Copywriting

How to Make Your Copy More Emotional by Twisting The Knife

Twisting the Knife is one of the foundational copywriting skills, and you’ll use it with almost every sales page, sales email or blog post you write.

I’ve heard many copywriting experts talk about it in the past, but I’ve never seen anyone explain HOW to do it clearly, with examples and exact steps.

Heck, when you google “Twisting the Knife in Copywriting”, you’ll get a one-paragraph explanation at most, which will tell you to “make your copy more emotional”.

“Ok, but HOW can I actually make my copy more emotional?”

I couldn’t find a good article about it on the internet.

That’s why I decided to write my own – with examples that help you understand the framework, and copywriting drills that help you practice it in your own copy.

When (and why) should you Twist The Knife?

You can Twist the Knife any time you talk about a common problem of your audience.

You can use it in blog posts that solve a specific problem of your audience.

Here’s an example from my blog post about talking to family and friends that don’t support you.

I shared a story of telling my mom and dad that I’d quit university to run my business full-time.

You can use it in sales pages that help you sell your products and services.

Here’s an example from my sales page for Ultimate Guide System, my online program on growing your email list through Ultimate Guides.

Here, I talked about how many entrepreneurs spend hours and hours working on their business each day, only do get a handful of new email subscribers each week:

You can use it in sales emails or engagement emails as part of your product launches.

Here’s an example from one of my sales emails from my $36,381 launch of Ultimate Guide System.

In this email, I Twisted The Knife by sharing a story of a friend that struggled to grow her email list through guest posts:

You can Twist The Knife whenever you talk about a problem of your audience and want to make them feel the pain they experience around their problem.

This way, you’re making your readers care about your ideas and solutions – by showing them that you first understand their problems.

How to Twist the Knife in 5 Simple Steps

Once you break down the big ambiguous idea of Twisting the Knife into a step-by-process, it becomes quite obvious how to do it:

Step #1 – Common Problem: Take a common problem of your audience (that they already experienced and desperately want to solve)
Step #2 – Relatable Story: Tell a relatable story where you or your clients experienced this problem in the past (that will show your readers that you understand their problem).
Step #3 – Dirty Details: To make your story more engaging, share the specific details of the story (ideally, share even the uncomfortable details that nobody else wants to talk about)
Step #4 – Thoughts and Emotions: To make your readers feel their emotions, share your own thoughts that went through your head, and the emotions you felt in the moment.
Step #5 – Negative Consequences: Finally, share any horrible consequences that happened because you didn’t solve the problem (that you don’t want to happen to your readers).

Go back to some of the earlier examples in this post and see if you can identify some of those steps in them.

Let’s look at some more examples, shall we?

I want to bombard you with real-world examples of Twisting the Knife from profitable launches so you can really internalize the concept – and learn how to use it yourself.

Example #1: Ever feel like you don’t fit in?

This is the beginning of an email from one of my friends, Selena Soo, where she does a great job of Twisting the Knife.

It’s part of her launch for her INFLUENCE program (an online course on connecting with influencers in your industry).

Twist the knife copywriting example selena soo

Read through the email, see if you can identify how she twists the knife, then compare it to my analysis below the email!

Here’s my analysis.

Step #1 – Common Problem:

You’re shy, socially awkward, and you don’t “fit in” with people around you.

Step #2 – Relatable Stories:

Selena makes the pain more real by sharing two real, personal story from her life.

First, she sets up a story from her high school:

“For so much of my life, I’ve struggled with shyness and felt like a fish out of water. This goes way back to high school, when I moved from Hong Kong to attend an all-girls boarding school in Tacoma, Washington…”

Then, she continues with a story from business school:

“Even 10 years later when I was in business school, I felt totally out of place…”

(notice how sharing the details like the exact boarding school makes the story more real)

Sharing personal stories is a phenomenal way to make your readers feel the pain.

When your readers read about your pain, if they can relate to it, they’ll instantly feel it too.

Step #3 – Dirty Details:

The part that makes her story feel so real are the “dirty details” that most people don’t want to talk about.

Notice how she shares details like:

“I couldn’t find common ground with the girls at my new school, who would wear lots of makeup and talk about boys and sex.”

“Instead of going to parties, I spent a lot of late nights alone in my tiny dorm room at my desk – reading books and studying for tests.”

“While I ended up being at the top of my class, I certainly was not winning any popularity contests. I felt very lonely, and I didn’t have many friends.”

To write a great story that makes your readers connect with your pain, focus on the tiny, dirty details.

Think about the pain (for example: “I’m shy”), and then think about how it showed up in your life.

Write about specific situations where you felt the most pain (“instead of going to parties, I’d be alone at my desk…”).

As you do this, you’ll likely notice some pain or discomfort building up in you – that’s great!

If you’re starting to feel the pain as you’re writing, your readers will experience it too.

Step #4 – Thoughts and Emotions:

Selena talks about what she THOUGHT and what she FELT when those painful moments happened in her life:

“I felt very lonely, and I didn’t have many friends.”

“My classmates were brilliant, ambitious, and kind… but I just felt like I couldn’t connect with them.”

“Sitting there for what felt like hours + pretending to be somewhat interested (even though I was bored out of my mind!) was incredibly uncomfortable and painful.”

This way, her readers can see how her problems impacted her life.

Step #5 – Negative Consequences:

In this example, Selena doesn’t really share any negative consequences.

To find out what these could be (and make her email stronger), she could talk about how not fitting in negatively impacted her life.

What did she want that she couldn’t have?

How did her business grow slower because of this?

How was her life worse?

By answering those questions, she could show her readers why they should solve this problem, and improve her lives beyond just “not feeling lonely”.

To summarize, here’s the breakdown of Selena’s copy:

Step #1 – Common Problem: I don’t fit in with people around me
Step #2 – Relatable Stories: Feeling out of place in high school and business school
Step #3 – Dirty Details: Couldn’t find common ground with girls who talked about make up and sex, spending nights alone in her dorm room instead of partying, not having many friends.
Step #4 – Thoughts and Emotions: Lonely, disconnected, uncomfortable and painful
Step #5 – Negative Consequences: (not in her copy, but she could add these)

Example #2: How would you learn 46 bass lines in 3 days?

Next, let’s look at an email from one of my clients, Luke McIntosh from Become a Bassist, that he used as part of a recent successful launch.

Study the email. See if you can break down how he twisted the knife. Then, compare your notes with my analysis below the email.

Twist the knife copywriting example luke mcintosh

Here’s my analysis:

Step #1 – Common Problem: It takes a long time to learn a new bass line (a song performed on bass).
Step #2 – Relatable Story: You have to learn 45 new songs in just a few days – what do you do?
Step #3 – Dirty Details: The actual screenshots of emails and YouTube playlists, when he received the email, “I only knew ONE song”,…
Step #4 – Thoughts and Emotions: “OK – but surely I don’t have to learn everything from scratch… I must know some of these songs, right?”…
Step #5 – Negative Consequences: If I messed up, (1) I wouldn’t get another gig ever again, (2) the audience would demand their money back, (3) the band would be blacklisted from playing.

I love this email that we worked on together with Luke. It’s just such a great example of twisting the knife to begin your sales funnel.

Notice how the final section with negative consequences instantly makes this email more powerful. All of a sudden, it’s not just about learning the songs fast…

It’s about not getting hired for another gig ever again (a much bigger pain).

Example #3: The frustrated personal trainer

Now that you’ve seen twisting the knife in action, I want you to take a stab at it – so you can see how you do.

Imagine you’re a personal trainer that has a solution for reducing client cancellations.

The common problem:

The clients schedule an appointment with you. Then they don’t show up, without letting you know about it.

The solution is irrelevant here, we’ll just focus on the pain.

So how would you twist the knife in this situation?

