As I get older I'm getting less and less tolerant of worthless slugs that order my stuff, suck my knowledge, waste my time and then return my products because they won't get off their fat asses and work to improve themselves.

I just got a call yesterday from the sister of one of these people (I guess she was too embarrassed to call herself) who said that her sister asked her to return the "Wake 'em Up Video Professional Speaking System" because she didn't realize how much work speaking involved.

SHE DIDN'T REALIZE HOW MUCH WORK SPEAKING INVOLVED! I spent an hour consultation with the moron telling her not to order it if she thought it was some kind of get rich quick scheme. I told her at least ten times that speaking was a lot of work. She assured me over and over that she was ready and willing to do the work and yet she still returned it.

That's why I hate guarantees! In some cases it simply allows goofballs like this to steal your knowledge on a lark and totally waste your time. That's why, for this product there is no more guarantee and as soon as I get this magazine done this month my copy will be written pretty much like you see above . . .  hardcore negative sell.

"If you are a moronic, slug, don't waste your time or mine. Don't buy this product because it is non returnable."

Of course, no one wants to think of themselves as a moronic slug. Some that planned on ripping me off for the knowledge will not bother since the product is clearly non-returnable. I am forcing only the serious to order which is a personal decision on my part. I don't need the money that bad to get extra sales from people that don't have much chance of success. I certainly could sell more by keeping the guarantee, but in this case I don't want to sell more and my copy must reflect this.

Part of being in business for yourself is to give you the freedom of working only with people you like. Here's a note I just got this week from a woman who bought the same exact system, as the jerk above at about the same time. I like her:

"Tom, Just wanted to let you know what happened today. It must have turned out ok; Matt and I received a thunderous standing ovation!! Matt played without missing a note, and I had them both laughing and crying. It felt wonderful!! I used all your suggestions regarding the quote at the beginning and the end and somewhere in between. I had Matt play "Take Me Out to the Ballgame" at the end and everyone sang along, and I had cards made up with my quote on them, and gave them out along with my card with my book info, and a gold bookmarker for each attendee. Thank you for all your help!!! It made all the difference!!"
 

This lady studied the course, did what I told her and got fantastic results. That's the kind of person I want to deal with and my copy must be written to attract this kind of person.

Won't I lose sales?

Yes, I will most definitely lose sales by taking off the guarantee. Maybe I would even have lost the sale to the lady that got the great success, but I can be pretty darn sure that the people who do buy are serious. In the long run I believe I'll win because these people will have great success and refer the system to others like themselves.

This is not without precedent

The magic industry has never given guarantees or refunds on their products because once you learn the trick you have received the value of the product. If you don't use it, it's your fault, not theirs.

Here's a sample from a magic company:

"NO RETURNS OR EXCHANGES: PLEASE SELECT CAREFULLY. Like most other magic shops, [xyz magic] does not allow any item to be returned, refunded or exchanged for a different item. DEFECTIVE ITEM WILL BE REPLACED. When selling magic items we are also selling the "secret" to the trick. Sometimes a trick will be purchased only to find out the secret, then returned, this is another reason there are no returns on magic items. Items damaged by customer will not be replaced."

That's the same attitude I'm going to take and it will be reflected in the ad copy. You might also notice that even in this refusal of a guarantee the magic shop used a copywriting technique called "the reason why" which we'll cover in a future issue.

So, the above is why I hate guarantees. On big ticket products and selected less expensive products I am going to eliminate them. Yes, the overall sales will go down, but the good sales will take less effort to service and will spawn more good sales down the road.

Now that you've seen why I hate them, in the next issue I'll tell you why you should use guarantees.

I just completed a two hour audiotape seminar on this topic called
Copywriting 901: The Fast Track to Writing Words that Sell. It is awesome and could make you a thousand times it's cost by learning the above technique and all the other techniques I put on the tape.

Click here to order

Upcoming articles for this section

• The Reason Why Technique

• Sub Heads

• Using Testimonials

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