How To Sell Without Really Selling (And Why Giving Away Too Much Value Is Bad For Business)

Ever heard of the Rule of Reciprocity?

Lots of business owners love it. In fact, a good number of them use it as a foundation on how they do business.

Here’s a quote I saw that explains the rule well:

Sounds good, right? But it can actually harm your business — without you even knowing it.

You see, based on the rule, if you give me something valuable, then I’ll feel obligated, compelled, forced to buy from you.

Uhm…

Heck, no.

If I don’t need your product or service, then why would I buy from you?

Now, for the record, I’m not saying that the rule is a total sham — because to some degree, it works.

But IMHO, this rule caused a lot of business owners to lose their balls when it comes to selling. A lot of people nowadays can’t sell shyt unless they’ve provided enough value to their prospects.

Sounds familiar?

They became marketing wimps who don’t know how to make people buy without giving away the farm along with the kids.

You can even see this phenomenon in emails…

People try their best not to sound ‘salesy’ because they’re afraid their customers might get annoyed and leave their list.

So they sugar-coat their pitch or bury their link in the PS.

Not knowing that they only harm their business doing this.

But who can fault us?

We were made to believe that the Rule of Reciprocity is a universal law — just like the law of gravity.

We were taught that people won’t buy unless they receive value from us first.

Gwurus and shexperts sing in unison, telling us that we should give away dozens of free content first before selling anything.

But after handling dozens of email marketing campaigns, I realized that this is not the case.

In fact, you can sell in every email you send to your list. And your readers would even thank you for selling to them.

How?

By using ‘infotainment’ when writing your emails.

Which simply means combining information with entertainment. Just switch on your TV to see great examples of this concept. News shows that present information in a way that is fun and entertaining.

Now, does it take a lot of time to write infotaining emails?

Not really, as long as you know what you’re doing.

Interested to learn more?

Then, you should download a free copy of my book, Email Copywriting Handbook where you can see actual examples of ‘infotainment emails’

Download it today. It’s totally free.

Here’s the link: http://bit.ly/RomEmailCopyBook

The #1 Most Dangerous & Costly Mistake That Can Sabotage Your Email Marketing

By Rom Rulida /

Here’s some great advice I got when it comes to writing emails:

That advice literally changed the way I write emails and my entire email marketing approach.

Before learning this, I thought that I need to give good info on my emails.

After all, if they were to buy my product, then they need to know that I can deliver the goods, yeah?

In fact, let me know if these ‘beliefs’ sound familiar…

“I need to give valuable content to my subscribers for free.”

“I need to give away some of my stuff so they’ll be confident that my product is even better.”

“I need to teach in my emails so they’ll see that I know what I’m talking about and I’m really the go-to expert.”

But people who have this mentality often run to the problem of people not buying their product because they already received some great stuff.

Just like this poor woman I saw on Facebook:

Now, if you’re not supposed to teach in your emails, then what are you supposed to do?

3 things…

#1. Inspire

The great email master Matt Furey believe that ‘inspiration sells.’

If you can inspire your subscribers to believe in themselves, in their abilities, and in their skills, then you can also inspire them to buy your product or services.

#2. Motivate

Motivate people to take action.

Give them reasons to get off the couch and start moving towards their goals.

You can also motivate them to go the extra mile by buying from you.

#3. Entertain

Tell stories. Crack some jokes. Make your emails really fun and entertaining.

Let’s be honest: Who earns more money? A professional teacher or an entertainer?

It’s the same with your emails — don’t teach.

Entertain the heck out of your subscribers and you’ll also see your bank account get fatter.

Now, think about it…

You don’t need to share hard info to do those 3 things, do you?

Yes, you can still teach — but make sure it’s not ‘hard teaching’ where you instruct someone, in detail, about how to do things.

If you want to see actual examples of this, then read Chapter 1, 3, 8, 10 and 15 of my new book, Email Copywriting Handbook.

You can see how I teach without really teaching. Ironic much, eh?

Just go here to grab your copy for free: http://bit.ly/RomEmailCopyBook

The Borderline “Abusive” Way of Writing Profitable Emails

By Rom Rulida /

So you want more clients and more revenue for your biz?

Without spending a dime on ads?

Completely on autopilot?

Here’s a quick & simple 3-step tactic for you.

👉 Write 30 emails.

👉 Set it up on your autoresponder.

👉 And bring people inside your list to receive your emails daily.

Then, let your emails do the heavy-lifting of making people know, like and trust you. It’s really simple. No need to spend any money on ads. And you can move on to other parts of your biz as your emails create opportunities for you.

That’s it.

The key here is to make sure that your emails are really good.

And you can do that by simply talking a lot about your market’s pains, challenges, and problems.

