MASS CONTROL MONTHLY - Frank Kernfrankkern.com/frankkern/customerhub/mcm/MCM_Sept2010.pdf · Brendon Burchard. Now this seminar was marketed horribly because neither of us had time

MASS CONTROL MONTHLYThe Highest Converting Sales Letter, Ever(& How it Led to the 4-Step Incredibly Powerful Conversion System)

S E P T E M B E R 2 0 1 0

September 2010 • Page 1

I first met Kevin Nations at the event I did this summer with Brendon Burchard. Coincidentally, it was also around the time I had been doing a lot of reflecting on the easiest and most enjoyable money that I!d ever made in this business—money I!d made with the least amount of stress, headache or hassle. And I had come to the conclusion that I made the most money when I sold expensive stuff, with the added benefit of this attracting a much cooler clientele as well. The first time I did this in my 11-year career as an Internet Marketer (this October will be 11 years) was for my Serializer system, which as you may know, sold out 100 seats at $10,000 a seat in a combined period of 54 minutes, bringing me a million dollars in revenue. This was without a big launch or affiliates. The clients who came to that event were awesome—some of them are my dear friends to this day. We!re beyond the vendor-client relationship. We just hang out and stuff. (In fact, one of my Serializer clients actually lived in my office for about a year because he was on the road and I had an extra place in my secret headquarters. I was only there during the day so it worked out great for him to stay there.) The second easiest money I ever made was recently when I did a $10,000 seminar with Brendon Burchard. Now this seminar was marketed horribly because neither of us had time to really market it properly, so we sent one direct mail piece and did a webinar. Yet, we sold 40 seats at $10,000, making us each about $200 grand for very, very little work and once again, attracting super cool clients. And, of course, this is also where the sordid, evil tale of how I met Kevin begins. I had just finished doing my speech—a kind of dog and pony show if you will—on lead generation and Kevin was in the audience. When I was done, he came up to me and said, “Man, that was really cool. I don!t do any of that stuff in my business.” (Meaning he didn!t do any lead generation stuff, which is one of the things I!m really known for.) As he was talking, I was thinking to myself, “Well, this guy is dumb and I!m glad he doesn!t do any of this stuff because it means he got great value out of this seminar. So everybody wins, but I can!t believe this guy isn!t doing this. He must not be making any money.” So of course, my response was, “Well, damn, you kind of have to do this stuff in order to make any money. How!s business going for you?” His response was that he did just over a couple million bucks last year.

Page • September 2010 2

And, as much as I hate to admit it, when he told me this, I got caught up in the ol! “I know more than the next guy” bullshit and found myself thinking, “Well, not only is he not generating leads, but I!ve made more money than he did because in my business I did $7 something million in product sales last year and God knows how much in private client fees, affiliate endorsements and royalties.” So I was up on my high horse pretty good and if I!m honest about it, I wanted to stay up on that horse. Now I know this isn!t a particularly good character trait, but hell, we!re all friends, so I might as well be honest about it. Anyway, as I thought this, it motivated me to ask Kevin how much he got to keep because I figured it would be significantly less than me. In reality, I was being an ass and there was no reason for me to believe that, but I forged on and asked anyway. And his answer surprised me. “Most of it,” he said. What shocked me is that I kept about $1.9 million last year after selling over $7 million in product, doing private client stuff and doing about $900k in affiliate commissions. Yet, I still only kept $1.9 million. And Kevin kept damn near as much as I did, but without a big list, without doing any big launches, without an army of affiliates, and nobody knows who he is. Meanwhile, I!ve got about $55,000 a month in overhead, a big office, a huge staff (most of whom I never see), and I!ve literally had my videos seen by millions of people. I have a gigantic list, I do big launches (and am known for it), I have all kinds of exposure, and as much as I!d rather screw off and surf, I really work all the time. The equation was dramatically off. Kevin is at home working in his cargo shorts, and is making about as much money as I am working my ass off for it. So I became intensely fascinated with what Kevin was doing. I realized I needed to put my big ego on the shelf as long as I possibly can, as clearly there is something to learn here. And what Kevin told me in essence was that he figured out a way to package up good information and sell it for a multi-thousand dollar offer. He created a method for doing this that gives him about a 33% conversion rate. He just sits home, runs this method with his assistant and it!s pretty easy. Now when he told me about this, he was primarily teaching entrepreneurs like us how to use this model.