Can you think of…

A relatable story
The dirty details
The thoughts and emotions that would go through your body
The negative consequences

Take 10 minutes and write out the story.

Then compare it with mine below.

“Back in 2013, when I was working at a Gold’s Gym in Los Angeles, I genuinely hated my life as a personal trainer. (setting up the personal story)

I’d wake up red-eyed every morning at 4am, and I’d be in the gym by 5.

I had about 14 clients booked every day, and I was excited to make a living doing what I genuinely loved.

…Except when the clients didn’t actually show up for their sessions.

Way too often, a client would ghost me, or send me a text 5 minutes before our session (“sorry, can’t make it today!”).

Here I was, at 5 am, in an empty gym, and instead of training my clients, I was watching cat videos on YouTube. (dirty details).

Why the hell was I waking up so early if my clients didn’t even care to show up?

Why was I working 16-hour shifts when more than a third of my clients cancelled every single day?

I thought I’d be earning $700 a day, so I could save up for my own gym at a time… (thoughts)

…and here I was, barely making the ends meet, even though I was bending myself backwards over my clients. (negative consequences)

What’s worse, every time I got a cancellation text from my clients, I felt like someone stabbed me in the chest.

It felt worse than not being invited to a party that everyone was invited to.

Every time I got ghosted, I felt the same kind of rejection as when my Tinder date didn’t show up. (emotions)

And worst of all, I felt like all of this was my fault. Maybe I wasn’t good enough at training them. Maybe they weren’t happy with my last session. Maybe I’d never succeed as a personal trainer and live out my dream of running my own gym after all… (thoughts)“

Here’s a quick breakdown of what I did in my story above:

Step #1 – Common Problem: Client no-shows
Step #2 – Relatable Story: I worked 16-hour workdays in a gym in Los Angeles, and every day a third of my clients didn’t show up for their appointments
Step #3 – Dirty Details: Waking up at 4am, coming up to an empty gym at 5, and watching cat videos
Step #4 – Thoughts and Emotions: Thought you would be making $700/day, saving for your own gym… Then feeling rejected, broke, as you would never be able to have your own gym.
Step #5 – Negative Consequences: Barely making ends meet, despite working 16-hour workdays.

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Copy Drill: Twisting The Knife

To get better at twisting the knife in your copy, you can repeat the copywriting drill you just went through with either fictional examples or examples of your own clients and readers. Both are great practice.

Simply take a common problem of your audience, write a story about it, share the dirty details, your thoughts, and emotions as you went through it, and the negative consequences.

Here are some ideas for fictional examples:

You’re at a first date with a man/woman you’ve had a crush on for years. Yet, you completely freeze up, and you end up parting ways as friends.
You had the last round of interviews for your dream job. You get a phone call with bad news – you didn’t get the position, so the next time you can apply is next year.
You studied for weeks for your Organic Chemistry test, but when you get the test in your hands, you have no idea what to do. Your mind goes blank.

You can also take a few examples of common problems of your own audience that you’ve dug up in your research, and write painful, emotional stories around them that hook your readers in.

You can use these stories to start your blog posts, sales pages, sales emails, and more – and instantly capture the attention of your readers.

7 Days. 7 Copy Skills. 7 Copy Drills.

Twisting the Knife is just one of the 7 key copy skills you need to write copy that sells better than hot lemonade on a hot summer day.

If you want to know…

How to instantly capture the attention of your readers (so they read your emails until the end instead of closing them)
How to keep your readers on their toes throughout your launches (and receive hundreds of responses to your engagement emails)
How to get your readers to say “shut up and take my money!” (and unlock the doors to 5-figure and 6-figure launches)

Then you’ll love The Copywriting Hell Week – the challenge I designed to help you with your journey of writing copy that converts.

Simply leave your name and email in the box below, and you’ll get it delivered straight to your inbox!

-Primoz

How to Source Great Copy From Your Favorite Books

By Primoz Bozic 2 Comments

This morning, I sat down to reread one of my favorite copywriting books, Great Leads by Michael Masterson and John Forde.

But this time, it was different:

I didn’t just read the book to learn from it or refresh my memory.

Instead, I automatically scanned the copy and highlighted all the parts where the author painted the dream, and spoke about the desires of his audience that got them excited to read the book.

I went through page after page, and kept highlighting the parts where he either painted the dream (in blue) or twisted the knife (in red):

(the Kindle app on the phone lets you highlight in different colors, which is super useful for this exercise)

Within minutes, I had 10 pages of highlights that were screaming to be recorded in a research document, never to be forgotten.

I pulled out my laptop, opened a new document, and copied all the interesting parts into it:

All of a sudden, I had a page full of compelling research that I could use in my copy, to produce stronger, more compelling copy in the future.

From phrases like “waste no more time figuring out how to “begin” sales copy”, “forge an instant connection with your reader” and “never have to worry about writing a dud” I could pull article ideas, headlines, sales narratives, and more!

Before we go any further, let’s make two things clear:

This technique wouldn’t be a replacement for talking to my readers and customers (nothing beats finding the exact language of your readers), it would be another great tool to have in my research toolbox.
I would never steal the exact copy from other copywriters – but I could broaden my vocabulary and see patterns in the problems and desires of my audience.

I realized that I could use the very same technique on any copywriting book in my industry, as well as any sales page, sales email, opt-in copy… Any piece of copy out there.

I could also effortlessly pull interesting stories, facts, statistics, anecdotes, and even objections of my audience out of everything I read.

This way, every time I’d read copy about copywriting, I’d also automatically understand my market better and become a better copywriter.

As soon as I discovered this technique, I knew I wanted to share it with you.

I opened a Google Document and started writing this blog post.

I just needed to find a sticky name for this idea, so I could refer to it in the future, and so my clients would remember it.

That’s how Copy Scan was born.

Copy Drill: How to use Copy Scan to write better copy

The next time you read a book, article, e-book, sales page or e-mail related to your industry, don’t just read it.

Instead, scan the copy for:

Problems of your audience (to twist the knife)
Desires / goals of your audience (to paint the dream)
Their objections, opinions and beliefs
Leads and buried leads
Stories and anecdotes
Headlines
…and any other copywriting elements you want to get better at

Highlight these – and save them into a research document for later use.

This way, every time you sit down to read a piece of copy, you’ll learn from it, increase the amount of research you have, and become a better copywriter (as you learn how to recognize copywriting frameworks in the copy).

As you go on your highlighting rampage, here’s one extra tip to keep in mind:

Highlight the parts of copy that trigger an emotional response in you.

If a promise of the author excites you… It’s likely a desire that your readers have as well, which will excite them.
If you can relate to a story the author shares, and you can feel their pain as you read it, you’ve uncovered a painful problem of your audience.
If you can’t stop reading and crave to find out more about an idea, you’ve found places where the author successfully built suspense and anticipation.
If you think “wow, I didn’t know that!”, you’ve identified surprising or counterintuitive facts and information.
If you think “that’s interesting!”, you’ve identified interesting statistics, facts or stories.

I recommend you to read and highlight the copy first – then take some time to move all the highlights into a dedicated research document.

If you have an assistant, he/she could even do this for you – and save you a few hours of work down the line.

So go on, play around with this idea – and let me know how it goes in the comments!

Want to write copy that converts better than cold lemonade on a hot summer day?

If you liked this copywriting drill, you probably won’t hate the 7 more copywriting drills I have in store for you.

My readers that went through these secret drills said that “they help them see their copy in ways they’ve never seen it before”…

But I’ll let you experience that for yourself.

If you want to write stronger, more compelling copy that actually connects with your readers and makes them excited to buy from you…

…or if you just want to have the most profitable lemonade stand in the country…

…join The Copywriting Hell Week, my 7-day copywriting challenge, by leaving your name and email in the orange box below.

You won’t hate it.

-Primoz

Want to Write Good Copy? Don’t Bury The Lead!

