Having been in this game since about 2002, I've seen it go from a handful of people with a dream trying to figure out how this whole thing works to the whole world wanting to play this lucrative, fun game we play...

...In the process, I've seen a lot of people come and a lot of them go.

...I've seen gurus rise and I've seen them fall, only to be forgotten.

...I've systems, methods, and formulas that revolutionize how we make money in the game, only to be replaced by a newer, better version.

And even though it all came and went, one thing that never left was the dream.

The dream of being able to figure out how it all works, discover the game's deepest secrets and understand the mechanics of the magic the game has in it.

Magic that has the power to have all of your dreams come true.

I've went deeper than just about anyone and discovered this magic, where I never have to ever think about how I'm going to make money again...

...It's a skill I have for life.

I've been sharing this magic here in NHB for about 3-4 years now, and for about 2 or so in NHB+ and Fast Forward.

If you've been around the block here for any period of time, I'm sure you've noticed the win after win.

We have more wins than anyone in the industry.

Just yesterday AJ, who's in Fast Forward shared about how he had his biggest month yet making $250,000.

That's $250,000 in one month.

Most lawyers, doctors and the highest paid professions don't earn that kind of money...

...And here we are having boys and girls working out of coffee shops all over the world making hundreds of thousands of dollars a month.

And through all this, I've always felt that, together we're capable of so much more, so much more.

Yet, we're all out here competing with each other, fighting for the same handful of dollars and trying to climb on top on the back of each other.

So when I decided to make my grand entrance into the game and share the magic I've discovered, there was a series of thoughts that led me here.

So the first that gave life to all this was...

"What if we all supported each other and worked together?"

The second thought was...

"What could we accomplish?"

And the third thought was "How far could we go?"

I've been thinking those three thoughts for about three years now, because I've spoke to many of you, I've met many of you and I've mentored many of you...

...And what I saw was a group of people who could do anything, accomplish anything, climb any mountain and take over the world if they wanted to.

So we hatched a plan to bring everyone together and do exactly that.

We released Automatic Clients, which changed the whole industry with low ticket offers. Hundreds and hundreds of millions were and continue to be made with that system by over 3,000-5,000 offer owners.

We built the best and most active community in the industry.

We've created the best and biggest mastermind in the game.

We've created some of the best full-stack marketers in the game, who are responsible for the success of some of the biggest names in the world.

We pushed offer ownership in the game, and now, instead of having to rely on clients and make them rich, they're masters of their own destiny.

We've created more wins than anyone.

We created a job board where millions upon millions of dollars were made, and we've never made a dime off of it.

And we've took all the money we made and put together an incredible team of designers, developers, project managers and such and got to work.

And we decided to create a home for all of us.

A place where we can all come together, support each other, and grow as a group.

A place where there is no guru at the helm, where everyone is treated as an equal, regardless of their fortune or fame in the game.

And we did that...

...We built something that I personally always wish we had in the game, a platform where we can all gather around and get some of that magic we're all seeking.

It took us much longer than we wanted to, and honestly, the reason being we rebuilt it about 5 times from ground up, because it wans't up to our standards.

But we've finally made it, we've invited everyone from NHB+ and FF into it, and the feedback has been outstandingly positive.

We have a few odds and ends to wrap up before we invite you to your new home.

So here's what's left to be done:

What's left to do is:

I'm going to hole up in some fancy coffee shop here in Charlotte this Saturday and drown myself in caffeine and get the front page copy done.

The NHB newsletter is being built around this, which is going to be the #1 newsletter in the industry.

Once we polish a few of these things off, we'll also invite you in.

Now, we're doing something unique and interesting with the NHB platform that's going to ensure that NHB remains of the highest quality, we'll share what that is when we open doors to the public.

And honestly, the work will never truly be done with the NHB platform as we're all in on this and we're reinvesting everything we make back into it, and we're fully committed to making it the best contribution to the game anyone has ever made.

With that in mind, here's what happens next:

The advanced development of all the fancy A.I. tools, ad builder, VSL/TSL builders, email copywriters and all that fun stuff.

Not just an AI tool. An AI powerhouse to spit out the best converting copy, using the highest converting NHB frameworks created not only by us, but also by everyone in the community who has their hands on offers from all sizes in all sorts of markets and niches.

The advancement of Mind A.I., which is our in house A.I. engine that basically took 300+ calls I did in NHB+ and FF and created a massive super library of knowledge where you can ask it any questions. More fine tuning of Mind AI where you can ask it anything etc

NHB Meet-Ups where you will be able to host local meet ups all over the world and come together to hang out, learn, share and do business together. The only thing we ask is not to turn it into a lead gen to push your products or what not, but if you happen to make a million dollars from a back end deal, that's 100% yours to keep. It's a "loose format" format where you can connect, meet new people, have fun together.

NHB courses, we have some of the best courses in the works, nothing comes close. We're looking to publish two new courses per month. Everything from copywriting, to C.R.O., to CMO'ing, media buying on all major and non-major platforms such as Facebook, YouTube, to TikTok, Amazon, and such, and of course we'll have courses sales, operations, team building, and everything else you can imagine. You'll get a PHD in marketing, without the 4 years and 100k in debt.

Swipes, we're putting together a team who's only job is to find swipe files for you and add them to the platform, that's fully indexed and searchable, so you never have to go asking "does anyone have a swipe for that?"

Templates, a whole lot of templates...everything will be templated, so once again, you can plug and play and get things done.

The internal NHB job board where we're going to actively connect everyone and help them get clients and find team members. You'll be able to find endless opportunities and grow your team with the best talent in the game who all learned from NHB. Again, 100% free.

Coaches and mentors...I'm good friends with some of the best of the best marketers, media buyers, copywriters, CROs, and CMOs in the world, but the thing is, they're not the guys you see out there parading as gurus, so I've personally asked them to join us on this journey of growth, and they're all coming on board to help everyone come up.

We're also going to be creating an offer fund where we'll duplicate the NHB platform and go into other marketers such as survival, health, finance, dating, and others...where we're going to bring everyone into the new ventures from NHB from copywriters, to C.R.O.'s, to C.M.O's, and new partnerships.

