I had the distinct pleasure of being on a teleconference last evening where PB was the guest. What a delightful young man he is. I especially enjoyed hearing him affirm so much of what he wrote in his books, The Well-Fed Writer and The Well-fed Writer: Back for Seconds.
One of the most important points of the call, for me, however was hearing him say that you don’t have to write those long sales letters to be a commercial writer! It was as though a really great weight lifted off of my shoulders when he said that because I just don’t want to write them.
I can write them.
I just don’t want to. My reasonings are purely personal but writing is personal so I was having a great deal of difficulty getting past this. Now, thanks to Peter (I do hope he doesn’t get offended by older women getting personal), I don’t have to worry about those things.
You might be wondering about now what my reason is for disliking them. That’s easy. I think they are overkill and pure hype. I’m totally suspicious of them and disbelieve 90% of what I read in them. In the reamining 10% I experience frustration over the droning.
I don’t like sales pitches that run on and on and on when what I want to know is the bottom line: price. For several reasons price is important. Priced too high and I will need you to justify yourself, and trust me when I say I’m a hard sell and your justification isn’t going to be simply reiteration of the same things in different ways 7 times. You also need to know I’m not impressed with centered bolding or color boxes (aka Johnson boxes). in fact, you’d get further with me if you took time to design a pull quote or sidebar than use the same formatting that men’s hair loss or penile dysfunction uses to pitch their snake oil. High pricing will make me read but you need more than cheap hype to get me to buy.
Are you getting the picture here? Presentation really does matter.
Low pricing, however, will just make me suspicious and I won’t even bother reading. So, by all means, price it up but don’t either wait until the very end or worse, make me press “Order Now!” to see what it costs. Give it to me straight and right up front. See, the bottom line is this .. no matter what you use to justify your price, if it’s too high for me it’s too high. All the little extras that supposedly give overwhelmingly great value to the main product for the price aren’t what I am buying and if I can’t afford it without the extras they won’t make it more affordable because you include them.
I’m so glad I don’t have to do this .. but I can if I want to. I would just rather write you good copy that sells how you or your product helps someone with their lives, products, business. Ultimately isn’t that what you want to sell anyway .. your service and its benefit to someone else?
Thanks Peter for letting me take myself off of that sales letter hook—I was wriggling so much there that I had my collar so twisted it was threatening to strangle me.
Next on the agenda is trying to write the copy that markets me in a way I’m proud. I can’t think of anything harder to write about than myself and Illuminated Designs. I love promoting other people and I enjoy presenting them in the very best light I can find to shine on them. I just wish it was as easy to do the same for myself but .. it isn’t.
:)
