Why 80% of the Words on Our Webpages Are Wrong (Part 2): 6 common copywriting errors

welcome everyone today is going to be an unusual broadcast we're gonna be working through some content that will be a unique and new to you we are on part 2 of why 80% of the words on our web pages are wrong last week we explored a story around an Austrian athlete and how she used key psychological concepts to survive an assault we translated those concepts into our messaging and the principles that go with it but for now I want to start by showing you an expert at communication perhaps one of the most powerful communicators on planet earth and to do that I'm gonna ask my executive producer to run in here and deliver this communicator you don't want to miss this so take a look and I yeah I'm gonna get charged he said for this this is this is cliff trainer he oversees your entire program and he's also my best friend we've worked together for 40 years for 40 years literally every job every place I've been every company I've run and this is cliffs new puppy which she got from my family I have a Belgian mallet bred with a with a Catahoula Leopard hound and they're both remarkable dogs the Belgian is a canine and highly trained and this is a puppy kind of hard to see against the dark I think I'm gonna walk over on the board and and show you this puppy there's a reason for this it's more than a shameless plug for viewers it is because studies indicate that these breeds are so powerful in their form of communication likely for two reasons they can read your face better than a chimpanzee I could tell you the research there was a study they hid food behind a glass wall and then as the chimpanzee looked for it someone on this side would make facial expressions they discovered that for instance a Belgian Mao more effective at reading a face than even a chimp the other thing about a dog that's remarkable is their sensitivity to tone now my heads getting cut off but there's the yawning puppy and I wish you could see how clearly his eyes communicate anybody that's looked in a puppy's eyes before realizes that there's something magical about what they tend to say it's as if you could read their mind by looking in their eyes so this ability to read body language and this ability to understand tone is at the foundation of a dog's ability to connect with a human being I'm gonna pass this back to cliff by the way this puppy's name is Kane and he's how old now five weeks he's almost eight weeks yes he's licking my thumb right now all right here you go buddy now if you're joining cuz you're saying how do puppies have anything to do with what we're going to learn today they truly do and to help you understand the connection I want to compare the puppy to something else I'm holding up something now tell me what this is if you recognize it use you Johnny says clickbait take a look at this bottle and tell me what I'm holding up if you have an idea go ahead and use the chat for those of you just joining us and not perhaps not familiar with our our methodology here I'm looking at all these chats coming in on a huge monitor here and then I'm in our studio there's monitors all around me and and I if you're not quite sure what this is there it is I'm gonna hold up something else take a look at this bottle and somebody says head balm from 1880 I'll try that maybe it'll work grow hair alright so this one is called Madeline in a in - a - Lynne and it's an excellent remedy for constipation it has gentle action on the kidneys liver and bowels it's $1.00 per bottle at the Purina company it also helps the many ailments resulting there from useful and overcoming colds and headaches requiring a laxative to dispel them and it goes on with interesting directions and more powerful claims in multiple languages I'm holding up another one right here and this one is much smaller it's called de Poisson diamond antiseptics it's from Eli Lilly and it goes back I don't know how long it's very very old you can see it here as well and finally I'll show you something else that connects closely with this here in this very sophisticated packaging Apple was not the first to think about packaging in a creative way this box contains a very special kind of syrup doctor clark johnson's syrup known for 40 years as dr. Clark Johnson's Indian blood syrup for those of you that are looking for Indian blood syrup I have perhaps one of the last bottles in the country and it invigorates the liver tones the stomach and it regulates the bells that's it there's more and all sorts of additional claims on here and it's by the way price today convenient one dollar per bottle I'm gonna take it I'm gonna sit down here and all of you are probably realizing there's a pattern in this opening and that is that these bottles represent something we often call in a general category of snake oil we sometimes think that you know they're funny and hardly credible but we don't realize the economics of the snake oil business in the 1800s nor do we realize that people are still selling snake oil today and making money doing it I'm going to ignore some of the drugs put out by some of the pharmaceuticals with that claim and actually go to something called miracle - miracle neutralizer this you can buy now it is the total body biodegradable pH super- supernaturally balanced and it says on the back rejoice you have purchased a miracle - product the most complex mixture of complex natural minerals and organics that has ever been blended together miracle - is a spiritual revealed formulated product did you get that spiritual revealed not spiritually revealed I'm not sure what that means but spiritual revealed formulated product and it goes on and there's one funny sort of comment at the bottom of the bottle on the back way down low here it says mild subtlest soap you got to read a lot of miracle language before you get to that line and yet people are buying this now why am i sharing it with you because it represents a time in history when mass media was beginning to develop and in the earliest days you could make lots of claims that people would trust and over time we've become jaded as consumers and this creates a unique challenge and it connects to the theme of what we've been talking about which is why 80 percent of the words on our web pages are wrong now you think about that for just a moment and I want to actually take you to an article I wrote more than 20 years ago and and this article is called transparent marketing Austin to my right is going to give you a link to it it's free I was paid a dollar a word to write this article 27 years ago and then it went viral all over the world