The Reluctant Entrepreneur: Turning Dreams into Profits

SHORT-TERM RESULTS VERSUS LONG-TERM PROFITS

There is a strong temptation for marketers to boost sales by hyping the product they’re selling with sensational language. The temptation arises not from their schlocky hearts but from the experience of testing hypey copy versus less-hypey copy.

You may hope that the less-hypey copy will prevail. But it seldom does. Otherwise intelligent and sensitive prospective customers consistently make buying decisions based on over-the-top promises. They respond to cliché-laden language over more reasonable copy.

I’ve been involved in such tests at least 100 times. And in most cases, the hype won. I didn’t want it to be so, but it was. So I listened to the market. I wrote (and taught others to write) hypey headlines and leads for ads. They worked. But I never felt good about them.

Then I started to develop a different idea. The idea came from an experience I had as a consultant with a wealth-building “club.”

The club had great, fast success. By coming up with clever products and promoting them to “members” with unrestrained copy, we were able to grow from nothing to $5 million in sales in less than two years.

It was very profitable … at least for those first two years. The club grew again the third year but its profits disappeared. The next year, we struck gold with a great new product, and the profits were back. But the following year, there were big losses.

We were working very hard. But after five years, on an accumulated basis, the club hadn’t ...