How to write compelling agitation copy

Presented live on Tuesday, May 1, 2018

The most powerful part of the Problem > Agitation > Solution copywriting framework is the agitation.
But how do you agitate well?
What levers can you pull to write extraordinarily compelling agitation copy? Check out this tutorial to see.

Please note, the Airstory PAS template is no longer available.

TRANSCRIPT

Joanna Wiebe: Good morning, good afternoon, good evening everybody. Joanna here.[inaudible 00:00:05] joined by Mrs. Sarah Dlin. Yes, it is spelled D-l-i-n. Yes, everybody spells it wrong. I just looked at her name and thought I would comment on it. Okay, I am still in my temporary digs. The sun is coming out though. It was super dark, so we delayed starting this because you could really only see my face and there was black everywhere around. So it’s time to get a light, I think, for my temporary office space. I will. It’s just so temporary and I’m planning the next [inaudible 00:00:37] and that’s going to be awesome.
Okay. Thank you for joining us for tutorial Tuesdays. We are recording this. People are filing in so some quick housekeeping while that happens. We have chat to chat us things; the weather. Because the weather is really, really nice here right now. I’m finally happy all the snow is melting, which is problematic for flooding. But other than that, it is very nice and things are turning green. It’s amazing. The weather, I think, is nice in Calgary, but Sarah is on mute, so there’s no way for me to really know

Sarah Dlin: It’s gorge. It’s gorge.

Joanna Wiebe: All right. Cool. Thanks. Thanks for coming off mute for that. That’s awesome. Okay. People are saying all sorts of wonderful things, weather in nice in lots of places. That’s amazing. So chat is ready. Chat us all that kind of stuff. Cool. Q and A is where you put the questions that you have. Questions that you would like us to answer before we close this tutorial down for the week. So, cool. It’s great in Berlin too. Awesome. Very nice. Okay. Yes, today we are doing a quick tutorial on agitation copy. Okay. Problem: agitation. Solution: my very favorite; framework without question. I talk about it all the time. If I haven’t talked about it with you before, problem agitation, solution is a framework to use whenever you are writing basically anything.

So you want to write a Facebook ad? Open with a problem, agitate the problem, solve it. The solution part of it needs unpacking all on it’s own, of course. But, that part is usually easier than finding your way into the page, which is where P.A.S. comes in handy. So, writing a landing page, a sales page, a Facebook ad. If you can make it work, an AdWords ad in that little bit of tiny space you have. Emails without question, emails are great with P.A.S., even putting sequences together using what we call PASOP, which is problem, agitation, solution, outcome, problem. Which we’re not going to get into today. But what’s important there is that we keep bringing up agitation.

Agitation, I always say, is my favorite part of writing problem, agitation, solution. But I was talking with Sarah the other day and Sarah was like, “How do I agitate?” We went through some of her copy and I was like, “Girl, that’s all wrong.” No, I’m kidding on most of that. It wasn’t like that at all. No, don’t cry. No, but it’s interesting. So we were talking through some questions that I like to use. Some of these questions come from Jack Walker’s product launch formula and others are ones that have just come up organically over time. I want to share those with you today.

It’s kind of an interview to put yourself through when you’re writing problem, agitation, solution copy at all. We have a template for this. It’s a template because they’re repeatable interview questions, not because you’re going to finish off with an email that’s written or a landing page that’s written or anything like that. It’s just, keep going through these questions whenever it’s time for you to write problem, agitation, solution. Okay. Sarah is going to share that out if she haJs not already. I am going to share my screen. It’s so good to be running tutorial Tuesdays. We’ve had guests in all of April and it’s just nice to be back actually sharing my screens.

Sharing my screen now. Okay. When you open up that template inside Air Story … let me just move this. When you, yeah, open the template inside Air Story, you’ll see three tabs at the top. Yes, these are the tabs. This is a quick reminder you can go into your menu over here and re-organize them just by dragging them around. But there are these three tabs. I am starting on Joanna’s sales script. That’s what’s showing here right now. I’ve got my example and then the actual questions themselves. So you can go through and use this yourself. There’s also, I believe, yeah, I’ve got a note in here so you can … anytime you want to use these interview questions, any Air Story project that you might be writing in already, just go into your … under project notes, go to all notes and you can just search agitation questions or template is usually the easiest one that’s going to bring up any templates that you have. Then you’ll just go through them to find the right template for your needs.

