Let’s say you send out a newsletter once a month and you get ‘x’ sales.
Let’s say you send out the newsletter twice a month, and you get ‘x+y’ sales.
Then let’s say you send it out, four times a month, and you get ‘x+y+z’ sales.
Should you then send it out twice a week?
Or once a day?

The answer depends on consumption, not on your newsletter
And that means, that your customer has to actually read your newsletter.
If you send it out with reasonable frequency, the customer will actually read it.

Well, sometimes they’ll miss out on the reading due to pressures of time, but here’s what you don’t want your customer to do.
You don’t want them to get into the habit of deleting your newsletter.

So why would a customer delete your newsletter?
All of us have busy weeks, and not-so-busy weeks.

So if we are busy for about a month, and you send your newsletter every week, I have four newsletters to delete (or put away). If on the other hand you’re sending me newsletters every day, then you have thirty or more newsletters that you’ve not read. And it’s more than likely that you’ve been deleting (or putting away) every single one of those thirty newsletters.

What you’ve done is created a habit
The moment you get into the habit of not-reading, or deleting, that habit perpetuates itself. Eventually you’ll stop reading completely, and you’ll simply unsubscribe. You, I and all of us unsubscribe because of too much to consume. And too much consumption gives us indigestion of the brain.

And you see this indigestion in real life
If you go to a buffet, you eat, eat and eat.
Then you don’t go back to that buffet for months in a row.

Yet, if you order a meal from a take-away place, you tend to order it twice or even three times a month.

A buffet should give you more value, but it gives you less.
And a newsletter a day should give you more value, but it gives you less.

Which is why you’d want to:
1) Test which frequency works best for your conversion rate and sales.
2) Make sure you’re not the source of indigestion.

Because too much of a good thing, is too much

Have you ever sat in a seminar where the speaker drones on for an hour or so?

And do you remember the exact moment you dozzzzzzzzzzzzzzed off?
Well, what you were running into wasn’t a boring speaker.

The speaker could be amazingly entertaining, but you’d still be nodding off. Why? Because it’s a factor of consumption.

Your brain can’t handle too many facts at a time
It needs to take a break from time to time. Just so that things can settle in a bit.

So if you look at presentations.
Or chapters of books.
Or paragraphs in your sales copy.
Or breaks at workshops.

The concept stays the same. Your brain needs to take a break about every 35-45 minutes.
Then it needs to move on to absorb what it’s just seen/learned.

So how do you increase that consumption?
You increase the consumption by first instituting the break, then allowing the customer to chew on what they’ve just consumed.

In a book, you can do this by putting in a little exercise at the end of the chapter.
In your sales copy, you can do this by putting a summary of facts at the end of the copy.
In a presentation, you can have a question and answer session.
In a workshop, you can have a break out session where clients apply the lessons–and then come back to discuss the issues all over again.

You may think it’s great to give out the information…
But the giving of the information is only part of the issue.
The most important factor is one of consumption.
If your customer doesn’t get a break, the brain doesn’t get time to absorb the information.

And without absorption, your information is not much good, is it?

Oops, time for a break!
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Conversion fails for simple reasons.

Labour pains vs. Baby
Which of the two would attract you if you were a woman? You’re saying baby, right?

But look around you.
Every stupid marketer on the planet is selling his product or his service.
They’re talking about the benefits of their service or product.
They’re talking about the process involved in using their product or service.

Let’s get one thing straight.
You’re not selling a product or service.
You’re not even selling the benefits and features.
You’re selling the want factor.

The want factor is something that I want.
So let’s take chocolate.
Am I buying chocolate?
Am I buying the features of chocolate? Or the benefits?
Or am I buying the feeling I get when I eat the chocolate?

And yet, marketers don’t sell what people want
They sell their wonderful process.
They sell the ‘labour pains’.

No one cares about your process. No one cares about how you have this grrrreat marketing program, this wonderful system to write better, this whatever it is you’re selling.

They only, care about the baby. 
They only care about profits.
They only care about customers.
They only care about results.

They give a damn about your wonderful method.

So how do we know that to be true?
Give them the customers without the ‘marketing system’.
Give them the results without the ‘wonderful strategy’.
Give them the profits, and watch as they toss you aside, and rush towards the mucho dollars!

