Anatomy of a Heart-Centered Sales Page

Note: A number of live events are coming up, including one in Edmonton, Alberta, Melbourne, Australia, Victoria, B.C. and Portland, Oregon. Crazy! If you’re in any of those places, check out the link- we’d love to see you there.

Last week, the first week of kindergarten, was hard on the boys. Change of routine, new friends, new boundaries, new teacher. Also, a certain amount of getting used to the classroom meant a little less play and a little more orientation. They weren’t very happy about it.

The second week everything is different. They are excited to go, having fun, in the flow with it. David gave me a big hug and kiss at the classroom door, “I can’t wait to tell you about what we do later!”

I’ve been really thinking about how long it can take, for instance, to turn a solo practice into a company, as I/we’ve been doing. I’ve noticed how often I’ve become impatient or frustrated. And then I experience the joy and freedom of having a team.

It can be hard to get into something, to start a journey where the beginning is longer than I expect. A week for the kindergartners, a few years for an entrepreneur, sometimes. But when I listen to my heart, I can tell the difference between when something is just hard, but is the right thing to do, versus when something is hard because it’s the wrong thing to do.

The difference between those two is the lack of love. Love carries me through the hard parts, whereas without the love it’s just willpower and determination. Useful traits to bring to bear once you know what’s right, but not so helpful when you use them in the absence of love.

I’m curious about your own experience in discerning between persevering when it’s hard, versus doing the wrong thing. Care to share?

Four Lessons from a More In-Depth Example of a Heart-Centered Sales Page

At their worst, badly done sales pages can turn people off, push them away, and shred your reputation. The worst of the worst-case scenarios often come about when someone copies a sales page they saw that had been effective for someone else, or learned a template from an unscrupulous teacher.

Yet at their best, great sales pages can create intimacy, trust and connection with your perfect clients, while at the same time saving you hours and hours of conversations, getting them to click “buy” without an extensive conversation with you. In short, they can make your heart, and the heart of your offer, truly visible to the right people.

Last Wednesday I wrote about heart-centered sales pages, using a relatively short example. This week let’s take it a bit deeper, and use a more in-depth, extensive sales page and highlight some key points from it.

Here’s the page we’re talking about today:

The Mr. X Experience

Two things I will reveal: I’m Mr. X, and excited to be co-teaching with Tad in Edmonton. And I did not write this page. In fact, I was stumped trying to write it, but Tad did a beautiful job with it, as he does with everything.

Background: The Mr. X style of sales page has been around for years. The original intention with this page, as I’ve seen countless times, is to pull people in to the aura around the mysterious X. It can, in the worst cases, somehow manage to be both manipulative and cheesy.

When Tad first had the impulse to write the description of this workshop as a Mr. X-style sales page, I told him flat out, “You’re going to have to do that, because I have no idea how to approach it.” I know that I was reacting mostly to feelings of weirdness at being “Mr. X” and I let those reactions block me from finding the heart-centered way to approach it. Which brings us to our first lesson:

Don’t let your reactions block you from looking more closely at something potentially useful. (click to tweet)

I’m guessing there are lots of things on sales pages you’ve seen that might trigger reactions in you. I’m a big believer in trusting your heart, and if you have a reaction, there is something worth looking at.

However, there’s a big difference in calmly looking at something and choosing not to use it, and being in an upset and turning away from it. Take a moment and feel the difference. It’s REALLY important to note this difference, because so many fine marketing approaches are thrown away by masterful practitioners who need clients, because they’ve seen those approaches done badly, and can’t imagine how it might be done well.

A critical distinction- I’m not suggesting you just push through and use something you don’t like. I’m suggesting you connect with your heart and look more closely at an approach and find the heart of it, before deciding whether to discard it.

The way into Mr. X for Tad wasn’t available to me in my reactions. But Tad was having fun. Here’s a quote from the page:

“Why am I being so mysterious? Partly as a fun marketing idea.”

Second Lesson: Have fun. Or at least bring some lightness in.

One of the main reasons I think Tad’s approach works is because he’s having fun with it. The whole idea of a Mr. X is a little ridiculous, and so having a spirit of fun matches that ridiculousness.

He’s not having fun at the level of telling jokes (Although he can do that, too. The last 20 seconds of the video.) But you can tell from the writing that he’s just not taking himself or the workshop so seriously. Light. Fun. Easy.

Often a new or struggling business owner can be gripped by a combination of “This has to work!” “I want them to understand!” “What if they don’t like me?” and that can create a real heaviness in the writing.

Often before shooting a video, I will shake my head rapidly and make funny noises, just to get my face to relax and to drop any seriousness I may be feeling.

How can you access lightness and fun in your writing?

Aside from lightness and reactions, another thing Tad has done well: he’s really clear about who is in the audience.

Third Lesson: Know your best reader

It’s easy to fall into thinking you want your offer to be good for anyone, or as broad an audience as possible. Now imagine this: you’re in a conversation with the CEO of a large company from South America, an exhausted full-time parent with two young kids from Australia, a college frosh near the end of her first year from the U.S. midwest, and a real estate agent from London.

And now imagine the topic is offering something they all need.

Now, you might have something that can help each of them. But how in the heck do you have a conversation with all of them AT THE SAME TIME, without driving yourself bonkers? There will be cultural factors, lifestyle factors, schedule and needs… not to mention just language use. The same language that would make you seem credible in the eyes of the CEO would probable make you inaccessible to the college student, for instance.

Tad and I decided who the workshop is best for, and who it isn’t good for. We decided on the basis of type of business, on values, and on ability to be in a spiritual conversation.

With that clarity, he can focus his attention and language on just those people, which makes for a much more coherent sales page. It also makes it easier to avoid being tongue-tied.

What are the three most important things that define who your best clients are?
And, equally important, what are the three most important things that define those who would want to stay away from this offer?

The final lesson arises out of the fact that Tad spends a lot of time talking about me. And isn’t it always so much easier to recommend something that isn’t you?

Fourth Lesson: Recommend outside yourself

You’re probably saying, “Fine, Mark, but I’m selling myself. So that’s not going to work.” Except that it can, brilliantly.

One of the foundational pieces we work on with clients is that your business has a heart and a being-ness separate from you. In Sufism, the spiritual teaching is that all things exist to the extent that the Divine lends Its/Her/His Existence to that thing. The practical meaning of that teaching is all things, including your business, have a direct connection to the Divine, and so a separate existence from each other, (though not a separate existence from the Divine.)

The business ain’t you.

The work you do, the modalities you work with, the gifts that come through you, all come from elsewhere, and originally from the Divine. And they are expressed through the heart of your business.

When someone says wonderful things to me about me and my work, my usual response is: “I’m so glad that what worked for me so well also resonates for you!” I acknowledge and receive the appreciation, and also remind both of us that it came through, that it wasn’t me.

I can stand up and strongly say to you, or anyone else, “If you’re self-employed and need to bring in clients and money, I highly, highly recommend our Foundations1: Clients and Money program, because it works so darn well.”

I’m not saying that I’m super cool and the most amazing dude. I’m saying that this approach works, it’s nourishing, and it’s beautiful. I have deep appreciation for how the teachings have helped me, too.

If you can allow yourself to connect with the heart of your business, the heart of your work, then you will be able to, without ego, write about the work from a very powerful, centered, unattached perspective with strength and humility.

That’s four, you got more?

The lessons I named are meant to help open the gates of creativity and confidence. And, there are lots of other things to be gleaned from that sales page. I’m curious what you are taking away- will you let me know?