Okay. Now I’m going to close that up and go back to this. What we’re talking about here is a sort of agitation interview. I have an example here. For copies schooled for sales video script, I use these questions to block out and write almost the whole script. This is just to show you the after, like where filling out these questions can get you. Let’s go back now, though, to the questions themselves. You’ll see at the top, and hopefully you’re seeing my screen okay. Let me just blow this up a little bit more so you can see a little better. Now it’s super, super huge, but that’s cool. Hopefully you can see it well. Okay. We have the transformation and this is directly … this part is directly from Jeff Walker’s product launch because I find it very useful. If you don’t find it useful, don’t worry about it. If you do find it useful to think of your product’s starting stage and where you want them to be by the end of either the copy that they’re reading or the actual product that they’re going to be purchasing, we just want to talk about the before and after.

So you want to move your reader from x stage to y stage, where y stage is better than x stage. But we need to know where they’re starting out and that’s how we can arrive at this starting big problem. You’ll see with these questions that I’ve broken them out into an order that you should and could answer them in. Now, you can answer them in any order you want to, but by the end of this, we want to keep them in the order that I’ve presented them here, where we state the big problem. So what is the big problem? How does that problem manifest recently or how has it manifested most recently in your prospect’s life? I’ve got a bunch of different ways. Some of these you’ll be able to come up with on your own because you’ve interviewed people, you’ve listened hard to them. Sometimes you’re writing copy for a product that is scratching your own itch. So if you’re a start-up founder, you might be like, “This is how if manifested in my life. That’s why I built this thing in the first place.” If you’re someone like me, I’ve been running copy school for a long time talking to copy writers for a long time.

So I already have good insights into some of the bigger problems. Then we want to flush that out with customer data from surveys, from wherever you’re mining things like that, from testimonials even, from all the places we talk about all the time. So we want to go through and have really specific examples of how that big problem manifested most recently in their life in general, in their work, in the mirror when they’re looking at themselves, really just directly at themselves, in their minds, like the things that they might be worrying about or the anxiety they might be feeling, in their community and that community could be their workplace. It could be their actual city that they’re in, their neighborhood that they’re in, however they would identify as community or whatever feels right for you. In their house, it might could be their household and their family or in their physical house itself and in their bank account of course. Then there are other places. You don’t have to fill all of these in. The idea here is just to start throwing ideas down on the page and getting specific as you go so that when it’s time to write your agitation copy, you’ve got nothing but fodder.

You’ve got what you need to actually put stuff down on the page. So importantly when you’re filling this in, don’t hold back. Don’t think before you write it down, just write it down. If you need an example of that, you can see my answers to these questions. These are the actual answers I wrote down when I was filling this interview out for myself to do the scripting for the copy school sales video. So you can see that I don’t even have line breaks. I’m just writing crap down at this point and honestly, there could be … I don’t even know some of the words that might be in … like, you just go. Just write it down, just don’t edit yourself. That’s an important of getting that first draft out. Don’t edit yourself. Edit and be awesome later. Editing doesn’t happen now. This is like a gigantic block that I would never in a million years write or put on a page.

The point is just to throw those ideas down. And of course if you’re using the voice of customer data, drag that crap in. Don’t overthink it, just put it down on the page. Okay. Why the problem exists for them in the first place. We’ve talked about how it’s going to manifest. Let’s get specific with what it really looks like in their lives. Why dies it exist for them in the first place? Why has it happened that this is even a problem for them? What are some of the bigger misconceptions about the problem that they have. Right, that they have, or that their community has, that their family has, that their boss has, that their co-workers have, what their kids have. It depends on whatever you’re selling and the people that influence them with that sale or that purchase. This is a big one: what the problem is costing them. The reason that I love the way these questions are written out is because it’s easy for us to forget some of these things when we’re writing copy, but if you fill this in and I’m going to show you by going over to my example right away.

