The Advertising Profit Machine: DAY 2: The "Reverse Engineering" Strategy

The “Reverse Engineering” Strategy

Most product development is fundamentally flawed because it begins with the “thing” and ends with the “sale.” Take the average author: they spend two years locked in a room writing a book they think is “important.”

Only after the final page is printed do they ask the pregnant question: “How in the devil are we going to sell this?” They are immediately handicapped because they are stuck with what they built, regardless of whether the market actually wants it. The strategic advantage—the “Direct Response Norm”—lies in writing the sales pitch before the product or service even exists.

You want to create an offer so irresistible that the product almost sells itself. This is the secret weapon used by the world’s most successful infomercial giants. Today, you will learn to build your business around what the market wants, not what you think they should have. If you can’t write a compelling ad for a service, don’t bother building the service.

Step 1: Draft the “Impossible” Ad

Imagine you have a blank slate. Write an ad that promises to solve your customer’s deepest, most painful problem perfectly. Don’t worry about logistics yet. If you are a consultant, promise a guaranteed 200% ROI in 60 days.

If you are a contractor, promise a “No Mess, No Stress” guarantee where you pay them if the job isn’t spotless. Write the most incredible 28-minute sales presentation or full-page ad you can imagine. This forces you to focus on the market’s needs rather than your own operational comforts.

Step 2: Conduct “Blank Slate” Market Research

Identify what your customers hate most about your industry. Take the case of a chiropractor who, before opening his doors, interviewed hundreds of patients to find out what pestered them most about doctors.

The unanimous answer: the waiting room. People hate being kept waiting; it feels like a sign of disrespect, especially to affluent or elderly patients whose time is valuable. While other doctors were building bigger waiting rooms with better magazines, this man built a “No Waiting Room” practice. He realized the ad was “The No-Waiting Practice.” That was the hook.

Step 3: Engineer the Deliverable

Now, you must figure out how to fulfill the “impossible” promise. The chiropractor achieved his “No Waiting” promise by filling his office with automated massage chairs arranged in a big circle. When a patient arrived, they were immediately “serviced” by a chair. The staff learned to set the timers on the chairs based on how long it would take the doctor to see them.

There was no waiting; there was only “pre-treatment.” He re-engineered his entire operation to match the ad. You should be willing to re-engineer your entire business to match a high-performing ad. If you can’t fulfill the promise, you modify the ad—but always start with the most aggressive offer the market desires.

Step 4: Identify the “Conversation in the Mind”

Analyze where the attention and money are currently flowing. For example, IT consultants recently shifted their message from “IT that manages your business” to “Cybersecurity that protects your business from crime.” The “it” didn’t change—they are still the same IT guys—but the conversation in the prospect’s mind changed.

People are terrified of cybercrime; they aren’t “excited” about IT management. Move your marketing to where the fear and interest already reside. As Robert Collier said, enter the conversation already occurring in the prospect’s mind.