going to have the sub head line, which is a call out to the audience.

Then you're going to have the headline, which is typically a call out for the problem or the solution.

“And this is where you have to know the awareness level of your audience because if you're talking to people who have no freaking clue who you are, what you do or even if there's a solution out there.”

Then you have to call out to the problem that you know that they know that they have. So if I'm selling something a bunch of realtors that don't know who I am and don't know a possibility, I can say are you sick and tired of crappy commission checks month after month. Okay, well, yeah, okay, that's all I'm trying to do is just move them from one thought to the next to the next, okay, and then the sub head line is typically where you are going to introduce or link up with whatever it is the thing is that you're selling.

So it would be, you know, attention, realtors, frustrated by low commissions, are you sick and tired of crappy commission checks month after month.

New webinar reveals how to massively increase commissions with zero advertising expense.

“And that would typically be in a parenthesis, okay.”

If you're a real estate agent, I've got you. You're you're. Okay, tell me more. Yeah, at this point. Our headline package has done its job. We've stopped the scroll, we've stopped the person, okay, we've engaged them and we've pre frame them for what's coming next. So now in your sales letter, this is where you're going to have your intro. And depending on how this thing's formatted, it could be, you know, as as simple as, you know,

from the desk of Jim Edwards regarding how I got 52 listings my first year in real estate was zero ad spend deer frustrated real estate professional, okay, that's got some kind of little intro that the transition from the headline to what I'm going to start telling them. Now, that's more of a traditional letter thing. It could even just be as simple as. Here's how. Yeah, dot dot, okay, so it depends on the verb is it might be, you know, how, but literally is as easy as this just transition here's out.

Hey, let me tell you a quick story, okay, typically you're going to have either a shocking statement here or a story or both. Okay, and the shocking statement is designed to just further shock them out of their hypnosis, you know, so this would be, you know, most real estate agents are going to die broke. We're going to part time job at a grocery store. Will you be one of them? I sure hope not. Let me see if we can fix that. I mean, that's like holy crap. I mean, you know, this is where you punch people in the face when the most brutal ones I've ever used was I had a shocking to the first line was it's enough to make you want a puke.

Yeah, that was literally my thing. I made like $20,000 with that sales letter in the first two hours selling a $97 rather. Wow. This is not an income claim your results may vary.

So next, you want to tell typically you're going to tell a story. Okay, you're going to tell a story either about yourself or about them or about someone else who's like them. Hey, let me tell you a quick story about a guy who had two houses to sell and only 30 days to sell him. He only, he didn't have enough equity to sell with a realtor on one of them and he was too stubborn to pay the commission on the other one and he was able through social engineering and using a very specific phone script was able to sell both of those houses in less than 30 days and make a move to Florida saving

“$12,000 in commission but more importantly he launched a real estate empire. I'm like, do I have your attention still? Are you like wondering what the hell's going on?”

Yeah. Okay, well then I've done what I needed to do with the story. So I want to tell a story that is going to grab their attention and it's going to engage them and set the stage.

Yeah, okay, now at this point, as far as mechanically in here in the middle of this, you could have basically right underneath the headline package, you could have a video.

And the video would basically, I mean, you see a lot of videos on the stuff now, the purpose of the video is to sell the high reactors.

“So this is where you would have a video script that would basically say, hey, if this is you and this is what you want, this is what I got and by the way, this is who I am and this is why you should buy now.”

And then there's a button there that that will shoot them down the page to see your offers. Traditional VFL is what you're correct. Yes. Okay, so now we got our story. And then you're going to use you've heard a problem agitate solve right.

Yes, okay, introduce a problem agitate the problem introduce the solution. That is actually not the best formula.

Okay, it's problem agitate eliminate solve. So, introduce the problem. Here's the problem. Most real estate agents can't sell their way out of a wet paper sack. Most real estate agents don't understand that their real job is not selling houses. It's finding people consistently who want to either buy or sell a house. That's the problem. Okay, if you're struggling right now, it's because you can't find enough potential buyers and sellers. Agitate the problem. Okay, if you don't solve this problem, you are going to suffer.

