I’ve been studying a lot of old ads lately for a project I’m going to start working on soon, and it’s amazing how easy it is to get bogged down in complicated selling formulas when you really don’t need to.

A lot of your positioning and how well something is going to sell, is completely based on the simplest things you say.

Usually, complicated things make people stop and pause, but instead of stopping and pausing to try and understand what’s going on, they stop and pause because there’s been a disconnect. The words and music just aren’t matching and when this happens, “poof” — whatever you were trying to do goes away like a puff of smoke.

For example, here’s a headline of an ad I came across. I wouldn’t be interested in ordering this book because the subject matter isn’t relevant to anything I’m interested in, but what a brilliant and useful headline:

“The most important book on creating wealth since Think And Grow Rich!”

There are so many ways you can use this, but let’s look at just a few of them:

For starters, you can say almost ANYTHING is “The most important”… you fill in the blanks.

As an example, if you are pitching fishing gear, you can easily say “The most important breakthrough in catching fish, since the fishing rod!”

Or… if you are a divorce lawyer, you can say “Inside… the most important thing to know if you are going through a divorce!”

That’s pretty compelling, isn’t it?

Now you’d better have something good to say after this, or else you’re dead meat, but… that’s another subject entirely.

The other VERY clever thing about that ad (which was for a book about Multi-Levvel Selling, by Randy Gage) was that by making a reference to Napoleon Hill’s “Think And Grow Rich,” it uses Think And Grow Rich as a standard frame of reference — almost like an implied endorsement.

So now let’s take a look at how you can use THIS strategy in your business:

Plumbing: “The most important discovery since the floating turd!”

No, I was just kidding on that one — I wanted to see if you were paying attention.

How about this instead:

“The most important plumbing breakthrough since the snake!” (A snake is the very long spindly thing plumbers use to unclog your toilet. It can go literally dozens of feet up into your system. One time I’d recently moved into a home — back in 1993 — and the plumber went 100 feet into my system to unblock our toilets. He found eggshells, lobster claws — you name it, it was in there.)

Or what about this, if you are selling fuel additives:

“The most important breakthrough since lead-free gas!”

This makes your base of comparison HUGE, with virtually no effort on your part.

Again, I will emphasize that you’d better be able to deliver on this, otherwise you’re toast, and don’t EVER lie, but I’m sure you can figure out the difference between right and wrong.

Now if you’ve every wanted to figure out how long it takes to become a Millionaire — and I don’t mean that hypothetically — then you’ll want to check out this month’s issue of my offline Seductive Selling newsletter. I have an extensive article that genuinely addresses this question, and also does a fair amount of soul-bearing as well.

Test-drive it for fre.e and get $1,391 worth of bonus gifts — including FRE.E copywriting and marketing critiques — right here: http://www.kingofcopy.com/ssnl

Now go sell something, Craig Garber

P.S. Who said, “I think the blood is rushing to my antlers.”? Bet you don’t know.

Again, make sure you check out that article about becoming a millionaire, right here: http://www.kingofcopy.com/ssnl