By Primoz Bozic 1 Comment

“Kenneth L. Peters, the principal of Beverly Hills High School, announced today that the entire high school faculty will travel to Sacramento next Thursday for a colloquium in new teaching methods.

Among the speakers will be anthropologist Margaret Mead, college president Dr. Robert Maynard Hutchins, and California governor Edmund “Pat” Brown.”

Take a few seconds to read through the story above.

Then, find the lead in it.

If you’ve never heard of it, the lead (or lede, as some people like to call it), is the first sentence of any sales email, sales page, or any other piece of copy you write.

It’s main purpose? Get the reader interested enough to continue reading to the next sentence (and hopefully, until the end of your copy).

So go on, stop reading this blog post and find the lead based on the description above that is most likely to catch the attention of your readers (in this case: imagine you’re writing a newspaper article).

What do you think the lead is?

Did you think of something like…

“Governor Pat Brown, Margaret Mead and Robert Maynard Hutchins will address the Beverly Hills High School Faculty on Thursday in Sacramento…”

(Most people will think of something like that)

or…

“There will be no school this Thursday!”

(if you did, nice work, you’ve found the lead!)

What you just experienced here is called Burying The Lead.

What does “Burying The Lead” mean?

This copywriting framework was born somewhere between 1861 and 1865, during the Civil War.

During the war, the telegraph machines that war correspondents used to deliver news were unreliable, and you would never know when the connection would die.

They were forced to deliver the most important news first (instead of burying the lead).

Just imagine that instead of saying “The enemy has reached our gates!”, the war correspondent would say “Thank you for the supplies you sent us yesterday,…” and then lose the connection.

It would be a disaster!

In Civil War, burying the lead meant the difference between life and death.

Burying The Lead in Copywriting

In copywriting, it makes the difference between readers reading your sales emails and sales pages until the end (and opening their wallets), or closing them (leaving you with an empty wallet).

It’s also one of the quickest ways to take your copy from “BORING!” to “can’t keep my eyes off you!”.

Today, we’ll learn how to NOT bury the lead, so you can fill up your wallets with those golden coins!

And since one of the best way to learn a new copywriting framework is through real-life examples, let’s study a few of them!

Don’t Bury The Lead: Example #1

Let’s start by analyzing this very blog post I wrote.

The intuitive way to start this email would be by saying something like:

“Ever heard of “burying the lead”?”

“In copywriting, there’s a framework called burying the lead…”

BORING!

While the intuitive way to start writing a blog post MIGHT be to simply say what you’ll talk about today, it’s not the most interesting way to start the email.

Similarly, if you ever started a sales email with:

“Yesterday, we talked about…”
“Today, we’re going to talk about…”

Or any other part of copy that’s not the most important or interesting part of your copy, you likely buried the lead.

Now take a few minutes, study this blog post up to this point, and see if you can find an alternative lead to it.

Try to find the most interesting part of the blog post – a story, a fact, a statistic,… something that would peak the interest of my readers enough to keep reading the blog post.

For extra credit, you can also think of a completely different lead you would use to write this blog post.

Ok, now stop reading, and go find the alternative lead(s).

No cheating!

As you can see, I started with a story that I’ve found in Chip and Dan Heath’s book Made to Stick, where I first familiarized myself with the concept of burying the lead.

I came up with this story during my research for this email, and chose to lead with it because I felt like it was the strongest way for you to EXPERIENCE burying the lead first-hand and instantly internalize the concept.

Alternatively, I could have lead with the origin story from Civil War…

…or, I could come up with a lead like this (from one of the blog posts I’ve found on lead writing online):

It’s hard to say which of these leads would be best without testing all of them, but it’s safe to say that all of them are far more interesting than saying “Today we’ll talk about burying the lead!”.

Don’t Bury The Lead: Example #2

Let’s look at another example from the email I sent to my email list to announce The Copywriting Hell Week – a copywriting challenge I created for my readers.

Take a few minutes, study the email, and identify 3 potential leads.

Again, the boring way to start my email would be saying something like:

“Today, I’m excited to announce a new copywriting challenge!…”

We want to do better than that.

Instead, I researched how Hell Week works, and crafted a story based on it:

I dove right into the story, and added a visual image to get your attention.

The lead worked, as my inbox was flooded with hundreds of responses from my readers within a few hours of sending out the email:

This isn’t the only lead I could use though.

I could also start my email with my story of doing 1,000 push-ups in 1h17min, or I could come up with a different story altogether.

Don’t Bury The Lead: Example #3

Our final example is the beginning of a sales email from one of my clients, Sam Gavis-Hughson (he helps coders land jobs at companies like Google, Apple, and Facebook):

Where’s the lead in this email?

What’s the most interesting part of it?

Did Sam nail it, or did he bury the lead?

If you guessed that he buried it, you guessed correctly!

The lead in this email is at the very end of the screenshot:

“Getting good at interviewing could mean a $5k raise (or more). Invested over 40 years, just $5k per year turns into more than $1 MILLION.”

This is how my copywriting friend Alp Turan rewrote this very email with a better lead during an email copywriting workshop he hosted for my readers:

Notice how a small change in narrative instantly made the email WAY more compelling (I love the subject line $1m excuses as well!).

How to Stop Burying The Lead in Your Copy

If you paid close attention to the examples in this blog post, not burying the lead is rather simple:

After writing a sales page, a sales email, a blog post (or any other piece of copy), scan it to find the lead.
The lead is the most interesting piece of information in the email (typically a story, a statistic, a fun fact, a big desire or problem of your audience…)
Once you’ve found the lead, replace your existing lead with it.

That’s it!

Copy Drills: Don’t Bury The Lead!

Now you know how to spot the lead… but you’ll only internalize this framework until you know how to spot leads intuitively by practicing it.

Just like Kobe Bryant didn’t go to sleep before he made 400 shots a day, neither should you before you find 400 new leads a day!

(excuse my bad sense of humor, that was a well-intended joke)

This is where Copy Drills come in.

To help you stop burying the lead, I designed a series of copywriting drills and exercises that you can use to get better at finding the leads in your copy.

Copy Drill #1: Find the lead

The first exercise you can do to get better at finding the leads is to simply spot them in the wild.

You can do that by:

Working through your “swipe file” of good copy you’ve found online.
Reviewing your old sales funnels, sales pages, engagement emails, blog posts (or other copy)
Reviewing copy of other entrepreneurs or copywriters you follow (simply search for emails from them in your inbox)
Paying attention to the leads any time you read something (blog posts, books, emails, ads,…)

The more you practice finding the buried leads, the faster you’ll get at spotting them in your own copy.

As a benchmark, I suggest applying this drill to at least 50 pieces of copy – that should be plenty to start “seeing” the patterns in the copy.

Copy Drill #2: Rewrite old leads

As an extension of the previous drill, you can replace the existing leads with better leads every time you find a buried lead.

I encourage you to do that with your own copy, as well as with copy of other entrepreneurs you follow.

This is a great way to get better at writing engaging leads that really “hook” your readers into your writing.

Copy Drill #3: Get a second set of eyes on your copy

Another great way to find buried leads in your copy is to get out of your own head and show your copy to a copywriting coach, a client, a reader or a friend.

As they read through it, pay attention to their reactions. When do they laugh, stop, smile, or shout “yes! this is amazing!” or “I love this part!” or “that’s super interesting!”.

When they do, you’ve found the lead!

This is what I regularly do with my copywriting coaching clients – I help them find the leads that they can’t see with their own eyes, which helps them get better at coming up with their own leads.

When in doubt, get a second set of eyes on your copy!

Copy Drill #4: Make lead-finding part of your writing process

Finally, I encourage you to make finding the right leads part of your writing process every time you sit down to write copy:

Think about what the lead for the copy is BEFORE you ever write it
Write the copy
Once finished, double-check your copy if you wrote the best possible lead, or if you can find a better lead for it

This way, you’ll bury the leads way less often,

Then, once you finish writing the email, double-check that you actually started your copy with the correct lead, and that you didn’t bury it.

