Article by Charlie Wright

On Wednesday I talked about why some business gurus like to show off their big houses and exotic holiday homes.

Today I want to address the second big moan I get about biz opps:

‘These sales pitch emails are so long. They tell you absolutely nothing, but go on and on about ‘secrets’ and ‘Aston Martins’ and dream homes. Can’t we have it told straight for once?’

I admit. This can be irritating if you read a lot of sales promotions. But the reason behind this is possibly the most important marketing secret you’ll ever learn.

I’ll explain what it is, and how you can use it to make a success of any online business…

The first ever sales pitch

It was hundreds of thousands of years ago that homo sapiens discovered the sales pitch.

Here’s what happened…

Thag the Elder was hungry. So he decided to swap an old mammoth tusk for some steak.

He called on his neighbour, Ug, and said: ‘I’ll give you this tusk if you give me some meat.’

Ug said, ‘No ta, mate. I don’t need any tusks.”

Thag returned to his cave with his tusk, and had a good think. It was an early stage in the brain’s evolution, so this took him a whole day. But he eventually realised he’d have to take a different tack.

The next afternoon, we called on his other neighbour, Fnurr.

‘You won’t believe what happened to me,’ said Thag.

‘What?’ said Fnurr, interested enough to stop painting his cave.

‘Well,’ said Thag, ‘I’m going mad with all the attention I’m getting from cave women these days. And it’s all because of this tusk.’

‘Really?’ said Fnurr. ‘What’s so special about it?’

‘I’m glad you asked,’ said Thag. ‘It’s an interesting story. If you’ve got 5 minutes to spare, I’ll tell you. But you’ve got to be prepared for some heavy attention from women at the end of all this.’

‘Oh, I’m prepared alright,’ said Fnurr. ‘Tell me EVERYTHING.’

So Thag told the tale about the mammoth he killed, and how the tusk brought him great fortune… and how women flocked to see it… and how classy it made his cave look… and how powerful he looked when he held it .. and how he couldn’t take the female attention any more… and how he was prepared to pass it on if someone could make him an offer.

‘What do you want?’ gasped Fnurr. ‘Name your price.’

Minutes later, Thag returned to his cave with enough meat for a month, while Fnurr was the proud owner of a massive bone.
And that was the birth of the sales pitch.

(Thag would later sell Fnurr the blueprint for something called ‘the wheel. Fnurr sent it back 3 weeks later for a refund. ‘I just don’t see any use for it,’ he said.)

None of this is true. But you see what I mean, right?

If you went up to somebody and said, ‘I have 10 trading CD-ROMS that teach you how to be a trader,’ you’re not likely to get much of a response.

‘No thanks, not today,’ is most likely.

If you walk into a pub and shout out: ‘Who needs some trading secrets?’ you won’t see many hands shooting up either.

But go to someone and say, ‘You’ll never guess what… I’ve discovered a way of following the professionals in and out of the market… and making good money from it.’

People will want to know more. You’re not lying, you’re presenting the same promise in two different ways.
You could equally walk into a pub and shout, ‘Who wants to get rich?’

Now you might see some arms go up.

This is why sales promotions don’t get straight to the point. The ‘point’ is just a bunch of features that nobody thinks they need.
For instance, you could start a sales pitch for a trading system with:

“Order this trading system now – it shows you how to trade on Forex, has a 355 page manual, 7 CD ROMS and comes in a nice red colour.”

But nobody would buy it. They’d ask, “But what can I expect to achieve with this? What will I gain? What’s the secret? Why invest in something like this above all else?”

This is why a good sales pitch starts with the benefits. It’s basic human psychology. We want to know what’s in it for us before we listen to the pitch.

Why this is useful to know

I wanted to explain this to you for two reasons.

Firstly, it will give an awareness of why biz opps are sold in such a long winded way, and why they spend so much time telling stories and painting mental pictures before they hit you with what the product is.

Secondly, if you have any kind of online business… if you’re just starting one up, or you’re trying to make one work… then this is absolutely VITAL.

The secret to selling ANYTHING, whether it’s a book, an email service, an affiliate deal or an MLM downline…. is to work out what a customer really craves, deep down.

It could be money, success, fame, love, security, attention, pride… a whole range of desires.

You have to show them how your product fulfils one or more of these desires.

Remember, you are a tiny fish in a large sea

Every day people are swamped with sales messages. They see them in the morning papers… billboard ads… the radio… TV… emails… websites.

By the time your potential customer is eating lunch, they’ve seen and heard hundreds of sales pitches.

Most of them they’ve ignored, or filed away in their subconscious.

So why on earth should they stop and listen to YOU?

Why should they trust you? Why should they take time out of their busy day to read your promotion and then send you money?

The answer is…

Because you take a little longer to ‘sell’ the benefits of your product or service. Because YOU have a story to tell. Because you make a big promise about how you’ll help them improve their life. And because you’ve sold the benefits of your product first.

THAT is why sales pitches are so long and annoying: the method works. Not all the time on everyone, but enough times on the right kind of person.

So now you know!