translated in many languages and some of the key quotes have been lifted and used everywhere but I want to tell you what the foundation of the article is about because you don't kind of closely do what we do today and I'll also point out for you if you look on my board I have experts these are blown up sections of copy from web pages submitted by my audience and we're going to study the copy together we're going to diagram it together and we're gonna learn six deadly errors but stay with me before I get there let me tell you how I begin to study and think about these errors 20-some years ago I uh I tried to take an ad that ran in the as late as 1912 in fact the ad was ran in a newspaper in Pennsylvania I want to read the ad Modoc oil the greatest medicine on earth it has no equal it relieves all pain instantly toothache in one minute headache in one minute earache in ten minutes sore throat in one night neuralgia in from three to five minutes Murdock oil can be used internally as well as externally one of the least danger it has never been known to injure anyone young or old one of the most valuable properties of this oil is its adaptability in painful diseases of children and on it goes it says should your babe show any symptoms of pain in the stomach or bowels wet immediately a final cloth and lay it on the seat of pain relief will certainly follow in less than 10 minutes mortal coil here's the sum is a sure and speedy cure every family should have a bottle Within Reach it is I like this line a doctor in a house I think I might have worked out a doctor in a bottle but it's a pretty good it's a pretty good piece of copy if everyone is gullible and and let me tell you you might look at that and say well that's nonsense I'm gonna take this little bit from the article get this in 1885 the demand was so strong that the Oregon Indian medicine company had to build a new plant encompassing an entire city block of Corry Pennsylvania as late as 1912 the company was still in full production the researchers in my group decided that what we would do is take the original ad and try to rerun it and see if we got any response well I can tell you right now not only we get in a response we got into all sorts of difficulties just getting the ad trying to get the ad to run the newspaper refused but it wasn't so long ago when newspapers were one of these ads everywhere what's happened what's changed what's going on twenty years ago I wrote a piece called transparent marketing it argued that with the advent and growth of the Internet the consumers being empowered to make judgment calls I'm gonna need that later but not now that last page of that article judgment calls and that that with the Information Age unfolding if we did not learn how to talk in such a ways to build trust we were gonna lose opportunity now I look all around us and the marketplace it's full of noise there's far more noise than meaning so our time today is designed to address that challenge on your own web pages in your own collateral how can we write copy that changes conclusions and thus decisions and thus behavior this all connects to what we taught last week if you haven't seen last week be sure and watch it these two go together very tightly now it's interesting isn't it it's interesting to them to read that copy because today our copy is not much better yes we don't make claims like that that could get us put in jail but we make broad wild unsubstantiated claims we employ hype now I think we all agree with that but the problem is how do we spot it in our own work what principles can we learn we're going to learn six we make it to all of them today or not I don't know I am more interested in making certain my audience is connecting with what I'm saying but what I will do first is take you through a another research experiment and then drill down on the copy I have on my whiteboard working with you to apply these principles and to discover where those errors are being committed are you with me all right so follow now as I take you to a quiz and let's just go here all right option a option B all right I need you to be ready to vote fast there's a slight delay from my conversation in your response so you need to vote very fast on a or B because I'm going to move through a whole series of these and there's a pattern I want you to detect you have not seen most of these before this is not the team headline experiment I've used in the past this is from a whole series of tests drawn from our library we have I think the largest library in the world with these types of experiments we built the first behavioral research laboratory to use the Internet as our primary you might say research field or research community or research canvas but the Internet enabled us to track millions of decisions in real time never before was that possible in history we used it to pattern decision processes and eventually try to answer one question 30 years I've been trying to answer it why do people say yes given a set of options why all right here comes your votes I see a I see be good vote vote I want you to vote very fast on each of these and I'm gonna move rapidly here we go about the GLS and you see option B option B is up 16% good call why trade there's a volume button coming up on this screen why trade Forex with forex trading comm or get your free no risk no obligation how many of you already know from previous learning why that second one is better and and let's just see if it's right 99 percent difference did you hear that 99 percent difference let's keep going why do ten thousand event planners choose reg online look at the next headline let your events manage themselves vote vote vote vote very quickly so this is the third one let me see your votes come in good good I see an a B an a Sankat says a Nate says B Joshua says B Barry says B on just says a all right here we go let's look at the numbers be produced a 90 percent difference in response let's keep going get unlimited access boy I remember this experiment you know this this most of you're gonna get this one right why try Britannic online which one is which one is the winner let me see your notes I see a a a I've taught you a lot about point first and and what I call customer centric logic you can learn that in a previous YouTube piece on headlines I'd recommend you watch that if you don't just get it in the playlist but I want to tell you right now that what you see on your right is a classic cop-out for not knowing what to put at the top of your page so you asked a question I did not come to your page to be asked a question I came to your page to get an answer and you can see the