If you find an even more interesting lead, replace your existing lead with it!

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Want to write copy that converts? Join The Copywriting Hell Week!

If you liked this blog post, you’ll love Copywriting Hell Week.

Copywriting Hell Week is my 7-day copywriting challenge that will teach you how to write copy that converts first-time website visitors into loyal customers and raving fans.

Through 7 copywriting missions, I’ll teach you 7 secret copywriting skills of world’s best copywriters through exercises and drills – and get you started on your mission of becoming a master copywriter.

The result? More traffic, more email subscribers, more sales – for years to come.

Just enter your name and email address in the box below, and join in on the fun!

P.S. This article is part of my new series called “Copy Drills”, where I share practical copywriting drills that help you write better copy. If you love it, do leave a comment below to let me know about it – or share the article with a friend who wants to write better copy!

How I Wrote a $111,170 Sales Page For my Online Course

By Primoz Bozic Leave a Comment

If you ever wondered how to write a killer sales page for your e-book, online course or coaching program, you’re in the right place.

In this detailed post, I’ll take you behind the scenes of how I wrote a sales page that generated $111,170 in 10 months:

The sales from my sales page for Ultimate Guide System

You’ll learn:

The exact strategies I used to develop and sell a $1,997 online course from scratch
A detailed walkthrough of how I wrote my $111,170 sales page in 8 simple steps
How YOU can create a high-converting sales page for your e-book, online course or coaching program

You’ll be able to the insights from this post to write your own sales page – whether it’s for a $29 e-book, a $197 online course, or a $1997 flagship program.

Let’s dive in!

Before you start reading, I highly recommend you to download my High-Converting Sales Page Starter Kit:

(1) The PDF version of this 8562-word article (that you can print out or save for future reference

(2) The PDF with my 69-page $111,170 sales page (that you can print out and follow along with as you’re reading this article)

(3) Two plug-and-play “Perfect Sales Page Templates”, which you can use to create your own sales page for a $47 e-book or a $1997 flagship online course.

You can download your High-Converting Sales Page Starter Kit here.

How a single sales page generated $111,170 in 10 months

Before I go into the nitty-gritty details of how I wrote this sales page, let’s set some context.

When I sat down to write this sales page, I:

Validated my online course idea by getting 7 paying 1on1 coaching clients
Had a successful online business that I started 3 years ago
Had an e-mail list of 5,000+ e-mail subscribers that were eager to learn (and buy) from me

I didn’t spend a single cent on paid advertising – all the revenue came directly from selling my online course to my existing e-mail subscribers through e-mail launches and webinars.

Besides the sales page, the other key element of my launch process was my sales funnel, which I broke down in this incredibly detailed post I wrote for Growthlab.

The online course I sold through this sales page was called Ultimate Guide System – it was a 14-week live online course on growing your online business through Ultimate Guides, and I sold it for $997-$1997.

Here’s exactly how the revenue came in:

In April, I first opened the doors to the program, priced it at $997, and generated $36,381 in revenue
In July, I relaunched the program at $1,497, and generated $33,075 in revenue
In September, two of my existing clients joined the program at $1,497, which generated $2,994 in revenue
In December, I relaunched the program at $1,997, and generated $38,720 in revenue

Combined, this sales page generated $111,170 in less than 10 months.

How I wrote a 6-figure sales page in 8 simple steps

Now you have the context, let’s dive into how I wrote this sales page – from an idea to a finished page.

Beyond the typical steps of writing the sales page (writing the headline, hook, guarantee,…), I also included the steps that took place before the actual writing (the idea, validation, research and product development).

I included these steps because they are just as crucial for writing a high-converting sales page as the actual writing.

Without a great, validated product dea that is backed up by research, you could write the best copy in the world – but if you aren’t selling a product that your audience actually wants and is willing to pay for, it will never convert well.

In this article, I won’t talk about how I started my online business or grew my e-mail list (both very important factors for successfully selling your online products).

To learn more about that, you can read my MASSIVE 447-page Ultimate Guide to Growing Your E-mail List.

You can use this guide to get to your first 1,000 (or 10,000) e-mail subscribers, and put yourself in a position to create 5-6 figure sales pages.

Ok, let’s talk about sales pages!

Step #1: The Idea

I first got the idea to create an online program about writing Ultimate Guides WAY back in 2015 (this is a message I wrote to a friend of mine):

A message I sent to my friend about creating a product about writing Ultimate Guides

And yet… I didn’t act on it for 2 whole years.

At the time, I thought it was just a random idea, that I couldn’t create more than an e-book about it, and I definitely didn’t envision selling a $1,997 online course about Ultimate Guides.

2 years later, as I decided to open a new chapter with my online business (I was sick of talking about productivity for the last 5 years), I thought long and hard about what to talk about next.

When I looked back at the growth of my online business, I noticed that the common denominator for attracting high-quality clients were the meaty, 10,000+ word Ultimate Guides that I wrote and published online for free.

When I looked around, I noticed that many established entrepreneurs like Ramit Sethi and Neil Patel wrote Ultimate Guides as well, as did the companies like Leadpages.

Neil Patel’s Library of Ultimate Guides

I had a hunch there was “something there”, and I thought about teaching online entrepreneurs how to grow their online business through Ultimate Guides.

But before I could move forward and create an online course about Ultimate Guides, I had to thoroughly validate my idea.

Step #2: Validation

I validated my idea through 3 simple experiments.

By the time I finished these experiments, I was 99% sure that my online course would be a success – AND I had the research to back up my assumptions.

Experiment #1: Coaching

One fall afternoon, I had a conversation with a long-time friend who also ran an online business.

I offhandedly mentioned my idea of teaching entrepreneurs how to write Ultimate Guides to him, and his response shocked me:

“That’s a great idea. Can I hire you?”

At first, I was shocked – I didn’t expect such a positive response.

Then, I said “of course”, we fleshed out the idea, and I sent him an invoice for $500 to coach him through writing his Ultimate Guide:

The invoice from my very first Ultimate Guide coaching client

This wasn’t a huge money maker for me (at the time, I’ve signed coaching clients for more than $5,000 per client) – I just wanted to see if anyone would pay me for helping them write an Ultimate Guide.

Later that afternoon, I had a conversation with another entrepreneurial friend, and mentioned my idea to her.

Her response was exactly the same:

“I’m in! Can you send me an invoice?”

In a single afternoon, I went from an idea to 2 paying clients.

I knew there was something there.

To continue validating my idea, I asked some of my clients if they wanted me to help them write an Ultimate Guide:

A message I wrote in a community of one of my online courses

And I e-mailed my e-mail subscribers and asked them the same thing:

Part of an e-mail I sent to my e-mail subscribers, offering Ultimate Guide coaching to them

Soon, I had 7 paying clients for 1on1 coaching on creating Ultimate Guides.

With each client, I kept increasing my rate – from $500 per guide to $1,500, $2,500, $4,000 and $5,000.

In just a few weeks, I generated $20,000+ with 1on1 coaching for Ultimate Guides through phone sales – without a sales page or even a thought of creating an online course.

Now I was certain that there was something there.

Experiment #2: Office Hours

The coaching clients I worked with were mostly my existing friends and past clients, and I wanted to make sure they didn’t buy from me just because “they knew me”.

I wanted to test my idea out with a wider audience that didn’t necessarily work with me in the past.

That’s why I created a simple post in an online community I was active in and offered to do “office hours” where I would coach entrepreneurs on a topic of their choice for free:

An “office hours” post I made in an online community I was active in

One of the possible topics was writing Ultimate Guides.