Once you’ve got this filled in, you have a really strong first draft and all you really need to do is write some causes and I’m going to show you that right away. Then we get into the solution. So we’ve agitated the problem, but when we’re in solution, we’re still kind of agitating. So I don’t want you to jump straight from agitation to here’s the solution, life is better. We want to have the solution where we’re like, okay. There’s still problems with the solutions they may have tried already, or the things that are putting them off from trying a solution. So you’re not just going to jump right into, “Hey, here’s how you solve this.” Then you go through it. You’ll also want to say if they’ve tried solving it, what mistakes have they made along the way. That’s an important part of making them continue to feel that problem before they get to your solution. If they have not tried solving it, how do they actually expect to solve it and go through what you know they’re really thinking about how they’re going to solve it.

Then, why they haven’t solved it yet. Why they can’t solve I without help or without your help. This could be two separate questions. One is without help and the other is without your help because those are two very different things. So keep that in mind. Then finally, getting them to the solution. Like now let’s start helping them understand how their life will improve when they solve it. Most people start their copy here. This is the point at which most marketers love to start. Let’s start with the happy ever after at the top of the page and that’s nice. It makes the board room feel really good about the copy, but you can see that you’re missing a lot of actually getting inside your prospect’s head if you start down here at the bottom with, “Life gets better. Here’s how.” We need to first talk about how life isn’t where it should be, where they want it to be and how that’s manifesting their lives.

So you fill this in. You just throw your ideas down on there. If you are stuck, definitely go out and do research and use the Air Story research or the clip, that stuff if you’re going through Amazon reviews, whatever other reviews might be out there in particular. Make sure, though that you just throw ideas down in here. I did that exactly like this as I mentioned before, for copying school. The transformation we wanted for copy school was we wanted to move our one reader from thinking of them self as the least valuable person in the room to being the most valuable person in the room. That’s a big transformation. You can’t get there by say, just opening up the page and saying, “Hey. Be the most valuable person in the room.” Because they’re like, what are you talking about? But I’m the least valuable person in the room right now. So we want to move them through problem, agitation, solution. That’s why it’s such powerful framework.

We want to start with the big problem. I’m not going to read through all of this because it would take forever. But do go through this if you have this template, do go through this it give you ideas and to see that not all of these are going to end up on the page, but a lot of this will. Importantly, the order that it’s in is an order that will be maintained when we actually get over to the point of writing. So go through, fill this out. I have two things that the problem was costing them and that can be … so you can manifest … things cost … the problem cost people various things. So go through that bullet list that I have and of course, go outside of that too. You don’t have to just fill that in. If you start getting on a roll where you’re like, “oh. It will also cost them this and it will cost them that,” write it down. Just because it’s not on there doesn’t mean it’s not a good idea too. So write it all down. If you’re on a roll, do not stop yourself ever, please ever.

You can edit yourself later. Write right now. Then, yeah, we get into the solution. So you can read through them on here, but I want to point out here is once you start filling this in, the order that this is laid out in means that what I would do at this point if I was writing this as a sales page, is go through and turn all of these questions into the one [inaudible 00:14:27]. So I’m going to go through … you could go through and center all of those essentially telling your brain this is a [inaudible 00:14:34]. And then re-write these as cross heads. So what is the big problem. Just write that down there. Keep a lot of this copy exactly as is for your first draft just like that happened.

Why the problem exists for them in the first place. This could be as simple as rephrasing this as a question, like why are you dealing with this problem in the first place? Then, you replace all the these with you and now you’re starting to work with a really strong first draft. So you learn most of your copy writing skills from blog posts and everyone else is learning from the same blog post. You’ve learned mediocrity, you’ve learned the stuff the world’s best copy writers [inaudible 00:15:07] because it won’t threaten their position if they teach you the basics. You haven’t learned the best, most secret stuff. Your teams haven’t either. That stuff is kept under wraps. That is all perfectly fabulous first draft copy. It doesn’t mean it’s final copy, but it is a strong first draft and all it took was you filling in these little interview questions. That’s it and that continues on down the page. Re-write those questions as cross heads, keep the copy as it is below and you’ll see that the order that it goes in requires very little, still some, but very little editing to get it to a point of being a strong second draft.

