Sean D’Souza’s latest ‘PsychoTactics’ article is titled “How Pre-Sell Sold The Article Writing Course In Fewer than 24 Hours”. [PsychoTactics Article]


Sean D’Souza’s latest ‘PsychoTactics’ article:

HHow Pre-Sell Sold The Article Writing Course In Fewer than 24 Hours

Last week a client wrote to me. He was amazed that we’d managed to sell an extremely high-priced course in a matter of 24 hours. He was curious. How is it possible to sell a course in fewer than 24 hours when the price tag is well over $2000?

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And here’s what I wrote back to the client:
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Imagine a situation like this. You are going to meet a guest for dinner. But you know nothing about a guest. And you’re informed that this person you’re about to meet is a rude person. And so in your brain you form a picture of the person.

Now let’s take the exact opposite. And let’s say that you’re told that the guest you’re about to meet is wonderful, warm etc. And is pretty famous and intelligent. Now again your brain forms a
picture.

This picture is the simplest form of pre-sell. Where you haven’t really seen the product/service but you are exposed to the concept long in advance.

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So how did this pre-sell concept sell out in fewer than 24 hours?
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The Article Writing Course for instance had just 34 seats. And we made one announcement to a tiny list of less than 400 people, and all the first 17 seats were taken. We then went to another much larger list, made another announcement and another again all the seats were taken in fewer than 24 hours. Ok so big deal. But what makes all of this so interesting?

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Here’s what interesting about these statistics
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1) Both batches were all filled up in a 24 hour period.

2) The number of people who saw the sales page was an extremely tiny number. e.g. In the first 24 hours, fewer than 50 people saw the sales page, yet 17 seats were taken, despite a reasonably high price of over $2000 for the course.

3) There were no affiliates, no joint ventures, no adwords–no hoopla involved at all. And only two emails (yes, just two) were sent and all the seats were taken. How’s that possible? Is it just
reputation and trust?

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Yes there’s a factor of reputation and trust
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But hey, this didn’t happen in the year 2005, or 2006, or 2007 or 2008, or 2009. So why did it happen in 2010? Because the pre-sell was far more detailed in 2010 than any other years. Far more time and effort was put in the pre-sell of 2010 than in any other years. And we also had things like the prospectus (which didn’t exist before).

What’s important is that we started the announcement for the Article Writing Course in our membership site of 5000bc.com, as far back as early October. And now it’s almost December. At this point, that one topic in 5000bc has been read over 1330 times. So when you think about it, the client has had time to think about things; to ask questions; to evaluate their time and their budget; to think about it more; to gain more trust; to read the prospectus. And let’s just stop here for a second.

Because the prospectus makes a huge difference.

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You don’t always understand what you’re signing up for…
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You have a feeling. You read the bullets but all you do is read testimonials on a sales page. A prospectus is different. It gives you the methodology. And it gives you the experiences of people
who’ve gone before you. This is more than just another ton of testimonials that you glaze over. No this is about experiences.

They’re persuasive stories that don’t use persuasion, but persuade any way. Each of the experiences isn’t randomly placed in the prospectus. Each one is carefully chosen to reflect the objections of the client. Each one is chosen to highlight the importance of something. E.g. you may not like to work with forums.

And for the Article Writing Course the forum is of critical importance. So I can jump up and down all day and tell you how very important it is to work with the forum. Or I can send you a
prospectus and you pre-qualify yourself.

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Now here’s the important thing about pre-qualification
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If you’re a coach, whom do you want on your team? A bunch of losers who moan and groan about everything? Or those who know what they have to do, and are willing to do what it takes? Who do you want: Folks who say, “I didn’t know this was all about the forum. I don’t have this kind of time to spend every day.” Or do you want someone who knows what to expect because they’ve read the prospectus and are now pre-qualifying themselves?

And yes it sounds sneaky, because you’re actually choosing winners, and so your results will be far more impressive than if you had a bunch of losers and whiners. The testimonials and experiences will be far richer. You’ll have fewer tantrums.

And that’s what top coaches do. They pick on winners in the first instance. If a coach chooses to work with losers, then good luck to them. So as you can see the prequalification helps in more ways than one.