I knew that the specific community was full of my entrepreneurs that continuously invest in themselves (and not freeloaders), so I was comfortable that this experiment would give me more reliable data to validate my idea.

As it turned out, roughly 50% of the people that signed up for an office hours call with me were interested in creating Ultimate Guides and already saw the value in them. They came prepared with a list of specific questions, and I happily helped them out.

This experiment showed me that even people outside of my direct audience saw the value of Ultimate Guides, and helped me do a lot of research around the problems and concerns with creating Ultimate Guides.

Every day I worked on my idea, I was more convinced that it could become a huge hit.

Experiment #3: Free E-book

After my two initial experiments, I spent a few months focusing on serving my 1on1 clients as best as possible, noting down every question they ever asked me, and refining my process for creating Ultimate Guides.

Eventually, I turned my knowledge into a simple, step-by-step system for creating Ultimate Guides, and I wanted to share my system with the world.

I also wanted to demonstrate the value of Ultimate Guides to people that didn’t see the value in them yet.

That’s how I decided to write my Ultimate Guide Checklist, my free e-book that I shared with my e-mail subscribers, entrepreneurial friends, and my Facebook friends:

I shared my e-book on Facebook, 19 people reshared it and I got hundreds of new e-mail subscribers

The e-book took off, and within less than a week, hundreds of entrepreneurs subscribed to my e-mail list to download my e-book.

That was the final “green light” I needed to proceed with developing Ultimate Guide System – my flagship course on creating Ultimate Guides.

Step #3: Research

By the time I started writing my sales page, I had hundreds of pages of notes related to creating Ultimate Guides:

My Master Research Document for Ultimate Guide System

To collect these notes, I:

Took notes during my 1on1 coaching calls and office hours
Exchanged my e-mail subscribers about writing Ultimate Guides
Talked to every person I met or connected with about Ultimate Guides

For example, when I went on an entrepreneurial mastermind in Cancun, I asked every entrepreneur in the room if they knew about Ultimate Guides and if they were interested in creating them, then grilled them about it.

I asked them why they wanted to create Ultimate Guides, what value they saw in them, why they created them (if they created them in the past), why they didn’t create them yet (if they didn’t have any), their concerns about writing Ultimate Guides, and more.

When I coached my 1on1 clients on creating Ultimate Guides, I diligently wrote down every question they ever asked me, and every interesting insight related to Ultimate Guides.

I took these notes in separate documents, and when it was time to start writing my sales page, I sat down to combine all of my notes in a single Master Research Document.

At first, it was a complete mess – I literally had hundreds of pages of disorganized notes.

I took a few days to plow through the notes and organized them into a few categories that helped me get a bird’s eye view of the data:

I organized my Master Research Document into different categories

Here are the categories I organized my research into:

Audiences I could help with my program
Problems that my audiences faced
Alternatives they tried in the past to solve their problems
Dreams that they wanted to achieve / accomplish
Concerns they might have about joining my program
Obstacles in their way

Here are a few examples from each of the categories.

Category #1: Audiences

There were a few different audiences that I could help with my program:

New entrepreneurs who wanted to get their online business off the ground
Established entrepreneurs who wanted to get more organic traffic and e-mail subscribers
Freelance copywriters that wanted to write Ultimate Guides for their clients

Category #2: Problems

These were the problems that entrepreneurs currently faced in their business:

“I’ve been working on my business for months / years, but haven’t seen much progress with it.”
“I see all other people growing their business so much faster than me. I feel like for the work I’m putting in, I should be getting the results that they are getting as well.”
“I want to launch my first online course but my e-mail list is too small and I’m not getting enough traffic to my website”

Category #3: Alternatives

This is what they have tried in the past to solve those problems (with limited success):

“I’ve published a few blog posts in the past, but they haven’t got me much traffic or e-mail subscribers”
“It’s hard to land guest posts opportunities, it takes forever to get them accepted, I often spend time just waiting on other peoples’ responses”
“Guest posting is not a popular thing in my industry. Very few sites allow guest posts. There’s only a few sites where I can promote my content”

Category #4: Dreams

This is what they wanted to accomplish / achieve:

“I want to be earning $2k/month by the end of the year”
“I want to get my business off the ground (launch a product my subscribers will be dying to buy, make some real money so I know I can do this and it’s not just a hobby”
“My #1 goal this year is to get to 1,000+ subscribers. That would allow meto make money from my blog.”

Category #5: Concerns

These were concerns that entrepreneurs had about writing guides in the first place:

“I’m not an expert – what can I bring to the table that others haven’t already said?”
“I don’t think writing a guide is that important for me right now”
“I don’t want to spend all these hours writing a guide that doesn’t have a financial payoff in the near future”

Category #6: Obstacles

These were obstacles that prevented entrepreneurs from writing Ultimate Guides:

“I get lost in too many ideas for the guide”
“I get lost in doing the research, lose my momentum, and end up putting it off because it takes time for me to write”
“I spend way too much time doing the research and designing the guide, because I’m afraid people won’t like it”

For each of these categories, I had tens of quotes from my customers (many of them were similar).

I worked through them to highlight the quotes that were the most common, the most painful, and attracted great clients.

I would ignore the quotes that were either extremely rare (like “I want to build a business so I can work from any country because my partner is restricted by visas”), or attracted bad clients that were scattered and overwhelmed, or wanted overnight solutions (“I feel overwhelmed by everything I could be doing and haven’t done anything for my business for the last 3 months”).

Once I had my Master Research Document ready, it was time to move on to product development.

Step #4: Product Development

The final step I took before sitting down to write my sales page was to develop the actual program.

To do that, I had to develop the course curriculum, format and pricing.

Part #1: Curriculum

First, I needed to figure out what to teach my clients – which would help me create my course curriculum.

To do that, I asked myself questions like:

What are all the key steps a student needs to take to successfully write an Ultimate Guide (and grow their e-mail list through it)?
What order should they take the steps in? What do they absolutely need to complete before moving to the next steps?
How long will it take my typical student to work through the steps, and how much can they accomplish each week?

As I developed my curriculum, I realized that the typical 4-week or 8-week online course framework wouldn’t cut it for this program.

There was just too much crucial information to cover to cram it all into 8 weeks or less, so I stopped paying attention to “industry standards” and focused on what would work best for my clients instead.

That’s how I decided to turn my program into a 10-week course (and later evolved it into a 14-week course).

I extended the curriculum after I went through the first cohort of my program and noticed that a few weeks were too work intense and my students started falling behind. I also realized that it took the vast majority of students roughly 14 weeks to finish their guide.

Of course there were a few exceptions of students that could write their guides in just a few weeks, and for those students I unlocked the content earlier, so they could speed through it if they wished to.

Finally, I ended up with an extremely detailed course curriculum, that would later help me create the “What Will I Learn?” section of my sales page:

A short passage from my course curriculum

As I designed my curriculum, I used my Ultimate Guide development process that I used with my 1on1 clients as a foundation.

I then combined this process (the steps that my students needed to go through) with the quotes from my Master Research Document (a long and draining process), to make the curriculum more forward-facing.

This combined what my audience NEEDED to do (the process) with what they WANTED (problems, dreams).

Once I completed my curriculum, I had the first starting blog of my sales page done, and I continued to develop the 2 remaining parts of my program.

Part #2: Format

Once I had a finished curriculum in my hands, I needed to figure out how to deliver the actual program.

Should I deliver the course live or record it up-front?

Should I include a community with the course?

Should there be additional Q & A sessions?

To get a clear answer to those questions, I asked myself a simple question:

How can I support my students to maximize their chances of success?

I knew that writing an Ultimate Guide was a long and intense process, and I wanted to make sure my students were fully supported throughout the process, so they could finish their guides on time and get the results they wanted.

Instead of putting my needs first (like “what’s the easiest way for me to do this” or “how do I make passive income?”) like many entrepreneurs do, I put the success of students first.