Those are the questions to use. We’re pretty good on time. It’s only 10:17 my time, so that’s awesome. But are there? … let’s see if there are any questions. I’m seeing chats come in and I didn’t have chat open while I was doing this [crosstalk 00:16:02] chat. Okay. Sarah, you came off mute. Do you have something to add?

Sarah Dlin: I was going to say there’s some chats, just comments about the cross head versus , that sort of thing. But good stuff, yeah. And using the template in client interviews, yeah.

Joanna Wiebe: Thanks awesome. Yeah, good stuff. Totally in interviews. Awesome. Okay. Let me go through some of these questions. Anonymous says, should I use language like get your money back [inaudible 00:16:32]? Oh, hold on. I’m going to get to that afterward. Okay. Reed says, “Hey Joanna. To add to this, can we use P.A.S. for blog posts?” Yes. Yes, use it everywhere. Use it for e-books. Yeah, opening with a problem is a wonderful way into the conversation happening in their head. It doesn’t mean it works 100% of the time. But if you start with it 100% of the time and then see, “Oh no, it doesn’t work this time,” it’s better than just saying, “I don’t know which one will work so I’m just going to start writing stuff down on a page.” Cool. Lisa [inaudible 00:17:03] template is available to everyone. And I believe Sarah has chatted that out and probably will chat it out again. It is an Air Story template because it requires certain things that Air Story has that Google Docs does not.

Okay. Isaac says what do you mean by cross head and then he said some stuff about me. A cross head is … I wish I had an example open. It’s really just … if we go over to the tutorial Tuesdays event, these are navigational cross heads, what you’re seeing here. How to write an ad in AdWords is a cross head. How to [inaudible 00:17:42] for post for ICO is a cross head. These, again, are navigational, they’re not meant to be persuasive, compelling copy. They’re just telling you what’s what. But those are generally it. Some people call it a sub head. Old school direct response called it a cross head. That’s where I learned it so I call it a cross head too. Sub heads, for me, go underneath your headline. Okay. Joey asked the same question. Okay, cool. So, yeah. If that’s not clear, let me know totally. Jay Anton says, “I joined late. Where are the entry questions that you referenced?” If you go into that template, Jay Anton, you can see the one that Sarah had shared out in chat. You will see those questions right under the first tab here at the top as a reminder. These are tabs along the top and you can add more.

So if you wanted to use this template, keep my stuff here so you can reference it, but add your own new starting point. Then you would just write yours and you could drag the questions in. Or just go to the questions, answer them here. Because every time you want to go through this, you can either drag that note in or just use the template. Is this template for sale? No Randy. That is some free stuff for you. You’re welcome. I answered that. Don says, “When you use P.A.S. for blog posts, do you have to limit the agitation part to only the first paragraph or two?” Why? Why limit the feeling? The feeling comes in agitation. So if you’re going overboard, you’ll know it, but don’t worry about that until you’re in editing mode. When you’re in writing mode, just don’t think about limiting yourself in any way. Even the words, you have to limit the agitation part. Limit means limiting. So only go as far as you have to go, but make sure you let yourself go that far because that’s where you pull your reader in. That’s where they actually start feeling something instead of staying at arm’s length.

Okay. That’s a good question. Anonymous says, “what do you think about using language like what if your life looked like x? I have an employer who hates negative or problem language.” I have worked with many large corporations and they all hate negative or problem language until we test it for them. Then they’re like, “Okay. We’ll overlook it. We’re just not going to tell brand about it.” But, yeah, you can absolutely what if your life looked like … all I would say is, don’t worry about your boss or anybody but your customer when you are writing that first draft. So don’t think about, “Oh. This is negative messaging.” Don’t worry about that on the first draft. And this is all about the first draft. When you get to a point where you’ve got this all written out and you can start to then say, “Okay well here’s the problem.” Can we phrase it in such a way that our customer or prospect will still feel that they could see their self in that problem, but it might not feel like negative messaging. And to be fair, I don’t write … I’ve seen some really harsh negative messaging and anybody who … anyway I’m not going to get into it, but I’ve seen some really crazy negative messaging. I don’t go down that path.

