Last week, Kellie (my wife) turned 50.
My daughters and Kellie's bestie threw her a little surprise brunch.
It was all ladies. About 15 of her good friends.
I helped set-up and stayed just long enough to see the big reveal.
Usually, nothing gets by Kellie; she's like a detective.
This time, though, she was completely caught off guard. And was immediately overwhelmed with emotion when she arrived and everyone yelled "Surprise!"
After a minute of tears and getting herself together she made her rounds around the room. She hugged my daughters, then me, then her friends.
When she grabbed me she whispered in my ear, "Thank you so much."
It was sweet. And touching. I got a little choked-up myself.
While the girls were partying, I went over to Worth Avenue, to the Gucci store. I got Kellie some bday goodies I knew she would love.
The next day, the girls and I watched as Kellie opened her gifts around the kitchen table.
She was again overwhelmed with emotion, and was grateful for everything -- my gifts, the gifts from the girls, the gifts from her friends. It's was bonanza of Kellie's favorite things.
But, throughout the day what Kellie talked about on and on was... the party. The experience of gathering with her friends who were all there to celebrate her 50 years.
The moment... the experience... was most meaningful to Kellie. Not the gifts, the things, the Gucci goodies.
As I've gotten older I've come to understand the value of experiences over more stuff.
My fondest memories don't revolve around things; they revolve around people and places. Around moments and experiences.
I'm not saying gifts and nice things are bad. I'm saying they're quickly forgotten; they quickly go from novel to normal.
But... experiences... and special moments... they can last a lifetime.
With that, let's get to this week's goodies...
😍 Enjoy the Memo? Share it with your friends, fans, or followers...
MY FAVS THIS WEEK
- How to Experience More WOW
I believe we can all use a little more awe in our lives. It's funny how we seem to lose that as we get older.
This article is all about regaining some of those moments of awe and wonder. You'll read about Keltner’s Eight Wonders of Life.
Well worth reading. - LinkedIn Asked People to Give Advice to Their 20-Year-Old Self. The Same Lesson Came Up Again and Again
NOT your typical "I wish I made more time for friends" article.
This covers the most common piece of advice shared. And it's significantly appropriate for you as an entrepreneur. - Refund Rates Over 15% Can Ruin Your Payment Processing
The job of marketing is not to reduce refunds; it's to increase sales. Sometimes this means accepting a higher refund rate from a bolder offer... if it means seeing an even higher sales conversion rate.
However, from an operations perspective, refunds should to be managed and reduced. Every dollar saved adds to the bottom line. As well, there are merchant processing implications to a high refund rate.
This is, obviously, something which needs to be taken seriously.
🚨SWIPE OF THE WEEK
This week's Swipe File is one of our own direct mail letters.
We send a decent amount of direct mail. Usually postcards.
This letter was used 16 months ago. And was sent to a small segment of our house file as part of a small promotion for our TOP ONE Mastermind™ and Private Client Group.
I believe... I wrote this letter in a couple of hours.
It worked well. So it's worth studying.
ONE-TIME-ONLY LIVE Workshop
(Don't wait on this. Seating is limited.)
WHAT I'M TELLIN' MY TEAM
This week on our internal Team Marketing Training...
We reviewed an early draft of a new lead written by one of our marketing team members, Chris Koehl.
This is for a promotion to be launched next month.
We talked about a handful of elements. But, the main aspect I drove home for the team is the Rule Of One.
I learned this many moons ago from my buddy Mark Ford.
Every good marketing campaign is built on ONE simple, clear, and compelling idea.
One idea... not many ideas. ONE.
The more ideas a marketer tries to cram into a marketing campaign, especially the Headline and Lead, the less powerful and compelling it becomes.
This is why it's so important to invest whatever time necessary to develop a Big Marketing Idea for each of your campaigns.
Without a Big Marketing Idea, the tendency is to include lots of little ideas to try to make the message more compelling. To try to prop it up.
Unfortunately, as I said, this does the opposite.
More little ideas never lead to a more powerful hook or theme; it leads to more complexity and confusion.
The best marketing ideas are simple and easy to understand, promise one outcome, are based on one narrative, and lead the prospect to believe one thing.
Team Takeaways In Three Bullets:
- Prospects must be able to understand our marketing idea right away. If they need to read on or watch on to understand the idea... we're off the mark.
- If we find ourselves wanting to expand on the idea or add-in other ideas to make it more appealing, this is a good sign we don't yet have a good enough idea.
- We must be careful trying to cram as many benefits as possible into the headline and deck copy. This part of our campaign should hone-in on one big, bold, and audacious pay-off. We can unpack more benefits in the lead and body of the campaign.
🪰 "Be A Fly On The Wall As Todd Trains His Own Marketing Team Every Week"
See and hear everything Todd shares with this team -- every conversion tactic, copy hack, AOV booster, hook method, and more!
MY ADVICE
A question posted inside the E5 Nation Facebook Group...
Below is superb response from Michael Drummond, our Lead E5 Coach:
Hey Fabrizio, I love where your head is right now. If you're going to create a cookbook, it might as well be one that attracts a lot of people and gets customers every day.
Also, I love what Amadeus is saying about promising your readers a transformation. He's absolutely right.
