AutoResponder Madness (3rd Edition)
Welcome to ARM—a MASTERCLASS training course whichcodifies my
entire email marketing “workhorse” system.
This is a system I’ve honed through in-the-trenches practice over the past decade.
It leverages a strategy that is almost completely automated (once setup).
This workhorse system takes prospect and customers, and transforms them
into super-fans; people who will be attracted to you (and your brand), and be
more likely to purchase everything you put out.
We look at subscribers as people—not numbers or clicks or opens; but real
people with needs, wants and desires.
Email can literally be like magic when leveraged in a way that’s audience-centric,
and uses serialized story-based emails as the delivery vehicle for your marketing
message.
We know you’re going to love what you learn within ARM…
It’s already helped 1,000s and 1,000s of marketers level-up their ability to leverage
email in a way that produces magical-likeresults (happy super-fans, and a lot
more money for you as a result).
Whether you’re going through ARM yourself because you have a need to get
better at email, or putting one of your team members through it, we know this
will be a game changer for you and your business.
One last thing…
We keep adding to this training; sometimes just little additions, other times full
lesson or section upgrades…
Because you’re now a customer (on the inside; part of the “family”), you’ll
receive ALL FUTURE UPDATES at no additional charge (yay!).
This is one of the reasons why we don’t offer a PDF version of ARM. This is just
not a linear type training program that can be presented within a PDF, and kept up
to date.
I first published version 1.0 back in 2009. It’s been through three major updates
since then. So just know that what you see here is always going to be current and
the latest version.
… and that you have lifetime access (yay!).
So take your time. There’s a lot to digest.
Now, without further ado. Enjoy!
Recommended Resources
Below are the primary (most important) tools and services that I personally use
within the context of email.
You don’t need any of these if you already have something that works for you.
What you learn within ARM works regardless of what tools you use.
Just know that some tools and service are just better and more efficient at “getting
the job done”. What I use is listed below:
Email Service Providers (ESPs)


DRIP (Quick & Easy Email Marketing Automation Software)
o Drip is the service I use to send bulk email. I just love it. I wrote a
full review here.
ActiveCampaign (Advanced Email Automation)
o I used ActiveCampaign for a few years. It’s an amazing tool sporting the
most advanced feature set of the three. But, sadly for me, it also has one

feature I HATE and just can’t live with. Which is why I moved to Drip. I
explain my reasons in the review I wrote.
ConvertKit (Simple Yet Powerful)
o If I didn’t love Drip so damn much, I would be using ConvertKit. I
recommend it to clients who don’t need the “extra horsepower” that Drip
and ActiveCampaign offer. If you currently
use AWeber or MailChimp; ConvertKit is PERFECT for your needs
(there is absolutely zero reason to use AWeber or MailChimp with tools
like these three).
Evergreen (Email) Funnels

Deadline Funnel — DF adds ethical urgency to your email marketing funnels,
so you can sell more in less time. It’s a brilliant service; and it adds a
“steroids” boost to what I teach in ARM. It’s almost like Jack Born created
Deadline Funnel specifically for ARM.
Audio Version
AUDIO VERSION: I know a lot of us prefer to listen to an audio, rather than just
reading. You can access all the lessons in audio format here. I recommend
downloading the full set. Then reading through the written lessons whilst
listening. The audio alone is not going to do the job. This is a course on writing —
it makes most sense in written format. Plus there are a ton of video, and picture
examples to support.
Core Training
Module
Prelude
1
Unit 1
Welcome & What to Expect
Unit 2
The Big Picture
Module
ARM Core
2
Unit 1
Profiling & Understanding Your Audience
Unit 2
Creating ATTENTION Through The Use of a Hook
Unit 3
Open & Nested Loops (The Secret to Building Suspense, Drama, Tension &
Owning Attention)
Unit 4
Story Direction & Structure (Storyboarding)
Module
SOS - Soap Opera Sequences
3
Unit 1
Soap Opera Sequence (Episode 1)
Unit 2
Soap Opera Sequence (Episode 2)
Unit 3
Soap Opera Sequence (Episode 3)
Unit 4
Soap Opera Sequence (Episode 4)
Unit 5
Soap Opera Sequence (Episode 5)
Unit 6
Soap Opera Sequence Summary
Module
List Segmentation
4
Unit 1
List Segmentation
Module
Product Launch Sequences & Email Triads
5
Unit 1
Product Launch Sequence
Unit 2
Product Launch Sequence Case Study & Email Triads
Module
Knowledge Upgrades: Storytelling, Marketing & Inner Game
6
Unit 1
Storytelling Hacks
Unit 2
Marketing Hacks
Unit 3
Inner Game Mastery
Module
BONUS Lesson: Andre’s $77,802 Fan Page Funnel Case Study
7
Unit 1
The $77K Case Study
Welcome & What to Expect
Welcome to Autoresponder Madness, now in its 3rd Edition.
Real glad you’re here. Smart move.
After “stress testing” and honing ARM since 2005/’06 in stealth (exposing it only
to a few close friends), I finally released version 1.0 to the public in July 2009.
(Damn, that seems like a lifetime ago in internet years. I’m a dinosaur.)
In creating the 3rd Edition we went through over 1,700 feedback results. What
you’re about to consume is the end result of that.
I’ve almost completely rewritten everything from scratch. So that the core message
and concepts are articulated more succinctly.
We feel this is our easiest version to understand
Thanks for putting your trust in what I have to share. I appreciate your business.
And in return I will overdeliver, or die trying.
This training is going to ROCK YOUR WORLD. No doubt about it. It will give
you new perspective and insight.
… and a buck gets ten, it’ll be some of the best training you’ve ever been exposed
to. Ever. That’s not my own empty claims, either. That’s what others who have
been exposed to ARM are saying.
I hope ARM will change the way you do business, and the way you treat and
approach communicating with your audience, your tribe, your prospects and
clients.
I’m not kidding…
In a nutshell, ARM will teach you to use the magic of storytelling to connect,
persuade & influence. It’s very powerful.
Enjoy the ride.
Now before I start I have a question for you…
What’s the #1 priority in business today?
Think about the answer. I doubt you’ll even get close. But give it a shot anyway.
I’ll give you the answer in Lesson #18, a bit later.
Now, onto some housekeeping…
Housekeeping: Unlocking Lessons
In the 2nd Edition of ARM I used what I call “dispensed learning” to, well,
dispense the training to customers in bite-sized chunks of information. I sent out
one “lesson” per day, via email, for 8 or so weeks.
That way instead of serving up one long PDF for you to find your own way
through, people got easily digestible chunks, to chew over and swallow (food
analogy over).
For the most part that worked very well. But there were some obvious negatives to
that.
For most customers, one lesson per day sent right to their inbox, worked just fine.
Better than fine. They loved it.
However, we all learn at a different pace.
Some customers wanted the info faster. They didn’t like the “drip drip drip” style
of delivering content. 2 months was too long to wait, they wanted to consume it all
in 2 days.
So back to the drawing board I went.
Bit of head scratching later … and BOOM!
“Self-Paced Learning” was born. Well actually self-paced learning has been
around forever I think. I just adapted it a little, enhanced it, and added
“gamification”.
So here’s how it works…
At the end of each lesson there’ll be a big yellow button to click that’ll take you to
the next lesson.
You can’t cheat and skip ahead.
You have to progress in lesson order … sequentially.
This is by design.
Believe me, you’ll benefit HUGELY by progressing through this training, in the
order it was intended (lessons build on lessons that build on later lesson).
This way you can progress at your own pace.
As fast or as slow as you choose.
Meaning you can take a year to consume everything, or a day (NOT
RECOMMENDED!).
Totally up to you. You control the pace.
All I ask, for your own sake, is that you don’t cheat. Don’t just race through and
click through each lesson just to “unlock” everything.
You’ll only be screwing yourself, no me.
Housekeeping: The Battle For Your Inbox
Attention
You’ll be receiving emails from me as part of this training.
Now I know you get a lot of emails. No doubt about that.
Some of them get your attention. But most don’t. I’m no different. I operate the
same way.
But I need your attention!
If you have to (highly recommended), create a filter in your email client so that
two things happen.
1. So that emails I send you will never be “filtered” into your spam folder, ever
(very recommended)
2. So that emails I send you are highlighted in some way, or marked
as important (optional, but recommended).
If you use Gmail, here’s how to do that:
Settings > Filters > Create a New Filter >
UPDATE: Since doing the above screen captures, we’ve moved all our courses
over to tinylittlebusinesses.com. As such, we’ve also changed our email to come
from the same domain name.
So in the Filter From field, write this (and yes, there is nothing before the “@”
sign on purpose—just copy and paste what you see below:
@tinylittlebusinesses.com
This will “whitelist” any and all emails we send you. Means they’ll never ever go
to spam by mistake (yay!).
Do this right now, before you forget.
I think that about sums up the housekeeping side of things.
… now let’s get started, tiger.
–Andre “let’s get the show on the road” Chaperon
The Big Picture
This lesson is the overview of what AutoResponder Madness (ARM) is. The big
picture. The zoomed out view.
I’ll dive into the details of each main component too.
At the end is a piece of “homework” for you to sink your teeth into — which will
help you put what you learn into practice (I have a motto, practice trumps
theory … or put another way, learn by doing).
Right, let’s get cracking…
ARM — The Nurturing System
Following ARM strategies presumes that you embrace a certain philosophy — a
way of doing business online.
By the end of the ARM training this philosophy will make more sense to you.
But the nutshell of it is this:
ARM is about delivering REAL VALUE to your chosen audience through the use
of a series of highly targeted, story-based emails. Your aim is to resolve the deep
emotional pain your audience is feeling, by offering a solution to their problem.
In the process of doing that, you build a long term relationship with that audience,
your crowd, your tribe.
ARM presumes the attitude that you look at everybody who you want to do
business with, and decide you’re not going to wait for money to change hands
before you start contributing, guiding, counseling, advising and protecting
them.
(Read this paragraph again. Let it sink in.)
This is where it all starts and ends.
I suggest this becomes the all-encompassing “mindset” that should guide all your
email marketing efforts.
It’s a philosophy I learned from Jay Abraham many years ago.
Jay calls this the Strategy of Preeminence. Jay says:
“… you become the fiduciary to your tribe, even (and especially) before
money has changed hands.” — Jay Abraham
… and that’s the mindset I suggest you need to adopt.
fi·du·ci·ar·y — involving trust, especially with regard to the relationship between a
trustee and a beneficiary.
Since 2005 this philosophy has become the cornerstone of EVERYTHING I do in
business.
As a result of practicing the Strategy of Preeminence, I have a tribe of followers
that will buy my stuff over and over again. Because I have already earned
their attention and trust.
It creates long term (awesome) customers.
And this, my friend, is where the REAL MONEY is…
It’s funny really … because whenever I send out a promotion for something, I
inevitably get people emailing me back with comments like this:
Andre,
Don’t care what it is that I just bought. YOU asked for a cause, and that’s
good enough for me.
You’ve NEVER pitched anything that wasn’t helpful anyway.
Nick
Here’s another recent example of being a fiduciary before money has ever changed
hands…
On launch day for ARM (2nd Edition) a subscriber (read: non-customer) asked me
this:
RICHIE: Anyway.. I don’t want to miss out on this but I just saw an email
from your bud Mark Acutt saying to wait as he is offering a bonus.
Hhmm.. I do like bonus’s & am sure other “big dawg” guys will be
offering some insane “goody bags”.
I know you can’t see the future, but your pretty darn gifted, and I was
wondering if I should wait?
ANDRE: Honestly … I’d suggest wait. I know I’ll earn less for saying that
– but you get more – and that, to me, is more important.
RICHIE: I honestly don’t know many marketers that would have
answered like you did.. Its very refreshing to here the truth.
Consider me a customer for life
Thanks for the truth!!
Richie
Being a fiduciary is really not that hard.
People are inherently good — and if you treat them with respect and empathy —
you will always win in the long run (you are in business for the long run, right?).
Stepping over a bit of commission ($98) to earn a customer for life was a braindead easy decision for me.
… because, now with the benefit of hindsight, Richie not only (eagerly) purchased
ARM, but later become a member of our TLB Masterclass training, too.
Here’s the short version of Jay Abraham talking about the Strategy of
Preeminence:
… and here’s the longer version (which I highly recommend you also watch):
Jay’s philosophy works for affiliate marketing … it works for product owners,
startups, fortune 500 corporations, and even governments.
It’s universal.
But it’s taken me a lot of trial and error to translate Jay Abraham’s Strategy of
Preeminence into what I do.
ARM is your fast-track blueprint on how to apply this philosophy and mindset as
your touch-point with clients through (ninja like) email marketing.
It starts right here.
You need to understand this.
Everything you do in your business should be,first and foremost, IN THE BEST
INTEREST OF YOUR CUSTOMERS.
So, if you don’t already, I suggest that you make the decision to embrace this
philosophy as you’re embracing the ARM philosophy.
BTW (before I forget) there is also a super-ninja advanced strategy I’ll reveal to
you later.
I had second thoughts of even including it. It’s part of this program, a bit later.
Now let’s talk about the BIG PICTURE for ARM.
Understanding the BIG PICTURE
(Click the image above to open a high-res version in a new window.)
Better yet, print it out and follow along with me (I’ve also included a highresolution version at the end of this lesson, so that you can print it out and pin it up
somewhere.)
This illustration shows you the different components of an effective ARM system
and how they fit in with each other. As we move on through the lessons, I will
deep-dive into each element. We’ll tackle the what’s, how to’s, and why’s
together.
Now, let’s get going.
Main Soap Opera Sequence
… or SOS for short.
This is the core workhorse element behind delivering awesomeness to your tribe
of subscribers and clients.
This is where all the magic happens.
An effective ARM SOS:
forms the core of your Nurturing System.
 is delivered automatically (not through broadcasts) as a follow-up sequence.
 is made up of (1) main SOS, and many smaller ones — for e.g., in the
illustration below: SOS #2, 3, 4, 5, 6 (I’ll explain shortly).
 uses story (storytelling) as the emotional delivery vehicle of your message
(read: the preeminent value you impart as a fiduciary).
 does NOT “sell” to your audience, rather it uses evergreen storybased product promotions to recommend valuable solutions to the problems
you know your crowd needs to solve (this’ll make sense in a bit).
Below is an illustration of the nuts-and-bolts of the ARM SOS (and all its
elements).

(Click the image above to open a high-res version in a new window.)
Now, looking at the SOS illustration above, focus on the top line — SOS #1 —
which represents your main email list that people add themselves to.
E1, E2, E3, E4, etc … represent the sequential emails loaded up in your
autoresponder, as follow-up messages. Like this, for example:
They’re sequential emails that (automatically) go out at pre-defined intervals.
SOS #2, SOS #3, SOS #4 … And So On
Now here’s where things may get a little weird for you
But stick with me.
Because this next part is a game changer.
Think of your main SOS as a TV series. Your favorite one. Lost, 24, The
Sopranos, Fringe … hell, even Kourtney & Kim Take New York. Whatever.
As the story in your main SOS plays out, you’ll get your readers to interact with
your content, i.e. to take specific action/s (the techniques we’ll discuss later).
Based on the actions taken — you’ll create segmented sub-lists. Which in turn will
get their own dedicated, highly targeted SOS (SOS #2, 3, 4, 5, 6 above). Think of
these as sub-plots in your main story.
These sub-plots are smaller/shorter soap opera sequences — made up of one, two,
three … a small handful of emails.
In some cases you’ll want to simply “tag” a person that took a pre-defined action
— like clicked a link (see E1 in the illustration). You won’t necessarily have to
create a sub-plot (I’ll explain this in detail when we talk about it later).
For now, the point is:

you have a main SOS that goes to your entire list.


you then segment that list into sub-lists, based on the actions that the people
on the list took.
you write different SOS’s (sub-plots) for the different segments, allowing you
to fine-tune your message to the specific interest/needs/desires each person has
displayed, i.e. you deliver hyper-relevant value.
Right, let’s move on…
Product Launch Sequences
… or PLS for short.
This is a secondary component to the overall system.
Think of this as an “instant cash component“. Hmmm … sexy! … “instant cash”.
Yes.
But…
PLSs are only ever used for one-off product launches or promotions.
… like to quickly get the message out about something, to a portion of your list, as
a mass-broadcast (read: not a follow-up sequence).
Look at the PLS (big picture) illustration below:
… and here’s a zoomed in area of the “PLS” area:
(Click the images above to open high-res versions in a new window.)
Two scenarios (option 1 and option 2) … similar end result.
Option #1 would play out like this:
You operate in the weight loss market (doesn’t matter whether you’re an affiliate
or vendor). Your main (SOS) list therefore is made up of a varied demographic
(demo for short) — male (40%) and female (60%).
Your main SOS sends out emails over a three (3) month period. Within the context
of that SOS, you have a number of (segmented) sub-lists built.
So you already know:

gender

you have a fairly accurate idea of age groups (I’ll show you exactly how to
determine this later)
That’s all you know for sure.
You are promoting a post-pregnancy weight loss offer. So you EXCLUDE your
male sub-list(s), and just target women 18 to 40 (your younger demo).
This way you make sure (as much as possible) that the offer you’re sending is a
really good tight match to the majority of people being exposed to the PLS.
In the process you get to identify yet another audience segment — so that next time
you can be even more targeted.
Option #2 in the PLS illustration is (ideally) when you don’t yet have one or more
segmented sub-lists that match the offer you’re thinking of sending out.
… meaning that perhaps you don’t know the gender for sure. Or age. And you
don’t have any other way to specifically target post-pregnancy women.
So what you do, is send a broadcast to your main email list and ask(call out) who’s
interested in the offer (without diving into details).
You then add only them to a sub-list (yay for next time!) … and then play out
your post-pregnancy weight loss offer PLS.
Same result in the sense that only interested people get exposed to the offer.
But the big negative with Option #2 is that even though you’re “asking” who’s
interested — inevitably non-interested people (like men) are going to see the
(initial) broadcast.
All in all — an effective PLS has the following components:
 a set of emails sent out as broadcasts — not as follow-ups — that are used to
impart targeted value-based product information to a segment of your
audience that has expressed interest.
 that ‘set of emails’ can be anything from one (1) email to many (I call a threeemail sequence an Email Triad — and it’s super effective)
 a PLS has a beginning and an end (example: E1, E2, and E3 — done!)
 only targets sub-lists that are a good match to the offer (example: don’t send
a post-pregnancy weight loss offer to women who don’t have a kid … or
worse still, to men)
 is manually created once a month (or a quarter, or whenever it makes sense
to)
 is perfect for quick-cash windfalls (but a PLS is not a replacement for a SOS
— a SOS is always your primary methodof “nurturing” and earning
consistent automated revenue!)
Summary
That’s it for this lesson. Let’s sum up everything we touched on today:

ARM is about delivering REAL VALUE to your chosen audience through the
use of a series of highly targeted, story-based emails. Your aim is to resolve
the deep emotional pain your audience is feeling, by offering a solution to
their problem.

ARM presumes the attitude that you look at everybody who you want to do
business with, and decide you’re not going to wait for money to change hands
before you start contributing, guiding, counseling, advising and protecting
them.

ARM has a main SOS going out to your main list.

Sub-lists are segmented from your main list, based on actions taken.

Each sub-list can have its own sub-SOS’s.

Your SOS’s are automated and are your main cash-generators.

As and when it’s beneficial to your list, you can plug in a broadcast PLS of 1,
3, or more messages.

Your PLS must be hyper-targeted to the list you’re sending it to.
Print out the large version of the BIG PICTURE illustration and pin it up
somewhere visible for when you read the lessons.
Download hi-res version, here »
Now enough with the foreplay.
Next lesson we get cracking.
— Andre “foreplay is important” Chaperon
P.S.
Anybody (read: you) that wants to get a mass audience to take a particular action,
can use autoresponders to quickly and easily get the job done.
It’s called leverage. And clever ninja marketers do it well…
No doubt president Barack Obama has a few of these elite-ninjas in his innercircle.
During the 2008 U.S. presidential election campaign, the Obama camp (in
reaction to Sarah Palin’s Republican National Convention speech) sent out an
email to a list of 2 million people … and raised $10 MILLION in donations from
that SINGLE email, from 130,000 donors.
ONE email.
ONE day.
130,000 actions inspired.
$10 MILLION bucks.
Not bad for a days work, huh?
Little wonder he won the election. The other guy didn’t stand a chance.
Then in 2012 he only went and did it again.
Most of the $690 million (that’s over half a BILLION dollars) Obama raised
online came from fundraising emails.
Impressive.
“We did extensive A-B testing not just on the subject lines and the amount of
money we would ask people for but on the messages themselves and even the
formatting.” says Amelia Showalter, director of digital analytics.
The campaign would test multiple drafts and subject lines — often as many as 18
variations — before picking a winner to blast out to tens of millions of subscribers.
(Later in ARM I’ll show you how to use PLSs to find winners, then take those
winners and write them right into your SOS.)
“When we saw something that really moved the dial, we would adopt it,” says
Toby Fallsgraff, the campaign’s e-mail director, who oversaw a staff of 20 writers.
Profiling & Understanding Your
Audience
In the previous iteration of ARM I had this lesson on day 8.
… which was completely wrong. That was for damn sure. Should have been way
sooner. Which is why I’m hitting you over the head with it now, at the very
beginning.
Have you ever tried writing to an audience that’s new to you? … in other words,
where you knew absolutely nothing about them. Nada. Not a damn thing.
Where you were completely clueless to their (actual) wants, needsand desires.
Worse still — you had absolutely no idea what their pain is.
I’ve done that.
It’s a grind and it’s a complete guessing game. It’s impossible to really write
persuasive web or email copy when you’re in the dark about the pain points of
your audience.
… about what hot-buttons to push and cajole and what words to use to motivate
them into action. Sometimes you can get lucky. Guess the right thing to say. But
that’s only temporary.
Write these words down somewhere. Where you can see them every damn day.
Scribe them with a permanent marketer on the back of your arm, if that helps…
The business that wins is the business that understands their customer better than
anyone else.
Take a second to seriously think about that.
That’s what this lesson is all about. You need to know your audience like the back
of your hand. Before you write a single word of email copy.
Knowing this stuff will put you way ahead of the competition (but you have to do
the work first).
But before we start … go get a coffee, or green tea, or Wu-Long, water, beer, or
whatever your beverage of choice is.
(Hmmm … talkin’ of beer — try one or two when writing. It does wonders for
creative thinking. But don’t over do it … because when one or two turn into four or
five … well, all bets are off then. I’m rambling again. Sorry bout that. And no, I’m
not drinking beer as I write this. That’s my story and I’m stickin’ to it.)
So get comfortable.
Let’s start…
Before you can understand the conversation running through your audiences head.
You need to know the “story that they are telling themselves“.
You need to determine what end result they want to achieve.
Or put another way … what’s their pain?!
You can’t (or shouldn’t) write a word without FIRST knowing this.
The research and undercover work you do will end up forming the framework of
your soap opera sequence (SOS).
Getting your “pocket of people” to respond to your writing will all come down to
how well you implement this lesson — and how well you can get into their head.
You may think you already know your audience. But a buck gets ten you don’t …
not nearly well enough anyway.
I have seasoned marketers email me to tell me that what I’m about to share with
you was a game-changer for them – even though they’ve done business for years.
So here is what you do…
Three things.
1. ask questions (four initial ones)
2. create an empathy map (data driven)
3. create an avatar (story-based) from that empathy map
The result of doing all three of these things is going to open your eyes up to
a shitload of insights.
Once you’ve collected good intel about what makes your chosen segment “tick”,
have a think and ID the 1 to 3 most common representatives within that segment.
These will be your top 3 ideal target customers.
For each of them, go through the three steps detailed below.
STEP 1: Answer These Four Questions
1. What is the end result that your ideal customer wants to achieve?
2. What are the elements required to get to this end result? (the steps … the
sticking points or roadblocks)
3. What can you give them (as in information) that will move them closer to that
end result? (… like one step closer, then one more step, and one more, etc)
4. What is the biggest fear they have that’s preventing them from getting to the
end result? (hint: find the pain!)
Later in this lesson I’ll give you all the resources you need to get all the answers.
STEP 2: Create an Empathy Map
I first learned about empathy maps when reading Gamestorming in 2010. In fact, it
was the one big takeaway I got from the book.
… and it completely changed how I built audience profiles, and how I
“visualized” insights. This is a game changer. That’s for damn sure.
Here’s what a typical empathy map looks like:
The one above is drawn up on a whiteboard … then colored Post-it notes are used
to populate the empathy map. I use a digital version. But more about that shortly.
An empathy map is a map of someone else’s point-of-view (POV). What
do THEY see, say, think, feel and hear.
… it’s THEIR perspective. THEIR world view. THEIR emotions. THEIR beliefs.
It allows you to go beyond a customer’s demographic characteristics and develop a
better understanding of their environment, behavior, concerns, and aspirations. It
helps you really get inside their head.
You create (populate) an empathy map by observing four core customer traits.
The challenge when creating an empathy map is in making sure it represents real
(unbiased) traits that aren’t “skewed” by your own personal beliefs and/or ego.
You essentially have to remove all your own biases and approach this from the
viewpoint of looking out through the lens of your ideal customer.
… their shoes, eyes and thoughts (the story or conversation playing in their head).
Along with the customer avatar (which I’ll cover next), an empathy map is a tool
to help you “synthesize” your observations of your audience and draw out
(potentially) unexpected insights.
The goal of the “game” is to gain a deeper level of understanding of your
customer, within a given context — such as a buying decision or an experience
using a product or service.
So here’s what you do…
Give your empathy map a name. Like Alex or Susan. Something real that
represents your ideal target customer. In other words, if your primary audience
is WAHMs — then your empathy map will represent a mom.
Add as much identifying information as you can — such as a job title. Of course a
work-at-home-mom works from home … but what does she do to earn a living,
specifically? An article writer, PHP developer, info marketer?
If you find it helpful, fill in some extra details … like perhaps glasses if
appropriate, or a hairstyle to differentiate the person from other empathy maps you
might want to create (I use photos).
These simple details are not a frivolous addition — they will help you project
yourself into the experience (point-of-view) of that person. Which is the whole
point of the exercise in the first place.
The empathy map is divided into four quadrants:
1. THINK & FEEL?
2. SEE?
3. SAY & DO?
4. HEAR?
(BTW: At the end of this lesson I’ll give you resources that you can use to populate
your empathy map.)
Populate your empathy map by asking and answering the following six questions:
1 — WHAT DOES SHE SEE?
Describe what your ideal customer sees in her environment:

What does it look like?

Who surrounds her?

What types of offers is SHE exposed to daily?

What problems does she encounter?
2 — WHAT DOES SHE HEAR?
Describe how the environment influences your ideal customer:

What do her friends say?

Who really influences her, and how?
3 — WHAT DOES SHE REALLY THINK & FEEL?
Try to sketch out what goes on in your ideal customer’s mind:

What is really important to her (which she might not say publicly)?

Imagine her emotions. What moves her?

Try to describe her dreams and aspirations.
4 — WHAT DOES SHE SAY & DO?

What is her attitude?

What could she be telling others?

Pay particular attention to potential conflicts between what a customer might
say and what she may truly think or feel.
5 — WHAT IS HER PAIN?

What are her biggest frustrations?

What obstacles stand between her and what
she wants or needs to achieve?

Which risks might she fear taking?
6 — WHAT DOES SHE GAIN?

What does she truly want or need to achieve?

How does she measure success?