I don’t believe in fear mongering. I don’t think you have to say things that scare people to make them buy things. All we’re trying to do is match the problem that they actually have. So make them feel it with agitation, but you’re not making up a problem. You’re not making it worse than it actually is, you’re just reminding them of that problem that drove them there in the first place so that they can actually see their self on the page. I would also encourage you to have that conversation with your boss. You’re in it for your customer too. You’re not trying to be negative. They actually do have a problem, all you want to do is remind them of that problem because they’re already thinking about it anyway. Then get them to the point where they’re nodding along with you. [inaudible 00:21:19] nods, since we’re on some like sales terms so your boss is like, “Ooh. What’s a Sullivan nod?” And you’re like, “What?”

So do that and then get them to the point of the solution. Okay. Cool? Hopefully. Good luck. Talking to the boss is always fun. Okay, Leslie says how do you convince a client to use P.A.S. when they keep saying I don’t want to be negative. My reader is already stressed and does too much negative self talk already. So they’re going to see you … so it’s all about your how. Right now, we’re talking about problem. And people hear problem and think that’s a bad thing. But that’s what you’re actually selling a solution for. Most of us are not selling delighters, we’re selling pain killers. And people buy pain killers more than they buy delighters. They find budget for pain killers when they can’t find budget for things that just bring them joy in life outside of coffee, but that’s kind of killing problems for a lot of us anyway. So I would say, again, just like on the last one, it’s going to be about your how when it comes to messaging the problem. But, again, don’t minimize the importance of matching the problem. This is about emotional message matching, not just like, “Oh. They search this keyword phrase, I’m going to show it on the page.”

This is like they’re feeling this thing, they’re going through this thing. We want to have empathy for them. So we’re not going to beat them over the head with it or make them feel bad about it. We’re going to make them feel it and then we’re going to solve it for them. Okay. Now, anonymous asks is there a repository about Air Story templates you’ve ever shared? Not all of them, but we do have the marketplace where you can go, and they’re all free in the marketplace. There are some other ones we’ve shared. Like this one isn’t going to make it into the marketplace because for me it doesn’t qualify as a template. It will be shared with this replay so you’ll see it in the library when you go into the library. Again, this is a reminder that the library is right here. And you can always on copyhackers.com find all of our past tutorials there. When there is a template, we’ll link to that template with the recording. So you can get the replay and the template there. But, I don’t consider this a template because it’s a template of questions, but it’s not … you don’t end up with something that is like, “Oh. Here’s my email now.”

So that’s why it’s not going to be in the market. I assume, Sarah, you chatted out a link to the market? Yeah, because you’re awesome. All right, cool. I [inaudible 00:23:42]. So Leo says why P is working so well when using it as a question? What? I don’t understand. So why problem is working so well when you … why this problem works so well when you use it as a question? I’m not saying that it does necessarily, so I’m not really sure Leo. If you want to build on that a bit and let me know more about what you mean, I will be happy to address that. Isaac says do you have a list of frameworks for copies? We have this big post on copy hackers which is formulas and frameworks posts. If you go to copy hackers, you can type in the search area formulas, or just formula and that should bring up … I mean, for me it will bring up a lot because I’m signed into training as well. But go there and you will find some of that. Even search copywriting formulas on Google and I think we’re number one for that too.

Okay. Then you’ll find, not just frameworks but also formulas. We mostly call everything formulas in that just because it keeps things simple so I don’t have to say, “Here’s what a framework is and here’s what a formula is.” We just call it all formulas. Rosemary says that there needs to be a great template for any product review. That is awesome. Glad to hear it. Chuck says would you emphasize the problem in the headline as well. Yeah. So we want to start with the headline. Ideally, your headline will in most cases be swiped from voice of customer data. So I’m unlikely to want to write my own headline. By and large, if you can go out and listen to customers and find a really strong problem stated the way they feel it, then that tends to make a good headline. So it is the problem, but we get into sketchy territory when a bunch of skeezy copywriters sit around thinking how do we make this problem sound really, really bad? That’s not what we want to do. We want to listen to how our prospects talk about their problem and do our best to take that very language, put it on the page, use the formula just to make it better so it comes across more compelling.

