Right now, I’m toying around with a few different headlines for my Copywriting Code membership site.

In fact, my plan is to rewrite the headline and restructure the entire sales letter to be more persuasive.

With that in mind, I’ve decided to do something COMPLETELY different. Rather than do a split-test (since the site doesn’t get much traffic at this point), I thought I’d see what YOU think about the following headlines.

Please vote for your favorite headline or suggest one of your own.

Also, please keep in mind that Copywriting Code is a membership site that teaches both freelance copywriters and business owners how to write direct response copy.

Thanks in advance for your help!

-Ryan M. Healy

P.S. Do you have an idea that needs more explanation? I’d love to hear it. Just leave a comment below.

If you’ve ever doubted the power of “secrets” in selling, then you absolutely MUST watch these 25-year-old TV commercials.

TV Commercial #1: He-Man and the Masters of the Universe

“Secret Powers Were Revealed to Me!” – “Only Three Others Share This Secret…”

TV Commercial #2: She-Ra, Princess of Power

“Fabulous Secrets Were Revealed to Me!” – “Only a Few Others Share This Secret…”

TV Commercial #3: Sweet Secrets

“How Come You Look So Good?” – “It’s My Sweet Secret!”

Everybody wants to have secrets, know secrets, and discover secrets.

Even kids.

Even 25 years ago.

What secrets do you know that you can use to better market your product or service?

-Ryan M. Healy

P.S. Note, too, how the creators of He-Man swiped their own commercial to market She-Ra to the young girls’ market. It’s virtually the same copy and format with a few minor differences in word choice.

As a list owner, I feel a certain responsibility to you, my dear reader. Therefore, it’s my goal to provide you with rich content mixed with occasional offers for products and services that may benefit you.

Obviously, if I endorse somebody else’s product or service as an affiliate, then that means I’ve either purchased the product myself (or at least gotten a review copy) and found it exceptional enough to endorse.

And, in fact, many of the products I endorse on my blog and via email are products I’ve purchased and continue to use to this day.

Now, what if I formed a mastermind group with my competitors and we all got together and decided that we would promote each other’s products every time, without fail, no matter what?

Don’t you think that would diminish the value of the endorsement?

Of course it would.

Why Endorsements Work

A genuine endorsement is the use of your reputation to build trust for a product, service, or person who might not have been trusted as quickly otherwise.

For instance, you don’t know Adam. But you’ve known Brian for many years and you’d trust him with your life. Brian says, “You’ve got to listen to Adam. He’s brilliant.”

Now Adam has risen in stature and importance because of Brian’s endorsement.

But if you discovered Adam was paying Brian for the endorsement, it wouldn’t mean as much. And if Brian had agreed to endorse Adam no matter what — even if he began doing unethical or illegal things — then that would REALLY be suspect.

Now let’s look at a real-world example…

Exposing the Syndicate

Let’s say twelve Internet marketing guys get together. They all agree to promote each other’s products no matter what.

Furthermore, they all agree to promote just one guy’s product each month during the next 12 months. They all promote Product #1 in Month #1, Product #2 in Month #2, and so forth. This way each guy has the full endorsement of the rest of the group during his particular promotion.

If I was a part of this group, that would mean I’d have to promote 11 products as an affiliate, one product per month, based on a predetermined schedule. In exchange, the other 11 guys would then promote MY product during one of the 12 months when it was my turn to be promoted.

The catch? I absolutely MUST promote all 11 products… without regard for the quality of the products or the integrity of the creators of those products. In other words, my endorsement is guaranteed and cannot be negotiated or revoked.

Sound a bit fishy?

That’s because it is.

Here’s the pattern that emerges as illustrated by Alexa traffic rankings (hat tip to Salty Droid for coming up with this idea)…

The Proper Role of a Teacher, Blogger, or Publisher

Part of the role of a teacher, blogger, or publisher is to provide information that helps your readers reach their goals while filtering out irrelevant offers and reducing the signal-to-noise ratio.

Obviously, if a teacher has agreed in advance to wholesale endorse and promote products that don’t even exist yet, then you can be sure he’s not doing a good job of fulfilling his role.

The truth is, there are many reasons to NOT promote another person’s product or service.

