259 – Great Titles make Great Sales: Tom talks Great Titles

Episode 259 – Great Titles
[00:00:09] Welcome to Screw the Commute. The entrepreneurial podcast dedicated to getting you out of the car and into the money, with your host, lifelong entrepreneur and multimillionaire, Tom Antion.

[00:00:24] Hey everybody it's Tom here with Episode 259 of Screw the Commute podcast. Today we're going to talk about making great titles. See the titles you give your programs and products can massively change the amount of money you make and how easy it is to sell your stuff. And this episode is going to show you how to make knock him dead titles or knock him alive titles you can call. I hope you didn't miss episode 258 Jan McInnis. She gets money for being funny. She's been doing it for 26 years and she's going to tell you the lifestyle of a female funny lady. Now grab a copy of our automation e-book. You can find it at screwthecommute.com/automatefree. This book will really help your business. I mean, if you've been listening to my podcast, I'm hammering you to get the darn book downloaded and implement the ideas so you can handle way more people way faster and make way more money. So grab that at screwthecommute.com/automatefree and then grab our podcast app at screwthecommute.com/app and it allows you to do all kinds of cool stuff on your cell phones and tablets and we have video instructions and screen captures. So you're not lost trying to figure the darn thing out because it'll do so many things for you. Now our sponsor's the Internet Marketing Training Center of Virginia, it's a distance learning school. So anywhere you can hear this or you can speak English, you can attend this school. And we are starting in-house classes as soon as we are starting to take the G.I. Bill and we got to get approved for that. So I'm putting out a call. I really need some help from a veteran friendly accountant who is qualified to do audits. I need a really good deal on an audit so I can help more veterans. And that's the last thing holding me up from getting qualified to do the G.I. Bill. So please get in touch with me if you know anybody and I'll make him a deal they can't refuse. How about that? And also a little later, I'm going to tell you about a quiz that's gonna make you mad about traditional education and there couldn't be any better time on Earth. Now, I've been preaching this since 1997, so I don't want to hear anybody say, well, you're just trying to make money off the Corona virus. Well no. I have been since nineteen ninety seven saying learning these internet skills can be an insurance policy for you and your family. It got me through 9/11, it got me through SARS and the whatever virus thing and now the Corona virus and and all the other things that have happened in the world. I sat here and made money where a lot of people went bankrupt. So it's an important thing to do for yourself, your kids and your grandchildren, even to be the best gift you could ever give them as they give them these skills. So check it out at IMTCVA.org. Of course, everything will be in the show notes for episode 259 at screwthecommute.com/259.

[00:03:34] All right, let's get to the main event. Let me start off by telling you how I use the title to my advantage. I was booked at a real estate convention run by a really big realty company. Why they booked me. I have no idea. I mean, I own some real estate, but I'm not a real estate speaker. I'm not an agent or broker. I think one of the meeting planners had seen me speak somewhere else and just thought I'd be a good fill in since she had to fill 16 concurrent speaker slots and actually 32 slots she had to fill. So for those of you not familiar with speaking at conventions and large meetings, concurrent means that there were 16 presentations going on at one time and I was just one of the 16. The entire attendance of the convention has to decide which session they want to attend. Now, the general session is where everyone was in one room for the presentation, and that was some New York Times bestseller guy. So when I started preparing for the event, I'm thinking, what the heck am I do to to make my session great and well attended? I mean, I was not known at all in the real estate industry. So I went into my normal routine for preparing for a presentation. I started interviewing real estate agents. And what I found was that it's a very tough and frustrating job. You have to use your own car to haul people around to look at homes. You have to use your own gas and insurance. People lie to you and tell you that, oh, you're the only agent they're dealing with and you have to keep their kids occupied so the parents can concentrate on what you're telling them about the house and all kinds of stuff like that. Now, you might spend 20 or more hours with a potential home buyer and they end up buying from someone else or not buying at all. Anyway, I concluded that it's a frustrating job. So I started brainstorming on titles and before I tell you what title I came up with. Let me tell you where the title will be seen in the program for the event. There might be one or two inch square for the title and the name of the presenter of each of those 16 sessions. And I forgot to tell you, those 16 sessions were just in the morning. There was another 16 sessions in the afternoon, so my title and description was lumped in with 31 other titles. Now when you're thrown in amid all that noise, it's even more easy to get lost in the shuffle and even more important to have a great title.