But marketers are ignorant. So they continue to sell the ‘labour pains’.

They brand their products and services according to ‘labour pains’.
They write their copy and put in graphics that emphasise ‘labour pains’.
They make their presentations and create their  marketing material around ‘labour pains.’

And customers don’t care. It’s not like customers look at you, and think you’re a dope. They just don’t care about what you’re selling.

Emphasise ‘labour pains’ and you get nothing.
Emphasise ‘baby’ and watch the reaction change instantly.

So you’ve just created a whiz-bang product. And you’ve got whiz-bang tutorials online.

Well guess what? I’m kinda stuck as a user. Because about the worst time for a customer to use your product, is when they’re at their desk, and connected to the Internet. On any given day, a customer will bounce between pages, and websites, and phone calls, and whatever comes their way. But notice the person at the cafe.

They’re not bouncing.
They’ve got one magazine.
Or one newspaper.
Even the computer-folk seem to be working on one thing instead of twenty.

This is the factor of downtime.
When you’re not connected to anything that can distract you. When your mind is ready for learning.
This is not just downtime, it’s ‘working-downtime.’ And creating your products to work in this environment is critical.

So what can you do?
1) If you’re in the software world, how about making your tutorials downloadable? (And yes, not for PC only–because I  may use the program on a PC, but learn on the Mac–due to longer battery power of most Macs). Possibly even iPod-friendly.
2) If you’re in the information business, how about sending a print-version of your information–instead of yet another PDF.
3) If you’re in the training business, how about creating an interactive Powerpoint/Keynote presentation?

What other applications can you think of?

Here are just some of the experiences at the Attversumption Workshop. Note: There’s no talk of get-rich quick here. There are no instant results. So what are they raving about? Find out for yourself, and yes, there are some more pictures too.

Perry Droast and Matthew Joyce

I’ll vouch for that. I spent quite a lot of money over the last few years on learning how to write sales copy. I don’t regret a penny.

That said, the Attversumption class was far beyond my expectations. I saw many of the other participants come up with copy as good as any I’ve seen written by highly paid and touted copywriters.

I personally tied together some concepts that I thought I understood, but found out I really didn’t, into a much more usable and doable system for writing copy that speaks straight to the heart of the prospect. Not only that it will be much less gut-wrenching to do so.

It’s all based on Sean’s concept of “Target Profile”. I’ve seen it and heard it before in a roundabout way, but never in the way Sean taught it. And I’ve never seen it’s power so easily wielded like I did the last few days.

My only problem now will be to find the right target. I’ve been shooting blanks out of a shotgun until now. I’ll be using shooting bulls-eyes from a thousand yards with a varmint rifle now.

Thanks Sean. I really enjoyed meeting you and Renuka. Although we’d met on the phone, I’d never met you in person before and it was a real pleasure. You both are so laid back and easy to talk to, I’m proud to call you both friend.

It was also a pleasure to meet and work with entire group. It was a truly diverse group and I thoroughly enjoyed meeting all of them.

P.S. If you guys don’t bug Sean to hold another one next year, you’re missing the boat if you need to learn how to write more effective copy.

P.P.S. If he doesn’t, how far ahead of time do I need to start pre-selling my own copywriting seminar?

P.P.P.S. I’ll assume Sean will be making this into a home study version as well. It’ll be worth it although live is always better.

Perry Droast, California, USA

I too am just back from the Attversumption Masterclass and I’ve got say it was among the best workshops/seminars I’ve attended–and I’m a speaker at several national business/marketing conferences a year.

As Erin, Steph, and Perry have mentioned we spent quite a bit of time talking about the real people behind the target profile and how that drives your entire business.

Sean comes up with great brand names like “Attversumption” that help you to remember the three components of a business transaction (attraction – conversion – consumption). But the course could also have been called the “Real Customer” Business Strategy Course because it drives home how customer-centric design is essential to all elements of your business from creating your products and services, to marketing and sales, to designing systems to ensure your customer uses the purchase and comes back for more. That would have been enough, but it doesn’t stop there. It also shows you exactly what you can do integrate the concepts into your own business.

