Hey! Welcome to this week’s session. 

Let’s get straight into it.

As we discussed last week, the main purpose of our copy is to encourage action. (You can read it here if you missed it.)

To do this effectively, we need to understand what motivates people to take action in general. 

While you could go down a psychological rabbit hole all the way to Wonderland trying to understand human motivation completely… 

Today we will look at pain vs pleasure.

Everyone wants things. We all have desires. The thought of attaining these desires gives us pleasure.

Most of your audience almost certainly want to look better.

They dream about it and wish it was true. Perhaps they even look at you and think “Wow they look amazing! I’d love it if I could look like that too.” … 

But they still look the same as last week, last month, last year! 

Simply wanting something desirable often isn’t enough to make people take action.

It’s the same as people wanting more money… 

Of course, that would be amazing! Who doesn’t want that? But how many of them are putting in the extra work to get a raise or building something on the side that could genuinely make this ‘wish’ come true? 

Sure, for some determined individuals, this IS enough. But for many others, they need something more …

Something extra to kick them into gear and make meaningful action happen. 

This is where ‘pain’ comes in. 

Let’s think about that person who ‘wished’ they had more money.

If suddenly they were expecting a child…

Or realized they could no longer live in their house because their rent got jacked up…

They’re almost forced to take action because the consequences that will occur should they not do something are too painful to accept. 

That would be the proverbial ‘kick’ they needed to take action, and it’s extremely effective. 

The same principle applies to getting into shape. 

It often takes a ‘moment of truth’ for someone to take serious action to become more healthy. 

For example, imagine a dad playing basketball with his son. Only, after 5 minutes he’s completely out of breath … he can’t keep up.

Then he gets crossed by his son and rolls his ankle.  

Now THAT would be a wake-up call. That would make him realize that he seriously needs to do something about his fitness. 

The consequences of being unfit and the pain caused as a result is MUCH more motivating than simply wanting to look better. 

If we think about it, people want to become fit so they can do the things they enjoy without pain! 

Whether that means not having a stitch when walking up a hill, not gassing out when playing sports, or simply not getting injured when they play with their kids! 

So, bringing this back to you. 

We now know that avoiding pain is more likely to motivate someone to take action than gaining pleasure. 

Avoiding the consequences of being unfit is more motivating than looking like someone who is fit.

You want to make a clear connection to your reader that your services will help them avoid pain. 

A common trend I see with coaches selling programs or their 1-1 coaching, is they just highlight all the benefits their training will give someone. “Get stronger - increase conditioning - lose fat - gain mobility - etc.”

Don’t get me wrong, this is great and entirely necessary, but why are these things beneficial?

On the surface they are desirable and almost everyone wants to achieve them, but dig a little deeper and you’ll realize…

Strength makes your body more robust and durable, conditioning will increase how long it takes for you to get puffed out, less fat reduces the risk of heart disease, increased mobility lowers your risk of injury…

All of these benefits can be related to avoiding some sort of pain. 

Subconsciously, most people know these connections, but if you can make a clear and relatable connection, you will tap into a person’s deeper motivation.

Link benefits to avoiding pain and you will more effectively encourage people to take action and invest in your training.

You could do this simply by highlighting how with your training “you become more mobile and lower your risk of injury” - your offer literally helps the person avoid physical pain.

 Or more subtly by incorporating an undesirable scenario “Never be laughed at again for wearing a shirt in the pool” - your offer will prevent an undesirable situation from happening again.

If you can make this connection clearer and more relatable, even better! 

We’ll go into more detail regarding specificity in a future session but for now, the main thing to remember is to relate the benefits of your training to avoiding pain. 

Incorporate this into your copy and you will be more persuasive in encouraging your audience to take action. 

Weekly Workout

The simplest way can be to relate it to injury prevention, however it doesn’t have to be that literal. 

Pain can be an embarrassment (like our father playing basketball with his son) or a lack of self-confidence (think not wanting to take your shirt off at the beach because you’re not confident in your body). 

Whatever the case, you just want to give your reader an extra ‘nudge’ of motivation. Make them aware of an undesirable situation and then explain how your training will prevent that from happening. 

Here’s an example: Email using avoiding pain as a motivator.

As always, feel free to reach out with any questions. 

That’s a wrap for today’s session! Great job!

I look forward to seeing you at training again next week.

All the best until then,

Beau.