A Magic Word For Increasing Response Rates

Alex Honnold was the first person to climb El Capitan, a 900-meter vertical rock in Yosemite National Park, WITHOUT ROPES.

“Without ropes” is the hook. It pulls you in. If Alex climbed El Capitan with ropes, the hook wouldn’t get your attention because lots of people have done that.

What’s the point?

Your prospects are getting the job done when you reach out. They’re climbing mountains with ropes.

Using the magic word “without” to describe what’s meaningfully different about your product or service.

Selling is about the before and after. The contrast.

Here’s the formula:
What if you could (Desired Result) without (Thing That Sucks).”

Example for Philipp Alexander Ströhemann:
“What if you could grow to 7m ARR without hiring salespeople, cold calling, or running ads on Facebook or Google.”

Example for Athletic Greens:
“What if you could get 75 essential greens without having to eat them?”

Example for a triathlon coaching program:
“What if you could finish an Ironman without 20+/hours of training per week?”

Example for a done for you podcast editing service
“What if you could publish polished podcasts without having to edit them?”

Example for CaptivateIQ
“What if you could calculate and run commissions for 100+ resp without hard-pasting entire Excel pages into Google Sheets and then manually making adjustments, one sheet at a time?”

What’s your “without” sentence?