I’ll let you in a little “secret”

According to marketing wizard Jay Abraham:

I mean, think about it…

If you’re suffering from back pain, and I come to you to describe what you’re going through — exactly how you would describe it — then, you’d probably think that I know what I’m talking about and I know how to solve it.

The same thing goes with your emails.

If your emails talk a lot about the problems of your market and you can paint the picture of what they’re going through the way they see it — then they’ll conclude that you know the solution.

No wonder we see doctors as geniuses.

If you want to learn how to write email-focused problem effectively, then Chapter 13 of my new book, Email Copywriting Handbook, talks about a ‘borderline abusive’ way to do this.

Grab it here for FREE while it’s still available:

http://bit.ly/RomEmailCopyBook

How To Write Email Faster

By Rom Rulida /

Ever heard of a Rube Goldberg machine?

It’s a machine intentionally designed to perform a single task in an indirect and overcomplicated fashion.

Dunno ’bout you, but it made me chuckle a bit.

It actually reminds of how a lot of people I know are doing when writing email copy.

They overcomplicate a very simple task.

It starts with closing the door behind them. Then, spending a few minutes to attract the energy of the universe and magically come up with an inspiration. That’s when they’ll start the arduous task of writing the email. They’ll spend hours and hours hammering the keyboard to come up with the ‘perfect email’ that will blow the pants off their subscribers.

That might be a little exaggerated. Lol!

But you’re getting my point?

When it comes to writing emails, the proof of the pudding is not in the words you use, but the sales you made.

Here are two things you can do to write email faster:

#1: Write Like You Talk

When writing emails, just write like you talk — warts and all.

What I mean is, write like the way you talk with a normal person in a face-to-face conversation.

Use words that you normally use when talking with someone.

Avoid being verbose and don’t dare to look more intelligent with words that your readers won’t understand unless they get a dictionary.

#2: Limit Yourself to 30 Minutes

I’m also a huge believer of the old adage that says, “Money is attracted to speed.”

So you should not spend more than 30 minutes writing an email.

‘Dumb down’ things a bit.

Get a timer and decide that you’ll only write for 30 minutes.

It might take a bit of practice, but you’ll get faster every time you do it.

What you should expect?

When you do this, two things will happen:

First, You’ll write faster.

And second, you’ll let your unique personality shine through your emails.

Both important to writing emails that don’t sound like a robot or an overhyped ad guy on TV.

Anyway, if you want some cool demonstration of emails written using this approach, then make sure you grab a copy of my new book: Email Copywriting Handbook.

All you have to do is model those emails and adapt it to your market, and soon enough, you’ll be one of the most prolific email copywriter in your industry — leaving your competition thousand miles behind.

Get it on the link below.

How To Add Value Without Giving Away Too Much Content

By Rom Rulida /

“If I give you something of value that you perceived to be valuable, you’re going to feel an obligation to return back to me something of equal value in return.”

This quote I pulled somewhere talks about the gist of the Rule of Reciprocity that came from Robert Cialdini’s best-selling book, Influence: The Power of Persuasion

But in my humble (but accurate) opinion, this Rule caused a lot of troubles and miseries…

…Especially in the lives of business owners.

Well, for the record, I’m not blaming Cialdini.

The fault lies in the way we understood and apply this so-called ‘universal rule.’

You see, the Rule of Reciprocity says that people feel obligated, even forced, to give back to you whatever you give to them.

Business owners took it to the extreme by saying that your customer will only buy from you if you offer them something valuable first.

So you created loads of free super valuable content — a free eBook, free 1:1 coaching, free online course, free meal.

You give 99% of what you know to compel people to buy from you.

And so far, it seems working.

Your potential clients are happy and they won’t stop thanking you.

But when it’s time to launch your product, what happens?

Crickets.

Those people who consumed all your free resources are nowhere to be found.

Heck, some of them will even get angry at you for trying to sell them something.

And there are others who will ask, “Well, you already give us a lot of information. Why should we buy from you?”

It’s freaking heartbreaking.

Don’t worry though, because there’s another way to market business without giving away the farm along with the kids.

This might sound strange, but you can actually add value without giving away too much content.

Here’s how to do it:

#1: TALK MORE ABOUT THEIR PROBLEMS

Whenever you talk about your ideal client’s problems, they tend to listen.

And even if you don’t give them the solution inside your content, they will still listen.

Why?

Because it’s super relevant to them.

You’re talking about a topic that is really close to their heart.

And they won’t mind you talking about it over and over again.

Have you ever had that one friend who won’t stop talking about his or her problems?

It’s funny but you’ll notice that people don’t get tired when they are telling you about their problem.

Do this in your content and people will continue listening to you.

