When I was eight years old, I won a school basketball-shooting contest.

I was only 45 inches tall at the time, so this was probably my greatest life achievement. I defeated every basketballesque girl in my K-8 school with my peculiar shooting method.

Apparently, I’m pretty good at shooting baskets, but only if I do it underhanded.

And, because I was eight years old, this was allowed. Although most of my competitors shot overhanded, there wasn’t a rule that I had to. Besides, I didn’t have the upper-body strength to do it that way.

So, I just shot in the way that came easiest for me.

As it turned out, I made more baskets than the tallest 8th grade girls at my school, and was subsequently selected to play in the district championships. It was so easy. I didn’t understand why everyone else didn’t shoot underhanded. It was a basketball shooting contest. Why not?

I have to say, it felt good to win. Especially after I’d failed to get that final gold star in gymnastics for never managing the left splits. But I can’t say I didn’t feel a twinge–just a twinge–of guilt. My way was so easy, and everyone else was doing it the hard way.

There’s actually a marketing-related point here, I swear.

I have learned to entertain the idea that just because something is easy, and everyone else is doing it the hard way, doesn’t mean I can’t do it the easy way, when I want to.

In fact, sometimes the easy way makes an even bigger difference than the hard way.

Let’s call it the Underhanded Basketball Theorum of Marketing.

Is it cheating because it’s easy?
(How to get your customers to write your copy for you.)

For example, say everyone else has data points and proof points, but you don’t because your business isn’t yet full-grown. Kind of embarrassing. But don’t go home yet.

Here’s the Underhanded Basketball Marketing shortcut, excellent for anyone on a tight budget:

Before you write your copy, ask your customers what they think about what you’ve done for them.

Get them to help you make the basket. Yes, it can feel uncomfortable to have these conversations directly. “So, tell me more about how great I am.” Awkward! That’s why I have my virtual assistant Robin do the honors. If I didn’t have Robin, I’d probably find a graphic designer and swap services, with each interviewing the other’s clients. (Email me at kp [at] copylicious [dot] com to get a good list of testimonial questions.)

Here’s why asking customers first is a good idea:

1. It’s super easy. You don’t have to be creative or to conduct endless market studies. Just sit back and let them talk.
2. It’s a great way to develop your messaging, your positioning, and even your copy. (Use some of their words and phrases verbatim to give your copy that homey target-audience feel.) If you’re developing a new program, you can write out the details and ask your clients or target audience for their objections. Why wouldn’t they want this? What would it take for them to say yes?

Example: I got my landing page in shape by “cheating”–asking my target audience what they thought. Their feedback helped me to strengthen my offer, and reminded me that I’ll never know as much as my target audience about what matters to them. Sometimes feedback feels like cold water in the face, but that’s also why you’ll like it. You’ll always learn something valuable–always. And, it’s free. I always remind myself that getting feedback now ups the chances I’ll make more of a difference later.

A couple tips to help you make this work for you:

• Pick one target audience. You can’t win with everyone unless you have a billion dollars. Even then, you’d only win by crafting a different message for every possible segment.
• Ask for their reaction. Don’t just send an email asking how they like it.
• Ask them to be specific in their responses. What about the copy or the message makes them feel that way? I’ll share my super-secret checklist for asking for feedback in next week’s blog post.

Hope this inspires you to let the 6-foot-tall Don Drapers of the world sit in their offices pulling lonely all-nighters and magically producing gleaming slogans in the nick of time. Be an underhanded basketball star every once in a while. It’s not cheating just because it’s easy!

I’m a big, happy, anal-retentive, Excel-spreadsheet-loving, egg-timer-running believer in measuring stuff.

And by stuff, I mean:

• Revenue
• Profits
• Marketing efforts, including both time and money spent. (If you hear an egg timer beeping in the background, that would be me. The best system I’ve found for analyzing time is right here. It’s called Freckle and I dare you not to fall in love with it.)
• Email open rates and clickthrough rates.

Without measuring, there’s no way to know what’s working so we can tweak.

But sometimes measuring can feel like a dictator.

Take revenue, for instance.
Is revenue really the most reliable picture of whether your business is succeeding?

Relying too much on revenue is like standing at the counter spooning peanut butter into your mouth right from the jar.

It can’t be good for you in the long run–even though it feels really good at the time.

Be Not Like eBay, the Company That Had Had WAY Too Many Spoonfuls of Rich, Creamy Peanut Buttery Quarterly Numbers.

eBay is a great example of how rigid adherence to the bottom line can have dastardly effects.

A New York times Sunday Magazine article from October 2008 spelled out in excruciating detail how the company kept insisting on following profits rather than taking a chance on innovation.

According to the article:

“EBay has known for years that some Web buyers were looking for a different experience. Surveys suggested that auction participants were alienated by untrustworthy sellers and hidden shipping fees, and increasingly preferred the certainty of instantly buying items at a fixed price. Although eBay executives recognized and routinely acknowledged the problem, they never took bold, direct steps to address it.”

Speaking about the push to invest in digital media like Amazon and Napster a former eBay executive was anonymously quoted as saying:

‘Nobody really shut it down. The process shut it down. The company was obsessed with making quarterly numbers.’

