That’s what I terrorized my twin sister with on this beautiful Sunday morning.
As I woke up, I went straight to do my abs workout and when I was done, I figured I haven’t experienced something we used to do in kickboxing class.
My cheese graters weren’t punched in a while.
(On a side note, one of my long-unseen friends came to ours and he talked about how they were punching each other’s bellies in MMA class so I wanted to have it done to me as well)
The reason?
I’m an insanely handsome and handsomely insane bald guy who looks like Hitman when he wears his suit and red tie with sunglasses.
Just kidding.
I’m not that handsome.
So anyways, I went to my sister’s room, gloves in hand, and told her to come and help me with my workout.
She reluctantly got out of her comfort nest.
Then, as I laid out the “plan” to her, she immediately bailed out and said that she won’t hit me.
I tried convincing her that we do this in kickboxing class all the time and that it won’t hurt, not to mention the fact that it would make my abs stronger (and look better) from the unique exercise it gets that it otherwise wouldn’t get with just situps alone.
But to no avail.
My foolproof plan failed.
Even though my belly’s sore, it could have been more sore. Whatever, there are some things you can’t control.
This got me thinking about Dale Carnegie’s principles in his book “How to Win Friends and Influence People”
There, he talks about the sweetest language to the other person’s ears.
And that is not some compliments,
Not praise.
It’s them.
What they want, who they are, and what interests them at the moment, next to their names, of course.
And his principle was to try to always talk in the language of the other person. You see, that guy or girl on the other side of the line or across the table probably doesn’t care as much about you as you think they do. And if they don’t see anything that would benefit them from doing as you say, then they probably won’t do it.
So always ask,
“How can I see the world with that person’s eyes and how can I present things in a way that they would find the deal acceptable?”
Whether it be convincing them to punch you 200 times on your abs, to sell them a course, or to convince them to clink on the phat link in your emails, posts, articles, or whatever you’re putting out.
This is the essence of sales as well.
Let’s say you’re trying to sell a product and you write two sales letters for it.
One is written with words your audience uses, highlights the excruciating pains they suffer through daily, and shows them a path on how to solve those mind-numbing problems.
The other?
Well, it’s written in words that your audience never uses (like I did when I used my harsh“man-language” when writing to 50-year-old women who like spiritual massage and use soft words instead of the usual stuff I write), talks about how good the product is without showing them how it could help them, and it oozes self-interest and no intention of helping them.
Out of the two,
Which one do you think will perform better?
The last one, obviously…
In a parallel universe where the laws of persuasion and building relationships are completely flipped, that is.
It’s easy to make these mistakes, and I’ve done them many, many times during my time as an “eggshell-on-the-butt” copywriter.
Doubly so because there are so many that you can make.
Not to mention how much they hurt your bottom line, your self-esteem, and your hopes of making a full-time income by being a copywriter.
That’s why I compiled some of the worst mistakes I’ve experienced as a beginner freelancer.
If you want to see what these are, I suggest you move your metallic (and possibly glowing) pet rodent to the link ahead.