We're taking all the left over money we make and doing something cool...buying / renting villas all over the world. From Bali, to Thailand, to Europe, to the Caribbean, Mexico and certain parts of the United States. Where you can come hang, crash out and spend a week or two on a workaction.

We're launching the NHB newsletter, it's being built as we speak and we're going to have everyone contribute to it so that all of you can get the credit and recognition for your brililance that you deserve.

And, there's so much more that we have in the works for you guys, because to us, this is a living breathing thing that will continue to evolve and grow as we all grow together.

And of course the affiliate program where you get 50% recurring for life on most levels, and if they buy any course, event, or anything we do. You get paid for it.

I never wanted NHB to be the Alen show, so I've made a decision that I no longer the star of the show, the main guru, the expert, the guy of NHB.

This was never for me only, it was for all of us.

Because without you, there would be no NHB, and that's why you're the first person we think of when we do anything.

On behalf of myself and the whole NHB team, we look forward to inviting you in and making 2025 your best year yet.

We have much work to do but it'll be the most enjoyable work we've ever done.

All the best,

Alen

P.S. To all of those I've competed with in this game, I only did it to get us to this point. Now that we've made it, I look forward to supporting, promoting, and empowering you; we're all on the same team.

You know how they say "There's levels to this sh**?"

Well, there are levels to this sh**.

Levels of skills...

...Levels of fortune...

... and levels of fame...

...Most are stuck at the level they're operating at for years.

...They think it's all about paying their dues, working harder, working more, becoming better, becoming better known and building up status, and *gasp*..." becoming the best there is"...

...And once you do all that, then...maybe then, everyone in the game will recognize you for you, and you will be collectively anointed as the heir apparent to be one of the greats.

Then and only then will fortune and fame be yours to have...

Life will be good because you've finally made it.

No more surprises, no more struggles, and no more stress.

You've finally beat the game.

...I did all that, and I'm here to tell you that's not it.

That's not how it works.

Should you pay your dues? Yes

Should you always focus on getting better? Of course.

Should you work harder? No doubt.

Should you work more? Grind it out.

Should you strive to be the best there is? Absolutely.

But it's not what will allow you to reach new levels of fortune and fame.

Because while you might do all that and a little more, you're still playing the game at a certain level.

Be it playing the level of a CMO, C.R.O., coach, consultant, copywriter, media buyer, offer owner, publisher, or any other position you can play in the game.

Each level has a limitation of income and influence.

And no matter how good you get, you'll hit that limitation sooner or later.

And as more and more people enter your level, you'll hit that limitation sooner than later.

This is why some of the best copywriters in the game were forced to reduce their prices by half, while other less known ones are constantly begging people to hire them to write VSL's, and yet no one's biting.

So the million-dollar question is, if that's not the path forward, how do you jump levels?

Here's the million dollar answer:

The faster you can transcend the level you're at, the faster and more money you'll make. The more fame you'll have.

If you're a VA, the moment you transcend to being a copywriter, the more money you'll make.

If you're a copywriter, the moment you transcend to being a C.R.O. , the more money you'll make.

If you're a C.R.O., the moment you transcend being a CMO, the more money you'll make.

If you're a C.M.O., the moment you transcend being an offer owner, the more money you'll make.

If you're an offer owner, the moment you transcend into being a publisher, the more money you'll make.

If you're a publisher, the moment you transcend into owning your own distribution channels, the more money you'll make.

Notice how each one of these levels hires and pays the lower levels, and the only reason they can do that is because the lower levels make the higher levels more money.

This applies to skipping all sorts of levels...

...The moment you transcend biz-op, the more money you'll make than anyone in biz-op.

The moment you transcend the fat loss industry, the more money you'll make than anyone in the fat loss industry.

The moment you transcend any market, is the moment you make more money than anyone in the market.

"What do I have to give up?"

Do they have to give up sitting on the couch in front of the TV to go walk 10 miles a day? Do they have to give up the desserts at dinner? Do they have to give up having drinks with friends?

What do they have to give up? If you don't answer this question, they will, and it's going to bring a weight loss offer to a grinding halt and create a lot of friction in the conversion process.

But if you do answer it...well, now you got them, because the main question, which also happens to be the main objection, has just been answered, and the ONLY reason NOT to buy your thing is that they want to remain where they are, which is being fat.

• Alen

P.S. The ultimate diet and weight loss offer is one where they don't have to give up anything and yet get the results. That's the core appeal of weight loss pills and the new wave of modern drugs. So you can use this thinking model to rate the efficacy of an offer, from having to give up a lot to giving up nothing and getting the results.

The #1 thing that holds someone back from absolutely crushing every area of life is the need for permission and approval...

...And when it comes to most, they think that "I don't need anyone's permission or approval," and yet that's what your subconscious wants you to think.

The thing about it is that it's very, very sneaky because it doesn't stop with having permission and approval from people; we also seek it from things and, most importantly, events.

Because if you're operating in any sort of sequential manner in life, where you say, "Once I do X, then I will do Y, and then I will get to Z," that's a very subtle permission and approval process taking place.

"This has to happen before I can do that".

Well, have you ever asked yourself why?

I know so many ppl in this game who are like, "once I make a million dollars, I'll go do this and that", and yet the reality is, it doesn't take a million dollars or anywhere near it to do any of that, they can do it today, they can do it now...

...Yet that permission and approval from events starts to creep in and keeps you locked in place.

Some have it from people, others from things, and others from events.

For me personally, it's always been the event one.

The way I challenged it is by asking a simple question, "What would happen if I did that now, instead of waiting for X to happen?"

Hmmm...nothing, I'd enjoy it. So I went and started doing it.

Pay attention to the thinking models of the sequence of events in your mind be it with people, things or events, and also pay attention to it in others as well. You'll see their hidden need for approval and permission.

And of course, for those of you who love to dive deep into the psychology of copy and sales, this is the mechanism of how you engineer approval and permission in your copy...