You are going to on average make less money than someone who manages a grocery store. They sold you on the idea of being a real estate agent with high commissions, but what they didn't tell you was all the stuff you were going to have to do that had nothing to do with selling houses. Because it's not about selling a house. It's about pricing it right and putting it in the MLS.

“If you can do that, you're going to make money. So you need to figure out how to find more buyers and sellers or you're going to die poor.”

Okay, we've agitated that. Now we eliminate. Most people. So here's the solution. It's my, you know, a two extra listing appointment to week. Now we need to eliminate.

Not poop, but poop all over them eliminate all over them. Now, here's what you need to understand.

Most real estate agents think the way to solve this problem is one of the following ways. Run more money, spend more money on ads. Okay, problem is if ads worked for real estate, there'd be one person in town running ads making all the money. At more ads don't work. Some people think it's cold calling. I'm just going to call more people. Problem is with the change in the laws. You call a fizz bow. You might go to jail.

Some people think that it's working your sphere of influence. But how many times can you call your friends and family to ask them for a referral before they treat you like an am way salesman and and shun you it everything. Well, if it's not about spending more money on ads, if it's not spending more money, cold calling, if it's not more spending more time putting your friends and family in a headlock. What can you or worst of all doing nothing and hoping things change, which is pretty much is the theme of most real estate agents.

Well, luckily for you, there is a solution. So now we introduce the solution and you're like me and he took like three or four minutes to explain that. Calm down, Chuckles. These can be paragraphs or these can be aligned or this can be a single sentence.

“Okay, it's the important thing is that you're going through the hoops you're going through the little gates you're using the building blocks. So now we introduce the solution.”

Hey, luckily for you, there's a solution. The, you know, something something to two extra listings a week, whatever thing. Okay, and then you're going to give them four or five bullets of what this does for them. Not what it is, but what it does for them.

So then what you're going to do is you're going to tell them, I know that sounds amazing, but it's true.

“Here's exactly what it is. So this is where you basically explain what the product does for them in more detail.”

Using bullets. This is the offer solution. We're now going to tell of what the product will do. What the offer is or what the product will do. No, what the product what what the product is and what it does for them. So it's kind of like, you know, it's so it's the, the real estate listing mega kit.

You're going to, this is like when you talk about a stack or no, this is not the stack. Okay, yeah, okay, we're telling them basically what it is.

“Okay, okay, and we're using feature benefit meaning now.”

They're going to say, as soon as you start telling them all that stuff after you're done telling them and the ether clears a little bit it's going to be two questions. Who the hell are you and has this work for anybody beside you? So after I've given you those bullets about the thing, then it's going to be like, hey, now by now you're probably asking. Okay, well, I'm Jim Edwards. I've wrote the book for, you know, telling your home alone. I've written copywriting secrets. I took 52 listings my first year in real estate with zero ad spend, you know, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah and but don't just take my word for it.

“Look at this and then after you tell him who you are, you show them testimonials. Now the cool thing about those that credibility block is you can flip those either way. So I can tell you I can also say, hey, you know what?”

I tell him all the cool things that this thing's going to do and then I can say, hey, now. But don't just take my word for it. Okay, take a look at this and then you have testimonials of, you know, I'm Billy and I was working at Burger King and, you know, I'm now driving a miserati and I'm on it got my own A and E channel on real estate. I'm Billy. I was an only fan's girl and I'm now I'm making, you know, 10,000 dollar check or whatever. Okay. And so you can tell don't take my word for it. Look at what they have to say and then by now you're probably asking who is Jim Edwards and why should I listen to him and then I tell him my stuff.

So the point is that after we problem agitated eliminate solve, okay, where we give him the four or five big bullets and it's like, hey, this is this is, this is why it isn't what it doesn't want it matters. Now we have to prove credibility with testimonials and then your story, who you are. Then after you do that, that's when they're like, okay sounds good. What exactly am I going to get with all this all sounds good? What the hell am I going to get? So now this is where you do the offer stack.