[00:06:15] All right. Back to the it was a job, real estate agent. So my title ended up being how to make the sale when you just backed over the mailbox. And the results were my session was packed and the other sessions from what I was told. Because, of course, I was in mine were sparsely populated. Those other speakers weren't too happy that the new guy that nobody had ever heard of smoked them. Well, I have to say is that that's what being a pro is all about. That's what I teach in my professional speaker system. If you want to beat all these other people that are just hacks and just getting by and they just happen to get the job because, you know, they stuck their face in there, you can beat these people to death. All right. If you learn what you're supposed to learn as this one little sliver of the kind of things it takes to be a pro speaker.

[00:07:13] See, I could have just thrown together a simple title and had lackluster results and taken my check and gone home. But but with the title I came up with, it encompassed the frustration. It included their vehicle and it's still talked about making the sale. So that was just one way to use a title. I used titles for all kinds of things. I mean, I put the heavy emphasis on information products because they are so high profit and easy to deliver. But as you just heard there used in presentations, articles, blog postings, videos and just about anywhere you want to grab someone's attention.

[00:07:52] Your title is pretty much like the headline of a sales letter. It grabs attention. So you have a better chance of getting a person interested enough to buy whatever you're selling. How to title seemed to be the best for information products. I think about 75 percent of my titles and I have hundreds of things over the years how to titles mean how to make a fortune speaking at fundraisers, how to start and operate a highly lucrative mentor program, how to make an online income generator in one hour or less. And there's tons and tons of them are how to titles. And all of them have made lots of money.

[00:08:33] Now, putting the benefit or the results people will gain from your product or service is a good way to create titles like in the Make a Fortune. OK. That was at the speaking at fundraisers and Make Money Quickly was in the title where I had in one hour or less an income generator in one hour or less.

[00:08:53] Now, another very popular way to create a title is a short main title like Three Words or Less and a descriptive subtitle that I read once that the bulk of The New York Times best sellers follow this format. And just for the heck of it, I went to the New York Times bestseller lists while working up this podcast just this morning. I did it. And here's what I found this. These are this is number 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8 and 9 on The New York Times bestseller list. I'll go over them with you. And also, so seven out of 10 followed that format and the other three only had four words. I just knocked them out because I claim three words or less. So number two on the bestseller list is The Mamba Mentality How I Play. That's by Kobe Bryant. That's big because he recently died in that helicopter crash. It's a comeback. It's not a new book, but it made a comeback. Next, number three, Unknown Valor. A story of family, courage and sacrifice from Pearl Harbor to Iwo Jima. By Martha MacCallum. Number four, this is a one word title. Educated and then a two word subtitle, a memoir. I forget the lady's name, but it was a story of how she was raised by survivalists that wouldn't send her to school. And she got out of that eventually and got a PhD from Cambridge or something later. Number five, the MAGA Doctrine. The only ideas that will win the future by Charlie Kirk. So the MAGA Doctrine and that's three words. That's a Trump thing. Number six, open book. That's the only way. And that means nothing except when you're a celebrity. You can get away with that. So that was Jessica Simpson's story. Next one. Number eight was becoming one word title, but Michelle Obama's picture's on it. So it's going to sell like crazy say so. Those don't really count. But you see, even the big celebrities are using these same really, really short titles. And number nine was talking to strangers. What we should know about the people we don't know. That's by Malcolm Gladwell. These were all non-fiction. And so I went to the fiction and I think seven out of 10 of those also were the three words or less title. And the subtitle was descriptive of what the book's about saying. So there you go. So there's a formula for you if you want to have a hard hitting title.

