Transcript
Intro
Hi, everyone. I'm Ben Wright, successful entrepreneur, corporate leader and expert sales coach to some of the most talented people our amazing planet has to offer. You're listening to the Stronger Sales Teams podcast, where we bring together and simplify the complex world of B2B sales management to help the millions of sales managers worldwide build, motivate, and keep together highly effective sales teams…teams who grow revenue and make their businesses actual profits.
Along the journey, we also provide great insights and actionable steps to managing your personal health. A happy and productive you is not only better for your teams, but everyone around you. So if you're an ambitious Sales Leader who wants to build the highest performing and engaged teams, Stronger Sales Teams is right where you need to be.
Ben Wright:
Welcome back to Stronger Sales Teams, the place where we provide real-world and practical advice to help you develop superpowered B2B sales teams. So today we have Steve Plummer with us. Steve is actually a man that I've personally known for a little while now, and I love his approach to copywriting, marketing and sales in general. He also happens to be a terrific bloke. Right. Which is why we've got him onto the podcast today. So in Steve's words, in fact, in many people's words, Steve is a master in the art of marketing strategy in particular and copywriting. So he's consulted to, he's written promotions for more than 60 different niches, which is pretty significant, right, in our industry. That's anything from startups through to major national speaking tours. And even in the corporate world, right, where he had an ASX listed, I think they were a top 200 company where he was working for them for a significant period of time. So Steve's really worked across all spectrums of industry. He's devised strategy, he's written copy that's produced, I think, in one client's words, it was millions and millions of dollars in sales last time we checked.
But before this, Steve was actually our high school head of faculty and the deputy principal, which makes a lot of sense when he tells me off. But he's certainly regarded as a very intuitive teacher who really loves mentoring others. Right? Which is part of the reason we've got him on today. He's a father of four, and as I said to someone the other week, made the same mistake four times. We've all done that. But he's got his four kids. He lives on the Sunshine Coast, which is a fantastic lifestyle. And when he's not working, he's a man that you will either find on the beach or writing poetry. Or sometimes actually on the beach writing poetry. Steve, thank you very much for jumping on board and giving some of your time. Great to have you here.
Steve Plummer:
Thank you, Ben, and appreciate the invitation to come on and to share some stuff about what I know with your people. So, yeah, thank you very much.
Ben Wright:
My pleasure. Well, please tell everyone about Symmetry Marketing, which is your business. What do you do, why you're successful? Why do you love it?
Steve Plummer:
I've always had a love of words and writing, and I've also love helping people. So it kind of combines those two loves, if you like. So in that instance, it's a perfect, I guess, role vocation for me. And the other thing, I don't think anyone's ever asked me, why am I successful? It's a really interesting question, Ben. I'll say I've put in the 10,000 hours. Everyone's familiar with Malcolm Gladwell's thesis and so forth, and that's valid. So I've done that. But that's also a fairly surface level thing.
I guess, two things. Number one, I'm able to see gaps, either gaps in people's sales argument, either gaps in their marketing plan or strategy. That's probably the main one. I generally see that quite quickly, and I'm able to intuit what a reasonable response is or how to fill that gap. And I think the other thing, too is I'm able to make the complex simple. And those two things, I think part of the reason that I am a success.
Ben Wright:
You’ve got this great one-liner that I actually think will sum that up. I don't want to ruin it, because if I say it, I'll get it wrong. Can you share it? I think it really shows why you're good at what you do.
Steve Plummer:
Yeah, words are spells. Words are spells. And I think, oh, now this guy's really woo woo. Yeah, okay, fair enough. But it actually has a very pragmatic application in the real world. And what I mean by words are spells, is the words that we say to ourselves in our head. They create our reality. Right? If you are saying, oh, I'm down, I feel sick, I'm unwell, what are you going to get? Your energy is going to be low, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. Whereas the opposite is also true. So I challenge everyone. If words are spells in your life, what are you spelling into your life? Starts with yourself, with your partner, with your kids, with your staff, with your clients, with your prospects. What words are you using to create the spells, if you like, to create success. So words are spells and that might be the only woo woo place we go to today, Ben. But it's a good start, right?