Okay, and the offer stack is basically where you're telling them what's in the box. Okay, you're going to get my amazing training program. You're going to get the Facebook group.

You're going to get the software. You're going to get my chat GPT stuff. You're going to get all that. Okay. So this is where you see all the pictures in the graphics and the, you know, it's amazing, you know, you're going to get my right and publisher book blueprint. You're going to get the right and publisher book challenge. You're going to get the launcher book, you know, just all the stuff and you everyone's got to have a freaking picture too. You have a pit and it's got to have a title. It's got to have a description. It's got to have a value. It's got to have a picture. Make it real. Now at this point.

One of the things that you really should do, but a lot of people don't. You have some sort of a section that addresses questions, beliefs and objections. Okay. And it's basically overcome the three to six big negatives that are probably still in their mind. Now at this point, you might, you know, will it do this in this in this? Yes. Okay. Here's answer that question.

If you don't want to really get into objections, if you want to just kick your competitors under the bus, what you can do is use this section to eliminate the competition. Hey, don't buy any real estate.

“Related training product unless it meets all of the following criteria.”

It was created by someone who actually sold a house within the last year.

It works in today's marketplace, not what worked 20 years ago. It doesn't require you to spend a single dime on Facebook ads. Do you see what I'm saying? We're eliminating all that stuff. Okay. So those are the two primary ways that you can eliminate a bunch of crap address a bunch of crap. The other thing that you can do is if if people's objections are skill based or they're worried that they're going to have to spend a bunch of money on stuff.

Then what you can do is set up a buying criteria that says basically don't buy this unless you can answer yes to all of the following.

Okay. Do you know the difference between left mouse click and right mouse click? Yes. Do you know how to copy and paste? Yes. Do you know how to use a basic word processor like Microsoft Word? Yes. Do you know how to drag and drop files between folders on your computer? Yes.

“Do you have a word processor installed on your computer? Yes. Then you have all the skills and all the software you need to be able to create a money making mini site.”

That's literally one of the things I did on a multi-million dollar producing thing. So what you're trying to do is once you get somebody over the hump in your sales letter to the point where you've addressed who you are that this does work. Here's all the shit you're going to get.

You need to address the main excuses, objections, questions or hesitation that someone would have. Once you do that, then what you're going to do is you're going to bring it home.

You're going to have what I call a clean sweep graphic which is basically all those things you had in that offer stack. You put them all together to show them all the all the amazing values that they're going to get. And then you enumerate it. Okay. And you tell them, okay, you're going to get this and that's worth this and you're going to get this and it's worth that and you're going to get this and it's worth this. So total value on this is blah blah blah blah. And your cost today is whatever it is. Yeah. Now at this point, one of the things that a lot of people don't do is address why they're getting a discount.

“Okay, now I could be just as simple as saying, hey, I remember what it was like to be in your shoes and even though I can get $5,000 for this, I know that I want to help as many people as I can and that's why I'm only going to charge you $9.97.”

Okay. Now, another thing, because I know it's in your best interest to do this, here's a reason act right now, right now. So right around here, you can give it reason act now. Now, there's a couple other elements that we want to have in here and the best place to do this is in between the summary and when you overcame objections, okay. And that it and here, watch the magic of my board here, I'm going to rearrange this so you'll be able to just see the magic that is that is technology here. Okay, look at that.

All right, what you want to do is have a guarantee. Now, most people do this as a total afterthought, it's like 30 day money back guarantee risk free guarantee 60 day money back in, no screw that, okay.

If this doesn't show you exactly how to get two more listing appointments a week without spending a dime on Facebook ads, if it doesn't show you how to outperform agents that have been in the business for 20 years, even if this is your first six months.

And if it doesn't get you listing appointments with people who are in the nicer neighborhood, I can't say that shit, but I'm just going to go with you know the nicer neighborhood.