difference in response that doubled revenue do you hear me it wasn't just this this was part of a broader hypothesis change in all of the copy the headline changed and the copy changed on the page the offer did not but with the copy changes we made boom we doubled revenue in that experiment now let's keep going simplifying Medicare for you this is when we ran recently with one of the largest insurance companies in the world and then we're here to help this is a little harder one which one you think a or B give me your best thinking a or B I see a from - I appreciate you guys being brave alright I see a a there's a lot of a's here all right all right let's go a is 16% up excellent now let's go here let's go this next one whoa whoa look at this 638 percent this was an entire copy package change changing the tone and changing the approach and eliminating those deadly errors that we're going to talk about later let's look at another one now here's what I want to do we're running out of time to keep doing this because I want to teach you so I want you to just put on your seat belt sit back and watch while I take you through a dozen more of these I want you to see I want you to see the difference and the increase many of these are from experiments as we've never shared with the public before and so by watching them and seeing a pattern it'll make more sense today when we start tearing down the webpages that you've actually submitted to us so let's go with these quickly you don't have to vote but you're welcome - all right get the Ferguson updates 120 percent increase over the option all right here's another one have the newspaper that's that newspaper box piece that's the name of the newspaper waiting for you your door and then say 50% 24% increase get relief for your weekly migraines and then chronic migraine treatment along solution which one is better hey did you see the number three hundred thirty one percent that's stunning let's keep going complete your complete the form below to start receiving your AAF smart brief and then look at this other one sign up for the daily updates and analysis on top stories in the advertising industry free 816 did you see that eight hundred and sixteen percent all right now I would like to talk about how to beat the headline that one because there's something wrong with the front of that headline drill down on that if you can think of what it is go ahead and submit that in the chat feature the first three words could be improved and the result go up even more but let's keep going receive a no-obligation quote or a free life insurance guide look at be protect your family with affordable term life insurance this one's worth voting on I mean this is a little tricky it's not obvious someone says be Nate that's good call on the previous headline but Juan says beed who thinks it's a this is hard I wouldn't expect you to know instantly alright I see a B from Joshua and exclusive media says an A and Luke Flynn says are a B and on to travel says hey let's take a look whoa isn't that amazing the difference though something magical is happening here something that feels like voodoo or a superpower marketing is a superpower marketing is an elegant force that can transform the world last week we saw how it was used to save a life one day I want to call all of you joining this community to help me save lives with marketing it's coming there's a method to our madness there's a reason I'm inviting you on this journey with us but ultimately I think there's a way for us all to team up and impact the world dramatically using the power of psychology and neuroscience to shift conclusions and thus decisions and thus behavior and if we do that in the right way we can help millions of people stay with me free access to over 7 million annual reports boy those are very similar free access to over 7 million SEC filings what's the difference 26% what's this we can help you law your payments by up to 50% look at this lower your payments by up to 50% it's so obvious which one is wrong there you should instantly know which one is wrong and you should instantly know why the one on the right look at this it's the same message do you hear me it's the same thing but we we we made a huge and important change in the actual direction of the language the second one implies a value to you the first one that we can starts with me me me me and that is one of our six deadly errors we'll come back to that as we teach later today you can't be too careful here's another one boom three hundred and thirty percent increase now in clearness it wasn't just this each one of these are kernels of coffee that represent the entire shift in the copy approach we're gonna learn about that shift in a few minutes so it wasn't one phrase that got that three hundred thirty percent just to be clear but that's a real increase and by the way that's a revenue increase for a company in Canada let's keep going enjoy 14 days of a limited access to both Universal Studios and you don't whistle islands of adventure and then look at the other one which one is right top first one 26% you know what I got more of these and I'm just gonna pop through them I'm not even on the same I don't have time but look at all the differences look at the increases just look at the whole slide you can see the winners over the losers and sometimes there's a very tiny difference but the difference is important because it's not about words it's about what's happening in the mind and so the words are just handles for concepts we have to get those concepts identified and delivered in the right order all right look I have more I'm gonna stop with this slide just look at all these that we've done this this was it interesting for a foundation you can see it look Powerball headlines and newspapers look how different all these headlines are and yet there is a familiar pattern in the winners and that is what's gonna drive our time together today all right so are you ready to learn these six deadly errors and do you want to try to unpack them in a natural way I have not analyzed the text that we're going to do together I simply had Dan our editor take two of the webpages that were presented to us working with my staff we had a designer blow them up print them on a large format printer these are two separate websites so we can analyze two types of copy together and as we analyze them I'm going to start to teach across these six and we call them you know deadly errors and they are deadly you can see that in the in the metrics that we just reviewed for those experiments I mean wow why should we settle for half the money we could be making by simply changing