Think of some strategies she might use to achieve her goals?
Write down as many answers as you can think of. There’s no such thing as too
much info here. Just make sure anything you write is related to the problem your
ideal customer is trying to solve.
Keep checking yourself to make sure filling this in from HER perspective.
For example … you might want to understand the buying decision your ideal
customer is going through. In which case your question might be — “Why should I
buy X?” (notice the first-person)
This will help you to populate your empathy map. Keep asking questions. As best
you can try to PROJECT yourself into that person’s experience and understand
the context you want to explore.
Then start to fill in the diagram with real, tangible, sensory experiences.
If this all seems like a lot of work … well, you’d be right — it is.
No getting around it.
But honestly, this process is fun to do and it doesn’t need to consume hours and
hours of your time. Plus the hidden A-HA! moments in this kind of in-depth work
will blow your mind.
Here’s a short video that does a pretty good job of demonstrating the empathy
mapping process:
Next are some videos from Stanford’s d.school (their design school) that will help
you with this process.
… but keep in mind that the context of d.school is “design” (coming up with and
designing solutions for people). So the context may be different to yours — but the
process is the same.
Role-playing Examples: Understanding, Empathy,
and Interviewing
Real Life Interview Example
Molly from d.school with insights about POV
Two ways for you to create your empathy map(s):
1. Use a whiteboard with Post-it notes (works well cause you can easily move the
Post-its around or edit them)
2. Use a blank printed out empathy map (download a copy here — compliments
of xplane.com)
STEP 3: Create a Customer Avatar
This is the final step in the process of customer insights.
I originally learned this from Eben Pagan in his Get Altitude program back in
2007.
I’ve been using it ever since.
… and like the empathy map — I’ve found this process to be completely game
changing. In fact, here’s a snippet of Eben on stage at his Get Altitude seminar —
talking about customer avatars:
I’ve always created my avatars as a narrative (based on the real world insights from
my empathy maps).
Essentially you turn your empathy map into a story, with as much emotions as you
can extract from your empathy map.
Raw data is hard to remember. It’s not something the brain can easily create a
picture of … unless you help it.
Our brains think, remember and store in pictures — built around stories.
… so by creating your customer avatar as a narrative, it allows you to easily
“visualize” your audience … and hence makes it 10 times easier to write to them in
their language, and using words that THEY care about.
It’s the whole damn point of doing this.
Here’s an example of a customer avatar that represents a large subset of the
audience I want to attract to my various online businesses.
There’s a good chance this story will resonate with you.
Customer Avatar: James
James is 56, married (to Linda) with two kids — a 12yr old (Samantha) and a 17yr
old (Max).
James’ ability to earn a (stable) living to support his family has become more and
more tenuous and “unstable” in the past four years.
It’s at a point now where he just isn’t sure if he’ll still have a job come Christmas
time.
It’s no longer a question of if, but rather a question of when.
Tick tock, tick tock.
It’s (incredibly) important to James to be the bread winner. Linda is a working
mom, but there’s no way her salary would be able to support the
household if (when) he lost his job.
Time to make a decision. Time to roll the dice.
For the past 8 months James has been “dabbling” with this thing called Internet
marketing. He’s made absolutely zero money as a result of his dabbling. But that’s
understandable. Because till now it’s only been a hobby to him.
But James considers himself smart … perhaps a little smarter than the average
Joe. He knows there are people making a full time living online. Selling “air”
(digital stuff) to an audience not constrained by geographic boarders. Perfect.
He’s not fooling himself. Creating the next Facebook just isn’t in him. He’s a
realistic kinda guy.
But building an online business that can earn him $10,000 per month. Oh yeah
baby, that’s what I’m talkin’ about! That’s definitely within his ability.
While he still has a job, James plans to “upgrade” his mindset from thinking of
this Internet opportunity as a hobby, to a business … a real tangible business.
… and so James goes out, with an upgraded mindset, a determined focus, and
renewed hope.
As an aside, you can narrate your avatar in 1st person or 3rd person (like in the
example above). Both work. I do both. Whichever helps you to demonstrate
emotion. Meaning, if you gave it to a partner to read, they would be able to FEEL
THE PAIN.
I’ve gone one step further than just creating avatars for my own marketing benefit.
I actually use them in my marketing (here an example).
Resources for Insights
Before I give you a list of resources that I use to get customer insights … know
this. Talking to and interviewing (as in face-to-face) your ideal customer —
is ALWAYS going to yield the best insights. That’s for damn sure.
… because you get to see and react to emotions and body language. No other way is
better.
The next best method of getting customer insights is by interviewing them
remotely, like over Skype or on the dog-and-bone (phone — London cockney
slang).
You don’t get to see body language, but it’s still a lot better than not
actually speaking to your ideal customer(s) at all. You get to heartheir emotionally
charged responses.
In order of best to worst — most effective to least effective:
1. Face-to-face in person insight interview.
2. Remote insight interview (Skype, phone … or hire a pro to do the interview for
you).
3. Surveying your ideal customer using something
like SurveyMonkey or Polldaddy or Wufoo or Google Forms.
4. The fly-on-the-wall resources below…
5. Nothing. Nada. Just pure guessing (this is how the status quo does marketing —
it’s the most common of the 5 options).
Here’s a list of go-to resources that I’ve compiled over the years. Over time this
list will change. I’ll constantly update it.
One last thing … you’ll need to use a bit of your gray matter when doing your duediligence detective work.
There’s no step-by-step workflow here. This is dirty ol’ fashion detective work ,
just online. Your ability to read between the lines and think outside of the box a
bit, will dictate the kind of results you get back.
ClickBank (use CBEngine to analyze the marketplace)
 Amazon (the Bestsellers section and the Most Wished Forcategories — just
make sure you drill down!)
 SRDS (Standard Rate and Data Service — available at most libraries in the
U.S. — or use this Mailing List Finder which is free.)
 eBay Reviews & Guides
 Google Zeitgeist
o Google Trends
o Trends for Websites
o Insights for Search
o Hot Trends
 DoubleClick Ad Planner
 Graphiq Search (alternative to Google Squared)
 Wolfram|Alpha (Computational Knowledge Engine)
 Yahoo Buzz
 Yahoo! Answers
 Shopping.com Top 100 Searches (Consumer Demand Index)
 Quantcast (and their Site Rankings index)
 Compete (and their Site Profile Search)
 Alexa (and their Top Sites by Category)
 Social Bearing (a search engine powered by tweets)
 TestTube
 Dummies Research (what topics have they published books on?)
 Survey Monkey (Ask people what their frustrations, pains, desires, wants, and
needs are.)
 Twitter Search (this is a BIGGIE!)
Nose around. Be the fly on the wall.

Also search on Google:
[topic/niche]
[topic/niche]
[topic/niche]
[topic/niche]
+forum (example)
+discussion (example)
+community (example)
+blog (example)
If you already have an email list (you should — but if you don’t, go here) then
survey them. Use SurveyMonkey.com or Polldaddy.com(what I use) or just email
them and ask them to click the reply button.
Your turn now.
— Andre “insights ninja” Chaperon
P.S.
If you’re still wondering why the hell you should go to all this extra fuss. Watch
this short Gamestorming video
Creating ATTENTION Through The
Use of a Hook
… attention is scarce.
The hardest thing in marketing is EARNING (1) attention and (2) trust.
Trust will come later in this training.
First you need to create attention. Because without attention you’re invisible.
NOTE: Don’t mistake a hook for your USP. It’s not the same thing. A USP (unique
selling proposition) is that thing that makes your offer unique. It differentiates it
from the competition.
It’s the REASON WHY customers turn to you (or your company) and not to your
competitors. Your USP gives you CLARITY about who you’re talking to, and
what they want. You can only have one USP.
A “hook” is a little different.
It’s there to grab initial attention … to arouse interest, and make your audience
receptive to what you have to say.
In other words … it gets your foot in the door. You can (and should) have different
hooks to “attract” different pockets of people into your sphere of influence.
Earning and owning attention is just as important to someone just starting to build
a list, as it is to a seasoned list owner.
Just because you already have an email list of subscribers and customers —
doesn’t guarantee you control their attention.
On the contrary … most list owners don’t own the attention of their audience.
… which is why — and I’m somewhat generalizing here — when they blast out an
offer to their 50K list … very little happens. Crickets. A handful of sales at most.
But the marketer that owns attention (and trust) has built an asset that’s
worthwhile. Conversely — and this is a biggie — once attention is gone, it’s gone
forever. Something to keep in mind.
We now live in an era where attention is one of the scarcest commodities to a
marketer or company. We’re all bombarded by HUNDREDS of messages per day,
all screaming for our immediate attention. Fighting for our mindshare.
So to cut through the “noise” you need to focus on saying stuff that actually
matters to your audience (not what matters to you). That resonates with them. Stuff
that makes a real difference in their lives.
Seth Godin defines marketing as — “… the art of telling a story that resonates
with your audience and then spreads.”
The only way to be noticed by the people that matter (your best customers) is by:




being different (zagging when everybody zigs).
having a polarized message.
having the guts to reject the status quo and conformity.
being authentic.
The Process
… requires a bit of creativity and out of the box thinking. For a lot of (paint-bynumbers) marketers that’s going to be bad news. A hard pill to swallow.
… for you it’s an opportunity.
Understand that your communication can only be effective whenyou can hyper-target
a message to a very specific pocket of people.
Or put another way … where your message talks directly to the needs, wants,
desires and pain points of your audience.
This is exactly why in the previous lesson I got you to do those exercises to gain
such a deep level of insights about your audience.
The big tip I can give you about “finding” a hook is to dig and dig (and dig), until
you get a clear picture of what everyone else is:
1. saying *
2. but more importantly, what they’re not saying! *
(* a lot of this you’d already have collected as part of profiling your audience.)
This will become more clear with an example.
I’m going to explain the process I went through to come up with my hook for one
of my sites. For you it’ll prob’ly play out a little differently. But the creative
process will be similar.
I have a site called Affiliate Bully. The challenge was coming up with a hook that
grabbed immediate attention — in a space that’s uber-saturated with a million
“make money online” (MMO) offers.
Being different was easy.
I’ve never conformed to the status quo of creating hype-y offers that use hoopla
and fake (crap, did I say that out loud?) income screenshots to get a bit of attention.
Being different is only part of the recipe. Creativity is the other ingredient.
But being creative is not always easy. For some, it’s almost impossible (later on in
this training I have an entire lesson on “creativity” for you).
Anyhoo … at the time it just so happened that I was reading ISLANDS magazine
(I love Zinio btw). It was the “20 Best Islands To Live On” edition (July/Aug
2010).
One of the islands showcased was Vanuatu, which got my attention — because a
customer of mine, Dan, had told me more than a few times that moving to Vanuatu
is his only focus.
So I dug a bit beeper and found out that in 2006 Vanuatu was ranked as the
“happiest place in the world” by Happy Planet Index … and BOOM! Right then
and there I knew I had found my hook.
According to the ISLANDS article … a foreigner only needs to earn $3,000/mo
(transferred to a local bank) — along with $400/yr fee for a Standard Residence
Permit — to live on Vanuatu.
… which is around $100/day in total.
People have a really poor ability to perceive how easy it can be to live in their
dream location — wherever it is in the world.
They’ll go on a holiday to their favorite destination, year after year. They’ll dream
of sunsets and a slower pace of life. Yet they don’t stop to figure out how possible
it really is.
Built-in biases, fear of change, the status quo, and excuses prevent them from even
investigating.
Before I continue, know this…
When you tell someone something that nobody else has told them before, you’re
credited with making that connection for them. Your “coolness” (and authority)
factor get elevated big time. It doesn’t even need to be “new” information — just
information told in a unique way that causes an “AH-HA!” moment for them.
This was my aim with the Vanuatu hook.
So I used Vanuatu as my attention grabbing mechanism. Which then lead into how
inexpensive it is to actually move there.
The point of the hook was not to convince them to pack their bags and head off to
Vanuatu. No. I was simply presenting a reframe of their reality. I just wanted to
create an “AH-HA!” moment in their head. Give them a way to think about what
they do differently.
… because then I would own their attention. They would WANT to continue to
read on … to where I showed them how to create a $100/day income stream
that could get them to Vanuatu, or wherever.
I used no headline (unlike what everyone else does, because that’s what
the sheep are told to do). Just this image. It worked real well.
My hook allowed me to start, and maintain, a channel of communication with my
ideal target audience, that instantly turned me into a trusted source of advice for
them.
A great hook sets you apart from the others.
It draws in interested people and forces them to sit up in their chairs and actually
pay attention.
It’s the difference between the typical one-off sale and building a “tribe” that will
come back to you when they are in need for more stuff to buy.
This is the first part of owning and controlling attention.
A great hook, combined with a solid understanding of your market and
demographic, will automatically put you in a league of your own.
Your job is to build “connection” — every successful company and internet
marketer is successful because they’ve:
1. earned attention,
2. built trust,
3. and turned it into profit.
Finding a Hook in a Weakness or Strength
If you already own the attention of your email audience, and you plan to promote a
product — another way to come up with a hook is to find a weakness or strength in
the product you’re promoting.
In this case the hook is basically an element that you can use as a leverage point.
Where you “hang your hat”. The thing you focus on. It makes what you’re
saying, STAND OUT.
This is especially important if you’re participating in a big product launch.
Without a hook you’re just another average sheep marketer peddling more stuff
because there’s a commission on the other end.
So I typically look for a hook in either a weakness of a product … or something
amazing.
THE WEAKNESS ANGLE
No product or service is perfect.
There is always something missing. This is typically where I first look for my
leverage point.
So I build my hook around that weakness.
Then I create a bonus as the “fix” … the “Band-Aid”.
The must have add-on or complementary “ENHANCEMENT”.
The hook is that little opening where I can jump in and add some real unique value.
Weakness Hook Example
Product X takes the guesswork out of keyword research. It’s brilliant. But I don’t
stop there. There are 1000s of other marketers using this same tool, pressing the
same buttons.
As brilliant as the tool is, it doesn’t give you an edge over other people using it.
But I’ve found a unique way to use the data that Product X returns. This gives me a
massive advantage over everyone else. I take the results I get from Product X and
then plug them into #######. Click a button. And Voila!
I now have a list of the exact keywords to target, and the ones to ignore. Using this
strategy and “secret sauce combo” of tools — I’m crushing it!
I’ve created a 4 minute video that demonstrates how I use Product X and #######
in this unique way that will have you running rings around every other Product X
user.
Best part is that ####### is a free tool.
No one is doing this.
Get Product X through my affiliate link. Then email me your order receipt. I’ll then
send you a link to the video.
But to protect the effectiveness of this secret strategy — I’m only making it
available to the first 100 people that get Product X through my affiliate link.
Reread what I’ve just written above, and then let it sink in.
It’s laced with intrigue, curiosity, fascination and creates desire. It’s an instant
attention grabber for people who have already decided they want “Product X”. No
one will even think about buying the tool without my bonus. It’s a guaranteed sale.
In fact, in many cases, they want the “bonus” more desperately than the actual
product being promoted
THE STRENGTH ANGLE
In some cases you may find that there would be a greater advantage in adding
value to something amazing about the product.
Perhaps there’s no obvious “flaw”.
So instead of putting a spotlight over the weakness or flaw — I highlight an
amazing element.
The trick is to do it in a way that’s unique and makes your marketing stand out
from the other “sheep” promoting the same product, void of any hook or angle.
I don’t think there is any information in the world that can’t be “re-framed” in a
way that’s perceived as new and fresh.
Same goes with products or services.
They may be designed to do something specific. But a buck gets ten
there’s other (unique) ways to use the product or service.
This is especially relevant with a system that produces a desired end result — like
“make money”, for example.
Demonstrate YOURSELF using the system to achieve the promised result — and
you’ll attract more buyers than a Thai hooker.
The following example is a real one from July 12th, 2006. This is a snippet taken
from a presell I had written to promote a product called AdWords Miracle:
Strength Hook Example
{start of snippet}
Right … I had just finished reading the guide. The kicker was that there were a ton
of things that I found huge value in, and a few nuggets that I had never heard
before — at least not quite like Chris had presented it (more about that shortly).
So off I headed into the ClickBank Marketplace to find some “gold” … *grin*
I didn’t dig too deep, and found a product that looked somewhat promising. I
followed Chris’ Skimming Method and setup a preliminary test campaign in
AdWords …
This is what Chris says about his Skimming Method…
Simply put, we want to enter a very well searched, moderate-to-high
earning niche and skim a small amount off the top by paying very little for
traffic and making a return of 200-500% by promoting a product as an
affiliate.
So built a quick test campaign, and like magic, I started making sales:
Gross Earnings: $224.83
AdWords Expenses: $74.62
NET Earnings: $150.21
ROI: 301.30%
… so for every $1 I spend I get back over $3. Not bad for AN HOUR’S work, wouldn’t
you say … bearing in mind that this revenue stream is now setup and on autopilot.
{end of snippet}
By simply demonstrating myself using the product, and achieving the promised
outcome — what I had to say stood out. Instant attention. Instant credibility.
This was one of the first big ClickBank launches. There was a ton of buzz. Lots of
affiliates involved. I had a tiny little list at the time. But that didn’t stop me from
taking the time to create an authentic unique promotion.
I was one of their top affiliates. Which was great. But what was more impressive to
me was that my conversion rate was the HIGHEST by a country mile.
So, that’s it … we’re done talking about hooks.
— Andre “it’s all about the hook” Chaperon
P.S. Let me ask you a question:
Have you ever watched Lost? … or 24? … or perhaps one of these:

The Sopranos

Supernatural

Heroes

Fringe

FlashForward

Keeping Up with the Kardashians

The Girls Next Door

Pretty Wild

Mad Men

E! News

Kendra

Kourtney and Khloe Take Miami

Persons Unknown

Day Break

Falling Skys

Alcatraz

Homeland

Touch

Game of Thrones

Spartacus

V

True Blood

Blue Blood

Awake

Day Break

Fringe

Lost Girl

Nikita

Suits

White Collar
These are all essentially “soap operas”.
Series fiction.
But there is an advanced element within all of the above examples, that makes
them STICKY. Think about what it might be. I’ll reveal it in the next lesson. Then
I’ll show you how-to write using this advanced writing strategy.
Open & Nested Loops (The Secret to
Building Suspense, Drama, Tension &
Owning Attention)
I asked you a question at the end of the previous lesson.
What is the “secret sauce” advanced writing technique that the series-fiction
writers weave into their serialized stories?
Series fiction like:

Lost

24

The Sopranos

Supernatural

Heroes

Fringe

FlashForward

Keeping Up with the Kardashians

Mad Men

E! News

Kourtney and Khloe Take Miami

Persons Unknown

Day Break

Falling Skys

Alcatraz

Homeland

Touch

Game of Thrones

Spartacus

V

True Blood

Blue Blood

Awake

Fringe

Lost Girl

Nikita

Suits

White Collar

Scandal

The Strain

Breaking Bad (I binge-watched all 5 seasons in just two weeks)

House of Cards

The Walking Dead

Believe

Banshee

The Fall

Revenge
… and the list goes on and on.
My two favorites are Lost and 24 (especially the first series). Because they used
this “secret sauce” so damn well.
Ever read the Stieg Larsson trilogy (the movies don’t count btw — it’s something
you have to read to appreciate)?
 The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (Wikipedia | Amazon)
 The Girl Who Played with Fire (Wikipedia | Amazon)
 The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest (Wikipedia | Amazon)
It’s FULL of this mystery box writing technique.
Now unless you’re a screenwriter or NLP master … you’ve prob’ly NEVER heard
of what I’m about to reveal to you.
UPDATE: More recently I read two books (well, technically four, as the latter is
part of a Trilogy) that blew me away with their “unanswered questions” (open
loops). I couldn’t stop flipping the virtual pages of my Kindle.
The first is The Two Deaths of Daniel Hayes (by Marcus Sakey) and
then Pines (by Blake Crouch), which is part of the The Wayward Pines Trilogy.
Open & Nested (Story) Loops
Open loops are “elements” of a story that don’t tie up in that same email.
Think of them as UNFINISHED STORIES or story elements.
With me so far?
An open loop is when you start an idea, thought, or story, and instead of finishing
it, you move onto something else.
In other words … you keep the loop open.
It’s these “unfinished” story threads that create unresolved emotional tension.
Which in turn creates a “cliffhanger effect” (more about this shortly).
You know … leaving you just hanging. Leaving you wanting to know WTF is
going to happen next.
The hero seems to get shot (the sniper moves the crosshairs of his M14 sniper rifle
over the head of Jack Bauer, and gently squeezes the double set trigger …
BOOM!) — but the episode ends right there … the cliffhanger. And then you see
those fateful words:
“TO BE CONTINUED…“
Unresolved emotional tension floods over you.
So you tune in the following week for the resolution because the mystery and
suspense is ticking away in the back of your mind.
Open and nested loops achieve a similar result (effect) with emails.
Whenever the human brain is presented with an open loop (an unfinished idea,
thought, or story element) it seeks closure.
It keeps the reader reading and engaged until they have that closure.
Many times the closure only comes much later in the email sequence … days, even
weeks later.
MOOHAHAHAHA!
The Zeigarnik Effect
This need for closure is called the Zeigarnik Effect after a Russian psychologist,
Bluma Zeigarnik (above left), who noticed an odd thing while sitting in a
restaurant in Vienna. The waiters seemed only to remember orders which were in
the process of being served. When completed, the orders evaporated from their
memory.
Zeigarnik went back to the lab to test out a theory about what was going on. She
asked participants to do twenty or so simple little tasks in the lab, like solving
puzzles and stringing beads.
Except some of the time they were interrupted half way through the task.
Afterwards she asked them which activities they remembered doing.
People were about twice as likely to remember the tasks during which they’d been
interrupted than those they completed.
Simply put, the Zeigarnik Effect is about the human tendency to remember
uncompleted (or interrupted) tasks more than the tasks already completed.
There’s also a tendency (or need) to complete a task once it has been initiated. The
lack of closure that stems from an unfinished task promotes some continued task
related cognitive effort.
The cognitive effort that comes with these intrusive thoughts of the unfinished task
is terminated only once the person returns to complete the task.
The great English novelist Charles Dickens used exactly the same technique.
Many of his works, like Oliver Twist, although later published as complete novels,
were originally “serialized”.
His cliffhangers created such anticipation in people’s minds that his American
readership would wait at New York docks for the latest instalment to arrive by ship
from Britain.
They were that desperate to find out what happened next.
Now … nested loops are simply open loops, but nested.
Meaning that multiple story loops get opened before they get sequentially closed
again.
Stories within stories within stories.
VERY POWERFUL!
Watch this quick video of Kevin Hogan creating audience captivation through
story loops:
See how that works?
Applying Open Loops & Cliffhangers to Your
Email Marketing Storytelling
Your (soap opera sequence) emails should contain a number of these “open loop”
effects for maximum tension and suspense.
I’ll demonstrate EXACTLY how to do this with a real live example.
If this all sounds confusing and complicated, it’s really not. It all boils down
to three powerful key points that you need to remember and exploit:
1. People need to have closure.
2. When they don’t get closure, their RESPONSE POTENTIAL is
INCREASED. <- Hint, hint!
3. ..
That’s it.
Just remember these three points and you’ll be good. You’ll have your readers’
undivided attention.
They’ll be engaged. They’ll be more inclined to read your emails, click your links,
and do what you ask.
It really doesn’t need to be any more complicated than this.
Huh? What’s that?
Oh yeah … that’s right.
I only listed two points above.
Hmmmm…
Thing is … point #3 is FAR TOO POWERFUL for me to tell you about here. Far
too many people are being exposed to ARM, and I want to keep this last piece to
myself
Far too powerful to just give out.
Perhaps I’ll tell you later. I dunno yet.
Lemme think about it…
Soon we’ll be putting all the elements we’ve learned about together.
Be Bold. Make Shit Happen.
— Andre “open loop” Chaperon
P.S.
Did you feel a strange feeling NEED to WANT to know what that 3rd point is?
Truth is … there is no point #3
Was just demonstrating the effect on you. But I really should have only revealed
that there is no point #3 four emails later. lol
Should have left the suspense to built up in your mind for a little while longer.
That’s where it becomes 10x more effective.
Wanna hear another truth?
I’ve been covertly using open/nested loops in EVERY SINGLE lesson of this
training course so far.
Go back and see if you can spot ’em.
Story Direction & Structure
(Storyboarding)
This is the final piece of the ARM puzzle for this Chapter. The next time we talk
we’ll be making sense of everything we’ve spoken about so far. We’ll be putting
all the work you’ve done together to shape up your SOS … very exciting.
But today we talk about how to think up the direction and the structure for your
story. This lesson is tightly connected with understanding your audience. Which is
why it was so important to do it thoroughly.
Story Direction (Find the Roadblocks)
Take a look at this image:
Refer back to the image as you read through this lesson. It’ll help you visualize the
process.
Here’s something for you to think about. It’s easily forgotten.
A buck gets ten that the primary reason people are on your email list is because
they believe (or hope) you can help them achieve a desired result. That you can
help them solve a (painful and emotional) problem … or at least get closer to
resolving it.
… not because you’re a cool cat
Sure, that helps — especially when the “trust factor” is strong — but it’s not the #1
reason why they’re on your list.
So it’s critical that you have a crystal clear idea of:
what is the end result that they (your ideal customer) want to achieve.
 and what steps are required to get them there.
Think about this:

A pocket of people want to earn money online — but why?
A pocket of people want to lose weight — but why?
The first one is easier. It’s almost always freedom.
But the second question is less obvious.
Do they want to lose weight so that in summer they can hit the beach with their
shirts off and ripped abs on display? … or because they don’t want to die?
Die!?
Sure. Same simple question … but with completely different core reasons why.
In 2010 I wrote a big-ass soap opera sequence for customers of one of the biggest
selling diet offers on ClickBank.
Before I could write anything I needed to know and understand their WHY. So I
surveyed them. The responses were eye-opening. It dictated what I wrote, how I
wrote it, and the language I used.
I wasn’t talking to the 18 to 34 crowd. They weren’t the buyers. That’s for damn
sure. This wasn’t about abs and ego and testosterone and sun and impressing girls.
It was a little more serious than that. Life and death. Heart disease. Diabetes. And
growing old without a partner. Serious shit.
Real World Example of Survey Responses

I don’t want to die!

That my health would continue to suffer and I would be in a downward spiral I
could not stop.

heart attack

diabetes

Son is overweight. Parents and siblings are obese. Son requested help.

need to lower my blood sugar levels and get off diabetes meds

heart disease

Diabetes, clogged arteries and not looking as good as I can. Also life
longevity.

growing old without a partner

fatty liver

to help my hubby. he just loves to eat and i was frightened he’d die of heart
attack if he didn’t see it wrote down in black and white.

