by Roy Varner
The online model for sales pages is an all-out onslaught of page-after-page hard sell…followed by a sequence of upgrade offers, on and on for 20-30 pages or more.
Don’t know about you, but I get super tired of being hammered that way.
What appeals to me is somebody being real about what’s challenging me. I respond when the speaker is somebody I could have a conversation with, who would respect my time and care about solving my challenge that he/she knows how to fix.
What 3 coaches comes to mind when you think about someone who is consistently living real? Think about what makes them special to you.
To get through the millions of competing messages online, we have to stand out from the crowd of hawksters. The best way is to have honest conversations that push people’s hot buttons in a deep way to make a real connection with them.
And the best road to connect initially with your Ideal Prospects is video.
Smart phones have evened the playing field by giving everybody a worldwide stage to make videos. Today 80% of ads now involve video in some way, way up from two years ago, and most buyers are using their mobile phones to watch the videos.
So promoting your brand and programs online needs to be primarily videos and live presentations. The kind of message you deliver will speak volumes to people urgently trying to find a trustworthy, experienced guide to help them eliminate their main pain in life.
You probably know that getting people to buy your products and services involves Trust, Credibility, and Authority.
We trust people when they (1) clearly understand what we’re going through, (2) even went through it themselves, (3) but figured out a solution, and even (4) used it to help lots of people eliminate the same pain. (Never underestimate the power of this “hero’s story” cycle to gain trust.)
We find people credible when they show an understanding of our challenge, lay out a few accomplishments that (if true) make them an expert, and when their manner to talking to us feels believable.
We accept their authority when they talk like they know what they’re doing, and we hear from clients who have experienced a transformation of some kind and results we’d love to experience ourselves.
But exactly how do we string together our live presentations and recorded videos in such a way that our ideal customers believe they can trust us as the credible authority regarding their problem?
Here’s an outline of what works for me and many others too as a compelling logical and emotional flow that persuades.
1 – Make it all about your ideal customers, not about you. Too many videos start with “Hi, I’m so and so, famous expert, and I’ve written 10 books on…” – whoa, it’s not about you if you want to grab their attention and stop them from surfing onward.
Start with your hook — the most urgent issue that’s plaguing them. You have 3-5 seconds of their attention to connect, or they’ll scroll onward.
2 – Use their actual words and phrases to describe the urgent issue so they’ll resonate with you.
We use words that mean something to us. When we hear another person use the same words, there’s an instant connection of kindred spirits. Makes us feel like the other person really understands our problem.
Note: You find those words from questions and responses by your ideal customers…by posting a question on social media sites…and even faster, call 20-25 prospects and ask them about their problems. The “hyper-responsive” people who have lots to say on the subject will give you the words you need (according to Ryan Levesque, the quiz and survey expert, and author of the books “Ask” and “Choose”).
3 – Heighten their present emotional feelings by listing a few painful results they’re experiencing.
Reliving negative feelings heightens their sense of urgency to find a solution.
In your research, you’ll discover most major pains or problems have about 3-5 sub-problems, or segments. Not sleeping well manifests itself in being hard to go to sleep, waking up during the night, not getting deep REM, waking up sluggish, etc. Give a quick example of each of your Ideal Customer’s common pain points that add up to the overall challenge. Everyone will react to at least one of these triggers, and maybe to all.
4 – Tell your “hero story” to convince them you really understand and can solve the pain.
You might think you need to come across as the perfect guru who never makes mistakes. The opposite is the case.
People want to know you’re human and lived through the same problem, so you can understand their pain. They also want to hear you found a solution and went on to help others. Now they’re connected to you as the hopeful solution to their pain.
Write your brief “hero story” this way: a brief self-confession of your similar problem and pain…how your broke through with a solution…how you’ve used it to help many others…and now you can help the viewer/reader.
5 – Share results-based testimonies by their peers that talk results, and not just how nice you are etc.
First, there’s nothing better than a third-person confirmation of the results you promised.
Second, the testimony must be transformative – i.e., quick statement of the great results of your solution that changed the person’s life (can’t be how much they like you, looking forward to seeing the videos, etc. that are not convincing). Get them on video!
At this point, with your induced sense of urgency for solution, they will tend to believe the results are achievable for them too.
6 – Say you have the solution, so just click here (call to action).
Don’t explain the solution, just say you’ve packaged it into an easy and effective program.
Then clearly state your “call to action” (CTA). Major funnel guru Russell Brunson tells the story of his early presentations that sold nothing, until someone told him you have to directly and clearly call for action at the end. He had nothing but wild success from then on.
That 6-step formula is exactly what I teach in my programs and workshops on high-conversion sales videos. Each step logically and emotionally leads to the next, until the call to click a button to go check out and buy your program is the no-brainer, obvious next step.
This exact flow appeals psychologically to how the human mind wants to hear information. The same steps in the same order have always worked, and will always work. You can’t go wrong with it.
So keep it real, my friend, by focusing on what your ideal prospect needs to hear, in the right order, to urgently want your solution to a compelling problem.
by Roy Varner
We’ve all experienced it many, many times online.
Another “shiny object” online info course gets us all excited.
Surely this is the answer to financial freedom and a wonderful life!!!
Quickly, however, we’re overwhelmed by the core-dump of info and endless talking-face videos that we’re sent home to wade through and somehow learn on our own.
