Subscriber DN, whom we heard from last week, asked yet another
interesting question:

“Bob, I’ve purchased information products from you, and found
your information to be sound, but nowhere near as good as your
sales letter makes it out to be.”

Talk about a back-handed compliment….

She continues: “I am sure your refund rates would reduce if you
avoid the hype, clever copy, and amplification in your sales
letters … but so would your sales. You can’t have it both ways.
So what say you?”

DN raises an extremely important point that I have struggled
with daily in my 34 years as a professional copywriter —
namely, balancing the promise of benefits in the sales copy with
the delivery of those benefits by the product.

A common piece of advice to marketers is to under-promise and
over-deliver.

The idea is that customers are happy when they get what they
paid for … but are ecstatically happy when they get MORE than
they thought they had any right to expect for their money.

My friend, ace Internet marketer Fred Gleeck, has a rule of
thumb: the product should be so good that if the customer had
paid 10X the price, he would still be happy and not ask for a
refund.

That ratio is sensible in theory, but difficult to achieve in
practice.

For instance, one of my copywriting heroes, GB, sold a $5,000
copywriting boot camp to his list – an amazing feat in today’s
troubled economic times.

As good as it no doubt was, I am not sure the attendees would
have felt they got their money’s worth if they had paid $50,000
each. Or that he would have gotten any registrations at that
price.

So here are the rules I follow as a copywriter and an
information marketer when writing my sales letters and creating
my products:

1-Write the strongest sales copy possible within the limitations
of being ethical and truthful.

Remember, you must convince the reader that your product can
solve their problem … and do so more ably than competing
products.

Your competitors are pulling out all the stops in their copy. So
yours can’t be meek and mild.

2-When in doubt, it is in fact better to under-promise and
over-deliver. The customer should feel that she has gotten more
than her money’s worth.

However….

3-Do not deliberately set the bar so low in your copy that you
write bland, ultra-safe promotions. When you do so, you won’t
make sales.

4-If you feel compelled to write low-key copy as an apology for
a mediocre product, you should instead write the strongest copy
you can – and then improve your product so it will delight
anyone who buys in response to that copy.

My copywriting teacher at NYU, the late Milt Pierce, told us
that he was hired to write a direct mail package to sell a book
written by a famous interior decorator.

When the marketing director got Milt’s draft, she gasped: “This
is great copy – but this isn’t what’s in the book,” she
objected.

“It should be,” Milt countered. He says the publisher made the
author rewrite the book to deliver on all the promises made in
the copy.

5-There is a rule of thumb that refund rates on info products
should be less than 10% and ideally 5% or less. Our refund rate
a few years ago was around 2%.

Now, selling those same products, the refund rate is 5.2% for
the year to date. The most common reason for the refund request
by far: “This product has a copyright date of 2010 or earlier
and therefore I think it is out of date.” They are wrong, of
course, but you can’t fight city hall, which is why we are in a
massive program of updating our core info products.

Some argue that a zero refund rate is bad, because it means your
copy was so mild, it did not make enough strong promises. I
understand the logic of this theory, though I would not object
to a zero refund rate.

Reader FL recently tried to get in touch with his favorite
Internet marketing teacher … let’s call this guru Mr. X … with
disappointing results.

“I thought: why not reach out and connect with him?” says FL.
“Good luck with that idea – the guy lives behind an electronic
fortress … which is odd given the story he tells about
accessibility in his book.”

The guru in question, Mr. X – a guy I respect professionally and
like personally – is not alone in using the Internet to put
space between him and his readers. A lot of the Internet
marketing gurus, maybe even most of the gurus, do it.

I can’t blame them, and I understand their reasons: these are
busy guys, they make a lot of money, and their time is limited.

But I take the opposite approach: I make myself directly
available to my readers as much as is humanly possible.

My old friend, marketing guru Jeffrey Lant, referred to this as
being the “accessible expert.”

If you’ve ever tried to contact me, you know I promptly answer
all e-mails I receive … and if you call me, it rings the phone
on my desk which I pick up and personally answer.

If you e-mailed me and got no response, it’s almost certainly
because I didn’t see or didn’t get it. I do not ignore my
subscribers.

Being so available to my readers is a deliberate choice on my
part. I am not saying I am right to be so reachable, or that X
and his ilk are wrong to put so much distance between themselves
and their customers.

All I can tell you is that being an “accessible expert” works
better for me for several reasons.

>> First, although I’m pretty busy, perhaps I am not as busy and
in demand as Mr. X. So while keeping the lines of communication
open with my subscribers can sometimes be challenging, it is
certainly manageable. So I do it.