In contrast, it was Amazon’s ‘willingness to be misunderstood,’ its ‘long-term orientation,’ and its ‘willingness to repeatedly fail,’ in the words of Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, that ultimately helped it become wildly successful.

Obviously, we need revenue.

But revenue is merely a symptom of a thriving business.
Not the entire goal.

Revenue should be weighed alongside a host of other variables.
And maybe a strict return on investment shouldn’t always be the key consideration.

If professional services are really about relationships, we need to measure cumulative effects over time.
We need to measure qualitative stuff, too.

And that takes patience.

What if you stopped making revenue your number one goal, and added some bread and some strawberry jam, and maybe a tall glass of milk?

How would you measure the success of your business? Here are a few of mine:

• Is your website speaking to your favorite clients? How do they respond to what you have to say?
• How many projects or tasks are you able to delegate to other members of your team instead of handling everything yourself?
• How well are you setting limits and maintaining a regular schedule with no unexpected, rush jobs?
• How many weekends do you spend not working?
• What percent of your clients are repeat clients?
• What percent of your clients are ideal clients?
• What percent of your clients are buying packages so you’re not reinventing the wheel with every project?
• What’s your profit? How much money are you keeping?
• How well are you documenting systems and processes so you’re not wasting time on repeatable tasks?
• What percent of your proposals are accepted?
• What kinds of results are you getting for your clients, and what are they saying about it?
• What percent of your clients are coming from referrals?

Okay, I showed you mine. What are yours?

Image via Apryl Duncan at About.com.

When I posted about going on a marketing diet a couple weeks ago, Lorraine didn’t see how that would help her business.

“I’d be out of work within weeks, homeless–and my eldest son would have to come home in shame from his semester in Berlin,” she wrote in the comments. “I know–Attitude of Scarcity. But I’ve been freelancing through a few economic cycles.”

And she’s absolutely right.

No one wants their business to starve by stopping all marketing altogether.

Some businesses don’t need to go on marketing diets.

But other businesses need to slim down. Like, a LOT. You know them. They’re ones who email you all the time, pitching you something without ever offering anything in return. They’re the ones who would really benefit from a marketing diet.

And by benefit, I mean they could increase their revenues by reducing their marketing communications. Not just by reducing the number of their communications, but also by changing the kinds of communications they send out.

As Lorraine writes: “The truth: I don’t do mass mailings, just try to stay in touch, stay credible and yes, prove I ‘provide value.’”

Exactly. For some reason, that’s not really a common practice amongst companies. I think it’s a problem of them having too much money and not having to really think about what really works.

Hence, the need for a marketing diet.

Here’s a real-world example of a company that needs to go on a marketing diet.

I’m not naming names. But let’s just say I’m absolutely in LOVE with their product—and I’m their ideal prospect who hasn’t yet made the leap to buy.

I subscribed to their newsletter a few weeks ago, and now they send me a semi-daily email on some kind of sale they’re having.

The copy is adorable, but it’s basically a sales email.

So, I’m getting a sales email from this company every other day.
Even though I subscribed to their newsletter. And not to sales emails. (Paging Seth Godin.)

None of these sales emails is ever going to make me buy from them.

Even though I really want to buy. And tell all my friends about them.

Why not? Because price isn’t the reason I haven’t bought in the first place.

If I was ready to buy, I would have bought already. A sale isn’t going to make me flip the switch.
Instead, I’m mulling over practical concerns like whether I’d really be able to use it enough, if I could lift it up the stairs every day, and what I would do if I needed to use it after dark.

What would be some better ways for them to encourage me to buy?

Here are a few things they could do instead:

• Create a 7-part, 30-day email tour with helpful tips on how to actually use the product to get benefits or solve problems.
• Include success stories about people who are using their products in the real world.
• Start a referral program to get people who already love their stuff telling their friends about it, and reward them with cash or some other incentive.

Doing these things would help them engage the right customers.

It would help prospects like me imagine ourselves actually using the product, and it would help overcome our objections as we read about how people just like us had transitioned to the new and better way of doing things.

Marketing without taking the time to build customer trust is like overeating without lifting weights.

If you take time to build your business muscles, the extra food turns to muscle, not fat.

When you let your marketing build muscles—instead of always trying to stuff sales into your mouth—your business will look a lot more enticing to your ideal prospects in the end. Mmmmm, don’t you just love that new-client smell?

Image by malias via Flickr, used under a Creative Commons license.

I applied this technique to get out of 2 traffic tickets and, most recently, to grow my business.

You can, too. This post walks you through how to do both.

What do your prospects have in common with that police officer who pulled you over?

Like the police officer, your prospects are looking to solve problems.
The police officer, of course, equates you WITH the problem.

Both prospects and your customers hope you’ll be easy to deal with, and won’t shoot them.

You can convince them to give you a chance using the assumptive close.

“But that sounds manipulative!”

The assumptive close is much more than a manipulative cold-calling tactic like the well-worn, “So, would you prefer Wednesday or Thursday?”

