Selling in print ISN’T easy, not by a long-shot.

One of the biggest problems I constantly see when I am doing critiques – http://www.kingofcopy.com/salescopyreview — is that lots of folks spend tons of time trying to convince their prospects why they should buy their product.

Yesterday, I read — I kid you not — a 106-page sales letter. Now in all fairness, it was so long because it was printed off the web, and in reality, it probably “only” would have been something like 70 pages long.

The copy wasn’t bad, per se. The problem was, the person who wrote it spent an inordinate amount of time committing the cardinal sin: He was CONSTANTLY trying to convince the reader why they NEEDED his product. This is a total waste of time.

The entire premise of direct-response marketing is that you’ve already attracted those people who want what you’re selling, and then your job is easy — ALL you need to do is persuasively explain why they should buy your product, as opposed to someone else’s.

Otherwise, you’re in the convincing business, and the convincing business stinks. It’s simply awful. It wastes time and in actual fact, it frustrates and alienates those people who ARE already “sold” on buying (from someone), because they can’t get to the heart of the matter, which is the “why they should buy from you” part.

Here, just look at it this way: when you are trying to hook up with a romantic partner, do you first try and explain to her or him WHY they should be interested in hooking up with someone?

No, of course not. It’s a safe assumption they know they want a romantic partner, so all you should be concerned with, is making sure they realize YOU are the one they should be hooking up with, right?

Your focus is to sell you, if in fact you want them, and this is why sales is so much like seduction.

So keep your eye on the ball and don’t waste your time. Focus on your mission at hand, which is to separate YOU from the rest of the pack, and nothing else.

Now go sell something, Craig

P.S. Discover how I DESTROYED the competition by creating a sales piece that pulled a 42.7% response rate, and a 218-to-1 return on the first shot at http://www.kingofcopy.com/leads

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