book by Mark Joyner: The Irresistible Offer: How to Sell Your Product or Service in 3 Seconds or Less (2005) ISBN: 0471738948

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Partial Excerpts (antilibrary)

Introduction

There are 86,400 seconds in a day.   You have exactly 3 of them to capture the mind of your prospect

Chapter 1 - The Magic Window

Chapter 2 - The Core Imperative of Business

all business can be boiled down to one single thing.   An offer
A quid pro quo.
This for that.

The Core Imperative of Business is simply this: Make an offer. (make a customer)

address the buyer’s core issues

you will not just have a sale, but a customer for life.

These core issues take the form of what I call the Big Four Questions.

Chapter 3 - the Big Four Questions

During the sales process, an Unspoken Inner Dialogue takes place.

Fears and insecurities are silently being voiced

There is a very specific form of this dialogue that occurs whenever anyone is making a buying decision of any form.

if you try to finesse your way around these fears with sizzle instead of steak, the consequences of making such a sale—consequences that will come back to haunt you later with a very unhappy buyer

So, understanding that this Unspoken Inner Dialogue is taking place, your offer must answer the Big Four Questions

Question 1: What are you trying to sell me?

Question 2: How much?

A master—one who knows how to make a quality offer—will wow the customer once, and wow him again and again and again until both buyer and seller have happily prospered

Once the offer has been made, there are still two questions that must always be addressed in the prospect’s mind

Question 3: Why should I believe you?

Question 4: What’s in it for me?

When people ask, “What’s in it for me?” they are trying to figure out how they benefit. People buy products, but what they want are “benefits.”

This question is so often pondered by marketers that we shorten it to “WIIFM.” However, to focus on this question alone is folly. If you focus solely on WIIFM, your marketing will seem pitchy and solicitous.

Chapter 4 - What Is the Irresistible Offer?

The Irresistible Offer is an identity-building offer central to a product, service, or company where the believable return on investment is communicated so clearly and efficiently that it’s immediately apparent you’d have to be a fool to pass it up. (Not-not)

The Antithesis of Old-School Marketing Through Coercion

The Irresistible Offer, properly executed, is the antithesis to marketing through coercion. In a way, this book is the yin to my last book’s (MindControlMarketing.com, Los Angeles: Steel Icarus, 2002) yang. That book was all about the many ways marketers cloud the minds of customers to get them to buy.   This book is about not having to do so

How the Irresistible Offer Revolutionized an Industry

If you own any other kind of food establishment—Chinese, burgers, barbecue, seafood, you name it—then you’re listed under restaurants. You’re in the restaurant business. If you own a pizza parlor, you’re not in the restaurant business—you’re in the pizza business

“Domino’s”

What allowed him to build a $4 billion business from a single store?   The 30-minutes-or-free guarantee was as responsible for our growth as anything. —Tom Monaghan

Now, here’s what’s amazing about the power of the way Domino’s used The Irresistible Offer: Domino’s Pizza sucked!

Deconstructing Domino’s

Let’s analyze what made this offer work as well as it did.

But the time wasn’t the only selling point. It was 30 minutes or it was free. This tagline was the “Touchstone” that made the offer irresistible

The Irresistible Offer Must Be Your Starting Point

The Irresistible Offer is so powerful that it must be the very core of your business. Before you engage in any other marketing activities, The Irresistible Offer must be your starting point.

Chapter 5 - What Is Not the Irresistible Offer?

When it comes to sales hyperbole, words can have infinite meanings.

The Irresistible Offer Is Not a “special Offer”

A Special Offer is a one-time deal. The Irresistible Offer is not. The Irresistible Offer is so central to the very heart of your business that it becomes your identity

The Irresistible Offer Is Not a Benefit

Benefits can be remarkably powerful tools—unique benefits ever more so. As an offer, though, they only address one of the Big Four Questions—“what’s in it for me?”

The Irresistible Offer Is Not a Usp

It’s not enough just to be unique.

Chapter 6 - Elements of the Irresistible Offer

The Irresistible Offer is composed of three elements:

1. A High ROI Offer
2. A Touchstone
3. Believability

Think HTB—How to Be Rich?

The High Roi Offer

THE HIGH ROI OFFER

Those businesses that have strayed from this Core Imperative often do so because their offers don’t render a genuinely high ROI to the consumer. Businesses rationalize that ROI is all perception, so it becomes easy to justify the use of sales trickery to make the sale.