But yeah, do take the problem. Just make sure that you’re thinking and writing it like an ethical copy writer, not the other kind. Okay. I think that had to with something else. So back to the first anonymous question. Should I use language like get your money back if our SAAS platform does not increase your sales, or for only $5 a day. Does that sound desperate? Desperation is all in your how. So I wouldn’t say it sounds desperate. I think if you are excited about offering your prospects a money back guarantee, then your excitement will come through. Like you believe in your product and man, if this thing doesn’t work, I will totally give you your money back. I don’t know about the for only $5 a day, like if you’re saying do we make our products sound less expensive the way that they do on World Vision commercials where it’s like, “for the price of a cup of coffee a day, you could do this.”

I don’t think that’s desperate in any way. Again, it all comes down to how you actually say it. So have the right voice in your mind, use the right tone. So desperation is a tone. Just don’t be desperate. Don’t think in a desperate way and you’re unlikely to be desperate on the page, generally speaking. Okay. Another anonymous says do you find the P.A.S more compelling [inaudible 00:27:10] painting a picture of a dream scenario. So just wouldn’t it be nice if, or what if. So, P.A.S. is my favorite. I have a friend, Gavin, who is a direct response copy writer and the Four P’s is his favorite framework. That begins, I believe, with picture, or it begins with promise. I never use it. But you can go into the copywriting formula post on copy hackers and find the four p’s there. So other copy writers swear by other frameworks. P.A.S. works for me like a charm. But, other times, ADA has worked for me and I’m sure if I used the four p’s, it would work as well.

But this is the one that works all the time. So that’s why I talk about it. But go ahead and give that a shot and do look at the four p’s framework and see if that will help you if you want to start with wouldn’t it be nice if. And maybe you already do use that and that’s why you mentioned it. Catherine says what do suggest if the client doesn’t really know or understand their prospect’s problems? That’s what you’re hired for. It’s hard to be a copy writer … the words are the easy part honestly. The hard part is getting your clients on board with some of the stuff that’s a little tougher, but that will help them sell. So if the client doesn’t really know or understand their prospect’s problems, your job is to make sure you’re getting paid for this. But is to go in and talk to customers. So make customer interviews part of the research that you do.

And if you can’t talk to customers, like I’ve talked on this a lot, if they’re selling something sensitive where customers don’t want to talk to you or won’t be forthcoming, then go to other spaces that are kind of like a proxy for a customer interview, like Amazon or [inaudible 00:28:49]. All you’re trying to do is get inside their head, right. Get inside the customer’s head. So ideally, you’ll talk directly to customers. Ideally, you’ll survey customers too and get to a place where you’re like, “Oh, here’s the problem that’s going on.” But if the client doesn’t know, your job is to know. And if they don’t want to pay you for that, your job is to not work with that client anymore. Because you’re going to need to know the problem that is being solved. Otherwise, it’s going to be really hard to figure out what that transformation is that you’re going to make for their prospect.

Erika says are there other ways you can find problems from customers besides looking at reviews? Yeah, so many ways. We have a video in the tutorial library on copyhackers.com. It is called how to get inside your customer’s heads. That’s all about having that one question survey on a thank you page that asks them what was going on in their lives that drove them to do x today. And that gets into the problem. But, almost always surfaces tons of problems that people are going through and you can find themes and good messages in there. So a survey is a wonderful thing. It doesn’t have to be a survey emailed out to people with all that stuff. It can just be a simple thank you page survey with a single question. You can do polls on the page. You can do other pop up questions. All just go surveys, interviews, those are great things.