Ben Wright:
So when I first heard that, the first thing I thought once I got to an application at a professional level for salespeople was, we've all had them as Sales Leaders. We've had those people in our team that Just share too many words. They talk too much, they oversell, they open up an avenue of conversation that they probably shouldn't. In particular, I've seen salespeople quite regularly, actually try and talk about the problems their company has had and how they solved them proactively to try and get it out of the way. As if it'll help them move through that sales process, right? Which I think is a dangerous, dangerous track. But the word as spells piece, it comes down to not just how you use your words, but it also comes down to how many words you use, whether it's too little or too many. And I've seen you present, you're very good on stage at using your words to storytell in particular. But that's not something, that's not a skill that everyone has.
So today, it's something I want to talk about, is we'll call it loosely copywriting. But I think more specifically, let's call it using your words as spells, right. Because you do get what you focus on. So I'd love to know a little bit more today, or we're going to focus on how that can be really impactful for Sales Leaders.
So let's start on the negative side, right? Only for a minute. Then we'll go back to being positive. So what are some of the mistakes that you see businesses, and in particular Sales Leaders, making when they're writing their copy?
Steve Plummer:
Okay, so the key thing, I think, is that copywriting is about structure. It's not about being a good writer. Because here's the thing. You mentioned copywriting versus sales. All copywriting is salesmanship in print, right? That's an age-old saying. So really, they are exactly the same thing. They're just using a different media. One's on paper or on a screen, and the other one's face to face. Exactly the same thing. Right? And so the key thing for me and a lot of good salespeople can be good and are good copywriters, right. It's almost like verbally just saying what you would say to a client and putting it down and editing it, right. You could get something transcribed, and that could be a damn good blog post or a damn good sales script or whatever it might be. But it's important that the structure is right. And there are many formulae in copywriting to structure your argument. And I see it very much as a mental block for many people, too, Ben. They go, oh, I wasn't very good at English at school. I'm not a good writer, therefore. And that's the wrong words to spell, because here's the thing, right? 80% of what you'd learned in school in terms of writing, you can throw that out when it comes to the sales language, because we're taught in school to write to get a good grade. Now, the only good grade we get in business is whether we make the sale or not. Right? And so it's about learning those, I guess, the fundamentals, but also the structure of using words. And a good example you gave is that verbal diarrhea? And often the verbal diarrhea when you say too much, it's more about a self worth thing, if anything. You might get nervous. And I keep talking, because if I keep talking, but if I don't do that, then I've got some problems. And silence is a really powerful tool as well.
Ben Wright:
Yeah. Could you call silence using your words? You almost could. Right. It's actually, it's not using them, certainly. And I think the piece you touched on there that really jumped on me is that copywriting, a lot of salespeople ago, I don't need to know how to copyright when it's actually critical, because it's the written equivalent, like you said, of your communication that you have face to face or on video or whoever else you're communicating with your customers. Right. So mistakes you're seeing, what are your top couple of mistakes you think you're seeing from sales leaders and salespeople around their copy?
Steve Plummer:
Yeah. Okay. I think the big one, it's probably not anyone's fault specifically, because you don't know unless you know or have been shown. But there was a study done, I think, in the early nineties from memory, of the top 100 most successful newspaper ads of all time. And what the people who did the study was, they pulled out the words from each of those successful ads and they compiled a list. And it's always fascinating to me that when I put this in front of Marketers and Businesses, they don't know it, because if you can add one of those words, it can often boost the power of a headline. So I'll tell you, I've got this next to my computer just because it's a trigger for me. Right. So the top words to use in a headline are, you and your, how, new, who, money, now, people, want, why. Now? If you've got a headline or a subject line, if you weave in the word you or your it changes it instantly or it makes it more personal. And yet people don't know that. And it's not the be all and end all. It's not a magic bullet. Nothing ever is in marketing and sales, as everyone would know. Sorry to burst the bubble, but there are no magic bullets, right? If there was, I would have found it by now. But even adding one or two of those trigger words can make a massive difference to how a headline lands on something, how a sales pitch lands on someone.
I'll read them out again. You, your, they're the two most powerful, they appeared the most number of times within those powerful headlines. How, new, who, money. If we're talking B2B instead of money, we'd say profit. That's a trigger word for business owners. Now, people, want and why. Now I try and weave a couple of those into most headlines that I write and then certainly into subject lines as well, if I can.