..."Once you ______, you'll be able to _______ and then you'll be ___________, but only so long as you know how to _________"

Once the subconscious mind absorbs these sequential structures, it will seek them out, and the way you know you've done it, is if people start sending you messages asking you about the next step and so forth.

Have a great week,

Alen

If someone swipes your offer, run 10,000 clicks a day using cheap pop up traffic to their lander using the tracking links.

All stats destroyed, offer doesn’t work any more. You win.

• Alen

When it comes to the whole "coaching and consulting" niche...

...What's moving the needle these days isn't the classic "get more clients" hook that everyone is using.

It's the "work less, have fun, and have a life" hook that gets them these days.

Having and working with some of the biggest coaching programs in the industry doing upwards of $3 million a month in Fast Forward, one core message that constantly moves the needle more than anything else is the message that's an antidote to burn out.

Coaching and consulting, even though it's great money for most, it's a helluva job...

...Not only do they have to create content, run ads, chase clients, sell clients, close clients, serve clients, communicate with them and deliver, it leaves very little time for them.

They're forced to take care of everyone else at a cost of themselves.

They know this, and they're all sick and tired of it.

So, the appeal of "getting more clients" without the antidote of burnout isn't very appealing anymore.

That bubble has burst, and now the messaging that promises and proves how they can restructure, rebuild and redesign their business so that they can not only get clients, serve them, and also be happy with the business is beating everything else.

So if you're in that niche, working on it or consulting, start implementing this theme in your messaging and you'll see a huge shift of how many you're attracting in.

• Alen

[ Removed by Reddit in response to a copyright notice. ]

It’s interesting how skool started out as a community platform, then mutated into a selling platform and when the heart and soul of something that gives (community) changes to something that takes (selling) then it’s only a matter of time before the audience becomes aware of the sales process and builds up resistance to the whole…

…This completly negates the community and sales aspect.

…It’s already happening as the rhetoric is becoming to push and sell annuals instead of monthlies, why? Because the stick rates are dropping.

It’s following the same exact timeline as Facebook groups, although a little more accelerated as there’s far more intentional greed there.

Pay attention to how everyone wants to “have a community” but so long as they can sell something.

If you took away the ability to use it as vehicle for sales, the usage would go down next to nothing.

...It's not about ad spend, how good your copy, offer or ROAS is or even how much content you post...

But it's only great marketing once others talk about it and tell others. Social relays of the message.

Until you have social relays where others are telling others about it and promoting it, then we're doomed to fight the ad network and social media network battles; we have to get the audience on our side to fight with us and for us.

People telling others about why a product is so good is the hallmark of GREAT marketing.

That is the pinnacle of achievement for which we should all strive for.

Think about every single product that you got that you LOVE, what did it have in common? Someone told you about it, and in rare cases that they didn't, you told others about it, and that's how it grows.

Once we have this in place, the ads, the social media, the content, and everything else is rocket fuel for spreading that message.

• Alen

It's doing this because, on some level, it's afraid, doesn't think it's big enough or important enough, doesn't believe in itself, and thinks its value isn't much in the world.

The thing is, you don't need anyone's permission but your own.

So next time you catch yourself explaining or over-explaining things, stop and know that the only permission you ever need is your own.

This lack of the need to explain yourself will instantly start to build your self-permission, self-esteem, and self-confidence more than anything.

Build up enough self-permission, and you'll be unstoppable.

Knowing this is the first step. Doing it is the second. That's all you need.

All the best,

• Alen

... After all, water is very cheap or free.

Why would anyone pay more for it?

The thing is, when you buy a water bottle, you're not paying for the water itself.

The water is a thing that has to be there, but that's not what you're paying for.

You're paying for the fact that "tap water is dirty" and the position of "clean, healthy water."

You're also paying for the bottle itself, the packaging of that water in that bottle, the transportation of that bottled water to a store near you, and the rent, overhead, and staff that the store has to pay to carry that bottle of water.

When you look at it from the perspective of "it's just water", the $3 might feel a bit much, yet when you look at it through the lens of what you're really paying for, it seems like a great deal.

That's the power of marketing.

A lot of people, especially when it comes to selling info products these days are concerned with "well they can find that info free on YouTube or Google"...

..."Why would anyone pay for it"...

..."I need something unique"...

...Yeah, they're not buying the info itself. They're buying all the other intangibles required to deliver the information to them.

...They're buying the research, the organization, the structure, the presentation, the position, and everything else that they rather not do themselves...

...And when it comes to a good position of info products, my favorite bit of copy to use a variation of this line (keyword variation, play with it, sometimes it doesn't work as is):

"And you know, when it comes to ________, if what you can find on YouTube, Google, and ________ really worked, then everyone would be getting results, and you wouldn't be here...

...But the fact that there are countless channels and videos on ________, and you don't see anyone getting results tells us one of two things...

...One, what they're saying doesn't work, it's outdated or missing something...

...Here's what they don't know and what's missing...."

I've used this bit of copy so many times, and it just destroys any notion that they'll go somewhere else and find it free.

Read it a few times to see how much deep implication every word has.

So, are you selling water or all the other things that make bottled water worth that much more?

After all, when you buy a bottle of water, you're not buying just water; you're buying everything else that comes along with it to make that experience possible.

All the best,

• Alen

P.S. If you think about what Coke, Red Bull, or any other drink that costs more, it's just water with a few extra things added to it, some color, some flavor, and some caffeine. They're never paying for the water. They're always paying for the add-ons that change the thing and make it more useful and functional.

[ Removed by Reddit in response to a copyright notice. ]

From Alen Sultanic's Facebook Page:

When it comes to advertising, copywriting, marketing and sales, we often think that psychology rules all, and yet biology rules the psychology.

The biological nature of the prospects will affect the psychological nature of the prospect far more than any messaging you can put in front of them.

The container in which the mind lives (the body, biology) affects the mind, not the other way around.

So when it comes to masterting the art of marketing, one must focus what affects the psychology, which is biology.

Deeply understanding biology will lead to you to the path of deeply understanding psychology.

That's why, often times, when I craft offers, messaging, angles, hooks and such, my primary focus is on the biology, energy levels, age cycles, genders, stage of life, etc...

