Jim Edwards and Stew Smith discuss why you should do a FREE BOOK offer. There are many reasons to get your book out there and a free offer is a way to do it as well as upsell, list build, social media group growth, and of course people will know you are “the expert” at something.
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Jim Edwards: Hey everybody, Jim Edwards here and welcome back to the Sales Copywriting And Content Marketing Hacks Podcast.
And today we’re going to be talking about…
How to use a free book to build your business as well as tools that we have to help you do just that.
So, I’m your host Jim Edwards, along with my trusty co-host and Podcast Producer, Mr. Stew Smith.
Welcome, Stew!
Stew Smith: Hello Jim! How are you sir?
Jim Edwards: I am a little wound up today
As you can tell, I think I’m over-caffeinated and under-exercised…
So,
Stew Smith: Really?!
Jim Edwards: No, I don’t need to adjust my workout schedule next week…
Oh, I’ll fix a little more.
Stew Smith: Challenging.
Jim Edwards: Yeah, no.
Yeah…
No…
Gave me an easy day to repeat day two.
Stew Smith: Yeah, a lot of running…
Jim Edwards: That was great…
I’m looking forward to it…
Talk about future pacing…
Get it, but I’m pumped…
Anyway, um, had to do it.
Stew Smith: There you go!
Jim Edwards: We are talking about free book stuff…
But what prompted this discussion was a letter from a reader fan mail and email Wednesday!
So what did they ask specifically, Stew?
Stew Smith: Well, he was short and concise with his request.
He goes, free book offer scripts period.
Do you have anything built for that?
Or what would you recommend using?
So okay, I like that.
Easy day.
So
Jim Edwards: Yeah, I mean, I can we can have this over in about two and a half minutes, or we can do a podcast episode I, let’s talk for a second about why would you want to do a free book offer
And …
Stew Smith: let’s say this, why did you?
Jim Edwards: Why did I?
Stew Smith: Yeah, great book right there.
Jim Edwards: Oh, this whole thing
Stew Smith: Why did you do it?
Jim Edwards: Okay, well, I, I did my book for a few reasons…
And I mean now I’m being serious number one, I wanted to really crystallize my thinking on the topic.
I really wanted to focus in on it and really get my intellect and my thoughts and my beliefs and everything super sharp.
And so I decided to write a book for that reason.
Number two, I wanted to use it as a lead generator for my software project partnership with Russell Brunson Funnel Scripts.
Because I was thinking about this book literally as kind of the user manual Four Funnel Scripts, understanding the psychology behind why you fill in the forms the way you do and focusing on that.
Number three, I wanted to establish myself as an expert in the market in that area.
And because people have known me for a lot of things over the years for webinars, membership sites, screen capture video eBooks, book, all marketing, Stew Smith: Content marketing…
Jim Edwards: And so I wanted to show people, “Hey, the one underlying thread through all of that was I had to figure out how to sell all the things that I’ve sold over the years.”
So I wanted to prove that I knew what the heck I was talking about.
So that’s why those are the three big reasons why I chose to write that book.
And it took me over a year to write it.
I mean, I really wrote the book.
I wasn’t just churning something out…
So, why did I decide to do as a free plus shipping offer?
And the reason I did that was because ultimately, my objective was to be seen as an expert, and to sell Funnel Scripts.
So, the more people I got going through that book funnel, the more people would get the book, read the book and say, “Hey, Jim’s an expert.”
And the more I would be able to expose them to more people, I’d be able to expose to Funnel Scripts, which is part of the funnel.
So that’s why we chose to do it as a free plus shipping offer.
Which basically means the whole thing is breakeven.
Stew Smith: Right.
Jim Edwards: Because, you’re giving away a book, but it might cost you $30 in advertising expense to give away a book.
So that’s why you got to have, in the funnel, we have several things when you hit the funnel.
We have an order bump, for the audiobook, which is me reading the book to Stew…
And then Stew asking me questions and us covering a bunch of stuff that didn’t make it into the book.
And people love it!
I mean, and truth be told, I got the idea by listening to David Goggins’, “Can’t hurt me” book, and they, they had a whole bunch of extra stuff in conversations in there…
And so I asked you if you’d be interested in he said, Sure, then I don’t have to read the book, you’ll read the book to me, it’ll be great…
And so that was fun…
And then the next part of the funnel, when you learn how to write sales copy, a big part of writing sales copy is telling stories.
