(You’ll have to hit the “show transcript” button to
read it.)
The short version of Dunning Kruger is that “dumb” or uninformed people tend to hold drastically inflated opinions of how “right” they are about something . . .
(“2+2 = 5 and I will FIGHT YOU TO DEATH if you disagree with me!”
While “smart” or more educated people tend to hold drastically DEFLATED
opinions of what they know.
This one is called the “Crossroads Close” . . . and is based off a technique I learned studying the letters of the great Clayton Makepeace.
Here’s how it works:
By the time a prospects gets to the end of your letter (or your sales video or launch sequence) they should have a lot of tension built up in their chest.
Basically, they should be going through hell trying to decide if they should TAKE ACTION or RUN FOR THE HILLS . . .
Just picked up a bluetooth keyboard for my iPad. Took me a few minutes of bleary-eyed, post-party decisionifying to decide between the bluetooth and the Apple keyboard dock (especially since nefarious Apple made them the EXACT SAME PRICE) but the bluetooth won out in the end for versatility reasons.
Really impressed with the iPad as a “writing machine.” Reminds me of my old Brother word processor from high school. Clean and useful and not mucked up with a bunch of extra stuff you don’t need.
Planning on taking notes on a book I’m thinking about writing on this thing over the next year. Will report back with thoughts.
In fact, in the next month I’m flying to Miami for a closed door internet marketing event with a bunch of big muckity mucks, am dashing off to Conneticut to speak at Ryan Lee’s “Continuity Summit” and am spending a few days in DC for Yanik Silver’s Underground.
And while I’m sure there will be a bunch of great content at these seminars, the real reason I’m wracking up the miles is for the networking.
As a mentor of mine told me early on in my career “The real business gets done at the bar.”
My friend Martin Howey just put up a post talking about one of the profound re-connections he made at Jeff Walker’s PLM event a few weeks back.
If you’re wondering what going to seminars can do for you and your business, I’d give it a read:
Let me be your Cyrano. (I really wanted to put a pic of Steve Martin from "Roxanne" but couldn't find a good one.
(Update: Check out the comments from this post for the love notes I wrote and responses.)
OK, THIS should be fun (and more than a little scary.)
As a special “Valentine’s Day Gift” I’m doing something WEIRD . . .
In fact, I’m giving you the chance to have Chris “Mr. Moneyfingers” Haddad himself (that’s me!) “be your virtual Cyrano.”
What’s that mean?
It means that if you’re fast and lucky and smart and brave you can get ME to ghost-write a love note/poem/rap song/short play/video whatever I really feel like in your stead . . .
Basically you get to put my LOVE FINGERS into action on your behalf . . .
Here’s all you have to do to enter:
1. Put a comment under this post telling me:
The name of your Valentine/wanna be Valentine. (Pet names or nicknames are also acceptable.)
Your relationship with them (Lover/Spouse/SO/NSO/Stalker)
3 Things you ADORE about them.
1 Thing about them that kind of drives you NUTS (your interpretation).
The place you first met.
The basic idea of what you REALLY want to say to them on Valentine’s day. (Don’t work too hard. Let the pro writer do the heavy lifting.)
The RESULT you’re looking for on Valentine’s day. I’m a marketer, dammit. What’s my conversion metric?
2. PROMISE that WHATEVER I write for you you will actually GIVE to your Valentine. You can email it to them, print it up and deliver it or even copy the whole thing out by hand. But you can’t change a word.
3. PROMISE to report back to the Moneyfingersinc.com readership on what kind of reaction you get.
4. PROMISE to let me SHARE what we come up with right here on the Moneyfingersinc.com blog, probably in about a week or so after the Valentine’s hooplah has died down. If you’d like we can “anonymize” the whole thing before it goes up. But it’s more fun if we don’t.
Got it?
Great.
This is an awesome opportunity, but you’ve got to be FAST . . .
Valentine’s day is only a couple days away. I’m going to be selecting the “winners” tomorrow (probably 3 but maybe 5) morning and holing up in a coffee shop in the AM in order to crank these suckers out so you can have them ready for my favorite corporate holiday.
Happy VD =-0
P.S. What qualifies me to do this? I’m a high fallutin professional copywriter, dammit. Plus I’m renowned the world over for my sense of WEIRD romance, ability to make women quiver with a text message alone and general badassery.
You don’t get this kind of shiz for FREE very often.
P.P.S. My own Valentine is in CANADA right now so I gotta get my romance jollies off somehow.
I’m in the middle of testing a Video Sales letter versus the more traditional long copy sales letter for one of my niche sites. My gut is telling me that the video version is going to kick the long copy version’s ass.
Anyway, here’s my “rough cut” after a couple hours work on thursday afternoon.
Couple notes:
* This came out a bit longer than I was expecting. I don’t think it being a half hour long is a total dealbreaker since there’s good content in there, but I’ll most likely try to do a shorter version as soon as I get the chance and run a split test.
* When I do do the shorter version I’ll most likely cut down the description of what’s in the bonuses, cut or move the “stop freaking out” slide and go through my notes to find places I can slice out content during the 7 deadly sins section.
* I also am going to think about how to position the 7 Deadly sins better, possibly putting more juice on the idea that you WILL commit these sins if you don’t have this product.
* Originally I was planning on “reading” a bunch of notes I’d typed up as I went through the letter. By my third time stopping and starting the VO though it became apparent that just doing some prep work and “knowing what I wanted to say” before getting to the slides was a better option.
* Yes, I talk really fast. Wanted to have a nice mix of energy and clarity in this vid. Definitely have the energy but there are places where I swallow my words too much. Then again, perfect is the enemy of good. That’s for v 2.
My Grandmother, Violet Fiore, passed away around 7AM EST last Monday. I was lucky enough to be there when she went . . . and had the honor and the frightening responsibility of writing and delivering her eulogy.
Easily some of the hardest writing I ever had to do (though I managed to crank out my speech in about 25 minutes the day of the funeral. Speed is your friend.) And let me tell you, as a-religious as I am it was downright surreal to be standing in a Catholic Church talking about this stuff.
Still, I’m proud of what I wrote and everybody there seemed to really enjoy it. Plus it’s definitely written in a “Copy” style with lots of white space, rhythm, pauses etc.
You can see the whole Eulogy after the jump (about 800 words.)
(Having some trouble adding pictures to this post. Will go back and do so later.)
Something a little bit *different* today . . . (And kind of scary.)
In the video above I describe a simple exercise you can do to blast by negative thought patterns, focus on what you actually LIKE about yourself (and realize just how MUCH there is to like in the first place) and generally live a happier, healthier, more fulfilling and more awesome life.
Below you’ll find two documents that should compliment this video pretty well.
Check out this (shockingly . . . I tend to ramble) short video where I put two VERY different squeeze pages through their paces, explain the ONE THING your squeeze page is trying to accomplish give out simple but powerful pointers that will turn even a “dog” squeeze page into a winner literally overnight.
