Two years ago, my friends and I decided to see what this Dungeons and Dragons nonsense was all about.
I’d never done it as a kid. But I’ve always knew I had the potential to become a D&D nerd if I was around the right people.
We had no clue how to play but it was fun to mess around. The first night we galvanized the townsfolk into an angry mob for no apparent reason. The next week was spent shooting grease at evil trolls.
Only one of our friends actually knew what he was doing. He suggested we learn more by watching a show on Youtube called Critical Role. Which is just a show of people playing Dungeons and Dragons.
Seriously.
And the first video has four million views.
So why am I telling you this?
Because in order to sell your product, you’ve got to make a promise about what your product will do for your reader.
That promise will lead to all kinds of objections, which you need to overcome.
And a great way to overcome them is with a claim to the contrary. But you’ll need to back that claim up with one (or more) pieces of proof.
For example, today I was writing a sales letter. It’s selling a product on how to create a video podcast. The angle is all about how podcasting is a vehicle to find passion/meaning in your life.
I backed that claim up with proof — the story about how that’s what video podcasting did for the guy selling the product.
Of course, the reader will then have all kinds of objections. One of which being “I’m not interesting/don’t have anything to say.”
To counter this, I needed to find proof that you don’t need to be some big fancy expert to get views. You can build a following just by messing around with your friends.
Then I thought back to Critical Role. How they built a huge following by videoing their weekly D&D game and putting them on Youtube.
Boom! Proof to back up my claim and thus ease their objections.
Inspiration can come from weird places.
Get out there, mix it up, be weird, try new things. Even if it seems like your messing around, it can help you stumble across cool people/stories/experiences that’ll actually be helpful for your marketing and your business.