So, I have a whole course that we offer at a real bargain price of sale story secrets.
And then after that, we offer Funnel Scripts.
So, it’s a really it’s a nice smooth little funnel.
People dig it, it works great…
And so that’s why we structured it that way.
Not because it’s, get making me rich, but because the whole purpose of doing a book funnel is to get a whole bunch of customers that will spend money and they’re interested in a certain topic, and then you can build a relationship with them and sell them other stuff.
So that’s why you want to do when would want to do a funnel.
Stew Smith: Plus! You also pretty much tripled the Facebook group that we’re on right now.
Jim Edwards: That is true.
Stew Smith: When this all started, so throughout this process, not only did you, have people understand and get this free book, but you also tripled your Facebook following.
Jim Edwards: Yeah, yeah, that absolutely is true.
And so, there’s been a halo effect across a whole bunch of other stuff…
Because we have a whole email follow up sequence that people go through once they buy the book.
We give them extra stuff.
We give them extra content, we tell him Hey, join the group…
I mean, it’s just it’s the start of a relationship which is a great thing…
So, by the way, if you don’t have a copy of the book copywriting secrets, you can go to copywritingsecrets.com and get a free copy of the book, all you have to do is just pay a small shipping and handling…
And we will ship one out to you, and you can get your hands on this amazing book on I actually totaled it all up to and including, I didn’t realize we were selling so many copies on Amazon as well.
But we’re up over 27,000 copies of the book sold.
Stew Smith: Yeah!
Jim Edwards: Which is pretty cool. That is good.
Stew Smith: And that’s just this year, right?
Jim Edwards: That’s been since October 1.
Okay, gotcha…
So, almost a year…
Not quite…
What do you mean?
October, November, December, January, February, March, April, May…
So, eight months, eight and a half, eight, eight months and 10 days
counting on my fingers.
So okay, so what the hell was the… Oh, yeah, so what do you use?
Yeah, what’s what scripts would you use?
And so, what I would tell you is you’re going to use a combination of things.
Jim Edwards: But as far as creating a video or creating your actual landing page to offer it, there’s a combination of scripts that you could use…
One would be, we have inside of a Funnel Scripts, we have the who, what, why, how, script, which is designed for doing stuff with giving things away.
I mean, literally, this is to create sales copy for low cost or free plus shipping and handling, that don’t require a lot of explanation or a long sales letter.
So, this would be where I would start would be with the who what why how script.
Jim Edwards: So that would be the first one…
The second thing that I would think about using, of course, would be any of the headline wizards that would help you to create your hook that would get the most bang for the buck.
And the biggest thing you want to do is just hit them with the big benefit of your book.
What is the big payoff of your book?
Because they see what you’re trying to do is just give them a reason to buy the book.
So, the hook is the one that stops him, but also should have, I believe, should have a payoff in the actual hook headline.
Then below that, you’re going to have your video sales letter which you can use the VSL wizard you can use the who, what, why, how, script, then you want to have the offer.
It’s like hey, “Here’s everything you’re going to get with the book.”
Now, here’s the thing you got to Understand.
Even though you’re giving away a free book, you still got to sell the free, you still got to pump up the offer, and, and really have some cool stuff that they get when they buy the book.
So a lot of things that you can include you can include checklists, you can include like a 30-day implementation plan, you could include a video of you teaching one of the topics from inside the book…
And truth be told, I did not build up the value on my stack for the book as big as I should have.
If I had done that, I think we would have sold more books.
If I’m just saying, I mean people like well, from the author’s perspective, you’re like, well, “Damn, it’s a damn good book.”
I got…
Stew Smith: You’re giving it away.
Jim Edwards: I’m giving it away…
It’s going to do all this stuff, but from the other person’s
from the potential customers perspective, it’s like yeah,
I am going to get a free book…
But, they’re doing it, so they get my name and email…
They’re going to spam the shit out of (Ahem!) the heck out of me, Aw Man! I screwed up!
I haven’t cussed on a video in like, over a month and a half, but I just fell off the wagon!
Sorry, anyway.
I beep myself too late…
So, you need to add stuff so that they go okay.
This is really good.
This is Yes, I’ll take it.
Yeah.
Because what you’re really trying to do if you look at an offer page, so if we go to copywriting secrets, I’m going to take a server there right now and if we look at
This okay it’s…
It’s got a huge, usually simple plug and play copywriting copy formulas to get more leads sales subscribers and fans no copywriting experience required.