The manipulative assumptive close happens when you’re recommending something despite what might be best for the prospect/police officer.

The authentic assumptive close means meeting the prospect where they are. You understand their problems, feel their pain, and want them to do what would be best for them. You truly believe you can help them. There’s no difference between outside and inside. I can haz integrity?

How to use the assumptive close to get out of your next ticket—or to attract your next prospect with your website.

Step 1: The police lights are flashing behind you. The voice of God is instructing you to pull over.

A prospect (or a police officer) has found you. Congratulations! No matter the outcome, right now they’re interested and engaged. So, you pull over. Now what?

Step 2: If it’s dark, immediately turn on your overhead light.

What officers want most is to feel safe. They don’t want to have to be on guard.
Make them feel like good guys by showing them you’re a good guy–or gal.
Turn on your overhead light.
It’s secret police language for, “I understand you’re wary, but I’ve got nothing to hide.”

Like cops, your prospects WANT to be reassured. Make it easy for them to see you. Here’s how:

• Let your website show YOU. Don’t hide behind some overly professional, corporate tone.
• Give clean navigation with the least number of buttons and options possible. Your prospects should not feel confused or uncertain.
• Don’t start off your home page with a bunch of “Are you this?” and “Are you that?” yes-or-no questions. It’s scary and invasive. Instead, ask open-ended questions like “How” or “What happens when?” You want to invite them to see the possibilities, to show them you feel their pain without putting them on the spot.

Step 2: Put your hands on the wheel.

When it comes to your website, putting your hands on the wheel means:

• Not forcing them to fill out a popup box before they know what you’re all about
• Not asking them too many questions on the home page
• Not trying to close the sale immediately with a premature call to action. Give them enough helpful information so they can make a decision at their own pace.

Step 3: When the officer approaches your window, roll it down and smile in a relaxed way (because you ARE relaxed).

Believe you are getting out of this ticket. There’s nothing to fear here, no need to overjustify.
Be quiet and listen.

On your website, think of your About page as that window rolling down and you smiling out.
It’s usually the first page people click on—before your Services or your Approach pages.

Being relaxed means letting yourself shine through, and not hiding behind a bunch of credentials.

Assume the prospect already believes you’re qualified. You don’t have to try so hard by listing out every possible way in which you are qualified; instead, you start with what they care about, and why you care so much about what they care about.

As an example, here are two About pages I wrote for clients.
Notice how each About page starts off by talking about the prospect, and not about the company:

• http://newrelic.com/about
• http://benzcommunications.com/aboutus

Step 4: Show the police officer your Peace Corps ID (or WHATEVER you’ve got).

OK, I admit it. I never used to have my drivers license or proof of insurance on me. But, a few years ago, I DID have my Peace Corps ID. So, I dug around a bit and produced it.

“Where’s Guinea?” said the officer.
“West Africa.”
“What did you eat over there?”
“Bush rat stew. And lots of rice and sauce.”
“Well, you’re going to have to slow down. And maybe hire a professional organizer. Your car is a mess.”
“I know, I will.”

The end. I was on my way.

When you apply the assumptive close, you actually enjoy the process of “selling,” because you can relax, detach yourself from the outcome, and just focus on making it easy and safe for them.

Try it. See what happens.

Image by eflon via Flickr, used under a Creative Commons license.

Bob Bly prefers to drink his coffee back in his wood-paneled executive home office, but Merlin Mann insisted they have a real breakfast with fresh orange juice, fried chicken, and waffles. Bob is indulging Merlin, but he’s just itching to get back to work.

They’re having another one of their non-argument arguments, where no one is talking and yet a great deal is said by the way one asks for the syrup and the other passes it. Bob Bly is reading the Wall Street Journal, and Merlin Mann is making up limericks. He likes limericks.

They’ve been having this argument for a while now, here in my head’s dinette. I just can’t tolerate another unpleasant breakfast, so I’ve decided to air things out. Here’s what they have to say for themselves.

The World According to Bob Bly

Bob Bly says, “Write more, sell more.”

He wrote the book on it. It’s a good book. I read it back in 2002, and still think about it today.

Bob Bly’s worldview, as represented in engineer-friendly, bullet-point fashion:

• Apply nalgas to chair: the proven formula for inspiration.
• Get wife to bring meals to home office.
• Write more to sell more. Don’t kill yourself trying to perfect every word.
• Stick to a schedule and discipline yourself to achieve success. At every moment, ask yourself, “What’s the most important thing I could be doing right now?”
• Work more by cutting out everything that isn’t billable. Outsource so you can work more and earn more. Don’t do anything yourself unless it’s billable or could bring you business.

The World According to Merlin Mann

The Merlin Mann in my head says, “Write less, say more.”

He wrote a blog post on it. It was such a good post that I invited Merlin Mann over for breakfast with Bob Bly, and they’ve been living together as The Odd Couple ever since.

Merlin Mann’s worldview, as interpreted by me: Don’t be a webcock. Protect your time. And if you’re going to Tweet, post, or write, have something inspirational, meaningful, or wildly entertaining to say.

So, after listening to these two go at it every morning over breakfast, and after giving the Bly Worldview several good tries, I’m thinking of marrying them–to each other.