We talked frequently about who the ideal guests are that you want to come to your party. Sean and Renuka modeled the teaching extremely well by inviting a fabulous collection of their friends/customers/students to the workshop. We learned much from Sean–our master teacher–but just as much from our many talented classmates who provided new perspectives, great ideas, and the occasional reality check when it was needed. Whistling

That Sean and Renuka attract such quality people and provide such a welcoming and power-packed course is a testament to their skills as business people, teachers, and hosts. But mostly it’s the mark of people who I’m pleased to now consider my friends.

I’d type more but I’ve got to get busy implementing all the great ideas I learned this week…

For those of you looking for your next step in business, I highly recommend the Attversumption Workshop.

Matthew Joyce, Boulder, Colorado, USA

Leah Oman and Eric Klein at the Rock Bottom Brewery

The class was profound. Sean presented a model that is simple – but not simplistic.

The sign of a master teacher is one who can present a concept with such clarity and simplicity – that people at all levels of experience can both understand it and learn new stuff at the same time.

The Attversumption material was simple and clear in that way.
It was also a lot of fun. Working in groups on our own yoga business brought the concepts to life. And Sean generously provided plenty of frustration and “red herrings” to force us to actually think – not just follow orders.

The simplicity of the model allowed us to move deeper and deeper into a few core concepts rather than gorge ourselves on a massive array of unconnected “tips” and “secrets” (for some reason food is a theme of these posts).

Actually, this program was short on tips. It was more about a method or methodology. Something that I can keep practicing and integrating over time.

Thanks to Sean and Renuka for a great learning experience.

Eric Klein, USA

All the way from little Campbell, California
Photos of the Attversumption Workshop. Are we having fun yet? As you can tell from the photos, we have a lot of fun at any Psychotactics workshop. For one, you almost never sit in the room listening to blah, blah. You’re always working (working by the pool or in shadier surroundings (see below). And what’s unique about the workshop?

In three days, you learn only one thing!
One thing? Yes, one thing drilled down. So why do participants travel all the way from the UK, Italy, New Zealand, Australia and Venezuela to learn one thing? And why are they smiling so much? If you’ve been to a Psychotactics workshop before, you’ll know for sure!

For those who prefer shade: Jessica Bowman and Matthew Joyce

Breakout sessions in the heat wave: Stew Walton, Molly Gordon, Tim Harrelson, Leah Oman

Elmo the star. And Billy gets Elmo-ed, while Molly looks on

The traditional Elmo Dance: Move your booty!

More photos to follow shortly. And hey, if you’ve been to the workshop (either this one or a previous one, feel free to post your comments)

To find out more details about Attversumption, click here.

Your audience may be fast asleep. But then you announce a prize. Or an award.

Blurb.com wakes up its audience from their inactivity!

Nothing quite gets an audience to participate quite as easily as a ‘Easter Egg hunt’
Or a ‘treasure hunt’, or something that offers an incentive of sorts. And Blurb.com (they produce one-of-a-kind-self-published books) has got it right not in the respect of ‘hosting the award’, but they’ve also weeded out the rest of us who ‘don’t matter.’

Yup, it seems to me that Blurb has noticed a trend
They’ve decided that the people who are most valuable to them are photographers.
That if you’re a cartoonist, or a writer, or a whatever, it’s going to take you a lot longer to put a book together, but if you’re a photographer, you’re going to be able to click this morning, and publish this afternoon.
So if they’re going to have an award, it’s going to be for photographers.
Because this specific audience is going to be more prolific, and hey, might as well encourage the most prolific of the lot.

Which of course, bring us back to the original theme of this post.
That awards wake up your audience?

So here are three questions:
1) What kind of award are you planning?
2) What kind of award have you had in the past?
3) Have you had an award that backfired?

Let us know

Barriers detract. But only at first. Because humans don’t like barriers. Not one itty-bit. And so when faced with a barrier, your customer is going to do her best to either get the hell out of there, or to cross that barrier.

But why would you want to make it difficult for the customer to buy?
Good question. And the answer lies in two parts.
1) Where would you make it easy for the customer to buy?
2) Where would you put up a barrier? And why?