A quick search will reveal a ton of cookbooks that make promises of transformations, outcomes or results.
For example, these are top sellers that jumped out at me:
The Complete Diabetic Cookbook: 1000+ Wholesome and Tasty Recipes for the Newly Diagnosed | A 28-Day Meal Plan to Manage Type 2 Diabetes
The Crohn's Disease Cookbook: 100 Recipes and 2 Weeks of Meal Plans to Relieve Symptoms
How to Make Anything Gluten-Free: Over 100 recipes for everything from home comforts to fakeaways, cakes to dessert, brunch to bread!
------------------------------
And your desire to also add a unique mechanism is a great because as you probably know from your Big Idea book that the Unique Mechanism will give your prospects hope that they may be discovering something new that will finally work for them.
Cookbooks with MECHANISMS are abundant.
You mentioned "Keto."
Definitely a mechanism, though not unique.
However UNIQUE MECHANISMS are pretty rare in cookbooks it seems.
This is great news for you!
Here are a few I found:
Alkaline Smoothies: Alkaline Smoothie Recipes for Weight Loss and the Benefits of an Alkaline Diet
(Alkaline Smoothies - obviously a smoothy. but how do you make them alkaline? How does that make you lose weight?)
New Weight Watchers Freestyle Cookbook 2021: Start Your Weight Loss Program with the WW Freestyle New Healthy Plan 500
(Healthy Plan 500 - probably a proprietary strategy for weight loss)
The Secret Ingredient Cookbook: 125 Family-Friendly Recipes with Surprisingly Tasty Twists
(Not a Unique mechanism, but close because the word "Secret" could imply that there are many special ingredients, which are a mechanisms, that make the food delicious)
The Easy 5-Ingredient Acid Reflux Cookbook: Fuss-free Recipes for Relief from GERD and LPR
(5-Ingredient could mean that there are 5 ingredients, which when added to a recipe, will relieve acid reflux. What are the 5 things?)
The Dash Diet Cookbook: 500 Heart-Healthy Recipes to Lower Blood Pressure and Cholesterol
(Dash Diet - Not unique if it is a well known diet, but would be if this is a new type of diet. The new AWAD DIET would be unique)
None of these are that great, as far as unique mechanism names go, but again...
That's good news for YOU.
--------------------------------------
Here's what I would probably do if I wanted to create a cookbook with a Unique Mechanism:
1. Since I understand that a Unique Mechanism has to deliver a promise... solve a problem... I would start there:
"Regain 20/20 vision and throw away your reading glasses away in as little as 2 weeks"
2. I would research and create recipes that support eye health. Omega-3, vitamin C and E, beta-carotene, zinc, Zeaxanthin, etc.
Better yet, I would work with a doctor and come up with a regimen that restores eye health.
This would become my Unique Mechanism
3. I would create meal plans and recipes that make eyes healthier. I imagine that the regimen would include lifestyle changes as well.
4. I would create an E5 campaign that got people so excited about the regimen that they felt they must have the only cookbook on the planet based on it.
5. Run an E5 minimum viable funnel on that E5 campaign, and test three different book titles.
6. Publish the best selling title. Perhaps it would be something like...
"The Primal Eyesight Cookbook: Use all natural GLIAL RESET compounds in your meals to restore eye health"
(GLIAL RESET is my unique mechanism here)
7. Scale my funnel
8. Create back-end Eye Care products for my customers.
I could create a whole business around that cookbook.
***
NOTE: If you're not in the E5 Nation Facebook Group with us yet, you're missing out on the opportunity to have me answer your questions. Not too mention, some killer content and live streams only shared inside the Group.
Go here and join us inside the E5 Nation Group (it's FREE!).
ROCKSTAR RESOURCE
TagCrowd is a great little free tool for research and gaining marketplace insights.
Basically, it takes any chunk of text, a web page, or a file... and shows you a cloud of the words used most often.
So, for example, it's a great way to analyze customer comments or feedback... to see what words and phrases are most commonly used.
It's also a great way to analyze competitors copy to see the same.
Below is an example of a cloud, taken from Michael Drummond's Facebook Comment above.
You can see by word size and bolding the most common words used in his response.
This is neat. And can be valuable for you.
PIC OF THE WEEK
The new home library is coming along nicely.
The main shelving spans about 10 feet wide by 8 feet high. With some of our box mailings and bobbleheads displayed on top.
The floor is grayish hardwood, covered by a fancy maroon and brown oriental area rug.
Out of frame I have more shelving. And in one corner of the room is a little massage recliner, and in another a bed for the dogs.
And on the other side of the library is a desk with an iMac and two monitors on it.
Right now, I only have one thing hanging on the walls -- a canvas of Teddy Roosevelts The Man In The Arena.
If you're not familiar with it, Google it.
WANT MORE HELP GROWING YOUR BUSINESS?
Here are some epic ways we can help you scale your business…
1. Fed up with your marketing being ignored?
Grab your copy of this book and over $1,100+ in bonuses.
2. Your offer not converting or AOV in the tank?
Grab this bundle that’s working insanely well for almost everyone who uses it.
3. Want our personal help in scaling your business from 6-figures to 7-figures and beyond?