the orientation of our copy why should we do this there's something powerful to learn together here and what I'd like to do is Austin pull up the webpage that this belongs on so this webpage was submitted to us and we're gonna show it to you there it is okay we're HR leaders learn to be HR heroes become an HR hero I'd love to fix that right there I like that it's got the right idea it's focused on the person but it's absolutely wrong because it doesn't convey enough meaning I do not know what it means for me to become an HR hero I do not know the jump in what we call from from the actual word to the implied meaning if you could measure it like you'd measure the length of a line its to why to jump so it's costing you attention at the top of the page in a subsequent session I'm going to teach you about the attention bank the attention bank it maybe even next week is has deposits that are made in it based on the words and the way you lay those words out and you are trying to earn a high deposit in the attention bank so you can spend it on the on the understanding of the value proposition at the top of the page and in the ad coming into the page is where you start to put money in the attention bank we'll talk about that but many of us are trying to do too much without building enough equity in the attention bank and so essentially our attention balance is bankrupt so let's uh let's drill down on this page and let's start to learn some of these principles now I have one slide with all of these I also have our producers are going to pull up on the screen key ones as I teach them but first we're just going to look at this copy together and I'm gonna switch to a hope I get the right marker for this I'm not supposed to write on my whiteboard with this I have a terrible habit of doing that this is a Sharpie but I'm gonna start right here okay so let's put all of our attention right here and then I want you to think about this sentence so let's read it one time all right it's important that you absorb it to really learn with me now you're gonna have to think with me if you just watch me I'm feeling I'm feeling because my my goal is not to entertain you my goal is not to impress you coming away thinking wow those people that make labs are clever doesn't help you at all if I do this job right I'm going to engage you in such a way as there are sort of shifts in your thinking taking place and key lessons being absorbed and to do that there's a sort of psychology to the teaching just like there is a psychology to the webpage we spend much time thinking about that craft and how to utilize it to help you come away with the most from our time together and by the way if this is making sense and if you like it please ah hit that like button and hit the subscribe button and please share this with a friend we're trying to build a community once that community is at the right place and I'm talking about are you community I don't know how much you know about our overall brands but we have about 1.2 million marketers in our broader community but I'm looking for a very active engaged set based on this new YouTube a program that will allow us to do something meaningful in the world soon when that community reaches a certain number we're gonna surprise you with an opportunity to make a huge difference with your marketing skills but for now just take a look here all right so I'm gonna I'm gonna ask you to look at this I'll read it and then I'm gonna ask you to think about this question so think about it now in advance what's the subject and what's the predicate just ready to answer that go back to grammar what's our subject what's our predicate in fact I'm gonna try not to get these pins put up but let's get the subject down on this first left piece and let's understand the predicate in it else also okay so I'm gonna start with it we're not I areas of risk or non-compliance in your employment decision you want to work with established professionals that have years of experience in business management HR management and consulting this is the paragraph what is the subject someone use your chat feature and tell me what is the subject I want you to give me subject in one word and the predicate in one word and you almost almost Sean you got the first one right you is correct what's the predicate it'll be a verb you and want that's right David good to see you David so right here is the entire encapsulated whoops I said our own the entire encapsulated essence this is the kernel of this sentence and if you look at it on face value it's starting with the right thing you but what's wrong with that you somebody tell me why that you is not even hardly going to be seen or understood what's wrong with the beginning of this sentence ah David's right it's in the middle now let's go back up and see something I'm going to identify the prepositional phrases I'm gonna do that by just putting a line right here around this wind piece so I'm gonna draw through it a little bit so you can see it when boom boom boom boom in here's another prepositional phrase now I want you to notice there's one we just saw one now we have another one then you want there are others right here look we will see this one and you can we could talk about this too but I won't get her that I'm just gonna use this one for a reason with and then notice this that there's another one uh in business management HR management consulting what's going on here and grandmary ins you may disagree with me but I want to tell you what the first problem this sentence is it's hard to understand and one of the reasons for that is we have stacked prepositional phrases throughout the sentence look how big a clause I have to digest before I get to the meat here it is we're not enta fiying areas of risk or non-compliance your employment to sit in your employment decision do you see how much how much dross is in the way of getting to the meat so the first problem we have here is what I would call impersonal language and and there's more to it but right now I want you to bear that in my impersonal language we will put up on the board other things later cliff I won't get into those pieces yet just wait before you put those up because I'm not going to go in order when I'm analyzing this language is in the way of absolute clarity does everyone going to start to see that now here's something they're doing right it's got theoretically it looks like it has it's avoiding another area which is company centric logic or Mae centric meaning the marketer and what matters to him because they are using the word you however no one even gets to that you it doesn't help that you've got white text