You’d make it easy for your customer to buy, at the first stage. So when you get to our main website at http://www.psychotactics.com, you’ll notice that there’s not much of a barrier. You can read about 27 articles free. Then up comes the barrier. If you want to read more, you’ve got to then subscribe. That barrier extends into other products as well.

So if you buy the Brain Audit, there’s no barrier. But if you want to do the Website Strategy Course, or the Article Writing Course, then you’ve got a barrier. Actually more than one barrier. You’ve got to be an owner of the Brain Audit. You’ve got to fill in a form to be eligible to even see the sales page. You’ve got to then pay for the course, and then you run into another barrier–which is to answer a questionnaire.

That’s four barriers, back to back for one course.
What does that do for us? It qualifies the customers. And it makes sure that all the customers are on the same page (that they’ve all read the Brain Audit) and so we don’t waste the time of others on the course.

But what does it do for the customer?
It prepares the customer for what’s ahead both mentally, as well as in terms of content. And that’s very useful for the customer. Plus when you qualify for something, you’re more likely to consume.

And consumption is the most important factor of all.
It’s only when a customer consumes one meal that they get the benefit. And it’s only when they get the benefit of that meal, do they come back for the next, and the next. This factor of consumption, is what works both for the seller as well as the customer. Both win.

And barriers help make that process more powerful.

If someone were to come to your business today, would you let them enter? Or would you put up a barrier?

You’re about to do a presentation.
You could have twenty thousand slides.
Or one manila envelope.

So how could you take that one manila envelope and make a presentation so powerful, that it instantly gets the attention of your customer?
Here’s how: http://brainaudit.com/blog/?p=10

See, free has no value…and yes, it’s going to be a rant…so you can bookmark it.

As I was saying: Free has no value. No urgency. Nothing. Free is frrrrrrrrrrrrree. (Say Furrrrrry)
And you can’t create urgency just by saying ‘Hey it’s FREE.’ And we know that all of us are the same. We go on value, not on price. Yet, heck the price of free is free. So where did that value go, eh?

It just slid down zee gutter.

So when you charge someone $1000 for a workshop, you can be darned sure that every seat paid for is taken. And yet, when the very same workshop, with the very same bells and whistles is offered free, what happens? Who knows what happens? But we can’t depend on ‘who knows’. We have to create our own sense of urgency. And demand. But mostly, control.

Free needs to have opt-in.
Free needs to have rules.
Free needs to have barriers.
Free needs to have urgency.
Free needs to have value.

So how do we create all of the above. Let’s assume you were having a $1000 workshop instead. How would you create opt-in? How would you create rules? How would you institute barriers? How would you create urgency. And finally, and predictably: How do you create value?

But let’s just bounce back to free….
You create opt-in by getting people to commit. If you just send out something, it stays ’something’ and often degenerates to ‘nothing.’ So you have to get the customer to opt-in. When people say they’ll do something, they’re more likely to do it. So get them to say: Yes, I will attend. Because you never know. Rain falls, La neige falleth. Dinner becomes important. Who knows what happens. And freeeeee stays at the value of nothing. But hey, if you’ve committed; if you know you’re taking someone else’s seat; if you know that seat has your name on it; then hey only wild horses will drag you away. This commitment factor alone, ensures more people turn up for your free event.

So how do you create opt-in?
Get ‘em to call you. Or fill in a form. Or fill in a form online. Or write YES at the back of business card. Or tick the boxes at the back of a postcard. Or send you a box of chocolates. Whatever. Just get the customer to respond. To commit. Oui, Ja, Yes I will be there.

But rules? What rules?
Rules are about structure. Structure means the customers know you’re not playing around. That you’re not desperate to get people to sign up. That if them rules aren’t obeyed, them people are going to experience what happens when they break the rules. So yeah, the rules of engagement create value instantly because they create value. And discipline. And everything else that goes with rules.

So when you say:
Rule 1: Print out the email and bring your invitation along–they bring their invitation along.
Rule 2: The class will start at 7:30 pm. You need to be in your seat by 7:02. At 7:05pm the doors will be closed.

Let’s just analyse those two rules. What are those rules saying?
It’s saying: Hey, you committed; now turn up. And if someone who hasn’t committed turns up, and they don’t have their invitation, they’ll be booted out. You’re special. You’re one of us with the ‘printed email.’ You can pass Go. And collect your $200.
The second rule is saying: Hey, we’re committed too. And we’re going to be on time. And that we understand la neige. And we understand le traffico, and all that stuff. And that wild horses won’t keep us away, and shouldn’t keep you away. It’s also saying: If you’re going to be late, don’t bother.

The rules of engagement enable you to stop going insane.
It enables people to follow a system.
It enables customers to be rewarded for coming on time (I detest presenters who wait for ‘late-comers’)
Rules just enable you to do what you do best–instead of worrying about who’s turned up; why are they late etc.
With rules you have boundaries. They have boundaries. So yeah, rules rule.

Ah, barriers: Now why barriers?
In one word: Value. We want what is behind the green door.
Can’t eat that cookie. Can’t drink that Coke. Can’t speak to that bad girl.
Now you want to eat the cookie, drink that Coke and preferably do both with the bad girl.

Free has no barriers. It has nothing. So you create barriers. What kind of barriers?
Fill in a form. Do an interview. Who knows? Make up the barriers as you go.
Walk into a bank today, and ask for a loan. Then stagger home with the mounds of paperwork.
Walk into a company and ask for a job. And see how many barriers you run into.
Go to a rock concert…and yes, I’m babbling. But you know what I’m saying, right?

We want what we can’t have.
And if there’s a barrier, we want to cross that barrier.
So yes, a closed door at 7:05 is a barrier. We stop focusing on what you’re going to offer us, and focus on the darned door. We have to beat the door closing.
And the fact that the client has to put in their phone number and other details on an online form is a barrier. And yes, there will be those who don’t want to fight the barrier. Well, good on them.
Most people will fill in the form. Most people will beat the 7:05pm deadline by minutes. And then watch their face. It will glow with satisfaction of having beat the barrier.

The psychology of us humans is simple. We want what we can’t have. So why deprive us ‘evolved-chimps’ our barrier?

Which brings us to urgency
Urgency means that someone will be shut out.
That the room only has 15 seats.
That the product runs out in 15 minutes.
That this building kabooms in 15 seconds.
Without urgency, nothing moves quite as quickly. And so you’ve got to create urgency.
And urgency is created simply by scarcity.

So in the above examples, you market to 50 people. But don’t (for heaven’s sake) keep 50 seats.
Urgency means scarcity. Scarcity creates momentum. Lack of scarcity creates, “Yeah, yeah, I’ll get down to it.”
So if you’re having an event and have no recording of the event–hey, scarcity.
If you’re giving a presentation that’s the key to getting to the top of Google (and no one knows about this secret)–urgency again.

But you say: I don’t know any secrets. Yeah right! You do know secrets. It’s not the secret that matters. It’s the packaging of the secret that really driveth home that urgency.
So if you run a yoga class and announce:

1) Let’s talk about ‘yoga’ . Now that is kinda boring.
2) We’ll do ‘yoga asanas’ is kinda boring too.
3) But ‘Find out three breathing yoga steps that will help you sleep well tonight (and every night)..shucks, that’s what I want to know.
Packaging creates urgency.
Scarcity creates urgency.
And curiosity creates urgency.

But let’s kill curiosity and go straight to value
You’re still curious about curiosity, aren’t you? See what I mean? We’re gone over the hill and into the meadow of ‘value’, but no. Your station wagon is stuck at curiosity. And curiosity does create urgency, because if you’re going to reveal a ’secret’, people want to know the secret. The ’secret to a sound sleep’ makes me curious, you see.

Ok enough curiosity…let’s really move to value
If you don’t value your event, your product, your whatever…then how will the client value it? Can’t happen; won’t happen. If you simply give away stuff then the customer will either not show up to take the stuff; or show up and have zero-value. So you must, must, must put a price on the material; on the event; on your offering. What’s it worth? How much do they stand to lose if they don’t get it now.

Then mix up all of the urgency, the barriers, the rules, the opt-in, the curiosity.
Stir well.
And watch how something that was free–and pretty valueless–now becomes the object of your customer’s desire.
What’s more, they don’t just want your offering. They want it now. Like yesterday.

And that, my friend, is how you present FREE Smiley