Then we don't want your money will give it all back. If you buy the system completely risk free for 29 days, 24 out 23 hours and 59 minutes, send me an email will issue a full refund, no questions asked, no hard feelings.

“Now, isn't that a better way to express the guarantee than 30 day money back guarantee?”

Of course it is. Okay, so we can go near the end, you're saying it can go in different places or is that where where the best place to put it is right after you over.

If you're going to use the section on overcoming objections, or if you're not going to do that, then it comes pretty much right after you do the offer stack. And it's like, but you know, the cool thing is you can say, hey, but don't decide now, try it out risk free for 30 days. So then you summarize. So here's everything you're going to get. Then you got to get my reason act now. Act now, you know, it's it's act now and you're going to get this, but if there's a reason to act now, you know, whether it's a limited time bonus, a limited quantity, a date.

And then finally, you close the letter, hey, to your success, Jim Edwards, can't wait to see at the top.

“And then you do the PS and the PS is really important because what happens is, and I'll explain, but basically you're going to recap.”

Your whole USP, the whole big reason why they should buy your unique selling proposition and why it's a great deal. And some type of consequence of not acting because now they've gotten to the bottom of them, but yet you got nothing to use. So let's be honest, okay, PS, let's be honest, if you pass on this offer, are you going to get two more listings a year? I mean, two more listing appointments a week. You're going to miss out on a hundred listing appointments a year. Are you even getting that many listing appointments now?

Do this, are you going to be able to reach your income goal? Are you seriously going to have to think about quitting and going get a job at blockbuster video? And by the way, they're out of business. So that's options off the table.

“We both know what you need to do, which is to sign up, put it to use, and start living the dream that you know you want to live with being a successful, a financially successful realtor and help it people.”

Okay, click here to buy now. And then you have a link and it puts it back right up to here because all the buy links when they click them on your sales letter take to the summary right here. Okay, or I don't know, I mean, I've tested different things, but I mean, it typically you're going to take them to the summary or, and I'm getting in to Manisha here that you probably don't give a crap about, but I might have it take them to the top of the offer stack, just depending on how complicated the offer is.

But that's, you know, it is what it is. My point is that. Think about it when someone's looking at the sales letter. How do they typically read the sales letter? Okay, and what I mean by that is think about last sales letter you ever looked at. And if this is the sales letter, okay, you got your headline up here, you got your video right here, you got a bullet here, you've got text and sub headlines. And then you've got testimonials. You've got your offer stack, and then you've got the PS down here at the bottom.

What most people do is they skin the headline, they might watch the sales, the video sales letter, they skin down all of the sales, all of the sub headlines.

Then they scroll back up and they look at what all the crap is that they're going to get.

Then they look at what it costs. Let's see. And then they'll go back up and they'll look at the testimonials. And then they'll go look at kind of, you know, what's included again. And then they'll ask, hey, I screwed, I'll get it. Then they buy it.

And then between the time that they buy it and when it actually comes to them or it starts or whatever, they will read every fricking word of the sales letter, but they won't read every word of the sales letter until after they bought. So the whole purpose here is to have a mechanism set up to cause someone to make an emotionally driven decision to buy so that you also have everything there.

So when they try when they go back to justify on logic,

“then that stuff's there as well. So that's how you set up a sales letter that works.”

Now, I got to ask the big question because as you're going through this, I'm going, this is such a masterclass. And what you've just written out if someone was actually listening and following and taking notes like I was just taking notes, you can go right and you can go and probably write a version one that's called of a sales letter by the end of the day. Now, the challenge I have with this is if a thousand people went and did it, how come only one or two of them would probably be the one that produces the money and the rest don't?

Well, writing a sales letter is different than polishing up the sales letter, getting the sales letter on to funnel, making the rest of the funnel built out, having the emails to do the follow-up, creating the ads that drive the right traffic to see the thing, and then actually deploying it and taking action. Because just making the sales letter, there's ideation, creation and distribution is a real basic thing.

