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How you’re doing your list a disservice when you fear selling to them

Writer's picture: John BrandtJohn Brandt

In came a question from a client late last night in our Slack channel: 


“Does it make sense to link to [our service] in every email?” 


Now, this question might seem a bit bizarre to those already indoctrinated with my “way” of email—which is heavily inspired by the great Ben Settle and the OGs of direct response.


But this is a question most brand owners will have because they’ve been duped by the jab, jab, jab, right hook methodology popularized by Gary Vee and other sciolist gurus.


The gist of this approach to marketing is to provide so much value that people just want to give you their moolah. But when was the last time you went to Sam’s Club (as is local to me) or Costco (as is local to about the rest of the States), tried a free sample they offer, and then decided to buy it? 


This probably doesn’t happen often—but I’d guess it does happen much more than Gary Vee’s approach works. 


Why?


Well, long story short: 


Humans don’t value what is free. 


I can’t tell you how many free PDFs I have in my download folder of the same laptop I spilled water all over last week—by the way it’s working, but the keys get stuck and the keyboard backlight keeps flickering… so I may need to take it into Apple or think about another, but that’s a question for another day—and you know what? I’m not losing sleep over ANY of the free PDFs I have stored on that laptop. 


More: 


I also explained to him how we’re doing our audience a disservice by not including a link in every email. 


Think about it from their perspective: 


If you have something so good that can eliminate their pain so effectively (whatever that “pain” is for them) but instead of showing them how to take the next step with your business and thus, get the most benefit and value from your service, you keep pestering them with “vAlUe BoMbS” which ain’t nearly as valuable as the result they’ll get for whipping out their credit card, paying you, and thus taking your service much more seriously (which results in even better results for them). 


The aforementioned Ben Settle had a story about this that had stuck in my head ever since I first read it. 


Ben’s story? 


Imagine someone has a serious disease, like pancreatic cancer. And you have a product that can either cure or seriously improve their chances of survival.

(Of course, this is a fictitious and exaggerating story, but exaggerating ideas to their logical conclusion is a good way to tell whether it’s a good idea or not.) 


Would you provide more value to this person by endlessly giving them free PDFs that explain what pancreatic cancer is, why it’s so bad, or other free content that can’t actually solve their problem? 


Or would you provide more value by selling them like your life depended on it because their life just might, in fact, depend on it? 


Hopefully the answer is as obvious to you as it is to me. 


One final point: 


Another psychological reason business owners fall into this trap of thinking it’s better to provide free value than promote their paid products and services that can actually help has to do with projection: 


Business owners are busier than your average person. They also receive incredibly more emails overall. In fact, just having a perceived important position on your LinkedIn profile will drown you in cold pitches. Let alone how business owners also have to manage their team, their partnerships, customer interactions, the list goes on and on. 


And so, they start to despise getting emails—and they wrongly believe that their audience will also hate getting so many emails, especially emails with the audacity to sell in every single email. 


But business owners aren’t their target market. No matter how much they identify with them. Or how much they might’ve used to be their target market. 


Now, I’m not saying to obnoxiously pitch in every email. I’m saying to give your list an opportunity to buy in every email. 


Sometimes, you will have a heavy pitch “season” with deadlines and urgency and multiple emails per day and so on. But the other times? You still want to pitch your product or service while providing value, telling stories, giving them a chance to think differently, etc.  


It’s a subtle difference, yes. But it’s one that makes a world of a difference for the relationship with your list—which is the most important factor, even more important than revenue. 


In fact, check out this review from another client’s customer (where I don’t get any pushback for selling in every email):


“I like the emails I receive that have detailed information on certain products so far I have purchased three products from the information received.” 


I’d argue that the emails I send aren’t purely informational. But the person who left this review isn’t a copywriter, and she doesn't realize that I’m also mixing entertainment and persuasion to the information, which makes it less boring, and improves readership rates. 


(We don’t have to tell her that though…) 


Anywho: 


Want to make more money from every email you send while also making people so excited to read your emails that they literally leave your business reviews about how helpful said emails are? 


If so - you know what to do:


Hit reply, and let’s chat. 


John

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