THE QUESTION · The Question Authority Research Method | Copy Chief he Question Authority Research Method is a proven formula for asking the right questions of your client or your

QUESTION AUTHORITY RESEARCH METHOD

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The Question Authority Research Method | Copy Chief

he Question Authority Research Method is a proven formula for asking the right questions of your client or your business.

The focus here is on gathering every last piece of information, every last hidden gem, that can help you write kick-ass copy that sells.

Keep in mind as you go through the worksheet, this is all about you indulging in the process, indulging in yourself, indulging in your business. Seriously, dim the lights, light a few candles, crank up some Enya, and get into the questions.

When you sit down and start to think about how you want to approach your copy, be sure to remember the "five W's of selling".

This is the famous journalism five W's which ironically contains an H that nobody seems to mention: Who, What, When, Where, Why, and How.

Every article you've ever read, every new story you've ever listened to answers these questions because these are the things we need to know in order to feel satisfied with the information we've been given.

The Five W’s Of Selling…are a little bit different. They are:

Who? Who are you? Start with identity.

The same way you would if you walk into a room and you don’t know someone. Introduce yourself.

What?

What have you created for me? That's a crucial element.

Why?

Why did you create it? That's a big thing that gets overlooked and that's a question that's going on in your prospect's mind.

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Worth?

Worth the price and more. This is a big one.

If you don't sell yourself on the value of your product, your service, your offer, then you're going to encounter that awkward moment when somebody says, "How much?"

And you go, "Oh well." "It's this much." "Why is it that much?" Because of this.

You want to be able to very succinctly what we call, "Value build" in copywriting, just to post the value of your offer against things that are similar but cost more.

“Give up your Starbucks one day a week and…” I'm not talking about that.

I'm talking about making people understand that this is the deal of a lifetime, certainly the greatest deal we're going to encounter that day and not want to wait one more second to own it, to take advantage of it.

And, last but not least…

Where?

Where do I get it? Do I click a link at the bottom of the page?

Do I call a 1-800 number? What do I do now?

Once you’ve gone through this process, the only question on your prospect's mind should be, “I want this. Where do I go (Where do I click, where do I send) to get it?”

That’s it. The Five W’s of Selling.

These five questions cover the core essence of the entire sales argument.

If you are a business owner or a copywriter, this simple process will help bring you the clarity that you want and need when you dive into your sales letter.

Now, let’s get into each step with more detail.

This is deceptively simple.




Let's start with a personal story.

On the worksheet, there’s a lot of questions in this section because they don't always require long answers.

So, if you go off on a tear and you want to write your full childhood experience, your whole life story, do that, because this is not necessarily the writing that's going to see the final draft. You’re just getting the lead out here.

As far as polished writing goes, all pressure is removed. This is just you getting your story down on paper for yourself so that you can clearly define your sales argument.

Where are you from? What was your childhood like?

Find the magic in these answers. Whether you’re asking yourself these questions or you’re asking a client— these answers are where you can discover pure gold.

Consider your childhood, for a moment…

This is a perfect opportunity to remember what I call small moments.

For example, Your grandpa took you to your first major league baseball game. You'll never forget it. You know who played, the second you walked into the stadium and saw the field the first time, the smell of hot dogs and cotton candy in the air, everything.

That’s the stuff you write.




Because I'm telling you, when you start to fall in love with your own story, it's not that you have to tell that whole story in your sales letter, but those little pieces of you will transform onto the page, and that is what people really resonate with.

What is your current family structure? This is just something to help people get to know you. Are you a young single guy? Are you a family man? Do you have grandkids? That's a very distinct place to be, and any one who's a parent can remember that time in their life. Every little thing matters.

What do you do for fun? Outside of business, what's that conversation?

What makes you angry? That's a good one, because again we always want to frame the common enemy. Who's the common enemy? What makes you angry will probably relate to your prospect in the context of your sales letter. Really think that through.

If there isn't a force trying to keep you and your customers from experiencing the best they can have, that should make you angry and you should be able to articulate that anger.

