Posted on: 14 February, 2002
Author: Joe Sugarman
The Guinness Book of World Records listed Joe Girard as the "World's Greatest Retail ... for 12 ... years. He holds the singular ... of having sold an average of six cars a day o The Guinness Book of World Records listed Joe Girard as the "World's Greatest Retail Salesman" for 12 consecutive years. He holds the singular distinction of having sold an average of six cars a day over his career. Recently, Joe Girard told me: "Joe, I can sell in person to individuals in a personal way - infact, I can sell more cars per day than anyone else. Yet, Ican't do what you do -- you sell millions of products to massesof people through the sheer power of print." Salesmanship in Print When you look at it from Joe Girard's perspective, it's hard todeny the awesome power of writing good sales copy - which I call"salesmanship in print" -- a power that anyone can takeadvantage of. You don't need good looks, a charming personalityor even great intelligence. In fact, you don't even have topass English. This is why it baffles me when people desperately rack theirbrains trying to find ways to make money -- when the greatestopportunity is staring them right in the face. What's even moremystifying is that those very same people, when presented withingenious approaches to writing copy that sells, take the skillfor granted and don't use it to make personal fortunes forthemselves. Flunking English Not many people know this, but I almost flunked English back inhigh school. In addition, I don't know many big words, unlikethe rest of my advertising and marketing colleagues -- and mywriting style is quite unsophisticated to boot. Yet, by learningto incorporate into my sales copy all the things about how thehuman mind reacts to certain words and phrases that I've learnedover the years, I have made millions of dollars for myself. The most important lesson you must remember is this: If youlearn nothing else but the proper use of psychologicalprinciples in writing sales copy, you will always make moremoney than you'll ever need. The Million-Dollar Grapefruit Farmer If you're one of those people who believes that you're not agood enough writer -- and that you couldn't possibly learn towrite ad copy that sells -- I want to tell you the story of aman who attended one of my seminars. This man was a grapefruitfarmer who had never written sales copy prior to attending mycopywriting seminar. In fact, he expressed his doubts that hewould get anything at all from the copywriting lessons helearned. Yet, by the end of the seminar, he was able to writedirect mail copy to sell grapefruit by mail which, over a periodof ten years, has earned him millions of dollars. Success Leaves Clues For many years I specialized in "space-age" products, and myclaim to fame was in building and selling "the better mousetrap"-- from state-of-the art smoke detectors to chess computers tonew-fangled calculators -- and more recently -- to BluBlocker®sunglasses. But you don't need a space-age product to make a milliondollars. In fact, that is the downfall of most people who enterthe marketing field. They find a product, fall in love with it,and try to get the market to buy it. With an unproven product,you could lose a lot of money in the process. Instead what you should do is find a product that's alreadyselling well -- and use compelling copy to sell it better. Harmonize with the Marketplace One of the psychological principles I describe in my book,"Triggers," is simply this: Your product needs to harmonize withthe marketplace. Here's a tip that you would definitely find useful: When you'relooking for a product to sell, go to the library and flipthrough the back issues of magazines -- particularly thetabloids. Note those mail order ads that are running week afterweek, month after month. There's only one reason why those adskeep running -- they're making money. Those products arealready proven to sell well -- they've demonstrated that theyharmonize with the marketplace. Even if there are many companies that are already competing inthose product categories (example: weight loss, hairrestoration, and wrinkle products, etc.), don't worry. If youapply good copywriting guidelines, your marketing efforts willfare better than those who are making money, despite their poorsales copy. "Splish Splash I Was Takin' A Bath" Take a clue from Bobby Darin, a popular singer of the '50s.Darin was a young singer in New York who, for a long time, triedunsuccessfully to break into the music business. He would gofrom record company to record company trying to convince them tomake an album of him singing popular jazz oldies. He wasrejected. So one day, Darin sat down and wrote a song that fitted or"harmonized" with what the public was buying at the time. Whatwas popular at the time was good old rock and roll sung by blackartists -- it was called the Motown sound. The song he wrote was called "Splish Splash" and the wordsstarted out, "Splish splash, I was takin' a bath/ 'Round about aSaturday night." It had a good old Motown rock and roll sound --and it became a smash hit, selling millions of copies. Darin recognized what the market wanted, and he createdsomething that harmonized perfectly with the prevailing market. From his earnings, he himself produced a record in the music genre that he really loved -- popular jazz oldies. His song, "Mack the Knife" went on to become a multimillion-selling single and made Bobby Darin famous. To summarize, you must first have a product that harmonizes withyour market. If you haven't made a substantial amount of moneyfrom your marketing efforts yet, sell only products or servicesthat have a ready market -- this is the path of leastresistance. Afterwards, with the money you make, you can blazenew trails with other products of your own preference. Source: Free Articles from ArticlesFactory.com