Recently I came across a quote that reportedly came from the world renowned artist Pablo Picasso…

… “good artists copy, great artists steal!“

Whether he actually said it or not, who knows, but one thing’s for sure, it reminded me of an incredibly powerful secret a total beginner can use to write fantastic sales material…

… even on their first go!

Strangely enough, this little gem is so simple that you may not quite believe it when I share it with you, but I know it works 100%.

How?

Because it’s exactly what I did to write a couple of sales letters when I first started that resulted in over £2,000,000.00 ($2,377,990.00) of sales, even though I’d never written anything like them before!

So what’s the secret?

Ok, here goes…

Nick it!

Shock, horror, no… surely you can’t do that?!

Of course not.

Not literally anyway!

But you can get fantastic ideas from something that’s been done before (and yes, it will all have been done before) and then adapt it to suit what you’re trying to sell.

Let me explain…

If you’ve ever been tempted to buy something from a direct response sales piece, a website or any other medium for delivering a sales message…

… or better still, if you’ve already bought from it…

Keep hold of whatever is that sold it to you!

The thing is, there’s obviously something in the message that worked.

Even if you didn’t actually take the ultimate action and buy, the fact that you nearly did, means others WILL have gone further and made the purchase!

If you’ve ever bought or been tempted to buy from a sales letter, keep it!

You see, a good sales letter will trigger emotions that ‘nurture’ a customer into buying without them even realising they’re being led.

But it’s the overall structure that’ll have been carefully thought through that makes this happen and this is where the magic comes in.

Basically you can take a good sales letter and quite legitimately use it for your own gain.

Here’s how…

If it’s on a web page it’s simply a case of highlighting the whole lot and copying it into a Word document or similar text editor.

If it’s a hard paper mailing you can just copy it as you go.

Don’t worry about formatting or any of that sort of stuff because it can all easily be dealt with later.

Now once you’ve got SOMEONE ELSE’S ‘effective’ copy on your computer, it’s then just a simple case of using the structure and substituting the content to fit your product or service.

And you’ll be really surprised how easy it is.

In fact, because of the diversity of the English language, by adapting it in this way, you can create something that appears completely original with hardly any effort at all!

Let’s take an imaginary headline as an example...

Imagine you read this on a mailshot you’d received through the post (or on your computer screen, it really doesn’t matter)…

How I turned a beaten up, ten year old Transit Van with no heating, into a £1,268 a day income stream in just two months… and I didn’t even leave my house!

I just made that up by the way, but note the use of descriptive, specific details that paint a picture in your mind.

Now if you were ‘adapting’ this headline for your own sales letter you could easily use the structure for something like…

How I used a seven year old Dell computer with a ‘sticky S key’, to go from zero to £31,380 a month in just 6 months… all from a spare room in my home!

See how the meaning is completely different but the STRUCTURE is fundamentally the same?

With just a little thought it really is that simple.

Of course it’s not just about the headline.

You can literally do it with everything in the copy.

Just go through step-by-step and wherever there are subheadings, paragraphs, images, bullets, lists, tables, guarantees, P.S.s etc… substitute whatever’s there with your own words or material and make it fit what you’re offering.

A word of caution though…

DON’T EVER COPY IT WORD FOR WORD!

This is commercial suicide, in fact, it’s the quickest way to ruin your credibility because it’s quite possible your potential customers will have also received the same sales material you have (they may well have chucked it in the bin, but that doesn’t mean they haven’t read it).

The key is to make sure your version appears original.

When you use the structure of a decent letter written by someone else, as long as you adapt it wisely, your future customers will NEVER even realise it’s not something brand new!

Conclusion

So there we are, this really is the number one secret for writing highly effective sales copy for beginners.

Rest assured, even the best copywriters in the world look at other sales material and adapt it for their own needs.

Funnily enough most people hate junk mail but copywriters tend to love it, especially if it grabs their attention.

This is because they know they can use it, or maybe parts of it for their own work when the time comes.

I always keep good sales letters.

Whether they’re physical paper mailings or digital web pages, I have both a big cardboard box and an ever expanding file on my computer that stores everything for when I next need some inspiration.

I do it with emails as well.

Signing up for mailing lists to see how other marketers operate and use their work for ideas is a great way to really understand what works.

It’s not immoral, illegal and it’s certainly not cheating!

And there’s nothing stopping you doing the same.

Get yourself a few letters that have either made you buy something or at least nearly buy and use the ‘structure’ of those letters for your own benefit.

You’ll be surprised at what you can achieve.

By the way, if you’re interested in further tips and tricks for writing great sales copy, check out another post I wrote called ‘How to Write Your Own Killer Sales copy’. In fact if you use what you discover here in conjunction with adapting the structure of a decent sales letter written by someone else, you can pretty much guarantee you’ll be able to write your own killer sales copy every time!