Yet actually very little of it gets done…materials get put into folders and filed…and our good intentions notwithstanding, we find ourselves falling back into the same thinking and behavior as before the course.
Why didn’t all those “magic” formulas and “insider secrets” get cloned in us so we could be rich and famous like the big gurus?
I’ve taken a handful of those expensive information programs, on recommendation by friends.
After many months in each and no real progress, one top coach confessed to me that 97% of customers buying those expensive programs never finish them nor get the expected results.
That means only 3% (the natural self-starters) make money and thrive from the experience.
What???
That’s right. Online information-only programs will not get 97% of us that new mindset and the ability to thrive personally and financially.
Information and rah-rah motivation are not enough to change the way people think and behave.
That’s because of centuries of human conditioning that protects us from the trauma of change.
Think about your daily life.
You probably shop at the same stores and gas stations…
Use the same doctor and dentist…
Eat at a few favorite restaurants…
In other words, yes, we’re creatures of habit, because it’s comfortable and non-threatening. It works for us without hassle.
Scientists call it inertia – “The property of matter by which it retains its state of rest or its velocity along a straight line so long as it is not acted upon by an external force.” (Dictionary.com)
In a nutshell, blame our lives up to this point on the human psyche’s tenacious resistance to change.
Actually, as the definition shows, inertia works as two completely opposite versions of the same idea, like the dual personalities of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde:
- Bad Inertia: The tendency to remain stationary, immoveable, like a huge bolder hunkered down in the ground…and
- Good Inertia: The momentum of staying in motion in the same direction, at constant speed, like a spacecraft boring through empty, frictionless space.
In both cases, it’s maintaining the status quo hoping no external force will come along to force change.
That concept is also referred to as staying in your comfort zone.
Everyone has a small set of habitual actions we’re comfortable with.
Trying something new and uncertain outside that zone (“scary” to your psyche) triggers trauma warnings and a knee-jerk pull back to safety.
Tiny problem: no meaningful change occurs inside that habitual zone.
Only when we try out something challenging and try to embrace it as our new thinking and behavior do we actually change results.
Let’s bring the ship back to earth, land next to the rock, and see how good and bad inertia affect your life, and your business.
Question #1: What major goals or projects have you been working on for your business growth that are stuck in the ground and going nowhere, like the big boulder?
If everything’s wonderful and the bank account overflowing, then have a nice day!
If not, know that every entrepreneur gets overwhelmed and stuck.
The more important the challenges, the more inertia sets in.
Most of us are urgently needing help to get the momentum going for more conversions and greater cash flow.
We need a repeatable system to attract only our ideal customers, the ones that really need what we have to offer and will become our loyal tribe members.
The best step to that system is to create your signature sales video.
Since 80% of online ads are now using video…
…and 75% of all purchases are by cell phone…
…mastering persuasive video that works both on computers and cell phone formats is a must for growing your business.
So what’s keeping you from getting your ideal message out there on video?
- Afraid to perform on camera and risk looking less than professional?
- Unsure of who your ideal customers are and how to get their attention?
- Convinced you’re not a persuasive sales script writer?
- Convinced pro video has to be expensive and very time consuming?
- Just don’t know the process well enough?
You’ve probably heard that humans react to trauma or fear in one of three ways: fight…flight…or freeze.
Most of us simply freeze and procrastinate…put off any decision.
It’s so much easier to just do nothing when all the barriers to moving forward are scary and outside our comfort zones.
Be honest with yourself:
- How much time do I spend planning and overanalyzing, trying to figure out what to do, what to say, and how to get it all done?
- How little time am I therefore spending in action, actually doing the direct steps that lead to accomplishment?
- How can I escape my mind’s tenacious resistance to change and take chances outside of my comfort zone?
The answer is from the definition of “inertia” — to apply that missing external force to get you unstuck and moving frictionless in the right direction.
Which leads us to…
QUESTION #2: What critical goals or projects do you need shifted from getting nowhere treading water in the planning stage, to massive momentum forward?
You can’t jump to a higher performance level with the thinking and behavior that got you where you are.
“Definition of insanity: doing the same thing over and over again, and still expecting different results each time.” (Attributed to Albert Einstein and others)
The good inertia we seek is the systematic and continuous moving forward that produces the great results and leads to our financial freedom.
The only way is to be willing to…
- Dump limiting assumptions about yourself,
- Let go of bad habits that protect those old assumptions from change, and
- Call for intervention – an outside force that can free you from stuck in the zone to embracing a higher mindset of momentum.
I’m talking about a coach who can guide you personally, step by step over time, to build your self-confidence and skills to that higher level.
A coach with proven video experience can help you quickly master how to convert prospects into ideal customers and maintain strong cash flow over time.
With regular coach help, you can create smart 1- to 2-minute, high-converting sales videos that…
- Hook your ideal prospects’ attention with one simple question,
- Rev up emotions for a sense of urgency to stop the pain,
- Establish trust in your authority and credentials through your “hero” story,
- Excite with transformational peer testimonials, and
- Make it a no-brainer to click your call-to-action button to check out and buy your solutions to their problems.
Accept the reality of everyone’s resistance to change, including your own.
Eliminate the frustrating burden of having to self-study your way out of stuck.
Find your video coach to launch the momentum of powerful video to increase conversions and get momentum with your cash flow.
Rejoice that your inertial shift from stuck to soaring is ready for you when you are.