The Odd-Couple-Get-Married Worldview:

• Go running and tramp before applying nalgas to chair. It’s much more fun than willpower–and effective, too.
• Have breakfast by the window, at an actual breakfast table.
• Take out my own trash and do my own dishes and laundry. Yay, chores!
• Every once in a while, take a pointless, unbillable WALK with my dog.
• Follow own internal schedule. Do things when I have the energy to do them—while still meeting deadlines, of course. See Productive Flourishing’s awesome heatmap.
• Be as kind to myself as I would be to others. If I feel like stopping for the day, stop.
• Work less by focusing on the really important stuff. Accomplish more because I’m working on projects that FEED energy instead of projects that TAKE it away.

Maybe the “write more, sell more” model’s time has passed.

If everyone is writing and marketing as fast as they can, does everyone really need to market more, sell more?

Is it possible that it’s actually market LESS, sell MORE?

When I think about the businesses I LOVE, they don’t send too many marketing emails.

They do less “marketing” marketing—and more Fried-Chicken-and-Waffles Marketing.

Hanging out, being of use. People like Andy Wibbels, Mark Silver, Daphne Gray Grant, and the Communicatrix market less, but I’m positive they sell more. I recommend them with more passion than an affiliate–and the return I get is knowing I’ve linked another person to their awesomeness.

They’re just that helpful.

3 questions for your consideration over breakfast:

1. What would happen if you put your business on a Marketing Diet?
2. Do you think your business would improve if you sent out FEWER messages, and made each message count?
3. Have you actually TRIED this, and how did it work?

Image by inuyaki.com via Flickr, used under a Creative Commons license.

How do you come up with good ideas on deadline, all day, every day?

It’s not just about keeping your Creative Fun Fountain spraying.

It’s also about managing stress and fear so you CAN feel creative. Since it’s physiologically impossible to be creative and afraid at the same time, getting creative means finding ways to cope with fear and stress.

I think I’ve discovered the closest thing to a miracle cure–and am starting a 30-day experiment to see how it works.

It’s difficult to measure my “before.” How do you count your good ideas and compare them with your bad ones? So, instead, I can only report the way I feel now. And, at the end of 30 days, I can report back. How creative did I feel? What kinds of connections did my brain make? Any epiphanies I’d care to share with the class?

Remember the gigantic trampolines we all loved as kids?

I grew up with what you might call a healthy exposure to them.

• I took gymnastics throughout elementary school, where we practiced our tumbles on a gigantic trampoline every day.
  
• Whenever my parents were at work, I’d pile up all the couch cushions and do running aerial somersaults off my mini-trampoline.
• The first short story I ever wrote–at age 5–involved a cherry doing somersaults over a goat.
• In 4th grade, I wrote an essay about my favorite present ever, which was–you guessed it–a mini-trampoline.
• I frequently dream about flying.
• I would have become a trapeze artist, but I was always terrible at gymnastics.

These days, I spend most of my time in a chair, reading small type on a computer screen, living and making my living in my head.

I love writing just a wee bit more than I love trampolines, so it’s worked out okay.

But what would happen to my head if my body started moving?

I’m not talking about just exercise. I’ve been running and lifting weights since junior high. I’m talking about the kind of movement where you lose control of your body for a few moments, until gravity takes over and brings you back down.

I’m talking about furious Tiggeresque bouncin’.

I’m talking about trampolines!

Astronauts swear by them. And, well, I just bought one. As usual, inspiration came by way of my dear friend Havi Brooks, who recently wrote about her business-altering experience with a trampoline.

My new trampoline feels like the gigantic trampolines I used to have as a kid, only smaller. Small enough to fit nicely into my studio apartment. It gives me a soft, incredibly bouncy bounce–with my head just inches from hitting the ceiling. Possibility of serious injury in my own apartment? I like this!

So, my experiment attempts to measure the following:

What happens when I substitute tramping for my usual 10-minute break activities? For 30 days in a row?

Instead of the internet, instead of Twitter, instead of making myself a snack: I will tramp.

TRAMP TRAMP TRAMP TRAMP out the blues. Tramp out the reds. Tramp out the yellows, the oranges. Just tramp it out.

I have to say, after just three days of tramping, I feel pretty amazing.
I can’t put it down to exercise, because I’ve been exercising already.

There’s something going on at a cellular level.

Oddly, the trampoline both calms and elates me. I’ve only had 6 hours of sleep for three nights in a row and I feel fine. That’s unusual for me.

I’m curious what happens after a few days of these endorphin rushes.
Will I need more and more time on the trampoline just to feel normal again?

And, what happens if, in addition to tramping every day, I’m also:

• Practicing 10 minutes of Shiva Nata daily (also courtesy Havi Brooks). This is the epiphany-generating dance-like thingy that I have YET to really stick with. OK, I’m ready for my epiphany now.
• Writing on a Moleskin with a pen, because I like it. Although writing on paper is slower than writing on a computer, my theory is that because I enjoy it, I’ll get better business benefits by having better ideas, which leads to more revenue. Since I don’t bill by the hour, it doesn’t really matter how long it takes. When I get good ideas, everyone wins.