• Product/service not up to your standards.
• Product has not been created yet and cannot be evaluated.
• Reputation of product creator is questionable and/or dubious.
• And the biggest reason of all…
  The product/service is not a good fit for your list!

Remember: If you publish information or are responsible for providing guidance to a list of subscribers, then you need to always have their best interests in mind. You need to be thinking about how to best help them… and protect them.

But if you are part of an organized group of competitors who’ve pledged to promote each other, you simply can’t do what’s best for your readers.

What happens if I (as a member of the group) don’t feel like one of the products is worth promoting? Or what if one of the members of the group gets involved in some shady business dealings? What then?

The answer is… I can’t really do anything unless I want to risk losing my position in the group — and missing out on the windfall I’d receive from the promotion and endorsement of the group.

The Syndicate Is Real

It probably comes as no surprise to you that within the Internet marketing community, such a group exists. They call themselves “The Syndicate.” And industry insider Ray Edwards says they actively plot and scheme how to take your money.

There is a very real conspiracy to extract as much money from you as possible.

Right now, as I write this, there is a group of “gurus” sitting in a circle in some hotel suite.

Each one of them is talking about their own version of Method X, and how he plans to sell it to the masses.

And they are all agreeing to promote one another’s Method X….

…and that’s why you keep getting email after email from the same group of people promoting one another.

Kinda creepy, isn’t it?

But this is what happens behind closed doors.

Backlash from the Product Launch Machine

If you’ve been trying to make money on the Internet for any length of time, you’ve probably gotten sucked into the orchestrated promotional efforts of the product launch machine.

At first, it feels exciting to be a part of these virtual events. But it doesn’t take long for the launch buzz to begin to feel like a drain on your attention, your focus, and your wallet.

In some cases, this feeling leads to public outcry. For instance, after the StomperNet launch, Rick Butts advised his list to unsubscribe from anybody who promoted StomperNet.

And when Michel Fortin announced that he was unsubscribing from lists by the hundreds and purging his way to email freedom, there was a chorus of support and agreement.

Let me be clear: I’m not against selling, advertising, affiliate marketing, or even product launches. I think they are legitimate ways to sell under the right circumstances.

But I am against phony endorsements, disingenuous recommendations to buy, and syndicates designed to defraud.

-Ryan M. Healy

P.S. What’s your take on all this? Leave a comment and let me know.

I recently read an anonymous comment from a person who is going back to college after spending two years buying expensive products from Internet marketing gurus. He/she writes,

The light at the end of *my* tunnel is that losing two years of my life to these jokers has made me serious for the first time in 10 years about going back to school.

Upon reading this, I felt I had to say this:

If you are considering “going back to school” as an alternative to Internet marketing or any other kind of business, please BE CAREFUL.

Being a perpetual student is a costly endeavor, no matter who you’re paying for your education. At some point, each person has to get down to the business of using their education instead of acquiring more of it.

In my humble opinion, the only difference between expensive Internet marketing courses and college education is… college costs more.

Of course, this isn’t true for all colleges (there are a few good ones), but it’s true of many colleges. The one you especially want to steer clear of is University of Phoenix.

Just search “University of Phoenix scam” on Google to see what I mean.

There have even been recent television programs revealing that University of Phoenix uses predatory practices to squeeze as much money out of each and every student as they can.

Not to mention, a lawsuit alleging University of Phoenix committed fraud was recently settled for $78.5 million, “the second-largest settlement ever in a False Claims Act case in which the federal government declined to intervene.”

Start doing some research and you’ll discover that many students leave UoP with tens of thousands of dollars of debt and a worthless education. Worse still…

First time freshmen have a 7% program completion rate, according to a June 2005 report of the National Consumer Law Center. Hundreds of thousands of former University of Phoenix students without degrees are obligated to pay back high interest loans for decades.

I mention all of this because these days “going back to school” is often synonymous with “going to University of Phoenix.”

Now, I’m all for good education.

In fact, learning and the acquiring of knowledge should be a lifelong pursuit so long as it’s balanced with an equal share of work and implementation.

But “education” shouldn’t cost you a king’s ransom or turn you into an indentured servant.