>> Second, my readers like being able to communicate with me
directly and easily. I know, because they tell me so. And my
philosophy is to do, within reason, what my customers want.

>> Third, it’s the way I want to be treated by the marketers I
buy from. I am frustrated by customer-unfriendly voice mail
systems that make it a trial to reach the person I want. And it
irritates me when a marketer shields himself from e-mail
communication.

So how accessible do you have to be to please your customers
while still having a private life? Here’s what I recommend:

1-Publish your phone number prominently on your web site and in
your e-mail signature file. Make it easy for people to call you.

2-When your phone rings, answer it, and give the time of day to
people who call.

Full disclosure: I do have caller ID. So when I am on a
copywriting deadline for a client, I may not pick up – and
instead will let your call go to voice mail. But once I’m free
again, I return the call – on my dime.

3-If an e-mail from a customer asks a question which I can
reasonably answer in a minute or two, I answer it – for free. No
charge.

4-If an e-email from a customer asks a question that is answered
in one of my publications, I send my correspondent a link to it.
If it’s free, I invite him to download it at no cost. If it
costs money, I suggest he buy it.

5-If a customer asks a question that is complex or requires a
customized answer tailored to his specific situation, I tell him
that to solve the problem for him falls under consulting and
explain the cost.

Regarding point #4, a few of my customers have complained that I
am a money-grubber for telling them to buy an information
product when they ask me a question.

I do not agree with their criticism. If the answer to your
question is clearly articulated and well thought out on page 187
of my book, I assert that it is reasonable and sensible for me
to suggest you buy the book, turn to page 187, and read the
answer there.

Why should I have to spend my time writing a long e-mail to you
without compensation, when I have already taken time to prepare
the answer for you in advance – and when my book buyers have had
to pay for the same content?

Regarding point #5, one thing that really irks me is that
subscribers who ask me questions clearly requiring customized
analysis by me virtually never offer to pay me for my time and
knowledge. They never bring up money, because they hope and pray
I will be a dupe and just answer without charge.

Unfortunately for me, I have to pay my son’s tuition at
Carnegie-Mellon, and I have only 24 hours in a day, both of
which make me disinclined to work for free. When the guy who
comes to my house to fix my busted washing machine does it for
free, then I will reconsider my position.

Subscriber MN writes, “I’m thinking of doing an online
business. Approximately, what would you charge to create the
product, copywriting, landing page, everything A-Z? Or can you
recommend an existing package where everything is already done
that I can buy?”

I have some bad news for MN. What he wants – a complete “done
for you,” online business-in-a-box – and by that I mean one that
(a) he can actually afford and (b) would actually work – does
not exist.

Everyone wants the quick and easy way out. No one wants to do
the hard work. They want to wave a magic wand or rub a lucky
rabbit’s foot – and be handed the online business they seek on a
platter, already revved up and spitting out profits. Sorry, but
it ain’t happening, MN.

Reminds me of the scene in “A League of Their Own” where Gina
Davis wants to play baseball but complains to Tom Hanks that the
baseball life is too hard.

Tom snaps back: “It’s supposed to be hard. If it wasn’t hard,
everyone would do it. The hard is what makes it great.”

I think that’s the case with entrepreneurship in general and
starting an Internet marketing business in particular.

The promoters promise it’s easy because – hey – we copywriters
know that “easy” sells.

But building a successful online business isn’t easy. In theory
it is simple. In practice – often tricky as heck.

Oh, in some ways DOING the business is physically easy – you can
work at home and make a good living devoting only an hour or two
a day to it.

I don’t have employees. I don’t have big overhead. I don’t talk
with customers on the phone or face to face. So in that respect
having an Internet business is not too stressful.

But it is not always easy to figure it all out, put the pieces
together, and make them make money.

Those of us in the business are constantly learning and
studying, and continually fine-tuning our e-mails, landing
pages, products, offers, ads, back-office systems, and just
about everything else.

There isn’t a day goes by that I am not reading blogs, trade
magazines, books, discussion groups, and online newsletters in a
frantic effort to keep up to speed on what’s new in Internet
marketing.

Most of what I learn I will never use. But since I don’t know
what will be the next breakthrough until I learn and try it – I
am learning all the time.

To answer MN’s question: no, he cannot hire me or anyone else to
create the whole business for him, get it running, and then hand
it over to him to enjoy.

That’s because if I or anyone else puts in all that effort, we’d
make MUCH more money by just keeping that business and running
it ourselves than we could selling it to someone else, no matter
how much they offered us for it.