#2: BE VERY VAGUE ABOUT THE SOLUTION

Here’s the thing: The solution is you.

So if they want to get their problem solved, then they need to buy your product or hire your services.

The key here is to be so clear about the problem, but very vague when talking about the solution.

Don’t share the dirty details of how you will solve their problem if they come to you.

Think about it: When you come to a doctor, you don’t expect that they’ll give you the solution right away.

No. What they do is to talk about your symptoms first — your problems — then, they give you the solution.

If it’s medicine, you need to buy it.

If it’s an operation, you need to pay for it.

See the pattern here?

Talk more about the problem. But they need to pay to get the solution.

#3. BE AN OBNOXIOUS TEASE

Teasing your solution is one of the best ways to make people buy from you.

How do you do it?

By giving them a bit some juicy information, but withholding a key piece that they need to implement the information.

Here’s an example:

Say you’re selling a weightless product for women.

You can talk about the importance of drinking a lot of water to lose weight.

But don’t just drink water.

They need to drink the right amount as well as the right kind.

Because if they drink too much or too little, they’ll gain weight.

And if they drink the wrong kind of water, they’ll gain weight as well.

Then, proceed to tell them…

“I talk about this in detail in my weightless product. Get it here.”

See what I did there?

You talk about their problem — losing weight.

You’re very vague about the solution — drink the right amount and right kind of water.

Then, you tease them about your product.

And that’s how you add value without giving away all your free stuff!

Conclusion

You don’t have to give away everything just to make people buy from you.

There are hundreds of tools and tactics that you can use to ‘persuade’ your potential buyers to try your product or hire your services.

The 3 steps I shared with you is enough to get you started.

Creepy Marie Kondo’s Secret To ‘Tidying Up’ Losers In Your Business

By Rom Rulida /

Ever heard of Marie Kondo’s Tidying Up series on Netflix?

Yeah?

I’m not going to talk about that. Lol! 😂

Because I actually saw a parody of it where the spoof Marie Condo’s goal is not to tidy up your things, but to tidy up people in your life.

Sounds more interesting, eh?

Anyway, here’s how it goes:

There’s this guy who asked Marie Condo’s help to tidy up his office. However, instead of working on his messy files and table, Condo ‘cleaned up’ the toxic people in this guy’s life.

Yeah. She killed them. Condo killed the guy’s boss, his officemates, and everyone who doesn’t spark joy in his life.

Finally, the guy had enough and said, “Stop! It’s my fault. I don’t want to tidy up my office anymore.”

Then the creepy Condo replied, “So you don’t spark joy to yourself?”

“Noooooooooooo!!!!”

It’s a kinda sick parody right?

But TBH, I think that’s exactly what you need to do to some people in your email list.

No, don’t kill them. Silly!

But get rid of them as fast as you can.

Here’s a short list of people you need to ‘let go’ from your email list:

❌ The pesky Freeloaders

❌ The annoying Freebie-seekers

❌ Those who don’t like receiving emails from you

❌ Those who don’t like to receive any emails with a sales pitch

❌ The snowflakes who are easily offended by everything you say

❌ And a lot more!

Trust me, you don’t want anything to do with these people.

So get rid of them.

Send more emails and sell in every email — exactly what they don’t want you doing.

And watch in triumph as these people crawl back to their hole — never to disturb you again.

Congratulations! You just ‘Marie Kondo’ them! 😅

The ‘Soda Spirits’ of Online Marketing

By Rom Rulida /

Got a rather bizarre story for you today.

Last week, someone told me of this strange account of how a truck driver delivering soda products stopped by a big beautiful house in the woods. It was a party and a lot of people were celebrating when he arrived. After unloading all the sodas, the driver went his merry way.

Early the next day, his manager phoned him and ask why he didn’t deliver the soda to its intended destination.

“But I did! I delivered it to the customer.” The driver said.

“No. You didn’t. The client is really pissed. Fix this or lose your job!”

So the driver immediately hopped on his truck and went back to the place where he delivered the soda.

To his horror, the big beautiful house was gone.

All that’s left are empty bottles of soda he delivered last night.

And the locals believe that he was ‘duped’ and ‘played’ by the spirits and entities from the forest. (We call it ‘engkanto’ in Tagalog language)

Crazy, right?

Anyway, here’s the point:

I don’t know if that story is true, Lol! 🤣

…But I always see it happening in real life right now — particularly in the online business space.

Like the kid in the Sixth Sense movie who sees dead people, I see gurus and experts ‘appearing’ and ’disappearing’ all the time.

They appear when they need your money… Err… When they want to ‘help’ you with their product.

And disappear once the launch is over.