Of course, when I heard this, my ego came back out and I thought, “Well, therein lies the flaw. The only reason this is working is because he!s selling stuff to people who want to learn how to make money and it!s not going to work with anything else.” So me (and my ego) voiced this opinion and sure enough, Kevin gave me a case study of someone using this in another market entirely: the dating market. It turns out there is a woman named Suzanne, in the UK, who teaches people how to date better. When she first started working with Kevin, out of five conversations with people here!s what happened: she didn!t convert any of the first three, the forth one she did £3,000 and the fifth she did £5,000. So £8,000 (which ended up being $15k in her first week of putting this together). And Kevin went on to show me how this method has been working for any market virtually—anywhere there is a market of people who feel passionately about getting a result. At this point, I became even more interested. Suffering from classic entrepreneurial ADD, however, rather than continue to pursue finding out about Kevin!s stuff, I woke up one day and decided I wanted to learn how to sell stuff from the stage better. So I bought a day of consulting from a lady here locally named Lisa Sasevich so she could teach me how to close from the stage. As we!re talking and I!m getting great value out of it, for some reason I decided to bring up Kevin. Lisa responded that not only does she know him, but she uses his stuff. When I asked what kind of conversion she was getting, she told me she was getting about 1 in 4—or a 25% conversion for a $10,000 program I think. For some reason, it was her conversion that got me to become obnoxiously interested in Kevin and realize I had basically run out of excuses not to really study this with an open mind. At that point I kind of became a Kevin Nations stalker. And because I!m a bit OCD and otherwise wacko, I!ve been able to take this process and also add some stuff to it and really distill it down to why it works. Essentially there are four steps, which I!ll cover in a moment. Now, this is only based on my personal experience so I can!t make a blanket statement, but if you follow these four steps, you should be able to close 1/3 of your leads on a multi-thousand dollar offer (multi-thousand being $5k to $12k—and we!ve even found that $8k is a little sweet spot).


So a piece of good news before I get into the four steps. It has to do with the letter on the cover (and enclosed as Appendix A in this newsletter). Kevin and I decided to teach this recently to a group of about 30 people as a test. To book those sessions, I wrote a letter that turned out to be the highest converting sales letter out of anything—any direct response, any direct mail thing—I!ve ever done. Even more than any video I!ve ever made. It resulted in 16.2% conversion of people actually paying. I sent it only out to 1,000 people and actually had a 30% response, but only 162 of them actually got through. (Being the Jenius I am, I mailed this on a Saturday and immediately left town so I didn!t check in, thinking I wouldn!t get that much response). Anyway, the letter was unbelievably effective so feel free to rip it off and apply the structure to your business if you see an opportunity to do so. Because if it worked for me, I don!t see why it wouldn!t work for you. Anyway, onto the four steps…

The 4-Step Incredibly Effective Conversion System We have sort of found this magic bullet—meaning what Kevin has discovered and that I have kind of turbo-charged.

It’s remarkable, in the sense that if you’re in the business of selling information, you can take what you would have normally sold for $400 or $500, or even $2,000 and reposition it and re-offer it in a manner that enables you to get $5,000 to $12,000 for the same information, often delivered in a manner that’s easier for you personally to fulfill.

Now first let me give you an advanced warning: None of these steps are particularly difficult but if you don’t do them, then it’s not going to work!

Step 1: Massive Transformational Value In order for this system to work, you must ensure that the outcome of the information you’re selling is that it provides Massive Transformational Value to the buyer. And let me define “outcome.” What I mean by this is the result your customer would get if they did everything you told them to do. The result they get when they take these actions needs to be of Massive Transformational Value. For example, if you have a system that can get people to no longer have a chemical addiction, and they follow your directions and it works, then this is providing Massive Transformational Value.