[00:11:32] Now for short term products, you can play off things that are happening in the world then right this moment. As of yesterday, the president announced that national emergency based on the Corona virus. And so I wrote three real quick titles here based on that. The first one is Test Me How to Stay Healthy in a virus ridden world. So Test Me is two words. The next one I wrote Who the World Health Organization Won't Keep You Safe. W.h.o., who is World Health Organization CEO. I just played off of that. I'm not going to write any of these books, but I said you can have them. And the last one was Corona. It's not the beer that will kill you. And that's playing off the fact that people were corona beer sales are are tanking because of this same name and just crazy.

[00:12:28] So anyway, those are the same formula short subtitle, but those aren't going to be books at last forever because they're based on a current event, but they might be an article title. So it's not just books. It could be an article title, a blog posting, video, things like that. And for more ideas, look at other titles of people in your industry. See what kind of titles they're using. Now you can also test titles mean give three or more titles to people you think would be in your target market and have them rate them. I mean, you can also get a programmer to put a form or pop up box on your website where people can pick the title and then the form disappears so they can only get one chance to pick the absolute best title that grabs them.

[00:13:17] Now, before I give you some fill in the blank title ideas, let me tell you about my secret weapon. So I discovered a great new headline and subject line subheading and title generator that will actually analyze which headlines and titles and subject lines are best for your market. And I negotiated the deal with the developer of this. This is a crazy, inexpensive deal and it works on both Mac and P.C. So check it out at screwthecommute.com/secretweapon. I think it's only about $30 and it'll generate hundreds of things for you based on asking some questions about your product or service. And then it will generate all these ideas and analyze them and give you the best chance for your market. It's crazy magic, I think.

[00:14:11] And also I'll put in the show notes if you're doing fiction, there's the thing called the title scorer at Lulu.com. So put that link in where if you have a fiction book, you can answer some questions and about your title and then it'll evaluate how good it is for you. I don't know how accurate it is, but it's worth a try. It's free.

[00:14:32] So now I'm going to give you some fill in the blank titles. And before we end, I'm going to tell you how to get three times or more the normal price of your product with just one change in your title. But right now, I'll give you some fill in the blank titles.

[00:14:47] So. So what I'm gonna do here is I'll tell you I'll I'll say the word blank when then you fill in what's your. Your stuff and then I'll give you an example. So here's the first one. The ultimate guide to blank. So for me, I had for ten years this dominated the industry. The ultimate guide to electronic marketing. Next one. Now, these are all guide ones. The expert's guide to and then blank, so the expert's guide the flipping houses. You fill in the blank. Next guide one is the insider's guide to blank. Let's say the insider's guide to making it in the fashion industry. I'm just making all these up. Next one is 101 Ways Title. 101 Ways to blank, 101 Ways to eat healthier. Hundred one nice things to do after the funeral is one that I had as an upsell to my eulogy book.

[00:15:42] And then I played off of that again with a much more expensive product. I mean it's still cheap in the big scheme of things, but it's it's way more than an e-book is copyrighting901 the fast track to writing words that sell. So I wanted to say I didn't want to do 101. Everybody is doing 101. So I said this is jacks it up to a much higher level. So check that out at copywriting901.com.

[00:16:08] Then instant blank. And so an example would be instant health fixes could be a title. And another fill in the blank is the truth about blank. An example. The truth about holistic medicine or the truth about commercial dog food or the truth about flu vaccines, whatever your stuff is. Now, if you can get the word secrets in your title, that's a very, very powerful word in copywriting. So the secret to a happy marriage. So they say I got the words secret in there. Secrets of top stock traders. Be another one. Here's another two blanks on this one. Blank steps to blank, blank steps to blank. So seven steps to get out of debt would be an example.