I have had M.S. for 15 years and am unable to lose weight on diet alone. I can
only walk short distances with walker and use my power chair to go any
distance at all. I need to lose about 90 pounds so I don’t get Diabetes or
something else from being so overweight. My daughter shops at Whole Foods
and buys nutritious food but I need help in learning what to buy and not buy.
Thanks.
This stuff can’t be guessed. Leave that for the amateurs, the copycats, and the
spammers of the world.
We know better. We’re smarter.
So let’s get cracking.
Time to refer back to that illustration at the top of this lesson.
The question you need to ask yourself is — What are the roadblocks (sticking
points, steps) required to get to this end result?
When you know what the end result is that your ideal customer
wants/needs/desires then you can easily determine the steps required to get there.
It’s not rocket science.
Example: MMO
… or make money online.
I’m using the ‘make money online’ niche in this first example because it’s a
reference point we can all relate to.
So … the end result is to make more money, of course.
But that’s only the “surface” desire. The (real) reasons why are (way) more
emotional than that. Far deeper.
9 times out of 10, ultimately, it all comes down to gaining freedom.
The freedom to do stuff on their own terms. Have the ability to support their family
without the stress of a boss who only cares about looking after their own ass … in
an economy that’s in the toilet.
You get the idea. But the why (emotional) reasons only factor in a little later. I’ll
come back to this shortly.
So what are the “steps” required to get to the money?
Be mindful that these “steps” are typically perceived as sticking points or
roadblock for the majority of your audience. Barriers preventing them from
moving forward.
… they tell themselves stories to rationalize why they can’t move forward. It’s a
self-defeating act, but nevertheless it’s what people do to avoid the pain of failure
— ourselves included.
So to make money online they’ll need:
1. A website (ideally).
2. An offer (affiliate or own).
3. Traffic (targeted eyeballs).
4. Conversions (the ability to convert those “eyeballs”).
There are a million different ways to make money online, of course. This example
simply demonstrates one way. So don’t get hung-up if your “business model” is a
little different.
Now each one of the four points above represents broad brushstrokes. Massive
topics expressed as one word. So let’s expand them even more.
1. Website
 Platform
o

WordPress
Theme
o
Thesis
2. Offer
 Find a product to promote (affiliate)

Product creation (vendor)

Copywriting
3. Traffic
 SEO


o
On-page Optimization
o
Link Building
o
Reputation Management
PPC
o
AdWords
o
Bing Ads
o
Facebook Ads
o
Media Buys
o
PPV
Social
o
Facebook
o
Google+
o
Twitter
o
Pinterest
4. Conversion
 Tracking & Analytics
o
CPV Lab

Multivariate-testing (MVT)

Copywriting

Persuasion

Squeeze Page (lead gen)

Autoresponder Madness
… you get the point. I’ve not even expanded each topic. Not by a long shot. Just
AdWords itself can be “exploded” into a page of different elements and skill sets.
I’m not suggesting you become the purveyor of everything. That would be stupid.
Being all things to all people is the fastest way to become invisible.
What you’re doing with this task is simply identifying the major
steps (roadblocks) and sub-steps.
I’ll do one more example.
Example: Weight Loss
This is typically how weight loss breaks down:
1. Diet
2. Exercise
3. Mind & Motivation
The context would of course need to be established before people add themselves
to your email list. The breakdown would then be based on that.
If I was targeting “primal” (paleo), then my breakdown would look something like
this:
1. Diet

Calorie Deficit

Intermittent Fasting

Good Foods


o
Meats
o
Fats
o
Nuts
o
Fruit
o
Vegetables
Bad Foods (completely avoid!)
o
ALL GRAINS
o
Sugar
o
Bad Fats
Supplements

Recipes
2. Exercise
 Bodyweight Exercises

o
Zuzana Light
o
Turbulence Training
o
Bodyweight Exercise Revolution
o
Bodyweight Blueprint For Fat Loss
High Intensity Interval Training (HIIT)
o
Zuzana Light
o
Turbulence Training
o
Warp Speed Fat Loss

Sprinting

Weights
o
New Rules of Lifting
o
Visual Impact Muscle Building
o
Art Of Strength
o
CrossFit
3. Mind & Motivation
… and so on and so forth.
Now you just need to associate products with some of these “steps” — which lead
to the desired end result.
I’ve already listed a few products in the two examples above.
Make sense?
Look at the roadblocks illustration again.
See ROADBLOCK #1?
This becomes the “leverage point” to get people to add themselves to your email
list. Your squeeze page would start the story. Your SOS would continue the story.
Remember the WHY I mentioned earlier on? … that deep emotional REASON
WHY?
Well that’s what I use as a leverage point to get targeted people into my sphere of
influence.
I create a story around the REASON WHY, and inject all the emotion hot-buttons
and pain-points that I’ve already uncovered.
This is why I like to tell unique (authentic) stories that directly tie in the deep
underlying reason (freedom) behind the desired end result (earn money online).
You can see two such stories here:



Frank vs Matt
Affiliate Bully
… and of course, right here on this site (like here, for example).
I present the perception of freedom within a frame of sun drenched island beaches.
It gets the instant attention of the people who matter to me. Once I have their
attention, I work to get them into my sphere of influence (my email list).
… which is when the SOS (soap opera sequence) gets trigged and starts to play
out. But before that can happen you need to know what to write about (and how).
The BIG Picture Idea (What To Write About)
What to write about — the big picture idea anyway — is achieved by doing the
exercises in this lesson. Brainstorming the “steps” required to get from point A to
point B.
The how to write comes later (some of which you learned in the previous lesson).
NOTE: Something to (always) keep in mind… the primary purpose of a soap
opera sequence is NOT to sell, per se.
It’s to establish a relationship with your crowd. A connection. Then to develop
that relationship over time. To build rapport and earn trust.
Within the context of your SOS, you’ll get the opportunity to promote products as
solutions to the “roadblocks” we spoke about above.
It’s simple really when you look at it like this (broken down, and zoomed out).
It’s the practical application of “writing” a SOS that gets most people all in a knot.
So for now … forget about how to write an email sequence. That’ll come shortly.
Go back to the SOS now…
1. PRIMARY objective — build the relationship and earn trustand attention.
2. SECONDARY objective — earn money by promoting stuff.
Don’t mix these two around.
Don’t be tempted.
I promise, if you do, you’ll get poor results, and what results you do get … won’t
be long term. Remember, when you lose attention — you’ve lost it for good. It’s a
one shot kinda deal.
I wasn’t going to say anything about his until later … but seen as though I’m
talking about the importance of the primary objective, I guess now is as good a
time as ever.
I’m including a PLS (product launch sequence) from ANOTHER marketer a bit
later as part of a case study for you.
It’s a little email sequence that kicked some serious butt. It generated 73% of ALL
AFFILIATE SALES on day one of a product launch.
… from a tiny little list of 1,300 subscribers.
The reason he could do that was because he had already established trust and
attention with his email audience. The money was simply a result of that.
Hope that makes sense.
Anyhoo … sorry bout that. Looks like I digressed again
Back to the SOS.
Remember how I came up with a list of major roadblocks? …
1. Website
2. Offer
3. Traffic
4. Conversion
The build a website being the fist “stumbling block” people would have in my
example.
So here my SOS can start by explaining that building a website really isn’t all that
hard … even for a technophobe (like myself).
This starts to build rapport.
I would introduce WordPress as a brilliant (and free) solution. The same solution I
use — and that I will explain EXACTLY how they can set it all up.
Here you build credibility and trust.
Of course, the power of a SOS is to put everything within the context of a story (a
real authentic story — not something made up!).
So for the sake of illustration – let’s presume at some point I showed my mother
how to download WordPress and install it.
I know, I know — a bit farfetched … especially if you know my mom. But I guess
it’s a possible scenario
So over the phone I managed to explain to her how to download WordPress and
install it. Can you see how that would make a brilliant hook for a soap opera story?
This warming-up period where you demonstrate value and build up credibility and
trust, could span three emails (for example).
Now that you’ve earned some “brownie points” you could introduce a way to get
paid.
But here’s the trick…
I DON’T want to shove the paid solution down their freakin’ throat like almost
everyone else would do (and does).
Zag when everybody zigs.
Think about this now.
I’ve just given them a totally free solution to help them move forward, no strings
attached.
This is when I “introduce” the paid element.
But I do it covertly. Frame it as an ENHANCEMENT.
Sure … they can build a WordPress blog for free. But they’d be missing out on a
bunch of power and flexibility if they didn’t use the Thesispremium theme (for
example).
Remember, I’m not selling:
T
he aim of marketing is to make selling superfluous.
The aim of marketing is to know and understand the customer so well that the
product or service fits him and sells itself.
— Peter Drucker
Thesis will enable them to do this, that, and the next thing. Something that’s
impossible to achieve with a free WordPress theme.
Here I establish myself as an authority.
See how I’m framing the offer?
I could then take it a step further. I could recommend to them the same place that
I host all my websites.
Once again I’m not selling. I don’t need to. I’m simply making a recommendation
to them, because it’s what I use and I’m really really happy with the hosting
solution I use.
So now I get another opportunity to earn money. But from their perspective I’ve
not sold them. I’ve simply dispensed goodwill.
It’s win win all round.
I get two chances to earn money in this example. Thesis and the hosting. Some
people won’t get any. Which is fine, because I’m still the hero who’s given them
great information.
… but some people will get one of the two. Others will get both.
It really doesn’t matter. Because I’ve helped them (I’m the hero). My status in their
eyes has just been elevated (“upgraded”).
I hope you got all of this. It’s important you understand.
Storyboarding (Story Structure)
In ARM 2.0 this was one of these lessons that produced some of the biggest AHHA! moments for people.
I borrowed the concept of storyboarding a narrative from Hollywood screenwriters
in Tinseltown.
Filmmakers use this technique to build out the structure and sequence of their
films. The storyboard is a visual representation of events as they are to be seen
through the camera lens.
It’s very powerful. Because you get to see the flow of the narrative. I’ve adapted
the concept of storyboarding to how I write all of my email sequences.
Here’s what a typical storyboard looks like:
I don’t do that however.
Plus I can’t draw all that well
Here’s what I do:
Same idea … but in plain text and adapted for email.
Here’s one from Daniel de Gruijter who writes the emails for Mindvalley:
Now granted, I have a large 30″ monitor running at a purty high 2560 x 1600
resolution. This allows me to easily fit 7 full-length emails side-by-side across my
screen.
But smaller screens work fine too. I can fit 4 emails side-by-side on my 15″ laptop
screen (1440 x 900).
Storyboard Workflow for Email
For a SOS I create 7 blank plain-text documents.
1.txt, 2.txt, 3.txt … 6.txt, 7.txt
I save them all to a ‘Project Files’ folder in the Dropbox folder of my computer.
That way I can access my files from all my devices (and Dropbox acts as a
automatic and transparent backup system).
So for ARM 2.0 (the previous version of what you’re reading now) I have a folder
structure that looks something like this:
\Dropbox\Project Files\AutoResponder Madness\2.0\
In the “2.0” folder I have 54 plain-text files:
I have a Mac, so I use:


TextEdit (which
iA Writer,
is part of macOS),
and my favorite write tool of all, Ulysses.
(Cloud tools like Google Docs & Draft work well, too. But I like to write with the
Internet turned off to minimize distractions, so prefer desktop apps over cloud
alternatives.)
On Windows, use Microsoft Notepad.
TextEdit (or Notepad on Windows) works perfectly for positioning emails
across the screen in a storyboard arrangement.
iA Writer doesn’t work well for that. Because it doesn’t scale down small enough.
So TextEdit is best for this.

I then position the emails across my screen like this:
That’s my blank canvas. My starting point.
Here’s why I setup my email flow in a storyboard like setup.
Very often when I start to write — other than having a rough direction to work to
(based on the roadblocks research) — the actual story flow is not yet clear in my
mind.
But I’ve learned from experience now, that even when I don’t yet have the story
nailed down in my mind … I still just write.
Magical things start to happen when one just “starts to write”.
Writing is a creative process, even though we’re not writing fiction. The art of
articulating a thought into text on a screen, is a creative one. Make no mistake of
that.
When I hammer away at the keyboard, story ideas start to form. Ideas are created.
Bits here. Pieces there.
Like I said … it’s kinda magical when you experience it.
The worst thing you an do is NOT WRITE just because you don’t (yet) have a
story or know what exactly to write.
Just write.
In fact, here are some of my favorite quotes from Stephen King’s brilliant his
book, On Writing:
 “Amateurs sit and wait for inspiration, the rest of us just get up and go to
work.”

“The scariest moment is always just before you start.”

“Words create sentences; sentences create paragraphs; sometimes
paragraphs quicken and begin to breathe.”

“If you want to be a writer, you must do two things above all others: read a lot
and write a lot. There’s no way around these two things that I’m aware of, no
shortcut.”

“Let’s get one thing clear right now, shall we? There is no Idea Dump, no
Story Central, no Island of the Buried Bestsellers; good story ideas seem to
come quite literally from nowhere, sailing at you right out of the empty sky:
two previously unrelated ideas come together and make something new
under the sun. Your job isn’t to find these ideas but to recognize them when
they show up.”
“Writing is seduction. Good talk is part of seduction. If not so, why do so
many couples who start the evening at dinner wind up in bed?”

— Stephen King
I like the last one, a lot. Because it’s true. Not the “wind up in bed” part — but the
“good talk is part of seduction”. That’s what we do in (good) emails.
… and the second to last quote is spot on too. About seemingly unrelated ideas
flowing out the the ether and smacking you in the face. You just have to recognize
them.
Okay, back to the “blank-canvas” storyboard.
Having ’em spread out all the way across your screen, will allow you to copy/cut
bits … and then paste them somewhere else (for later).
For me … “viewing” my story across multiple emails like this allows me to
“insert” open loop elements in strategic places.
It allows me to create cliffhangers because I can see the BIG PICTURE in one
view.
At first I just write.
I don’t stop to correct spelling or grammatical errors. I just write unbidden, without
constraints.
I turn off the auto-spelling red underlying feature thingy on TextEdit and/or iA
Writer. Until I’ve at least hammered out the first draft.
I keep sentences short and punchy.
… and I just write.
While I’m writing, if an idea pops into my head about a story element — but it
doesn’t fit in with the thought string I’m busy with at that moment … I’ll just jot it
down, then cut/paste it into one of the other text docs for later.
Lemme tall ya … everything starts off really messy. But after a while things will
start to take shape.
copy/paste… type type type …
cut/paste… type type type …
cut/paste… type type type …
copy/paste… type type type …
… and voilà! — the first draft of your initial SOS is done.
Some Powerful Quick & Easy Writing Tips
Here are a few simple tips that should help you write better emails.
TIP #1
I write the first draft very quickly.
Resist the urge to edit … as in — DON’T edit at all. Just write. Resist the urge to
go back and correct spelling mistakes. Doing this will break your “flow”.
So just write.
Consider the backspace key is out of bounds
If you’re anything like me … well, your first draft will look awful. It’ll look like a
dog’s breakfast. But this is normal. Promise.
Power Tip:
Use the “Hemingway Mode” feature of Draft (it’s a free online writing tool that’s
badass!).
Hemingway Mode in Draft will turn off your ability to delete anything in your
document. You can only write at the end of what you’ve already written. You can’t
go back; only forward
TIP #2
Now that you’ve written your first messy draft — leave it alone for a day. Sleep on
it. Come back to it the next day and start to clean it up.
You’ll find that you’ll be able to smoothen out the copy far better when you’ve not
been staring at it for hours.
TIP #3
Keep sentences short. Try not use commas. Instead use full-stops.
Use simple English. No fancy intellectual words. Write for an 8 year old kid.
Did you see that? I have 4 full-stops in the first sentence and 3 in the one above.
That’s what I’m talking about.
TIP #4
Keep paragraphs short too. 2-3 lines max. Large blocks of text are intimidating to
read.
Next lesson it all gets exciting. We get to put everything you’ve learned this far
together. I’ll share a specific workflow with you, so you can follow through stepby-step if you want to.
Be Bold. Be Remarkable. Make Shit Happen.
— Andre “to hell with the English teacher” Chaperon
P.S.
If you don’t know how to write short punchy sentences — pick up a copy
of Persuader by Lee Child (best ten bucks you’ll spend on a writing education).
It’s one of the Jack Reacher novels.
It’s series fiction … and it’s brilliant!
The writing style is amazing. The book is almost entirely written in short punchy
sentences.
Lee Child breaks all “school taught” English rules of grammar and sentence
structure. Personally, I love it. I’ve read every single Reacher book. All 21 of ’em.
Soap Opera Sequence (Episode 1)
WARNING (for WOMEN): The example SOS below was written by me right after
I had read the book, The Game: Penetrating the Secret Society of Pickup
Artists (by Neil Strauss).
I read it because at the time it had gotten a lot of exposure, and I was curious. I
found it a fascinating read. It inspired this fictional SOS.
The REASON FOR THE WARNING is because of the nature of the topic (pickup
artists). If you’re a woman, the contents could come across as sexist and
demeaning to women.
Just know that was never the intention. The topic was top of mind for me, and I
felt that the overt nature of the subject would make demonstrating the nuances of a
SOS clear to see (less hidden).
If you’re a woman and do choose to read this, please do so within the intended
frame for this very male market (which the SOS is true to).
Thanks in advance.
— André
Here’s how this is going to go down.
You should write an SOS, for your own niche, as you follow along here with me.
Remember what Stephen King said:
I
f you want to be a writer, you must do two things above all others: read a
lot and write a lot. There’s no way around these two things that I’m aware of, no
shortcut.
— Stephen King
If you’re writing emails for your audience … well then, you’re a damn writer.
Simple as that. Only way to get better at it is by writing. The more you write, the
better you’ll get. Simple.
You’re not automatically going to be magically transformed into a kick-ass email
writer just because you read AutoResponder Madness (but it will fast-track your
progression and results).
I’d love to say that will happen … but the reality of it is different.
Someone (I don’t know him personally) wrote this email to me:
Truth is. I’m no copywriter. Have never studied the black art of “copywriting”.
I’ve never been through a copywriting product, beginning to end. Never.
Yet I get emails like this. How so?
… because I write a lot of damn emails. And I empathize with the deep
down needs of my audience.
The formula is simple:
1. Consume all of AutoResponder Madness.
2. Understand who you’re writing to, what their needs are — and
elicit empathy.
3. Read a lot.
4. Write a lot.
5. Write every damn day! … even if you have nothing to write. Just write
something. Anything. Write (inspiration here and here).
… you get the point, eh?
So let’s write!
Soap Opera Sequence: Real Example
To even the playing-field … well, I purposely chose a niche:

that I know nothing about.

where I don’t know the “language”.

that I’ve never written for before.
In this example I wanted to demonstrate how it’s possible to write a SOS even to a
completely foreign audience.
… and that it doesn’t need to be perfect to be “good enough”.
What I’ve written is far from perfect. Believe me.
Like I said, I don’t know this niche at all. I don’t know the language (slang). I
don’t know the acronyms they use.
I chose the “dating niche” (I’ll tell you why, later).

I had to research this niche from scratch. Took me approximately a couple of
hours.

Like I said, it’s far from perfect. The language I use is no doubt off base some.
I promote way more products than I ever would. But I did this
to EXAGGERATE what should be done. That way what I’m doing becomes
really clear to you.
Some niches respond to more selling. They expect it. Others less so.

