I received an email this week from another Copywriter. 

He spoke about knowing yourself, what your strengths are and admitting that you have faults. 

On the way today after dropping my son at family day care, I was thinking about what my strengths and weaknesses are...

As I was driving home, one of the CD's I listen to came on.

And there was a great story that really drove this point home.

You need to know yourself. Who you are, what your strengths are and what your weaknesses are..

The last few weeks I've been working on a number of sales funnels.

And what I've realised is most businesses need a break even funnel to help them get great leads through the door. 

In today's Podcast I go through how your sales funnel should look.. what type of things to offer, what steps to follow and how to nurture your leads via email. 

There's heaps of gold nuggets in todays lesson.. I hope you enjoy it!

I was looking at a sales letter last night and making some notes around what things I thought I could improve. 

The sales letter was good, no doubt.. but there were some critical things missing that I know will increase conversions.

However, before I started writing a word of copy, I went back to my training (like Luke Skywalker..)

Mike Shreeve teaches in his Sales Letter course that the three things you should focus your attention on when writing sales letters are:

1. Improve the Bullets

2. Improve the Headline

3. Improve the proof elements

And that's exactly what I looked at..

The good news is, this sales letter is already converting... so with improvements to the 3 things mentioned above, it should a decent jump in sales. 

Lets talk more about it in todays lesson!

Today I woke up and knew it was going to be the worst day of my life before I even got out of bed.

It was dark and gloomy outside.

Harsh winds blowing a gale.

And worst of all…

I had the fever.

My head was all foggy. My eyes were red and sore and my nose was red, sore and itchy. I knew today was a total right off right from the start.

Yep… Hay Fever is a shocker. I get it every year and it drives me crazy.

As i’m typing this I’m sneezing every 20 seconds and I want to scratch my eyes out of my head.

Okay, so maybe I'm a bit a drama queen a little bit.. But in all honesty Hay Fever really is a huge annoyance.

When I get it this bad it makes me feel like I have a serious cold. Drives me crazy!

Do you know what though?

There’s one thing I absolutely love about Hay Fever season.

And that’s the funny ads the pharmaceutical companies come out with for hay fever sufferers..

Actually, there’s a really good one on the TV at the moment that I really love.

Check it out: https://youtu.be/bP3yD0IZXE8

If you’ve ever had serious hay fever before you’ll certainly appreciate the humour in this ad.

Sometimes it gets so bad, do you honestly want to fly to Mars to live!

I really think humour is massively underrated as a selling tactic..

Let's talk about in todays Podcast!

Everyone has seen Top Gun… It’s basically one of the best movies ever created.

I would say it’s easily Tom Cruise's best movie.

Originally screened in 1986, because of the popularity of the movie some very strange things started happening.

People started buying ‘aviator’ sunglasses like crazy… (That’s a given)

And.. the Navy started putting sign up booths in cinemas because so many people wanted to be like Maverick & Goose. They had people walking out of the movie and signing up to become the next Navy hero.

How funny is that?

Before the movie, they had zero interest in flying fighter jets.

After the movie they wanted to fly at G-force speeds and fire high powered rockets.

That my friends is the power of a story.

Although the story of Maverick was completely fabricated, people got so wrapped up in it… they wanted to emulate it in their own lives.

I find that so fascinating!

It just proves to me that a story can sell almost anything.

It can take an average product and make it memorable.

It can tell a great product and make it mind-blowing.

A story can be the difference between a million dollar product and a 100 million dollar product.

For me, when I think of great stories, I always come back to a sales letter by John Carlton.

It’s called the ‘One Legged Golfer.’

I listened to a Podcast recently where John actually explained how he wrote the letter.

He was working with a Golf Pro to sell a new program, and he went to visit him to learn more about the techniques he was trying to sell.

After hanging out for a few days, he still hadn’t found his hook.

Anyway, eventually the golfer pro told him how he learnt a particular technique from a one legged golfer.

And John had to get him to back up and tell him the story in more detail. This chump had no idea how powerful this story was..

“You learn how to out drive your competitors from a one legged golfer?”

It’s an incredible sales letter. I still read it every few months because it holds my attention from start to finish. I just love it.

And here in lines today's lesson.

Sometimes we don’t realise how powerful our stories are…

Let's talk about it in more detail on todays Podcast.

What a great weekend! 

We watched the AFL Grand Final this weekend between Geelong & The Tigers...

It was a nail bitter and although I'm a Geelong supporter, I'm happy that the Tigers had a win too.

In todays Podcast we finish off our discussion about The Leaky Sales Funnel.