I mean, if you’ve got a person who’s a cokehead or their kid’s on drugs—they would do anything to eliminate their problem. So when you help them eliminate this problem, they experience a massive personal transformation in their lives and it’s very, very valuable. Another example would be if you knew how to generate extra patients for a cosmetic surgeon. If you can teach this person how to get ten extra patients a month, that’s of Massive Transformational Value to that surgeon because an average patient is worth around $50,000 to $100,000. You’re providing an extra half a million to a million dollars a month for that person’s business if they do everything you tell them to do. Now here’s an example of something that’s not transformational: recipes for how to be better at World of War Craft or how to train your dog or something. While these things can certainly be sold, it would extremely difficult, if not impossible, to sell them for a very high price point. This may be kind of obvious, but I want to put it out there because I don’t want anyone to go out half-cocked and try to sell “How to Beat Pac Man” for $8,000 or $10,000. I think you’d have a little bit of trouble doing that. Kevin has a great distinction about this. A lot of Internet Marketing focuses on selling three ways:

1. Based on Quantity (the amount of access, pages, # of CDs, or piling on bonuses) 2. Based on Complexity (teaching people to get over some extremely complex

issue) 3. Based on Status (or let’s face it, ego)

This new system doesn’t require you to use any of this old-school stuff. In other words, the communication of the Massive Transformational Value is not based on any of these other things. Instead, what’s important in communicating the value, is helping people understand the cost of staying where they are. For example, instead of telling somebody, “Hey, I’ve got this 4,000 page manual and 47 CDs, along with bonus interviews with the top 156 experts on breaking addictions,” it’s about getting people to associate to, “What’s it costing you to have your son be a meth addict? Well, I’ve got a simple program….” This is what needs to become the basis for you to sell you service—so they are comparing things to the transformational value of your service vs. having them compare things like no box vs. a big box.


1

In other words, what you’re selling is to help people understand how staying where they are is costing them far more than the few thousand dollars you’re wanting to charge them. So if you don’t have something of Massive Transformational Value to offer, then this whole thing falls apart. You can still make money (like I built up my dog training stuff and built it up to a million dollar a year business), but it’s just a lot harder.

Step 2: Four Filters of Market Selection This is going to be different from anything you!ve heard before because we just discovered it through reverse engineering. The old way of selling information—and this is a little bit hard, but it has worked—is to find an insanely passionate market. You find out what they want and then you give it to them. Here!s how the new way works: once you determine what it is you have (the Massive Transformational Value you have to offer), you find the market who is most likely going to be a good fit for this information. You do this by running that marketplace against four sets of criteria. These are very, very important and you won!t hear them from anybody else.

Are they likely to immediately recognize that what you have is of

Massive Transformational Value?

Here!s an example from one of my businesses. The business model was to sell pre-made, done-for-you websites and managed PPC campaigns to small businesses. In plain English, we build people a direct response website, get them on Adwords and handle it for them because they don!t have time to do it. So it!s about selling a service, not information. And the initial approach was to go after plumbers as the target market (I just pulled that out of the hat and figured they!d be good—not a good way to approach your market though, by the way!). And we had a hell of a time selling to these plumbers. We actually got about 70 accounts or so in our first month, which was okay. The average price we tested was between zero – $800 for the set-up fee and then $300 a month all the way up to $900 a month for the service. Yet, no price point really had any effect on anything.

Filter 1:

