I wanted Thoughtline to be a hit. But not a small hit. I wanted a
big,amazing,unforgettable,incredible,made me laugh all the way to
the bankhit.
I got it, too. But I had to rewrite the sales letter a hundred times.
Let me give you a taste of what I did.
At one point in the original letter I said the following: “I was im-
pressed when I used Thoughtline the first time.”
Garbage! Who cares? So I rewrote the line to make it knock peo-
ple off their chairs: “The first time I used Thoughtline it developed
an outline for me that made my eyes pop!”
Notice the difference? I watched people as they read this new
line and when they came across the words eyes pop,theireyes
would widen—almost as if they were popping open. Amazing.
Clearly a hypnotic line.
Here’s another example: A client of mine is working on a new
book. She was having trouble developing copy for the back cover,
so she called me for some advice.
I told her, “Make every line activeand personaland alive!”
She didn’t understand. We set up a meeting for a consultation so
I could walk her through the process.
“What do you want to say about your book?” I asked.
“I’ll educate people about networking.”
“How?” I inquired.
“By teaching them to use themselves resourcefully.”
“Give me a specific tip.”
“We say you are only four or five people away from anyone in
the world,” she explained. “If you use your network, you can meet
anyone.”
“Great! We’ll use that for starters!” I said. And on a sheet of pa-
per, I wrote the following: “You can reach anyone in the world
through networking.”
Then I looked at my client and told her what I was going to do.
“That line is bland,” I told her. “Let’s change it into a question
and see if it’s more intriguing.”
I wrote the following: “Did you know you are only four or five
people away from anyonein the world?”
How to Nail Your Reader’s Attention