What makes you laugh? What's the lighter side? How do you have a little fun? That's very important to share a laugh. What thoughts make you leap out of bed in the morning? This is a huge one, this is all about passion.

If your answer is nothing, then you realize right there it's time to come up with something, inspire something or fabricate something. I hate to say that, not that you're being dishonest, hopefully you have a lot of passion behind your product.

The personal story leads to the professional story.




After you’ve established who you are, the personal story of the individual, then it’s time to get into the professional story.

This is where you ask…

What is it that you do best? Now you start getting a little bit more of the stuff that might end up on the page. Once you've gone through this first exercise, you're really going to be in the flow. Name a skill that comes naturally. This is very important, because you want to position yourself as an expert and an authority in your field.

Name the skill that you've worked hard to develop.

Show your work. Let people see what you've done.

Dave Asprey, one of my clients from Bulletproof (Upgraded Self) says, "I've spent a half million dollars and 10 years of my life biohacking to get to the point where I could lose a 100-pounds, keep it off, and raise my IQ by 20 points." That’s a great example of something he’s worked hard to develop, and he’s showing you right there.

Name a skill you spend the rest of your life trying to master.

Once again, in the previous example, he’s talking about how he’s working to keep those 100-pounds of… he’s on a continual journey.

If you look at the structure of these three questions that you're answering for yourself, you're talking about what are you naturally good at, a skill that you've worked hard to develop (so you're showing the hero's journey here), and then a skill you'll spend the rest of your life trying to master.

That's like a rally cry.

It's probably the same problem that you're going to help people solve. Chances are they're sharing that struggle and you say, "Guess what? I'm not done here yet. I haven't perfected this."

Going back to the Dave Asprey example. He’s not saying, “I've got it perfected.”

He’s just saying, “I’m in this struggle with you and here's the 12 module training so you can do it too, you can make these improvements to your life.”

He's constantly creating new products and he's saying, "Come on this journey with me, because I'll never be done learning this stuff. But I will keep creating the best products and sharing what I learn to improve all of our lives.”




After this, you can get into your…

Credentials

This is a little bit more the black and white resume stuff.

But, be sure to make it personal somehow.

Your academic achievements, which are your background.

Your career experience, your life experience, your results.

This is a source of proof.

This is one of the things that you’ll start to see as you build out your credentials and you fill out this section.

You're going to draw on this when it comes time to prove that your product can help your clients.

You should never make a claim bigger than your proof.

This is one of the ways that you're going to be able to prove that you're the guy who knows what he's talking about and that you have the credentials to back that up.




What have you created?

Now we get into the nitty-gritty. Again, it's a journey to create your product.

First thing to do is how succinctly can you describe your product or service?

Then describe what it does and then describe how it's delivered.

Bring it to the now, but remember what you went through to create it.

Again, not everything here necessarily has to make the final page, but this is a chance for you to make sure that nothing got lost along the way.

You're not writing official copy here, yet. Let yourself off the hook. Some of it might make the page. Some of it might make it into the copy. If it does, great. If it doesn’t, that’s great too.

Imagine this is a demo. You're a singer in your bedroom with a little cassette recorder. You're not making an album, you're just making sure that you get it all down so that you can eventually make that hit record. Don't give yourself the pressure of feeling like you have to describe this in perfect terms. Don't edit. Don't waste a ton of time making sure that you've got it phrased just right. Keep digging.

Get the material that you need in the future here. What you're trying to do is create the source that you're going to use to write your copy. These are the bricks you use to build with, when it comes time to write, and build your sales letter. You may hit a point of velocity where you're not just writing and that feels great and run with that.




And just to be clear— if you’re not a business owner writing your own copy for a service or product that you sell— let’s say you’re a freelance copywriter and you’re working on some copy for a client— you can use the Question Authority Research Method as a questionnaire for them. You could send it to them. Or, if they’re a talker, you can get on Skype (or the phone) and record an interview. Just walk them through each question. Clients usually really enjoy this process as well.

This is where you need to become a reporter and be enthusiastic.