Phin on a black busy background you've got a paragraph of text in the form of a sentence so now you've got this really long sentence it looks like a super long paragraph you can't even come up for air and say it it's got prepositional phrases stacked on top of each other so I can't get to the meaning now I've mentioned two things already and I'll just put the subject and predicate okay so you somebody said it right you that's a subject and the predicate is want now already we have a problem alright let's review the problems together first of all we have stacked prepositional phrases secondly we have long clauses in the way of the core meaning thirdly we have because of that the main point in the middle and we've taught that in other places about point first point last and point middle sentences the worst of the two is point middle now I'm gonna take it to another problem with this okay you want something else is starting to go wrong here okay if I get through all of this unnecessary superfluous redundant annoying dross down to the kernel of the thought what happens next well you have moved to another one of these deadly errors and that is it's an untrustworthy tone I see this all the time you can say wait a second what do you mean that's untrustworthy I don't see a lot of hype no I'll tell you what's untrustworthy I don't know you you don't know me and you start by telling me what I want I say this gently Oh forgive me you censors how the hell do you know what I really want and who are you to tell me what I want and why should I listen to another word that comes out of your mouth now marketer if you submit this page this isn't me attacking you this is the customer I'm on your side I want to help you but what I want you to understand is a customer if they get to that you've already turned me you've sort of turned my receptor off the most important part of any communication is is getting the receptor prepared to receive like let's suppose David's on the phone David let's suppose I go to my phone to call you I know David he's my friend now I met him through YouTube but now he's my friend and Sean's a friend of mine that's on here now Sean or day but let's suppose I I go to call you if I sit by my phone and I yell I felt top of my lungs I don't think you're going to hear me or get my message now David what if what if you're supposed to do something for me and what if I sit by the phone and yell at the top of my lungs is it right for me to blame you that you don't do the thing I want you to do when I haven't properly communicated it's incumbent and I wrote a thesis on this in grad school it's incumbent on the communicator to communicate in such a way as the message can be received so until I pick up the phone and get your receiver ready I eat you actually call it on a phone the receiver until you have that receiver to your ear doesn't matter what I say now I want to tell you that may seem like a stretch of a metaphor but it is absolutely not that's exactly the problem here nothing in these initial words open up or turn on my my receiver and then when I finally get to the meat of the sit-ins if I work hard and wade through it I got another problem and that is you start by turning my receiver way off by telling me what I want if you know what I want then change this entire paragraph around and start with what I want start with it in a clear way and tell me how to get it and further than that I don't want the solution on the home page I want to make a decision on the home page so I only need nothing the thought sequence to move me to the next step don't try to sell me on your whole program on your whole product or your whole solution when really you must sell me one Micro yes at a time forward into the place where I'm ready to understand and invest in the value proposition of your solution alright so is this making sense give me feedback is this helping you because I want to move to the middle paragraph but I want to point out right now that here's another problem we got three voices talking at the same time what does that mean I mean if I were to get up here right now and Spence and often or to stand right beside me and we were to bring cliff back in here and he's to stand right beside me and then all three of us start talking at the same time to you how would you get any meaning you'd be trying to figure out who to focus on that's what's going on right here three voices talking at the same time we don't know if it's three different because the way it's laid out is that like three products is that like uh three three different prospect types they're appealing to does this connect to this because the arrow goes this way you'll see this arrow down here it's pointing this way but over here I've got a call to action that way so do I read this and somehow do something this direction or where do I put my attention you're trying to buy attention at this step at this stage in the thought sequence and right now you're making it so hard for me to focus I gotta focus before I here and if I happen to focus really hard to hear what you're trying to say because you've buried it here all right now every one of us the power of what we're trying to do here is look at real pages that you can take and use to learn and apply to your own but there's there's principles here and I'm really employing a group of six of them I want to review the three that we've talked about right now me centric structure we've talked about vague claims that's is what we got going on in here and impersonal language we've also got that go this is very abstract there's no connection and we've also seen I think untrustworthy tone because of this want peace and cliff I'll tell you what to do as I'm teaching go ahead I'm talking to my producer as I'm teaching go ahead and bring up those six at some point just in any order to let them see what all six are and and as they come through you know will will oh you got a man he's got them all he's smart I didn't you know he had him a screen with all of them there are the six things we're gonna study cliff can you just leave that up for a while while we go to the middle I think it'd be helpful just to look at it I don't it covers that part of my body which is obviously a plus and and I'm gonna move over here to this middle piece and just talk for a second we'll go fullscreen but not yet let me read the middle piece through our proprietary approach whoa whoa you should see errors right there by the way what's it starting with somebody tell me what the first word is what part of speech is this see that what's part of speech is that somebody tell me through we are with you through what is that