So it’s like man, I want more leads sales subscribers and fans.
And then when we come down here, we’re telling them what the book is not, so we’re eliminating objections right upfront…
This isn’t a book about traffic. This isn’t a book about product creation…
This isn’t a book about list building, though it will help you do all those things…
Then we tell them a little bit about the book, I tell them actually I tell a story of my journey with sales copy…
And instead of telling a story about, the sales letter that I wrote that made me $5 million dollars
I tell the story about a sales letter that translate made me about 1500 bucks a month and how 1500 dollars a month changed my life because most people can’t envision themselves making 5 million bucks, but they can see that if they made an extra 1500 bucks a month, that would totally transform their lives.
So then we get down here with the book, and I just start going to town with all these bullets of all the stuff that’s in there.
Because what we’re trying to do is hit one hot button where they go, holy crap, I’ve got to have this, I’ve got to have this book because this is going to make the difference for me.
Lots of social proof with the book, I mean, but look at all those bullets.
I mean, they just go on and on and on and on, but they’re all individual.
And then we got a ton of testimonials.
And then I resell them on why they should do it.
But the one thing that I don’t have, that I should have done was I should have added a bunch of bonuses here.
So, like I’ll show you an example of Russell’s there we go…
Trying to take the Traffic Secrets instead of traffic secret scripts.
But this dude they sold 50,000 books in four weeks or something.
And he’s giving it away…
But here’s the in they got all the bullets and stuff like all the testimonials, but this is the thing I don’t have on mine.
That’s the one thing that’s annoying that exit thing but he thought I was leaving without buying so, but you’re getting all this stuff…
You get the Traffic Secrets foundation course
You get the ultimate unfair advantage how to scale your traffic with simple videos,
How to create videos that people have no choice but to share, how to publish on every platform without consuming your life…
The 30-day Traffic Secrets challenge.
So now instead of saying hey, you’re going to get the book, you’re not just getting a book, you’re getting this gigantic collection to have amazing value, for free.
All you’re doing is just covering shipping and handling.
And that is the one critique I have of my offer…
Because I don’t have, I don’t have that thing to make them go, “Oh crap, man, we’ve still done really well.”
But that’s fine.
Stew Smith: You did do that when you were helping Russell sell his book.
Jim Edwards: Oh, yeah. All the bonuses that you added as an affiliate.
Jim Edwards: That’s right.
And we ended up being the number one affiliate, they made a little accounting error and gave somebody else the credit…
In the end, then they contacted me and said, Hey, we messed up, we did a little audit, and you were actually the number one affiliate.
So, but that’s the power of the stack.
That’s the power of, of just creating so much value.
Those people just go my god I’ve got literally what you want them to do in their mind is say I need to get this before they change their mind and raise the price or stop with the offer.
That’s literally the way I think about that.
I want them to go these guys must be crazy, and I need to get this before they change their mind.
And those of you that are just joining us
Please like, please share, please comment…
It helps us if you enjoy this, I love the people are like man, this is great, but they Never, they never do loves the atta-boys.
I’m okay without it…
But Stew really needs.
Stew Smith: I need them!
Jim Edwards: And he really likes the creepy smiley face hugging the heart…
That’s like his favorite emoji now.
So, make sure that you use, I’m kidding!
I hate that thing!
I hate that emoji!
It’s creepy as hell
Does look a little weird look like a dog whenever he’s with this pillow.
Jim Edwards: Taking a dump anyway,
Stew Smith: With his bear with his pillow…
So, so that might be too much, too much!
Is it squeaky?
But that’s the thing you want to do if you’re trying to sell a book, you’re not selling a book, you’re creating an offer.
And a lot of people fall into the thing of, well, it’s free.
Why wouldn’t even people offer you free crap all the time?
Why don’t you take it?
It’s because even though you don’t have to pay money, there’s still if it’s a teeter-totter, and we got it, make it go like this.
There’s still stuff holding you back, okay, it’s not paying for it.
But there’s a cost in time.
There’s a cost in an effort.
There’s a cost in perceived pain the butt factor that they might have to deal with you calling them on the phone and harassing them or spamming the crap out of them or sharing their information.
There’s a cost of what if I waste?
What if I get this and actually read it, and I waste my time because it didn’t have anything that actually helped me.
And so, you’ve got to think that through and still remove those objections.