I always bring up the One Legged Golfer Story, that John Carlton always tells.

That story didn’t pop up until 45 minutes into an interview and the guy John was interviewing thought, “no one in the world ever needs to hear the story again… Everybody's heard it. It's not interesting.”

Luckily, John prodded at him and the guy said something about a one legged golfer. John's like, “Say what now?” From that little tidbit, John wrote one of the most famous headlines in copywriting history.

So yes, use this as a template to interview your prospect and then to have it transcribed. Add it to the information pile, in your research.

After the client fills it out and it’s in your pile and you have that information, then it’s time to get into a lot more research about the product, and about the market.

You need to go visit forums— see how people who represent your avatar are discussing their problems that this product might solve (this will help business owners as well)… Then you need to go back through this yourself.

Now it's your job to write in their voice. It's a great exercise to go through this.

And, when you sit down to write; all the answers to these questions, all that research, every last little forum post you read by XXH0tbunny$99XX about her obsession with Twilight, you’ve got that information stacked up in your subconscious.




This is a great test to see if you can answer these questions as a freelancer in the voice of your client, because it’s you who's going to write in their voice and represent them on the page.

It's really important that you mimic their voice in writing. You have to become Jim Carrey and mimic them perfectly as a writer.

One technique you can use is to record yourself, interview yourself.

Imagine that someone else is interviewing you and asking you these questions. Just speak it out.

A lot of times, people have trouble expressing themselves through their fingers but they don't have the same problem when it’s straight from their brain to out of their mouth. Suddenly it feels like copy.

This is especially true if you're a salesperson by trait whose come to copywriting.

You may tend to be able to pitch a little more fluently or confidently in just common conversation. If you get something that's great, you can pay a couple dollars to a transcriber, you can pay to have an automated transcription done at Scribie.com and there's a few others that you can use where you just send them an mp3 and they send you back a transcript written. You don't even have to type it out yourself.

A little tip, you might want to try going through this process just with a record button going and see what you come up with. You may be pleasantly surprised.

Another one is have somebody interview you. Give them the questions.

Sometimes it's easier to do it in conversation form and if it's somebody you trust who gets what you're up to, let them play the skeptical prospect and question you along the way. That's even more valuable. It's excellent.




Why did you create it?

This is critical.

Is this a passion project or is it more practical?

Does it fill an obvious gap in the market?

Does it solve a problem for you that you know many more people would like solved for themselves?

For example, with Copy Chief it's both of those things.

It’s very much a passion project and it also filled a very huge gap in the market that I saw. It also solves a problem for me that I know many others wanted solved.

If you can take all three those off, perfect, but if it's just one that's okay. It can be a practical answer. It might not even ever make the page. If you just did this because you're a marketer who saw a gap in the market, that's okay.

Now, it's answered for you and if you can put that in copy and say, "Look, you've probably experienced this problem too or maybe you didn't even notice it, but wouldn't it be great if there was this product or service to solve it?"

For this question, what it comes down to for your prospect is, how will this product improve my life? Now, it's all about them.




This is really the nitty-gritty of your offer.

This is so far as far as what ends up on the page, the most important question. These are the things that if you don't include, you're in trouble.

Copywriting 101: What's the problem it solves?

How does it solve it?

Describe it. Take me there. Help me understand.

I work a lot in the natural health field. I help promote supplements and there's a lot of science. My writing partner in those projects, Ben Johnson, is really good at the science part of it.

People ask me all the time, "What is that chemical doing?" I'm like, “…” I know what it does, but don't ask me how it works. I can't tell you in that way. But, Ben can.

You see, I know how it makes me feel because I test a lot of these things. I'm the visceral guy, but we need a science guy too. That’s how we describe the ‘how’ for our prospects in this case— How it makes me feel, and how it makes me feel the way I feel, scientifically speaking.

Always break "the how" down for your reader. It doesn’t matter if it's the simplest thing in the world or if it's deep science, write it out.

Why is it different or better than the competing products? That's a part of any good USP. Make sure that's understood.

Again, you don't always have to position your offer as the solution to what other people are delivering poorly, but just make them see why it's a better solution than some competing products.

One example again with Copy Chief is it's a private forum and that means is, it’s a safe place to come and be a member whereas Facebook, even if it's a closed group sometimes, you just don't know who's in there, you worry about security. That’s not an issue in Copy Chief.

So, really go through the list of what helps you standout from the competition.

This is where you also want to remember your small moments. Put the results of these moments in the reader's hand.

This is the puppy dog close. Describe it to me in a way that I feel an emotional connection to it.




This is your ah-hah moment.

You know, an example might be, “I’ll never forget, I was riding my bike. I was on mile three of a seven-mile ride and I was so overcome with clarity about what I needed to do next. I literally pulled over and hashed it out. I talked into my iPhone for 30 minutes before I could even ride on.”

Tell me the moment when it all came true for you.

Moving on, think of it this way, people don't buy books because they want the book. They buy a lazy Sunday afternoon in the hammock with an iced tea reading it.

They project and picture themselves into the future experience of enjoying the book. It's not like they're thinking, "Oh, I'm going to buy this book and automatically it's going to enter my brain and make me smarter.”

No, they imagine themselves reading it, then they imagine themselves in possession of the new information they got from the book.

Let's say it's a book on how to write advertisements on Facebook. "Oh man." They imagine themselves sitting there and making a Facebook ad and then money coming in and then things are going great and their business is doing well, and all these things extending from it that had nothing to do with how to write a good Facebook ad.

The small moments that put the result in the reader's hands are really about getting the reader to project himself into an imaginary future where he’s experiencing all the benefits that the product offers him and what their life is like in possession of that.

If, for example, you’re writing copy for an exercise program marketed to the Average Joe, you’re not selling heavy lifting and sore muscles, you’re selling six-pack abs.

That’s what he’s buying. Not the hours at the gym that it takes to get to that 6 pack…

He’s buying a version of himself that looks like he could be on the cover of Men’s Health. He’s imagining that. That 6 pack is just pure fantasy, but that's how we buy. We have to feel it, see it, hear it, and taste it.

It’s called future pacing— get them to think about how happy their lives are after they’ve bought your product.

We have to be there and feel it in our hands. It's the story that people tell themselves.

When you share your story, it's going to spark those details. It allows them to enter that space.




Features and Benefits: It has this, to provide this, which means this.

Let's talk about the price.

Is it worth it? It's worth the price and more.

Now we're talking about a lot of the stuff that will make it onto the page. And no pressure, you don't have to write this perfectly, not all of this needs to be on the page.

What is living without this costing the prospect? Money, time, opportunity, freedom, glory… Use your imagination here.

Show them how it works. Tell them why you created it, what problem it can solve for them, and how it’s helped others like them.

Then, have them consider what would it cost them if they decide not to have it today.

Settling for the inferior model is costing them, this is particularly applicable to tangible goods. Then add-on embarrassment. This is the ‘keeping up with the Jone’s complex.’




How much more money than the other thing is it going to cost you not to invest that much more into this better thing that I’m selling you. If somebody finds out they're using the inferior version, that says they don’t much value their own worth.

This starts the future pacing of their life without the benefits that your product has to offer— it gets them to thinking that if they don’t buy what you’re selling, they’re going to be embarrassed.

Like the example before, Our Average Joe imagines himself without the 6 pack ab product and he could be even worse off than he is now… He might imagine himself at the beach getting laughed at by a group of girls…

This is really high level, sneaky stuff. A lot of people teach you some of the surface level part of it, but that embarrassment is where the real writers live, the humiliation and the embarrassment.

Humiliation is one of the greatest words in all of marketing.

The financial benefit is what it’s worth. What's the tangible worth?

Don't just say, "It's easily worth a thousand dollars."

Say, "today it's only $199… It's worth a thousand. What would you do with the other $800?" Make it tangibly worth a thousand. Show them where they would go to spend that thousand dollars.