This philosophy helped me guide the development of my course format, which eventually turned into:

A 14-week live intensive training with live presentations and Q & A calls
A year of monthly alumni calls
A slack-based coaching platform
Masterclasses and Case Study interviews

Here’s what the document with my course format looked like:

My course format (before writing the sales page)

Each element would add an additional layer of support to my program.

Through the weekly live training calls, I would coach students through every step of developing their Ultimate Guides answer their questions, and give them feedback on the work they’ve done to date.

Through the alumni calls, I would continue to support my student in writing future guides after they’ve successfully written their first guide.

Through the coaching platform, I would give my students additional feedback on parts of their guides (and help my students support each other through writing their guides).

Through the masterclasses and case study interviews, I would show my students real life examples of how to successfully write their guides, and dive deeper into topics I wasn’t an expert at with experts I knew (example: SEO masterclass).

This felt like a bulletproof support system where I would support my students from all different angles that I was happy with.

Part #3: Pricing

Notice how until now, MONTHS into research and product development, I didn’t mention pricing even once.

The truth is that when I started out with planning Ultimate Guide System, I didn’t know I would create an online course that would sell for $997-$1997 and generate $111,170 over the course of less than a year.

I didn’t set out to create a $1,000 course or to make 6 figures with it.

Instead, I thought to myself “I know that Ultimate Guides are valuable, I know I can teach how to write them well, and I want to create the best online program on this topic out there”.

Before I nailed my course curriculum and format, I actually had no idea what I could price the program at.

I remember thinking about pricing it at $497 before I decided on the course format, but once I had the course in format in place, it started to feel more like a $997 course.

With 14 weeks of live calls (and a full year of support), $497 felt way too cheap. $997 felt better, and I knew that it could also be a $1997 course.

But since I’ve never sold a $997 course in the past, I decided to play it safe, price it at that, and try to help as many students as possible through the course (rather than trying to maximize the amount of revenue I earned through it).

Later, as I started the program, multiple students repeatedly told me that my program was “a steal” and “that I should charge more for it”:

Which later lead me to gradually increase the price of the program to $1497 and $1997, as I continued to improve it.

Throughout my pricing process, I did run into one major dilemma – should I create two tiers of the course or not?

I saw many online entrepreneurs that offered “pro tiers” of their courses that would include a few weeks of Q & A calls, and typically cost double the amount of a recorded online course.

I thought long and hard about whether to split my course into two tiers or not. I thought about offering a “content only” tier at $497 and selling a tier with the live coaching calls at $997.

Ultimately, I solved my dilemma by going back to the question of “how can I help my students succeed?”.

I knew that:

The recorded online courses had a WAY lower success rate than live calls (most recorded courses I saw that were 8 weeks long had a success rate of only a few %).
My students are far more likely to succeed if I coach them and support them through writing their guides than they are if I just throw 14 long video lessons at them

That’s how the decision became obvious – to give my students the best chances of success, I would need to offer the live coaching calls to ALL of my students.

And that’s how I removed the cheaper, “self-study” tier from my program, and locked my pricing ($997 for the full program) in place.

Now that I had a fully developed course curriculum, a course format with a bulletproof support system and the right price chosen, there was one final step I needed to complete before I started writing the sales page – the narrative.

Step #5: Positioning

In order to sell my program successfully and write a clear and compelling sales page, I needed to have a clear positioning for the sales page.

This positioning (my position in the market) had to communicate with my audience that my unique program can help them solve their problems and reach their dreams.

Some people like to call this “the big idea”, others like to call it the narrative, and yet others like to call it “the unique selling proposition” or “positioning” – which is the expression I’ll use in this post as well.

Based on the research I’ve done, my positioning was as follows:

Ultimate Guide System helps new online entrepreneurs grow their e-mail list to 1,000+ e-mail subscribers so they can launch their first online product and get their online business off the ground.

A version of this positioning would then make it into the offer introduction section of my sales page:

A version of my positioning statement on my sales page

To put together my positioning, I simply pulled the most common and painful problems and desires from my primary audience (new online entrepreneurs) and assembled them into a positioning statement which would explain my sales page in a single sentence.

While there were other audiences that could benefit from the program (like established entrepreneurs and freelance copywriters), I knew that 80% of my audience had less than 1,000 e-mail subscribers – that’s why I decided to target that audience with my sales page positioning.

Step #6: Writing

I wrote my sales page step-by-step, by writing out each element of the sales page and assembling it into the order that made sense.

The elements of the sales page I wrote were:

Headline: The big title on top of the sales page about the #1 problem of my audience
Hook: The first few paragraphs of the sales page, designed to “hook” the reader in
Twist The Knife: An emotional, painful summary of the biggest problems of my audience
Common Myths: The biggest myths in my niche (and reasons why my readers were facing the problems they were facing)
Hope: A hint that a better solution exists
Paint The Dream: A vivid summary of the biggest desires of my audience
Introduce The Solution: The reveal of a “better approach” to solve their problems, and what the approach is
My Story: The first layer of proof that my approach works: my personal experience
Expert Examples: The second layer of proof: case studies from other experts
Relatable Examples: The third layer of proof: examples from new entrepreneurs
Data: The final layer of proof: data behind why my approach works
The Danger of Doing it Yourself: The cost and drawbacks of implementing my strategy without my guidance
The Background Story: The story of how I developed my approach and online program
Address Concerns: Addressing any final concerns why my approach wouldn’t work for the reader
Introduce The Offer: A brief introduction of the course with course positioning
How it Works: A detailed overview of the course format
What You’ll Learn: The course curriculum
Is This Program Right For You: Qualifying to make sure I’m attracting the right students
Money-Back Guarantee: Removing the rick of joining the course
Buy Buttons: A quick summary of the course format, countdown time and buy buttons
Close: The final argument for joining the course (to help the readers on the fence make the right decision)

The one element that I didn’t include (but I typically do) is the FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) section that answers any additional questions my readers would have about the program (like “when are the times of coaching calls?” and “what if I can’t attend the coaching calls?” and “can I join the program even if…?”).

I decided not to include this section with this specific sales page because I felt like the other sections answered those questions well enough, and I answered those questions in detail in a dedicated FAQ e-mail that I sent out on the last day of my launch.

Writing this sales page was a messy process, and I reorganized and rewrote the sales page during the editing phase a number of times (which I’ll talk about in the editing part of this post).

I didn’t write my elements in this exact order, and I find that with every sales page I write, my process is slightly different.

Therefore, rather than trying to write a sales page in a fixed order, I always allow myself to write different elements of my sales page as they come to me, and then reorder them in the order that makes sense (which will likely be different with every sales page I write).

The key is to have all the key elements included in your sales page, and organize them in the order that makes sense to you.

Ok, let’s dive into the elements and look through them one by one!

NOTE: Since my sales page is wider than this blog post, some sections might prove to be hard to read.

To help you with that, you can download the PDF with my 65-page $111,170 sales page (that you can print out and follow along with as you’re reading this article) here.

Element #1: Headline

Your headline is the very first line on your sales page – it’s typically in big font, with bold letters, and in your face:

The Headline and Subheadline

The headline often also includes the subheadline, which strengthens the headline.

Here’s why I wrote my headlines as I did:

I knew that hitting 1,000+ e-mail subscribers was a big dream of my audience (as was “getting their business off the ground”, an expression I’ve seen in my research over and over again
In a few of my customer research calls, I got a great reaction to “not worrying about doing everything and just focusing on one thing”, which I worked into the second part of my headline
Finally, I knew that my audience wanted to build their e-mail list FAST (and I knew I could deliver on that claim), so I made that idea more specific by talking about months instead of years

With the headline in place, let’s move to the immediate next step of the sales page: the hook.