It’s kind of like, the top 10 reasons why people buy to make money save money, save time, avoid effort, escape pain, be more popular, feel more love achieve greater cleanliness, and I don’t remember what the other two was.
Stew Smith: Good. That’s got some good rattling off there as well.
Jim Edwards: Thank you. Always it’s like there’s more.
Stew Smith: I have to refer to the…
Jim Edwards: it’s page 18 if I’m writing. Let me see if how good my recollection is, it’s page 16…
Make money save money, save time, avoid effort, escape mental or physical pain, get more comfort, achieve greater cleanliness or hygiene to obtain better health gain praise, feel more loved increased popularity or social status…
(Gasp!)
I did that all in one breath! But just like there’s more than one reason why people buy, there’s more than one reason objection why people won’t buy even though it’s free.
So, you got to remove those objections, and that’s an important thing to understand.
So cool.
So, we have some cool comments in here from this.
Robert said Jim has a bumper crop of bonuses which certainly helps.
Loud says so true the stack makes a difference, so many people committed Traffic Secrets but I bought Jim’s offer because of all the bonuses.
Several people I saw just had a blog post with a link to driving secrets to purchase no bonuses, so the stack man no brainer for me.
Awesome… Thank you.
Stew Smith: Wow, yeah…
Jim Edwards: Vicki says this is gold.
I’m writing a book about the power of dreams to achieving your life goals…
I’m starting a podcast plan to use episode material For the book, so this is helpful.
Stew Smith: Oh, nice…
Robert says, what percentage of people in which people value the bonuses more than the product?
You don’t know, but you’re making an offer!
Yeah, that’s, that’s you’re, you’re taking a holistic approach!
It’s you don’t know.
So, you got to make an offer that’s going to bring everybody along.
That’s why you don’t know what’s going to tip somebody scale…
So, you’re trying to plug the holes in the boat…
It could be that they don’t know how to do something could be they don’t have something it could be that they there’s a skill that they’re missing…
So the more things that you can plug holes, the better
Adding a stack to my affiliate page after this to my affiliate bridge page…
Thanks, excellent when he says from your bonuses and Traffic Secrets created one good campaign thanks.
And Leslie says true gyms bonuses were everything.
So, but it’s they were my bonuses because I was crazting the offer…
I mean, I was creating an offer, and in order to get my offer, you had to buy Russell’s thing, and he was making a crazy offer, so it was a two for one. I’m trying to think how newish affiliate marketers can possibly compete with people such as yourself that had more ammo to use as bonuses.
Not as thinking, My friend is thinking of thinking.
That’s I mean, how many people have been around forever and didn’t make a huge bonus stack for Russell’s offer or even for their own offer?
That has nothing to do with it.
You need to be a value thinker, my friend, and when you think in terms of value and opening up all the different things that you could do for you to create a value stack…
You could do a report.
You could interview somebody, you could go license something, there’s, there’s all kinds of stuff that you can do.
Instead of just what most people do is pile on a bunch of crap.
What you need to do is think, okay, here’s the thing I’m promoting, how can I make it better?
What what’s the biggest objections people would have?
What are the biggest objections people would have to this?
And how can I overcome them by helping them in the area of skill and resources and other stuff?
So, no stinking thinking aloud here!
And Paul said, yeah, it is the totality of the offer, not anyone piece by itself?
Absolutely!
Because you just, you’re literally overwhelming people with amazing value…
Where they just go, oh my gosh, this is amazing!
And I get and, oh and I get this!
Holy crap!
This is amazing!
I’ve got to get it before they change their minds!!!
So, I think we’ve beaten this one to death!
Stew Smith: No,
Jim Edwards: It says we are burning in the fires of hell!! What???
Stew Smith: Wow that’s a good one. Yeah, it was such a short like I said question or comment question that it enabled us to kind of go into many different areas as opposed to a more specifically asked question, so I like that.
People, in general, we go nuts.
Jim Edwards: So, I want to I’m not going to get into an argument or anything like that, but Robert says “it may be stinking, but I’ve been around the block, and the big guns are always the ones at the top of the charts. The major problems have great solutions out there”.
Okay ask yourself a question…
Why are the big guns always at the top of the charts…
You think it’s because they’ve got a list…
You think it’s because they’ve got, they’ve got a reputation.
But the reason they have a list and the reason they have the reputation is that they focus on creating massive value.
And then they focus on promotion.
Nobody’s born with the list.
Nobody is born with a following.