For instance, if you're selling a video series of workout program, say it's P90X, you could very realistically say, "To join a gym it cost you X, to hire a trainer in that gym would cost you X," and nobody's going to argue that because they could call up their gym and verify those prices even if they've never been inside of a gym.

It’s very real, it's a very tangible worth. You could say it's saving you $800 a month or whatever by working out at home instead.

The tangible long-term benefit is also emotional. Very much emotional but, it could also be practical.

The most practical sense would be, "it’s built better so it lasts longer. It's not only going to save you money over next month but over the next five years."

For instance, I'd put hurricane windows in my house and they're very quick to tell me that they would pay for themselves over the next three years or something.

That could be a long-term benefit, but of course when we talk about health and wellness, you're going to wake up three months from now feeling something.




Is it going to be 10 times better than you feel at this very moment or is it going to be 10 times worse, that kind of thing.

On tangibility…

This is where you can really lift from good storytellers.

I was reading a short story from George Martin of Game of Thrones and he was talking about a laser. It's a Sci-Fi story, a laser punched a hole in somebody's chest. That's vivid, but he added "punched a hole inside his chest that you could put your hand through." That’s immediate right there.

I don't want you to think that this has to lead you to a very specific place.

You could take out the formula we showed in the beginning, the five W’s, and make that your formula top to bottom. It doesn't include the headlines and all that stuff. I'll tell you what I could do is look at a sales letter and break it down in this context.

It would be pretty easy to chunk out a sales letter and go, "This is where they answered these questions well."

It probably wouldn't be top to bottom, linear. But, the point of making this an indefinite formula or template is that it's about the experience— the process.

Again, this is all about you indulging in this process to see what you come up with.

I don't like the idea of saying it should look like this when you're done, because it should look like whatever it is.

It's very private to you and it's getting that personal experience onto the page so that your prospect can feel it when they read your copy.




What does it cost?

This is a little bit practical.

Remember special offer pricing. If you haven't thought about a special offer, like for instance right now with Copy Chief, I sold it on a very special offer to start. Make sure people are aware of the special price and then frame it. That's very real scarcity that you can create.

What is the real scarcity?

For instance, the price of Copy Chief will go up on November 1st and then you have to back up at scarcity. 67 now will be $77 or $79 on November 1st. Real scarcity, you get to set that.

Don't ever use fake scarcity.

Everybody knows that there's not a limited supply of your digital E-book, but you could, for instance, add a bonus for a limited time, something that you don't want released on a large scale, but for the first action takers you're willing to give the special offer pricing scarcity and the price today is _____.

Make the price very obvious. Don't hide the price. Don't make people click through to see the price.

You want to control the momentum of the sales argument.




You want to first build the value. Make the logical case.

A lawyer doesn't come in and go, "Okay, look. I know you guys are busy here, the jury, everybody wants to go home. Here's the bottom line, he didn't do it. Okay, so are you ready to convict or not?” Same thing you're making in a sales argument is basically a legal case. You're making a case.

I think as marketers we've evolved past the idea of 7,000 bonuses.

Because what people have evolved into is, "Wow, this really must not be worth anything. This person wants me to justify the price with all these ridiculous bonuses."

Everybody's overwhelmed, incredibly overwhelmed with information. The last thing they want is 40 more things on their hard drive that they're going to feel guilty about not getting to.

Very rare is it more is more when it comes to your bonuses.

Make the bonuses relevant. They must stand alone on their value, as well as add value to the main product. That is huge.

Question your bonuses. Don't just put them in there gratuitously. That's going to kill your sale.

You can lose a lot of sales on the wrong bonuses.

You think, "Oh, they just look at it and go, "I just won’t to use that. It doesn't matter. It's a free bonus." Trust me, people will decide not to buy if your bonus is wrong.

You can take somebody right out of the trance you've put them in with the wrong bonus. Like, "I've already got that. I'm getting ripped off here. Everybody else is getting something new but I already have that free bonus. Now it's not as valuable to me as it is to them and I'm getting screwed."

You're like, "Wait a minute, but I'm giving a bonus for free." No, you're giving everybody else a bonus and you're telling this guy to go beat sand.




