Teach Yourself to Sell: An Exercise

Hello, all,

I wrote yesterday about the keys to good sales copy. You can click here to refresh your memory if need be. I really enjoyed writing that post because I truly feel it gave some great value. As I read through it again, though, I realized that, while I did provide you with the essential building blocks, it is very difficult to learn to put them all together fluently when you don't have any real guide. So tonight, I thought I'd show you a simple little exercise that would help you practice your copy writing skills without having to rack your brain too hard for product ideas just yet.

Selling the Cup

This story is actually stolen from a friend of mine, but I thought it was absolutely wonderful. I had to post it. I hope she doesn't mind, but I promise I'll have some original content further on in the post. For now, though, here's the story:

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The old man set the cup down on the table and said, with a casual air, "Sell me the cup." She was dumbfounded. She stared blankly at the ridged plastic party cup that sat lifeless on the table before her. It was a shiny red on the outside, making an abrupt transition to a dull off-white along the inside rim. I would hold about two cups, sixteen ounces. There was nothing unusual about this cup in the slightest.

"What?" She said, hoping she'd misheard him.

"Sell me the cup." He said again, more pointedly this time. She stared at the cup for a few more minutes before admitting that she had no idea how to do such an absurd thing. It was just too hard. The old man sighed and rolled his eyes toward the ceiling. "You think that's hard?" He reached under the table and pulled out a jar of paper clips, dumping them across the table, "Try and sell me a paper clip." She stared at him, shocked.

"But, but..." She stammered and searched frantically for a response.

The old man sighed again and picked up a single, small metallic clip. "What does a paper clip do?" He asked gently.

"Holds things together." She replied.

"Good, good, now that's a start. Holding things together is a feature. What is the benefit of that? Why do we want to hold things together?"

"So they won't get lost." She answered, starting to understand.

"Precisely, but this is a bit advanced. Let's go back to the cup. What do you notice about the cup?" He asked, gesturing toward the vessel, now surrounded by a sea of paper clips.

"It has ridges?" She started, somewhat unsure.

"Yes, but that's a feature. What do the ridges do?"

"They make the cup easier to hold on to... so you won't spill..." She hesitated, "Never spill another drop!" She yelled out, excitedly.

"Very good, my dear, I like that." The old man sat back and crossed his arms with a smug smile on his face. The girl was starting to get it. His job was almost done.

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Ok, so that story is a little dramatized, but it serves to prove a point. What is that point? That you can sell anything. There is an old proverb about two men that continually sell a pebble back and forth between them. I would try and quote it, but I can't for the life of me remember where it comes from and I really don't want to slaughter it. If anyone knows the one I'm talking about, a comment would be lovely.

Anyway, the point is that anything you ever see can be sold. The cup had obvious benefits: no spills, convenient drinking, a shiny plastic coating(shiny=good). The paper clips make life easier by organizing your paperwork, keeping it all together, and making sure you don't lose anything. Each and every thing in your life has its benefits. You need to learn to recognize them and point them out to others.

So, my task for you is to pick a random, everyday object from around your house and write a sales letter about it. Before you start saying this is a waste of time, think how hard it would be to write a sales letter for a completely original product. Take something familiar and write about it. Outline the benefits. Describe the features. Push your product.

Stumped? Let me tell you a bit about my strategy when it comes to this exercise. Let's take the paper clip for an example(I'm ambitious). Think about all the places that you see, use, and are affected by paper clips on any given day. Now, imagine if they weren't there. There is no such thing as a paper clip. No one has ever heard of or used anything like them before. What happens? How is the world different because of this change?

Well, for one, people have found other ways to organize their papers. Some use filing cabinets(takes up space and is inefficient). Some use binders(same problem, plus hard to get things out of if needed). Others have elaborate systems of boxes and folders arranged carefully around their office. The world of paperwork is a highly inconvenient place. No one notices this, though, because it's the way it's always been.

Suddenly, while you were fiddling with a piece of wire you had left over from one of your kid's arts-and-crafts projects, you start to see a new and amazing shape form in your head. You bend and mold the wire until it looks something like this. You start analyzing all the various uses this great new thing could have. You pull out a handful of papers from your "unsorted" box and start putting them together in the order you want. Sliding the piece of wire over the corner of the papers so that part rests against the back and part against the front, you clip the papers together in a neat little bundle and slide them into a drawer of your desk.

This is amazing! You've just found a whole new way of organizing your office. You've freed up space on your desk for pictures of your family. You've cut down on the number of documents lost by nearly 98%. Most importantly, though, you've created a new product you can sell. It's cheap and easy to reproduce, a breeze to distribute, and will give you the edge over the competition in your industry because your files will be more efficient and organized than any other.

Now do you see the importance of the paper clip? Now do you understand how you might sell this "miracle filing system" to someone? Take this idea and run with it. Write up some copy and send it to people, asking them to respond if they'd like more information on your product. Be careful not to give it away, though. See how many responses you get. If you send your letter to 100 people, record how many respond. Then try again with another item and try to improve that number.

Keep in mind that this isn't going to get you on the fast track to making money online. That's not what I'm about. There's an old cliche that goes, "You can have any combination of two: good, cheap, and fast, but never all three at once." The same principal applies to internet marketing.

You can dive into it fast, with no capital, and fail miserably. You can spend gobs of money right at the beginning and start brining in money just as quickly. Or you can take it slow, read this and other blogs, and start building up steady, reliable income over the long term. I don't know about you, but I'd rather wait a bit longer for a more substantial reward than face the upfront costs most people are afraid of when starting out in the internet marketing game.

So, to recap, pick an item, find its benefits, and write a sales letter. Send that sales letter to some people(email, snail mail, whatever), and see how many respond. Rinse and repeat, aiming for a higher number each time. The more you do this, the easier it will get. If you think you've got something good, feel free to post it here for all of us to read. Who knows, you might even get a sale.

Live and Learn,
Josh