Element #2: Hook

The Hook

The sole purpose of the first part of your sales page is to “hook” your readers and get them to keep reading.

Ideally, you want your readers to think “oh, that’s interesting – tell me more!” and scroll down your sales page.

That’s why the part right after your headline is called the hook (it can also be called your “lead”).

There’s no right or wrong way to write your hook – there are many different variations of hooks you can use, from personal stories to talking about a specific problem of your audience.

To write my hook, I decided to talk about a journey that I noticed in many online entrepreneurs:

They started building an online business
They set a goal of getting 1,000 e-mail subscribers
They did everything they were supposed to do
Unfortunately, they only got a handful of new e-mail subscribers each week
They wondered what they were doing wrong

And I intentionally included a graph of steady e-mail list growth that every entrepreneur desired.

This hook wasn’t particularly “creative”, but based on all the research I did, I knew that this was the exact journey many entrepreneurs went through – so I simply talked about what they were already going through to “hook them” and get their attention.

Learn more about finding the right hook / lead for your sales page.

Element #3: Twist The Knife

Twisting the Knife

From my hook, I quickly transitioned into “twisting the knife” (I focused on the pain of my audience, and showed them that I understood it).

I did that by talking about all the different problems of my audience I uncovered during research:

They were putting in the work, but their e-mail list wasn’t growing
They were doing everything they were “supposed to” (blogging, guest posting, going on podcasts), but not getting e-mail subscribers
They saw their friends going their businesses, while they felt stuck in the same place frustrated that their business wasn’t growing

As I did that, I talked about the emotions and frustrations they were feeling as this happened to them – I wanted them to feel the pain as they were reading.

Learn more about Twisting the Knife.

Element #4: Common Myths

Next, I told my audience that it wasn’t their fault that their online business wasn’t growing:

Transition to the Common Myths section

And I explained why that is through the “3 myths of the online business world that nobody talks about”:

The Common Myths

In this section, I addressed the strategies my readers typically used to grow their e-mail lists, and broke down why they didn’t work.

I talked about:

Why guest posting isn’t necessarily the fastest way to get to 1,000 e-mail subscribers
Why you don’t have to spend hours and hours writing blog posts and promoting them
Why your business doesn’t have to become your second job if it takes off

For each of the myths I talked about, I did the following.

First, I talked about a counterintuitive myth and explained why the myth exists:

Explanation of the myth

Then I explained why it is in fact a myth (and offered a solution what to do instead):

What to do instead (the truth)

For example, I mentioned that many people consider guest posting to be the “holy grail” of e-mail list growth, but explained why you might struggle with landing guest posts when you’re just starting out, and concluded that guest posting is a better strategy to pursue once you already have some traction and visibility in your niche.

I shared these myths to show my readers that what “they were supposed to be doing” wasn’t necessarily the best approach to growing your e-mail list, and I explained why what they were doing wasn’t getting them the results they wanted.

Element #5: Hope

I begin to hint at a “better solution” and give my readers hope

After I established the myths, I hinted that “there was a better way” of doing things – without focusing on 100 things at the same time – and by doing just ONE thing at a time.

I gave my audience hope that they can grow their e-mail list a lot faster than they’re growing it now, while simplifying their lives and focusing on just one key strategy for growing their e-mail list.

At this point, I didn’t yet share what the solution was – I just hinted that a solution exists.

Element #6: Paint The Dream

Next, I transitioned into Painting The Dream, the opposite of Twisting The Knife.

With Twisting The Knife, I amplified the pain around the problems my audience was facing, and with Painting The Dream, I talked about the dreams my audience had in as much detail as possible.

I painted the dream about “growing your e-mail list to 1,000 subscribers and making your first few sales with your business”.

I talked about what it would feel like to:

Grow your e-mail list to 1,000+ e-mail subscribers and get your first few sales with your online business
Have your online business grow on it’s own (even when you’re not working on it 24/7)
Know exactly what to do to get to 2,000, 5,000, 10,000 e-mail subscribers and beyond

At this point, I made a lot of big promises and claims – so I made sure to back them up screenshots of my own results (and later on added testimonials and quotes from my students to this section):

Finally, I acknowledged that all of the above claims MIGHT sound “too good to be true”, and quickly continued with a few sections that revealed my solution and included undeniable proof that my solution worked.

Element #7: Introduce The Solution

At this point, I:

Hooked in my audience through my Hook and Headline
Acknowledged their pain through Twisting The Knife
Explained that it’s not their fault that they’re feeling the pain through Common Myths
Hinted that there’s a solution to their problems and gave my audience Hope
Built anticipation about the solution by Painting The Dream

And now, it was time to introduce my solution and prove that it works.

I briefly mentioned that the solution to the problems of my audience was creating Ultimate Guides – which would help them grow their e-mail lists to 1,000+ e-mail subscribers and get their online business off the ground:

Then, I provided different layers of proof to prove that Ultimate Guides really are one of the best ways to grow your e-mail list (and that this strategy will work for my readers).

Element #8: My Story

The first layer of proof was my own story of how I grew my online business through Ultimate Guides – from getting traffic to my website, to growing my e-mail list, to selling my online courses.

I filled this section with screenshots to prove my claims:

Then, I continued to tell my story and worked in elements of Painting The Dream.

I talked about how building an online business through Ultimate Guides helped me do things like speak at conferences, connect with influential mentors, and get guest post opportunities that would help me continue growing my e-mail list.

Element #9: Expert Examples

With the second layer of proof (Expert Examples), I wanted to show my readers that Ultimate Guides weren’t just a strategy that worked for me – they were a strategy that many top online entrepreneurs used to grow their e-mail lists.

I shared a few examples of experts that my audience was likely familiar with and showed how they grew their online businesses through Ultimate Guides.

Element #10: Relatable Examples

The third layer of proof were examples from new online entrepreneurs that successfully grew their online businesses through Ultimate Guides (from growing their e-mail lists to getting paying consulting and freelance clients).

Initially, I included a few examples from my friends in there, which I later replaced with examples from the students that went through Ultimate Guide System.

This layer showed my readers that Ultimate Guides didn’t just work for me OR for established entrepreneurs – they would also work for them.

Element #11: Data

The final layer of proof was cold hard data that Ultimate Guides got more traffic and shares than regular blog posts, which I pulled from a few credible blog posts online.

At this point, I bombarded my readers with proof from different sources and angles that Ultimate Guides work – and backed up my claims that I made earlier.

To wrap up this section of my sales page, I quickly Painted The Dream again and showed my audience how Ultimate Guides could help them get more e-mail subscribers with less work:

As well as how Ultimate Guides could make everything else in their online business 10x easier:

Element #12: The Danger of Doing it Yourself

At this point, I knew that some of my readers might buy into the idea of Ultimate Guides, but wouldn’t necessarily think that they need help with creating Ultimate Guides.

Why wouldn’t they just create the guides by themselves? Why would they need my help?

To address this, I talked about the danger of writing an Ultimate Guide by yourself.

I talked about all the different places where you could “mess up”, and showed how that would cost you months of work you could never get back.

As an alternative approach, I suggested writing an Ultimate Guide under my guidance – to avoid any mistakes and wasted time, and write Ultimate Guides “the right way” and make sure they would actually help them grow their online business.

Element #13: The Background Story

At this point, I shared my background story of how I learned to create Ultimate Guides, and refined my system for creating them over the past 6 years.

This is where I explained how and why I decided to create Ultimate Guide System, and softly introduced it to my readers.

But before I shifted my attention to my program, there was one final thing I needed to do – address any final concerns of my audience they had about creating Ultimate Guides.

Element #14: Address Concerns

From my research, I knew that my audience would have additional concerns about writing Ultimate Guides, like:

“What if I don’t have time to write an Ultimate Guide?”
“What if I’m not an expert?”
“What if I’m not a writer?”
“Will my audience actually read a 50+ page guide?”

