Rainmaking Secrets

In Write to Sell: The Ultimate Guide to Great Writing, expert copywriter Andy Maslen provides a guide to the practice of great sales writing, not just theory.

In the chapter, Editing Your Work, Maslen answers the question, how many drafts do you need to go through before a great copy emerges? He defines “rewriting” as “zero-ing in on your target, using progressively sensitive tools.”

For a three-quarters decent attempt, Maslen aims for five drafts:

One Initial attempt, warts and all.

Two Broad assessment against plan.

Three Checks for structure and unnecessary sections, paragraphs, words.

Four Review for tone of voice, metaphors, fresh expressions, style, punctuation.

Five Printed out, spell-checked and proof-read.

And you need to be bold. Taking your first draft and tinkering around the edges isn’t enough. Here’s a table of tools you should use on your drafts:

Draft      Cutting Tool
1           Chainsaw
2           Hedge trimmer
3           Shears
4           Scissors
5           Scalpel

I love Maslen’s tool descriptions. It’s no wonder he is such a superb copywriter.

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A Tibetan Lama was speaking to a group of monks and to make a point, pulled out a large jar, set it on the table in front of him, produced a few fist-sized rocks, and placed them, one by one, into the jar.

When no more rocks would fit inside, he asked: “Is this jar full?” Everyone said: “Yes.” He reached under the table and pulled out a bucket of gravel, dumped some in and shook the jar, the gravels worked between the rocks. Again, he asked: “Is this jar full?” The monks were catching on. “Probably not,” one answered.

“Good!” he replied and reached under the table and brought out a bucket of sand. He dumped the sand into the jar until it filled all the crevices. Once more he asked: Is this jar full?”

“No!” the monks shouted. “Good!” he said and grabbed a pitcher of water and poured it until the jar was filled to the brim. Then he asked, “What is the point of this illustration?” One monk responded, “The point is, no matter how full your day you can always fit some more things in.”

“No,” the speaker replied, “the point is that if you don’t put the big rocks in first, you’ll never get them in at all.”

In other words, success starts with establishing priorities. If you are serious about achieving fast growth, the first priority is to start building your base of high-value Crown Jewel clients.

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I’ve spent most of my writing life trying to gain insight into what motivates people.

The most practical insights for me come from B. J. Fogg - the head of the Persuasive Technology Lab at Stanford University.

B. J. Fogg has designed a behaviour model for use with persuasive technologies such as Facebook or text messaging on mobile phones.

B. J. Fogg’s motivation framework has three core motivators, each with two sides:

1. Pleasure/Pain
2. Hope/Fear
3. Social Acceptance/Rejection

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Do you recognise the following lines of poetry?

To be or not to be, aye, there’s the point
To die, to, to sleep; is that all? Aye, all.
No, to sleep, to dream, aye marry, there it goes,
For in that dream of death, when we awake,
And borne before an everlasting judge,
From whence no passenger ever returned,
The undiscovered country, at whose sight
The happy smile, and the accursed damned…

Do any of the phrases sound familiar? Probably. Is this memorable writing? Probably not!

Yet, what you have just read is version one of a speech which some english professors call the greatest speech ever written in a play.

Now read the final version:

To be, or not be: that is the question:
Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And by opposing end them? To die: to sleep;
No more; and by a sleep to say we end
The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to, ’tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wish’d.

This is the speech immortalised by Shakespeare’s Hamlet. By contrast, the first version you read comes from an earlier version of the play known as the First Quarto, sometimes called ‘the bad quarto’.

Shakespeare knew that perfection takes time. Perfection comes from relentless attention to detail. If your first draft of any persuasive message doesn’t flow or ring true, or lacks punch: keep revising until the message sings.

The effort will be worth it.

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In Under the Radar: Talking to today’s cynical consumer, authors Jonathon Bond and Richard Kirshenbaum argue:

Persuasive marketing should be invisible, with the consumer feeling the benefit rather than having to uncomfortably digest its overt mesage… The real threat [to the advertiser] is the consumers’ mntal machine guns, their very own personal defense departments that can shoot down messages at any given point.

And there are only a handful of techniques that are sophisticated enough to act as stealth bombers, dropping new messages behind the wall - escaping detection by consumers’ ever present radar!

I disagree. The smart marketeers I work with are using information from neuro-scientists, psychologists and brain imaging to regain the advantage they have traditionally held in the battle for customers.

The insights into how and why customers buy is revolutionising the way companies shape and deliver their messages.

The research is showing that much of what we believe about why people buy is wrong.

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Whenever I feel I am being too pushy with a prospect or client, I think of a Ralph McTell song.

The song is called Sweet Mystery.  It’s about a young man, desperate to make the right impression on his first date:

“One of these days I’m going to do it right,
Take her out to dine by candlelight,
Rent a suit and give my shoes a shine,
Talk about nothing over a glass or two of expensive wine.
One of these days I’m going to do it right,
Get to her door and just say goodnight,
Even if she asks me to come in,
I’ll make myself say ‘no’ so I can call again.”

The young man has learnt from past mistakes: he is thinking long term.

This is unlike the standard advice so many salespeople receive from their managers: “Remember the ABCs of selling - Always Be Closing.”