Nobody is born with a reputation.
It is built, and it’s built on the actions you take on a consistent daily basis.
So, you’ve seen people that appear out of nowhere, you see people like, I’ve been coming along here, and I’ve been around the block for 23 years now online…
And I’ve seen people that I’d never heard of before all of a sudden just catapult to the forefront.
And the way that they do it is by creating massive value for the target audience.
And that’s not something that takes money.
It really doesn’t take money. It takes thinking it through…
Thinking about how you can add value for the target audience and moving forward with consistent action.
Stew Smith: Exactly.
Jim Edwards: So, there you go…
So, I’m going to push back on that one, because I’ve seen people that nobody’s ever heard of…
And you see it all the time in the Click Funnels universe.
You see these people that one year, they’re sitting in the audience, and the next year, they’ve made over a million dollars in sales.
They’re walking across that stage getting their award, the gold one, not the silver one, you got to do 10 million for that one.
But, and they’re speaking on the ClickFunnels stage now, are they in the minority?
Yes.
But what they do is very simple.
And the reason they’re in the minority is because most of the people
don’t think they can do it…
Half the battle is just showing up the other 40% of the bet…
So, 50% is just showing up…
40% is being a bit person of integrity and doing stuff consistently in the spirit of helpfulness, and that last 10% as Al Williams said, in his book,
All you can do is all you can do, but all you can do is enough.
That last 10% is a dogfight, that’s where you get out there…
And that’s where you’re busting butt every day and making it happened.
And that’s where all the fun is.
Jim Edwards: That’s where, at least for me, it’s like yeah, I’m going to win…
I’m going to, and that’s where the competitive stuff kicks in…
Not playing dirty.
I always play aboveboard, always fair, always focused on the customer…
But I’m telling you that if you want to make it, you can make it and we see people pop up all the time.
Never heard of them a year ago, all of a sudden, they’re the person everybody’s talking about two years later.
They’re an old pro, and everybody, they’re just everybody knows who they are…
So, I would just encourage everybody to really, really, really, really, really think about that!
You want to change your life, change the lives of enough other people by creating massive value in the marketplace, and they will reward you for it.
And I truly believe that.
And some people say there’s too much noise online.
Yep, there’s a lot of noise online.
Want to know how you have you rise above the noise literally float above the noise, creating massive value and promoting the hell out of it.
Because if you’ve got something good, there’s so much crap out there, that if you’ve got something that’s really, really good, as soon as people see it, they’re going to see it recognize it, and they’re going to want to tell their friends about it.
Because most of the stuff they see absolutely sucks.
So that’s my response to that I will not accept any other point of view on that, because I know that I’m right.
Stew Smith: Damn mic drop. You’re exactly right, is very similar to my article that I wrote this week, about the under-confident over confident spectrum.
That there are many people that know have all the tools that they need, but it requires that consistent preparation, I call it preparation
But it requires that consistency and next thing a year later you got a big following that
Jim Edwards: Or a bigger following
Stew Smith: That will be able to be part of that affiliate marketing campaign that you have that you want to do…
Jim Edwards: Absolutely. So, it’s not going to happen overnight, and the last thing I would leave you with is a thought from Earl Nightingale’s lead the field, which it was the original premier self-help program, and he said that
and I’m going to paraphrase.
a little bit but basically said that most people are like the man who sits in front of the woodstove…
And say, give me heat.
And then I’ll give you some wood.
If you want the heat from the stove, you have to put the wood in first and light it and feed it and help it to grow before it can throw off the heat.
And so that’s what value in the marketplace is that’s loading the wood into the stove to earn the right to get some heat.
So, I’m Jim Edwards and for my very good friend, Mr. Stew Smith, my very good friend, and trainer, Stew Smith.
If you guys want to get in amazing physical shape, head on over to StewSmithfitness.com for articles, books, and personal coaching…
I recommend you do exactly what I did, which was to just sign up for Stews one-on-one coaching and then call him 15 minutes later and ask him where your first workout is because he loves it when you do that.
And for those of you who do not have a copy yet of copywriting Secrets, You should head on over to copywritingsecrets.com
If you already have a copy of copywriting secrets calm or a copy of copywriting secrets, head on over to copywriting secrets calm and buy another copy along with all the upsells for a friend, they’ll tell you, thanks.
And so will my wife,
Everybody, have a great day, and we’ll talk to you soon.
Bye Bye, everybody!
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