Unfortunately, many colleges are designed to put you into debt so they can have a claim on your future earnings for much of your life. And if you take the bait (e.g. student loans), you could literally become a slave to your alma mater for decades.

Caveat emptor.

-Ryan M. Healy

It all started as a tweet:

Most gurus surround themselves w/ sycophants to build their egos. And most gurus don’t like me because I’m not a sycophant.

Actually, it started before that.

You see, yesterday (August 11, 2010) I was talking on the phone with a close friend. In a roundabout way, he discovered a certain guru does NOT like me… even though I’ve spent quite a bit of money on his products.

I don’t mind if a guru doesn’t like me. That suits me fine. But I wondered… Was it something I said? I’ve spent a lot of money with this guru and I don’t believe I’ve ever said anything negative about him in public.

That’s when it struck me.

Most of these gurus surround themselves with sycophants so they can perpetuate the belief that they’re little demi-gods. They remind me of King Nebuchadnezzar — a man who believed he had achieved his status through his own strength.

Twelve months later [Nebuchadnezzar] was walking on the roof of the royal palace of Babylon. The king reflected and said, “Is this not Babylon the great, which I myself have built as a royal residence by the might of my power and for the glory of my majesty?” (Daniel 4:29,30)

When a person becomes overly prideful and takes more credit for his success than he should, he’s in danger of divine correction. In the case of Nebuchadnezzar, his correction was one of the more extreme cases:

…and he was driven away from mankind and began eating grass like cattle, and his body was drenched with the dew of heaven until his hair had grown like eagles’ feathers and his nails like birds’ claws. (Daniel 4:33)

Anyway, one of the things that bugs me is how gurus like to take all the credit for their own success. They’re so full of themselves that if anybody says they’re less than all-powerful, you’re anathema.

Guru: What? You won’t bow down to me, the almighty GURU?

Me: No. But thanks for asking.

Guru: Depart from my presence!

Surrounding yourself with sycophants is a recipe for delusion. At first, you may have self-doubt. But that will be washed away by the slobber of your rabid fans faster than you can say “I’m awesome.”

The delusion will be powerful indeed.

A delusion of pride will make you do stupid things. For anybody who has read the Bible, this should come as no surprise. Proverbs 16:18,19 says:

Pride goes before destruction,
And a haughty spirit before stumbling.
It is better to be humble in spirit with the lowly
Than to divide the spoil with the proud.

Speaking of doing stupid things… and dividing spoils with the proud… have you read about The Internet Marketing Syndicate?

It’s a syndicate supported by sycophants. If you haven’t read about it yet, you should. (Be forewarned: There are swear words.)

-Ryan M. Healy

Listen to This Blog Post:

Cash flow problems are bad enough in a good economy. But they can be the kiss of death in a bad economy.

So if the recession has you scrambling to come up with money to pay your bills on time, then these four ways to cure cash flow problems quickly should come in handy.

1. Eliminate Unnecessary Business Expenses

Pull out your bank statements. Pull out your credit card statements. What expenses do you notice?

For the biggest return on investment, look for recurring monthly expenses you can cut.

There are often multiple business tool subscriptions, newsletter subscriptions, and software subscriptions in every business.

And probably 5% to 15% of these are no longer being used or serving their original purpose. Identify those and cancel them immediately.

This little exercise alone can increase your cash flow and save you a few thousand dollars a year.

Another easy way to cut costs is to replace expensive services with cheaper services. For instance, replace your land line phone with a paid Skype account. Or find a free open source solution to replace a paid solution.

Once you start researching, you’ll be amazed by how many good, affordable services are available to you. (Just ask your social network if you need help getting started.)

2. Invoice Faster, Pay Bills Slower

When cash is flowing out faster than it’s coming in, you have to do whatever you can to reverse the trend. Because ultimately you want the cash flowing out slower than it’s coming in.

One easy way to do this is to collect on invoices faster, then “float” your money.

So, for instance:

If you normally invoice on Net 30 terms, see if you can get your clients to pay sooner. Give them a small discount for paying the full amount up front or within a shorter time frame, say 14 days.

The faster you get paid, the better your cash flow will be.

The second step of the process is to keep your money as long as possible. So that means you will want to try to delay paying your vendors.

You can ask for terms or ask for an extension on a specific invoice. Or if you’d rather not negotiate with vendors, you might try paying with a credit card.