For a long time now, I’ve put off doing enjoyable things because they weren’t business-related.

Now, I’m finding a business purpose in the enjoyable.

Delight, joy, humor, pleasure. These things that don’t require discipline are somehow minimized.

But maybe we’re tired of doing things we’re supposed to want to do.

Maybe we just want to do the things we WANT to.

And maybe–just maybe–the business purpose is even greater there?

And, if everyone is enjoying life a little bit more, does it really matter?

Want to start your own 30-day experiment?

Or, want to test drive a trampoline? Show some comment love and I’ll point you in the right direction.

If you want to traumatize someone for years, here’s one way to do it.

Fire them from an $8-an-hour customer service job. As you’re giving them their papers, murmur these five little words with heartbreaking sadness:

“You’re just not Starbucks material.”

This didn’t happen to me, but hearing about it made my skin crawl. Who says stuff like that? Mean people, that’s who.

What happened to the guy who heard these awful words, you ask?
Some people would have slowly transformed into the guy you see on the left.

Not this guy. He went on to become a neuroscientist.

Turns out, they were right. He wasn’t Starbucks material after all.

He was lucky.

How do you keep your marketing emails from getting rejected and becoming balloon-sculptors in Seattle?

Getting in front of the right prospects is the best strategy. Prospects who already see you as THEIR material.

It’s the He’s-Just-Not-That-Into-You Factor. Should you really be all that upset when you weren’t all that into him, either?

In business as in life, you want to match up in ways deeper than just “solution meets problem.”

Second, you want to write a subject line that’s subject-line material.

A subject line prospects deem relevant to them. (And write an email that’s relevant and useful, too.)

The right subject lines targeted at the right people have special powers. You can soar over gatekeepers’ heads and smack dab into your prospects’ windshields. But in a very charming way. (Twitter and LinkedIn are great for this kind of thing, as long as you follow the rules.)

There’s magic in the right subject line.

The magic happens during that split-second between when someone reads the subject line and when they open the email. Together, you’re creating a story. You’ve provided the hint of what’s to come, but they’re still filling in the empty parts themselves. This moment of hopeful expectancy is almost like being pregnant. Yes, you’ve gotten your prospects pregnant. And, by opening the email, they’re ready to have your baby. OMG, congratulations!!!!

Remember the old Zig Ziglar sales trick?

You ask your prospect a question they’re sure to answer affirmatively, just to get them into the habit of saying yes?

By getting them to open the email, the right subject line gets prospects to say that little “yes.” Just by opening your email, they’re a bit more receptive. If they’re a C-level executive, you’ve just accomplished something amazing.

Here are a few tips to ensure your next email campaign is subject-line material.

Warning for experienced marketers: These are the most obvious tips in the world. Seriously, you will not learn anything new here. But I really want you to keep reading, so I’ve combined these tips with real-world samples, some of them written by professional email marketers. So, go ahead and bask in the glow of that “I-already-knew-that” feeling. Then, see what all the other email marketers have been up to.

1. Make it about them. Think about the individual you’re trying to reach–yes, not the audience, but the individual. That lady eating the tunafish sandwich at her desk? That one. Write your subject line to her.
2. Keep it short. Studies show subject lines with 4 to 5 words usually get the best response rates.
3. Count the ways. Subject lines like “5 ways to get prospects to open their emails” tend to pull really well. You’d think people would get tired of seeing the same numbers-inspired subject lines, but they really don’t. It’s like an addiction. They’ll always want to know if there’s something they don’t know. And you’re about to tell them. So, don’t kill yourself trying to think of something creative if something practical and useful will do the job.
4. Write the subject line first. Think of a really good subject line, and then write the email. The email almost writes itself. Almost.
5. Use the word “you.” You’re reading this blog post, aren’t you? I hand-crafted the title to compel you to read it. Consultant Al Peterson reminded me of this old standby during a workshop he gave at the IMC NorCal Workshop on January 10th. His workshop, called “Partnering at the C-Level: How to be a valued client executive resource,” revealed his secret tactics for getting in front of C-level executives. Al used to cold-email C-levels with great success, so I asked whether he had a magical subject-line formula. “It usually has the word ‘you’ in it,” he said. One subject line that’s worked for him: “You’ve just taken over the CEO position… and I can help you.” It’s a bit long, but it got their attention, and that’s all that matters.

Subject Line Hall of Fame (and Lame)

Courtesy of My Personal Email Swipe File. Because, Yes, I Collect Emails. And Read Them for Fun.

Here are a few other subject line examples with variations of the word “you” in them, taken from my ongoing swipe file.

Delete. Do Not Pass Go.

These subject lines were neither great nor horrible–not what you want for your email subject line. It’s almost better to err on the side of horrible. At least you’ll get people to open out of curiosity. I only opened these because I open every email. Trust me, your prospects and other high-level decisionmakers will never be that curious.

• “Get your brand noticed in 2009.”
  • Not specific enough. What does that really mean? Why should I care?
    