word through its yeah it certainly is me centric this piece we is completely me centric an hour is me centric so there's one of the errors you're see over there me centric structure but the word through just to go back to what we learned earlier is what it's a prepositional phrase and what's happening is we're doing the same thing we did here we're starting with fuzzy communication through what's our next word do we have any meaning yet let's just start through does that mean anything to you know our does that mean thing to me nothing positive that's bad too so let's Kurt much the through let's do our proprietary what the hell are you trying to say to me why do I need this big word and I still don't know anything yet I've invested in a whole line and I know nothing through our proprietary approach vague vague vague vague vague we call that vague claims through our proprietary approach and systems in case it wasn't vague enough we're going to compound it we'll add the word and and we'll add the word systems so far I've invested two lines of the of paragraph and that's after wading through a completely meaningless headline we are with you here's how to test that headline let's take it off of this business site this website and let's think about all the places we could put this on hmm we could put this on a travel agent site we could put this on a SAS software solution in almost any industry we could put this on a professional personal trainer coach's site we could put this do you get what's going on here you can always tell when it's meaningless because it's a phrase that you can slap on too many different things and thus it's so general it's almost diluted to zero in terms of true meaningful utility for the person trying to absorb the communication when you are the communicator what you are here it's incumbent on you to get my receiver turned on and then communicate in a way that I can understand let's go back to David carrier and Sean Hoffman Sean if I called you and let's suppose I didn't let's suppose I did something a little differently suppose I picked up the phone called you you have the receiver now the receivers on so my next communication comes pouring over the phone but let's suppose I speak in Koine Greek to language I studied years ago so suppose I speak in Koine Greek or classical Greek unless you understand that language is this helping yes your receivers on that is technically the phone is in your ear but your mental receiver is starting to shut down because I'm speaking to you in words that have no particular meaning or relevance to you so once you get the receiver on you better get the language right and the point I want to point out for you now is through our proprietary approach and system all you're doing is turning off my receiver you've startled the prepositional phrase I got the same mess that I had before our professional expert helps you may be saying let's go back here let's start over again where is the subject let's go fullscreen cliff alright I guess you already are where's the subject helps you to be confident and consistent as a decision maker here comes more prepositional phrases by ensuring your company's employment messages and ask aligned with the organization's goals does anybody know what I just read does anybody care about what I just read does anybody believe that's going to make you want to go to the next step cliff let's go full screen on those uh actually let's go to those errors again pull all of the errors up if you will at one screen for them and let's just look at this all right is there a Mii centric structure totally we and and let's go the next one is their qualitative modifiers what is that that's when you say things that can't be proven they're vague and I modifies your adjectives or your adverbs and in a way although your teacher might not say this in school a prepositional phrase also is a way to modify to add additional meaning so let's go back over here for a second our proprietary there's the first modifier would anybody agree with me that that is a that's a poor qualitative modifier Tommy's prepared to have no idea what that really means to me and why that matters it's not specified there's no you know 4643 products or 27 years in business it doesn't give me any sort of quantitative understanding and it's irrelevant and it's vague it's vague so we have vague claims how many of you can tell without me having to teach that language is completely impersonal totally impersonal and then untrustworthy tone now here's the thing they're doing right they're not coming at me with a bunch of like overblown hi comments but this translates into untrustworthy because it's meaningless because you're disappointing because you're filling the trust trial because I invested my attention and now you're disappointing that investment which means I don't trust what you want me to do next so through our proprietary approach and systems our professional expert helps you to be confident and consistent my god that's so much text before I even understand where the sentence is going I spent this past week with a really interesting man he produced iRobot he was the executive producer he produced catch me if you can Steven Spielberg directed and we were talking about the value proposition in its relationship to film and some of my research in that area and and he knows as an as a top-shelf producer the power of something writers call story click story click happens when you come into the theater you trying to make sense of what you're seeing maybe you're curious it turns into suspense and then you sort of realize oh this is what the movies about the hero is trying to solve this problem you get a sense of the plot kernel and the direction of the film you don't always know that in the beginning some never resolved it one of the great film disasters of all time with something called Jacob's Ladder and they played with the audience disappointed the audience fooled the audience and just made people angry story click is very important in every film now come here go back to here where is my story clip through our proprietor still in store click approaching system still no story click our professional experts bragging on your people vague modifier professional helps you be confident and consistent so the subject is expert helps subject is expert helps us the predicate now help me what to be confident that's good and consistent right in the middle point middle lost on everything not absorbed rarely ever read as a decision-maker what does that mean by ensuring another prepositional phrase your company's employment I finally get to my company down here messages and