By paying with a credit card, you will automatically have an extra 25-30 days to pay. (Just make sure you have enough cash to pay off the balance at the end of the billing cycle.)

3. Outsource Tasks that Are Not the Highest and Best Use of Your Time

If you’re doing data entry when you could be doing work valued at $1,000 an hour, then that’s contributing to your cash flow problems.

You will never have time to work on your business if you’re always stuck doing menial work in your business.

You need to focus all of your time on doing things that maximize the monetary value of your skills. Any task that falls outside of your highest-value skill set should be outsourced to a reliable freelance worker.

For instance, if you’re a solo entrepreneur, you might hire a Virtual Assistant (VA) to take care of some of the mundane and tedious tasks you have to do on a regular basis.

Or you might contract with a company to screen phone calls, take messages, and book appointments. This alone could conservatively save a couple hours a week — freeing you up to do the things that generate more revenue and more profit.

4. Don’t Let a Good Month Ruin Your Cash Flow

If you’ve ever had a really good month in business, then you know how exhilarating it can be. You know how tempting it can be to go out and buy that expensive thing you’ve been lusting for.

Here’s a piece of advice: Don’t buy that thing.

Keep your emotions in check.

Set aside some cash when times are good so you can easily weather the bad months that may (or may not) happen in the future.

Unfortunately, this advice is not usually followed. Just look at the guys running big product launches. The influx of money causes them to do stupid things… like buy six-figure luxury sports cars and 10,000 square foot bachelor pads.

This is a huge mistake.

Because one good month does not a good year make. Past performance is no guarantee of future earnings. The economic conditions of today are not the economic conditions of tomorrow. Etc, etc, etc.

If you become financially over-committed in your personal life, it can very quickly bring down your business.

The most successful business men (and women) I’ve met are those who are willing to forgo a lavish lifestyle so they can make wise investments and keep their businesses running smoothly.

Some of the most wealthy are also the most frugal.

It’s the entrepreneurs who run lean operations — even when the cash flow is good — that survive tough times and achieve longevity in their respective markets.

Follow these four business optimization strategies… be intentional about implementing them in your business… and you’ll cure your cash flow problems quickly.

-Ryan M. Healy

Listen to This Blog Post:

There are dozens of different ways to get free traffic to your site. One of them is to leave comments on other people’s blogs and link back to your own site.

This by itself is a decent strategy. The quicker you comment on a new blog post, the more likely it is you’ll get some traffic to your blog.

Why?

Because many successful bloggers email their list after they publish a new post. If you are the first one to comment on a new blog post… then you’ll get to “ride the wave” of subscribers who visit that post.

But while this strategy works, I’ve found an even better way to generate traffic from blog comments.

Blog Comments as a Source of Traffic

Lest you think that commenting on blogs is a waste of time, let me share with you a little story.

A couple years ago, as I was researching new ways to drive traffic to my blog, I stumbled upon a simple idea. The idea was to find “do-follow” blogs that passed PageRank through their comment links.

In theory, by leaving comments on blogs like this (and perhaps even using your primary keyword phrase as your “name”), you could actually increase your search engine rankings.

In my case, the theory proved true. Here’s what I did.

First, I found a do-follow blog that had a post related to one of my posts. I then left a comment linking to a post on my site. I used the title of the post in the “name” field. In my comment, I referenced my post and said, “Click my name to read the post.”

This not only helped me get (and stay) ranked for that search phrase for years, it also sent a lot of traffic to my blog.

Not just hundreds of visitors.

Thousands.

In fact, this one blog comment has sent more traffic to my blog in the last year than any single guest post or web site other than Google, StumbleUpon, and Twitter.

In other words, this blog ranks #4 in terms of how much traffic it sends to my site.

And it was all because of one measly comment on one measly post.

Blogs that Rank Well Send Lots of Traffic

If you were to use this same strategy to drive traffic to your site, you’d want to do the following:

1. Search Google for a keyword phrase you’ve already written about in a blog post or article.

2. Go through the first page of search results to see if any of the sites are blogs.

3. If one of the sites is a blog, and comments are open, then leave a comment contributing to the conversation.

4. Do not link to your site’s home page in the URL field. Rather, link directly to the post or article that’s related to the one you’re commenting on.

