I hate Leeching Larry

Lemme tell you about this douchebag I know named Leeching Larry.
The first week I met him, he asked to borrow my car. 
The next week he asked me to introduce him to a wealthy friend of mine so he could pitch some stupid business idea. 
The week after that he rented his apartment out, and asked to stay at MY place for 7 days…..for free.
I’d had enough. I unsubscribed to his friendship. Everytime he contacted me it was asking for something…..and I got nothing in return. 
On the other hand, I have a close friend named Giving Gary.
When I met him, Giving Gary played wingman for me and I ended up meeting this awesome girl.
The first time I had dinner with Giving Gary, we had an invigorating 3 hour conversation that gave me SO many new business ideas!
Giving Gary called me up a week later and invited me to a private gathering of entrepreneurs where I made SO many awesome connections and new friends.

A few weeks later, Giving Gary asked me if I could help him move. I enthusiastically said “HELL YES”!
Giving Gary had already given me so much awesome friendship, and so many connections and ideas that I was super willing to help my FRIEND with whatever he needed.
By the way…..after helping him move, he even treated me to a fancy steak dinner.
Giving Gary is one helluva guy!

In the marketing world however, people turn into THAT douchebag Leeching Larry:

“How do I raise my prices?”
“How do I double my email list quickly?”
“How do I increase my website traffic?”
“How do I get people to pay me more money?”
“How do I build a big business so I don’t have to work?”

Geez….no wonder so many people never build a successful business! They’re being selfish assholes and not trying to help others! 

Making money is about giving value to someone else. 

If YOU give someone valuable things, THEY will reward you. 

And the same principle applies to your email list signup forms!

SO instead let’s flip all these questions around, and ask them like Giving Gary would ask them. 

For example:

This giving mentality is how a true long term friendship works, and it’s how growing your email list and business works too. People sign up (or buy) from people they like and trust. 

So when it comes down to write a line for your SumoMe email popup, you can easily figure out the best line to write by asking, “How can I HELP people and offer something valuable to them like Giving Gary??”

Ohhhh, let’s do some examples!!

Here’s what douchebag Leeching Larry would write. Probably something really selfish and un-inspiring like this:

Now how can we flip this like Giving Gary? Perhaps by giving away something really helpful to your audience? Maybe something like……

Now we’re talking! But let’s even further and tell them how valuable this resource is so they totally want it and wouldn’t miss it for the world:

There….you see how we spiced this up?
…we told them what they’re getting.
……we showed them why it’s so valuable. 
……..we’re gonna show them how they can use it. 

We can even make our signup forms MORE compelling and add in some of that good ole charm and personality! You’d almost HAVE to signup if you saw this fun offer:

Today I present you the gift of the Giving Gary Framework.

Every email you send, every Call To Action you write, every sales page you send people to……can be positively affected by thinking like Giving Gary. People like being helped, so help them! 

Think about it, which of these two dudes are you more likely to subscribe to and buy from??

LEECHING LARRY: “Buy my product and give me money.”
-vs-
GIVING GARY: “This tool will help you get more signups on your page, let me show you how…”
LEECHING LARRY: “My email list is the best, you should signup.”
-vs-
GIVING GARY: “I want to give you a free mini-course about Kopywriting, what email address can I send it to?”
LEECHING LARRY:“You need to buy this product to make more money…”
-vs-
GIVING GARY: “I just found a tool that helps me predict which article will get the most traffic, let me SHOW you how to use it step-by-step….it’s made me so much money these past few months.”

Starting to see the difference in mentality?

I could easily give you some cheesy formulas to write headlines and Calls To Action with…but these only work in certain situations, and are hard to repeat every single time. For example, here’s a nice little headline formula I like using sometimes:

With this specific formula we could concoct a headline like this:

[Get higher email signups] + [with only 5 minutes of work] + [even if you have low traffic to your website]

Not bad huh? 

But these kind of formulas are small tactics and gimmicks compared to the Giving Gary framework of thinking.