• “Give your clients what they want”
  • Despite the word “you,” it’s still weak. I opened it anyway, only to discover I’d never subscribed to this firm’s email newsletter. “Spam” button, activate. This is one of those fake “you’s.” It presumes to know me by saying “you,” but isn’t specific, which makes me question whether they really know me. They didn’t. Don’t do this.
    

OK, I’m Curious…

• “I goofed, which is good news for you” (Kathy Mallary)
  • Love the honesty here. And how it combines her mistake with a potential benefit for me. This woman is human! She goofs! And she’s going to make it worth my while! OK, I’m in.
• “How to ask other people to read your writing” (Caduceus Strategies)
  
  • What a useful thing to know. Yes, tell me more.
• “Why I write to you–a lot.” (Michael Port)
  • This got me to open because Michael Port really does write me a lot, and I was feeling a bit fatigued. “Oh, not another email from Michael Port,” I was literally thinking before I read the subject line. His subject lines have this uncanny ability to read my mind like that. Result: I opened it. I read it. I didn’t act, but that’s okay. He got me and a few thousand others to open his email, and to refrain from unsubscribing. A mind-reading trick goes a long way.
    
• ‘I’m truly glad I decided to try your service.’ (AWeber)
  • Using the customers’ own words in the subject line of an email that also uses the word “you?” Addressed to someone who signed up for a free 30-day test drive? Ding! AWeber gets a special price for that one–and likely a few new subscribers.
    

Wow! How Did They KNOW This About Me?

• “Should you meet w/ prospects?” (Ed Gandia)
  • This question was on my mind that very week. Being specific and targeting your list to the right people is an awesome subject-line-writing technique. The more specific the audience, the better the subject line’s potential. Always.
• “3 home page sins that will cost you clients” (Chris Marlow)
  • Tried-and-true “numbers” tactic combined with isolating a prospect pain-point. If you know the magic formula, work it. There’s no shame.
• “You feel poor.” (McSweeney’s)
  • Why yes, sometimes I DO feel poor. McSweeney’s makes me feel connected and happy about that, in this weird way I can’t explain.
• “If you can copy and paste, you can write a great email campaign.” (AWeber)
  • AWeber breaking the “4-word-subject-line” rules again, but I’d definitely open this if I was trying to learn about email marketing software.
• “Please read if you’re not booked solid.” (Michael Port)
  • If I wasn’t booked solid, I’d be thinking about my situation all day long. This email would jolt me out of my skin. “How does he know?” I’d think. Gratefully, this email wasn’t right for me, but I’ll bet it got excellent results.

Are you subject-line material?

Willing to share a magical subject line that’s done wonders? Or, want help sprucing up a subject line for its first date? Please, comment below.

Mostly because it’s about something that hasn’t happened yet. And because it’s about me, and because I’m still in progress.

I’ve drawn my ideal house with a mechanical pencil, but all of my shoes and breakfast things are in my current house. And my roommates are wondering what’s going on.

Of course, I want the house to be amazing. But maybe it won’t be. I don’t know. My future-predicting power tools are in the mail. And, if the good things I want to happen don’t happen, knowing this blog post is out there, spreading its SEO viruses all over the internet, might keep me up at night. Everyone will remember The Person who wrote That Blog Post this one time about What She Was Going to Do, and then didn’t do it.

But that’s okay. I’m telling my makeover story anyway.

This year I got the flu four times, finally hired a cook after living off burritos for months, allowed my dog to forget the way Lake Merritt smells in the afternoon, made mountains of new project planning spreadsheets, each intended to become The Ideal-Project-Planning-Mother-of-All-Hourly-Calculations-Spreadsheet-That-Will-Reveal-All-Availability-Possibilities-Forever, and, all the while, I kept getting this nagging feeling my business was running me. 

Then, I realized no spreadsheet, software, list, or system would cure me. And I turned to a novel strategy: turning down work. That was fun, until it wasn’t. At last, I turned to business coaches for advice. One for monthly support. And another for a six-hour Ultimate Business Makeover.

Linda Brown at UpLevel Strategies became my regular coach in May, and UpLevel Strategies Founder Kelly O’Neil gave me my business makeover in October (which, by the way, was a hundred times more fun than the ones you get at the Laura Mercier counter at Macy’s).

This is the story of my business makeover with Kelly.

How to take advice from a stranger.

The thing with advice is, anyone can give it to you. And you could follow it and do pretty well for yourself. But if they don’t understand your business or your market, you could end up sandwiched between two space aliens at the Second Life Virtual World Health Marketing Conference sponsored by Coca Cola.

The more advice I got and read, the more I told myself it couldn’t possibly apply to my business. And I kept my pores clogged with un-acted-upon advice. No, I wasn’t ready for my close-up yet.

Linda was the deep-cleansing facial to Kelly’s makeover.

Linda got me ready for a makeover, helping me define my ideal clients, helped me discover what I was really best at, and kept me accountable as I redesigned and rewrote my website. She also helped me through countless sticky situations.

I decided to work with Kelly for one good reason. There’s no one like her. And I got the crazy feeling she could help me. She demonstrated a bottomless zeal for my business and its potential. I learned I had good bone structure. She also had a knack for understanding not only my business and my market, but also how my personality and values shape the possibilities for my business.