If ABC is bad advice, then when should you close?

While most customers won’t say “I’m ready to buy – it’s time for you to close the sale,” they will indicate with their body language and words that they are receptive to closure.

If the customer body language is positive, i.e. – they’re making eye contact, sitting forward, and displaying an open body posture with legs apart, then their body is saying ‘yes.’

If the customer is using words such as “when could you install our machine” or “can you guarantee completion of the job in the next eight weeks,” now is the time to close.

You can confirm a prospect’s readiness to buy by stating: “We seem to have covered everything you asked for. Do you have any remaining concerns?” If they do express any remaining concerns, treat this as an objection. Answer the objection and then move on to the closure.

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In his book The Language Instict, Steven Pinker makes the point that humans are so innately hardwired for language that they can no more supress their ability to learn and use language than they can suppress the instinct to pull a hand back from a hot surface. We are remarkably sophisticated when it comes to distinguishing words that persuade and words that repel.

Imagine asking someone out on a date by saying:

I hereby request your attendance at a film or other comparable activity in a public social setting as arranged by mutual agreement. Should the request be granted, I will accept financial liability for the evening’s activities to the amount of a reasonable sum that would normally be incurred during such activities. The purpose of the proposed social activity is to ascertain mutual compatibility for further social interactions and possible sexual activity, as mutually agreed upon by both parties. If the request is granted, neither party is under any obligation to engage in further social interactions, nor to engage in sexual activity at the conclusion of the proposed social activity.

What are the odds of someone accepting this proposal? Very low I suggest.

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In Islands of Profit in a Sea of Red Ink, Jonathan Byrnes shows 40% of most business is unprofitable. Byrnes argues that before businesses start costly new initiatives they should look at way of extracting more profits from the 40% of customers who lose money.

Byrnes shows you don’t need to engage in costly activity-based costing to discover the roots of most losses. Most of the unprofitable and marginal business can be turned around using a few selective techniques.

We agree we have embraced Byrnes thinking and developed a 7-step process which we call The Customer Pyramid Forensic Analysis Process. Here is an overview.

The Customer Pyramid Forensic Analysis Process:

Step 1: Construct a profitability database using representative sets of transactions.

Step 2: Project the impact of changing your account and product/service mix.

Step 3: Develop a profitability profile for representative groups of customers.

Step 4: Identify the key profit levers that will make the business profitable.

Step 5: Project your findings onto the whole of the business.

Step 6: Create an action plan.

Step 7: Refine the sales strategy and offer that you take goes to the market.

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Business is dominated by Pareto. The 80/20 rule has become a management mindset.

However, our research suggests the Pareto mindset is getting in the way of sound business judgement. Even worse, it results in businesses tolerating what should be intolerable levels of unprofitably in their customer base.

Let me explain, when you segment a customer base by fees the Pareto principle invariably holds true 20% of the customers generate 80% of the fees.

Yet, when you analyse profits, Pareto no longer applies.

As Kaplan and Anderson showed in their insightful 2007 book, Time Based Activity Costing.

• The most profitable 20% of customers generate 150-300% of total profits.

• The middle 70% of customers are breakeven

• The least profitable 10% can lose 50-200% of total profits.

In short, business tolerate high levels of unprofitability.

In his book Islands of Profits in a Sea of Red Ink, MIT lecturer Jonathan Byrnes explains why companies tolerate sucj high levels of what he calls “embedded unprofitability.”

Byrnes claims:

• The 20% to 30% of the business that is  superprofitable masks the problem.

• Finance and management control information is not structured to surface the problem or opportunity areas.

• Even if all departments make budget, a company can still be 30-40% unprofitable.

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David Burrus is one of the world’s leading forecasters, corporate strategists and visionaries. Over the last decade he has established a reputation based on his exceptional record of predicting the future of technological change.

In his new book, Flash Foresight: How to see the invisible and do the impossible, he shows readers how to understand and take advantage of the accelerating pace of technological transformation.

Burrus reminds us technological change has been driven and accelerated by what he calls the Three Digital Accelerators.

Digital Accelerator 1: Processing Power

Way back in 1965, Gordon Moore observed that the number of transistors on an integrated circuit seems to be doubling about every twenty-four months. His, then tiny, company was called Intel and his observation came to be known as Moore’s Law.

Moore’s Law says computer processing power doubles every eighteen months.

Digital Accelerator 2: Bandwidth

The second digital accelerator is the growth of bandwidth - that is the amount of information that can travel over a given bandwidth.

Burrus tells us, “Digital bandwidth increases at an even faster rate than the accelerated growth of digital processing power.”

Today, bandwidth is superfast - and it is continuing to accelerate.

Digital Accelerator 3: Storage

Yet, as processing power and bandwidth climb at ever increasing rates, it’s the increase in our tools capacity to store all the information from that increasing processing and bandwidth is going through an even steeper, more dramatically escalating curve.

Today data storage is virtually unlimited - and so cheap it’s virtually free.

How will these three digital accelerators impact on your business? Will they make your current business model obsolete?

If you want to make sense of how technology is transforming the business world, read Daniel Burrus’Flash Foresight: How to see the invisible and do the impossible (Harper Collins, 2011).

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