Place real value on each bonus.

It's also very easy to go see if it actually is for sale for $____ somewhere.

Why not make a page and offer that bonus as a standalone product for the value that you say it’s worth and sell it for the value that you’re claiming.

Don't just go make dummy pages like, "See, it says $12,000. Worth 12 grand, it's on the web. It's real." Because they're going to say, "Okay, how many of those have you sold for $12,000?”

And then you’ll have to say, "No one's really bought one yet but it's available for 12 grand." In other words, it's worth exactly zero.

That's what the feds will say in court. Not that that's ever going to happen to you, it's just simply you're trying to stay clean and staying on the right side of the law.

Just know that people are watching, people are paying attention, they see how you offer stuff, they see how legitimate your pricing is.

If you're in this game for the long haul, just be honest and do stuff right. Then sell every bonus.

Another big mistake people make with the bonuses is they don't sell them.

They just think, "Oh, I got a nice looking e-cover. I'm going to give it a cool name. I'm going to write one little line of copy."




Recap The Offer

Go look at Agora's promotions. Go look at Palm Beach letter. They do it right. This is from Michael Masterson, he's one of the best. The way he sells the bonuses, you go out and read pages for these bonuses, it's masterful. Recap the offer.

This is how Michael Masterson does it:

Okay, I know we've covered a lot of ground here. Let's recap everything you receive with your risk-free trial.

1. You’ll receive 12 monthly issues of The Palm Beach Letter, delivered on the first Thursday of every month

2. You’ll also receive A SECOND complimentary newsletter, Mark Ford’s Creating Wealth, delivered to you every few weeks

3. You’ll also get weekly updates and special announcements

4. Your special report on “The 770 Account,” which you should read immediately after you finish watching this video

5. Your special report on the best dividend stocks to own today, “The 552% Income Boost— The Dividend Diluvia”

6. You’ll also get your special report on how to use “The Banker’s Code” to make money 95% of the time in the markets

7. As well as the special report that shows you how to profit from “America’s Coming Oil Boom.”

This is all yours for only $39, a 60% discount off our regular price.

And of course, you’re covered by our full 365 day guarantee, which means that if you aren’t satisfied with anything you receive, you can ask for a full refund, no questions asked, anytime within the next year. Simply call or send an email.

I think that’s a pretty fair deal.




Okay, so here’s what I’d recommend you do next. I’ve included a special link at the bottom of this letter. This link lets you take advantage of our special offer today. When you click this link, you’ll be taken to a new page that again recaps everything you’ll receive with your risk-free subscription. Then, at the bottom of this page, you’ll see an option to pay for your subscription by using any standard credit card.

After you order, you’ll receive, within 2-3 minutes, all your free reports by email. You’ll also get directions on how to access our full archive of past Palm Beach Letter issues and Mark’s wealth essays. That way, you can start growing your money and investing wisely as early as today.

Mark Ford's Creating Wealth made me want to buy it just for that. That's how well that was sold.

You see, it just goes through in a line or two to remind you recap the offer. "This is all yours for $39, a 60% discount." It doesn't just assume you remember how much the discount is. He tells you. Of course you're covered by the guarantees. It's all right there. That is the pitch in a nutshell right there.

Once you've figured this stuff out, it's very easy to recap your offer.

I'll give you a hint. This exercise alone is a great way to see how tuned in with your offer you are, how well you know your offer.

Are you still vague on some points of it? Are you not sure of the bonuses? Are you not sure of the value? Have you not decided how much the price is and how much of a discount that is off the regular price?

If you can't write this part then it's time to do more work before you ever sit down to write copy, because otherwise you will be hitting your head against the keyboard.

This is the part when you make sure to do it right.

The results will be 10 times, 50 times, a 100 times better than those lazy guys who can't be bothered to put the extra work in here. The guys who literally think they can just type it out in one draft and mail the letter, or put it up online.

This is where it's important to have this process in mind, because you're coming down to a deadline and you're like, "Okay, I got the bulk of the sales letter done. Okay, here's my bonuses." That's when you get lazy. That's when you throw one sentence at it.

