Learn The Old-School Secret To Tripling Your Online Sales
James Guidrey was a high-school dropout. He was raised in a broken home from which, at age 17, he ran away and never looked back.
James had one overwhelming desire, and that was to become a writer. He read ravenously and was largely self-taught.
Shortly after running away from home, when he was still 17, James found work bussing tables in a fine-dining restaurant. The owner of the restaurant, a Mexican woman widowed long ago, took a liking to James, and she looked after him. She taught him about food and wine, and she taught him also how to bartend.
James meanwhile never ceased writing and reading, and he also grew more and more interested in the craft of bartending.
In 2009, when he was 21, James got an idea:
He'd write a fictionalized account of his life up to that point, and he'd center his story around the bar, focusing upon his love of literature and even more specifically upon how compatible he'd come to view the bartending lifestyle with the literary.
It took him over two years to complete, but James finally finished writing his book, and his book was published by a small literary press.
He then began the process of trying to sell his book.
The Early Efforts
In his first year online, James generated $18,000 in sales. While excellent for someone just starting out, it wasn’t enough to replace his bartending work. And as the days and months passed and his bartending work got busier, James spent less and less time on his website, until soon he stopped working on it altogether. For two years, his website sat basically untouched. Yet here and there it was still making book sales.
An Expensive Lesson
In 2011, James tore his ACL while playing basketball, and because of his injury he couldn't bartend for months. Out of something like desperation, James decided that it was time to get serious about his long neglected website.
This time around James hired a local marketing firm to breathe new life into his online presence. For the paltry sum of $5000.00 -- virtually his entire saving -- this marketing firm delivered to James a super sleek new website, complete with all the modern-day funnels and upsells and pop-ups and all the rest.
James's book sales instantly plummeted.
After six weeks of tweaking, James's sales still remained at just half of what they'd been before.
Financially devastated and desperate now, James changed everything back to the old version of his site -- and as soon as he did, his sales immediately doubled, going back to where they'd been prior to his knee injury.
Stuck with a site that worked but was old and outdated and a new expensive site that didn’t work, James then decided to do a little experimenting. The first thing he did was something very basic. He took one element from his old website and plugged it into the new site -- and that was all he did. He then put his updated site back online. And this time his sales didn’t drop by 50 percent. Instead, they doubled and then tripled -- to over $30,000 per year.
The Secret Right Under Your Nose
What was it about James's old website that generated twice as many sales as his new site? And what one specific piece did he then take from the old site and move over to the new, which subsequently tripled his sales?
It was the sales copy he used.
Specifically, it was copy that told a story: in precisely the same way that James was so effective at selling guests good bottles of wine or intricate cocktails or obscure styles of beer -- using his authentic knowledge and the story behind these wines and beers and spirits -- so James in his initial website had effectively told the story of why he wrote his book, and what had gone into it. The story of why and how he wrote his story resonated with his target audience because it was an authentic story, and one to which his readers found interest and many of whom could relate. It was, in short, a story that got them to buy his book.
I’m the person who wrote this story for James ... because I am James -- but in a fictionalized form.
I Told You This Story For Two Reasons...
First: to illustrate how profitable old-school storytelling can be.
Second: because in telling it to you, it did something to your brain.
In plain terms, it shut off one part of your brain and turned on another. And when that happened, you started to pay a lot closer attention. This is my terms for it.
Neurologists at Harvard, however, have a more scientific explanation.
Let me elaborate:
In one of their studies, they monitored the brains of people telling stories versus the brains of people hearing stories. And what the scans revealed was astounding; that the brain of a person hearing a story begins to mirror the brain of the person telling a story. Or in other words, a storyteller can (more or less) control the minds of his or her audience.
They also found that a particular area of the brain lights up when you hear stories. It’s the area of your brain which allows you to anticipate what is going to happen next. And this area only becomes active when you’re completely engaged in an activity, when your attention is focused on only one thing. Turns out, stories trigger this hyper-attention in us automatically.
