I had a Brain Eclipse today.
Not sure if it was a cosmically significant event. Certainly nobody showed up with their special eclipse glasses outside my door.
Here is how it went down:
5 am. Sleep deprived and in a hurry. I rush out the door.
I’m on the 4th floor.
The Moment of Truth comes.
The panel to call the elevator shows three things:
2 --> meaning the elevator is on Floor 2.
An up arrow.
A down arrow.
And I press… the up arrow.
Now, if you want to exit a building, the long-established custom is to do it from the ground floor.
If you’re on the 4th floor and you hail the elevator by pressing the up button, the only destination it can take you is... the roof.
I’m glad there wasn’t a crowd of bystanders. They’d be blinded by my momentary stupidity. Not even their Ray Ban sunglasses could shield them from my Brain Eclipse.
The mistake I made?
Thinking in terms of processes instead of results.
Results-based thinking: I’m on Floor 4. I want to go to the ground floor = press the down arrow.
Process-based thinking: I’m on Floor 4. The elevator needs to come up from Floor 2 to pick me up. = press the up arrow.
I’m busy dictating what the elevator needs to do next (process) rather than focusing on getting to the ground floor (result).
And you know what?
Most people make the same mistake in their business - especially their marketing.
Other areas where this Brain Eclipse shows up:
- Delegating tasks instead of problems
You want to hire a business manager. You delegate: “Research recruitment agencies, email each of them, and report back to me.” (process)
You failed to delegate the problem of filling your calendar with qualified candidates, so you have no right to complain when this happens:
“We emailed several agencies. None of them responded.”
“Well, did you follow up with a phone call?”
“No.”
- Setting goals:
“Weekly objective: Visit factory, meet chief engineer and discuss production methodology.”
That’s not an objective. That’s a process.
The RESULT you really want is: To shorten production time by 4 working days. (= goal)
- Writing marketing copy, especially sales and opt-in pages
Let’s say you sell leadership training.
Your target buyer, Bob the Business Owner, faces this problem:
He has employees that, on the one hand, have the right skills and deliver outstanding results, but, on the other hand, have an attitude problem or a personality that is hard to work with.
- X, who keeps sticking her nose in projects that are none of her business. She might decide to quit her job if she is confronted too harshly.
- M, who has a very blunt communication style and risks creating a negative vibe in the company
- T, who is a perfectionist, delivers great work, but spends way too long on a project (which actually costs the company money instead of making the company money)
Bob lands on your opt-in page.
The freebie you’re offering to persuade Bob to join your email list?
“YOURS FREE: The quintessential mindset of effective leaders”
NO.
No. No. No.
That’s not the result Bob is looking for. That’s your process - which Bob couldn’t care about less.
To hook Bob, you need to promise him the solution to his problem -in other words, the result he wants:
Change the attitude of team members without threatening to fire them.
So your opt-in copy should mirror that:
...
“Welcome ambitious business owners!
Tired of employees with the right skills but the wrong attitudes?
YOURS FREE:
The Belgian Pivot Technique:
A word-for-word script to change the behaviour of team members without threatening to fire them”
...
But to do any of that, you first need to find the right result to promise - one that will make Dreamy (your ideal buyer) hand over his email.
And then you need a system to coagulate those vague promises into crystal clear opt-in copy.
To see how I auto-magically find the right result to promise and turn that into high-converting opt-in copy, check out Modules 1 & 2 of FAST50:
http://fast50optins.com/