What do a supermarket, one of the world’s biggest blogs and a Victorian entrepreneur have in common? If you’re trying to sell anything, they should have it in common with you, too. To work it out, think: what did it mean to be a Victorian entrepreneur? The thing is, life was hard for the Victorian gent. Officer commissions were no longer available for purchase, meaning the gentleman soldier may have to share the mess with the lower...

“If you want your launch to stand out, you’ve got to sell it.” How can I persuade JVs to mail my launch? Writing a good JV page helps. No, after that. I can get JVs to sign up. I mean, more’d be great, but what I really want to know is how to get the ones who HAVE signed up to actually mail. Oh, OK. Well, there’s a short answer and a long answer. The short answer is ‘better marketing’. No, my marketing’s pretty good...

In 1810, the worst actor ever took the stage as Romeo. His name was Robert Coates, and from a young age he’d known he was born to take the stage. The stage disagreed, but Coates was in possession of a £40,000 per year income. I’m not sure what that works out to today, but it’s definitely multiple millions, and the kind of cash that can open pretty much any door you like. The most charitable way to describe Coates’...

What makes a good benefit? Free wine with dinner always gets my vote. Ha. Ha. I mean it. I know what my product’s features are, but how do I translate them into benefits? People keep telling me I need to. Well, they’ve got a point. But do they really? When I’m buying a product I’ll often just look at the feature list. I just need to know it does what I want it to do. Yes, but you’re coming into the sale with...

“If I want you to build me a house, the best way to make you do so is simply to prove it’ll be worth your time.” How can I convince my JVs to add bonuses to their mailings? Well, there’s quite a few ways. But the most obvious and, as it happens, most effective, is to give them a good reason to do so. Isn’t the reason obvious? They add a bonus, they’re making a better offer, so they make more money. Duh. OK, maybe we need to go...

Ask any experienced marketer, and they’ll tell you ‘long copy outpulls short every time’. And usually, it does. But there’s a weird double-standard at the moment where the same people who will encourage you to make your copy as long as possible insist that your VSLs should be at most 4 minutes long, because ‘people don’t watch long videos’. And sometimes, ‘long’ copy can be remarkably short. ...