And that's why I don't think it's always the best thing to write linear top to bottom, because if you do, you hit those rough spots, which can happen a lot.




Either let it sit for a day and then come back to your bonuses or write the offer first. That's often a good way to start your letter.

So, how do I order?

First thing, be sure to give kindergarten simple ordering instructions. I can't emphasize this enough.

In a VSL, show them what it's going to look like. Describe the process, show the order page. When are you going to gain access? Instant access, you're going to get an e-mail and then access, how is this going down?

Delivery, how is it going to be delivered? Describe the process. Just like Michael Masterson, “I think that's a pretty fair deal. Okay, so here's what I'd recommend you do next. I've included a special link at the bottom of this letter.

This link let's you take advantage of our special offer today. When you click on this link and it's highlighted, you'll be taken to a new page that again recaps everything you receive with your risk free subscription.

Then at the bottom of this page, you'll see an option to pay for your subscription but using any standard credit card.

After you order, you'll receive within two to three minutes all your free reports by e-mail. You'll also get directions on how to access or full archive of the past Palm Beach Letter issues and Mark's Wealth essays. That way, you can start growing your money and investing it wisely as early as today.”

If you look at his last line. That is a, "Which means.”

In other words, You’ll get what you bought immediately, which means you can start growing your money.

Show them exactly how the purchase is going to go.

This way, every step of the way they're like, “That's exactly how she told me it was going to happen, this is just what I was expecting."

Then trust seals - it seems cheesy. It seems like no big deal, but the numbers don't lie.

You can't argue with the fact that you can get a 15, 20% lift over time by getting those dialed in right and placed properly, and the structure of your page, all those little factors, over the course of a year can be a 20% difference in your income. That's a lot of money.




Make sure you let them know their purchase is secure. This is where you would use a visual trigger, like the picture of a lock. People are trained to look for that lock, make sure that you take the time to show them that it's secure.

What if I don't like it?

This is when you show the guarantee.

If you don't like it, we have a 100% money back guarantee.

Guarantee boldly, test guarantees. Sometimes a one year or even a lifetime guarantee is better than a limited time guarantee.

We see this all the time with ClickBank. It's a standard 60-day guarantee. There's no way around that. It's how it works and a lot of people are trained to buy and mark their calendar for day 59 and then go cancel. That's always going to happen, but some theories are a one year guarantee, because people are much less likely to go mark their calendar, or if it's a lifetime guarantee, that's a nice way to show confidence in your product and people feel like, "All right. I can take my time checking it out. This person has my back."

Rob Jones, one of our good friends and a guy who got a lot of great help from our Copy Chief members here this month and over the last couple weeks with his dynamic VSL sales offer, offered a real bold guarantee. It was, "If you don't double your conversions or get X amount by this time, you get double the money back."

A lot of guys in sales will say, "Don't sell the refund." That's bullshit, because when you're in a store, there's a human element, but this is somebody buying off of words on a page or a video playing in their computer screen.

You've got to get them to trust you and the stronger, more bold your guarantee is and the more you define it clearly in their minds, the more likely they are to buy.

You’re saying to the customer, "you don't have to make up your mind next week or tomorrow. Grab it. Take your time. Take couple days to go through the stuff. Try it out. See if you like it. Then decide if this is for you or not.

I don't want a penny of your money unless you want me to have it. I'm absolutely here to work with you. I am here to make sure that this works for you.




If you're not happy, I'm going to do everything I can to make it work for you. I'm going to hold you by the hand. I'm going to look at the stuff that you're working on and I'm going to show you exactly where it's going wrong and if it still doesn't work, I'm going to give you every penny of your money back."

Then the guy's like, "Wow. I can't lose. Literally, there's no way I can lose."

That's what you want your guarantee to be like.

If he doesn't feel that way, you're not selling it, you're just throwing the guarantee symbol on it. Be passionate about it.

What would it feel like to give all that value and have somebody still decide it's not for them. Tell them it's okay, but don't make it flip. Like, "I'm hoping you'll forget.”