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But pre-sell isn’t just about this course.
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Pre-sell is about everything you do before the sale. Every article plays its part. Every video. Every audio. Every email exchange. If you wrote to me and I didn’t respond, or didn’t respond with great detail, you may not think much of it. There are lots of people who don’t respond.

But if I take the time to respond like I’m doing here, I’ve scored some major points, because I’ve gone well over and beyond the call of duty. And it works for me as well, because not only do you get a great response, but this response could be used as an article, a case study or be used in two dozen different ways. Just responding to the question makes me think through my own process, so it’s very useful for me as well, even if I chose not use the response elsewhere. So as I said, everything plays its role.

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“Everything” is everything
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So if you look at the course composition, you’ll see the first batch got filled up with all 5000bc members. I tried to get to that target last year, but was not completely successful. This year in
2010, it worked–and not by fluke. And pre-sell works for everything including products or services.

Apple spends enormous time pre-selling its products. They won’t even tell you what the darned product is, and yet people spend months speculating. And Apple will announce the product–and you don’t get the product in the stores for at least two-three months later.

Look at the time lag between the announcement of the iPad and the actual date you could get an iPad. Look at how they’ve already started to tom-tom their new operating system, and there’s no operating system in sight for a while. Even an update of their operating system from iOS 4.1 to 4.2 was pre-sold for weeks in advance.

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Harry Potter does the same.
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So does every major movies that comes out from Hollywood. The PR machine goes into overdrive, pre-selling the “story” to the media. If Pierce Brosnan is in a soon to be released movie, go and look at the newsstand. Almost all the magazines covers have Pierce on the
cover.

So he’s in the gossip magazine, the film magazine, the health magazine. Waitasec? What’s happening here? Why is Pierce everywhere? He’s everywhere, because that’s pre-sell. Harry Potter does the same. Pre-sell. Wimbledon does the same. The Rugby World Cup isn’t for a while. Doesn’t matter. Pre-sell is in full swing.

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So is pre-sell just a propagation of ideas? Or is it actually a sale?
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Ideas are powerful things. Ideally an idea is the way to go. Also the problem is that customers aren’t ready to buy when you’re ready to sell. And we have to clearly define the concept of “buying” (at least in this context).

In this context, I mean “buying” as in “buying an idea”. Or to put it in a phrase: Customers “buy” before they “pay”. If you pre-sell an idea for a while and do it correctly, you will indeed find that the payment step is just a mere formality. But is it?

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Not really and yes, really
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So you still need to have a sales page. Every brand that sells like crazy teaches us that. Just because you pre-sell doesn’t mean that the customer can do without the sales page. Just because you pre-sell doesn’t mean you don’t create urgency.

Just because you do all of this, doesn’t mean you sit back and start sipping Piñacoladas. There’s also the sales letter. The graphics play a role. The captions. The exact placement of
testimonials. The clear barrier–you can’t sign up to our courses until you’ve read The Brain Audit. All this and more is needed and it’s not just us that are pedantic about this level of detail.
Every organisation that sells well goes into the same intricate detail.

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Pre-sell is in the detail.
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Without pre-sell you need hoopla. And if you don’t get hoopla, you don’t get enough sign ups or sales–and this is the same for a product or a service.

Because pre-sell sets your brain in motion.

Just like it did when your friend told you what to expect when meeting the guest. In your brain the wheels started turning long before you met the person. And this article has done the same.

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If you’re not on the Article writing course, you’ll want to know more…
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If you are on the Article Writing Course you’ll be more eager than ever to get started. If you’re not a member of 5000bc, you’ll want to know more and possibly join up. And if I were to say I was going to write a book or course on Pre-Sell, in your mind there’s not a shred of doubt that you want that book or course–or both. (In fact I just announced the course in 5000bc two days ago, and already seven people are keen to sign up).

Note: There’s no fixed date yet, there’s no pricing, there’s no sales page, there’s nothing you’d expect to see. And yet there’s a demand. A very strong demand.

This is it: Pre-Sell in action. You now know what it is. You’ve seen it in action–even in this article. Now use it for your own products and services!

Sean D’Souza

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*IMNewswatch would like to thank Sean D’Souza and Psychotactics for granting permission to reprint this latest article.

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