[00:16:57] But the bottom line is a good title can make your product sell for up to 25 percent more and I say way more than that. I'm going to tell you that example right after I tell you about the quiz I told you about in the beginning. So. So there's a quiz on my school site that's really going to make you mad. And I got to tell you, parents and grandparents out there. This is one of the best gifts you could ever in your entire life give to your kids or your grandchildren. Especially in light of what's going on now. Like I said, don't tell me I'm trying to capitalize on the Corona virus. I've been preaching since 1997 when I started teaching Internet marketing of how important this is as an insurance policy and screw the commute. You can live three lives by not going back and forth to work, working out of your home or working wherever you want in the world as long as you can get an internet connection. Anyway, this quiz outlines seven rip offs that traditional colleges and universities are using to create this trillion dollar debt with students and families mortgaging their house for worthless educations and kids are competing for jobs at Starbucks and with MBAs and just all of this stuff that's that they are doing that are ripping families off and only takes you two minutes to take the quiz. And even if it doesn't apply to you personally, please pass it on to somebody that's either got kids or grandchildren considering you know what to do about college, how to finance it. And then they go there and they learn how to protest and they take worthless classes. And even Google, Apple, IBM. Bank of America and hundreds of other companies aren't requiring college degrees anymore. They're sick of getting these kids that come out entitled can't do a darn thing. And they want people with skills. So they wiped out the college degree requirement. All these major companies that have great benefits and high salaries don't care about the college degree anymore. See, we've been brainwashed and that continues. The colleges are trying to tell you how great they are. They're jacking the fees up they're screwing on grade point averages and books. You're just going to be furious when you see the things they're doing. So take the quiz at IMTCVA.org/quiz and then pass it on to somebody after you get furious. OK. And then please call me if you want to discuss your child or your grandchild's future and I'll help you make it happen.

[00:19:39] All right. So let me get back to the last thing I want to talk to you about is how you can get three times or more the price for your product and make it an easier sell and easily create spin off products from the original product. So the method is, is to name your target audience in your title. Let me give you an example. Like I mentioned one of my titles earlier. The Ultimate Click, The Ultimate Guide to Electronic Marking. What I didn't tell you is the end of that said for speakers. So I picked the target industry for professional speakers, basically, and that dominated it for 10 years. The book got so big, though, I started breaking it into smaller. After 10 years of dominating the industry. But let me even give you a more poignant example. Let's say you had a time management product and time management. You're gonna get twenty to twenty five bucks maximum for. But let's say you had time management for endodontists. These are people that do root canals and every root canal is a thousand bucks for that dentist.

[00:20:54] So let's say with your teaching and how to schedule better and have a waiting list for cancellations and so forth, that they could do five more. Root canals. A week. That's five thousand dollars a week. Let's let's say 50 weeks out of the year. That's a quarter of a million dollars. They made because they learned this time management. So let's say the endodontist is sitting there looking at your general time management for 25 bucks or your time management for endodontists product for four hundred and ninety seven bucks. Which one do you think they'll buy? You're darn right they're going to buy the one for four hundred ninety seven bucks and you can take that same product, probably change it by 10 or 15 percent and make it for attorneys or other kinds of doctors or specialists or cosmetic surgeons or whatever.

[00:21:50] Say so that is your tip. And that's worked like a charm for me for, you know, as long as I've been doing this even before the Internet started, I was naming my products properly and getting way more money for targeting industries with it.

[00:22:06] So so there you go. That's titles. If you pay attention to this episode and start going back over your titles, fixing them up, making them better, making a more hard hitting. And with our digital products, it's so easy to change the title. You're not stuck with a printed book, and even if you have a printed book, you take the file and change the name throughout the book and then have it printed on demand again with a different title. That's people doing this all the time and course test your titles the best you can, but if you fall into one of these formats, these are proven to work. OK. So if you have something, a title or a topic that somebody actually wants, these titles will help you sell it way more than you are now.

[00:22:53] All right. So that's it for this episode to episode 260 will be Jackie Lapin. She's got a thing called SpeakerTunity. She's been in business for 40 some years. And she's got directories that have places for you to get speaking engagements in all the major cities around the country. And she has a podcast booking service too, so check her on episode 260 and I'll catch y'all then. See ya later.

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