The Tao of poo?

Monday, I promised you I’d publish some of the better responses and comments I received about the e-mail I sent out that day, so here goes. First though, since I’ve had a number of new subscribers over the last few days, here’s the original e-mail I sent out on Monday:

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Why does life have to be so difficult? Why do people feel they just can’t come out and say what they mean — especially when they’re trying to sell something?

For instance, the other day my younger son Casey and I, were in Smoothie King getting our usual chocolate shakes. Up on the counter where you pay, there were a bunch of small boxes all stacked up, one against the other — maybe a dozen or so in all, about 4 inches high, 2 inches wide and 2 inches deep.

I didn’t really look too intensely at the boxes, but I did see on the top of the box it said “Sluggish Colon?”

Now let me ask you this: Do you really think someone knows if they’re colon is sluggish? Shoot, in today’s day and age, you’re lucky if you find someone who knows the names of their kids’ teachers, or what they had for dinner last night, let alone whether or not their colon is sluggish.

No one knows if their colon is “sluggish.” What they know, is that it feels like they have a beach chair shoved up their ass because they haven’t been to the bathroom in a few days. THAT’S what they know.

Why can’t people just come out and say what the hell they really mean? Life would be so much easier this way, and we’d all get along so much better. There wouldn’t be any confusion or assumptions being made, and things would be just swell and dandy.

So what kind of headline can the top of that box say instead?

Any ideas?

How about this, how about you let me know what you think the box-top could have said, by either posting your answer to my blog at http://blog.kingofcopy.com or by replying to this e-mail, and I’ll publish some of the better ones either tomorrow or the next day.

When I post these, I’ll also publish a few of my own suggestions as well.

Keep it clean — remember, this has to be displayed on the counter of a family store. So put your thinking caps on, and then… go sell something.

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Now let’s talk about those responses I received.

For starters, loads of people ignored my last comment, about keeping it clean. You can’t say things like “Have to shit?”… “Full of crap?”… and “They Laughed When I Sat On the Toilet But When I Started To Fart!”… or even one that said, “A hit of this will doo-doo you.”

(And of course, it goes without saying, virtually all these responses came from men. This is just further proof, women really are more evolved.)

Now loads of other people sent in suggestions about running an ad on the box for a free report, to accomplish some sort of lead generation. And while this may be a good idea if you were advertising the product in some sort of print, television, or online media, it’s not going to solve the problem of how to sell it from the counter of a health food store.

So let’s check out some of the better submissions:

“Can’t use the can?”

“Are you constipated?”, from Tom Landucci…

And, “Constipated?”, from Floyd Fisher.

My personal favorite submission was “Politicians are full of it…. Are YOU?”, from Cruiser Mann.

For the record, if I were writing the box-top, I’d have simply said something like, “Constipated?” And if I had room underneath, I may have said something like, “ Inside this box is an all-natural, guaranteed way of releasing and relieving your problem, without pain… without uncomfortable gas… and without any embarrassment or awkward situations.”

Over the years, there have been a number of well-know ads that started with a simple one or two-word question like this. The most famous of them is that old ad you used to see in magazines and comic books, “Corns?”

Other ads I’ve seen are “Back Pain?”… “Losing Your Hair?”… and “Getting Married?”

The one thing you want to remember when you’re using a question as your headline, is… you want to make SURE all your qualified prospects are going to give a resounding “Yes” as their answer to your question.

Well, that settles that.

Now go sell something, Craig Garber

P.S. Yes you CAN get a 42.7% lead generation response on your first mailing. All that AND a bag of potato chips is waiting for you here: http://www.kingofcopy.com/leads
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If you enjoyed this, pass it on to a few of your friends and business associates, and if you have any comments about today’s message, it’s important you leave them right here on my blog: