Here’s how to use analogies to boost sales:
Clients often ask me how to write analogies. After all, a good analogy can do many things:
1. It clarifies something by giving your buyer a comfortable reference point…
2. It usually injects some humanity and personality into your writing…
3. It’s a very non-threatening, non-salesy way to speak to people, and therefore it contributes to building trust…
Here are a few examples of analogies I’ve used that people have commented on:
“…the first kind of assumption is good — it will make your cash register ring. The second one leaves you destitute, with a naked field of un-harvested crops…”
“…these people have been living here since Christ was an altar-boy…”
“…it’s mandatory, just the same way eating is mandatory if you want to stay alive…”
Analogies add color to the picture you’re trying to sketch for your readers.
How can you learn to do this in your sales copy?
How can you learn to engage your buyers so you’re stimulating all their different senses – this way they’re completely engulfed in every single word you say?
The answer is simple. There are 3 ways actually:
First, when you see some good analogies, write them down somewhere and review them periodically. Over time, you’ll find you’ll notice them more, the way you suddenly start noticing certain cars on the road, once you decide you want to buy one. (another analogy, btw)
Review them often enough, and you’ll start seeing connections between random things. And, you’ll be able to connect these things together to make your own analogies, the same way a chef is able to blend certain foods and spices together, to create tasty food combinations. (another one)
Second, there’s an old adage that says “Repetition is the mother of skill.” And when it comes to many things — including taking foul shots and writing sales copy — this is especially true.
So the first thing you need to do, to improve your skill at using analogies, is to start… writing… anaolgies!
In the beginning, obviously, you’re not going to do very well. But like anything else, the more you do it, the better you’ll get at it.
The final thing you can do, is READ… a lot! You want to read GOOD sales copy, written by GOOD copywriters. And you also want to read good fiction. A couple of the best novelists I know, are Haruki Murakami and Jonathan Lethem.
They are both prolific writers who use VERY powerful analogies in their text.
Here’s just one example of the kind of analogies Lethem — who grew up on the other end of the D-Train from me, in Brooklyn — used in one of his books:
“His hard gaze snapping us each in two like bolt-cutters on inferior padlocks.”
BOOM! That’s incredible, isn’t it?
You bet!
You’d have a hard time finding a more compelling analogy than that. It comes from his book “Motherless Brooklyn” which was published in 2000.
The man is a legend, and so is Murakami.
And see, the more you read and the more you write, the more you’re going to be thinking about all those analogies and comparisons you’re reading and writing about.
And since what Earl Nightingale said in “Lead The Field” — “you become what you think about” — is 100% true,you’ll also become a better writer when you’re doing these things.
Make sense?
Good.
Oh, one more thing – and this is important. Make sure you always what you wrote, OUT LOUD, after you’re finished. And I man OUT LOUD, as in “words and sounds coming out of your mouth,” like when you’re having a conversation with someone.
Not “out loud in your head,” which is how most people read things back to themselves.
When you read your stuff out loud, especially in the beginning… you’ll see the analogies you’re using, may not as good as you thought. Which is great, because this gives you a second chance at making them better.
And consider yourself lucky when you discover what you did, wasn’t as good as you thought. Because few people have the opportunity — especially in business, to EVER get… a second… chance.
Now go sell something, Craig Garber
P.S. Free: 12 Special Reports – download ’em now
get How To Make Maximum Money With Minimum Customers:
Now on sale, with Free Shipping
listening to:
Ode To Baby Jane – Kings of Frog Island (2010)