Recognition


2

So I was scratching my head, as I knew they wanted more customers and that the plumbing business is hurting across America. They were interested in what we had, but they just weren!t closing. Finally, after my office had called something like 35,000 plumbers, I asked one of the guys on staff to ask the next guy he talked to what his average customer was worth. It turns out, and I had everybody start to ask to validate it, the average plumbing customer is worth about $300 to $500. When you look at it from that perspective, the most we could bring to this guy is going to be ten customers at $500, which means $5,000 in a month. If you consider that the dude is literally wading through and dealing with sewage in order to earn the money, plus he!s got his overhead and all that to get it, he!s probably netting two grand out of the whole thing so it!s just not that exciting to him. It!s not that there!s no value there, but he doesn!t immediately recognize it as being of Massive Transformational Value. Now if we contrast that to another target market, which was chiropractors (which we later went after with much greater success), we see something remarkably different. We learned from research and discussion with the chiropractic market that the average annual value for one of their new patients is between $6,000 and $30,000. So when we switched markets, we didn!t change anything at all about what we were doing. The result (more customers) was the same, but in this market, it equals a revenue increase of $60,000 to $300,000 per month. When we presented our service to this market, they immediately recognized the value in it and our chances of conversation increased greatly. The lesson is that you must choose a market that is likely to immediately recognize the massive transformational value of what you!re selling.

Go after people who can not only afford your stuff, but who can

afford it on a no-brainer level.

I learned this one the hard way. Back to the plumbers vs chiropractors. The plumbers were anywhere between zero and 4800 dollars up front and then on average about $600 per month in PPC management fees. These customers net at the end of the day about $60,000 a year, give or take. So our stuff is costing $7,200 a year on average. That!s over 10% of their revenue.

Filter 2:

Affordability


3

They could afford it, but it wasn!t a no-brainer. If you look at chiropractors on the other hand, they make a lot more money—to the point where $600 a month just isn!t a big deal. As a matter of fact, one extra patient would on average pay for almost an entire year of the service, according to what they told us. I know you!ve heard me say before, “Don!t sell to broke people,” but we!ve taken it a step further in that not only do you not want to sell to broke people, but you only want to sell to people who can afford it easily and now.

Go after people who are likely to apply the stuff that you!re

selling.

Remember, people buy information because they want results on some level. Now some people just like the feeling of buying stuff and that!s great. But typically, they!re buying information because they want results. Put simply, they!re not buying your thing on how to break their crack habit because they want to keep being a crack head. They want to stop being a crack head. So you want to go after people who are likely to apply it for two reasons, which are really kind of diametrically opposed:

1. You want people who are likely to apply your stuff because when they do,

they get results. And when they get results, they!re more likely to buy more of your stuff.

If you sell awesome stuff to someone who!s not likely to apply it, it doesn!t matter how great your stuff is. They!re not going to get any results because they don!t apply it and there!s not anything you can do about that. It has literally no bearing on the quality of your information. Metaphorically, you!re just selling the exercise bike to the guy who!s going to put it in the closet.

2. On the other side of the equation, which is the more financially driven reason why you want to go after people who apply stuff—and this is what no one!s ever taught you before—is that when we make a major decision, we play a movie

in our mind of what!s going to happen after the decision is made.

It could be a major buying decision or a major life decision (like whether to get married or get a tattoo), and regardless of the situation, we play a movie of how it ends in our heads. Kind of like, “Okay I bought this and here!s what happens…”

Filter 3:

Application


So for the people who are unlikely to apply your stuff, often the movie they play is one that!s based almost entirely on hope. The movie is basically them sitting around thinking, “I hope this works. I hope finally I!ve found the thing that works. Dear God, let this finally be the magic thing because nothing else has worked.” They go forward to the end of the movie where they get your box of stuff (or whatever your product is) and when they open it up, it!s just like in Pulp Fiction when the glowing golden light comes out of it. Finally, they fast forward past the actual point of them applying anything to the end where they!ve made a million dollars and they!re driving off with the girl in the convertible and giving the finger to the person who made fun of them in high school. And while this is a very beautiful and attractive movie to them, they know in their heart of hearts that it!s a fantasy and it!s very, very unlikely. Many of them will still buy anyway because the pull towards that fantasy is so strong, but many of them will not. Now, if you flip over to someone who is likely to apply your stuff, they play a dramatically different movie. In this case, the movie isn!t one where they see themselves with the results. The movie these people are playing is that they envision themselves using the information you!re providing. Here!s an example from my own life. As you know, I!m a major fan, student of, and applier of teachings of mean ol! Dan Kennedy. When I get a sales letter for some new stuff by Dan Kennedy, the movie I play in my mind is “Okay, I!m going to apply this one strategy to this list of customers who have bought this from me and therefore are likely to respond to this. I!m going to apply this strategy to my affiliates and get them to do x, y, z.” I!m envisioning the results based on the actions.

Now, whenever you have someone in this group (people likely to apply your stuff), they are pre-selling themselves on your stuff before you ever say a word. Therefore, purely based on psychology, you!re infinitely more likely to convert them into a customer than you are someone who!s not likely to apply it. So now we!ve moved from the old school method of “okay, let!s just get a shitload of people and bomb them with messages” to a massively, intricately, targeted group of people who are more likely to buy.


4

Now this last criteria or filter is the proverbial icing on the cake and it!s married to number 1…

Select people who are the most likely to benefit most from your

stuff.

Going back to the business example, conceivably we could sell stuff to plumbers. And, when we did this, we got a worse than normal conversion rate, which was something like this: out of 36,000 calls, we reached 10,000 and gave sales pitches to only a small percentage of these. So we got about a 1-2% conversation rate, normal by most people!s standards, but low by ninja Internet Marketing standards. Then, we moved up to chiropractors as they met a lot of our criteria: they immediately recognized the transformational value, they could afford it, and they were likely to apply it because they are heavily invested in the success of their business. (They had to spend a gazillion dollars on chiropractic school, they had to buy back-cracking machines, they had to lease an office, and employ a staff of old ladies to make it happen). They want it to work, but if we apply the fourth filter, we could do even better in our market selection. In this case, when we asked who is most likely to benefit the most from this, we concluded the cosmetic surgeons meet the criteria even better. If our result is the same (about 10 more patients a month), then a cosmetic surgeon is making a whole lot more per patient than a chiropractor. The cosmetic surgeon is doing about $50-$100k for a good surgery patient. Therefore, the cosmetic surgeon is most likely to benefit the most from our stuff. So if you can apply all four filters—they recognize the value, they can afford it, they are likely to apply it, and they will benefit the most from it—you!ve got your perfect market drilled in super tight and these people are way more likely to buy your stuff at the expensive price point. Now a quick note: Nothing I!m talking about here requires you to go out and call 30,000 plumbers or 10,000 chiropractors! These examples just show you how we arrived there in this business and how you can differentiate the four filters—but what this new approach provides is a way to cut to the chase. So write down: “No calling 36,000 plumbers.”

Filter 4:

Benefit


Step 3: Lead Generation Back to the four steps. As a quick review: Step 1 is to make sure that what you!re selling is of massive transformational value. Step 2 is to make sure we!re selling to the right people (market selection). Now, step 3 is how you bring them to you, or lead generation. What!s great is this new model is a hell of a lot better than cold calling a gazillion plumbers. And it!s a major shift in the way leads are generated and the psychology of a lead. As an example, think about how we generate leads in a typical Internet Marketing launch. Typically what we do is go out to the market and say, “Hey, I!ve got some cool, free shit. It!s going to help you. Come on over and opt in and I!ll give it to you.” If you look at it even outside of the Internet Marketing world, that!s how a lot of direct response stuff works too, with the classic “Free Report Reveals X, Y, Z.” It!s been done forever and ever and we!ve seen it a zillion times. The people who taught it to me made a ton of money. The people who taught it to those dudes back in 1801 or whatever, made a ton of money. I!ve made a ton of money from lead generation using this exact model. And, the people I!ve taught it to have made a lot of money. So the most recent launch I did (and quite possibly the last launch in the old format because I!ve discovered this new model), was List Control. In that launch, I generated 86,000 leads and those are people who are now on my list. Nice people I!m sure—and the way I generated them of course was the ol! “Hey, you want to learn some cool free shit? Go over here and opt in!” Now the flaw in this system—and I!ll illustrate this in a moment—is this…

Key Point

Anytime you opt in and become someone!s prospect using that type of

psychology, you, your prospects and everyone on the planet unconsciously, or

even consciously, believes the whole offer to be a big bait and switch.