Yes, there are some promoters advertising “done for you”
Internet businesses-in-a-box. I haven’t reviewed them all and so
cannot comment on them all.

But the ones I have seen are thin. Typically the quality of the
products and promotions they sell you is pretty pitiful – a lot
sell 5-page e-books some elance freelancer probably wrote for ten
bucks — and the business is not actually making money for
anyone but the promoter selling it to others.

Again, if the products and landing pages the promoter was
selling really pulled in the dollars online, he’d be buying as
much traffic as he could to drive buyers to the micro sites …
and making his money on product sales … not trying to pawn the
whole kit and caboodle off to unsuspecting prey like MN.

Self-help gurus and motivational speakers love to tell us that
whatever we want, we can do, have, or become.

Napoleon Hill said, “Whatever the mind can conceive and believe,
it can achieve.”

Earl Nightingale: “Whatever we plant in our subconscious mind
and nourish with repetition and emotion will one day become a
reality.”

The problem with this is: it’s often not true.

Examples:

** Unless you have a high IQ, you can’t become an
astrophysicist.

** Unless you are athletic, you won’t get drafted by the
Patriots.

** Unless you can sing, you probably won’t win American Idol and
get a record deal.

** Unless you’re strong and can fight, you probably can’t KO
Lennox Lewis.

What many positive thinkers ignore is that it takes more than
just positive thoughts to achieve a goal.

And here’s what it does take to do or become what you desire:

>> First, you need the equipment: the aptitude, affinity, and
knack for a particular field or profession.

Example: I am 56, short, dumpy, and nonathletic. I would like to
be the Giants quarterback. But no matter what I think, it isn’t
going to happen.

But I do have an affinity for teaching. So I have routinely been
paid thousands of dollars a day to give training classes and
seminars.

>> Second, you need desire.

This is especially true in fields like acting, music, and sports
where competition for a limited number of opportunities is
incredibly fierce.

Unless you have a burning desire for the goal, you won’t stick
with it and make the effort it takes to get there.

>> Third, you must be persistent.

The old adage: If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again.

Winston Churchill: “Never give up.”

In my observation, most people who want to pursue an
accomplishment or achievement give up way too early.

>> Fourth, talent.

You should have some natural talent or, if not, enormous
enthusiasm for the field in which you want to make your mark.

If you are not naturally talented, you can develop many of the
skills you need (e.g. web site design) through practice and
study.

>> Fifth, skill.

In today’s competitive world, it’s tough to make a go of things
if you are poor or mediocre in your profession.

To increase the odds of success in your favor, you must get
really good at what you do. The key is: practice.

Mark Ford says you can get good at just about anything by doing
it for a thousand hours … and become a master when you have done
it ten thousand hours.

>> Sixth, training.

Your training may be on the job or in the classroom. It could be
night school, seminars, in-house courses offered by your
company, or college.

But you must acquire the basic knowledge practitioners in your
field are expected to have.

As a copywriter since 1979, I knew how to write.

But when SEO become a discipline some years ago, I took an
expensive Direct Marketing Association self-study course to
learn it.

>> Seventh, you need connections.

Very few people realize their dreams entirely on their own.

Cultivating a network of colleagues, specialists, and potential
clients or employers can give you an enviable shortcut to your
goal.

If you believe, as so many do, that “those who can, do; those
who can’t, teach” – get it out of your head now.

The fact is that those at the top of their profession are often
the most active not only as practitioners but also as both
students and teachers.

The last time I wrote about this, I received a huge amount of
e-mail from my subscribers and Facebook friends.

They overwhelmingly agreed that (a) the “those who can’t, teach”
adage is absurd and (b) teaching others what you know is an
integral and important activity for most professions.

Here’s just a sampling….

WB: “If nobody who knew what they were doing showed others how
it’s done, then the only way to learn would be by trial and
error or from those who have never been a success at it.”

BW: “Teaching is my greatest joy. I love to learn about a wide
range of subjects. When I share what I’ve learned, as do you, I
learn even more. Plus, I form new bonds with those I teach,
whether in an informal way or in a well-organized workshop. It’s
all about widening one’s perspective and personal growth.”

BM: “I’ve had several careers and taught how-to courses and
seminars in all of them. I think it made me a better doer, and
it enhanced my business credibility and income.”

DG: “As consulting engineers we teach what we do, and we make
good money at it. In fact, it set both of us up for retirement
some years ago. At this point in my career, I actually enjoy the
teaching more than the consulting. Nothing like seeing someone
‘get it.'”