Generally, those are the two best places to go. Reviews are the back up when you can’t do those sort of things. Or they’re another way to find sticky language, but reviews aren’t always going to be like, “Oh wow. Everything worked out when I reviewed.” It’s almost always going to be better to do surveys and interviews and you’ll get more out of those. It’s just that those take a long time and they’re often hard to get the client onboard with. So that’s where reviews can come in handy, but definitely go do surveys if you can. And absolutely do interviews. You don’t have to do a lot of interviews. The golden number, basically, largely is, when you’re looking for messages, is seven customer interviews. So you don’t have to sit down and talk to 20 customers. You can get seven of them, each one independently, not in a group together. But independently on the phone or in person for 30 minutes even. You’ll find some crazy stuff. So do that. Tim says in your opinion, what is the best copy writing program at the beginning of copy writers? P.A.S. yep, that’s the one. That’s a good one to go with.

I think start there and once you’ve done that … I’ve been writing copy for 15 years and I didn’t have frameworks in the beginning and it was a nightmare. Always dreaming stuff up all by yourself, no idea what you’re doing, copying other people basically, but not knowing why they did what they did, or if it’s even working. Then when I discovered formulas, ADIA was the first one. And it was good. But I was like, how do I grab their attention? What do I grab their attention with because it’s attention, interest, desire, action. That’s what AIDA is and I’m the only one who says AIDA. Everybody else says AIDA, but whatever. But, attention is like, attention about what? So I didn’t know, whereas problem like, oh problem I can find. Then I can agitate it and then I can solve it.

So that’s why I think P.A.S is the no-brainer one and 15 years into it, I’m still using it all the time. Leo says P.A.S. is fun to use, love it. I agree. Then Leo also says, I meant when problem is written as questions, it seems to be working well. Why is an example. Do you feel stuck etching your problem when using P.A.S. formula? Yeah. A question can get people engaged. You just have to make sure that, if your headline is Do you feel stuck agitating your problem when using the P.A.S. formula? That was the headline so when people on a course or something on how to use P.A.S. or how to write agitation copy or on this very session, if you use that as the headline, I just encourage people who ask questions to think about the answer and make sure that the question is set up in such a way that the prospect will answer the way you want them to. Do you feel stuck agitating your problem when using P.A.S. formula?

What if their answer is no? Okay. Is that your prospect? If they don’t feel it, but they’re not your prospect, that’s okay. But if they are your prospect and their answer to your question is no, but you wanted it to be yes, that’s a problem. That happens all the time with questions so I just say be careful when you’re phrasing those questions. Then go through and read it as the customer and answer as the customer on a bad day, not the customer who is giving you the time of day. Okay. Nicky says would you use P.A.S. in just about everything? What about a Facebook ad selling chocolates? So chocolates are not pain killers. The jury is out on that. [inaudible 00:33:38] they could be. But they’re sold as delighters versus like, they’re not Tylenol. They could be taken with Tylenol for a much better day, but they’re not actually a pain killer.

So I work in a world of selling pain killers by and large, of things that should be perceived as pain killers, but people have a hard time getting there so we try to back it up to like, okay let’s find that pain man. So you could try it. I don’t know what it would be. Chocolate gift boxes kill the pain of not knowing what to buy. Oh, totally. Okay. So if it’s like a gift that you’re selling this on Facebook in the Facebook ad as, here’s a great gift for mothers, or something. Like you don’t know what else to give them? Chocolate covered strawberries are … then you’d agitate all the things that they’re considering how to plan on solving this problem, why those solutions aren’t working, how the problem is going to manifest in their lives, what it will cost them. What this problem is going to cost them if they get things wrong. Then, yeah absolutely I think it could be a really … this is the thing about it. Try it. And if you don’t have a reason to try it, don’t try it.

If you’re like, “Oh no. We’d be just pissing away money on Facebook ads that aren’t going to work,” well then don’t do that. But if you think that it might work, if you could join that problem conversation happening in your prospect’s head, who else is doing that? A lot of chocolatiers are not doing that, so it could be an interesting way to set yourself apart. Worth a shot, but don’t blame me if it goes wrong.

Okay. All right, y’all. That is it for the questions. Thank you so much for joining us today. This template, again, is available and we will post it with the replay. Go through, build this out. It takes about 10 minutes if you’re going to do it right, 10 to 20 minutes. But it’s time well spent because you will end up with basically first draft copy.

Thanks again. I’m going to stop sharing. Thanks again and we will see you in our next tutorial Tuesday.
Thanks everyone.
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