As her website home page proclaims, “I actually fall in love with what’s possible for my clients.” I definitely felt the love. Which is why I’m writing this blog post.

Anyone can give you a list of tactics to implement. But Kelly helped me envision my ideal outcome, and then she created a plan full of tactics and strategies that worked for me. Tactics she was confident I could actually achieve. I’m complicated, and that’s okay. No templates here.

Here’s what I got:

1. A five-hour strategy session, in person.
2. A big, fat marketing plan from A to Z, from the very high-level stuff to down-and-dirty creative tactics I’d never even thought of, and specific changes to my business model itself.
3. Also, she threw in some phone calls where she coached me through challenges that came up as I was implementing the plan. And I got a free pair of pants! (Okay, no, but I did get a carne asada burrito.)

Best of all, my plan was all tailored to me, pushing me just slightly WAY past my comfort zone.
But only in the best of ways. Like a Jillian-Michaels’-30-Day-Shred kind of way.

I found myself committing to doing things I never thought I would do. It didn’t seem crazy because I knew this stuff worked. Kelly had already done it (and is doing it) herself. She’s wasn’t just telling me what to do — she was actually walking the walk. Some advice-givers have no shoes. Kelly’s got shoes.

It’s only been a couple of months since my makeover. But I’ve already done quite a bit. For example, in just these first two months, I have:

• Raised my rates. (Well hello there, prospective clients! So glad you stopped by.) I guess I could have raised my rates without Kelly’s help, but I wouldn’t have because I didn’t know whether it was the right thing for me to do.
• Looked for 2 copywriters to add to my team so I can scale. And actually ended up adding 10 copywriter-collaborators to my team. Again, I guess I could have thought to do this on my own. But I never would have. She held me accountable and didn’t let me make dumb excuses for why it might not work. Instead, she challenged me to imagine it actually working.
• Switched from hourly retainers to project-based retainers. Yes, could have done it on my own, but it would have taken me a long time to realize I should.

These are just a couple of examples. There are more things in the plan, but they’re secret.

Total return on investment:

It’s too soon to say. But I promise to report back.

There’s still a lot of hard work to do.

But what’s great about working with Kelly is even though our makeover is over, I still get to work with Coach Linda. She’s not going to let me get away with any of my usual mind tricks.

Changing my business model means I don’t get to do the Four-Hour-Workweek just yet. But the time I invest now takes on special powers.

Have you ever worked with a business coach? What’s been your experience?

I used it to collect brains.

Where there was just one single, solitary brain (mine), now there are ten bountiful, powerful brains.

Their names are Grae, Alison, Kat, Libby, Marissa, Heidi, Anissa, Jessica, Kathlyn, and Annie. And they are amazing writers who will now be collaborating with me on a project basis here at Copylicious.

Yeah, I know that’s a lot of brains. And I don’t expect everyone to begin writing all at once.

But my theme for this year is “Why not?”

In keeping with that philosophy, I’d like to slowly begin rolling out copywriters on small parts of projects throughout the year. My hope is that, by teaming up with another writer for each client, I can:

• Distribute the work evenly
• Keep working with as many ideal clients as I can handle
• Create better results for my clients

HOW IT CAME TO THIS

I’ve always been an independent person. In fact, I was so independent I didn’t know it. “She always seems like she’s off in her own world,” I once overheard my 5th grade teacher tell my parents. I’ve never wanted to manage, supervise, be responsible for others. Telling people what to do? I’d much rather work with them than on them.

All of this is to say I never thought I’d ever, ever subcontract to another writer. Ever.

But then this year happened.

And I realized a few things about myself.

Four things, to be exact:

1. I LOVE what I do and the people I work with. What I love most about working with my clients is that we become collaborators. By working together, two people create something better than what either of us could have produced on our own.

2. I have what Colleen Wainwright calls Eyes Bigger Than Stomach Syndrome. When it comes to taking on projects for ideal clients. I just can’t say no. And when I do, it hurts. On the plus side, giving out referrals to other copywriters made me a few friends, and got me some free, priceless advice from copywriting legend Ivan Levison, whose newsletter you should subscribe to immediately.

3. My dog misses our daily runs. I miss our daily runs.

4. With strategic collaboration, I could take advantage of 1, 2, and 3. Bringing in smart, savvy people to work on specific parts of projects would help me and my clients. These writers wouldn’t be “underlings.” Who gets anything out of that? Rather, they’d be collaborators whose perspectives complemented mine. Copywriters who gleefully flung fresh ideas at every project. Everyone wins! Even Harley.

HOW I FOUND FRESH BRAINS

These writer-collaborators came to me in a rather unusual way. I’d like to share it with you.

It all started when my business coach, Kelly O’Neil, advised me to write an ad like I was looking for a date.

My first thought: That’s ridiculous.

My second thought: That sounds like fun!

Once I got over myself and my fears of finding only random, scary people on Guru, I got excited about the types of people I might actually be able to attract.

After all, if I found my fella online three years ago, why not a copywriter?