In fact, over 350 studies in the areas of cognitive science, neural psychology and brain development have confirmed the same things. That the human brain is predisposed to positively respond to stories. Stories take our brains out of auto-pilot mode. And they make us pay complete attention, almost instantly.
But It Gets Better:
Stories Also Help You Sell More Products at Higher Prices.
I’ve understood this for nearly twenty years now -- through my experience writing and selling books and also through creating courses and trying to sell these courses online. It’s the one incontrovertible truth: storytelling enables you to sell more products for more money.
But it wasn’t until a few years ago that a real-life experiment finally provided conclusive proof. This was a six-month experiment that was both simple and fascinating…involving eBay and garage sales. Watch the video -- from this course -- that I made about this experiment:
In the study, 100 random items were purchased at garage sales. Each item cost an average of just $1.25.
Next, those items were listed on eBay. And here’s where it gets interesting. Instead of listing the items like people normally do…with generic, boring or even non-existent descriptions…the items were listed using stories. Sometimes very detailed, elaborate and entertaining stories.
The result? Those 100 items, which cost a combined $128.74 when purchased at garage sales, sold for a whopping $3,612.51 on eBay. Or to put it another way, each item cost $1.25 and sold for $36 because of the story attached to it.
And that’s the power of storytelling. It not only makes people pay attention, but makes your products more desirable. Which makes them worth more. Which makes people more eager to buy them at higher prices.
But There's One Big Problem When It Comes To Using Stories To Sell Your Products Online.
Well, Actually Three.
The first is that people think they can’t tell stories. Or don’t know how. Or can’t imagine how they’d ever craft a story about their boring product, service or business. So they look for help…they look for someone to show them how to do it.
Which leads to problem number two. Storytelling is big these days. It’s no longer the marketing secret it once was. Which means that now, there is a long line of “experts” trying to teach people storytelling. And to be blunt, they don’t know what the hell they are talking about.
These experts are often self-proclaimed consultants, unknown actors or struggling writers. Whatever the case, they usually come from the entertainment industry and none of them have ever sold an actual product in their life. Even worse, they are all going to tell you to create stories the same way.
And that way leads us to problem number three. It’s called the Hollywood or hero story. It’s the formula used in most movies. And it’s the formula everyone is going to tell you to use. Problem is, it rarely works for marketing products on the Internet. And even more ironic, it rarely works for Hollywood as well, where 8 out of 10 movies fail to make a profit.
So what are you supposed to do? You know that stories grab a person’s attention like nothing else. And you know they help you sell more products at higher prices. But everything being taught about storytelling is pretty much completely wrong for Internet marketing.
Good news. Here’s the solution.
Introducing ...
Storytelling For Online Marketers
This course is designed to do one thing: teach you how to craft stories that will sell your products like hell.
This is not about how to write a blockbuster movie, an award-winning novel or a Broadway play. It's about how to create and use stories in emails, in videos, and on websites in order to sell more of your products. And at higher prices.
It’s also designed with the average person in mind. That means you don’t need to be someone who is creative, a talented writer or a natural storyteller. You just need to be able to listen. If you can do that, I’ll lay out the rest for you, step-by-step.
Everything is taught using plain English and is easy to understand and follow. There are no complex theories on developing characters or story arc’s -- that’s Hollywood stuff which doesn’t work online -- and instead I simply walk you through the steps of crafting a story that will produce more sales for your product, service, or business.
Storytelling for email
Email is the very best medium for storytelling. Why? Because it’s simple, super-effective, and it's a great way to develop your storytelling skill. In addition to that, when you use stories in your emails, open and click-thru rates are often three times higher than they are with regular emails.
Better still, there are almost no limits to the different ways you can use storytelling in your emails. But some formulas work better than others. And I’m going to share with you what the most surefire formulas are.
Here’s the bottom line. Once you complete this section, your email marketing will be forever changed.
Through storytelling in email, you’ll get more of everything: more emails opened and read, more links clicked, more sales.