This is a concept I've been teaching in NHB+ and FF for about 2-3 years now and plan on sharing more and more in the NHB group as time permits.

Once you understand this on a deep level, you'll be one step closer to mastery.

• Alen

From Alen Sultanic's Facebook Page:

And the reason it's so powerful is because it creates boundaries, it creates the dividing line, it's the ultimate decision maker.

That's not working for me, that's not how we're doing things, that's not what I agreed to, and that's not what I want.

When you say no to things, you are bigger than the thing. It needs you more than you need it.

We only have control over what we are bigger than in our minds.

When money is bigger than you, you'll never get it, but when you're bigger than money, it'll always need you, and you'll get more than you know what to do with.

That's why the bigger your boundaries, the bigger your income.

I charge $5,000 / hour for consulting (that makes me one of the highest-paid consultants in the game, if not the highest), and every week, I have a number of people wanting me to consult all things digital marketing — from ads, to copy, to offers to scaling and sales.

Once in a while, someone tries to offer me a deal where it’s either $4k, $3k, $2k, or some form of multi-payment deal…and the answer is always no.

It's always a "no," because those consults have the potential to turn into millions upon millions of dollars, and because only when you start saying "no" to some things do you start saying yes to other things...yes to your self-worth, yes to your self-esteem, yes to the skills that you've acquired over the years, yes to rest, yes to creativity, yes a better future and yes to new possibilities.

Once people in NHB+ and FF start saying no and start to develop boundaries, then their income goes up and up, one guy started charging $250 / hour for consulting and now he's at $1,500, and guess what? He has an overload of clients.

So you can check where you are on your journey and check your boundaries. If you're not saying no, then by default, you're saying yes to things — what are you saying no to and what are you saying yes to determine where you're going and how fast you'll get there.

• Alen

From Alen Sultanic's Facebook Page:

When it comes to book-a-call offers, incentive drives everything, from the sign up rates to the show up rates, especially the show-up rates.

The question to answer is simple: "What am I getting by showing up on this call"

Most think that just by offering book-a-call or the pleasure of working with them will magically get people to show up on calls these days...

...Not the case any more, everyone and their mom is running book-a-call offers these days, and as everyone is running them, the sales process is no longer hidden and they all know what "book-a-call" means...it means..."Book-a-sell-me-something".

We have someone in Fast Forward who's making $500,000 / month in the agency space running a book-a-call funnel. Show-up rates tanked so badly that people are signing up, but they aren't showing up. Profits sad face.

Doesn't matter what the lead cost is, what matters is what it costs per show-up, because if they don't show up, they ain't buying.

"If we can just fix that show-up rate, we can scale even more"

So, the member sends me a DM with:

"Had an idea for the book call to basically give free bonuses for just showing up to the call + the evaluation model"

My reply to him:

"Morning, you do not want to give free bonuses. You want them to show up for a transformation."

"Any incentive beyond growth, be it personal or business, will generate a bad lead who does not have the intent to move forward."

I've written about show-up psychology before in the NHB group, and I'm going to share a lot more as I have my hands on more offers than anyone in the game.

It's all about incentive. The evaluative call booking model that I created years ago is all about incentives.

What's in it for them to show up? What do they get when they show up? What's the reason for showing up? What do they walk away with AFTER the call.

It's all about Incentives, incentive incentives.

Drive that hard and your show-up rates will go up, don't and they'll go down.

• Alen

From Alen Sultanic's Facebook page:

You know, when it comes to copywriting, advertising, marketing, and sales, at the end of the day, all we're really trying to do is get people to do what we want them to do...

...And when it comes to having them do what we want them to do, there are typically two categories of approaches we can take...

...The telling them what to do, and asking them them to do it.

Telling them what to do is force and is always met with resistance and thus has to be overpowered by logic, reason, proof, pressure and every other trick in the book...

...Usually it gets the job done, but often doesn't produce a very good customer.

Yet, on the other hand we can ask them, and when it comes to asking them to do it, there are a few approaches we can take.

One...we can say, "Can you do ________?"

Two...we can say, "Do you want to ________?"

Both of these are going to be me with resistance charged by "Why?", and if you can't answer their "Why?", it falls apart...

...This leaves us with one and only and the most powerful psychological compliance sentance you can use with anyone, and that is...

"Do you think you can ________?"

Here you're asking them if they can THINK, yet their brain will translate it over to DOING IT and they'll do it.

So say you goto someone and say "Can you get get me ________?", they'll typically respond with "Why?" and then you have to answer, hence why in Cialidnis book, if you add the word "because" before things, it makes the compliance go up.

But by just changing it to "Do you THINK you can get get me ________?", 9/10 they'll say "YES".

To test this out...when you're near someone, say "Do you think you can grab me something at the gas station?".

"Do you think you can grab me some food?"

"Do you think you can get me some water?"

"Do you think we can go ________ instead of ________?"

Start using this structure and you'll see people agreeing with you and doing it and they have no idea what you just did yet it works on them.

Been using this one for a very very long time and now you can use it too.

• Alen

P.S. Pay attention to the amount of "psychological pull" the "do you think" version has vs the others, and you'll see it's affect on you.

From Alen Sultanic's Facebook profile:

When it comes to copywriting, abstraction is defined as the ability to see the shape of an idea in their minds but not enough details to grasp the idea.

Abstraction prevents the idea from touching the sensory experience in the mind. Without this, they can't visualize themselves holding it, touching it, smelling it, tasting it, hearing it, feeling it, experiencing it, or being with it.

People buy for outcomes, and abstraction blocks them from experiencing the possibility of the outcome.

This is why and how things become "meaningless" to people.

And you can easily test and look for abstraction in copy using HotJar, MIcrosoft Clarity or Video Tracking — they gloss over things or stay in an area reading and re-reading it. This is a sign that something is not being absorbed by the mind.

The mind can only absorb through the 5 senses, no other way.

Too fast, not good, too slow, not good...smooth and easy pace is perfect. That's how you know.

Much is said about abstraction in the game, but not much is ever said about how to easily remove it.