Ben Wright:
Well, I've just written them down. So for those who are listening, if you didn't get the chance to write those down, wonderful thing about podcasts, we can pause and rewind, go back and listen to those because that absolutely is going to extend into sales email headlines, it's going to extend into the first lines of emails. It's going to end into your social media posting we're doing. Text messages. A lot of salespeople use text messages. Right. So there's that there. And I'm going to actually extend that and say it will probably even work in your face to face engagements. Right. Those buzzwords, whether you hear them or read them, they still have the same impact. Great. Terrific. Right? So call that the anti mistake. It's use those words rather than don't use those words. I like it. So I'm going to start using them, Steve and, I'm going to tag you first post I do.
Steve Plummer:
Let me put a little nuance on that, see where you can use those words. Right. That's my default position. Of all the tens of thousands of words I've written, my default position is to start with that list and where can I use them in? So it's a nuanced thing, but I'd really encourage you. It's really good advice, Ben, I think.
Ben Wright:
Yeah, fantastic. Well, that is what this podcast is about. Chunky, real world, practical advice that's going to work for people. Okay. So let's say you're engaged with a company, a marketing team, or a sales team. Doesn't matter. What's the process that you go through when you're writing any type of content for a client?
Steve Plummer:
Yeah, Ben, look, the place I start is always with the customer. If you don't get to know them, their wants, their needs, their frustrations, their desires, their unspoken desires. If you don't start with that, I find the focus too much, just almost subconsciously is on the business and the product, and everyone sells product price. Right. That's kind of really surface level stuff. So my focus is always starting with the customer. And then I would look at the, I guess, the maturity of the market. So if I'm writing a headline for iPhones, I've just got to say iPhones 10% off. Why? Because iPhones are known, right. That there's no education needed. But not every business. In fact, most businesses are not Apple and iPhones. So depending on the maturity of the market, will also determine what is said in your copy, in your headline, and so forth. So, yeah, always start with the customer or the market and the maturity level or the stage of development of that market. They're probably the two key things.
Now, I'll flip that around. I'll go then to the end. So I do my research. I understand who I'm writing to. The first thing I will write is, then the offer. And that's kind of a little bit counterintuitive. And the reason I do that, if I start at the headline, that the offer can often determine what goes in the headline. So I want to be clear in my sales argument where I'm going. So once I've done all my research and stuff, it is very much the offer where I start, and then I go back and do whatever I feel like at the time. And that's the key thing, too, right? Copy is not written like a story. Once upon a time, the end. Copy is assembled. It doesn't have to be linear. And in fact, it probably shouldn't be linear because you should be chunking things down. And that's like, I start with the offer, then I go to the headline, then I might do the opening if I'm doing a sales package.
Ben Wright:
Yeah. We are not that dissimilar. I work off hook impact. So what's the hook? What's the impact that hook is going to have? What's your solution? And then what's your call to action? Right. Four things. Okay. So what I'm hearing from you is you start with the customer, and sometimes people roll their eyes. We put the customer first, I hear often tell me, “Mr. Smith, why is your business so successful?” “Well, then we're passionate and we put the customer first”. And I sit there and go, awesome. But tell me now why you're successful. Because every business says that. But in practice, putting the customer first is really difficult. But what you're saying is actually thinking about the customer from your first engagement. That's super impactful. And I agree. And it's also very hard to do. It's a trained habit. Right? Training is knowledge sharing, but coaching is knowledge enhancement. And you really need to coach that into people. And the second piece you're talking about is you start with the offer. So if you're a Sales Leader, what's a couple of tips you could give to them right now? A couple of practical, chunky tips you could give them that will help them write great copy. And by copy, we're talking about sales communication, right? What's a couple of tips you have, Steve?