Coming up with the idea is great, creating it is great. But if you don't distribute it, if you don't do it, then nothing's going to happen.

“And here's the thing. Even after you put up the first version,”

you're going to have to go back and change stuff because this is basically your best guess,

and then it comes up smack against real people and real opinions and real traffic, and then you're going to probably end up having to test your headline a bunch of times to get people to stick around and just, you know, it's a process, it's not an event. Yeah, yeah, I love it. And it's interesting you're saying, because I know we're going to be doing this part of the four part series,

and you said, "What comes after?" So what comes after the sales letter, the supporting document of the documentation and/or efforts that come after the sales letter, you said it was email sequences. There's definitely going to be a follow-up email sequence and there's probably some email on the front end,

“unless you're doing, you know, cold traffic and just running ads and stuff.”

But there's all kinds of emails that need to get sent in order to not only deliver the product, but set them up for the next sale, but more importantly, actually deliver good enough results that they want to build a relationship with you so that they'll buy more stuff. So, Jim, this was, I mean, a pure masterclass on sales letters, and I can't wait because I know that we're going to be doing email sequences to support sales letters,

but just for people who are saying, "I need this, I want Jim, how can I start writing my own sales letter with your brain? Where can they go?" So you can go to copy and content.au, and this is where I have all my proprietary copyrighting tools, and the just of it is, it's AI with Jim's brain baked into it. And so, I have one of many tools that will write a 10 to 12-page sales letter for you in about 45 seconds

that is based on your offer, your avatar, and you as the user. Chat TVT can't do it, nothing else can do it. Okay, you can go to Chat TVT right now and ask it for a sales letter, and it will bust something out for you. And you know what, it'll be pretty good, but the difference between pretty good and excellent is the difference between

excellent makes the sale and pretty good goes, "Hey, that's pretty good sales letter. Maybe I'll come back someday." I mean, you don't make any money with someone saying to you, "Hey, I almost bought your product." You know, I almost bought your almost signed up for your coaching program. Hey, man, and here's the reality. If you're online, if you're doing it,

if you're selling any product service, you huge opportunity to have sales letters in your process.

It's me teaching you all the time. Do all kinds of classes and master classes all the time. And then I let you use the tools that I built for myself. As opposed to other people, to just sell you a suite of tools, and they're like, "Hey, have a great day. I hope you pay every month."

That's not how we do. I'm there to teach you, just like we're doing this. Teach you, and then hand you tools that I personally use. So, that's the big difference. I love it. I want to end the sales letter part off with one question. If there was one golden rule, or idea, or there was like, Cardinal sin, like, you only,

if the sales letter has to must have, or one thing must be possible. For a sales letter to be absolutely perfect, that converts.

“Isn't good? That is great. Is there that one rule? What is it?”

It's, you better have a damn good headline.

Your headline is the single most important part of this.

An entire process, okay? Meaning an amazing headline. And absolute crap copy will always outperform a crappy headline with perfect copy. Because an amazing headline pre-frames the right people and grabs the right people in enough quantity that you can succeed despite the fact that your copy sucks.

But if your headline sucks, no one's going to stop. Or they're just not going to understand what the hell it's all about and they're going to leave. And I know this is true because I'll share one story with you. I had a program that I created. It was back when, you know, we were still even on dial-up. And I created an audio CD.

And I went in the studio, recorded the thing, did all this work.

Created the sales letter, it was amazing. And I had a headline in it that basically said,

“"How I went from trailer trash to World Famous Online."”

That was my headline. And so, driving traffic, driving traffic, no sales, no sales, no sales, no sales. I'm like, holy shit. It's a scam. I'm like, wait a minute. It's my stuff. How can it be a scam? So, I said, "What would a great marketer do?"

And Louis Vuys said, "Tried different headline." So, I changed my headline to how to get a positive, or how to get an unfair advantage in life. Well, another hundred people came through and I made a sale. Now, most people would say, "Oh, thank God. Just don't touch it. It's working out. Don't break it." I said, "Uh, screw that. Let's try something else."