Storytelling for sales pages
Pound for pound, the most lucrative form of storytelling is when you use it on a sales page. That’s because not only will a story sell more of your products, but you can use a story unchanged for years, and it will never lose it’s selling power.
But there’s a trick to it. And that trick is developing your story in the first place. This is where most people get it wrong because they rely on formulas that don’t work online. But I’m going to show you the formulas that do work. And I’m going to do it step-by-step.
The bottom line: once you complete this section, you’ll have all the pieces in place to create powerful stories that will sell any product or service. Stories that will grab a visitor’s attention, make your products more desirable and generate more sales.
Storytelling for video
When most people hear the words “storytelling for video,” they think Hollywood, where you need elaborate scripts and huge budgets for special-effects. But the truth is, you don’t even need a camera to achieve incredible results with storytelling in video.
What you do need is the ability to tell an engaging story -- rapidly. This is because video has the lowest attention span of any other medium on the internet. But not to worry. I’m going to show you how to craft stories for video that have the maximum impact, in the minimum time.
Here’s the bottom line: I’m going to show you how to create stories for any video, whether it’s going on YouTube, your blog, a sales page, or in your email, which has proven very effective for me. These are stories that will grab the viewer’s attention like a vice and hold their attention all the way into the sale.
You've Been Telling Stories Since You Were 3 Years Old
Now Let Me Show You How To Profit From Them
As I mentioned earlier, the number one problem people encounter with storytelling is that they think they can’t tell stories. But here’s a fun fact:
You’ve been telling stories since you were just 3 years old.
This is when the human brain is developed enough to start creating stories. And once it starts doing this, it starts also churning them out all the time.
As a child, for example, you may have told your parents a story of how your older brother ruined your life by taking your favorite pair of socks. Or when you got caught playing with matches, how it was all your sister’s fault because she told you to do it. It doesn’t matter. They are all just stories, and you’ve continued creating and telling them throughout your entire life.
But being able to tap into this ability and harness it, so that you can create stories for a product or service -- well, this can get a little tricky. You’re going to need some help. And you’re going to need it from someone who will give it to you straight.
I can give you that help. For over twenty years, I’ve been crafting stories that sell. And I can show you how to do it too, inside Storytelling for Internet Marketers.
What you get:
You’ll receive over 2 hours of step by step training on storytelling for videos, sales pages, email and content. There are no recurring fees. No annoying upsells. You get unlimited lifetime access … for one price.
You also receive ten different templates, which I put a lot of work into, that you can use and make your own.
You’ll get instant access as well. There’s no waiting, you can start the training just minutes from now. And you can watch the lessons as much as you want, whenever you want and from any device you want.
Fair enough? Then don’t wait on this. Click the big blue button below to get instant access now and start profiting from the power of storytelling immediately.
Here's is a sample of one of the lessons:
Video Course Curricula:
Welcome Aboard!
Welcome Aboard!
Lesson 1: Streamline & Distill
Lesson 2: The Most Irresistible Feeling of All
Lesson 3: Nobody Cares About You
Lesson 4: Your Brain on Stories and the Insane Significant Objects Study
Lesson 5: You Never Knew These Were Stories, Did You?
Lesson 6: Structure is Context & Context is Queen
Lesson 7: Just the Facts Ma'am
Lesson 8: Thank You! You've Made Me Smarter
Lesson 9: The Hot Acid Test
Lesson 10: 4 More Script Templates
Lesson 11: Video is a Slightly Different Beast
Lesson 12: Something About Mary
Lesson 13: The Curious Case of the Hardest & the Easiest
Lesson 14: After Comes Before Before
Lesson 15: The Billion Dollar Letter
Lesson 16: How You, How They, How She, How Me
Lesson 17: A Story for All Occasions
Lesson 18: Three Simple Storytelling Methods that Can Do Your Selling For You
Course 2: How to Make a Killer First Impression
Introduction
Lesson 1: The Awesome Power of Your Eyes
Lesson 2: Your Gorgeous Smile
Lesson 3: The Power of Silent Speech
Lesson 4: The Handshake
Lesson 5: What to Say