JG: “We teach what we wish to learn.”

ES: “And we learn best what we choose to teach.”

LW: “I have a strong background in the arts. Many very
successful musicians in classical music and jazz have enjoyed
the psychological effects of teaching and watching novices
develop. I could go on and on naming them: the violinist Isaac
Stern, the jazz pianist Hank Jones.

“A few years back I helped edit and rewrite a biography of a
famous British classical pianist, Ruth Nye, who is now a very
famous teacher. The principal theme of her biographer’s book was
that Ruth herself studied with one of the greatest pianists of
the 20th Century, Claudio Arrau who himself was also widely
known as a great teacher.

“This is true in all the arts. The Dutch painter Peter Lastman
was famous for his own work, but also for being Rembrandt’s
teacher. Hollywood is rife with examples of actors who taught
other actors (ever listen to the many thank-you’s in an Oscar
acceptance speech?).

“It’s true in sports too. I have cousins in professional
baseball and football management who talk about examples of
apprenticeships all the time. In our own business, Clayton
Makepeace is a glorious example of a man who has made fabulous
money as a copywriter and as a man who has derived joy (and
financial recompense) for being a great teacher.”

My own experience: every time I teach a class, which I did for
years at New York University and The Learning Annex, I feel I
have learned even more than the students – and my students tell
me they have learned a lot.

Sincerely,

Bob Bly

P.S. It always saddens me when I meet someone who thinks both
teaching and learning are beyond them.

Many years ago, at a writer’s conference, I sat next to a fellow
attendee. We were both perusing the conference brochure,
selecting the breakout sessions we would go to.

I noticed they had a session on selling a nonfiction book to a
major publishing house, and to make conversation, I mentioned to
her that it interested me.

She turned up her nose and said haughtily, “That might be good
if you are a beginner, but I have already published two books.”

I said nothing and smiled. Back then, I had written only 50
books … and I was eagerly looking forward to attending the
session to see what tips I could pick up. I guess they worked,
because I have written over 30 more books since then.

As my colleague seminar leader Paul Karasik often says to me,
“School is never out for the pro” – and that’s true whether it
means being a student or a teacher.

I know I am a crabby old man who is probably too easily annoyed.

But there are some things people do that irritate me so much I
believe they may tick many other people off too.

For this reason, you may want to avoid committing these sins
yourself, for fear of alienating your customers, business
associates, and friends:

1–Do you constantly brag to others about how busy you are? It
can rapidly become tiresome, irritating, and distasteful.

Barbara Ehrenreich calls this “the cult of busyness”: the
appearance of being busy as a status symbol. I advise you to
avoid it. Get over yourself: You are not really that important.

2–Especially in the world of Internet marketing, the boasting
of how successful one is has reached epic proportions.

It’s nothing new. Decades ago, Joe Karbo in his Lazy Man’s Way
to Riches ads bragged about the cars, boats, and houses he owned
… and showed a picture of his Rolls Royce.

But if another marketing guru tells me about his beachfront
mansion or shows a picture of his new Bentley on Facebook, I may
barf in my Prius. Enough is enough.

3–Boasting of any kind is offensive to me and many others. It is
just not necessary. People brag to make themselves feel
successful as well as superior to the listener. How is that good
communication?

4–Stop shoving your latest gadgets in my face to show me how
they work. I really don’t care. If I did, I would buy one.

I do not own an iPhone, iPod, or iPad and have no desire to.
People think I am crazy, but there is a reason for my luddite
behavior: Those devices enable mobility with productivity, but I
am not a mobile worker:

I work in my home office with a desktop PC and landline phone,
and almost never travel. So the gadgets in my case are
unnecessary. And I have no interest in your toys.

I’m also pretty indifferent to your new $2,500 barbecue that
looks like the console from the U.S.S. Enterprise.

5–I wager that none of my readers do this, but just in case: Do
not play your car stereo so loudly that people in other cars can
hear it. You may be proud of your taste in music, but when
driving, keep it inside the vehicle at all times.

6–On Facebook and other social networks, feel free to share
interests and content. But don’t make your posts thinly
disguised sales pitches for your products or services. It is
unseemly and violates social media etiquette as I understand it
to be.

7–Another pet peeve: people who treat their personal opinion as
fact. That the speed of light is 186,000 miles per second is a
fact. That you think the U.S. should take action against the
Syrian government is your opinion. Learn to recognize the
difference.

8–Nitpicking is by and large an annoying habit. Let the little
things go. Example: pointing out typos wherever you find them.

Note: I admit that opinions vary on this point. Some say God is
in the details. Others say not to sweat the small stuff.