Be passionate about the guarantee. It shows confidence in your product and that confidence will make them feel confident to buy, and actually less likely to return.

Some of these guys put bullshit, hidden, conditional guarantees, like they want all the juju from the guarantee, but they want the escape valve, they want the out clause.

Like, “show me what you did, show me the product you used, show me how you used it, and by the way also your social security number and your wife's measurements. Then assuming that those fit into my guarantee requirements, I'll consider possibly thinking about in the future maybe giving you a partial refund.”

That's the catch with a very bold guarantee. In Rob’s case mentioned above, “Show me if it doesn't double your conversions.” They have to show some proof.

So while the guarantee is bold, it is still conditional. You’ve got to use the product. Then, if it doesn't double your conversions, here's your money. That makes sense but it's not like, "Hey, I just gave you a hundred bucks. Now, give me 200. Work it out. Make it happen.”

A lot of people misuse this kind of guarantee, because they make the conditions impossible. In Rob's case, he's just saying, "Hey. Show me the page where you did it."

What's cool about that is that Rob understands what happened if it didn't double somebody's conversions. He's actually happy to give somebody that money, not only lose the sale but give the person their money back because it's great research for him to understand, "Hmm, this is why it didn't work. In cases like this, maybe it's not effective. Here's ways I can improve the product.”

You see? That's the way to do it with integrity. To really mean it and make it easy for them to actually apply for that refund. The other ways are crappy.




Who Else Is Using It?

This is social proof. Testimonials. Use the testimonial story formula. It's basically the 60-second sales hook which is struggle, discovery, in this case experience, and then result.

A lot of times people will want to give you a testimonial because they just don't know what's right, they clam up. It's a good idea when somebody agrees to give you a testimonial to say, "Great. If you could just tell me what your life was like before you found the product, how you found it, what it was like to use the product and now, what life is like since you've used it.”

When you do that, suddenly they're like, "Oh yeah, definitely. I could tell you that story." Then you get this great dynamic testimonial out. Of course, always post the headline quote. We have some examples here. One of my clients, Adam Horwitz of Mobile Monopoly.

GOOD

BETTER

BEST




There's levels of quality for a great testimonial. The minimal thing is just the quote. “Using Kevin's copy we had over $1-million in sales over the first seven days. It's just been nuts.”

Next better would be a written testimonial with a photo, same quote and then you use the photo and the name of where it's from. Of course categorize the video.

You always still want to put your headline quote above the video. Then a lot of times, if people just see that there's a video, they might not watch it, but they could see, "It's obviously legit." They could back it up easily by clicking play and watching it and of course with audio, you could rip the audio and just use audio. Chances are if you have a video, you're going to use that.

Another great way to get a testimonial is to just get on the phone and just say, "Hey, could we get on a 10-minute call and just let me interview you about the product and your experience with it. Don't hold anything back. If it wasn't perfect, tell me that too, but I really want to hear your experience."

Some people are a little nervous about getting on camera, but they have no problem saying to you, telling you or giving you a recorded testimonial.

Don't neglect using audio with visual of a photograph of the person, because in many ways it contains almost the same in a power as a video.

I do this a lot where if I can't get video, I'll put a player up so that the little audio players underneath the photo that's basically the same dimension or size of what a video would be. I'll design a slide, right above the audio player so when they play it, it feels like it's a video, because there's the photo and there's the person talking.




You get almost the same effect that you're getting from the video, but the customer doesn't have to get on camera and feel weird about it.

Testimonials give life to your copy. Use them. Everywhere.

So, that’s the Question Authority Research Method.

If you go through this worksheet, indulge in the process, and have each question thoroughly answered, you’ll be locked and loaded to get into the actual writing portion of your sales letter…

I can’t stress how important this research step is.

The answers to these questions are the bricks of your sales letter, without them, you won’t be able to build much of anything.



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THE QUESTION · The Question Authority Research Method | Copy Chief he Question Authority Research Method is a proven formula for asking the right questions of your client or your