So what I’ve written is somewhere at the top of the “aggressive” scale.
It’s a story (soap opera sequence) that spans 5 emails.
I think you’ll learn a lot from this.
At the end is a video of Ryan Deiss and Perry Belcher on stage at their Traffic &
Conversion Summit (2012). They’ve taken this EXACT email sequence and
modified it for their forex business.
The SOS crushed it.
You’ll see what I mean.
Lights. Camera. ACTION!
Episode 1: Alan “Rockstar” Saunders
SUBJECT: You wanna be a “Rockstar”?
Hey man!
Welcome to “my world”.
Most weekends I feel like a freakin’ Rockstar. I literally know how it “feels” to be
like one.
But it wasn’t always like this.
Hell no.
Rewind four months ago and I was … err … what HOT GIRLS would consider a
“loooooserrrr!”. lol
They would never bother to even look at me … and those few times that they did,
it was to look down at me.
They were on a different level to me. Hell … a different planet to me.
But oh how things have changed! =;0)
Let me ask you this…
How many “rockstars” have you seen that are … well … not that attractive? Kinda
goofy looking even?
LOTS!
But the hot babes go freakin’ nuts for them. WHY?
Hint: It ain’t the looks, man.
Four months ago I purchased an information product. It was the catalyst … the
thing that was almost solely responsible for the massive state change to “rockstar”
like status.
That product – Art Of Approaching:
[LINK GOES HERE]
I can now walk into pretty much any club or bar, and within 2 minutes, I will be
talking to the HOTTEST BABE – a 9 or 9.5.
Give me another 10 minutes – 15 tops – and I’ll have her number & email address.
Then I’m onto the next one…
Rock-Star like status, man … I kid you not.
And it all started right HERE:
[LINK GOES HERE]
Later,
Alan “Rock Star” Saunders
Btw — there is something I learned in AOA that is so powerful, it’s literally like
DRUGS for women.
Anyone can do it.
The result: It elevates your “social level” in their eyes. It’s this elevated “level”
that gives you rock star like power.
Will tell you about this “DRUG” effect shortly.
Do yourself a favor – get AOA today. Now.
P.S.
I’ve attached that “Flaming Hot Pickup Tips” report that I promised you. Enjoy
OK … I’ll explain a few of the persuasion elements I “injected” into this first
email. You may have caught a few of ’em.
Firstly, the purpose of this email was simply to set the stage.
To establish the character (Alan Saunders) as a normal — even perhaps below
average dude, that … err, well … has turned into a babe magnet.
Alan Saunders represents a character in this niche that this audience (the ideal
“pocket of people” I would be targeting) can relate to.
Someone worth following.
Robert Cialdini says in his book, Influence, that people are naturally drawn to
people that are similar to them.
Similar as in perhaps sharing the same first name or surname … or coming from
the same town/city of birth.
In this case the similarity is that the character used to be just like them.
… A TOTAL LOSER at talking to and dating women.
This produces positive expectancy in the mind of the reader. Essentially creating an
environment where they can see themselves achieving similar results…
If that loser can do it, then so can I … even if I achieved results half as good, I
would still be pulling babes left and right.
Positive expectancy creates enthusiasm and the motivation to take action.
Perfect.
Now although I mentioned the amazing product that was responsible for turning
things around for Alan Saunders … the goal was really not to sell anything in this
email.
The link was in there for the guys that wanted to “pull the trigger” right there and
then.
Most people need a bit more “foreplay” … to be cajoled a bit more first.
The email also ends with a “cliffhanger” … the first open loop.
How many episodes of Lost or 24 or your favorite day-time soapy have you seen
end with no cliffhanger?
None.
Doesn’t happen.
Not ever.
Always try to end with a cliffhanger so that your reader will be waiting and
eagerly anticipating the next email (episode) installment.
If nothing else it conditions your reader to — open, read, expectantly wait.
It’s how you create and build tension, anticipation, positive expectancy, and drama.
No successful fiction book has ever been written without this recipe. No hollywood
film ever produced without these elements injected throughout.
Think about that.
… then think about how you’ve currently been writing your emails. A buck gets
ten your emails are completely different — void of all the elements needed to
captivate an audience.
Read this lesson again. And again. Until this all sinks in. Then continue to the next
lesson.
Be Bold. Be Remarkable. Make Shit Happen.
— Andre “dyslexic” Chaperon
P.S.
I mean it when I say that I believe anyone can learn to write (really) well. I’m
living proof of that. Believe me.
Let me tell you a story…
I’ve only ever told this to a few people. It’s kinda embarrassing. But I guess there
was a happy ending.
I’m born English speaking. I can’t speak any other languages really (sometimes I
feel the same way about English).
I live in Spain now. Been here for 11 years … but still can’t speak Spanish. I’m
what they call a “slow learner”. You’ll see.
Throughout school I SUCKED at written English. I was told I have a “learning
difficulty”.
So early on in my school life (I was barely out the gate) I was held back a year.
Brilliant start, Andre. Way to go, buddy.
I don’t remember the details, but I guess they thought I just wasn’t on the same
“level” as my classmates.
So I quickly became the oldest kid in the class. Not ideal for one’s self-esteem, I
guess.
I was 8 years old.
But I was a nipper. I’d get over it.
Apparently I was also a bit of a handful back then. Teachers said I had a
“concentration problem”. So I was referred to a specialist. He said I had ADHD,
and proscribed me Ritalin.
So now I was an 8 year old, a year behind for his age … and on Ritalin.
Happy days. Things couldn’t get much worse.
But I guess I didn’t progress at the level teachers thought I should progress at,
even one year behind. So a couple of years before going to high-school, I was sent
to a remedial school.
I now apparently had dyslexia too
I couldn’t spell for shit (nothing has changed there btw). I battled to read. So I was
shipped off to remedial school.
… which basically was a specialist school catering for children who have
“learning difficulties” — which prevents them from achieving success in a
mainstream (normal) school environment.
I loved remedial school.
Perhaps because everyone was just like me. No one could focus on one thing for
more than 5 minutes. No one could spell. No one could read well
Two years later I finally made it to high-school. A real high-school.
But out of all my subjects — English has my worse by a mile (no surprise there).
I scraped through exams each year by the skin of my teeth. Because if you fail
English, you fail the year. Period.
I still couldn’t spell for shit.
I remember regularly getting 0/20 for spelling tests.
The teacher thought I was screwing around. No one could possibly be that bad. I
was. Even though I was honestly trying. The words just don’t “form” in my mind.
They still don’t.
Now here I am … what feels like a lifetime later — an online marketer and
entrepreneur.
And the funniest part. I have a 48,000+ word course on advanced email WRITING.
Go figure.
Honestly … if I can string sentences together, and can write half decent — you can
too. No excuses. None at all.
This isn’t about perfection.
It’s about making a connection with another human being. Which is not hard, if
you’ve done the grunt work upfront.
It’s about “good enough”. Then improving as you go.
It’s about being yourself — as if you’re talking to a friend — and delivering value
to your tribe.
Enough said.
Soap Opera Sequence (Episode 2)
Back to the crazy life of Alan Saunders.
Episode 2: Alan “Rockstar” Saunders
SUBJECT: So powerful, it’s DRUGS for women!
Women love to laugh.
Done right, it’s like freakin’ drugs to them.
But done wrong – like most guys do – and you’re screwed man!
You’ll come across like a weirdo.
Not cool.
Remember – you want the rockstar effect – not the “weirdo” effect.
A few weeks back – {!date ss-37} – it was a {!date dayname-37} I believe. I was
in L.A. and met up with a dude known as David DeAngelo.
The guy is a legend in the dating world.
We got talking and David told me about something he refers to as “COCKY
COMEDY”.
Basically … it’s a balance of being “COCKY” and “FUNNY” at the same time.
It’s this combination that’s like drugs to women.
You achieve an elevated status in their eyes by demonstrating higher value …
which generates ATTENTION.
Once you have their attention, you control the frame.
So how do you do cocky comedy?
Well.
After talking to David, and learning this new “combination”, I did some searching
around.
I found this:
[LINK GOES HERE]
The combination of the jokes in that book, and the stuff you learn in ‘Art Of
Approaching’…
[LINK GOES HERE]
… will have 9s eating out of your hand.
Rock On!
Alan S
P.S. Last night I hit a new bar that has just opened here in La Jolla, San Diego
CA. I went to “test out” something.
I mean, this shit is something else. Nothing to do with what you’ll read in any
“pickup” book.
The results were nuts. I think it was a fluke. I need to test this stuff out a bit more
before I can tell ya much more.
For the record – see attached the two SHB’s I landed.
Sam & Angela – smile for the camera ladies
There are a few levels of influence happening in this email.
Firstly, it starts off with closing the loop that was opened in the previous email.
Instant gratification.
It relieves that bit of tension and suspense … for now.
Next, it creates a social link between the character, Alan Saunders, and David
DeAngelo.
Anyone who’s been in the dating niche for any period of time will know that David
DeAngelo is one of the biggest and most respected authorities in the niche.
Now Alan Saunders is elevated in coolness and authority status even more due to
the David DeAngelo “association”.
A new product now gets introduced and covertly endorsed. At the same time the
flagship product is also (subtly) pushed again.
The final element in this email is all in the P.S. area.
Another open loop is created. This time there is even more “mystery” behind this
story.
Scroll up now and reread the P.S. area quickly.
The “Nothing to do with what you’ll read in any pickup
book…“line sets the stage once again. It’s laced with curiosity and mystery.
It builds desire.
The “The results were nuts. I think it was a fluke…” part also heightens the
element of mystery.
The subscriber is probably thinking … What the hell is going on here? I gotta
find out what he’s talkin’ about!
Again, the cliffhanger is introduced — “I need to test this stuff
out a bit more before I can tell ya any more…”
This time this open loop won’t get closed in the next email. This is to build even
more tension and anticipation. To “condition” the subscribers to keep opening and
reading the emails.
What I am doing here is demonstrating the potential for higher value.
The email ends with proof of the result of “the fluke”.
Of course, what I’m doing here is implying that whatever happened was far from a
fluke. The image attached to this email is undeniable proof of that.
Those two ladies are pure SHBs.
(In the seduction niche a SHB stands for “Super Hot Babe”.)
There is something I like doing that I call the P.S. Method.
What I do is create an entire sub-story (like a sub-plot) that gets played out entirely
in the P.S. area of the follow-up emails.
These sub-stories live and die purely within the P.S. area.
Again … conditioning the subscriber to read every email to the end. Because there
is value in every email. I call these “Easter eggs”. Little surprises.
There is a story playing out … and it’s human-nature to get sucked in.
You rock!
— Andre “p.s. method” Chaperon
P.S. {grin}
Sometimes a story just doesn’t develop for me. Meaning, it’s like pulling freakin’
teeth.
Worst thing to do is try and force it.
Staring at the screen just makes it worse too.
I’m no runner. I enjoy running as much as the next non-athlete.
But it does help a ton for this idea and creativity stuff.
So when stuck … well, I’ll go for a short 2 or 3 or 4 mile run.
There’s something called ‘runner’s high‘.
It’s when endorphins in the brain are released. In this state a feeling of well-being
occurs.
Heightened clarity.
Free thinking.
Point is … I get my best ideas in this state.
Need an idea? … or if I’m battling to think with focused thought?
I go for a run. It’s amazing.
In fact it’s so amazing I’ve had to resort to running with my iPhone because it has
a built-in dictaphone.
Nothing worse than getting back to HQ and a large chunk of the endorphin
induced ideas have faded to waste.
Try it. Seriously.
I have a cool “reframing” trick I do. It’s related to this. But I’ll tell you later.
[To be continued…]
Soap Opera Sequence (Episode 3)
Here’s Episode 3 of the adventures of Alan “rockstar” Saunders.
Episode 3: Alan “Rockstar” Saunders
SUBJECT: Try this. It’s fun. Works great!
Online dating sites are a blast.
Now don’t get me wrong – hitting the clubs and bars to pickup hot babes is cool.
And when you are good at it – it rocks!
But “online dating” adds another dimension to pickup.
FACT: Most HBs on online dating sites AREN’T looking for a heavy long-term
relationship.
Nope.
Like you, most women just wanna have fun. Meet guys. Have drinks. Make out.
Get laid.
You know – like Samantha from Sex and the City.
It’s about having fun.
And online dating sites are the PERFECT platform for doing that.
Some tips to get the most out of dating sites…
You want an avatar that “stands out”.
Hats work well.
But not just a normal baseball cap.
Mystery & Neil Strauss call these “peacock items”.
See the attached image I use for my profile on Friend Finder.
Don’t laugh. lol.
It works man!
But if you don’t want to wear a freaky looking hat, make sure you “look like a
million dollars”.
Man, I see it so often. People put up pics on dating sites and they look like crap.
Seriously dude.
Let me give you a massive tip. Make the effort to get a decent picture.
What do I mean by decent?
You know…
Brush your hair. Or gel it into a funky style. Whatever is your “pickup” look.
Look smart. Look cool. Stand out.
Dirty looking, scruffy, or sweaty is a surefire way to repel all the hotties on these
dating sites.
If you want to pull a fat bird, look “normal”.
If you want to pull an 8 or 9, look smart, but “different”. Normal is boring.
Different is cool.
Hence why the “peacock” hat works so well.
It’s the first thing a girl that I meet online, talks to me about when we meet up.
Now.
I cover this and a ton more in my “Online Pickup Artist” report that I wrote for my
“inner-circle” members.
So tell you what…
If you grab a copy of “Art Of Approaching”, I’ll give you a copy of this exclusive
report – for free.
Just forward me your receipt as proof of purchase.
Get ‘Art Of Approaching’, here:
[LINK GOES HERE]
Forward your receipt to: alan@[DOMAIN].com
Talk soon,
Alan S
P.S. Here are two “quality” dating sites I highly recommend:
Great for 18 to 35s:
[LINK GOES HERE]/FriendFinder
Excellent for over 35s:
[LINK GOES HERE]/MatchMaker
I pickup hotties from both of them all the time.
It’s serious fun man. Definitely try it out.
This email was largely about giving away good solid content. Or more accurately,
a promotion “wrapped up” as good solid content.
Notice how this email doesn’t look or smell like a typical IM niche promotion.
What I wanted to do was promote some online dating sites.
So I thought a good way to achieve this result was to approach it from a different
angle entirely.
You see … this is why a soap opera sequence is so powerful. Why it works so
devastatingly well. Every email is within the “context” of one big story.
Are you starting to get it yet?
Each new email installment is like a new episode. There is a connection to
previous emails (the context) … and there are “open loops” — hints of more to
come in future emails.
Missing an email in the series would have a similar effect to missing an episode of
Lost or 24.
SIDE NOTE:
I get people emailing me all the time. It’s (almost) a pain, because it happens a lot.
But it validates how wickedly effective this is.
They email me and ask me to re-send an email they missed. Typically the missing
email ended up in their spam folder for whatever reason.
But the point is that they are waiting, expecting, and anticipating these emails. So
much so that when one gets “lost” they freak out!
Tell me … how many marketers have you emailed to request a resend of a missed
email?
A buck gets ten the answer is none
And that’s the point I’ve been trying to make throughout this training.
You’re up against lazy marketers that don’t know any of this stuff. And those that
do … well, they think it’s too much damn work. And they’d be right … it is work.
… but the payoff is massive. It’s worth doing the work every damn time.
Autoresponder Madness is about changing the dynamics of how you approach
marketing. To condition people to want to hear from you.
This is not about forcing people to opt-in to your funnel … and then bombarding
them with shit.
Anyhoo…
The storytelling helps create context.
It sets up the frame for you to then wrap promotions around … while all the time
providing value.
Which is exactly what I did for Friend Finder & Match Maker.
I told a mini-story (an episode) that gave real value that they could use, and benefit
from.
No strings.
So email (episode) #3 starts off by setting the frame.
That online dating sites are a blast.
That picking up hot babes (HBs) on these online sites simply adds another
dimension to “pick up”. That most of the girls on these sites aren’t actually looking
for relationships.
… they just wanna have fun.
I provide a different perspective to dating sites.
Then, as the email comes to an end, from left-field I introduce an exclusive
bonus offer … an incentive.
SIDE NOTE:
I’m going to do a whole lesson on BONUSES. Most people I talk to just have no
clue how powerful these are. They’re assets. They’re leverage.
But they see it as extra work that they just aren’t willing to do.
Not smart. BIG MISTAKE.
But more about this later.
Back to the bonus offer…
So the frame is that it’s something only normally available to special inner-circle
members (instantly making the bonus offer more VALUABLE).
The lead-in is totally under the radar.
The actual online dating “promotion” is way down in the P.S. area. Again …
conditioning the readers to always look down in the P.S. area where I’m constantly
building suspense and drama and value.
I put the online dating sites into two categories.
Best for 18 to 35s … and best for over 35s.
I’m approaching the promotion from a different angle and providing extra value in
doing so.
Make sense?
Be bold. Make Shit Happen.
— Andre “happily married” Chaperon
P.S.
You should pick up Predictably Irrational (by Dan Ariely) off of Amazon.
So brilliant!
As I write this, he has a new book out: The Honest Truth About Dishonesty: How
We Lie to Everyone — Especially Ourselves. I have it, but not read it (yet). It
sounds really good. It’s on the (long) list of books to get consumed shortly.
Soap Opera Sequence (Episode 4)
We’re getting near the end of this SOS example.
Here’s the next installment in the life of our “rockstar”…
Episode 4: Alan “Rockstar” Saunders
SUBJECT: This is awesome!
I was VERY skeptical at first…
I was hanging out with a bud of mine, Frank, and he asked me if I had ever tried
using “pheromones”.
I laughed!
That shit doesn’t work I said. ROFL!
Frank said he had read a report on CNN:
http://edition.cnn.com/health/9803/11/pheromones/
Hmmm, interesting.
So the challenge was on … to figure out if this “pheromone” crap works.
This was about two weeks ago now.
Early tests – as expected – were a freakin’ disaster.
Of course, I didn’t want to skew the tests by doing what I normally do to attract
women.
I wanted to try to “be normal” again. Like I was before I learned all the cool stuff.
But I may as well have just sprayed cat urine on myself – because I was repelling
every hottie I approached.
Then suddenly three days ago I hit gold.
Funny story, really.
I think I mentioned it to you briefly in an earlier email. The results were so
amazing I thought it was just a fluke.
But if you can call Sam & Angela a fluke…
… then I’ll take flukes all day long. lol
So I hit another bar the night after.
Same result.
I went out last night again.
Four numbers, four kisses – and I left with the last girl. Went back to her place.
Nuff said.
All flukes?
I don’t think so.
You see … I did something different this time
But more about that later.
Talk soon,
Alan S
This email had one goal, and one goal only.
Building massive anticipation!
It builds on the loop that was opened way back in email #2 … but instead of it
getting closed to relieve tension for the reader — it gets heightened instead.
Nasty. Oh so very nasty!
I also linked the idea of “pheromones” to a CNN article. I “borrowed” the
credibility from a trustworthy source.
I wanted the readers to think:
“Hmmm … so perhaps pheromones do work?”
This email is about setting the stage for the next email. Building context.
— Andre “reframing” Chaperon
P.S.
In the P.S. section of the previous lesson I hinted to a cool “reframing” trick.
I’m no runner. It used to be an effort to convince myself to get off my damn ass and
hit the blacktop.
A real struggle.
That was BEFORE I used the reframing technique.
Now I can’t wait to shoot out the door to do a 6K run.
What changed?
Remember I spoke about endorphins? … the biochemicals that are produced by the
pituitary gland in the brain.
The result of the release of endorphins is responsible for some amazing clarity.
IDEAS.
REAL GOOD IDEAS.
Sometimes … AMAZING IDEAS.
So here’s what changed…
I told myself a story.
Instead of running for the benefit of fitness (yuk!) … I now run to get my best ideas.
For me that is a far more powerful ‘WHY‘ (reason).
… and as a side effect, I get the health benefits associated with an elevated heart
rate, anyway.
Win win in my book.
UPDATE: I don’t do 6K runs anymore. After moving to Gibraltar a few years ago,
the dynamics changed. Downstairs at the gym we have this new thing
called Reshape & Rumble. It’s owned by the same guy that started
the 1Rebel crazy in London.
4 times a week I just show up, and then an instructor leads the 45 or 30 minute
class. It’s brutal, but it’s AWESOME — it’s an endorphins factory. I love it.
[To be continued…]
Soap Opera Sequence (Episode 5)
This is the final day of this SOS example.
I’ve done something in this email episode that’s AMAZINGLY POWERFUL …
and can be applied to any niche.
See if you can pick it up. I’ll reveal what it is at the end.
Episode 5: Alan “Rockstar” Saunders
SUBJECT: Pheromone Cocktail (awesome stuff!)
Let’s be honest … none of us really believe that “pheromones” work.
Seriously.
They’re crap.
And I believed it.
But Frank. No! The dude was convinced there was more to the freakin’
“pheromone” stuff.
And I’m always up for a challenge.
I TESTED this shit out for over two weeks. Dude … I was hitting clubs and bars
every night, non-stop. No lie.
… with this “pheromone cat’s urine” stuff sprayed all over my body.
One night – and this was TOTALLY BY FLUKE – I sprayed two types of
pheromones on myself.
When I say I was testing this pheromone stuff – I wasn’t kidding. I had at least six
different brands on hand.
Cost me a freakin’ fortune too.
Anyway…
I totally forgot I had used “Product A” on myself … so just before I shot out the
door, I blasted a dose of “what I thought” was more Product A on me.
Wrong!
I later found out I had sprayed “Product B” onto myself.
But GOD … was that a night to remember!
No kidding.
As you know, Sam & Angela were the first conquest. A couple of SHBs…
Nice. I know.
But that was just the beginning.
The beginning of the “Pheromone Cocktail” (TM)
So then I flicked the switch and went back to being like a rockstar again.
IN CONJUNCTION with the “Pheromone Cocktail” (TM) … it was ‘Game Over’
for them.
Like lambs to the slaughter!
No lies. No B.S.
And the “Pheromone Cocktail” … it’s the secret sauce.
But it’s just too damn “special” to put out there for everyone.
This needs to be restricted. Serious players only.
So…
If you’re really serious about becoming a “pickup artist” then this is what you need
to do.
Get this new video series:
[LINK GOES HERE]
It’s awesome and complements the “Art of Approaching” book that I’ve been
bleating on about for the past week.
Attracting a girl is one thing, but actually talking to her. Making her laugh. Smile.
And getting her number, or even taking her home. It requires some info that is
more than I can demonstrate to you in an email.
So.
Get it, watch it, then email me your receipt to:
alan@[DOMAIN].com
I will then GIVE you my report on the “Cocktail” I’ve discovered to attract these
babes.
No butt uglies, I’m talking 8s or above!
So do it now as I’m only gonna do this for 20 guys.
If you make it, you must swear that you’re not gonna tell anyone else – ever.
Just 20 guys! After that, that’s it. No more. Nada.
Rock On!
Alan S
P.S.
Don’t forget to email dude. Get the video series then shoot me your receipt along
with a short note saying you’re “NOT gonna share my report — EVER”.
So … did you pick it up?
Here’s a clue…
The Pheromone Cocktail.
Anything yet?
Think about it for a bit more.
Anyhoo…
The subject line was really intriguing.
It connected with the previous email.
Continued the story.
I then build some more anticipation.
I threw in some proof elements. That Alan Saunders had tested this stuff out like a
madman.
It didn’t only work … it worked like GANGBUSTERS!
Then after all that anticipation had built up to a climax … I hit them with a scarcity
play. This also added to the credibility of the offer.
I mean, if this cocktail was really that good, why would Alan just tell everyone
about it, right?
That prob’ly wouldn’t happen.
So I added the scarcity element … with some urgency thrown in for good measure.
“Only 20 copies available — and it’s on a first come, first served, basis.”
This secret “Pheromone Cocktail” (TM) report was now being positioned as
something very exclusive.
A MUST HAVE.
Perception is everything in marketing. Meaning, a person’s perception (their world
view) is their reality. You can typically influence this perception by controlling the
frame.
To spice up the story even more — and add even more credibility, I stated that the
20 guys would have to “swear to secrecy“.
They could never talk about this.
Never tell anyone else.
It added drama.
Kinda like what some marketers do in the “IM” niche where they make coaching
clients sign an NDA.
Same idea here. It ads weight to the offer. Makes it more valuable.
Of course, the final element here was a “qualification process”. Great way to prequalify the audience.
To qualify to get the report, the reader would need to purchase a video product on
pickup.
But again … this product promotion wasn’t just in isolation. It was highly related
to the original product that I promoted.
I had already built context.
All the products that I was promoting within this soap opera sequence were all
highly related.
There were no overlaps.
A subscriber could quite easily purchase EVERYTHING that I recommended.
More in the next lesson.
For now though, I would suggest that you read the whole SOS beginning to end.
You’ll then get to clearly experience the “flow”. You’ll see how this is all one big
story, serialized across 5 emails.
Powerful.
— Andre “cocktail is the clue” Chaperon
P.S.
I have a good buddy, Matt Gallant. Listen to the audio snippet below of him. Pay
attention to what he says right at the end about the use of “cocktails”, like I
demonstrated in Episode 5 of the SOS…
Soap Opera Sequence Summary
The image above is the storyboard view of the five-email SOS you’ve just read.
I’ve highlighted open loops in different colors, so that you can visualize how
things move/link between the different emails.
The bits in green represent the main story loop. It starts in email #2 and only
concluds in email #5 — the Pheromone Cocktail subplot (more about this shortly).
This SOS was, of course, all made up. Complete fiction. Which is why I could
write it pretty quickly.
If I remember correctly, it prob’ly took me about 4 or 5 hours to write this soap
opera sequence of five emails, including the research.
That’s pretty quick. It’s not always like that.
SOS emails I write can take anywhere from 30 minutes (when the stars are all
aligned and the creative genius is sitting on my shoulder) to a full day (4 or 5 hours
of actual writing) … per email.
I don’t mind spending a complete day to write one damn email. It doesn’t stress me
out. Because I know I’m creating an asset that’ll pay me back (on autopilot) for a
long long time to come.
It’s very rare that I spend that long to write an email, that I’ll only ever use once.
That doesn’t happen.
I write assets, and assets pay back over the long haul. That’s how it works.
So why show you a fictional SOS — one completely made up, with far more
promoting than would ever typically happen in reality?
Well … because I wanted to make crystal clear what the hell I was doing. I
wanted to be overt, so that you didn’t miss the nuances of what I wanted to
demonstrate to you.
In reality a SOS is a lot more covert and subtle in how it influences and persuades.
But I didn’t want you to miss anything.
If you want to read a real-life SOS that connects, influences and persuades
on the level that can easily be missed at first read — you can download it here.
NOTE:
There are a few links in the PDF that don’t work anymore. I wrote this many years ago,
and I wanted to include it unchanged for you.
Now, just so we’re crystal clear! …
Never ever ever make shit up when you write. Consider that the first rule of ARM
Fight Club. I only did it to make it real easy for you to see what I was doing.
There’s no need to ever just make a story up. None at all.
In a later lesson I’ll demonstrate to you how to take bits and pieces of seemingly
disconnected boring ideas … and then combine them into a story that rocks,
persuades and influences.
… just like Stephen King says here:
L
et’s get one thing clear right now, shall we?
There is no Idea Dump, no Story Central, no Island of the Buried Bestsellers; good
story ideas seem to come quite literally from nowhere, sailing at you right out of
the empty sky: two previously unrelated ideas come together and make something
new under the sun. Your job isn’t to find these ideas but to recognize them when
they show up.
— Stephen King
Controlling the Perception of Being UNIQUE
… or how to make your own “Magic Cocktail”
Here’s an email I wrote to some of my audience in July 2012. I was told that
pennies dropped as a result of this. Afterwards I’ll explain why the concept I talk
about is so critical.
You may not have realized it, but…
In marketing there is really no *new* information.
Nada.
No secrets.
No concepts or methodologies that haven’t already been said before, a million
times over.
However…
What is unique is how information is articulated, distilled down, and presented.
Robert Cialdini must have sold over a million copies of his book, “Influence: The
Psychology of Persuasion” (for less than $15 a copy).
… before Frank Kern came along.
Frank took Robert’s ideas, concepts, and methodologies, and created something
‘unique’.
Unique because of the way Frank presented the (non-unique) information, and how
he used it to get results.
(Is ‘non-unique’ even a word? I doubt it. Oh well.)
Frank took a $15 book, articulated it in a way that resonated with our “IM”
subculture.
… and created unique “patented” names from the concepts.
Names that he now owns (in our minds, the minds of the marketers who have
consumed his stuff).
When we hear the phrase ‘Mass Control’ we immediately think of Frank Kern …
not Robert Cialdini.
… and Frank sold ‘Mass Control’ for $2K a pop for years. Made millions of
dollars. From concepts taken from a $15 book on Amazon.
Point I’m trying to make here is (well, two-fold really — but only one is what I’m
talkin’ about here).
… some people, like Frank.
Like Peter Spaepen.
Like … err, yours truly
Like Brent Hall.
(I’m sure there are hundreds of others too.)
… are all pros at understanding a core concept (taken from somewhere else) and
then presenting, and articulating that information (concept) in a unique way that
resonates with an audience.
That connects with them. That talks to them. That makes sense to THEM.
I’ll come back to this in a bit.
How about this for a concept? …
If you can make $1 online, then you can make $100. Simply repeat what you did
100 times.
Makes sense, no?
Hmmm … actually, I’m trying something new.
So I’ll continue this on my blog. If you want to hear more, just ‘click’ to continue:
[LINK REMOVED]
Andre
————————UPDATE (March 29, 2013): For the record, Frank DID NOT create Mass Control as
a result of a $15 book on Amazon.
Frank emailed me after going through ARM, and said he’s never read Influence by
Cialdini (he hasn’t made it past page 50 or so).
When I first wrote this email it was simply based on presumptions. The core
message I was writing about still stands though (read below).
Did you get that?
Especially this part…
“… pros at understanding a core concept (taken from somewhere else) and then
presenting, and articulating that information (concept) in a unique way that resonates with
an audience.”
I can’t remember who said it. I think it may have been Wyatt Woodsmall. Anyway
… the point made is that, when you present information in a different (unique)
way, you then become the owner/originator of that information (in the eyes of the
recipient).
That’s the first thing you need to remember. The first part of the magic cocktail.
The other ingredient that makes up the “magic cocktail” is the valueof your
information. Which is in direct proportion to how much your prospect believes that
your “magic cocktail” going to solve their problem, or give them the result they
want.
Reread both of the above ingredients again. Then take a second to let it sink in.
Because it’s the secret “stardust” to creating a captived audience.
… and it’s what I tried to achieve in the Alan “Rock Star” Saunders SOS you’ve
just read.
The open loops, cliffhangers, suspense, drama, and what not … these were all story
tactics I used to enhance the experience — the event that was playing out in the
minds of the audience.
But the invisible layer that was operating on a subconscious level beneath all the
tactics … that’s what really made the SOS effective.
I packaged up and presented the information in a unique way. I gave it a
“patented” name (Pheromone Cocktail). And it was believable. As in, the audience
believed that it was going to solve their problem, or give them the result that they
wanted (to date hot girls).
But it’s worth repeating again, that what you write about needs to be authentic.
True, as in not made up.
Hope that all made sense. Because you’ll be unstoppable when you get good at
writing like this.
Real Life Example of a SOS That Was “Inspired”
By The Alan Saunders SOS
In January 2012 at the Traffic & Conversion Summit in Austin, Ryan Deiss &
Perry Belcher spoke a bit about Autoresponder Madness. They’re both big fans.
Now, one of the markets they operate in is Forex.
Perry used my Alan Saunders SOS as “inspiration” for a SOS he wrote for their
Forex audience. In the video below Perry reads out the entire SOS.
Pay close attention to how Perry used my original SOS as the framework to their
SOS. It’s very clever. Enjoy!
Just like Ryan and Perry did, please feel free to swipe my SOS verbatim if you
want … so long as you adhere to one prerequisite(or terms of use)…
You have to inject your own unique true non-made-up story into it!
You can use it as a framework for your story, like Perry did … but it still needs to
be made your own, through your own story and voice.
Be Bold. Be Remarkable. Make Shit Happen.
— Andre “controlling perception” Chaperon
List Segmentation
Since writing this lesson I’ve moved from using AWeber. I first
started using them back in 2004. But…
LESSON UPDATE:
AWeber had become a … well, a “dinosaur”. I don’t recommend it anymore. It’s
old and (very) outdated in terms of features and how it works (list-based as
opposed to a flat tag structure).
They’ve recently made a move to update the system, but at its core, it’s still the
same. There are other ESPs that are 10x better, and cost no more.
Here’s are the three top ESPs I recommend:
DRIP (from LeadPages) [review here]
 ActiveCampaign
 ConvertKit
I have accounts with all three.

I’ve been actively using ActiveCampaign since September 2014. And I’ve had
my ConvertKit account since April 2013. But Drip is my favorite—it’s what I use as
my primary service for sending mass email.
—
Below is still the original lesson I wrote, which talks about AWeber & AW Pro
Tools (a service that allows for easy list segmentation with AWeber).
The reason why I’ve not changed this lesson is because it doesn’t NEED changing. The
methodology is UNIVERSAL, regardless of which ESP you use.
That said, I DO PLAN TO FULLY UPDATE this lesson shorty. Once done, I’ll email
you to let you know.
Listen up! … segmenting your email list is prob’ly the most powerful single thing
you can do with your email marketing efforts.
Why?
… because it allows you to deliver highly relevant email communications to a
group of people. Messages that resonate, connect, persuade and produce the most
impact. Messages that your audience actually cares about.
Every single market on earth is divided into sub-niches, and those niches are subdivided into tighter pockets of people who have specific needs, wants and desires.
Out the gate you may just know your audience wants to:

earn money online

lose weight

get a date

be more productive

become less stressed

… or whatever.
But that’s pretty damn general. It’s surface level stuff.
You can’t just keep emailing them with general messages and random solutions.
Because that’s how you get very mediocre results. At best.
… unless you segment.
Over time you’ll be able to “extract” key pieces of intel from your audience based
on their behavior and the specific traits they display. Your communications will be
more and more relevant to them.
Someone wanting to earn money online may specifically be looking to learn how
to leverage the Amazon Kindle marketplace to reach an audience.
Or they may just want to know how to advertise on Facebook, or Bing Ads, or God
forbid, SEO (search engine optimization).
… you NEED to be able to identify this.
Make sense?
You promote a weight loss product on ClickBank. It’s a product called Primal
Burn. You build out a campaign and pay to drive 500 clicks to the offer as a test.
You get 4 sales.
Not great. But you almost break even, so not a disaster either.
Now what?
I mean, WHY did those 4 people buy the product? … because they want to lose
weight? Duh! … but then Sherlock why the hell didn’t the other 496 people buy?
Don’t they also want to lose weight?
Clueless.
OK, let me reframe the scenario.
You’re a merchant on ClickBank and you’re selling a bodybuilding offer. Your
background is in strength training and you know how to get people all big and
muscle-y.
20 affiliates jump on board and promote your offer. You’re rockin’ now. You
generate 1,000 sales. Yay! … Yippie! … Whoohoo!
So in an effort to maximize your profits, you blast out more offers using email.
Because you’ve been told email works like “magic”. And that you need to strike
while the iron is hot.
But each email promotion you send produces fewer and fewer results. After a
month of almost daily emails, all backend sales dry up. Hardly any of your new
customers even click on your links.
Crap! …
The reason why is always the same. Because from the perspective of your
audience, the emails become less and less relevant to them.
You then lose their attention and trust … and then, my friend, it’s all over.
We, as email marketing ninjas, need to constantly have our fingers on the pulse of
what our audience and clients need, want and desire.
Specifically, the “roadblocks” they are experiencing as a result of buying your
product (or someone elses product through your affiliate link).
The better you can identify these roadblocks, the more money you’ll make, and the
stronger the long term relationship will be between you and your audience.
List segmentation is the key to identifying these sticking points, needs, wants and
desires.
… and the benefit of sending out relevant emails is to earn attention and trust.
To really leverage the power of SOS’s (and PLS’s) you need to segment like crazy.
Like your life depends on it.
List Segmenting in a Nutshell
Here’s a visualization of the list segmenting process (click image to enlarge):
(Click the image above to open a high-res version in a new window.)
E1, E2, E3, E4, etc … represent the sequential emails loaded up in your
autoresponder as follow-up messages. Like this:
These are sequential emails that (automatically) go out at predefined intervals.
These emails are part of a soap opera sequence.
Think of the top line in the illustration as the episodes of a TV series. Like Lost,
24, The Sopranos, Fringe … hell, even Kourtney & Kim Take New York.
Whatever.
… that’s your main SOS. But you should already know this.
Now this is where it can get a little ninja like. Because, based on actions taken, you
create segmented sub-lists. Think of these as sub-plots in your main soap opera
sequence story.
These sub-plots are smaller/shorter soap opera sequences — made up of one, two,
three … even a small handful of emails.
But in some cases you don’t even have to create a sub-SOS. Because you may
simply want to “tag” a person that took a predefined desired action (like if they
clicked a link — see E1 on the top line of the illustration). That way you can easily
target them later.
So what the hell are “actions” and “tagging” anyway?
Simple really.
An action is when a subscriber clicks a link. Then based on that action, you get to
do a number of things:

Copy them to a new list (they aren’t deleted from the list they’re on).