This doesn!t mean that people think you!re getting them to opt in and then you!re not going to give them any cool free stuff. They just know that there!s an ulterior motive so their defenses are up. In other words, unconsciously, or consciously, people are thinking, “Okay, this is cool, but I know there!s going to be a catch. He!s going to pitch me something.” This is entirely normal because people have been offering free reports, free content, and free consultations followed by a sales pitch since before any of us were born. So people know there!s going to be a bait and switch. Not in the sense that you!re not offering them things of value for free, but they know a sales pitch is coming. Because of this, their defenses are way up. And when their defenses are up, your conversions are down. Here!s an illustration. I!ve got arguably the best reputation (or close to it) in the Internet Marketing business. I!ve been very, very fortunate because I!ve somehow avoided major scandals since the dreaded FTC debacle, I!ve done my customers right, they like me and as a general rule I!m pretty highly respected in the industry. When I did List Control, I generated 86,000 leads. I sold 2,000 copies or 2,000 seats to List Control. Now this is $4 million gross and that!s okay, but from a conversion standpoint, this is about 3%, which is pretty unimpressive. The icing on the cake here is that I had everybody and their brother promoting me during this time, telling the marketplace I was the greatest person in the world, and offering bonuses to their customers if they would buy my stuff. So if you think about it, the math is even worse, because I only got 3% conversion and on top of that, I had to have every single major player and person of influence on the market singing my praises and bribing people to buy stuff from me. Yet somehow we!re conditioned to believe these are acceptable numbers and that they!re good. Again, I!m not saying launches don!t work. This launch generated $4 million in sales and we got to keep, after expenses and everything, more than a million bucks. So it works, but if you want a high conversion model for generating leads, you need to look at a new way to do this. This is another one of those: Write this down. This is revolutionary.


In order to generate a lead that is highly likely to convert on a big ticket item of Massive Transformational Value, you have to cause them to raise their hand and say the three magic words.

The three magic words are:

“I need help.”

If you can engineer the situation that someone comes to you saying, "I need help”—and this is obviously assuming you can help them and that you!ll treat them right—you!re way more likely to close. Here!s why. First, logically, you!d never ask someone for help unless you believed they could help you. So just the mere fact that you got someone to ask you for help is already causing them to believe you can help them, which gives you instant credibility and expertise. Not within the entire marketplace, only with the person who matters, which is the person sitting before you in a position to do business with you. Second, when someone asks you for help, they inherently trust you because our minds dictate that we would never ask someone for help who we don!t trust. When you can generate a lead not by bribing them with a free report or whatever, but instead by getting them to ask you for help, you set yourself up for a significantly higher chance of converting that prospect into a customer. There is a very simple, formulaic process for how to do this—two simple steps. Step 1: Understand the B.A.P. that faces the market:

You must understand the B.A.P. the market is facing. B.A.P. of course is a highly technical term, which stands for their “Big Ass Problem.” When you!re looking at your group of people who meet the four filters or criteria, all of them are going to have a common Big Ass Problem—the same problem your information or product solves. So in the case of the chiropractor industry, we determined that the single biggest problem they faced, the thing that keeps them up at night, is that they don!t have enough new patients.


They either fear they!re going to run out of new patients or they!re currently not generating enough new patients coming into their clinics. That!s their biggest problem. Step 2: Create a lead generation piece that follows a specific formula:

You need to create a lead generation piece such as a video, a direct mail sales letter, or whatever you want that follows this formula:

Part 1: Immediately shine a big, glaring spotlight on their big problem with the

goal of showing them that they!ve got a really big problem. Just pull it right to the front of their mind. It!s probably top of mind anyway,

but it!s like if you really sketched something out in detail and then someone brings up the very thing you!ve sketched out, they!ve got your attention.

So your goal here is to shine a huge spotlight on the severity of their problem. Part 2: Verify and validate the existence of that problem with third party

research data. Instead of switching into the classic, old-school method of selling stuff with

hype, verify and validate the existence of their problem with third party data. Here!s an example. When we approached the chiropractic market, I knew

their biggest problem was that they weren!t getting enough new patients. Then I needed to illustrate the severity of that problem with outside data. So I

did a bit of research and found a company called Biz Miner (this is of course after about 32 minutes of research I did using this new tool that!s out there called “Google.”).

