WAIT BEFORE YOU GO!

Every winter, as cold weather prevents me from playing as much tennis as I’d like, I become curious about the outside world and begin indiscriminately signing up for lists.

You know those 5 people who always click without buying anything—bumping up click-through rates while flattening your conversion?

That’s me!

My most favoritest email in the world to receive is an invitation to discover how 7-figure entrepreneurs create their business models.

I love visiting strange, new lands filled with tiny millionaires I’ve never heard of. If there’s anything salvageable and smart inside, I want to know.

To my delight, I received such an email this week.

This email led me to a sales-page-king—dozens of smaller sales pages all joined together at the tail to form one massive sales page.

This is what appeared when I tried to clip the sales page to Evernote for further study in the Copylicious laboratory:

Sorry, Evernote cannot clip this entire page. Please select the portion you wish to clip.

Evernote could not HANDLE this.

We can HANDLE this. We make space for your 10,000-word business brainstorming rambles. But lines must be drawn. Sorry.

When I tried to close the tab, I was presented with this pop-up box:

Like a mummy stumbling out from a corner on the 1983 set of Indiana Jones & the Temple of Doom, I’m sure this effect was startling and memorable for its time. Now we have The Mummy II.

My brain is old and just wants to do the right thing and click Cancel. I want to Cancel as well, but not for the same reasons the pop-up box wants me to. And my browser doesn’t even present Cancel as an option. The pressure is on!

There are two choices:

  1. Stay on this Page
  2. Leave this Page

WAIT! GO! CANCEL! STAY! LEAVE! NOW! WHAT DO I DOOOO?

Any 6-year-old can tell you if a guy in a van pulls up and says, WAIT BEFORE YOU GO!—it’s time to run.

LOOK I HAVE YOUR FAVORITE CANDY!
I MADE IT SPECIAL JUST FOR YOU!

I click Leave this Page, suddenly tense and afraid. This isn’t fun anymore. Will it let me just escape like that, unchallenged? Or is there a second level of I HAVE SOMETHING EVEN MORE SPECIAL FOR YOU! to pass through?

Usually, these terrifying pop-up boxes of doom just let me go. They were but the last outstretched grasps of a dying sales-page-king.

I’m free from this one. This time. Free at last! And you are, too…

BUT WAIT BEFORE YOU GO!

Read all 6 smart comments. Posted by Kelly Parkinson on February 7, 2011.

Instead of this, consider that.

Vitamin-rich substitutes for every business & self-promotin’ occasion.

  1. Instead of a deadline with milestones, consider a date with milkshakes.
  2. Instead of a case study, consider a LIVE client fashion show.
  3. Instead of free 30-minute conversations, consider posting a video in which you illuminate your process. (Or, you could do a BusinessWeek interview at the park across the street—OMG, it’s me!)
  4. Instead of status updates, consider creating project open office hours in advance, so clients can message you within windows of time, knowing you’re both focused on the same stuff.
  5. Instead of finding a niche, consider finding the metrics for the work you’ve already done, and showing them off on your website, in your email signatures, wherever your people can see.
  6. Instead of trying to write a bio from scratch, consider first making a list of things you believe, things you don’t believe anymore, and things you’ve done in the past that tie into what you do now, in unexpected ways that somehow all make sense.
  7. Instead of writing the perfect description of what you do, consider writing about what your clients do.
  8. Instead of accepting a project that isn’t the right fit, consider becoming the benevolent ruler of your own world.
  9. Instead of wordsmithing, consider making a new, value-based offer to high-level people.
  10. Instead of convincing someone why they need you, consider convincing yourself why they don’t. Write out this conversation with yourself until you get to the end of the line, when you’re forced to acknowledge that when it comes to x, they really do need you. Start there.
  11. Instead of creating the all-encompassing Services page for everyone, consider creating three client scenarios, each linking to a package.
  12. Instead of writing a blog post, consider interviewing a client or customer.
  13. Instead of noticing when this project is taking more time than you expected, notice when this project is giving you more energy than you expected.
  14. Instead of ignoring all of those pangs of ‘this doesn’t feel true,’ consider listening to them. Then, incorporate those insights into your copy.
  15. Instead of beginning your sales page with a problem, consider beginning it with a time machine that carries them into the future, so they can see clearly what’s possible.
  16. Instead of positioning something as exclusive and hard-to-get, consider positioning it as the most popular thing amongst the exclusive crowd.
  17. Instead of explaining how it works, consider using an unexpected or surprising anecdote about what happened when you or a client used this, or what happened when they didn’t.
  18. Instead of adding one more thing to your schedule, consider taking that nap.
  19. Instead of trying to increase your hourly capacity, consider increasing the number of referrals you give away.
  20. Instead of writing the world’s most persuasive sales page, consider writing a mini-ebook presenting surprising workarounds to common problems.
  21. Instead of finding more ways to save money, consider finding more ways to share resources.
  22. Instead of knowing why this will fail, consider what’s different this time.
  23. Instead of feeling guilty, consider declaring amnesty.

Read all 11 smart comments. Posted by Kelly Parkinson on February 1, 2011.

How to get anyone to do the dishes

1. When would you like to do the dishes—Tuesday at 9am or Thursday at 3pm?

2. 9,432,824 people have already washed their dishes today. Join them?

3. Want cookies? Eat as many as you like, but I will need to serve them on a special dish. That one in the sink there.

4. I don’t usually accept help with the dishes, but these are special.

5. Wash five dishes, get the sixth dish licked clean by my dog.

6. Now accepting applications for the exclusive, Million-Dollar Dish Fairy Club–with a special, surprise celebrity guest.

7. What’s the connection between washed dishes and profitability? Download this free special report.

8. WANTED: People who are extraordinarily talented at dishes. ONLY ELITE DISHWASHERS NEED APPLY.

9. Elegant dish gloves. A luxurious sponge. Watermelon dish soap. Experience dishes for the first time all over again.

10. You know who does her own dishes every day? Oprah.

11. Become a member of the clean-sink club. Photograph your clean sink and compete with thousands of others who do their dishes daily!

12. Could this be you? The future title-holder of Best Dishwasher In the World?

13. These are just like the dishes you used to wash when you were little. Come back home.

14. Are you tired of eating off dirty plates? What would it take for you to decide, right now, to make a change?

15. These aren’t just dishes. These are part of a journey that begins with you.

16. Now dishes have gone social! Download the dish app and track all your washed dishes, then count up your silverware with your friends!

17. What kind of dishwasher are you? Take the quiz.

19. Never go to bed angry at the dishes.

20. You can do the dishes, or not. Whatever you decide today, you were doing the best you could with the resources you had. It’s a clean sink.

21. What can the way you wash dishes tell you about your personality–in bed?

22. What can the dish-washing lines that work on you tell you about your personality–in bed?

I think the trick is not to oversell it. Would you mind doing me a favor?

Read all 11 smart comments. Posted by Kelly Parkinson on January 4, 2011.