Move them to a new list (they are deleted from the list they’re on, and then
moved to the new one)

and/or “tag” them with a custom label (like “PPC” or “Female” or “Kindle”).
Copying and moving between current list and new (sub) list is self-explanatory.
Tagging is a little less obvious.
Tagging In A Nutshell
Tagging means that based on a desired action (a link is “clicked”), a custom
label (tag) is added to the person’s record (in AWeber, Infusionsoft or OAP).
This can be anything. But it’ll allow you to “slice and dice” leads later on.
For example, in the IM world, you could tag links with “free traffic” or “paid
traffic” whenever you talk about traffic.
Then later on, when you have a traffic offer to promote — that’s either related to
organic or paid, you get to specifically target the bestgroup of people – those who
indicated an interest in what you were offering.
Think about it.
If the only thing that mattered to me was paid traffic information — and I didn’t
care about anything to do with SEO — I’d get pretty pissed off every time I was
exposed to an SEO type promotion.
The list owner would lose my attention pretty damn fast. And once attention is lost,
it’s gone forever.
But conversely, if a particular marketer only ever sent me information and offers
that I cared about — they’d own my attention and trust in a big way.
That’s the power of “tagging” (and segmenting).
The real beauty of list segmentation and tagging is when combined with SOSs and
PLSs (more about PLSs in the next lesson).
It’s the combo cocktail thing again.
Meaning, sending out emails in isolation is really very ineffective in comparison to
the alternative. You need soap opera sequences to make your communications
stand out, connect, persuade and influence. Because they tell stories and give
context.
Before I show you how to perform list segmentation and tagging, I want to quickly
say a few words about the different groups of people that make up every audience.
Hyper-Responsive vs Non-Responsive Customers
It’s simple … not all subscribers (those people who will respond to an offer) are
created equal.
On the fringes there are two distinctive groups of people:
1. Hyper-Responsives (and early adopters)
2. Non-Responsives (and laggards)
… and then there’s everything in-between, of course.
Hyper-responsive people move from prospect to buyer really quickly. Once that
“connection” with you is made, they’re in. Then they buy like a drug addict at a
half price crack house sale.
If your stuff is remarkable, and delivers on the promise, they’ll eagerly buy
everything else you have. They’ll even email you to tell you to create more stuff,
so that they can buy more from you. Seriously. These people are the Holy Grail.
On the opposite side of the spectrum you get the non-responsives. The people that
buy nothing. Squat. Nada. Zip.
Sure, down the line they may, but it’s a hard sell, and even when they do buy,
they’re typically more hassle than the sale was worth.
Meaning they refund like crazy (to get the info for free) or they ask a million
questions and consume all your time. They need hand-holding, and generally don’t
do much with the advice you offer them.
Personally, I “filter out” most of these people before they even get into my sphere
of influence. I build automated systems that do this for me.
Point is, by further categorizing subscribers (people) based on their ACTIONS,
you get the ability to specifically (and easily) target these more responsive groups
of people.
On the highest level these “actions” can represent repeat buyers. Within that you
can get to easily see different levels of buyers. Like those that purchase $7
products vs those they that pony up $7,000 for something.
I would rather have ten $7,000 buyers per month than ten thousand $7 buyers.
Same money, but completely different dynamics. One group values time (and all
other resources expanded in their benefit). The other group doesn’t.
Anyhoo … you get the point no doubt.
The How-To’s of List Segmenting
Just like with all things in life – there’s an easy way and a hard way to get things
done.
If you use Infusionsoft or Office AutoPilot, then you already have the ability to
easily segment based on actions.
If you use AWeber, like me, list segmenting has previously required the use of a
lead capture (squeeze) page to move or copy a person from one list to another.
Not elegant. Not ideal. Especially for the subscriber.
That is, until recently (October 2012). If like me you use AWeber, you can now
use a service called AW Pro Tools to “enhance” what can be done with AWeber.
It brings the power of “click actions” like you get with Infusionsoft and Office
AutoPilot, but with the ease of use and simplicity of AWeber.
I recommend AWeber + AW Pro Tools because it’s the setup I use. I’ve been
using AWeber for some 13 or 14 or so years. I’ve used Infusionsoft, and I didn’t
like it.
… but regardless of which setup you use, the concept of creating segmented lists is
the same. Just the workflow changes.
That said, if you use MailChimp, iContact, GetResponse, Constant Contact,
1ShoppingCart, Sendpepper (or whatever else), they may not support the ability to
segment subscribers when they click a link with an “action” attached to it. As far
as I know, none of them do.
In that case segmenting will require the old school method of getting subscribers to
manually add themselves to the new list.
It still works well. I’ve done it like this for years. It just requires one extra step.
I’ll cover both methods next. First the easy (preferred) workflow…
Easy List Segmentation & Tagging
Like I said, I use AWeber and AW Pro Tools. So I’ll use these to demonstrate how
I segment and tag people.
If you use Infusionsoft or Ontraport then you’ll need to figure out how to adapt the
concept for their system. The concept is no different.
Jack Born, the creator of AW Pro Tools, has allowed me to use these videos to
explain how to create a “smart link”.
STEP 1:
STEP 2:
STEP 3:
STEP 4:
STEP 5:
The process then generates a special “smart link” that looks like this:
http://awpt.co/Jo131?e={!email}
… or http://yourdomain.com/Jo131?e={!email} if you use Jack’s CNAME
feature.
That’s the link you use in your followup (for SOSs) or broadcast (for PLSs) email.
When the subscriber clicks that link (action) then you get to:

move them to a new list

copy them to a new list

and/or tag them with a label (explained in the below video)
Let’s look at the illustration again:
Look at E1 that is part of SOS #1.
For example, the context of that email could talk about the emotional side of
copywriting, which ends with a link to a free video of Chris Haddad talking at
Mindvalley Insights.
Subscribers that are interested will click the (smart) link:
http://awpt.co/go/sV9F1?e={!email}
BOOM! … which then “tags” them with, as an example, “copywriting” — and
then redirects them to the free video.
From the subscribers perspective, I’ve given them a valuable email with a nostrings link to a killer video on copywriting.
Buahaha!
But on my side, without them knowing it, I’ve just identified them as someone that
is prob’ly interested in learning more about copywriting. Those people who aren’t
interested in copy, won’t click the link.
Now look at E3 that is part of SOS #1.
That smart link will automatically COPY them to a new sub-list, where I have
another soap opera sequence (SOS #2) that consists of four emails.
Perhaps E3 has a registration link for a free webinar where Craig Ballantyne
demonstrates the benefits of HIIT (high-intensity-interval-training) bodyweight
training.
SOS #2 could then be an automated four email promotion of Turbulence Training.
Did you get that? … ALL FULLY AUTOMATED
List segmentation is core to the Autoresponder Madness system. It allows you to
build out a massive fully automated backend system.
Your main SOS can be many weeks (or months, ideally) long, with many miniSOSs hanging off it, that typically span just a few days long each (3 to 7 emails).
This, my friend, is HOW you achieve INSANELY high conversions from tiny
little sub-lists.
As you can see from the illustration, the rabbit hole can go really deep, and when it
does — it’s a thing of beauty, baby!
Easy Tagging
Here’s a video where Jack shows you how tagging works in AW Pro Tools:
So that’s the easy way to segment and tag your subscribers.
Now onto the not so easy way, which I’ve been using for years with amazing
success. It just takes a little longer to setup, along with a few other “issues”.
Not As Easy List Segmentation
Everything here operates exactly the same. With the exception of some of the
fancy “click-on-a-link” automation when moving or copying subscribers between
lists.
So let’s go back to E3 that’s part of SOS #1 in the earlier illustration.
There are many ways to go about copying (or moving for that matter) a person
from one list to another.
One constant is the need for an opt-in form (no way around that). Here are two of
the ways I use most often. Both use an opt-in form, but the context is different (in
other words, how I frame the opt-in differs).
Example #1
So in email #3 (E3 above) I have a cunning plan to promote a product of mine, but
COMPLETELY from left-field. Take notes (hint hint!).
This email goes out…
Zero To Hero Story
This is a true story that happened in 2007.
It demonstrates what’s possible when you have that guts to just say “Fuck It!” and
make the uncomfortable decision to roll the dice.
There’s a science to finding a niche market where the odds are stacked in your
favor that you’ll be able to extract money from it.
But there’s also an art to really digging in and finding the pain within a pocket of
people experiencing a common (desperate) problem.
I’ve told this story before, but perhaps you’ve not heard it. Just depends on when
you entered my sphere of influence.
The quick version goes like this…
In 2007 a good buddy decided that he wanted out of the rat race. He was working a
shit job in middle England (UK). So one day he ups and just quits.
(This is the short version remember.)
He put his house on the market … and BOOM!
… it pretty much sold right away (this was before dumb governments and greedy
banks propelled us into the economic shit storm we’re in now).
So he loaded the wife (Kerry), his two young kids (Megan & Declan) and cat
(named KittyCat — go figure) into a van, and drives to southern Spain.
Now he’s in a foreign country that speak a language he can’t understand.
What did he do to earn money?
… well lucky for him I had moved out to Spain a month earlier (the bastard
followed me, can you believe it?).
So I taught him the science bit of how to find a niche market (the “art” part is
where it gets tricky, so I left that out so as not to overwhelm him).
It didn’t take long. I just showed him the basics and left it at that. No secrets. No
advanced stuff.
I didn’t tell Mark this … but I knew his first attempt would crash and burn.
It always does.
But that’s cool … because it’s the learning experience that’s invaluable (you know,
the school-of-hard-knocks kinda life lessons).
But I was completely wrong.
He only went and struck gold — as a rank amateur — on his first damn attempt.
So much for the learning experience of failure.
If you’re interested you can read the longer version of this story, here:
http://zerotoherostory.com/
… and then I show you what I showed Mark.
You rock!
Andre “got it completely wrong” Chaperon
The URL goes to a squeeze page that, err … well, doesn’t really look and smell
like the typical squeeze pages you see in our space.
Few things here.
The email, which is part of a SOS, tells a story. Within the story is a marketing
message, which ends with a subtle {grin} call-to-action.
So subscribers that were interested in my zero to hero story would follow the link
and go here:
http://zerotoherostory.com/
It’s up to you, but I would suggest that you go ahead and opt-in. Add yourself to
the list on that page. Because then you’ll get to see the whole shebang play out.
You’ll get the see “from left field” promotion from SOS #2.
That page no longer has a lead capture form at the end—I now simply
link to this website (where I later capture a lead).
UPDATE:
That said, the point still stands; just presume there was a lead capture form at the
bottom of the page.
Example #2
Here’s another scenario of how to frame the opt-in process that’s required to copy
a subscriber from SOS #1 (E3) to SOS #2:
The email is the same as the previous one, but the call-to-action would be a little
different. Like this:
Zero To Hero Story
This is a true story that happened in 2007.
.
{snip}
.
So much for the learning experience of failure.
If you’re interested to learn what I taught Mark, go here:
http://andrechaperon.com/interested-857401/
… and then add yourself to the list.
You rock!
Andre “got it completely wrong” Chaperon
The first example had a more complicated to write opt-in process. Although not
hard to write, you would need better copy chops with example #1 than with
example #2.
The squeeze page with example 2 was really simple. Just a few lines of copy.
Nothing fancy. I kept it real simple.
If I were using AW Pro Tools, I would simply wrap this URL within a smart link:
http://andrechaperon.com/check-your-inbox/
Everything thing else would remain the same. They would just need to click the
link to be added to the new sub-list (SOS #2).
Real simple
Once you understand this concept, you can really get creative and build out a
beautifully engineered “rabbit warren” of soap opera sequences (and PLSs, which
I’ll teach you in the next lesson).
Bonus Video: VERY ADVANCED
So Ryan Deiss and Perry Belcher are big fans of the core concept I teach in the
Autoresponder Madness system.
That’s the great thing once you understand a concept. You get to “tweak” it a little,
or a lot, to your own liking.
I’m not prescribing that my way is the only way to do this stuff. It’s a stress-tested
proven kick-ass system, sure. But no reason why you can’t tinker and fiddle a little.
Ryan and Perry did just that.
They’ve kindly allowed me to show you this footage. It’s taken from their Traffic
and Conversion Summit (January 2012).
A warning though…
Only watch this if you completely understand everything up to this point.
If you are still a little “foggy”, which is fine, then (for now) I would suggest you
DON’T watch this video. Because it’s very advanced, and may only confuse you.
The Monster (Part 1)
The Monster (Part 2)
If you already segment your main list – great! You should still do the tasks above.
You might find something you’re not doing that may enhance your business.
You rock!
— Andre “segment like crazy” Chaperon
Product Launch Sequence
… or PLS for short.
A PLS unlike a SOS (soap opera sequence), is not an automated system. This is by
design. You’ll understand why shortly.
Lemme tell you a quick story.
In fact it’s when the penny really dropped for me, loud and clear. In a way, it’s
where “AutoResponder Madness” took conscious shape. When I decided to
articulate what I had been doing with email onto paper.
It was late 2006. The wife was working for PartyGaming (the world’s largest
online poker site) at the time. And her department was heading to Las Vegas as
part of their yearly pilgrimage to Pubcon.
Not needing any excuse to head to Sin City, I booked a flight and tagged along
(hell, PartyGaming was footing the accommodation bill at the Wynn anyway).
[A week earlier in London, UK]
It was a little UK marketers’ get together in the capital … at a bar, of course. I
found myself chatting to Paul Smithson, creator of XSitePro.
So he tells me about this new product (service) he is about to launch called Build
An Empire. He had setup deals with a bunch of the top audiobook publishers. The
product he was selling was a franchise opportunity.
Really slick and clever idea. He was going to sell a limited number of licenses for
$1,000 each. The license would allow the licensee to setup any number of niche
audiobook stores.
It was unique. This was 2006, and the audiobook market was just taking off. So I
committed to help promote.
[Las Vegas, The Wynn, 23nd Floor]
Oh crap! … the reality of the situation I had got myself into was dawning on me. I
had committed to Paul that I would promote.
Problem was that it was a $1,000 product, and the most expensive product I had
ever promoted at the time was $97.
Crap.
And if that wasn’t bad enough, my list was completely built of freebie subscribers.
And the list was small. Like less than 1,000 people. Crap.
Not good. Not good at all.
I knew I had to do something different. So I spent two days writing emails in a
very different kinda way. I then broadcasted them out during the prelaunch phase.
The official launch happened to be in the morning in Vegas. But Anita and I
needed to head down for breakfast.
I thought to myself — “Screw this! I’m hungry. I’m prob’ly not going to make a
single sale.”
So we went down for breakfast when the launch officially started.
We came back an hour later.
I headed straight for the laptop, being more curious than actually expecting to see
any sales.
Huh?
I rubbed my eyes.
What I was seeing must have been wrong.
Damn computer is screwing with me.
I logged out then back into the affiliate control panel.
Same result.
WTF!
I shit you not, it was showing something like $20,000 in sales.
… just one hour into the launch.
End of the day that figure was up to over $30K.
So I blasted out a few more emails.
More sales.
I left Vegas in a daze at the end of that week.
That month I clocked in $70,000 in pure profits.
I did 126 sales of Build An Empire. $1,000 product. Tiny list of less than 1,000
freebie subscribers.
I was the #1 affiliate — beating out some mega big names in the process. Names
you’ll recognize today. One with a list of 75,000 subscribers.
This is when I knew I was onto something with my uncommon approach
generating sales using nothing but email.
But the kicker was…
I had just spent two days on the 23rd floor of the Wynn hotel — NOT SELLING.
Think about that for a second. Instead of doing what everyone else was doing
(read: selling). I took a different approach — and it paid off big time.
Peter Drucker once said:
T
he aim of marketing is to make selling superfluous.
The aim of marketing is to know and understand the customer so well that the product or
service fits him and sells itself.
— Peter Drucker
Re-read that quote again. Let it sink in.
This is when the Autoresponder Madness system was born, so to speak. And I’ve
been “working the system” ever since … honing and tweaking it for 12+ years.
What I sent out that week was a PLS — an early version of one.
I had done the heavy lifting way before Vegas. I had already established trust with
my little tiny list. I already owned their attention because of how I had been
treating them up until that point.
But what I didn’t know before that week in Vegas is how insanely effective all that
nurturing had been. I had never promoted a high-ticket product for fear of failure
and fear of pissing them off.
I was clueless about all the potential. Until then.
I say this because it’s important to know that a PLS isn’t a “magic bullet” thing.
It’s not magic at all.
You have to do all the grounding stuff FIRST. Which is why a PLS is built
(layered) on top of a SOS. They work together, like a hand and glove. Like yin
and yang.
A PLS in isolation (as in no previous nurturing over time through a soap opera
sequence), just won’t be effective.
So before I dive in and give you the skinny on a PLS, some stuff you need to be
aware of first.
Perspective & Expectations
I want to give you some perspective quickly.
When I do a PLS for a non-guru product promotion I typically generate around
$10K in commissions from a list size of between 400 to 800 people.
Takes me 2 to 3 hours to write everything.
Your results will vary, depending on a few things:
1. Niche.
2. Your relationship with your audience.
3. How well the PLS resonates with the group you are targeting (how well you
match the product to their wants, needs and desires).
4. Timing (WHEN you promote can heavily affect the results you get).
I’ll come back to these points in a bit.
Back to the perspective…
Think about this. One PLS a month to a list of less than 1,000 subscribers has
the potential to generate $10K/month in profits ($120K/year) for you.
… from just one PLS a month, to a tiny little list.
Think about that for a second.
That’s excluding the revenue that your SOS will generate for you on an ongoing
basis, running on full autopilot.
Of course, you don’t stop at just 1,000 subscribers. Because if a business isn’t
constantly acquiring new leads, it’ll eventually die.
My good buddy Peter Spaepen operates in a niche that is as far removed from “info
marketing” as one can get.
He sells skin firming cream to women between the ages of 35-60.
That’s a physical product BTW.
In 2009 that tiny little business earned him $320K (in profit).
And the kicker … he does it ALL USING EMAIL. From a SOS
Point is … this rabbit hole goes way deeper then the guru IM niche.
I have a client that is a chiropractor in the Netherlands (non-English practice). He
writes SOSs (in Dutch) to increase his patient visits.
He also uses SOSs to educate his prospects and customers of other health issues,
and the matching solutions.
This stuff is universal.
But at any point in time there are a number of variables that come into play.
Variables that can affect the results you get from your PLS.
1. THE NICHE
Some niches respond to promotions better than others, by default.
Selling to golfers will work differently than selling to forex traders. Goes without
saying.
The key here is to know and understand the needs of your audience better than they
know them. The person (company) who knows their audience the best, wins.
Which is why I put so much emphasis on it.
I have a client that knows his audience intimately well. He recently did two PLSs.
One earned him $53k, the other $29k. Both these launches ended within 3 days,
and were promoted to a small list.
This was in a non-IM, non-mass-market niche.
Later I’ll share something with you that you’ve prob’ly never thought about doing
before. It’s a way of using ARM in a totally different way. I’ll tell you about this
later.
2. RELATIONSHIP WITH YOUR CROWD
The deeper the relationship with your crowd, the more leverage you are going to
have with them. Goes without saying.
This is precisely what a SOS is for. It bears repeating again because it so
important:
SOSs are there to establish a relationship with your crowd. Then to develop that
relationship over time. Finally you get to extend that relationship by providing
them with solutions to their problems.
It’s your opportunity to use stories to suck them in and build trust and rapport with
them.
There are two polar opposite schools of thought when it comes to a “general”
email list (the main list that you funnel people into).
School-of-Thought #1 (SoT #1)…
This is the most common. I’ve heard well known gurus give this advice out.
Hammer your general list to shit until one of two things happen:
1. they buy something
2. they unsubscribe
Talk about a brutal shortsighted approach. I don’t do this. I don’t suggest you do it
either.
School-of-Thought #2 (SoT #2)…
This is less common. Rare even.
Give value WITHOUT thinking about making a damn quick sale. Help, guide,
advise and protect your crowd as your primary focus.
Jay Abraham calls this philosophy the ‘Strategy of Preeminence’. I’ve incorporated
Jay’s core philosophy right into what a soap opera sequence does.
It’s there to establish the relationship and foster it over time.
It’s the RELATIONSHIP that you have with your crowd that enables you to sell
stuff to them over and over and over and over again.
SoT #1 does nothing more than strip a list of all real value.
Yes … you’ll make a bunch of initial sales by hard selling them. But there is no
LONG TERM benefit or gain in doing this.
End of the day … everyone gets burnt to shit — prospects, customers and all traces
of a real lasting relationship.
SoT #1 marketers don’t see this. Or don’t want to see this. Their only focus is on
the immediate money. That’s their business model.
The kicker is that you’ll make more money in the long term from SoT #2.
Don’t just take my word for it. I’ve got some videos for you to watch at the end of
this lesson.
3. CINDERELLA’S SHOE
Essentially … how well does the product you’re promoting MATCH (fit) the
wants, needs and desires of your crowd?
Do your story, messaging, and hook RESONATE with them? Get this right and
you’ll be hitting home runs all freakin’ day long.
4. TIMING
I’ve found this can seriously affect how well a PLS plays out for you.
This is especially relevant in the “IM niche” where there are BIG guru launches
pretty much all the time.
If you operate in the IM space, don’t be doing a PLS on the same day as a major
guru is launching some new MassMarketSometingOrOther.
Just don’t do it. Trust me on this (actually, there is a way to cleanup on guru launch
days, but that’s a very different strategy, which I may tell you about another time).
If you operate in other niches, then this (potential) issue would be less of a
problem.
Lastly. Don’t do a PLS a few days BEFORE payday when your crowd has the least
amount of cash in their pocket.
Rather do a PLS on the 16th or 2nd of a month, right after most Americans have
been paid. Just saying
How a PLS Fits Into The ARM System
The overall workflow goes like this:
1. SOS (big main SOS) [automated]
2. List segmenting based on actions (where people are either “tagged” or added
to sub-lists where mini-SOSs plays out) [automated]
3. PLS (one-off product promotions) [manual]
Make no mistake of it, products (and/or services) get promoted within automated
soap opera sequences. But these are typically evergreen promotions.
Meaning they won’t become “stale” after a month.
Here are a few evergreen examples:

Drip (email service provider)

SiteGround (hosting)
AutoResponder Madness {grin}

Turbulence Training (weight loss)

Simple Writing System (copywriting)

Basecamp or Asana (project management)

TLB Tribe {grin}
… etc, etc. You get the idea. These are products or services that’ll still be around
next month and next year.

The point is not to have to edit automated SOSs every five minutes. In my book
that’s not automation. The essence of automation is “set-it-and-forget-it”.
But soap opera sequences fall short when an offer is time sensitive and/or not
evergreen.
That’s where PLSs come in. Where they shine.
Because they are the perfect delivery vehicle to get the word out about a promotion
that has a defined beginning and an end.
PLSs are focused little campaigns that do one thing really well … create near
instant little cash windfalls, and crazy high conversion rates.
88 sales from 317 visitors = 27.76% conv ($19.99/mo product)
250 sales from 600 visitors = 41.46% conv ($77 product)
 600 sales from 2431 visitors = 24.68% conv ($77 product)
 125 sales from 787 people = 15.89% conv ($397 product)
 232 sales from 659 people = 35.20% conv ($97 product)
 126 sales from 971 people = 12.98% conv ($1,000 product)
 102 sales from 218 people = 46.8% conv ($97 product)
You get the idea.


… and although I’ll say that my results are not typical — other clients have
produced similar results.




288 sales @ $35 a pop from 2500 subscribers. 11% conversion rate.
85 sales from a list of 250 producing $5,695.
200 sales from a list of 1200 producing $12,000 net profit in less than 90
minutes.
52 sales from a list of 220 within a few hours.
 61 sales from a list 381.
So a PLS is a small contained promotional campaign that promotes a product,
WITHOUT the need for hype and hoopla.
A PLS is not a Jeff Walker style Product Launch Formula type thingy either. It’s
simpler than that. It is powered completely by email.
How a PLS Fits In With A SOS
Here is a visualization of how a PLS fits into the overall system:
(Click the image above to open a high-res version in a new window.)
The PLS component part marked as (#3). The core SOS is (#1).
The elements that make up a PLS are:
emails are sent out as broadcasts — not as follow-ups
 can be anything from one (1) email to many (I call a three email sequence
an Email Triad — and it’s super effective)
 there is a beginning and an end (example: E1, E2, and E3 — done!)
 only target sub-lists that are a good match to the offer (example: don’t sent a
post-pregnancy weight loss offer to women who don’t have a new kid … or
worse still, to men)
 manually create a PLS campaign once a month (or quarter, or whenever it
makes sense to)
 perfect for quick-cash windfalls (but a PLS is not a replacement for a SOS —
a SOS is always your primary method of “nurturing” and earning consistent
(automated) revenue!)
Here’s a zoomed in snapshot of how the PLS connects to soap opera sequences:

(Click the image above to open a high-res version in a new window.)
Three ways to deploy a PLS…
Example #1 (see Option 1 in illustration above)
I’m promoting a product about binary option trading. I identify that I have two sublists (SOS #4 and SOS #5) that have subscribers who have previously “raised their
hand” about binary option trading.
I ignore all my others trading lists and decide to only target these two list.
I write a three email promotion (I called this an ‘Email Triad’). I then manually
broadcast out the promotion on three consecutive days.
Boom! … done.
Example #2 (see Option 2 in illustration above)
I’m promoting a product about offline client getting to online marketers. But I
don’t have any sub-lists that perfectly match the offline marketing product I’m
promoting.
So instead I write an email that gives some context about the product I’m
promoting. I send it out to my general list (SOS #1), and call out those who are
interested.
Here’s an example of me doing this:
SUBJECT: Offline Clients Opportunity
I hadn’t planned to promote anything. Until something happened on Tuesday
evening, this week.
A client and friend needed to have an urgent consult. So I jumped on the phone
with him.
He’s doing a big launch next week, and needed my help.
Now … his product is completely different to all the (make money) offers that
penetrate our inboxes, daily.
… which got my attention.
Costas teaches marketers (like you) how to market to OFFLINE clients.
… as in, real world mom-and-pop operations (restaurants, hotels, etc).
But even that isn’t all that unique. Until he told me about his approach.
Priceless.
So I’m interested in getting his product, too, now.
(It doesn’t exist yet.)
He’ll be delivering his content as a live three week e-class. Starting on December
22nd.
So I told Costas I want to definitely attend, myself.
I love his angle. And the opportunity sounds great.
… which is when I thought — “Hmmm, wonder if any of my guys would also be
interested in this?”
I have a really good feel for what you guys like to get from me.
But in this case, I’m clueless.
I’ve NEVER promoted an “offline” product to you before.
So here’s what I’ve done…
I’ve put up a ghetto squeeze page, here:
http://forms.aweber.com/form/71/1017645671.htm
If this opportunity interests you, add yourself to the sub-list I’ve setup for this.
[IMPORTANT!] The opportunity investment is two installments of $97 (30 days
apart). So you NEED to know this right upfront.
Don’t opt-in if this is beyond your means, right now. I know Christmas comes with
a ton of extra expenses.
If I get little (or no) positive response about this, then I’ll abandon the promotion.
If I get a decent response, then I’ll take the time and energy to create a high-value
bonus for this (I already have a great idea for one).
Either way, I’ll be in Costas’ e-class later this month.
I’m personally interested in this opportunity.
Perhaps you are, too…
Let me know by:
1) opting in (raising your hand)
2) ignoring this (indicating this isn’t for you)
Rock on!
Andre
Notice what I did with this email. Although it went out to everyone, I didn’t
promote anything. Therefore I didn’t piss people off who weren’t interested in this
offer.
I simply told a story. Gave context. Then asked people to raise their hand by
opting-in if they were interested in hearing more.
Read: there was no SELLING.
I also set expectations in the email. I told them out the gate that this was a
promotion (I always do this). And I even told them the price, which was two
installments of $97 (I like to do this, but don’t always — just depends).
Point is, a PLS is a promotion. There’s no need to disguise that fact. I always
prefer to be upfront about it. That way I only attract high-quality prospects. And
expectations are set from the get-go.
I ended up getting 378 people on the list before pulling down the opt-in.
Of the 378 subscribers, 109 purchased. That’s a 28.84% conversion rate on a $194
product.
Example #3
This would require the use of Jack Born’s AW Pro Tools.
In this scenario, let’s say my business is traders. So over time, whenever I send out
a link (to an article, a video or even an offer), I would “tag” those people.
In this case I would prob’ly tag people as “high risk tolerance” and “low risk
tolerance”.
Now, whenever I pushed out a PLS, I would be able to easily match the offer to the
best group of people. If the offer was about a high-risk strategy, I would exclude
all the risk averse people.
Hope that all made sense. It’s pretty easy really.
In the next lesson I’m going to give you a PLS case study, along with a bunch of
PLSs that I’ve written.
Two short videos for you to watch:
1. Jay Abraham on Strategy of Preeminence (8m33s)
2. Jay Abraham on Strategy of Preeminence (8m42s)
— Andre “no need to sell” Chaperon
Product Launch Sequence Case Study
& Email Triads
For the official launch of ARM (2nd Edition) an interesting thing happened. It
demonstrated first hand how devastatingly effective ARM methods are at
producing massive leverage from a small email list.
Peter “good buddy” Spaepen wrote a promo sequence to promote AutoResponder
Madness. Turned out he was the #1 affiliate.
Peter outsold affiliate #2 by a factor of 5.5. Almost 6 times more sales. Yet the
kicker was that his list was also 23 times SMALLER than super-affiliate #2.
Peter’s list was a tiny 1,300 subscribers.
I’ve included the promotion he sent as a case study. When you read it, a few things
will jump out at you:
Firstly you’ll notice that it’s VERY different to pretty much every other promotion
you see every day from the lazy affiliates.
Secondary … remember I spoke about “cocktails” and “combos” during the
Alan Saunders SOS sequence?
{HINT HINT HINT!}
Now although Peter’s PLS is brilliantly written, the REAL “I’m getting ARM
through Peter’s link!” thinking came from his clever bonus angle.
Peter ties his exclusive bonus into ARM so well, that everyone reading his
promotion would have been a fool to not get ARM through his affiliate link.
He made the buying decision to get ARM through his link, over any other affiliate,
REAL EASY. Getting ARM from anyone else would be like getting an incomplete
product.
Take note how Peter wrote his story. And notice how Peter framed his bonus. How
he “associated” his bonus, NanoList, with ARM.
NOTE: Don’t go looking for NanoList; Peter pulled it off the market a few years
ago. So it’s not for sale anymore.
Very clever. Very smart.
There is a whole world of education for you to learn by reading this case study.
Enjoy.
PLS Case Study (Peter Spaepen)
SUBJECT: In the Air Tonight…
Hey – it’s Peter,
Back in the summer of 1981, Phil Collins released his monster hit “In the Air
Tonight”. Today – almost 30 years later — that song is still on a lot of people’s
“all-time-favorite” list.
I honestly don’t know of anyone who could resist throwing their arms up and start
to “air-drum” when, at the 3:15 time stamp, Collins seriously hit the drums.
Truth is – technically, that drum piece wasn’t all that impressive. It took a musical
genius like Collins to build up the pressure in the 3:14 BEFORE he masterfully hit
the drums.
Nobody could turn of the radio before those drum sounds had hit the speakers –
nobody. We were all waiting for it… anticipating.
Here’s the Google Video of “In the Air Tonight”. Just click the link and listen to
the music while reading the rest of this email.
It will certainly help set the stage for something as important as what I have to tell
you today.
http://lin.sh/ITA
.
.
.
Can you hear the music? Cool!
Here’s the real reason I’m emailing you today…
When Andre Chaperon and I first met in 2006 – immediately this “bond” of
friendship was created that I knew would last a lifetime.
That rarely ever happens but, with Andre, it just felt right.
We don’t always agree with each others opinions and there have been LOTS of
discussions about stuff that really shouldn’t be mentioned in an email. (him
drinking copious amounts of beer and his REALLY loud farting in public being
just two of them)
But when it comes to marketing, we’re two pees in a pod. You could call us the
peanut butter and jelly of IM. We simply share the same views about how to
market with the utmost effectiveness.
Andre and I have been marketers for the longest time. We’ve seen “pu-rus” come
and go. We’ve seen all the fads, the lies, the worthless schemes, the bullsh*t being
peddled by “the others”.
Both Andre and I have said “no, thanks” to countless offers being made to us by
big names in the online marketing community – simply because we could see
through the scam they were trying to pull on all of you.
Before you start to think that we are the “Goody Two-Shoes” of Internet Marketing
– that was not the point I was trying to make.
We simply value the proven, tested, older-than-dirt but oh-so-powerful strategies
that have been working for decades MUCH more than the “fads” that are being
spoon-fed (more like – stuffed down your troat) to you on a daily bases.
Can you guess what the ONE strategy is that both Andre and I choose
above literally everything else?…
It’s email.
Yup – the one KILLER app that has been dominating the Internet (and IM) since
it’s inception over 15 years ago.
Nothing has stood the test of time better than email. Just look at yourself – what do
you check more than anything else?… Yup, your email!
What do your friends, business partners, customers (in short – everyone that needs
to get an important message across to you) use?… Yup, your email!
They don’t send IMPORTANT messages over Twitter or they don’t “poke” you on
Facebook – no no, they send you an email.
Email is a trusted channel of communication – email can be read by just about
everyone with an Internet connection. Yeah, yeah – RSS was supposed to be the
email “killer”. (NOT!)
People and businesses paying for leads don’t pay for RSS subscribers, they pay for
REAL leads. Email leads!
They want real people – people that raised their hand and said: “Hey, I want to
know more about what you have – here’s my email address.”
Email is still the killer app and it will stay like that for the foresee-able future.
So – if email is that important, wouldn’t it be super duper cool to have (multiple)
lists of people that actually gave you their email and want to know more about
what you have?
Yes – that would be just awesome and, to be totally honest here – that’s exactly
what both Andre and myself have been doing for YEARS now.
Our #1 “secret” has always been building multiple lists of people who want to
know more about what we have.
I’m not even talking big, “pu-ru” sized, lists of 100K+ emails. No no – I’m talking
small lists with often not more than a few hundred names. Let’s put nipple clamps
on the guys who said you need a big list to succeed as they, obviously, have no
clue about REAL email marketing.
Me, personally – I have a little less than 100 email lists that I have built (am still
building) over the last few years. Most of them are less then 1,000 subscribers.
Here’s what I do to maintain these lists. If you think that I only pimp promos to my
people, you’re dead wrong. People didn’t join one of my lists to get sold to
24/7/365. If you join many of the IM lists, I don’t blame you for thinking
differently – don’t worry, it’s not your fault.
Actually – I provide oodles of value. Don’t get me wrong, I also sell to them but
providing value and selling often go hand in hand. (I know – weird, innit?)
Every morning – I open one of my Aweber accounts and look at my lists. I pick
one (or two or three) that I focus on for that day. I write broadcasts that either
sends out a nice bundle of useful information or I might send out a promo. (or,
most often, a combo of both)
A few hours later I have accomplished two things:
1 – I have provided value and made a lot of my subscribers really happy.
2 – I send out a useful promo and I have lined my Paypal account with a nice
amount of cash. (as much as $10K in a single day!)
THAT is the power of email. You sit down, you write, you provide value, you
promote, you earn. Blammo! Done for the day.
If you REALLY want to live the “4 hr. work week” – this is how you do that. I’m
not kidding.
Email sounds easy, no? It IS easy but there are a bundle of little “details” that you
simply must know to pull those profits from a list of subscribers.
Andre has put together those details in a product he calls “AutoResponder
Madness” (ARM for short). As you might have expected – I’ve seen ARM and its
the closest thing to “Email Mastery” I’ve ever laid my eyes on.
ARM goes live today – and I highly recommend you NOT getting it.
Huh?
Can you please just trust me on this one?
I beg you to NOT buy ARM when you get Andre’s email about it. I mean, you can
go to the site and look around but – whatever you do – do NOT buy ARM today?
Here’s why…
I just finished my latest “Nano” product. It describes, in-depth, how to build your
own lists and how you should go about providing value to your subscribers and
extract dazzling profits without you looking like a total douche-bag.
Actually – it talks about the things that Andre doesn’t mention in ARM. I just pick
up where he “flunked”.
Truth is – my new “NanoList” is the perfect “tandem” product to use in
conjunction with ARM. It takes what is in ARM and multiplies its strength by a
100.
Here’s the kicker – NanoList will not be offered as a stand alone product. You can
NOT buy NanoList. You can only get NanoList (for FREE) when you purchase
ARM through my link.
Don’t get me wrong here – NL is NOT some random “bonus” product. I don’t
believe in bonuses. 99% of ‘m are worthless anyway so you shouldn’t even bother
with them. No useless “interview” as a “bonus” on my watch!
NL is built because I believe in email and because I have seen/used ARM and
“fixed” what Andre forgot to mention.
Make sense?
Good.
Now – I don’t stop there. NanoList is the first add-on you get from me. But I’m
going to… well… surprise you with two more things. You are going to LOVE this.
Can we meet again tomorrow? Same time, same place and I’ll give you the full
details
Talk to you tomorrow.
— Peter
PS: Whatever you do. Don’t buy ARM just yet. When you do buy, than later find
out what I offer you (besides NanoList), you’re going to slap yourself silly.
So, try to hold out a little bit longer. I promise I’ll make it worth your while.
Double promise, cross-my-heart-hope-to-die-stick-a-needle-in-my-eye promise.
SUBJECT: NanoList and wrinkle cream…
Welcome back to the “Andre and Peter Email Show” – Part 2
That show doesn’t exist but wouldn’t it be super fun if it did? Just wondering…
Some sort of Podcast – 100% dedicated to “The Art of Email Marketing”. Gosh –
all sorts of ideas start to bubble up just thinking about this.
Anyhoo…
I promised you a more complete overview of what I have in store for you if you
decide to become an ARM Insider. We’ll get to that in a minute but first let’s set
some things straight.
After yesterday’s email, I got flooded with messages from peeps that either already
own ARM 1.0 (and therefore are “grandfathered” in by Andre) or they got my
email too late and already went ahead and purchased ARM 2.0.
Some said they would refund their original purchase and buy again through my
link so they could get access to NanoList. PLEASE, do NOT do a thing like that!
It’s just bad business.
Rest assured that I will work something out with Andre and you will be presented
the opportunity to get your grubby hands on NL
Second – I wanted to present a case here. A little “role play”, if you will. You
should be aware that Email Marketing is quite similar to marketing in the offline
world. However, if you observe the bunches of marketers “butchering” such an
uber-excellent model, you would start to think it’s nothing at all like the “real”
world.
“How NOT to Approach Email Marketing”.
OK – here goes…
Let’s assume for a minute that you are a woman. You’re in your late 30’s, early
40’s. You do well professionally – you adore your husband and your children. You
have a nice house.
Life is good.
On a random morning, you wake up and make way to the bathroom. You’re
turning on the shower first so the water can reach the perfect temperature before
you step in. You stand in front of the mirror, rubbing the sleep out of your eyes.
Then… you notice something for the first time ever.
Tiny “crows’ feet” next to your eyes. Shoot!
You don’t panic (yet) but you now have certainly something to worry about. You
always looked so young and vivid – perfect skin – and now… this. (sigh)
These crows’ feet keep you busy. You carry this little pocket mirror in your purse
and you flip it open more often today than you did yesterday, you’re no longer
looking at your make-up or your hair – you’re now solely focusing on those
PESKY crows’ feet.
At noon, you meet your girlfriends for lunch – you don’t mention your “issue” but
you STARE at your friends – “Do they have them as well?”
Then – you start wondering – “How can I get rid of these things?”
You decide to seek “professional help”. After work, you make a little round trip to
your local Sephora Beauty Store. They are nationally recognized as experts in
beauty, they MUST know a solution to your “problem”.
Those crows’ feet have partially ruined your day, time to get a bottle of “something
(anything!)” to fight this.
Upon entering the Sephora Store, a shop assistant walks up to you…
You: Hey – how are you, I was wondering if you co…
Shop Assistant (with a loud, obnoxious, voice): “Discover the Ultimate Secret to
Staying Young Forever, Even If You Live to be 120 Years Old, With Our Magic
Wrinkle Facial Ironing Board. Just Leave Your Name and Email and I’ll Send You
a Free Report!”
You: Huh? But I only wanted to ask if you…
Shop Assistant (totally ignoring you): “LADY! I SAID…” – “Discover the
Ultimate Secret to Staying Young Forever, Even If You Live to be 120 Years Old,
With Our Magic Wrinkle Facial Ironing Board. Just Leave Your Name and Email
and I’ll Send You a Free Report!”
You: I think I’ll come back at a later time…
Shop Assistant (now in exit-pop mode): “WAIT! Don’t Leave! ” Give Me Your
Name and Email and I’ll Knock $5,00 Of Your Next Purchase!”
You: Bye…
Doesn’t this sound like the most ridiculous situation you’ve ever heard?
I would think so.
Yet – go visit most “squeeze pages” – this is EXACTLY how they are set up.
It’s crazy! (no wonder Google “slaps” rubbish like this)
Interested to find out how to do it the proper way? Join me tomorrow for Part 3 of
the “Andre and Peter Email Show” and I’ll gladly tell ya.
—
OK – so now that we have this out of the way, let’s talk business.
As I said yesterday – NanoList is NOT a bonus for ARM. I developed NL as the
perfect “bride” for ARM 2.0.
If ARM is Samson, NL is Delilah.
If ARM is Beavis, NL is Butthead.
You get the picture.
Every day – for the remainder of this week – I’ll partially disclose what NanoList
is all about.
The work starts way before you actually plug the Aweber code in your web page.
Is your market a good one to build a list in? It’s a mistake to think that you should
“take names” for any odd market out there.
Let’s say you created a product that outlines a natural cure for “Pink Eye”.
Now think about the people landing on your web page.
Would they be interested in joining your list so you could sent them “more
information” first and an offer to buy your product in the weeks to come?
Of course not, people looking up “Pink Eye” are in a desperate state of mind.
They want to get rid of their stinkin’ problem. They couldn’t care less about
your list (nor the value you provide to it). They want to BUY (the solution to a
pressing problem)… now!
Email Marketing is super powerful in prepping a market – but it shouldn’t become
an obstacle. If a person has this pressing problem, don’t “tease” them by making
them opt-in. In this case – make your point and SELL.
In NanoList, I explain which markets simply “demand” the ARM/NL approach. I
also outline which types of markets are better served by simply selling to them
right from the get go (without the warmth and fuzzy-ness of Email Marketing).
It’s crucial that you understand these specific differences in markets.
Tomorrow, I’ll outline another part of NL.
Apart from you getting NanoList, you will enroll in a contest with two super
prizes:
1 – Apple iPad (64Gb – WiFi+3G)
The winner will be sent this iPad that is pre-loaded with my “Personal Email
Marketing Workflow”. Remember how I said yesterday that Email Marketing truly
is the way to live the “4 hr. work week”? I was dead serious when I said that. The
iPad is a mobile device that (due to 3G) works from any place on the planet.
(Bahamas, Vegas, Dog shelter,…)
My workflow is a very specific content writing and broadcast system that remotely
connects to (your) Aweber account and automates the lot. It’s pretty darn spiffy!
The winner will be sent the pre-loaded iPad and will receive 1 hour of consultation
over the phone from me (so you can learn learn how to tame this beast).
2 – The second prize is even cooler than the first one but it takes me a while to
explain, so I’ll reserve that for tomorrow. It’s 9PM here and time for my evening
walk with my furry house mates
I’ll catch y’all tomorrow!
— Peter
SUBJECT: Hey guys – meet Stacy!
Seems like I’m touching some nerves with my little email series.
I received an awful lot of replies after I sent out the first two parts.
It’s impossible to reply to all of you in a timely fashion, but I try my best.
One reply I got was very cool. It was sent to me by Stacy, a long time Internet
Marketer.
She told me about her “forehead slap”- moment she had when reading the silly role
play about the “wrinkle cream lady”.
Stacy told me she is selling a natural beauty product online. From what she told
me, she is doing “ok-ish”, earning-wise.
After she send me a friendly email, I took a looksie at her site.
Heh!
This was funny – her site was “guarded” by a hard squeeze page. No matter what I
tried, I couldn’t get passed that first page without dropping my name and email.
Now here’s what happened – after I dropped my email and landed on the inside of
her site. I noticed this immediate “mood swing”.
The harshness (dare I say rudeness) of the hard-squeeze and the hype-y headline
turned into a friendly, helpful tone. I found oodles of information about her
product. Written in a style that really speaks to a prospect.
Yes, you can tell her site (blog, actually) is written with her product in mind. And
that’s totally fine. She is given out a whole bunch of information FIRST and that
makes it very easy for prospects (who will benefit greatly from her product) to
make an educated buying decision.
There is no hard pitch but the benefits make the purchase a no-brainer (and the
product sure as heck isn’t cheap!)
Now – Stacy was pretty open with me in terms of how much her blog is earning
her per month. (and I really can’t disclose this here but let’s say it’s “THIS” close
to “job replacing” income)
I sent her an email back – asking how much traffic she gets daily, how she gets it
(PPC, SEO,…) and the opt-in rate she gets from her throat-grabbing squeeze page.
So – her traffic is about 250 uniques per day. She pays for the traffic. She sends
ALL the traffic to the squeezer and… gets a sign up rate of 6%
SIX PERCENT!
That’s six people out of every hundred clicks she pays for, who join her list – the
other 94 are just freaked out by her aggressive tone, and… leave. Never to return.
(are you starting to see the resemblance with the made-up Shop Assistant from
yesterday’s story?)
94 people out of 100 LEAVE her blog everyday, they miss all that good stuff on
the “inside”.
She gets roughy 250 new (interested) visitors coming to her virtual doorstep
everyday. 15 actually enter through the door… 235 are “scared away”.
Now here’s the kicker – Out of the 15 that make it in each day, 60% BUYS her
product in the first week.
That 60% LOVE’s what’s on the inside.
Isn’t that a shame?
Stacy’s product is obviously good, but the first impression her prospects get from
her site kills it all.
The major mistake Stacy makes is blindly following the “advice” that was drilled
into her brain by the IM community.
Use a squeeze page, write a fancy headline and some bullets. Stacy didn’t think
twice about it. She just “obeyed”.
Guess who’s going to make oodles more moolah? — starting tomorrow.
The only reason Stacy’s blog is profitable is because she converts such a high
percentage of her list into buyers.
Now – her email broadcasts need work. And her blog needs a tad bit restructuring.
But that’s it!
That’s all it will take to make Stacy’s blog a winner. Do you see how, very often,
it’s little stuff that will change everything?
Now – don’t misunderstand me. Stacy still needs to capture emails (hell yes!) but
she needs a different approach. She can no longer play the role of the “shop
assistant” I talked about yesterday.
She needs to show her “friendly face” right up front, offer (some) information she
has right up front – THEN ask for the email.
Offer a “sample”, a “teaser” that makes her prospects want what she has.
What Stacy does wrong, I was guilty of as well, not too long ago. When I switched
my model from a hard-squeeze to the NanoList way, it changed my biz
dramatically.
It will do the same for Stacy’s blog. And it will do the same thing for your site or
blog.
That’s a fact.
Have you noticed those little magic words just a few paragraphs back?
.
.
.
“Sample” or “Teaser”
I can not explain to you how well this works. It’s different than the “free report” or
“bonus” you typically see.
Applying that strategy into your funnel is like serving honey to starving bears.
NanoList goes into great depth about this.
I was glad Stacy emailed me telling about her blog. Now I could use a real
example instead of continuing my fiction sample about the Sephora Shop
Assistant
So – the ARM 2.0 + NanoList deal goes live next Monday. You buy one, you get
an equally powerful product for free.
It’s the most ethical bribe I could think of. Bring more value to an already valuable
product. That’s how it should be done. You benefit twice.
And, on top of that. You enter into two competitions:
– First is for the “Email Workflow iPad”.
– Second is a blog that I will help you run in a market I’m heavily involved in. All
the research is done. The list is being build as we speak. I’ll coach you until you
reach $4,000/month – from then on, you’re on your own…
Want to know more? – tune back in tomorrow. Same time, same channel.
Have a good one!
— Peter
SUBJECT: It’s all about the people…
Hey – it’s Peter
In yesterday’s email, I kinda came down hard on what we typically know as a
“forced squeeze” page.
I made it sound like it’s totally wrong to put them to use. As with most things
marketing, there are no hard and fast “rules”.
All variables should be tested and squeeze pages are no different.
Thing is – Stacy was using them in a way that was scaring her first time visitors
away.
A squeeze page is a powerful tool. It should be used in a way that assists your
prospect getting what he or she wants.
A squeeze page should offer some kind of direct benefit…
It certainly shouldn’t feel like you’ve bumped into the bouncer at some raunchy
strip club. There is no need to use such a page as a “gatekeeper” to your site or
blog.
The “forced” squeeze is generally a bad thing. First, offer your prospect that
“sampler” or “teaser” like I’ve mentioned yesterday. After you’ve done that,
asking for an email address becomes much easier.
Perception is everything – what does your prospect think of you and your site the
moment she lands on it?
In Stacy’s case – that was very clear. They were all heading for the exit before they
even entered.
I watched an excellent webinar about landing pages this morning by a company I
trust with my eyes closed.
They have the best stuff, and it’s all free.
They have an iTunes Podcast that allows you access to literally dozens of hours of
kick-butt marketing materials, all at no cost.
Go download iTunes from apple.com (yes, there is a Windows version too) click
on the Podcast tab and type in “Marketing Experiments” as your search term. Click
on “Subscribe for Free” and you’re good to go
I gladly pass on this resource to you. Dr. Flint and his crew from
marketingexperiments.com.
The webinar replay I saw this AM you can find here:
http://lin.sh/MEW
(the above is not an affiliate link, it’s an hour long webinar presented by one of the
most knowledgeable marketing testers I have come across in a long time)
Actually – Flint mentioned his motto today a couple of times. It’s a rule I live by
myself with all my marketing.
“Clarity beats Persuasion”
You can’t sell to a confused soul. If there’s confusion (even just a tiny bit), the
answer will always be “No”.
Therefore – make sure that the value you are providing is clearly outlined (even
demonstrated) BEFORE you ask for an email drop.
NanoList will hammer this point home with great detail, it’s crucial you get this
part right.
It seems like many marketers forget that they are dealing with people. Behind
every click, every stat, every email, every sale is a REAL PERSON.
We all talk about traffic and email addresses and sales, but have you sat down for a
second and thought about WHO the people are that visit your site or blog?
Once you fully grasp that idea, it becomes extremely easy to hyper target your
visitors and only focus on those that really are interested in what you have to offer.
This is true for every market imaginable.
Again – NL will make it clear on how to go about this.
You’ll get rid of all the “wrong” visitors, and you’ll be super focused on the
“right” visitors. Doing business online becomes a HECK of a lot easier if you do it
that way.
Think this is hard to do?
Think again – it’s SUPER easy. It’s just that nobody talks about it.
Combine what I just said above with the power of Email Marketing the way Andre
and I teach in ARM + NL.
Not only will you build that much needed “trust factor” in record time – you’ll also
make sales a lot easier.
Tomorrow, we’ll talk about getting traffic to your web page. The people,
remember? Nothing moves without people coming through the door.
The “people” (aka traffic) module of NanoList will be a revelation to most of you.
It’s the “ignition” for your blog, you’ll love it.
Talk to you tomorrow – have a good one!
— Peter
SUBJECT: “Traffic” and NanoList…
This email should have gotten out to you yesterday, but I flunked
Sorry about that…
I wanted to talk to you today about traffic.
It must be the one thing in IM that keeps everybody hostage.
We’re addicted to traffic. Courses coming out about this particular topic are always
the most popular.
They sell well. Marketers know that and they keep feeding that “fear”.
They keep feeding YOUR fear of “missing out”.
Promises of traffic that will come in like tidal waves and will last forever. The only
thing you can do to stop this crazy avalanche is take down your site…
blah, blah, effin’ blah…
Come on – gimme a break.
Allow me to break down “traffic” with two simple sentences –
1 – There is “paid with money” traffic
2 – There is “paid with time” traffic
“Paid with money” requires a budget. “Paid with time” requires killer content and
killer links.
Yes, there are “nuances” involved with both options but I promised you the “no
frills” version here.
Let’s say you want to rank for the keyword “New York Mortgage” and you want to
do it by tomorrow.
You can do this with paid traffic – effortlessly. If you’re willing to spend,
everything is for sale. Even the #1 paid spot in Google Adwords. Guaranteed.
If someone tells you it can be done, by tomorrow, using “Paid with time” traffic.
Tell him to go book a room at the local loony bin.
What do you want to achieve? Do you want stellar results tomorrow? – be
prepared to plunk down some green.
If you don’t want to spend the munnies, then be prepared to spend time and not
expect results any time soon.
Simple as that.
Yes, there are “tricks” you can apply to speed up certain processes… and that’s
were the “marketers” come in. They’ll sell you these “tricks”.
Whether they work or not – who gives a rats. They’ll sell ‘m to you either way.
With NanoList, I’m taking a different route than what you’re used to seeing from
me.
I love “paid with time” traffic. That’s no secret.
But…
I earn most of my income with “paid with money” traffic. I’m glad I got that out of
the way
You see, I figured something out – a “trick”! {grin}
It’s costing me some dough to pull this trick, but that’s ok. I’ll make that back…
x100.
Lemme explain…
Remember what I told you in my last email about what traffic really is?
Traffic = PEOPLE!
It’s so crucial that you get that.
Every marketer (especially you!) should start thinking that way.
You’re not buying “clicks” – you’re buying “eyeballs”.
When your web page doesn’t perform the way you expected it to. It’s YOUR fault.
You failed to get the PEOPLE engaged in your content.
Makes perfect sense, no?
The other way around, simply is not an option.
Why would anyone in their right mind click AWAY from a web page if what they
saw appealed to them? – that’s simply impossible.
It even goes against the grain of every psychology study ever performed.
PEOPLE are always on the lookout for stuff that interests THEM. That will benefit
THEM. That will make THEIR lives better.
PEOPLE don’t care about you. They care about THEMSELVES.
“What’s in it for me!?” – is always in front of everybody’s mind the minute they
hit your web page.
If you neglect to answer the above question – you can kiss your ass goodbye.
The PEOPLE will leave.
End of story…
Now, inside NanoList I outline a plan that is build (from scratch) with the above in
mind.
I use “paid with money” (little money, but still money) to get ONLY the RIGHT
PEOPLE to my web page.
This is not a “spray and pray” type of situation.
NanoList goes in depth about how and where to find those PEOPLE (the
“eyeballs”), presenting them with your ad, guiding them to your web page and
(eventually) have them sign up for your list.
This is the way I do it. This is how I build small
lists with very high, recurring, income.
Over and over again.
That’s also why it’s crucial that you not just get NanoList but also Andre’s ARM
2.0.
As I told you before – they are the Beavis and Butthead of Email Marketing. One
should not be without the other, it’s just not the same!
That’s also why I am GIVING you NanoList as part of my promo for ARM 2.0.
You don’t have to pay for it.
The contests I run for the Email Workflow iPad and the Business + Coaching are
just bribes to fatten the pot. They are not even half as valuable as NanoList is.
But – I had to “talk” to your “What’s in it for me?” That’s why I threw in a couple
of extras that you think are cool. And they are cool but not nearly as cool as
NanoList.
I should stop – this is starting to sound like a hard pitch for NL. I apologize.
Suffice it to say that NL is my best product so far.
Getting it gratis is as cheap as it ever will be
ARM + NanoList is better than sex.
There – I said it.
— Peter
PS: There’s no sales letter for NanoList (yet) – there is one for ARM and you
should give it a “once over” as soon as time permits.
Here’s the page –
http://lin.sh/ASP
I’ll be back tomorrow with more for you, because you’re one of my PEOPLE and I
value that – a lot.
This was the last email Peter sent our PRE the ARM 2.0 launch. 5 emails in total:
SUBJECT:
SUBJECT:
SUBJECT:
SUBJECT:
SUBJECT:
In the Air Tonight...
NanoList and wrinkle cream...
Hey guys - meet Stacy!
It's all about the people...
"Traffic" and NanoList...
Below are the two emails that Peter sent out POST-launch … with generated even
more sales:
SUBJECT: Last one in is a rotten egg!
SUBJECT: Business or biz opp? (last chance)
SUBJECT: Last one in is a rotten egg!
Hey guys, it’s Peter –
Hope your week is going well.
It’s Wednesday evening here, little after midnight.
I wanted to get this out to y’all before I hit the sack.
The week is only half over but a lot of things have happened.
All good stuff
I told you about the investor that came over to talk about franchising my “dog hotel
business model”.
Well – I’m glad to say that, after three days of hard bargaining, we agreed on
working together and the papers are signed
Yay!
With this deal, we know we can make an impact on dog care. I’m just glad I can be
part of it in such an important way.
(yes, even in dog care, money talks)
While in our first round of negotiation, ARM 2.0 went live. Andre activated the
order links… but I didn’t know what to expect.
Well – y’all gave me clues throughout last week that you liked my emails.
Heck – I’m still answering all those wonderful messages everybody sent me.
So – Andre texted me one hour after launch. “Bro – you’re killing it!…”
I took a peek at my mailbox and sent y’all a quick message, but I didn’t know what
really happened until I got back home that same night.
This was crazy – orders kept coming in. Each time I refreshed my browser, 5 – 10
orders were added to the cue.
It was like that for 2 full days.
Andre called me up.
He was happy with my results
We also talked about something that we can’t mention “en grand public” just yet.
This, to us, was the ultimate proof that we officially entered a new era in Internet
Marketing.
Don’t forget that Andre and I have a bit of an “insider” view on the IM market.
We know when stuff happens. We also know when stuff goes bad.
We decided then and there to do a write-up about it for ARM + NL people.
The writing’s on the wall – and we will be the first ones to bring you the “news”.
So – where are we with this?
Let’s just say that I decided to NOT put NanoList on the open market.
It’s reserved for ARM 2.0 owners that enter the program through my link.
There are also copies reserved for ARM 1.0 owners who got upgraded to version
2.0.
(Andre will email out to those people)
That’s all the peeps who will ever get to see what I have to say in NanoList – end
of story.
On Thursday, Aug 5th – the ARM + NL deal will disappear.
http://lin.sh/ASP
Yes, NanoList will disappear.
For good.
No false scarcity – no BS.
Gone.
Don’t email me after Thursday, Aug 5th for a copy. You can’t buy it.
Why would I do that?
Simple – I like the group I have now. I don’t need, nor want, more people.
But I can’t close it without prior warning – that wouldn’t be fair.
I closed NanoBloggers and NanoContext as well – I don’t hesitate.
People email me every day to buy a copy of NB or NC.
They get a friendly “sorry, but not right now”.
Anyway – I sung the praises of ARM + NL before, I see no need to repeat myself.
If you want it – there’s still time.
Thursday, Aug 5th, is when the curtain closes and the real action begins for ARM
+ NL owners.
http://lin.sh/ASP
— Peter
SUBJECT: Business or biz opp? (last chance)
Bonjour, mes amis! (that’s French for “Howzit hangin’, homies!”)
Before I dive into today’s article, here are some updates on NanoList delivery. I
got like a ton of questions about this so I figured I get to that first.
I was planning on dispensing the first lesson last Saturday but, life got in the way
(happens all the time). I got word last Friday night; “home slice” Chaperon was
leaving for the week-end.
“Great idea!”, I said to myself – so I loaded up the “dawgs” in the campervan and
set course to the south of Belgium.
After a 40 minute drive, it felt like I ended up in the middle of nowhere. (turns out
later, I actually WAS in the middle of nowhere
Don’t know about you, but I function best (both mind and body) in an environment
that is silent and peaceful. It was actually one of the main reasons why I “escaped”
from the city.
Anyhoo – so, while hiking, I started thinking about NanoList and “if there maybe
was something I, unintentionally, left out…”
I couldn’t think of something straight of the bat but, what I hadn’t included were
these two things:
1 – The “Grand Motivator”
2 – Why collections of “real people” (aka lists) are such a powerful asset. (that last
one is a true “mind bender”)
So – I parked my butt on a forrest bench, flipped out the iPad (thank GOD for 3G)
and started typing.
These two lessons are the ones I will be getting out to NL subscribers first – even
before the “real” course begins.
Super important stuff (yet, everybody totally ignores this)!
If you are a subscriber to ARM + NL, you can expect NanoList lessons to start
hitting your inbox somewhere this week.
This is my best stuff, ever.
(quick info – Andre “lazy bugger” Chaperon, still hasn’t taken the order page
down for this – maybe, if you haven’t joined yet and if you’re super quick… > http://lin.sh/ASP)
OK – so, with that out of the way. Let’s return to today’s schedule.
Business or biz opp – what do you prefer?
Whenever you have 5 minutes to spare – go take a look at all the emails you’ve
gotten from “the others”. (you know, those friendly “marketers who only want the
best for you”)
Note down what it is they are actually trying to sell to you.
Is it a business or a biz opp?
Not sure of the difference between the two?
Allow me to illustrate by giving you some real examples.
Back in 2005, I owned a copy of Traffic Equalizer and a boatload of domains (like
100K+). I populated those domains with meaningless, scraped, crap content.
I made SO much money – it was not pretty.
In 2006, Google said “Enough!” and shot all my sites down. Income plummeted to
almost zero – not pretty either.
Later in 2006 – I discovered a “market with a need”. I wrote an eBook (I’m fancy
like that). Sold that eBook for $100 a pop to 40 people every day. 24/7/365, nonstop.
Late 2009, I sold that one blog (together with the list of “real people” I gathered
throughout the years) for a high six figure number to my best friend.
Today – 4 years after I wrote that eBook – business is still booming with that one
blog. Sales are still coming in daily.
Notice the (not so small) difference?
With my Traffic Equalizer crap slingshot sites, I brought nothing to the table – not
an inch of value. Nada.
Not only that – but the lot was a massive hassle to manage. It caused serious
heartburn and sleepless nights – more than I care to remember.
Money was good (great actually) but it being brought to its knees by Google was a
blessing in disguise. I now know.
The blog + eBook + list business solved a pressing problem. People buying the
book were given a solution to a “problem” that was keeping them awake at night.
The eBook was a “game changer” for them. Value provided in the eBook was
massive – value provided to even the “non-buyers” that were on my list was
equally solid.
One blog + one list + value = $4K/DAY for as long as I kept that business. I chose
to sell the biz and cash in but you get my point.
Value gave me freedom.
The first (pre) lesson in NL outlines this particular business in much more detail
then what I can do here on a more “public” list.
I actually outline a SECOND business of mine – selling something different than
an info product – that made me $300K last year. I will not show you the blog, but
I’ll gladly share the ins and outs.
Next time you receive another email trying to sell you the “fad of the day”. Think
about what it is they are selling.
Biz or Biz Opp? – massive difference.
Ask yourself if you’re providing value by presenting your prospect with an “email
submit” from some CPA network. Ask yourself what you just did.
Offering someone an email submit (and getting paid a paltry $1,50 per) is asking
your prospect for “permission to spam” them. It’s true.
Maybe you’re better off building your own “collection of names”, and provide
some value instead. You’ll be surprised with the results.
Just saying.
ARM + NL > http://lin.sh/ASP
— Peter
Peter sold 200 odd copies of ARM 2.0 when I launched. That’s like 15% of his
entire list purchased. Not bad for a Flemish speaking 6’7″ Belgium mofo.
NOTE: Not what you’ve read Peter’s promo, if NanoList is something that you
want, you can purchase it here ($127):
https://tinylittlebusinesses.com/nanolist/
This is the only place on the Internet that you can get access to it (only available to
ARM customers). Peter doesn’t sell it directly.
BTW here’s an interesting fact for you. I’ve been selling NanoList like this for a
couple of years now. There’s no sales page (that link does directly to the checkout
cart).
… but it converts at just over 20%. Lemme say that again. No sales page. Just presold using email. Nothing else.
NOTE: Don’t go looking for NanoList; Peter pulled it off the market a few years
ago. So it’s not for sale anymore.
That said, you may want to take a look at TLB 2.0—it’s similar to NanoList, but
with much much more.
Email Triads
OK, so Peter’s promotion was a bit of a monster. Long emails, drawn out over 5
days. It takes some work to do that, believe me. It’s not for everyone. Definitely
not for the faint hearted.
… which is why the Email Triad Method is my favorite way to promote sub-$197
products. Although it works best for products under $97.
For the large majority of promotions the Email Triad Method is the bomb.
Only three emails are required … and the entire promotion can start and end in as
many days.
Quick, easy cash (although it does take “work” to write the emails). Product
Launch (Email Triad) Sequences work really well because:
The offer is hyper-targeted. (Remember in the previous lesson when I spoke
about ONLY targeting your RELEVANT sub-lists so that the offer
MATCHES them perfectly? Think Cinderella’s shoe.)
 You promote within the context of a short interesting story that is valuable.
 You give extra value in the form of a bonus (highly recommended! … but
optional).
 You are competing against everyone else that is just pushing out “isolated”
zero-value email promotions (perhaps a generalization, but still true for the
most part).
 … and it’s QUICK and always works. Never fails.
Before I give you my workflow for an Email Triad, understand that this is NOT
meant to be a cookie-cutter solution. It’s not a substitute for using your gray
matter.