I addressed each of these concerns with more proof – my personal stories and stories of my clients and students that were able to successfully grow their online business through Ultimate Guides despite having those concerns.

With this final section I wrapped up the first, more creative part of the sales page, which was designed to show my readers that I can help them grow their online businesses through Ultimate Guides.

Therefore, I transitioned to the second part of the sales page, which was all about the program I was selling, Ultimate Guide System.

Element #15: Introduce The Offer

First, I briefly introduced the program (this is where I reused some of my Hook, as well as my Positioning) and focused on the Dreams of my audience.

The basic narrative was “I can help you reach your [dreams], even if you have [concerns]”.

Element #16: How it Works

Next, I explained how the program worked (the program format).

First, on a high level:

And then I broke down element by element, from the course curriculum, live coaching calls, and the community that was a part of the program.

As I did that, I focused on the benefits of my program, rather than the features.

As you can notice from my headlines, I didn’t talk about what the program included (“a community”) – I talked about how the features from my program would help my audience (“get feedback on your guide and answers to your questions”).

As I did that, I backed up each section with screenshots and testimonials to show what the program was like, and provided constant proof of how helpful the program was.

Element #17: What You’ll Learn

Next, I went over the curriculum of the program, where I talked about what we would cover during each week of the program.

Again, I focused heavily on the benefits of what we’ll cover each week (“What you should worry about and what you should NOT worry about when designing your guide (so you can design it quickly and move on to publishing it, rather than spend weeks or months on it”).

Element #18: Is This Program Right For You?

With this section of the sales page, I wanted to make sure the RIGHT people joined my program (that I would love working with, and that I knew would get results with my program).

In the “program IS right for you” section, I listed all the different types of entrepreneurs I could help:

And in the “program IS NOT right for you” section, I listed all the types of entrepreneurs I couldn’t help (entrepreneurs without business ideas), and entrepreneurs I didn’t enjoy working with (chronic procrastinators).

This would help me filter out the entrepreneurs that were a bad fit for the program, and keep the entrepreneurs that were a good fit for it.

At this point, I could also include a FAQ section where I would answer additional questions like “when do the live coaching calls take place?” and “what if I can’t make the live calls?”, but since I sent out a detailed FAQ e-mail that addressed those questions on the last day of my product launch, I felt like that wasn’t necessary.

Element #19: Money-Back Guarantee

I backed up the program with a 120-day Money Back Guarantee, as I knew that if my students went through the whole program, they would get the results from it that they wanted.

I made the guarantee window wide enough to give my students plenty of time to work through the program.

I chose to opt-in for an “action taker guarantee” (a guarantee where you are eligible for a refund only if you put in the work) because I knew that the program was intensive, and I only wanted to have serious people in the program:

While I might be able to earn more money if I had a “no questions asked guarantee”, I know I would also get a lot of less serious people in the program that would just “take a peek” and wouldn’t be willing to do the work.

Because it’s against my values to sell a program that people don’t execute on, I decided against that, and decided to only focus on acton takers.

Element #20: Buy Buttons

In this section, I briefly summarized what my students would get access to if they joined the program:

I included the “buy buttons”, including a payment plan for the program and added a reminder and a countdown timer to let my readers know when enrolment to the program closed (so they wouldn’t miss it).

Element #21: Close

The final section of my sales page that I wrote was called the “close”.

At this point, I knew that my readers either:

Joined the program
Closed the sales page
Were on the fence of joining

Therefore, the focus of my “close” was to help the students that were on the fence of joining make the right decision.

In the first part of the close, I reiterated on Twisting The Knife and Painting The Dream:

I touched on the guarantee:

And as one final weapon in my arsenal, I shared what my students said when I asked them what they would say to someone considering joining the program.

That’s where I shared one final round of raving testimonials about the program:

And let my students decide if they wanted to join or not for themselves.

Finally, I included the buy buttons, offer summary and a countdown timer again:

And finished the sales page.

Woah, that was A LOT, right?

Yes – it was, and we still have two steps to go.

Writing a sales page for a $997-$1,997 online program is quite a beast, but if you write it one step at a time, it’s definitely manageable.

With this sales page, I included most of the key elements of every high-converting sales page (apart from the FAQ section, which I sent via e-mail), and you’ll find many of these elements in any great sales page you choose to analyze.

You might notice that these elements will be in a different order to make the sales page flow better, that the elements (like Painting The Dream) might repeat themselves multiple times throughout the same page, but the types of elements will likely stay the same.

You’ll be use these same elements to write your own high-converting sales page (more on that later, at the bottom of this article – right now, we have two steps to go!).

Step #7: Editing

When I first wrote my sales page, it was a lot messier than it is now.

As you can imagine, organizing 21 different sections of a sales page into an order that makes sense can be quite a (headache-inducing) project.

After writing my sales page, I took a few days to edit it, reorder it, and asked a few of my entrepreneurial friends to help me review it and organize it in an order that made sense.

As I was editing my sales page, I focused on 3 key rounds of the editing process:

Flow
Clarity
Proof

With each of these rounds, I went through the whole sales page, marked the sections I needed to edit, and edited them to take my sales page from a “shitty first draft” to a finished page.

Round #1: Flow

First, I decided to edit for flow – I tried to order my sections 1-14 (the first part of my sales page) in an order that made sense, based on the stories I included in my sales page.

This meant playing around with different types of Hooks, leading with Twisting The Knife vs Painting The Dream, figuring out where to fit the Myths and My Story… until I found an order that made sense to me.

To find that order, I read through the sales page, and whenever I noticed myself stop or lose myself, I checked if the flow was good or not – then I reordered the sales page into a different order and tried again.

It took a while to nail the exact order, but once it was there, I felt it – and I was able to move on to the next round of editing.

Round #2: Clarity

With the second round of my editing process, I mostly focused on making my sales page clear and easy to understand, to keep the attention of my readers.

My #1 goal was to edit any confusing places that would lose my readers.

I did that by reading through the sales page myself, as well as asking my friends to read through it and paying attention to parts where their reading slowed down (this way, I knew that a section was confusing).

Then, I rewrote and simplified those sections, and tried again.

Round #3: Proof

Finally, I read through my sales page and added in any missing proof.

I specifically focused on finding any “unbelievable claims”. If I made a claim (like “an Ultimate Guide will help you get more coaching clients”,), I backed it up with my own story or example or a story from one of my clients.

Then, I added specific screenshots, data or testimonials to make my claims more believable and stronger.

Throughout my editing process, I didn’t really focus on grammar or rewriting paragraphs UNLESS they were confusing.

If I tried to edit every word of this massive 65-page sales page, I could spend weeks editing it, with questionable returns on the invested time – so I decided to keep things simple and edit parts that mattered most.

After the editing, I was done with my first version of the sales page, and used it in my first product launch to generate $36,381 with my first launch of Ultimate Guide System.

Step #8: Polishing

After each cohort of students I took through the program and before I launched my program the next time, I spent some time polishing my sales page.

As you already know, I increased the price point of the program with the first few launches (from $997 to $1497 to $1997) until I found a price point I was happy with.

As I did that, I changed the offer of the program slightly (for example, I added additional templates, alumni calls and masterclasses to the program).

I also added in any new testimonials that I got from students and made some minor edits to flow, proof and clarity with a fresh set of eyes.

And that’s how I wrote my $111,170 sales page.

So how can you write yours?

How to Write YOUR High-Converting Sales Page With The “Perfect Sales Page” Templates

To help you write your own high-converting sales page, I created two “plug and play” templates for you:

The Essential Sales Page Template, which you can use to create a sales page for $47-$297 e-books or online courses
The Epic Sales Page Template, which you can use to create a sales page for your $997-$1997+ flagship programs

You can download those templates (PLUS a PDF version of this article AND my full $111,170 sales page) through the box below!