“I should have listened to my gut.”

Haven’t we all said this? It’s one of those skills people seem to learn by not doing.

A friend of mine recently had a close encounter with her gut. She and her gut had previously related on a strictly need-to-know basis: Don’t ask, don’t tell. If I’m about to run into a wall? Holler. Otherwise, I’ve got this, thanks.

Despite her gut’s rumblings, she decided to attend a weekend workshop for entrepreneurs. When my own gut saw the sales page, it covered my eyes with its gutty hands. No persuasion! Do not want! I should have warned her, but I didn’t want to presume. Turns out both our guts were right. She stuck it out, but she learned absolutely nothing new. And she was singled out for not being woo-woo enough.

My own close encounter with my gut happened ten years ago on a remote bike path by the beach. Suddenly, even though I couldn’t see anyone, I knew I wasn’t alone. Every cell in my body screamed GET OUT OF HERE! AND DON’T STOP PEDALING UNTIL YOU’RE SAFE! But my know-it-all brain urged, KEEP GOING, YOU’RE JUST PARANOID. So I continued biking down the path, away from the safety of the road. My gut was right. I’d been followed, and ended up having to out-pedal a bad guy. Escape didn’t come easy, but let’s just say I’ll always be grateful for hybrid bicycle tires.

Ever since then, my gut and I have been close. We conversate regularly. I tend to give my gut the benefit of the doubt—rather than giving it to someone who says they once manifested a phone call from Sean Connery, for instance. (True story.) Even if I don’t always do what my gut wants, I try to remember to listen. ‘What do you mean by that, Gut? Tell me more!’ Yes, I treat my gut very much like one of my clients.

This is why I will never put persuasion first–
whether for myself or for my clients.

When persuasion comes first, we stop trusting our own guts about what to write. We stop trusting our readers’ guts about what is best for them to do. And we encourage our readers not to trust their own guts, either. We perpetuate a cycle of violence against guts.

Sales pages that put persuasion first tend to look like this:

• “You’ll develop a clear roadmap and a customized blueprint.”
• “Now you can create the lifestyle you desire.”
• “Are you struggling to make enough money every month?”
• “What got you here, won’t get you there.”

Stop the violence against guts! Stop it right now!

We can all start by throwing away our swipe files. I’m hereby manifesting a blueprint of my desire to never see the words “manifest” and “blueprint” in sales page copy. Unless manifest is used a metaphor, like a manifest for your shipping container. I like that! And unless it’s a literal blueprint.

Swiping and repurposing copy might feel like a shortcut to some. But it’s a chute, not a ladder. Customized roadmaps start popping up everywhere. Readers begin to click away because they’ve seen it all before. This won’t bring “the lifestyle we desire.” There are plenty of other metaphors in the sea.

Swiping “proven copy” also reflects a mindset that values only those ideas that can bring the most customers, regardless of whether they’re the right customers. And only valuing people who will become customers, or who could refer them. Anyone else isn’t worth talking to. Any other idea isn’t worth mentioning. The only words worth writing are profitable words. All other words are snubbed.

Make no mistake, I am all for direct response.

If direct response wanted to meet for a beer, I would totally be there. Without responses, we don’t have profits. And without profits, we can’t make delicious fried chicken from Thomas Keller’s Ad Hoc Cookbook.

But do we really need to limit ourselves to what five other sales pages have already done?

What if, instead of trying to figure out which words were most scientifically persuasive, we focused first on making truly great stuff? That would be a start.

One direct response copywriter I really like is Ben Settle.
A year ago, I bought his Copywriting Grab Bag book (not an affiliate link), and it was just as useful as it promised to be. Also, I just like him. We share a loathing for swipe file addiction. He recently wrote in his newsletter that by relying on swipe files, people are making marketing about copy. And it’s not about the copy! It’s about the ideas behind the copy.

Yes, Ben Settle, yes!

I’ve found the best ideas come not from a swipe file, but from stepping away from the computer and scribbling and mindmapping my guts out onto a gigantic notebook. My gut loves gigantic notebooks. I think a lot of “successful entrepreneurs” get so focused on pushing towards a revenue goal that they don’t give their programs the space they really need to become incredible. Instead, they hope the word “incredible” will suffice. And then they wonder why they’re not getting enough sign-ups.

The thing with testing is it’s not forever.

We can’t always write by what tests well. Because what we think will test well today won’t test well tomorrow. People can only be excited by the term “customized roadmap” so many times.

Pure originality doesn’t exist–that’s true, too. The air we breathe now is the same air dinosaurs breathed millions of years ago (and now we even know what color they were!) Ideas spread so fast we forget where they came from. It’s the nature of the universe. But the world is vast. And no one will ever be able to tell your story the way you can. We could all write sales pages that rigorously followed the elements of persuasion without a single sales page sounding like anyone else’s. Snowflake sales pages!

Forget about the right words. Let’s craft the right offer. And the right packages for your services. And the right messages. And let’s make sure that program is fully baked, and that it’s what your people want. Then we can start on the words. They can even be persuasive.

Here’s a book recommendation even your gut will love:

It’s called Yes! 50 Scientifically Proven Ways to Be Persuasive. And it is forehead-slappingly good. After I bought it, I realized why those signs in fast-food restaurants to “only take one napkin” never work. I also discovered that many of the people I respect had already read this book, and simply hadn’t told anyone. Tricky! Well, now you can join our secret club.

Go ahead and persuade—but remember to be kind to guts. Because I love them.