Steve Plummer:
Yeah. So number one, the principle that they buy the offer, and the flip side of that is weak offer, weak response. And that is key, because if your offer is ‘meh’, nothing else matters, right. All the fancy words in the world will not interest people. So your offer has to be good. And one of the other things I've come to realize, and only because a really good telemarketer, I mean, I got hooked in by a telemarketer one day who was just exceptional at their job, right? And it was funny, I'm sitting there going, “I write this stuff all the time, yet I couldn't say no, right?” And I sort of reverse engineered that after the call and the reason I bought. And I try and do this in every time I make an offer personally, but also when I'm working with businesses and clients and things is two things people always want. One, they want to feel special, and two, they want a bargain. And again, that's not new. And it was not new what the telemarketer did, but it was enough to get me over the line. And so how can you make someone feel special but also give them a bargain? And the reason the bargain is important. And let me reveal a little bit about my humanness, right. It was my job to get the carpets cleaned in the house… and stop. You don't have to remind me every six months, dear, I'll get it done, that kind of thing. I know many people can relate to that, right? Anyway, the telemarketer was, we've got trucks in the area, we can come and do that. Trucks in the area. Of course you have. Yeah, right. I mean, I was seeing through all of the sales spiel, but she said, look, today for you only. Look, I'm not supposed to do this. Here we go. But I can give you, what was it, seven rooms for the price of five or something like that. That will save you x number of dollars. And then she says, “look, we also do pest control”. “Have you had your pest control done at any time soon?” We're going. “Damn it. That's another thing on my list that I hadn't got done. Don't remind me every six months about it”. Right, okay. She said, “look, for you today, of course we're going to be there. Of course we've got trucks. Here we go. Instead of x, it's going to be Y.” That's a saving. So she said,” if you take up the two things, you're going to save 150.” Whatever the number was, the maths was done for me. I felt special. I had a problem taken off my hands and I got a bargain. And those were the things. I mean, I'm a hardcore salesperson, in print mostly, but also from stage, so I knew exactly what was happening. But I've been really mindful of when I'm selling to people, do they feel special and do they feel like they've got a bargain? Because if you tick both of those boxes, it increases your chances of a yes. And obviously with a strong offer, that's one way of doing it. But how can they feel special? It's a really interesting mindset and words are spells to take into any sales engagement. And I contend, Ben, that if you do that, your conversions inevitably will increase.
Ben Wright:
We have all heard what you've said before, but I think you've put it in a way that I've certainly written down. Weak offer, weak response. How do you take a weak offer from a weak offer to a strong offer? Make someone feel special and bargain. And bargain can be perception of bargain, right? Because bargain is not all about money. Bargain is about value. Right. You're solving the problem quickly for them, that's a bargain. They've saved time. You're going to give them better results than someone else would, that's a bargain because they're going to have more money to spend on something else or they're going to have to invest in less projects. Right? Yes. You save them money. Fantastic. You can do something at a better price. Right? That old saying, you can't get good cheap, fast, you can't get all three, but you can get two of the three, right? Cool.
Okay, so that's fantastic advice so far. Those listening, three or four really chunky things to take out a couple more things before we wind up. Number one, AI, I heard multiple times, and this is what I've heard. I feel so bad for copywriters because AI is going to kill their jobs. What do you say to that?
Steve Plummer:
Well, it's a really interesting question. Right. I think that's partially the very same thing that happened when canva came out. People said, oh, graphic designers are dead. There goes graphic designers. They're still around. They're still really busy. Right. Here's the thing, though. I think if you're mediocre at it and your main thing is to write content for people such as blogs, that's a precarious position to be in from your business. The thing that I find with AI and gee, Ben, it's moving so fast though, right? We might have a similar conversation in six months, and my answer might be very different just because of the speed of change. Right. But my perception, my take, my experience with AI at the moment, is that it can do a lot of maybe 80% of the word stuff, but the stuff that really matters is the 20% that it can't do.
Now, AI can't empathize, it can't create connection, it can't make decisions, it can't humanize things. That takes the person. So I use AI when I'm writing for a client to do research. I love the fact that it can give me some word patterns that I might not have thought of. With the correct prompts, I'll enter a whole lot of client testimonials and ask it to look for the word patterns. I take what it spits out to me, and that's part of my headline or my opening, whatever it might be. So it's a really useful tool for a writer. However, if you are relying solely on AI, a lot of the AI stuff is mediocre as well. It gives me speed, it gives me volume. But what it doesn't give me is the really high level stuff. Right. And it's the high level stuff is where the money is made.