Biz Miner published a report stating that 40.09% of all first year chiropractic

clinics go out of business every year. This is great because it validates the fact that this lack of patients is a very big

deal. Once I had the data, I called a list broker and said, “Hey man, how many

chiropractors are there out there?” He told me there were roughly 40,000. So I simply multiplied the number of chiropractors by 40.09% and came up

with this headline (I don!t remember the exact math but you get the idea): “14,953 Chiropractic Clinics Scheduled to Be Killed By Bad Economy in

2010.”


This kind of grabs the guy by his balls and now he!s freaked out. In this place, what does he want to do?

He wants to read more. His defenses are down and his curiosity is up. Now, the goal is to hit him with third party data. In this case, the first paragraph of my ad said, “According to independent third

party research company, Biz Miner, 40.09% of all first year chiropractic clinics go out of business every single year.”

Part 3: Twist the knife. So now we!ve identified the Big Ass Problem that keeps them up at night,

we!ve turned the spotlight on that problem, and then we validated the existence of that problem with third-party research.

Now it!s time to twist the knife to show them that their Big Ass Problem is

even bigger than they thought. In the example of my chiropractor ad, I explained that “it!s likely to get worse”

and I went on to explain how the economy is continuing to get worse. And, on top of it all, trusted, tried-and-true advertising methods no longer work.

Both of these are true statements. For starters, if you just watch the news, they!ll tell you the economy is getting

worse (and they!ll probably say that for the rest of time regardless of the state of the economy).

As far as trusted advertising methods no longer working, I know this from the

research I did. Most chiropractors use the Yellow Pages and all of about seven people still

actually read the Yellow Pages. I used this information to twist the knife. Part 4: Offer them the light at the end of the tunnel. Once you have people riled up about this huge problem that they know they

have, but they never knew how bad it was, it!s time to offer them the light at the end of the tunnel.

The light is where you reveal the solution to their Big Ass Problem and end

with your call to action.


In the case of the chiropractors, the light was “…but a free report reveals how some chiropractors are having their best year ever. If you would like a copy sent to you, please call 1-800-whatever for your free report.”

By following these four steps, you!re generating a lead. In Mass Control terms, you!re doing this by offering a Money Magnet—in this case the free report which reveals how to get new patients. The difference is this: The old school way would be to say, “Hey, come get your free report.” This gets people to ask for their report, but in doing so, their arms are crossed and their defenses are up. The new way says, “Hey, you!ve got a really big problem. Here!s proof that you!ve got a big problem and it!s really, friggin! serious. It!s a lot worse than you thought, but some people are overcoming it and here!s your report on how.” You!re still offering the same thing, but you framed it in such a way that now the person requesting the information from you is really looking to you for help. They immediately trust you a little more as well, which is great because it accelerates the selling process. Now onto the final step…

Step 4: The One-Hour, Zero-Pressure, Very Helpful Sales Conversation

Once you!ve generated leads by getting people to ask for help in a very ethical and compassionate way (a way that genuinely helps them instead of being based on hype), the last step is to have a one-hour, zero-pressure, very helpful sales conversation. This conversation can close 33% or better depending on your own individual results. And this conversation was developed by Kevin and it!s J-E-N-I-O-U-S. Typically in sales, when people have a conversation with a prospect, it!s done one of two ways: Either they give them tons of value and ask them to buy, or, they given them tons of information about what is to come and then ask them to buy. The problem is both those methods really shine a light on the wrong thing. It!s kind of like a triage scene where somebody is there and they got their leg cut off and rather than getting them to a hospital as quickly as possible, the medical person wants to start showing off all the features of the ambulance.


Instead, if they would just draw attention to what!s going on, or look at what!s going on, they would see that there!s a huge problem there. But many people who sell their stuff use a conversion process that is more about showing off the vehicle that you!re going to get the results in, instead of just getting right to what the actual results are going to be.