Warning: Some businesses think they can improve their ROI by simply lowering their price.

Domino’s 30-minutes-or-it’s-free offer was terrifically effective in capturing my attention, as well as that of a few million other customers. But if they didn’t get their act together and make a better-tasting pizza, they wouldn’t have lasted as long as they have.

You achieve the polar opposite result when you try to trick your customer.

Negative information has a way of spreading a lot faster than positive information, so it’s doubly important that you not only satisfy but utterly delight your customers

The Touchstone

Never before in the history of modern man have we had so many marketing messages competing for our attention

What if you could cut through all of the static? What if you could capture your customer’s attention, make yourself truly memorable, and put your customers in a frame of mind that makes them want to buy your product or service on the spot?   And what if all of this happened in less than three seconds?

The Touchstone of your Irresistible Offer can do just that

What’s a touchstone? In short, it’s a statement that addresses as many of the following points as possible:

• Here’s what we are selling.
• Here’s how much it will cost.
• Here’s what’s in for you.
• Here’s why you should trust us.

And, no matter what, your Touchstone must say: Here’s a great offer. Here’s a deal for you so great that you’d be a fool to pass it up.

simply communicating these different points is not, in itself, enough.

You must communicate these ideas in a particular way

The Stylistic Elements of a Great Touchstone

Clarity

Simplicity

Brevity

Immediacy

The offer presented in your Touchstone is usually separate from your Core High ROI Offer. More often than not, they are two different entities.

Three of the Greatest Touchstones in History

Let’s use Domino’s, Columbia House (you know, the place that puts the compact disc ads in TV Guide and other magazines), and Federal Express as examples.

Domino’s Pizza

So, is there a high ROI offer? No. Because, in the beginning, Domino’s wasn’t offering a great pizza for a fair price. It was fast, but it wasn’t a great return on investment for the customer seeking a good-tasting pizza

The Touchstone was the spark, but it took a High ROI Offer (a better pizza for a good price) to keep the flames blazing over the long run

Columbia House Records

The Touchstone—“10 CDs for 1 Cent”—is a good one

it communicates three of the Big Four points beautifully

it gets you halfway there toward the final hurdle... and stops. That’s because there’s a catch to this Touchstone

So, what’s the high ROI offer? As you might imagine, it’s not really 10 CDs for a single penny. You must agree to purchase a subsequent number of CDs at a higher price.

There’s another example I want to highlight in which—unlike Domino’s and Columbia House, which offers cheap pizza and cheap CDs, respectively—a company uses a Touchstone that doesn’t talk about price at all.

Federal Express

The Touchstone—“When it absolutely, positively has to be there overnight”—doesn’t really look like it fits the criteria of The Irresistible Offer Touchstone, does it? It wouldn’t seem on the surface to have any particular cachet at all. But it’s actually one of the best touchstones ever written.

Here’s what’s in it for you—your delivery is made overnight, and your ass is out of a sling when your project gets there on time

Here’s why you should trust us—for God’s sake, how can you have a more trustworthy name than “Federal Express.”

Nonverbal Communication

you can use more than mere words to address the Big Four Questions.

the name of the company itself

an image

It can take the form of the position of your brand in the market place (perhaps one of the subtlest yet most powerful forms of communication in existence—making books by Ries and Trout required reading, especially Positioning).

This Touchstone gives you 75 percent of the High ROI Offer—everything but the price

Believability

BELIEVABILITY

Magic Formulas for Believability

Proof

Credibility

Endorsements

High Profile Customers

Qualifications

Awards and Recognition

Logic

Putting It All Together

The Irresistible Offer Creation Process: What You Do, in Chronological Order

First Step: Develop a High ROI Offer

Second Step: Create a Compelling Touchstone

Third Step: Believability

The Irresistible Offer Sales Process: What Your Customer Sees, in Chronological Order

First Look: Your Touchstone

Second Look: Believability

Third Look: High ROI Offer

Conclusion

the purpose of an effective Touchstone. Immediately, you present a short, interesting, credible offer to your prospect that transcends all of the other noise in the environment

The customer’s Unspoken Inner Dialogue kicks in. It says, “Hey, that’s not the normal manipulative advertising claptrap. These guys might actually understand what I want.”