Like the ‘soda spirits’ from the forest, they are only present when they need you.

But once they get what they want, you won’t be able to find them anywhere.

So once you saw them, run as fast as you can.

Are You Afraid of Unsubscribes?

By Rom Rulida /

I know a lot of business owners who are afraid to send daily emails to their list.

And the main reason is they’re afraid of unsubscribes.

After all, it’s scary to see dozens of people leaving your email list, right?

Me? I think it’s only a matter of perspective.

I would unsubscribe from anyone who doesn’t add value to me.

But if I’m getting value, and I’m being entertained, and I’m learning a lot, then why would I unsubscribe?

Because here’s the truth:

If you send daily emails but you’re not giving value, and you’re not making the life of your readers a little bit fun, and they are not learning from you — expect that a lot of them will unsubscribe.

But if you do those things and you send daily emails — expect that a lot of them will STILL unsubscribe.

Why?

Because that’s how you weed out those who are not your audience

And in the process, identify those who will be your loyal customers in the future.

Besides, what’s the logic in keeping people who don’t want to hear from you?

What would you get from holding on to people who don’t see any value in what you’re trying to teach them?

IMHO, I’d rather have 100 people on my list who are raving fans because of what I’m doing for them…

…Than having 10,000 people who don’t really get value from me. (And even gets upset because I’m trying to help them with my emails. Lol!)

Again, it’s a matter of perspective.

7 Email Marketing Mistakes I Hope You’re Not Doing

By Rom Rulida /

As a self-confessed email junkie, I have this weird habit of signing up on different email lists.

I do this to observe how other business owners are writing their emails.

After reading thousands of emails from different marketers, I noticed some major mistakes that they usually do.

Hopefully, you’re not doing these things

There are dozens I can think of, but here’s my top 7:

🚫 Not sending emails as frequently as they should

🚫 Always adding value — but ‘rarely’ selling

🚫 Only emailing when they’re about to launch a new product, treating their subscribers as ‘cash cows’ (I super hate this!)

🚫 Being too formal

🚫 Being too obnoxious and vulgar

🚫 Tricking subscribers using ‘Fake Scarcity’

🚫 Embarrassing people who don’t buy their products

Those 7 mistakes really annoy the crap out of me.

There’s another sinister email copywriting mistake that you might be doing.

And that is, talking ‘gibberish’

Or talking in a way that your market doesn’t understand.

Let me illustrate.

A few days ago, my wife and I saw a group of goats on the roadside. We’re still waiting for our vehicle to arrive so we decided to have some fun. My wife started bleating like a ‘goat’ and to our surprise, a goat bleated in response. We tried it for a couple of times and every time my wife ‘bleat’ the goat will also bleat.

I tried to bleat like a goat, too. But I did a terrible job so the goat saw through my pretense and he didn’t bleat.

I think he has no concept of gender equality. 🤣

Anyway, what’s the point?

You need to speak the language of your Target Market.

You need to get off your high horse and speak to them like how they’re talking amongst themselves.

In fact, just fixing this one mistake can mean more profit to your business.

And just like how the goat responded to my wife’s bleat, your subscribers will have a hard time ignoring you.

…In fact, they won’t be able to resist but to respond and give their money to you.

Why You Don’t Need a Funnel to Make a Sale

By Rom Rulida /

A lot of business owners today are yapping about funnels.

For them, it’s the ‘holy grail’ of online marketing.

They say… *insert mocking voice*

“If you don’t have a funnel, no one will buy from you!”

To which I happily disagree.

Here’s the thing…

Funnels are useful, I give you that.

I have a friend who made 7-figure funnel for his clients.

So I know it works!

But what irks me are people thinking they can’t sell shyt if they don’t have a funnel.

That’s why all they think about are…

“Is my tripwire effective?”

“Is my downsell good enough?”

“Did I choose the right upsell?”

“Should I add another video?”

Yada yada yada.

Hey, hold your jets!

Funnel is just a tool. An instrument to automate the process of selling your products.

But don’t forget the two most important combo when building your business.

✅ Problem and Solution.

✅ Starving Crowd and the Burger.

✅ Your market and your Product.

Even if Russell Brunson builds your funnel, but if you don’t have a validated offer, your funnel will still suck. (Or it won’t! Lol!)

Because there’s no saving a product that no one wants.

The reverse is also true…

If you have a product that your market really needs — and willing to pay for — even if you just send emails to your list to sell it, you’d still make boatloads of money.

So don’t let yourself be burdened with the ‘yoke of funnel-slavery.’

Work on validating your offer first.

Try to sell your product to people who you think might need it.

If you find enough people who are willing to pull out their wallet to buy it, then congratulations…

Go and funnel your business to your heart’s content!