Use it as a rough guide. Once you’ve done a few of these, adapt it and make it your
own.
The only concept you need to always follow, is always provide VALUE-BASED
MARKETING. Understand that and you’ll crush it forever.
So here’s my workflow in a nutshell:
STEP 1: Hook
STEP 2: Bonus (ideally tied into the hook)
 STEP 3: Hyper-Targeted Cinderella’s Shoe Offer
Here’s the real key to a killer PLS … keep your ear to the ground and have your
opportunity radar set to sensitive. Have a real-time feedback loop setup so that you
can write emails based on your audience’s needs.


The best PLSs are evolving living campaigns.
Sure, it’s totally normal to find a product to promote — either as part of an official
launch of some sort, or something you’ve just found — and then hammer out three
“triad” emails.
… then blast ’em emails out. Boom, boom, boom … thank you very much. That
works. No question.
But the BEST ones aren’t static like that. You can’t just pre-write the three (or
whatever) emails and be done with it.
To demonstrate what I mean I’ll use the offline client promotion I spoke about in
the previous lesson.
Remember, of the 378 subscribers that raised their hands and I added to a sub-list.
109 of them purchased. Which was a 28.84% conversion rate on a $194 product.
But before anything else, reread the previous lesson to see how I “extracted” the
378 people from a general email list. Now I’ll show you what I did once those 378
people were on my interest list.
And, here’s the backstory and Email Triad part of how I achieved that…
So the backstory was that Costas Peppas had asked me to consult him about a
launch he was about to do. So we jumped on a Skype call. We masterminded and I
gave advice.
… and yes, my “opportunity radar” was firing on all cylinders. I said I wanted to
promote. So I fished for an angle, a hook.
The best marketing angles come when you “interrogate” the product owner a little.
Something they’ll say will jump out, and you can latch onto that.
For Costas the best angle was about a guy who he helped, who had had a stroke
and lost his speech.
Regardless of his disability, this guy was a do-er, and ended up getting a nice big
check from an offline client, after following Costas’ system.
So I told Costas to use that as the centerpiece of HIS marketing campaign. It was
undeniable proof that his system worked like magic.
So sadly I couldn’t use that angle exclusively for myself. But it did benefit my
campaign because of the way the story was setup (which I helped with).
Because I knew the story Costas was going to tell, I wrote my emails to link into
that. So my campaign became very synergistic with his.
Although this particular PLS backstory and email triad was unique to me, I’m
telling you the process I went through, and the result, so that it will allow you to
have some context for when you are looking for deals to do.
Every single PLS I do and write is unique in some way shape or form. The
Framework may be consistent (hook/bonus/Cinderella-shoe-offer), but everything
else evolves in real-time over the short life of the campaign.
Here’s the first email I broadcast out…
[Offline Costas] Good news! (Step 1, do this now…)
From the email I sent out earlier this week, I managed to get 378 (interested) peeps
on this sub-list.
… which, I think, is enough interest for me to go ahead and invest some time and
energy to promote this properly.
(… and which also means you get the opportunity to get one helluva bonus from
me.)
So here’s STEP-1 for you (to do now)…
Signup for the free webinar:
http://andre.ac/4ee47e80
It’s scheduled for next Thursday (15th).
That’s the soonest I could get Costas to do this for us.
Yours truly will be on the webinar
… although I hope I won’t have to speak too much. This stuff scares the life out of
me.
Anyhoo…
He’s booked up Monday through Wednesday doing webinars for other JVs.
So we’re scheduled in for Thursday.
Add yourself to the webinar list, here:
http://andre.ac/4ee47e80
I’ll email you again on Monday.
Andre
Short and sweet.
The context had already been established in the original email I had sent out to get
interested people into this list.
So the only job of this email was to get them to sign up to the webinar. I needed to
get as many of them on the webinar, because that’s where the offer was going to be
made.
Once they had signed up to the webinar, they would be put onto Costas’ prospect
email list, and the storytelling about the guy who had lost his speech would start.
But the conclusion was only going to be told at the end of the webinar. The open
loop was to encourage them to be on the call.
Here’s the next email (second one) I sent to get them registered for the webinar.
Now … I knew at that point how many people had registered for the webinar (I
was in contact with Costas on Skype). If most had already registered, this second
email would have been very different.
This is what I mean when I say that these PLSs are “living and breathing” things.
So I decided to tell a story that I KNEW would resonate with them, because I had
already “interrogated” Castas about this unique method.
So because I had that deep understanding of what his system was, I could weave
that right into the email. I used this to build curiosity, suspense and DESIRE.
[Offline Costas] Webinar on Thursday (11/15/11)
If you’ve not already signed up for the webinar, go do it now.
… and, as a side benefit – you’ll also discover what happened to Paul, a previous
client of Costas – who had a stroke and lost his speech (yet still closed clients).
Here’s the signup link:
http://andre.ac/4ee47e80
(… and yes, it WILL be recorded – and I will send you the replay details as soon as
Costas uploads it.)
I’ve been asked by a few of you WHY I decided to promote THIS offline client
getting training.
I mean, there are a ton of them knocking around on the Warrior forum for under
$10.
So why this one?
Why is it so special?
Well … this one teaches a really UNIQUE approach (which then ties into the
service you provide them).
Think about this…
Jack and Jill (I’m so creative, I know) own a little B&B on Maui.
Bookings are down, but they don’t know why.
So they plod on. They increase their exposure by taking out some ads in local
newspapers.
They also run a little radio ad.
Bookings increase (a bit).
Job done. They’re happy, for now. So they get back to running their B&B.
Question is … how would you prospect to this little business?
How would you reach them?
Craigslist?
Nope.
That won’t work. Jack and Jill aren’t on Craigslist. They don’t believe they have a
problem to fix, remember.
Sure, bookings a little low – but that’s prob’ly just the ebbs and flows of business
(that’s the story they tell themselves).
Facebook?
Well, they’re on Facebook – but it’s really just to maintain their fan page.
They don’t click ads. They don’t have time to. They’re busy.
… and remember, they don’t know they have a problem.
One popular way to “reach” Jack and Jill would be to attend local networking
meetings.
… that is, so long as Jack and Jill even attend these local events.
But let’s just suppose they do.
So you’d need to prospect them at a networking meeting … in MAUI!
Not ideal.
… not if you don’t live on the island, that is.
Hmmm…
You could post them your “sales letter” using the snail mail postal service. Or
UPS.
But Jack and Jill don’t have a problem
Seth Godin says: “Motivating the committed outperforms persuading the
uncommitted.”
… and someone who doesn’t think they have a PROBLEM, is pretty
“uncommitted”.
Not an easy sell in person.
A damn tough sell with a “sales letter”.
Costas’ training turns this scenario on its head, completely (big time).
It’s a way of positioning yourself to get clients calling *you*.
… instead of you having to chase them.
Ring ring … ring ring … ring ring.
YOU: Hello?
JACK: This is Jack from Maui – we need to talk!
… or you’ll get an email instead. Same end result though.
“WE NEED TO TALK!”
Pretty sweet, no?
Costas will be revealing how he does this, and how you can too.
It’s all revealed on the webinar, for free.
So make sure you’re on the webinar. The content is going to rock your socks off.
(I know this because I’ve listened to a previous one he’s done.)
Thursday, 15th @ 2PM Central Time:
http://andre.ac/4ee47e80
… and yours truly will be on it too.
Andre
.
.
P.S. Two things…
1. Jason Fladlien is slotted in with Costas on Tuesday (he got in before me).
Although these webinars are live, it’s the same content for each JV partner.
If you are on Jason’s list, you’ll get the
opportunity to tune-in on Tuesday’s webinar.
… if you do – don’t buy anything (yet).
I’m going to have a killer bonus, which I’ll tell you more about during this week.
I will say this, though … it’ll have a real world value of at least $1,500.
No seriously.
2. Real quick (and important), about Paul…
(He purchased Costas’ previous training.)
His whole life changed just a few months back.
Paul had a stroke.
He lost the ability to speak.
COMPLETELY.
Paul’s brother in law, Gerry, was taking care of him.
Just a few weeks later, Gerry lost his job.
They needed cash. Bad.
Times were extremely tough.
They had no prospects.
Paul was comfortable creating websites and handling the technical work.
But there was the ‘tiny problem’ of not being able to speak.
Gerry had a motivated heart, but he was *extremely* shy.
Paul wanted to approach local business owners and offer them Internet Marketing
services.
But of course, he couldn’t speak.
Gerry felt totally uncomfortable talking to business owners.
So Paul gave Gerry Costas’ course.
You’re never gonna believe what happened next…
Costas will tell you the rest of this story after you sign up for the webinar.
Lots of stuff going on in that email, all encapsulated within a story.
Firstly I addressed a few objections that had come in between email #1 and this
email.
This is stuff that can’t always be anticipated beforehand.
People ask me how it compares to some of the $10 WSO on the Warrior Forum. So
I address that. Will the webinar be recorded? … I addressed that too.
The story built curiosity and desire. I then ended the email with a second story, a
“sub-plot” of sorts.
Here’s the final email…
[Offline Costas] Enrollment Closing
I think 2012 is going to be the year for local business marketing.
It’s been around for a few years already, I know. So there’s nothing new about
doing this stuff.
Except for one key thing.
The global economy is in the freakin’ toilet, and local business NEED help now
more than ever before.
I don’t live in the U.S and I don’t watch much news either … but it’s no mystery
that there’s a recession playing out.
Europe (the Eurozone) is in crisis. Hell, the whole thing almost came crashing
down a week or two ago.
I had visions of using my euros as firelighters. Wouldn’t be worth much more than
that.
Yeah … I either have to laugh about it or cry. Laughing is better. lol.
Now…
Here are some interesting stats you may not already know about (U.S.) small
business:
1) Small businesses make up more than 99.7% of all employers.
2) Small businesses employ about 50 percent of all private sector workers.
3) The 22.9 million small businesses in the United States are located in virtually
every neighborhood.
4) Home-based businesses account for 53 percent of all small businesses.
5) Small businesses make up 97 percent of exporters and produce 29 percent of all
export value.
6) Small businesses with employees start-up at a rate of over 500,000 per year.
7) Four years after start-up, half of all small businesses with employees remain
open.
8) The latest figures show that small businesses create 75 percent of the net new
jobs in the economy.
Source: U.S. Small Business Administration
Do me a favor and reread that list again.
… and while you’re doing that – ask yourself if you think there’s a massive
opportunity on the table HELPING small business?
The United Kingdom is no different.
I’m sure the percentages are much like the United States.
Lots of opportunity.
Now get this…
A few weeks ago I was speaking to a friend who lives in Oz. He wanted to run
something by me.
He used to spend $120,000/month on PPC, sending the traffic to spyware (and the
like) kinda landing pages.
What does he do now?
He’s selling marketing advice to small business in the United States.
… and he’s creating a franchise business around that.
I have a good friend in Europe who has been running some “tests”. As in targeting
small business owners – and helping them with their client getting marketing.
Killing it!
Then just this week (yesterday actually). I was having a conversion on ‘Quora’
with another marketer.
He said this to me:
> “Haha yup… my main shtick is going
> hyper-local and combining the secrets
> we IMers know and combining them with
> traditional brick and mortar businesses
> to great results.
> I actually run Malaysia’s top web design
> and SEO agency, which isn’t that hard when
> no one else has “IM Guru” experience lol
Opportunities?
No question.
Anyhoo … I’ve said enough already.
This is will be the final email about Costas’ intensive Reputation Training E-Class.
I asked him yesterday when he’s closing the ability to enroll.
Bearing in mind that the first training webinar is *THIS* Thursday.
… so he said he’ll definitely pull the signup form down on Thursday morning.
So to be safe … if you’re still thinking about joining this – get in by Wednesday,
latest.
Here’s the webinar replay again, with the signup link below it:
Webinar Replay (1h:22m):
http://andre.ac/4eec76ad
To 2012…
Andre
This email really crushed it. It gave the desired “push” to all the people that were
still on the fence and undecided.
Read statistics from the U.S. Small Business Administration. Then social proof
from “insiders” I had been talking to.
Hope this is all helping you to see the amazing potential when emailing out like
this.
PLS to SOS
Think about this for a moment.
I would have never been able to build in a “hard-coded” promotion into an
evergreen soap opera sequence around Costas’ offer.
Definitely not out the gate. Because there were just too many unknowns. Plus
Costas’ offer was time sensitive at the time.
But guess what? … I now have all the “intelligence” I need to take this PLS and
“hard-code” it right into my main SOS, fully automated.
I know what I wrote for the PLS to work. I just need to get a special link from
Costas that will allow me to promote this offer, indefinitely.
I would then just need to make minor tweaks to the email copy, and BOOM! … I
would have turned it into an evergreen promotion (which I’ve proven converts)
that my system would then auto promote perpetually, forever.
Truth is, I do this a lot.
I “test drive” offers as PLSs. I find the big winners. Then, when possible, I
“integrate” them right into my SOSs.
Not all PLSs can be upgraded into a SOS. Some offers just aren’t always open
(although in some cases you can do a deal to get a “back door” link in).
Over time, by doing this, you’ll get to build out a network of soap opera sequences
that contain a portfolio of proven evergreen promotions.
… and it’s a thing of beauty.
* Don’t worry too much about whether or not you’ve picked the right product. For
now, you just need to write – apply the skills you’ve learned. Later on you can
change the product if you decide you should.
— Andre “email triad” Chaperon
Storytelling Hacks
John Carlton is one of my favorite copywriters. The dude is a genius word-smith.
And he’s a master storyteller.
Ever been camping?
You’re sitting under the stars. It’s pitch black outside, other than the light from the
crackling campfire.
You’re with your best buds. Each person has a turn to tell a ghost story. But there’s
always that one person that trumps everyone else. It’s like he’s born to tell ghost
stories.
His story is almost real. You can “feel” it. The story is so lifelike, so believable,
that you can see the hairs on your arm stand on end. And you can feel that cold
shiver run down your spine.
That storyteller is John Carlton.
I read an article that John wrote a while back. In it he says some stuff that I’ve
been trying to teach you here in ARM.
But John says it so much better than I’ve been trying to articulate to you. Here’s
some “Ah Ha!” things he said…
So the main rule for writer/marketers is this: Learn what kind of story appeals to
your audience.
If you don’t know, you’re taking a risk with anything other than a paragraph-long
tale.
Don’t pretend to know how to weave a story that gets listened to. Instead, learn the
craft.
(Just as you would never pretend to be able to play guitar if you wanted to impress
real musicians.)
There are no shortcuts … but you can get hip to good storytelling fairly quickly if
you apply yourself.
Pretty powerful, no?
He goes on to say…
You gotta tailor your tale to your audience. That’s the primary lesson.
A story that bores the bejesus out of one person, may dazzle the hell out of
someone else.
And you should get good at knowing whether you’re bombing or scoring quickly
(so you can change course if necessary).
This is exactly why I suggested that you only operate in one market/niche. I don’t
think it’s possible — unless you have a whole team — to be able to operate in
more than 2 or 3 different niches.
Unless you’re an advanced marketer who’s already doing at least 6 figures a year
in a niche, don’t even think of also tackling another one, and another.
There’s a massive time investment in getting to know an audience so well that you
know their needs better than they do.
It’s the only damn way to get to know the pulse of your audience. To feel their
heart beat.
To UNDERSTAND what motivates them to whip out their credit card to gladly
pay for the solution that solves a problem you know they have.
Storytelling is the magic ingredient.
It’s what ARM is all about. Because the human brain is hardwired to seek out
and appreciate good storytelling.
… and it’s OK to be a writing “hack”.
I’m one myself.
I’ve not put in 10,000 writing hours (here’s why btw).
John Carlton has, and that’s why he writes like he does. Lee Child, Michael
Connelly, Dennis Lehane, Marcus Sakey, Russell Blake, Tom Wood, Marshall
Karp and Stephen King have (btw that’s a list of my favorite fiction writers).
… which is why they can write with so much impact.
But believe me, you DON’T need to get anywhere close to this kinda mastery.
You really don’t need to. That’s not the point.
Be sincere and have your subscribers’ best interest at heart in everything you send
them.
Understand the needs of your audience, then connect with them using storytelling.
That’s all you need to do.
Insert the advanced techniques I teach (like open loops).
Create a hook, an angle, and with your email story sequence, sink your teeth into
your reader’s neck.
When you have their attention, use your story to “sell the problem” … and then
hint to a solution.
Work to build trust and rapport, then as their trusted adviser, become the “solution
provider”.
A lot of people aren’t willing to embrace that they have a problem unless they also
believe that there’s a solution
So part of selling a problem is hinting that there’s a solution that others are using
successfully.
Don’t sell products.
That’s not what you do.
You sell the end result.
You sell solutions to problems. The outcomes.
Your Elusive Creative Genius (Case Study)
Creativity.
I have a love hate relationship with the “creative genius”.
For example I needed to write an email for a SOS, and I kept putting it off because
I couldn’t come up with an angle to write about.
Finally at 4pm I shot out the door to go to the post office to check whether my new
MacBook Pro that I was waiting for, was there. (it wasn’t).
But the main reason was just to “get out”. To give myself a different environment
to think.
The hook came to me in the car.
At 5pm I started writing … and at 7pm the email was done.
Below I’ll share the process I went through, because I think it’ll be helpful to you.
You’ll get to see how no idea turned into a small idea … and how the small idea
turned into a big idea. And how an entire email was written as a result.
So here’s what happened…
I needed to write an email to add to one of my SOSs. It needed to continue from
the previous email, and then create some context as a lead-in for the next email, a
promotion.
… but I was drawing a big-fat-blank.
I had nothing, not even an idea.
I didn’t panic though.
I knew “it” was out there. I just needed to find it. And in situations like this, if it
doesn’t come to me, well … I’ve gotta go out and find it.
Running works (I’ve already told you about little trick). Or I just go for a drive.
The point is to just get the hell out.
Staring at a computer screen will only make things worse. Writing (even the type
of writing we do) is a creative process. Rarely can it be forced.
BEFORE you continue I need you to listen to a short TED Talk video by Elizabeth
Gilbert. It’s 19 minutes.
Listen to it now.
Don’t read any more until you’ve watched the short video, or the rest of this email just
won’t make much sense to you.
I did a Tom Waits and hit the road.
Now the evening before, the wife and I had gone out for supper.
We went to Puerto Banús. It’s a marina to the west of Marbella (Spain). It’s where
the jet-setters and the super rich go to hangout and show off.
We like to go there just to watch (read: spy) on the super rich. It’s fun. It’s
educational. It’s what we as marketers do. We observe.
So on my little drive to find my creative genius … I recalled how we did some
“people watching” the night before (see the GREEN AREA in the email below).
The “people watching” idea started to take form. Then, for whatever reason, I
remembered my very first visit to Walmart in Las Vegas back in ’06 (RED AREA
in email below).
Have you ever smelt a smell and INSTANTLY you’ve been teleported years
earlier?
The smell of the perfume your first girlfriend wore when you had that first kiss.
Before the smell that memory was buried.
Same thing happens with ideas. One idea can (and often does) reveal another idea
… and another. It’s the creative process at work.
Anyhoo…
By the time I got back home, I had these two connected ideas — Puerto Banús (in
GREEN) and Walmart (in RED).
At 5pm I started writing.
The angle of the email become “people watching“.
I tied it to the previous email quite easily (see the BLUE box), because people
watching is an extension to the previous email about selling the problem.
I’ve color-coded the email below to represent the different “places in time” I got
my inspiration and ideas from.
Everything surrounding the colored areas is simply connective text.
I assembled these seemingly random experiences into one congruent, interesting
story that demonstrated value.
Remember the Stephen King quote that I wrote earlier?
L
et’s get one thing clear right now, shall we? There is no Idea Dump, no Story
Central, no Island of the Buried Bestsellers; good story ideas seem to come quite
literally from nowhere, sailing at you right out of the empty sky: two previously
unrelated ideas come together and make something new under the sun. Your job isn’t to find
these ideas but to recognize them when they show up.
— Stephen King
Here’s the email…
One thing I get told a lot is — “But I can’t write stories. Nothing in my life is
interesting.”
… and then I get asked — “Do these stories have to be REAL? Can I make them up?
If I can’t stretch the truth a bit, how can I tell an interesting story?”
Well…
Going out with the wife to Puerto Banús, on its own is certainly not interesting.
Nobody wants to hear about my visit to Walmart in Vegas in ’06 either. Nobody.
In isolation, it’s boring and uninteresting. There is no story there.
But with a hook (“people watching” in this example), it was possible to connect
seemingly unrelated moments in life and write a story that had a message that was
valuable. And within that, you get to easily inject a marketing message and
promotion.
Listen. There’s no problem in my book with “Hollywood-ing” your story a little. A
little embellishment is fine to make it more entertaining. So long as the core story
elements are not pure fiction. Your stories need to be real.
Read the John Carlton article again. I you’ll get a lot of value from it.
— Andre “Olé! Olé! Olé!” Chaperon
Marketing Hacks
This chapter has given you the details of promoting products using PLSs (product
launch sequences).
From quick and easy Email Triads, to more elaborate longer story based
promotional sequences, that are living and breathing.
There are a ton of different ways to make money online. But the beauty with email
is that it can pretty much be “plugged into” any business model. And it can be
automated.
Which is why the strategies and tactics I teach in ARM are so universal. Once you
understand the concepts and the whys, you have the tools to create magic. You
own it, which creates endless variations. You don’t have to be or sound like
anyone else.
On that note, I want to end this chapter with a quick lesson about positioning. It
builds on what I spoke about in the lesson about creating marketing angles.
Positioning
So what is it and why should you care?
Firstly, do yourself a massive favor and pick up the old classic, Positioning: The
Battle for Your Mind by Al Ries and Jack Trout (and his newer
version, Repositioning).
Along with Cialdini’s Influence, Positioning should be required reading for every
serious marketer. And seeing as though you’ll be on a buying spree, also pick
up Blue Ocean Strategy by W. Chan Kim and Renée Mauborgne.
Positioning is the “perception” that happens in the minds of your target audience.
The story they tell themselves.
It allows you to differentiate your product or service from that of your competitors.
The essence of “positioning” is to render the competition irrelevant.
IRRELEVANT.
Lemme give you some examples to demonstrate positioning in action.
Coffee.
There are a few camps here. The instant coffee drinkers on the low end right up to
the hard-core espresso connoisseur drinkers on the top end.
Of course, there’s everything in-between too.
Through your positioning statement (and price), you get to talk directly to just the
people you want to reach.
Everyone else is ignored and becomes irrelevant.
If you’re a connoisseur of coffee, you prob’ly know the JURA brand.
Jura’s tag line: If You Love Coffee
So simple. So powerful.
The wife and I LOVE coffee. That positioning statement talks DIRECTLY to us.
We own a Jura ENA 5. It’s a $1,200 espresso coffee maker. They have other
models that clock in at $3,000.
Through price and their positioning statement, JURA own that segment (the highend market). They don’t compete in the hyper-competitive sub-$100 coffee maker
market.
Nespresso have done something similar (smart move for them). They created a
machine for the less crowded $150 – $300 market. Right in the middle. Smart.
And where they really make their money is in the continuity – the coffee pods.
Real smart. Because the people that can afford, and are willing to pay for a
Nespresso machine, are the perfect group of people to keep purchasing coffee
pods.
… and especially having George Clooney as the “Nespresso guy”:
Nespresso people really like coffee. But they’re not the die-hard Jura crowd.
There’s no way they’re going to spend upwards of $1,000 for an espresso machine.
See how that works?
Positioning can be achieved through design. Through price. Or
through messaging. But typically it’ll come from a combination of all three.
I’m going to give you a MASSIVE tip in a bit. It’s an idea treasure trove. You’ll
see positioning in action like you’ve prob’ly never seen before. Eye opening.
Back to positioning.
A while back I had been looking at getting a jeep. As such, I ended up looking at
the Jeep Wrangler range.
Personally, I prefer the older more authentic looking Wranglers.
But a new Jeep Wrangler Rubicon will set me back between $22,000 and $30,000.
Not cheap. Not crazy expensive.
Jeep Wrangler is the Nespresso of jeeps, I guess.
To a non-jeep aficionado (like myself), I thought the Jeep Wrangler was the topdog. The obvious choice.
I was wrong.
But then again I’m not a crazy jeep fanatic either.
Then I saw an ad for an ICON CJ3B.
OMG!
It led to a video of Jonathan Ward, owner of TLC, and maker of the ICON.
… and then it all made sense to me.
Perfect sense.
ICON is the JURA of jeeps. The Rolls Royce. The Bentley.
If I wanted the best jeep in the world, this would be it.
It would be the only company in the world to consider.
Handmade.
Limited production.
The Icon CJ3B starts at around $80,000.
THREE TIMES the price of a Wrangler.
They have customers that pay as much as $180,000 for a custom-built model.
Hello! … $180K for a feakin’ jeep
That is positioning.
Jonathan Ward gets positioning.
It allows him to only attract rich enthusiasts. Everyone else gets automatically
filtered out.
This is premier positioning at play.
If you’re a guy into jeeps, you’ll be salivating as you watch that video. No question
about it.
You should use positioning to:
1. laser-focus in on your ideal target audience.
2. filter out who you DON’T want.
3. differentiate yourself from everyone else.
In today’s me-too marketplace “positioning” is how you win. This lesson was
simply meant to give you some extra insight.
A small “Ah-Ha!”. A glimpse into what savvy marketers and brands are doing to
carve out a piece of the pie that THEY THEN OWN.
The online marketplace is already competitive. Make no mistake of that. This is
WHY differentiating yourself is THE ONLY way to succeed in today’s world.
The barrier to entry for an online business is low.
Meaning, pretty much anyone in their bedroom with a $250 laptop can “set up
shop” online and essentially become your competitor.
If you’re not differentiating yourself with your marketing, you’re going to have a
hard time getting any real traction.
This is why you need a compelling differentiator.
My guess. My prediction. Is that in this next decade competitiveness as you know
it now, is doing to get ratcheted up BIG TIME.
If you think it’s competitive online now, you ain’t seen nothing yet.
It’s dog-eat-dog already. But it’ll get worse.
Much worse.
This is WHY positioning is so damn important.
Seriously.
Buy ‘Positioning: The Battle for Your Mind’. Buy ‘Blue Ocean Strategy: How to
Create Uncontested Market Space and Make Competition Irrelevant’.
You can pick them both up on Amazon for like $30. Less for the Kindle versions.
Forget about the new-shiny $1,997 product of the month. Get these few books.
They are timeless and priceless.
Read them cover to cover.
It’s going to be the only way to win.
Combine positioning with what you’ve learned throughout Autoresponder
Madness and you’ll be UNSTOPPABLE.
Spying: High-End Positioning
One of the best places to spy on the rich is in the Robb Report. It’s a magazine for
the rich. The very stinking rich.
You can pick up a copy in most magazine stores in the U.S. Sadly, here in Europe,
and certainly in Spain, I’m clean out of luck.
So I get a monthly digital subscription via Zinio (also on App Store). Believe me,
there’s no recession in this magazine.
If you’re open minded, there’s a smorgasbord of opportunities (read: niches) in
there. And you get to see high-end positioning in action.
— Andre “spying on the affluent” Chaperon
Inner Game Mastery
I’m no pro at what I’m about to share with you. And so it may seem strange that
I’ve included this “inner-game mastery” stuff in an email course.
Well. I’ve done it for a few reasons really.
As you now know, I’m dyslexic (a fairly common trait amongst entrepreneurs). I
also have the attention span of a rice krispie (which is prob’ly less than a goldfish
btw). And like a lot of other entrepreneurs, I battle through ADD/ADHD each day
too.
In the early days I had zero idea of how to “manage” it. So it ruled me.
Completely. Which was a problem seen as though focused attention is kinda a
requirement to get stuff done and “shipped”.
So I may not be an expert at understanding this stuff like Tony Schwartz. But make
no mistake, I’ve become a pro a managing my limitations, and figuring out what
works best.
So that’s what I want to share with you. What I’ve found to work for me. And if it
works for me, pretty sure it can work for you too.
I was in two minds about including this stuff in the previous edition of ARM. But
in the end I decided to include it. My thinking was that I could always delete it if
ARM clients didn’t like it.
So I was kinda floored when people thanked me for sharing what I shared. A
friend, Paul, even said it that this stuff was the one thing that really impacted him
the most about ARM.
… “I loved your ARM bro — the best part that really helped me was that stuff
you said on focus and getting shit done!“
Go figure, huh?
So long story short. I’ve kept this section in. Hope you get something from it.
Enjoy!
Distraction, Interruption & Focus
God knows it took me a long time to “get this”. Lots of trial and error and
hundreds of hours of time investment.
What I’m going to share with you are not my own original ideas. I learned these
from people way smarter than myself.
I’m going to give you the big picture stuff here. It’s up to you to take that and
research it further.
This is the stuff that’ll allow you to implement the ARM strategies as efficiently as
possible. And write like a demon.
Anyhoo…
Remember earlier on in the training I asked you a question?
Do you recall?
QUESTION: What’s the #1 priority in business today?
My guess is that you’re prob’ly way off base. It’s not what I expected when I heard
the answer.
ANSWER: Reducing, minimizing and eliminating distraction and interruption.
Think about that for a second.
.
.
Reducing, minimizing and ELIMINATING distraction and interruption.
Wow!
I was first exposed to this stuff from Eben Pagan in 2007 at his GetAltitude
seminar. Eben learned it from Tony Schwartz who was a guest speaker at the
$10,000 per person seminar.
“The greatest power of our mind is to focus on ONE THING for an extended
period of time.”
— Tony Schwartz (Power of Full Engagement)
Some 40 years earlier Peter Drucker essentially said the same thing…
“Work in focused blocks of uninterrupted time.”
— Peter Drucker (The Effective Executive)
You see … it takes on average 15 to 20 minutes to get back on track after a
distraction.
15 to 20 minutes per distraction or interruption!
So why the hell am I telling you this?
Simple.
Your ability to eliminate distractions and interruptions during your defined blocks
of focused work is the key to getting more done in less time.
It’s the key to you earning as much money as you want.
Here’s the WHY…
In The Power of Full Engagement Tony Schwartz talks about energy renewal.
It’s based on something called the ultradian rhythm, which naturally occurs in
every human during the day (while we are awake). Essentially we need to oscillate
between SPENDING energy and RENEWING energy.
Problem is we’re all damn brilliant at SPENDING energy.
We’re geniuses at it.
But we are bad as hell at energy RENEWAL (refueling the tank, so to speak).
Real bad.
The single most powerful source of energy we can get mentally is the capacity to
think in an absorbed focused way for a sustained period of time, ABOUT ONE
THING.
But for most people (me included at one point) this is next to impossible to
achieve. Because their “energy tank” is empty (mine rarely ever is anymore).
The good news is that energy recovery and renewal (refueling the tank) is really
quite easy to achieve.
1. Take a break every 90 minutes.
2. Breathe.
3. Glug down a glass of fresh water (ideally: add half a squeezed lemon in the
water).
Here is my own workflow:
I work on the important things in the first part of the day (morning).
I’ll try and do two blocks of 90 minutes with a “energy renewal” break in between.