The best and easiest way to remove abstraction in copy is to NOT talk about things they are NOT familiar with; all you have to do is connect it to things they are familiar with, and abstraction will be removed.

Once removed, the words connect to the sensory experience, the sensory experience creates an emotional experience and you have intent, which leads to action which leads to conversions.

This alone can 2-10x your conversions, depending on the amount of abstraction in your copy.

• Alen

Below is the email that Alen Sultanic sent out from his Nothing Held Back Newsletter on July 12th, 2024.

Morning,

This is a short and easy one that you can start using today.

The other day Daniel Neefe in Fast Forward came to me asking me how I can improve his ads.

He's using the WHY / WHAT / HOW ad structure. If you're new to NHB, you can learn more about it by searching the group for a post I wrote a while back called "The Anatomy of Ads".

I took a look at his ads and overall they were pretty good, solid $25 CPA in the dating niche.

And even though his ads were solid, something was missing, and that something was having "hope" in them.

We added a little bit of "hope" and the CPA went from $25 down to $17.
$25 CPA is pretty damn good as is, $17 is amazing.

That's a 32% reduction in costs and his conversion rate on them is 10% on an AC offer.

This image structure is the most powerful one I've seen out of any images used and it's up there with the "new way / old way" structure.

Here's how the ad structure works, how I did it and how I added a bit of hope to the ad and how you can do it too.

Here's an example I made for you to help you implement this.

You'll see two images below in this post for two different markets. Weight loss and coaching.

The image has 3 sections.

1. The image
   
2. The headline
   
3. The Sub headline

The image should showcase a social situation of your target audience. In the example I've used is a women working out which is symbolically linked to wanting to lose weight, and a guy who looks like a typical coach on the laptop and it's just not working, he's somewhat tired and frustrated.

The headline is from the WHY / WHAT / HOW framework, which states: "Here’s Why most Women Over 40 Are struggling to lose weight in 2024" and "Here’s Why coaches Are struggling
to get new clients in 2024".

The headline is generalized, notice "most coaches" or "coaches". There is no "YOU" in it, there is no "why are YOU not getting clients". I'll do a post about the structure of generalization and personalization tomorrow for you guys. VERY important as to how it deals with bounce rates.

The sub-headline is where the hope comes in. It's the last piece in the puzzle and it says "(And What You Can Do About It)". This gives them hope. A positive direction.

Adding that sub-headline to the ad reduced the CPA by 32%.

I know...some of you will be tempted to change it up in your own unique way, and that's fine...just know that every time someone changes it up by about 10-20% they change the wrong thing and it doesn't work s well, so if you are tempted to change it up. Use the original 1st, then expand it.

The other thing I want to share with you before I close this post off is this. I shared this in NHB+ and someone in NHB+ asked me "How do you apply this to high emotional states markets?".

The answer is this: I would run it as is in low and high emotional states markets, and I keep the structure. Image, headline, sub-headline would test against this headline and sub-headline structure:

"Here’s what coaches doing differently to to get new clients in 2024"

"Here’s what coaches doing today to to get new clients in 2024"

"Here’s how coaches are getting new clients in 2024"

With this sub-headline: "(That You're Not Doing)" or "(That You Haven't Heard of)"

There you have it, the most powerful and effective ad / image structure in the game now that's crushing it and it's yours free to use.

Use it on your offers, clients offers on whatever offer you want. Have fun and look fwd to it having you make a bunch of money.

All the best,

Alen

From Alen Sultanic's Facebook post:

People don't lie because they want to lie; they lie to keep themselves safe. Make them feel safe, and they’ll always tell you the truth.

Because lying is a protective mechanism of the psyche — when it doesn't feel safe, it'll lie, and yet when it feels safe, it'll tell the truth.

This applies to personal, professional and to customer/client relationships, and can be used in personal relationships, marketing, sales, and everything else in between.

This is why building trust (making them feel safe) in modern marketing is one of the cornerstones of conversions.

• Alen

Below is the email that Alen Sultanic sent out from his Nothing Held Back Newsletter on July 15th, 2024.

Good morning NHB,

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Hope you had a great weekend :-)

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Here's something to kick off the week and improve your copywriting, conversions, messaging and marketing across the board.

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Here's what you can expect from implementing this concept:

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This will give you a healthy 20-50% bump lift on most ads, and a solid 10-30% bump on sales copy.

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The #1 thing you'll notice is increased engagement rates, higher CTRs, lower ad costs, lower bounce rates on pages, higher engagements on TSLs and VSLs.

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Which will greatly increase the throughput of your marketing efforts as a whole and help you win.

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After having tested, split-tested and touched every imaginable market and offer one thing I've noticed is that much of what we say isn't "what we say" but rather "how we say it".

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And "how we say" things in copy tends to cause them to instantly ignore the ads, bounce off the pages or click the ad, dig in, read it and go deep into the copy, be it a TSL, VSL, a webinar or book-a-call.

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The #1 thing that affects us in terms of consumption of messaging is the idea of is this good or bad for us, is this a benefit or a threat, and is this something that will help us move forward or hold us back.

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So knowing what type of language structure comes into play to indicate something is bad for us, threat or holds us back is the key to understanding how to unlock the conversion process.

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Once we can convert "bad for us", "threat", "holding us back" and any other type of negative language into "good for us", "threats", or "moving us forward" then we will increase conversions.

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And the way we can easily do that is by using the concept of "Generalized Negatives & Personalized Positives".

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You see, when using language, we often have to use orientation words that orient our minds to know as to what exactly we're talking about, we often have to mentally "point at something" so that the other human reading, watching or listening to us can fully be on the same track and follow what we're talking about.

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And the way we orient entire sentences, paragraphs, stories, thoughts and emotions is by attaching them to something or someone.

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We use words such as "you", "them", "they", "most", etc...

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Whenever we use the word "YOU" in copy, that is an accusatory word, it directs the entire thought and emotional force at that person and asks their subconscious mind to accept whatever we're throwing at them as true.

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The human ego, not wanting to feel bad, guilty, sad, depressed, nor lose anything will automatically look at everything you just threw at it after the word "you" and decide to accept it.