So, I tried another headline. How to gain a positively unfair advantage in business and in life. Five sales over the next hundred people that came through. So, I went from zero to one to five. I had a 500% increase over the second headline. And an infinite increase over the other one. Over the first one, I didn't change anything else. I didn't change the price. I didn't change the guarantee. Nothing changed.

“The only thing I changed was a headline.”

And I have countless examples through, I mean, one from like four weeks ago, where I'm selling something for $2,000. And same thing happens.

It's like, "Hey, this is amazing. I'm really smart. I've been reading my own press releases."

And I'm just going to say, "Hey, this is a good one." I'm just going to say, "Hey, this is a good one." And I'm just going to say, "Hey, this is a good one." And I'm just going to say, "Hey, this is a good one." And I'm just going to say, "Hey, this is a good one." And I'm just going to say, "Hey, this is a good one."

And I'm just going to say, "Hey, this is a good one." And I'm just going to say, "Hey, this is a good one." And I'm just going to say, "Hey, this is a good one." And I'm just going to say, "Hey, this is a good one." And I'm just going to say, "Hey, this is a good one."

And I'm just going to say, "Hey, this is a good one." And I'm just going to say, "Hey, this is a good one." And I'm just going to say, "Hey, this is a good one." And I'm just going to say, "Hey, this is a good one." And I'm just going to say, "Hey, this is a good one."

And I'm just going to say, "Hey, this is a good one." And I'm just going to say, "Hey, this is a good one." And I'm just going to say, "Hey, this is a good one." And I'm just going to say, "Hey, this is a good one." And I'm just going to say, "Hey, this is a good one."

And I'm just going to say, "Hey, this is a good one." And I'm just going to say, "Hey, this is a good one." And I'm just going to say, "Hey, this is a good one." And I'm just going to say, "Hey, this is a good one." And I'm just going to say, "Hey, this is a good one."

And I'm just going to say, "Hey, this is a good one." And I'm just going to say, "Hey, this is a good one." And I'm just going to say, "Hey, this is a good one."

10,000 leads a month at a cost basis of 168 bucks per lead.

“I came up with 15 different headline variations for them based around”

problem, solution, identity, and then jade it. I mean, those are those of the main categories. Now we're getting into real advanced crap. But my point is, when I talked to them, I said, "If we can just get you from 168 bucks down to 150 bucks,

that's going to make a big difference, oh hell yeah." Imagine if we could get it down to just 100 bucks a lead. And they got all dreamy-eyed and stuff. And all we're testing is the headline. Because the rest of their sales process works.

“We just need more of the right people to say, "Yes, on the front end right now."”

Is there other stuff we could do testing the layout, testing the offered, testing the shirt? But if we already got something that's working, then the thing that will move the needle the most is testing the headline to pre-frame the right people

to get them ready for what's coming next. So this is not something new, this is not some kind of fat thing, this is not something for beginners, this is it, that's one of the fundamental principles

like gravity. When it comes to sales letters, the headline is the number one thing that you test. If everything else should be working. So that's the golden rule.

I mean, that's it, the headline trumps all. You get that long, it's over. You get that right, everything else works. Everything else works. Everything else should work.

And always test your buy link,

just to make sure that your craps not broke because I've seen it before, we're nobody made any sales and then you realize that the cart was busted. I love it. Jim, I can't wait.

Can't wait for the email sequence part. Thanks again for being here with us. Sounds great, thanks for having me. Next time, on the vault unlocked.

“Well, I mean, you know, if you remember the example”

we used the real estate agency, they want two extra listings next week, don't spend the dime on ads to do it. Oh, we shit, that's going to get open. Okay. Other people spend two weeks doing this.

I'm going to help you get results in 10 minutes.

What's our first challenge with any mail?

What is the first thing we want somebody to do with our email? Open it up. Open it, that's right, look at you. Okay.

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