actions are lying with your organizational goals that could have been up my goodness them what is that what does that mean does anybody know what the real problem is they solve how many different solutions are in the marketplace that might help align actions with organizational goals I mean it could be a teacher who comes in and and teaches the c-suite it could be a consultant who's looking at your execution and throughput it could be on and on the list goes it could be software that allows the entire company to understand and relate to the company's objectives and goals and quarterly there's you could slap this text anywhere and it's pretty useless alright marketer now it's your turn hopefully you're you're starting to follow what's going on and so what I want to do is take you over here all right what's wrong with a headline right here somebody tell me right now use this let's learn this is where we cash in and learn together what's wrong with the headline all right I'm watching I know it takes a minute for your your chats to come pouring in but I don't want to do all the thinking now I need you to think with me so that we can learn together okay it's vague that's one thing what else is wrong with it let me help you is it a complete thought remember headlines should be a complete thought is that even a headline it is not a headline it's just a noun with a vague modifier successful outcome what does that mean where does that go that could be in anything that could be in the Olympics successful outcome says nothing now you can tell it says nothing because there's no movement a sentence moves life is predication the molecular unit of all marketing is a sentence but it's also at the foundation of our ontology as human beings existence is predication I do do happens in time and all the laws of physics start to connect when you start to understand the importance of subject and predicate so when you're learning marketing you're actually learning things at this at the foundation of the universe and by the way it connects I know this seems like a stretch but it connects tightly what we're discovering in quantum physics philosophy and psychology and physics they're all the same I know that seems like a huge claim I'm not going to prove it I just want to point out that beneath so much of what we hear is something going on in the mind all I want you to understand is successful outcome is a complete failure in your effort to do anything to serve the person coming to this page so tell me what else is wrong guys you're doing good I'll read it a hrs helps you reduce your financial and legal liabilities all right we're starting to say something there now I don't know what aah aah RSR maybe they know that because they've come here it helps me reduce my financial and legal liabilities when you first hear that is that a fostered conclusion or a claim it's a claim without proof Ilan you got it it's just a claim marketers were not in the claim business we're in the conclusion business we foster conclusions now you make a claim but my garden goes up and so now this is your attempt think of it like a boxer I come to your site I'm looking for meaning but I don't know what kind of hypes coming at me I don't know what to trust I'm in a stance I'm ready and you make your claim now if you make a conclusion well my guard may be completely down I'm thinking about that if you help me come to a conclusion I believe it I defend the conclusion but right now I defend myself against you because you've now put me on the defense so this is your shot my hands are up my guard is up you're the marketer give me a right cross penetrate my defense and and get into my mind here's their best effort at that through proven processes what is a proven process that empower another terrible word you with peace of mind solutions what enough world is that I can be paying Medicare so your one chance at getting that right cross through the defenses that you caused me to put up has been completely wasted on a useless flailing it's not even a punch it's an embarrassment fine marketer please don't hate me if this is I'm talking like a consumer it's the only way to do this you got to get into the mind the customer look here this is a bank we're running out of time what time is right now how many minutes if I got left I want you to look at this this came from another site showing the site real quick and hang in there because I'm going to give you all these deadly errors laid out and we'll probably turn this into an infographic if you'd like that these all these sessions together into one big sort of single cohesive image when we're all done can you show me the web page there it is all right so that came from this web page now by the way I think there's a piece here called absent transitions and just to explain that let me use this page to show that because I haven't taught that principle yet there are six of these I'm trying to teach you scroll down scroll down would you look at that big fat paragraph we're gonna analyze it it's right here on the board beside me but look underneath it are those links are those buttons are those features all you've done is put a paragraph together and then you hit me with a bunch they're not links by the way they're not buttons by the way they look like buttons they're icons and I'm confused why because you didn't give me a transition you didn't say let's see there's one two three four five there are ten ways you can benefit from the Anywhere checking account one two three four you didn't lay them out you gave me no transition my mind doesn't know how to adapt it doesn't know what to do with it doesn't know what it is you've lost your chance to make meaning I'm stressing that because that's of one of the six I haven't talked about that's an example of an absent transition let's go up to paragraph what do we see what's the first word this is easy to see too because it's light what is what part of speech is that what part of speech of that somebody tell me I am waiting just for you I'm gonna stand here stare at the camera glare at it until somebody gives me a good answer what part of speech is the word with preposition Thank You Nick now same problem we had all the way up here when this is with now let's see what comes next the first bank anywhere account now let me ask you a question a market again I'm on your side but I'm playing the jaded consumer why the hell do you need to tell me that you just set it up here you're wasting my energy my my attention my eyes I'm looking and all this and get no meaning none you start with a prepositional phrase and you don't get to me until you're in the middle of a sentence