Chapter 7 - the Great Formula

Bringing The Irresistible Offer to a Thirsty Crowd and Selling Them a Second Glass

following these three steps:

• *1. Create The Irresistible Offer *
• *2. Present It to a Thirsty Crowd *
• *3. Sell Them a Second Glass

Step 1: Create the Irresistible Offer

Make sure you master the creation of The Irresistible Offer before doing anything else. If you try to move onto Steps 2 and 3 before mastering this basic, fundamental first step, your ultimate success will only be a small fraction of what it could be.

Step 2: Present It to a Thirsty Crowd

Any point of contact with your potential customer will work, and many of them will cost you nothing

Points of Contact

One of the most useful marketing constructs I have ever been introduced to is that of customer Points of Contact. If you realize that marketing not only can, but does occur (whether you like it or not) at every point of contact with your customer or potential customer, your mind opens up to some interesting possibilities

For example, when you make a purchase online, generally once the transaction is complete you are presented with a rather clinical-looking receipt. I used to do that, too, until I applied this construct.

We added something I called a One-Click-Upsell at the back end of each sale of any of our business e-books. We told our customers that all they had to do was click “yes!” and they would get a free month of one of our services for free. No obligation. Billing would start after 30 days. A startling 45 percent of our customers took us up on this offer.

include a direct response mechanism of some sort—preferably a memorable Web address

Be bold. Be aggressive.   Experiment like crazy.

Step 3: Sell Them a Second Glass

This is where you’ll make most of your profit.

The cost of selling to an existing customer is far less than the cost of acquiring a new one

Paralysis by Analysis

Sometimes people get so wrapped up in testing and tracking that they stop doing the one thing on which they should always spend more of their time: marketing!

Testing is especially important if you’re about to risk a large sum of money on a campaign. It can help you discover whether or not your investment will render a positive or negative ROI. And even marketing that has little or no financial risk still risks your most valuable asset: your time

However, I’ve heard some test-happy marketing experts tell you that you should test everything. Obviously, this isn’t even close to being possible. Every single word of your ad copy can in fact make a difference, but are you going to test every one of them? Of course, that’s simply not practical

old-school direct marketing copywriting geniuses like Joe Sugarman, Gary Bencivenga, Gary Halbert, and Ted Nicholas will tell you that when preparing a direct mail campaign you should test your headline and your order form before anything else

being up front about your use of a Loss Leader can make your job of achieving Believability that much easier

You believe this offer because the company tells you straight up, “I can give this away for free because I know you will be so happy with the result that you’ll come back to us for all of your computer learning needs.”

WARNING: Use the Loss Leader strategy only if you’re absolutely confident of your ability to bring your customer

I would even make sure that you have your second offer ready to go immediately. Sometimes, the easiest time to offer a second helping is right after you have consummated the first sale

Second Glass Delivery Techniques

The Upsell

Just don’t abuse this approach.

The Cross-Sell

The Follow-Up

Just make sure you do your cross-sells and upsells after the first sale is consummated. If you overload your customer with options before the deal is sealed, you may just confuse them right out the door

Continuity

Chapter 8 - Offer Intensifiers

How to Turn Your Great Product into a Gotta-Have-It-Now Commodity

Brand Value and Positioning

Much can be said about this, and I heartily recommend you read many of the great books on this topic by Al Ries and Jack Trout

Here’s the most important point in a nutshell: If your product is perceived as the best in your industry, you have multiplied the effectiveness of your marketing efforts exponentially. That’s the power of your brand.

There are many factors by which we evaluate brands (Wal-Mart offers the best deals, McDonald’s is the fastest, and so on), but the most powerful of all is the brand’s position

who is at the top of your mind when you are looking for a product.

The prime directive in positioning is to be the first one on the market

Chapter 9 - the Offer Continuum

How do you know if your Irresistible Offer is a good one? Can you predict how effective it will be?

Chapter 10 - Great Offers Through History

Three of the greatest examples of The Irresistible Offer have already been discussed in detail: Domino’s Pizza, Columbia House Records, and Federal Express.

Chapter 11 - Word of Mouth From Flaming Lips

The Irresistible Offer and Word of Mouth

Word of Mouth Marketing may be the most powerful marketing weapon in your arsenal.

Appendix A - Selling Yourself in Three Seconds or Less

Up to this point, the entire breadth of this book has been focused on The Irresistible Offer as it applies to the business of selling products and services.

Appendix B - a Note to Salesmen

If you work as a salesman in any organization, you may feel helpless if you are selling a product that is not backed by The Irresistible Offer.

Glossary

Believability One of the three elements of The Irresistible Offer. Without Believability, you could offer the world, and no one would take it from you