So, I wrote a “personals ad” to my ideal writer-collaborator and sent it to a friend, Havi Brooks at Fluent Self. “Do you know anyone like this?” I asked her.

She then posted it on her blog, which tends to attract smart, creative, idealistic types.

Here’s what my ad said:

Wanted: Copywriter-Collaborator

I’m looking for someone smart who knows how to write and isn’t a flake.

You’re crazy about books. You collect active verbs. You obsess over the order of words in a sentence.

And you have this knack for getting people to believe in your crazy ideas. Maybe you convinced a hundred people to sponsor your charity ride. Or you persuaded investors to fund a puppet show production. Or you sell tamales.

Whatever it is, you’re interested in things. Lots of things. Maybe too many things. And it would be nice to have another income stream—and a learning opportunity—that rewards curiosity and enthusiasm.

That’s where I’m hoping we can help each other.

For the past year, I’ve been suffering from what people keep telling me is a “good problem.” My copywriting business is now taking up my evenings and weekends. I want to keep growing, but I can’t do it on my own. Enter you.

I’d like to collaborate with you, smart, non-flaky writer. You’ll get a flat-fee for each project, and also a quarterly performance bonus.

I’ll handle all the client stuff and the strategy stuff and the marketing stuff. Your job, and your only job, will be to write (and self-edit!). You’ll write websites, lead-gen emails, landing pages, white papers, and more.

This could take up to 12 hours a week of your time. Or less. Or more. Let’s work something out. I’m looking for a long-term relationship that helps both of us grow.

If you’re new to copywriting but have been writing as long as you’ve been walking, I will help you.

We will collaborate. And at the end of the day, you will get paid well for doing what you love.

Future writer-collaborator, I hope you’ll introduce yourself.

Within 3 days, I had gotten nearly 80 responses from people all over the world.

I knew Havi had an extraordinary audience, but this kind of amazed me. After much thought and many conversations, I narrowed the list down to 9 people to start working with.

I found one more person on my own, whose dating blog I’d been reading for the last 2 years. She’s definitely a keeper.

Lesson learned:

Just because everyone else does it this way, doesn’t mean you can’t do it that way.

In fact, if doing it that way feels fun and comfortable, you’ll almost certainly get better results. I was only planning to find one or two people, but when 10 emerged, I had to reinvent what I thought was possible.

If I’d done the traditional job post on Guru, Craigslist, forums, lists, I would have gotten BLAH, which no one wants.

By taking a chance on a ridiculous idea, I helped not just myself, but also 10 other people in this blankety-blank economy. (BTW, if you haven’t seen it yet, this NY Times article is going to inspire you all year long. I read it several weeks ago and still can’t stop thinking about it.)

So, why not act on one of your own ridiculous ideas this year?

And, if one of those ridiculous ideas happens to involve marketing your pants off—well, 11 fresh brains are ready to do your bidding.

Last week I embarked on my annual forced business retreat–aka the flu–where thoughts finally outnumber daily tasks and my brain is flooded with ideas from the cafeteria lady who lives there. For such an unproductive period, it was an incredibly productive period.

Being in pain attunes you to others who are in pain, like changing a channel. Suddenly, everyone seems to have the flu. It’s a whole new world of people in pain, people who aren’t just walking around moaning, but who are struggling to use all the milk before it goes bad, who forgot to cancel their fitness membership, who still laugh at LOLcats. Or is it just that you’re paying more attention?

You also become highly attuned to b.s. from marketers who presume to understand you. Liz Strauss had a great write-up about Motrin IB’s latest commercial. I’m not pregnant, but if this had been made about people with the flu, I can see how it could grate.

Writing from a place of empathy feels good. It’s good to be reminded that the best source of inspiration is other people who are in that place. Not in a creative brief.

I’m not always there, day in and day out. Sometimes, against my better judgment, I’ll type, even though I know my heart is in writing everything out longhand. It’s that desire to always be efficient, to do things faster and faster. When I write things out longhand, the copy tends to be even more results-inducing than the copy that comes out when I’m just paying attention to rules and best practices and typing efficiently away.

Could Microsoft Word be the reason so many messages fail to resonate?

Wouldn’t it be nice to get these insights every day, without having to get the flu?

I would like to push myself (and my clients) to be more authentic.

Authentic in that we see the problem as an experience, and our solution as just one piece of it. We address that whole experience, and we do it in their language. Companies that come to me when I have a flu, for example, and don’t offer me medicine for my symptoms, but offer me 5 ways to give yourself permission to be sick. I can deal with the symptoms, you know. It’s all the things I experience around the symptoms that really bother me. This constellation of worries.

I also worry about the risks of following the money, and missing something magical that might happen when I have an unstructured day, and risk being surprised. I think my clients worry about that, too.

What the flu taught me about marketing is that no message can be crafted without really understanding the prospect’s experience; and that often the best ideas come when we snap closed our laptops, stop typing away, and let the crazy cafeteria lady in our heads start talking.

Maybe the prescription for improving your marketing is getting sick at least once a year. On the other hand, a few strategically placed life-altering problems might work, too.