which means you've got a point middle disaster why did you even have to say that it says it right here and by the way it should have a sub-header eating me into the content below but it doesn't but let's look at here you'll have access to a suite of modern mark so many tell me what this crime is cliff can you pull up pull up six real quick leave the chart up but pull up the six if you can't I know you're go back there you go perfect take a look at what cliffs got up what problem is this word right here this is a modifier what's wrong with it somebody tell me vague yes Nick it's it's a vague claim it's a qualitative modifier it's uh it's at least two of the errors does anybody know what the difference does any bank offer a an account that isn't modern maybe a postmodern maybe a pre-modern I mean what's the point of that word there is no point it's a waste Strunk and white would die they said something about and there's an argument about whether this is them or Hemingway but make every sentence tell make every word tale this word is telling nothing modern time saving is that a great word time saving let me tell you why it's not to save us time cuz every bank tells you that yes we all want time saving but we don't trust you you charge us now he's even go into our branch and when you tell me time saving there's no quantification there it's vague it doesn't it doesn't have any exclusivity it lacks the essence of the value proposition now for the people who submitted this I worked with one of the biggest banks in the world and we launched a new account I won't say much about it but it just had record growth year over year for five years in a row because we got this part right we worked exactly on this in fact they'd already hired an agency designed the marketing shop the television commercials and we just said it's all wrong let us test it digitally first we did the results were so amazing that we shot all of that and it's been a huge success for years so in fact is growing 25 percent year-over-year with no marketing now why because the essence of the value proposition worked it was the most successful account launch in their history according to them so so I I look at this and I can see mobile tools alright so everybody's got mobile tools you're not telling me any reason why I should want physical why it's any better than anybody else's account and then you start to hit me with words that don't matter zel biometric login Apple pay yeah Brant Apple need your help right now help them with their brand I'm not saying there's not a point for that but that's not the place for it it does not communicate enough unique value to make this worth my investment in my energy and by the way I know banks are regulated I know that you all have basically the same offers but that didn't stop us from launching a new account that crushed the competition because there's a way to do it and so it is clear here that this is not the way now somewhere down here always speak with a human that's interesting and then I get this vague sort of truism it's like a piece of folk wisdom because good means providing the technology you want and personalized services you deserve no that's not what good means and you never reference good anywhere else in the paragraph so why are you explaining what good means I don't see good anywhere I don't even know why you're explaining a word that hasn't appeared anywhere else in the paragraph what's going on here is this is a paragraph without and this is I'm almost done rationale there's no rationale for the logic of the word flow for the order of the words for the choice of the words for the structure of the grammar and so you waste it and the only thing getting you by is probably your brand this has to be completely redone to get the kind of result you're looking for as John says good is the enemy of great that's another thing too yeah everybody should be good good is just good is just sort of the threshold requirement you gotta get better than good even get my attention read Peter teal on that I'm out of time I'm out of time but I want to do this with you real quick I got two things so stay with me right to the end I got something interesting first I'm gonna I'm gonna I want to share the six points on a slide here they are just go to the slides guys go fullscreen on the slide all right these are the six points these are six problems in our copy when you want to apply what I'm teaching you start by underlining the subject circling the predicate that's the way I typically do it then go back in and Mark every modifier any adjective or adverb then start to say do these words appear in the right order are these modifiers quantitative or qualitative are they specific and then as you start to do that abstract back and feel the entire tone look and see if you have proper transitions between what you and what you're going to say next it's one of the greatest mistakes on our websites today I just reviewed an experiment today with our key leaders in hypothesis development that we just ran it is right now winning 121 percent one of the most important things we did is we got away from those Apple design pages where you stack information on top of each other and we said there are five reasons why and we spelled the five reasons out we are up 121 percent six days in tests needs to continue to run not saying that's what the final number will be I am saying use transitions learn these six pieces and I want to end I want to end with this give me that yeah give me that report so I was just reading this article that I wrote so many years ago but before before I got up here I was sitting on the podium waiting for me I didn't look at before I got up here cuz I wrote it it's just been a long time and and I saw something that I closed the article with his little poem listen to the wisdom in somebody's poem nobody knows who wrote it it certainly wasn't me but I like it and it connects to what we're learning today and I think will help you connect to the final thought and then we'll close right on time Ilana Mehta tiger as they drank beside a pool said the tiger tell me why you're roaring like a fool that's not foolish said the lion with a twinkle in his eye they call me king of all the beasts because I advertise a rabbit heard them talking and he ran home like a streak he thought he'd tried the Lions plan but his roar was just a squeak a fox who happened on the scene had a fine lunch in the woods the moral when you advertise just be sure you've got the goods I appreciate that homespun wisdom I appreciate you I appreciate your trust help us grow a community and make a difference in the world thank you