Key Point

The conversion process needs to be more about elimination (of the

non-cool stuff) than about the cool stuff they!re going to get.

For most of us, it!s so tempting to talk about our services, our coaching, or our expertise, but the problem is this only translates to people who share our unnatural attraction to those things. They are not in the general interest of most people. When you!ve done the job of highlighting their Big Ass Problem (and some of them may not have even realized how big their problem was until you shined the light on it), they!re ready to go to the hospital in just about any vehicle you provide. Here!s how it works… Once you help them understand just how big their problem is, you simply share, “You know what? I!ve got an idea….” You find out from them how much it!s costing them to stay right there and then give them an investment price that!s significantly higher than anything they!ve ever imagined paying, but it draws to their attention how serious they are about getting this Big Ass Problem fixed. Now you might be thinking, “it can!t be that simple.” But it is. And this is a total transition from the historical patterns people have used to garner this extreme amount of significance, where they!ve worked to put themselves up onto pedestals so they could be admired, appreciated, and adored enough to be purchased from—to instead creating massive relevance for your clients by being able to solve their biggest problems.

Parting Shot

So instead of spending tons of time and energy to build a big ass list, you can have a much smaller number of leads who are really qualified. And this has been a massive transformational shift for me personally in my business.


For starters, this whole test (starting with the letter on the front cover that I enclosed for you) has represented the most successful campaign I!ve ever done from a standpoint of dollars generated vs pieces of communication sent out. It wasn!t a multi-step campaign. Just 1,000 letters that generated 162 people giving $97 and asking for strategy sessions. And then we were able to perform about 70 strategy sessions, which generated roughly $216,000. Now before I go, I want to clarify that having a giant list is awesome and I!m not telling anyone to abandon all the list building stuff. But if you!ve ever been overwhelmed by the complexities that you perceive to be involved in building a huge list—things like finding affiliate partners to promote your stuff, getting landing pages and autoresponders set up, and figuring out a follow up sequence to sell people stuff—this is a laser-targeted way to approach things that can simplify the process. Remember my mantra has always been: It!s not the size of your list that matters.

It!s about the level of relationship you have with them.

That hasn!t changed. But if you follow this four-step formula by shining a spotlight on their Big Ass Problem and then solving it for them directly, you!ll likely have a much better result with much less effort. And if you listen to ol! Uncle Frankie, you can literally add a zero to your income, or an extra six figures a month, by really serving your marketplace. It!s about stepping up and creating Massive Transformational Value with the thing you feel passionate about. Of course, had I known this eleven years ago, we wouldn!t be having this conversation today because no one would know who I was and I would likely have made a lot more money without ever being on the radar. Now the old model has served me incredibly well and I am grateful for that. I just like this one better. Talk soon. P.S. Be sure to use the swipe file letter I enclosed. P.P.S. There!s a summary of all these steps on the next page for people like me who can!t remember a sequence of steps off the top of their heads…


1

2 3 4

2 1 3 4

The 4-Step Incredibly Effective Conversion System

Step 1: Massive Transformational Value

Step 2: Four Filters of Market Selection

Step 3: Lead Generation (a.k.a. “I need help!”)

Step 1: Understand the B.A.P.

that faces the market

Step 2: Create a lead generation

piece that follows a specific formula

Step 4: The One-Hour, Zero-Pressure,

Very Helpful Sales Conversation

Are they likely to

immediately recognize

that what you have is

of Massive

Transformational

Value?

Can they afford your

stuff on a no-brainer

level?

Are they likely to apply

the stuff you!re

selling?

Are they the people

most likely to benefit

most from your stuff?

Shine a big, glaring

spotlight on their big

problem to show

them that they!ve got a really big problem.

Verify and validate

the existence of that

problem with third party research data.

Twist the knife.

Offer them the

light at the end of the tunnel.


Documents

MASS CONTROL MONTHLY - Frank Kernfrankkern.com/frankkern/customerhub/mcm/MCM_Sept2010.pdf · Brendon Burchard. Now this seminar was marketed horribly because neither of us had time