9–Correcting people does not endear you to them. My #1 rule in
life is: do not give unsolicited advice. People think free
advice is worth exactly what they paid for it: nothing.

10–Be less argumentative. Contentious people are not fun to be
around. Be more easygoing. If you are chomping at the bit to
prove yourself right and others wrong, ask yourself: why?

I’m afraid that when I tell you what I am about to tell you, you’ll either be offended or think I’m a jerk.

But, because I always tell you the complete and unvarnished truth about the subjects we discuss, I’m going to go ahead and tell you anyway.

So here it goes: for more years than I can count, I secretly looked down upon people who self-published their books.

I was a mainstream book publishing elitist and snob.

Before you start throwing rotten tomatoes at me or call me a philistine, remember that I grew up in the traditional book publishing world … and so that was what I knew and loved.

If I had self-published my first book, I might well have become a self-publishing cheerleader.

But as it happened, when I wrote my first book proposal in 1981, the first agent I took it to agreed to represent it … and the first publisher he showed it to, McGraw-Hill, bought it for an $8,500 advance (and it was a short book).

For all my books since then … more than 80 to date … I have had them published by mainstream publishing houses including John Wiley & Sons, HarperCollins, Henry Holt, Prentice Hall, and New American Library.

I always preferred traditional publishing to self-publishing for these reasons:

1—It was a lot less work. I only had to write the book. The publisher took care of designing, printing, storing, shipping, and selling it.

2—It cost me nothing out of pocket. And it paid me immediate income – an advance – even before the book was published.

3—There was much more prestige in those days being published by a “real” publishing house than by having it printed at your own expense.

At least one famous self-publishing guru disputes me on this. He says: “The reader doesn’t look to see or care about who published the book; he only cares who the author is and what the book is about.”

From years of personal experience, I can tell you flat-out that this isn’t true — and people are more impressed when you are published by a traditional publisher … regardless of whether they should be.

Once, when I was giving a speaking engagement, one of the attendees volunteered to chauffer me from the airport to the convention center – because, he told me, doing so would give him some private time with me.

“So you’ve written 35 books?” he asked me. “Yep,” I replied.

“Self-published them, I suppose,” he said lightly, but I could hear the undertone of something like mockery or mild denigration in his voice.

“Nope,” I snapped backed proudly and confidently. “My publishers are McGraw-Hill, Prentice Hall, and Wiley.”

He looked at me with newfound respect, and the only reason was that in his eyes I was now a “real” author instead of a guy that paid to have his scribbling printed and bound.

I once gave a very well-attended course at the Learning Annex in
New York City called “How to Get Out of a Slump.”

I think the reason it was well-attended was because the topic is
universal: everybody gets in a slump every now and then – not
just baseball players.

To my great surprise, one of the attendees was a former star of
a network sitcom.

She is beautiful and talented, but after the sitcom went off the
air, her career (she told me) went into a long slump … and the
success others had predicted for her did not materialize.

The entire essence of the course was a simple 3-step process:

1-Find out what works and doesn’t work for you.

2-Stop doing what doesn’t work.

3-Do MUCH more of what does work.

The importance of the word “much” in step 3 is critical.

When you have a setback, don’t just try a few things to reverse
it.

Take what I call “massive action.”

Do much more than you think is required to reverse your slump.

That way, the odds of finding something that works are
geometrically increased.

I have often said that the secret to having a pipeline full of
leads for your business is to figure out how much marketing you
need to get the number of leads you want – and then do double
that.

Years ago, I interviewed Jane Trahey, a successful advertising
executive in Chicago, for a career book I was writing.

She told me the secret to her success was having many balls in
the air at once, which increased the chances that at least one
would stick.

The natural tendency of human beings faced with difficulty and
adversity is to shut down – to retreat and nurse their wounds.

The stereotype of this is the young woman who sits on the couch
eating a large container of fudge ripple ice cream.

You must resist this temptation to give up and instead do the
opposite – leap into action at full speed and full steam.

Be sure to follow my 3-step formula which requires you to (1)
find out what does and does not work, (2) stop doing what
doesn’t work, and (3) do much more of what does work.

Remember the old maxim: Insanity is doing things in the same way
and expecting different results.

It is also doing nothing.

By the way, worrying about the slump you are in is human nature,
but it is also a complete waste of time.

So stop worrying about your slump. And start doing something
about it.

P.S. Do not despair if your results from using this 3-step
formula are not immediate. Often it takes a few weeks or even a
couple of months before you start seeing a return on your
investment.