Ben Wright:
Yeah. I heard someone very well known across the sales marketing industry talk about AI being the average of all the data available on the Internet. And if you rely too heavily on it, then you are putting out average content. Yeah. And if 20% is the difference between good and great, then I'm going to be saying, it probably actually becomes more important to have a good copywriter because everyone is now writing copy at a good level. So, base has risen. So the base of email communication, any form of written communication for sales teams has risen. So we need to rise again. Right. So it's almost, if you're not using AI, then you're behind. Okay, great. Thank you. Terrific stuff, Steve. So lastly, I was going to say little birdies told me, but that's not true. I've seen you promote the hell out of this. About…I've probably sent it myself 20 times. You have a book? Can you tell us about your book before we finish up today?
Steve Plummer:
I do, Ben, thank you for the not so subtle segue and 20 times… I don't know. So I've written a book called “The Influential Marketer”. Right. And as you can see. Or maybe I'll just put it closer. It's 366 cracking copywriting marketing mindset ideas to skyrocket your results one day at a time. One of the things, and the reason I've done it this way, one of the things I find about marketing business books is they can be quite heavy, right? You start at the start and you get to the end and I've forgotten what the start was and the bits in the middle, I can't remember. I'm just happy I've gotten to the end. So what I've done is I've written a book that is bite sized chunks so you can read a page in two or 3 minutes and get an idea. And that's what busy people, busy salespeople, busy business people really appreciate. Some people have read it cover to cover. Other people just use it as inspiration. Just like an oracle, open it up and okay, that gives me an idea. It clears me. You can see it's quite a thick, heavy book I'm expecting, and this is what most people tell me. They do use it like it sits on their desk. It's earmarked like mine, with highlighters and things like that. Basically, the wisdom that I've accumulated over the past 15 years in copywriting and marketing is distilled there for people to take away. One thing is I talk in there about the PNR, the point of no return. What have you got to do in your sales process to get a customer to the PNR as a pilot term? So a plane's taking off, it gets to a point in the runway, there's not enough runway left to slow down, so they've got to go through with the takeoff. Right. The point of no return, what can you do? How can you engineer your sales process and know your customer enough to know what that point of no return is? For example, if you're in a menswear store, because guys don't shop, right, you get a guy to try on a jacket, he's 80% going to buy something. So how can you engineer the guy to take, to put on the jacket within your sales process? It's a really interesting concept, right? And so there are copywriting tips in there. There are sales tips in there. And yeah, it's an easy read. Even though it's a big book, it's an easy read. And one thing people ask me is, is it on audible or kindle? My answer to that is no. And the reason for that is for me…and call me old fashioned if you like, but a book is a physical, tactile experience. It's to be experienced and enjoyed and opened and referred to again and again and again. I don't know about you, but I don't know how many books you've got on your system, Ben, that you'd look at the first page and then they just sit there in your files online. So I wanted to get away from that. The other part about that too, is with all of the technology, one of my concerns with all technology is we are losing our humanity and our connection. So if my book can encourage you to step away from your computer and have that physical experience and connect more to yourself and your market as a human being, then I'm happy with that process. People say, oh, look, I'm not going to buy one because it's not like that. That's okay. And I'm okay with that. Don't buy one. You're not meant to have one. And that's cool because not everything's right for everyone. And if you want a copy, theinfluentialmarketer.org is where to get one. I'm happy to sign it for you and send it to you.
Ben Wright:
Fantastic. Well, that was one of the places we can find Steve Plummer. Where else can we learn more about Steve Plummer or Symmetry Marketing?
Steve Plummer:
Okay, go to symmetrymarketing.com au. That's my website and influentialmarketer.org. And if you have a burning sales question, by all means, sales or copywriting question, email me at [email protected]. Say, I saw you on Ben's podcast. Happy to answer a question for you and make you feel special. There you go.
Ben Wright:
Excellent. Thank you, Steve. Some really good advice today. If you've missed anything through this show, please jump into the show notes. One of the few times I'll talk about the transcript today I think will be really important because of the advice you've given. So thank you again, Steve. I look forward to Monday. For everyone else, keep living in a world of possibility and you'll be amazed by what you can achieve.
A Weak Offer Will Get a Weak Response – Use Your Words Well. With Steve Plummer