I explain how I moved through the whole sales funnel process to purchase my custom orthotics - to fix my feet issues.

We wrap up the whole process from start to finish and how BoFu is not just a place for the sale to place, but for you to drive repeat sales.

I'll also explain how to create raving fans... which is exactly what you're brand needs!

What happens in the middle of the funnel?

Well, this is where someone typically moves from 'problem unaware' to 'problem aware'.

The middle of the funnel is generally where people start to consume content, and do lots of homework.

They know they have a problem and they want to know the quickest and easiest way to solve that problem.

They spend time on YouTube, Reddit and comparison sites... 

In todays Podcast I explain the process I went through to find the answer to my problem...

In yesterdays Podcast we spoke about sales funnels, and how many businesses are focusing their attention on only one aspect of their funnel and neglecting the other two.

What they need to realise is each part of the funnel is just as important as the other. 

In todays Podcast we go over the Top Of Funnel or ToFu. At this stage in the funnel, people are in the 'problem unaware' stage. 

They don't really know they have an issue yet.. or they see something online that grabs their attention.

I use a real life example of a product I recently purchased for a problem I was experiencing with my shoes. 

On the weekend, I parked my car in my Mum and Dads driveway.

Nothing out of the ordinary… but shortly after we left, I got a barrage of text messages from Dad.

“Your car is leaking oil!”

“You’ve leaked oil all over the place here, you need to get that sorted asap..”

Yes Dad - I get it. The car has a leak.. I didn’t mean to leak in your driveway! Geez mate.

He’s pretty pedantic about certain things. Which is both a good and a bad thing.

Anyway, I stuck my head under the car and couldn’t see much. It looked exactly like it normally did.. And there weren’t any leaks on the ground at my place. So I still wasn’t 100% convinced it was my car leaking.

Then I grabbed my iPhone and flicked on the light to get a better look.

Instantly saw the reflection of oil shining back at me.

Greatttt… bloody cars! Now I have work out where the leak is coming from.

Like any car illiterate person, I started Googling “oil filter for X-trial” and “oil suited to nissan”.

Turns out my local Repco had a great deal on a filter, 6 litre bottle of oil, plastic funnel & plastic catch pan to drop the oil into.

Perfect! Just what I need!

Anyway - while I was eating my brekky this morning. I had a “ah-ha” moment.

I remembered why the car was leaking.

See.. bout a month ago, we took a trip down to Geelong to see family and friends and I decided to top up the oil before we left.

I grabbed the oil bottle and carefully tried to tip it in without spilling it everywhere which was a total fail. I managed to get oil everywhere and I didn’t have a rag handy to wipe it up.

What I really needed with a pouring funnel.

And it’s what you need too.

Only… you need a marketing funnel, not an oil funnel :)

(see what I did there?)

Marketing funnels really make my motor run and I’m actually going to turn this into a four part email series because it’s such an exciting topic.

In the next three Podcast I’ll cover:

This morning I dropped my son to family day care and grabbed a coffee on the way home.

It’s another beautiful spring day here and I decided I’d give my car a wash and vacuum.

While I was washing my car, I noticed the front badge of the car was looking a bit tired.

The matte black paint I used from 2 years ago was fading and needed a respray. Nothing major, just a quick spruce up.

After the carwash, I drove my car into the car port, grabbed a screwdriver and removed the grill with the badge attached.

I wandered into the shed to see if I could find the ‘flexi paint’ I’d used from a few years ago.

Sure enough, it was still sitting on the shelf.

I gave it a shake up and got everything for a respray.

Just before I was about to start spraying a fresh coat, I remembered that this particular paint had a unique trick up its sleeve.

You could easily peel off the previous layer of matte paint… to reveal the original shiny chrome finish.

It’s incredible stuff. You can spray whatever the heck you want and then 12 months just peel the paint right off in one go.

It’s revolutionary..

I mean, let’s say you wanted to see what your cars rims would look like in a nice orange colour.

You grab a can of this flexi-paint, spray it on, let it dry.. And stand back and see what you think.

And, if you don’t like it.. Just peel it off!

So cool. I love it.

Anyway, after I finished painting, my marketing brain kicked in.

I started thinking about how important “big ideas” are when you sell a product.

You see, the flexi-paint I used this morning had an incredible big idea. Peel off paint - so simple. And writing copy for that product would be a walk in the park..

But when your product doesn’t have a big idea, things become so much more difficult. You can’t separate yourself and create your own blue ocean. You become a commodity just like everyone else.

You can apply this logic to any product in any market...