5. Rather than typing your name into the name field, use your primary keyword phrase, or even the title of your post or article.

6. Finally, mention your related blog post or article in your comment and instruct readers to click your name if they’d like to read more.

While it’s no guarantee that your comment will produce thousands of visitors (or that it will even be published), there is a good chance you will get a steady stream of visitors to your site for weeks, months, and possibly years.

-Ryan M. Healy

Listen to This Blog Post:

A few months ago, I quietly changed my blog comment settings to automatically close comments after 30 days. After this worked so well, I decided to reduce the “comment window” to only 14 days.

Here’s why I decided to do this.

Reason #1 – I’ve had quite a lot of work to do this year, and I don’t always have time to reply to comments. This is especially true for comments that are added to old posts. Once a post is more than a month old, the discussion has moved elsewhere and a new comment can be a hassle to deal with.

Reason #2 – In spite of sophisticated spam filters like Akismet, every blog is still susceptible to comment spam. What’s more, the older the post, the more spam it’s likely to attract. So by automatically closing comments in 14 days, I’ve literally eliminated my blog comment spam problem altogether.

Reason #3 – A 14-day comment window encourages people to comment now instead of later. Furthermore, those who decide to comment before the window closes are rewarded with a link back to their blog or web site. People who come along later do not get that privilege.

I know a number of bloggers who’ve decide to turn off comments altogether. While I’ve considered it, I actually like to get comments and respond to them.

So, for me, a 14-day comment policy is the perfect compromise. It allows me to keep comments open, but also: prevents old discussions from being reopened; eliminates blog comment spam; and encourages readers to comment before the 14 days is up.

-Ryan M. Healy

On page 110 of How to Make Your Advertising Make Money, John Caples writes:

Techniques change, but basic sales appeals go on forever. Therefore, when you are searching for an idea to sell your product or service, don’t forget to review the ideas that have been successful in the past.

I’ve gotten some great ideas from reading proven ads and sales letters. Sometimes it’s just a small copy idea. Other times it’s a headline or subhead. Still others, a sidebar or scarcity play.

Just remember: It does you very little good to review (and recycle) the same three or four or five ads over and over again. You need to be continually inspired by fresh material.

Click here to learn more about Swipe Files.

-Ryan M. Healy

After a few Belgian beers at The Cheeky Monk, my friend Chad and I began to talk about economics.

As we discussed the source and nature of money, we began to zero in on the idea of value. What is value? How is it created? Where does it come from?

Initially, I argued that value is created by humans: a combination of physical labor and intellectual capital. But it turns out, my definition was incomplete.

And, as Chad and I argued our individual points of view, I quickly discovered that defining value is actually a bit harder than I initially expected.

How True Value Is Created

Raw materials — like wood, metal, and even human labor — are created by God. God has given us time, natural resources, bodies, and brains, which we can then translate into all sorts of services and products.

As Deuteronomy 8:18 says, “But you shall remember the LORD your God, for it is He who is giving you power to make wealth.”

But does the act of creating something automatically create value? Not necessarily.

If I create a product that nobody wants and is never used, I have not created true value, rather only latent value. And if that latent value is never realized, then my investment of time and effort has been a waste.

For true value to be created, there has to be demand on the other side of the equation. At the moment when latent value meets demand, true value is created.

Of course, there is an additional ingredient in this equation. Because how else can latent value and demand connect except through advertising?

Anybody can create true value by:

1. Identifying demand.
2. Using their God-given abilities to meet the demand with a product or service.
3. Advertising the product or service they’ve created.

What Appears as Value Is Not Always True Value

Any discussion of value wouldn’t be complete without at least touching on the broader societal implications.

For instance, a man may demand a gun to murder somebody with, and another man may manufacture that gun. When the exchange is made, value has only been created on a purely economic level.

The use of the gun to murder does not create value at all, and in fact harms society as whole.

Ultimately, true value can only be realized when the products and services being exchanged are moral in nature and are used in compliance with the law. Otherwise, there is only an illusion of value.

These are my thoughts on the nature and creation of value. If you have anything to add, feel free to leave a comment below.

-Ryan M. Healy