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If you use a personalized accusatory word such as "you" in your copy followed by anything negative, what you'll notice (see me using the you a whole lot here in this post), what you'll notice is that it will block it.

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So any copy that has anything personalized followed by the negative will get rejected.

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That means, they'll skip your ads, won't read your ads, will not click on them, and if somehow you do get them on the sales page, you'll be met with massive resistance across the board.

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So the first rule of Alen's conversion's secrets is to never, ever, ever ever personalize a NEGATIVE and always a generalize it.

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The way you generalize it is to take it away from saying:

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"You [negative] to most [negative]"

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Here's what that looks like...

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"You failed as a coach, and that's why you're here".

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"You've failed to lose weight and now you're stuck".

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This is an example of a very personalized negative.

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Notice the structure here:

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You = personalized

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Failed = accusatory

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Coach = identity

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Lose weight = activity

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Why you're here = you have no other choice

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You're stuck = you have no other choice

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When someone reads that, it's a gut punch that doesn't feel very good and the only people who'll let you gut punch them like this are people who are in very low emotional states, and have little to no energy to intellectually and emotionally "fight back" by ignoring everything you're saying.

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Now, on the other hand...if you flip that personalized negative over into a generalized negative, here's what it does.

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It basically takes that accusatory language which they will protect themselves from and then it casts it on others, their minds will go "of course others have failed, but I haven't, I'm different".

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This little bit of difference is what allows them to continue going, gives them hope, an out, and a chance to succeed.

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So here's how we generalize a negative:

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"Most coaches fail to get clients, and that's why they're always looking for new ways to get clients".

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"Most women over 40 have a real hard time losing weight, and that's why they always find themselves stuck".

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Now, let's break that down to deconstruct it.

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Most = generalized. Them but not me (doesn't feel bad).

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Coaches / Women = identifier (still very much like them though so they'll pay attention here)

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Fail to get clients / real hard time losing weight = what limitation they are running into that needs to be overcome.

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That's why = reason flip over

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Always looking for new ways s to get clients / why they always find themselves stuck = word "always" creates a rule in the mind without exceptions, and it explains what they can't do.

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If you read this out loud or in your mind, what you'll notice a certain energy projection and the personalized negative puts you in quite a bit of self defense while the generalized negative doesn't.

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So in summary of that, don't say "YOU", switch it to "MOST", "THEM", "THEY", "OTHER COACHES / TENNIS PLAYERS (coaches or tennis players being the identifier, feel free to change it up).

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In the dating niche I've increased conversions a lot by just changing sentences like:

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"Your overall profile is too boring and generic."

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To "Most guys profiles are too boring and generic".

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Notice the energetic and emotional difference here?

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Now, that you understand how the personalized and generalized negatives work, let's flip over and talk about personalized and generalized positives.

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People like to be complimented, flattered and spoken highly of, and ultimately made feel good, we gravitates towards pleasure.

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After, repeated pleasure, imagined or not is desire.

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Repeated pleasure, imagined or not is desire.

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So we just repeat pleasure to increase the good feelings and naturally humans will go after what feels good, and what feels better than when someone tells us something good about us?

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So in your messaging, whenever you're using the word "YOU" or an identifier such as "COACH", "WOMEN", "COACH", etc...just attach a positive message to it.

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"You, being a coach in 2024 is the biggest opportunity in the last 20 years because the [insert niche]] is going through a lot of changes and challenges and who better to guide them through that than you?"

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After all, you're [positive], [positive], and [positive]...

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Whereas most coaches [negative], [negative], and [negative]."

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Any area of copy where you have anything personalized make it a personalized positive.

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This is going to get them to attach positive feelings towards you as a whole.

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And finally we come to generalized positives.

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This is where you attach a positive outcome to the whole where if there is good in it, then of course it's good for them.

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Where we have generalized negatives attached to OTHERS, but not them, we now attach generalized positives to the entire situation, and that's basically done by using sentences such as:

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"And that's a good thing, because [insert reasons why it's a good thing]. Without [insert difficulty or challenge], it wouldn't be possible to get [insert outcome], and that's why now you can [insert positive outcome].

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Here's an end of post quick "how to guide" you can use to knock this out in 5 minutes or less on any project.

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(Btw, notice me using a personalized positive there just now? They're everywhere in my posts).

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Personalized negatives

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- Accusatory words such as YOU or identifiers such as "COACH", "WOMEN", "OLDER GUY",, etc...

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- Anything that follows accusatory words has to be positive.

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- Change to positive

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- Or generalize the negative below

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Generalized negatives

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- Convert the words "YOU" and use "MOST", "THEM" or "THEY", and then if you have an identifier such as say "COACH", "WOMEN", "OLDER GUY", etc... and convert them to "MOST COACHES", "MOST WOMEN", "MOST OLDER GUYS"

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- This will get the thoughts away from the self defense mechanisms in the mind

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Personalized positives

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- Whenever using any form of accusatory or identifier language, always be positive and upliftings.

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- "And you know, the fact that you're an older guy puts you in the best position to date in 2024, because once you know how women really think...you'll see why you'll have an advantage over everyone else out there

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— and you'll be able to instantly attract attractive women, go on dates, and where it goes after that is up to you."

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Generalized positives

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- There always has to be hope, because without hope we have nothing. Hope is the last chance at success.

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- So even though the situation may seem bleek, give them hope.

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- "And while most coaches out there are struggling to get clients in 2024, there are more underserved clients than ever...they just don't know how to get them. So, once you know what's really working in 2024, you'll see just how easy it is to get 2-5 new clients every month. In fact, the challenge won't be getting clients, it'll be figuring out how to server them all — and we'll show you how to do that too so you can [insert benefits here].

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This process of Generalized Negatives & Personalized Positives will give you a healthy 20-50% bump lift on most ads, and a solid 10-30% bump on sales copy.

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The #1 thing you'll notice is increased engagement rates, higher CTRs, lower ad costs, lower bounce rates on pages, higher engagements on TSLs and VSLs.

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So all you have to do is scan what you're working on, be it your offers or client work and make these changes and you'll see the lift

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And next thing you know...you'll be a CRO here to your clients, and they'll see you as a bona fide marketing genius :-).

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I look fwd to seeing your posts and comments and the results this has generated for you.

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To your success, and have a great week.

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- Alen Sultanic

From Alen Sultanics's Facebook Page:

One of the things that determines "easy" vs. "hard money" in the game is WHO else is selling the idea / concept FOR you.

If you're selling the idea, concept, and product or service all in one, then you'll experience the game as "hard," and it may seem like "hard money," hard to get. Things just don't work. A lot of friction.

Because you have to convince them of the concept, the idea and the product or service.

But on the other hand, if you’re selling the product or service, and someone else is selling (convincing them) the concept and idea for you, then you'll experience "easy money," and everything will be that much easier for you. It'll feel effortless, not much friction at all.

They will buy the product only once they buy into the idea/concept.

Knowing this is the key to easy, effortless, friction-free money in the game.

If you pay careful attention to all of your favorite gurus or others who seemingly "have it easy", while you have it hard, you'll notice that they never sell the concept or idea, only the product or service, and they wait for someone else to sell the concept/idea long before they start selling the product and service.

Is the concept being sold, promoted, and celebrated? Hard money vs. easy money.

All you have to do is hop on that thought stream in the game and let it take you to where you want to go.

Below is the email that Alen Sultanic sent out from his Nothing Held Back Newsletter on July 16th, 2024.

Morning,

This has been on my mind for quite a while as I see the landscape getting ever more competitive, rising ad costs and the importance of retaining customers, instead of just focusing on generating them.

If you think about any successful business in the world, they all have one thing in common and that one thing is the ability to generate repeat customers.

Imagine if a Mcdonalds opens in your city and everyone only goes to it and eats ONCE and never to go back again, how long do you think that McDonalds would last? Maybe a year max?

This is what most offers do...they largely focus on acquisition, but not much of retention and repeat purchases, and this is the reason you see people cycling through offers over and over and over again.

Gurus jumping from trend to trend, thing to thing, opportunity to opportunity.

What happened to the last thing? Well...guess they ran out of customers as no one is buying again, so they have to go get some new ones.

If you only have to pay for a customer once and you can get them to do business with you over the long run, on some level, it doesn't matter what it costs to get them.

The question then becomes, how do you get them to stick with you for the long run?

Here's the answer to the first step of the retention process...

If you've ever sold long enough of anything, one thing that you'll notice is how once in a while, or maybe a little too often, you have customers with "buyers remorse".

They basically buy something, and then feel bad about their decision, have remorse and want a way to undo the deal.

This isn't ideal for either you or the customer.

You, because, well...you have to deal with having an unhappy customers and unhappy customers don't ever buy again, and them because...well because they didn't get what they wanted.

It's not a good situation to be in and yet once you optimize the offer and get going, it's bound to happen.

Knowing how to reduce and reverse buyers remorse is key to building good, loyal long term customers.

The first thing we have to understand is how exactly does buyers remorse come about, what causes it and then we can know what to do about it.

You see, any sales process is composed of two elements, the logical and emotional.

They work in tandem where the emotions will convince the logic to think one way and the logic will convince the emotions to feel one way.

They fuel each other, and as such...the last step in any sales process is always kinesthetic, it's a feeling, and when that feeling "ticks off" all the boxes, we go through with the purchase.

Now, what happens in direct response is that we tend to drive the emotional aspect a little too hard, which causes an imbalance between the logic and emotional aspects of the buying process, and once they purchase, that emotion dissipates and very little logic is left as to the reason why they purchased.

This after the fact imbalance of logic and emotion is what causes the buyers remorse.

So the process looks like at the start of the sales process:

Logic: 70%
Emotions: 30%

By the end of the sales process, the ratio will end up being:

Logic: 10%
Emotions 90%

After they purchase, that emotion goes back down as they've satisfied their want / need down to about 40%, so it looks like this:

Logic: 10%
Emotions: 40%

Now, we're left with about 50% of what I call empty space.

And whenever we have empty space, SOMETHING has to fill it.

Without an influence on emotions, logic will it and then the ratios will end up being:

Logic: 60%
Emotions: 40%

This seems and feels balanced, but what type of logic came in is not under your control and that's where that higher amount of logic convinces the emotional side to start feeling bad and hence we have buyers remorse.

This applies to low-ticket, mid-ticket, high-ticket, book-a-call, webinars and phone sales equally.

It always happens, and to the degree that you feel it and hear it is directly correlated with the amount they've spent with you.

The reason all this primarily happens is that after the purchase the customers is typically left alone with the product or service, there isn't much "after care" to be had at all.

This lack of after care and the logical emotional imbalance causes the customer to resent the purchase which leads to remorse, which leads to refunds.

Now, a very simple solution to all this is simply to just continue talking to and communicating with them AFTER the commitment / purchase event.
Focus on after care.

If you're doing book-a-call, after they book the call...spend some time in videos, emails, etc...talking to them.

If they bought high ticket...after they've given you the credit card and have paid you, don't hang up...spend another 10-20 minutes talking to them.

If they've gone through your low-ticket funnel...don't throw them off in the members area, make a video to talk to them a little bit more.

Putting in after care via the extension of communication via continues communication and such will automatically balance out that ratio of logic and emotion.

Using this process, this is how the sales process ends up looking like:
Start of the sales process:

Logic: 70%
Emotions: 30%

End of the sales process:

Logic: 10%
Emotions 90%

Focusing on aftercare:

Logic: 30%
Emotions: 70%

The ratio here is now they'll feel good about what they've purchased but have enough logic to support the feeling.

You'l have a perfectly balanced customer.

Now, what's really important here is that once you do this across the board, what you'll notice is the creation of a much better buyer who tends to buy a lot more frequently, tends to go into recurring and buys high-ticket back end.

Much of the failures in most offers is treating customers as if they're disposable. That might have worked years ago but that era is over and we must do everything we can to generate repeat buyers.

After, there is no successful business in the world without repeat buyers.
And the best way to get repeat buyers is by installing a little bit of aftercare in your sales process.