90 minutes.

10 to 30 minutes “energy renewal” break (with the breathing exercise + water
+ reading fiction).
90 minutes.

That’s 3 hours of focused energy with ZERO distractions and interruptions.
I can typically do more in just those 3 hours than I used to get done in 9+ hours
straight (filled with unfocused “work”).
This, more than anything else, has saved my ass in business. It’s been a (complete)
game-changer.
If you currently feel mentally drained and tired at around the midday mark, now
you know why.
I’m in Spain. And the Spanish are masters at “energy renewal”. It’s built right into
their culture.
Other than cafes, and a few other exceptions, you’ll be hard pressed to find any
shop open between 2pm and 4pm. Because that’s siesta time.
… and believe me, I do my bit for siesta. At about 2pm I lie down in what I call the
“coffin position”. No seriously, I do.
I set my iPhone to ring in 25 minutes. Then I lie down, err … as if I were lying in a
coffin. On my back, arms to my side, head slightly elevated, eyes closed … and
BOOM! — my batteries get renewed.
25 minutes is the magic number (I think I heard Tony Schwartz say this at
Eben’s event). Any longer and you’ll start to fall into a deeper sleep, which can
end up doing more damage than good in the context of a short nap.
If you can, try it.
Eliminate Distractions During Your Focused
Periods
Firstly, CLOSE EMAIL (this is a biggie!). I Personally don’t even open my email
client until 4pm.
If you work a 9-5 job and can only work on your internet business during the night,
then setup up an environment that will support your ability to focus for a block of
uninterrupted time.
You’ll get so much more done.
Put the kids to bed.
Tell the wife not to disturb you for 90 minutes (or husband).
Close email.
Close Skype.
Close Facebook.
Mute your phone or take it off the hook.
Know what you need to do. What result you want to achieve. Then dive in and get
it done. Make it happen.
If you work your internet business full time like I do, then I would suggest you do
your most important stuff in the morning.
Same anti-distraction setup applies. Close all potential distractions.
Set the count down timer for 90 minutes … and go for it. Trust me the world will
not end because you’ve blocked yourself off for a spell.
Watch these two videos now…
1. Breathing (Robert Lee: Breathing for Performance & Focus):
Source: Dave Asprey Podcast #185
2. Really great review by Brian Johnson (Philosophers Notes) of The Power of
Full Engagement:
The Pomodoro Technique
After lunch I do the Pomodoro Technique.
This is basically a 25 minute focused work block with a 5 minute renewal rest
period.
Each block is called a Pomodoro (Italian for tomato).
Some tasks will require just one “Pomodoro”. Others perhaps two or three
Pomodoros.
I plan my day like this because in the afternoon I typically have less mental energy.
It’s still there because of the renewal periods. But I can’t focus on one thing for a
90 minute sustained period.
… but 25 minute blocks, absolutely.
So in the afternoon I’ll knock out 2 to 5 Pomodoros and then call it a day. Then …
and only then, will I open my email, Facebook, Skype, etc.
This is when I answer emails and browse the Internet and do “non-critical” stuff.
Habits & Rituals
So earlier I suggested that, ideally, you always want to do your most important
work first thing in the morning.
Tony Schwartz said in the previous video that it’s because in the morning you have
the most energy.
But it’s also because of another important reason … willpower.
Research tells us that willpower is a limited resource. Each of us only has so much
of it. Think of it like a muscle.
Overworking it (due to internal conflict) causes it to eventually fail.
Problem is, we typically “burn it up” in the beginning part of the day. Meaning that
it becomes harder to “get stuff done” later on.
I never knew about this until I read ‘The Power of Full Engagement’. This is when
it all clicked for me.
Ah! … that’s why I’ve always struggled to be productive, you dummy.
I used to mess about with emails first thing in the day, like most people do. And
Facebook. That’s all a big mistake.
This caused me to be REACTIVE. So other people ended up controlling what I
“got done” in the first half of my day. Like Tony said, I found myself operating on
other people’s agenda.
Come afternoon, my poor little willpower muscle was fatigued. Little wonder it
was always a MASSIVE struggle to be productive later on in the day.
Which leads me to … rituals and habits.
We are creatures of habit. No way around this. It’s a fact.
By creating rituals and habits we allow ourselves to use willpower to the highest
leverage.
Personally, I think of a ritual as a little internal software program that I execute at
various times of the day. And once executed, they run on autopilot, without the
need to use any “willpower”.
I have a morning ritual.
I have a lunch time ritual.
I have a workout/exercise ritual.
I have a snack ritual.
I have various business (work) rituals.
Tony Schwartz says that rituals conserve energy. Rituals allow us to get things
done without much thinking.
Well-defined rituals PULL us (PUSHING requires the use of the “willpower
muscle”).
Brushing your teeth is a ritual. Taking a shower is a ritual. You do it without much
thinking. You’re PULLED to it. It requires no willpower.
Well-defined rituals conserve our willpower muscle. My 60 minute morning ritual
goes something like this:

9am wake up (I get a minimum of 8 hours sleep).
Gulp down a pint of fresh cold filtered water.

Take my hay-fever antihistamine tablet (only in summer).

Take my vitamins (I have a nested vitamin ritual that executes at this point).

Empty dishwasher (wife has me trained, I know).


Breakfast shake (Bulletproof Coffee)
Brush teeth.

Wash face.


Jump for 1 minute (here’s why).
Breathing exercise.

Make kick-ass espresso.

Relax for the remaining time, drinking the espresso and reading Flipboard.

Start work at 10am.

It’s all completely automatic now. The morning ritual program just runs.
I don’t have to think about it. I don’t have to spend mental energy and willpower to
get stuff done before I start my work day.
This ritual sets me up to be super-ready to start my working day and make things
happen.
So here’s what I suggest you do:
1. Be aware. Know that willpower is a very limited resource.
2. Then setup an environment to support it. To allow yourself to use willpower to
the highest leverage. Part of this is eliminating distraction and interruption
when you need to “get shit done”.
3. Create your own rituals. Start with your morning one. Then add more over
time. Be aware of what works for you naturally. Don’t just do something at a
specific time because someone said so. Test, evaluate, adopt/discard.
Here’s a good article on the top 10 ways to establish new habits WITHOUT
discipline.
Email from an ARM Client
Hi Andre,
Thanks again for the content in ARM 2.0. The stuff about email marketing is
phenomenal, but the part that has affected my life most profoundly is something
different.
I really appreciate the part about rituals and how you jump on your trampoline
every day. I ended up buying a rebounder and use it everyday.
By simply adding some exercise into my life, I’ve been able to increase my
productivity exponentially as well as feeling 1,000 times better than I used to. I
wouldn’t have done it without your example!
Thanks again!
Scott
Vision Board
This part is going to be fun. It’s also crazy powerful.
All I suggest is for you to be open to perhaps allowing yourself to accept
something that may seem very different. Even a little “woowoo”.
A vision board is essentially a collection of pictures from magazines representing
stuff you’d like to have at some point in the future.
If you’ve never created a vision board before, you’re in for a treat.
It’s an amazing (fun) experience.
If you think creating a “vision board” is not you, just hear me out.
Read this entire page first.
Then you decide.
I’m certainly not trying to force you into anything you really don’t want to do.
So I have a client, Dan, that lives in the U.S. somewhere. I call him “Vanuatu
Dan”.
His heart and dream is to live in Vanuatu.
Vanuatu is an island nation located in the South Pacific Ocean, off the east coast of
Australia. It’s beautiful! I can totally see why Dan wants to move and live there.
He said that the U.S. just doesn’t feel right anymore. So he’s on a mission to
escape the U.S.
Well … right in the middle of Dan’s vision board should be a beautiful BIG picture
of his island, Vanuatu. Like one of these.
Then he should find a house or villa on the island that he’d love to have.
Something that matches the dreams he’s been having of the place.
… then stick that on the vision board, right next to the island.
Here’s why this vision board exercise works. You see, most of us have limiting
beliefs. We have unconscious systems installed that are supposed to protect us
from harm.
You know … protect us from believing crazy unrealistic thoughts.
Deep within our brain lies the amygdala. Our lizard brain. It sets out to sabotage
anything that feels threatening, risky or unrealistic.
It doesn’t like change.
Our lizard brain is happy for us to be “realistic”.
Because realistic is safe.
Realistic won’t get us hurt.
Realistic won’t disappoint.
So we typically spend our short lives thinking in realistic terms, with realistic
thoughts and sadly, even realistic dreams.
We don’t allow ourselves to REALLY DREAM.
… where we FEEL the emotions, can literally TASTE the food and SMELL the
ocean. As if we were really there, in the flesh.
Creating a vision board allows us to break outside our own “mental reality”.
The wife and I purchased our first house in 2002 back in the UK. It was a small
humble place. Nothing fancy.
I was still stuck in the 9-5 rat trap back then. I had never heard of the idea of
earning money online.
Then a million years later in 2007 we moved to Spain.
The place we rented for 19 months was an amazing multi-million dollar villa on
top of a mountain overlooking the Mediterranean sea.
It was like two different worlds.
We never planned on getting this place. It was kinda just by a lucky chance that we
even looked at the place.
Before that we were looking at places that we thought we more “realistic”. That
were more based on our current belief system at the time.
Point is…
Living in that villa completely changed the way we saw other properties from then
onwards. It raised our perceptions of what was realistic for us.
Up until that point properties like that were (in our minds) limited to the super-rich.
We were of course wrong.
Here’s the part that I missed out, but connects to this story. It demonstrates why
doing this exercise can change the game for you, even if you don’t quite believe
just yet.
So back to 2002 when we purchased our first house. That same year we took a
much needed holiday in the sun. We came to Marbella, Spain.
At the time Anita’s mother and stepfather had an apartment in Marbella, so we had
free accommodation.
We both completely fell in love with Marbella. The sun, the lifestyle, the
everything. So we told each other that we’re going to make this happen. That we’re
going to do whatever it takes to move there.
Now remember, we both had deadend 9-5 jobs in London. I had never heard of
making money on the internet before. That thought didn’t even exist for me.
So we were just pulling some numbers out of our asses. We love coffee, as you
know. So owning a coffee shop seemed like a logical idea. Jobs were out of the
question, because we couldn’t speak Spanish.
We decided that to buy or lease a coffee shop would cost about 100,000 euros.
That number was based on zero research. It just made sense to us.
We gave ourselves 10 years to do it. So 2012 was the deadline for us to move to
sunny Spain.
Here’s the part that’s important.
We didn’t know HOW we would make this happen. We just KNEW we would,
and somehow it would be within our 10 year goal deadline.
… we BELIEVED. It was real in our minds. The place. The food. The emotions.
Everything we had experienced in that 10 day holiday was bottled up in our minds.
The punch line, I guess, is that it didn’t take 10 years. It took 5. In 2007 we moved
to Spain. We’ve been living here ever since. We live in Marbella, just like we
predicted with complete certainty.
HOW we ended up here changed. We didn’t need to buy a coffee shop. Along the
way I discovered the internet. And the rest, as they say, is history.
Think about this for a minute…
Someone that has never earned $500 in a month before is going to have a hard time
wrapping their mind around earning $5,000 per month.
Their belief system doesn’t support it (yet).
It’s still a pipe dream.
$5,000/month is unrealistic.
But someone doing $100K/month will wonder what all the fuss is about. $5K in a
month? Are you kidding. That’s no problem. It’s easy.
See how that works?
I had no doubt in my mind that if Bill Gates and Warren Buffett and Richard
Branson were stripped of all their money. Every cent, and all their contacts. Every
last one. Essentially making them no different someone on government income
support.
… that it wouldn’t take them long and they’d have millions again.
What makes them any different?
… their belief system.
Creating a vision board allows you to remove all inhibitions … which over time
will result in your brain accepting what used to be perceived as out of reach to you.
It allows you to go mad and dream a little.
Being realistic now doesn’t matter. Nothing on your vision board should really be
realistic from your current perspective. Nothing.
Don’t analyze anything.
Have the courage to believe.
Thoughts are things … they create your world.
Thoughts create emotions.
Start thinking like the person you want to be.
You can achieve your goals and your dreams.
No question about it.
This exercise will help you think bigger without the limiting mental barriers you
currently have installed.
The idea of creating a vision board first made real sense to me when I heard
Vishen Lakhiani (from Mindvalley) talk about his experience when he created his
first one.
John Assaraf from the hit film and book ‘The Secret’ shares his vision board
experience in this video.
Vishen Lakhiani is the guy behind the camera.
Really great video (5m16s):
So I suggest that you give it a go and create a vision board. Have fun doing it. Find
some high quality lifestyle magazines.
Get yourself a copy of the ‘Robb Report’. Or if you have a good color printer, hit
the internet and find pictures for your vision board.
Remember … DON’T BE REALISTIC!
Your vision board is suppose to be UN-realistic. When you’re done, hang your
vision board up somewhere where you can see it each morning and/or evening
before bed.
At Mindvalley they have cork-board at the entrance. Everyone that works there has
pinned a card on it with a photo of them, and three columns — Experience, Growth
and Contribution:
It’s not a vision board, per se, but similar. It’s still an exercise of being unrealistic
— and I’m told it works like magic.
Have fun!
— Andre “licensed to be unrealistic” Chaperon
P.S.
Here’s two “extra credit” videos that I found really valuable.
In this video Tim Ferriss talks about defining your fears instead of your goals. It’s
a profound “uncommon” approach to productivity:
Lastly, if you really want to treat yourself, here’s a video presentation Tony did at
Google. It’s long. So get a coffee and get comfy.
Tony Schwartz @ Google (1h01m:17s):
The $77K Case Study
I think you’re going to like this. A lot.
Back in August 2014 I agreed to promote Fan Page Funnel by Brian Moran (the
founder of SamCart).
It’s wasn’t great timing.
August in Gibraltar and Southern Spain is the middle of summer. It’s beautiful.
And as such, I spend more time out and about with friends on the beach and
playing golf, than I do in the office doing work.
But I agreed anyway. I had already committed to Brian months earlier. And it was
a really killer product that I wanted to help get in the hands of others.
The PDF below is everything I did to become the #1 affiliate for that launch (and
pocket high 5 figures in commissions)…
… from just 10 “ARM style” emails.
All while lol’ing in the sun on the beach and playing golf with friends.
Enjoy!
The PDF is annotated by a friend of mine who is a world-class copywriter,
who used to work for The Motley Fool, and now moonlights for Agora Financial.
NOTE:
His annotations are awesome, and add a ton of extra value to the case study.
Btw, once you’ve been through this, hit reply and lemme know what was the
biggest takeaway for you (I’ve also emailed you).
–Andre “the terminator” Chaperon
P.S.
Video below is from Page 17 (the link goes to a broken dropbox link, so I’ve
embedded the video here):