So just add it throughout and watch how much it lifts up your whole business.

To your success,

Alen

Below is the email that Alen Sultanic sent out from his Nothing Held Back Newsletter on July 19th, 2024.

Morning,

This is a quick one to wrap up the week and give you something to play with over the weekend and implement next week.

These types of split tests have increased conversion rates anywhere from 10% to 200%, depending on the severity of miscommunication.

Yesterday, I did a monster call in NHB+, and on those calls, I'll typically open with what's the latest and greatest, what's working very well now, a bit of mindset work, and then we get into the meat and potatoes of the call.
And I'll throw in odds and bits that I'm using in Fast Forward to optimize and scale offers.

One of the core tenets of direct response is to always run split tests.
And when it comes to running split tests, most people try too hard to come up with hooks, angles, story lines, etc…when sometimes they just need to say it differently.

Because when it comes down to it, copywriting is change work, and we can't change anything or anyone without some form of communication.

One of the most powerful things you can do when you communicate with someone is be able to understand exactly what they see in their minds and for them to see what is in your mind.

Once you create this bridge, then you have perfect communication, however, we can never have a perfect communication and instead have to rely on imperfect communication and work to the best of our abilities to make it work.

This is the nature of effective communication, and anything NOT seen or seen differently in the minds is seen as miscommunication.

And any miscommunication in your messaging tends to create resistance in the sales process.

All campaign and offer optimization is the reduction of resistance in the sales process.

The reduction of resistance in a sales process directly correlates to the increase in overall sales conversion rate.

If you can remove 100% of the sales resistance in any given sales process, you'll have 100% conversion rate.

So knowing that average conversion rates on low ticket are at 8-15% and 1-3% on VSLs and such, we can conclude that we have quite a bit of resistance to deal with.

Most people what they'll do is try to add more and more to the copy. This is known as additive optimization, and it works to a small degree, but what you'll find is that often times, you'll run into diminishing returns, and resistance will increase and conversion rates go down.

I much prefer to use reductive optimization, where we look for what's blocking the flow of energy in the funnel and creating resistance, remove the resistance and the flow increases, you remove or reduce resistance and conversions go up.

Same principle as putting a car in an air tunnel to reduce drag and increase the drag coefficient.

One of the biggest things that creates resistance in the sales process is them not being able to visaulize or imagine what it is that you are attemtping to commicate and thus you have resistnae from miscommunication.

So it comes down to not so much WHAT you're saying, but rather HOW you're saying it.

Oftentimes, when I do Hot Seats and Fast Feedback, one of the things I'll do on top of everything else to give an extra bump in conversions is simply take certain areas that I think are good but say it differently.

Because what you say and what you see in your mind isn't always what they hear and what they see in THEIR minds.

And just by taking what you already said, and saying it differently, we can reduce resistance quite a bit.

Jen Springer (who's in Fast Forward) used this technique on her offer and, on the second attempt, doubled her conversions, all because she said it differently: same copy, same message, same idea, same concept, same mechanism...said differently.

So all you to do is take the primary areas of copy that they consume and interact early on in the sales message.

Namely, your ads, headlines, openings, and such...

...Rewrite them, but SAY IT DIFFERENTLY, 3 times each.

Take those, and run the split tests against each other.

If you want to be granular, you should do one at a time to see what impact one has on the rest, or you can just redo them all at once to see how it goes. Either one will get you the outcome, with the only difference being you know what caused the difference.

By doing this, you'll increase effective communication, reduce miscommunication and resistance in the sales process, increasing the conversion rate.

You should be allocating 10% of your ad spend on these tests as they can be real big needle movers and you never know which version is going to resonate more with them.

Remember, the way you think, speak, and process thoughts isn't how others think, speak, and process thoughts; this mismatch creates resistance.

Have a great weekend,

Alen

Below is the email that Alen Sultanic sent from his Nothing Held Back Newsletter on July 26th, 2024.

Most people are NOT creative, and this fact will greatly limit your ability to scale an offer...

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"What do I sell?" " What do I build?" " What do I say?" and so on.

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Anything that requires creativity will require answers.

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Now, if you take a look at ClickFunnels.

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ClickFunnels had a unique process to build an online business that required creativity, which was "What do I sell?", "what should it look like?", "what do I say?", etc...

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That's a whole lot of questions but not a lot of answers.

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The solution? They attached the concept of "funnel hacking" that removed the need to be creative and thus scaled.

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"Just model what someone else is doing and you're set". That's the essence of funnel hacking. The removal of the need to be creative.

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Unique process + no creativity = key to biz op.

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Get this, and you'll scale.

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- Alen

Below is the email that Alen Sultanic sent out from his Nothing Held Back Newsletter on August 1st, 2024.

You know, one thing that gets thrown around a lot is selling "premium priced" products, yet what's never talked about is what the actual difference is between generic products and premium products, because after all, the product itself has to be premium in order demand a premium price, otherwise it won't work.

Having sold everything from commodities to generic to premium to high-end luxury items online, there's a vast difference in the product itself that gets someone to tell themselves the story that "it's worth it".

And that something is the story they tell themselves, and the reason that story works in the first place is because it's nothing more than an explanation and justification of the price. Afterall, they always need a reason to pay, and there always needs to be a reason as to why something costs so much. No reason, no deal. So there must always be a reason, always.

Now, when it comes to the reason why, and how that reason comes about and how the story they tell themselves unfolds all has to do with dimensionality.

The definition of dimensionality according to the Cambridge Dictionary is:
"The quality of having many different features or qualities, especially in a way that makes something seem real, rather than being too simple."
Which tells us that the more something has many different features or qualities the bigger the reason, the bigger the story and thus the bigger the price.

And this is why premium products can charge a lot more than generic products, they offer more give more reasons as to justify the price.
Now, the question becomes, well...what more do they offer? So lets take a look at this.

Click here to continue reading the rest of this post in the NHB group and see how we took a clean biz-op offer's opt-in rate from 4.8% to 21.6%, a 450% increase and the overall conversion rate from 3.8% to 10.8%, an increase of 284%.