The 16-Word Sales Letter

Evaldo Albuquerque

📚 GENRE: Business & Finance

📃 PAGES: 91

✅ COMPLETED: September 12, 2023

🧐 RATING: ⭐⭐⭐⭐

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Short Summary

In the 16-Word Sales Letter, Evaldo Albuquerque shares the system he uses to write successful copy at Agora Financial. 

Key Takeaways

1️⃣ Find Your ‘One Belief’ — The ‘one belief’ is the starting point of Evaldo’s copywriting system. It describes the ultimate goal of your copy and is essentially a summarized version of the message you’re trying to convey to the reader. Once you’ve created your ‘one belief’ using Evaldo’s formula, pin it to the top of your document and write to the target. 

2️⃣ Answer the 10 Questions — After developing your ‘one belief’, your next job is to answer the 10 key copywriting questions in Evaldo’s system. Answering these will give you a rough outline for your copy and help you tap into several highly effective techniques of persuasion. 

3️⃣ Point the Finger — By pinpointing and acknowledging your target audience’s primary pain point, you create a sense of camaraderie with your prospect. Always point out the problem, then join your prospect in blaming the thing or person responsible for it. This creates a nice “them vs. us” symmetry. From there, position your product or service, and the core benefit it will deliver, as the solution to the prospect’s problem. 

Favorite Quote

“When most people write copy, they don't have a mission. But how are you supposed to write copy that converts if you don't know the ultimate goal of the letter? How are you supposed to succeed if you don't know what you're trying to accomplish?… With the one belief, you will know what your mission is. It's your North Star, guiding you all the way to a high-converting sales letter.”

Book Notes 📑

Ch. 1: The 16-Word Sales Letter That Sold $120+ Million in Two Years

  • Evaldo Albuquerque — Evaldo is the author of this book and a successful copywriter at Agora Financial. In 2018, he broke Agora’s all-time annual sales record with over $80 million in sales. This book is based on the copywriting system he developed for himself. 
  • The 16 Words — What follows are the 16 words Evaldo’s system is based on: The secret to converting copy is to define the one belief, then answer these ten questions. Put simply: One belief. Ten questions. The rest of the book will explain each part of the formula. 

Ch. 2: Your Mission — Make the Reader Believe In the ‘One Belief’

  • The ‘One Belief’ — The ‘one belief’ describes the ultimate goal of your copy. It’s essentially a summarized version of the message you’re trying to convey to the reader. Once developed, it should be slapped at the top of your document; its purpose is to guide you as you write. Ideally your “one belief” and the ultimate goal of the content (summarized in 1-2 sentences) should be pinned at the top of the document, and then you write to those targets. They will dictate everything.
    • Quote (P. 21): “When most people write copy, they don’t have a mission. But how are you supposed to write copy that converts if you don’t know the ultimate goal of the letter? How are you supposed to succeed if you don’t know what you’re trying to accomplish?… With the one belief, you will know what your mission is. It’s your North Star, guiding you all the way to a high-converting sales letter.”
  • The ‘One Belief’ Formula — The single most important thing you can do when writing a sales letter is to make the reader believe your ‘one belief’. If you can get someone to truly believe that the new opportunity is the key to what they want most, and they can only get it through your vehicle, they have no other option but to buy. What follows is the formula for creating a ‘one belief’ for your project:
    • This new opportunity is the key to their desire and it’s only attainable through my new mechanism. 
  • Phase 1: The New Opportunity — The new opportunity part of your ‘one belief’ is where you describe what makes your particular product or service unique and different. It’s where you present your Unique Selling Proposition (USP). It’s your job as a copywriter to find the USP in every product, because you will not make sales if you don’t have one. You have to show how your product is different from anything else on the market. For example, “eating healthy and exercising” cannot be your new opportunity. The new opportunity you are presenting has to be unique and different. 
  • Phase 2: Your Prospects’ Desire — The prospect desire part of your ‘one belief’ is where you present a benefit. This is where you describe how your product is going to benefit the customer. How is it going to help them solve a problem or live a better life? This is the area where you provide the one key benefit your product offers to the reader.
    • Quote (P. 23): “The main thing here is to remember that your new opportunity can be the key to their desire only if it provides benefits. It can be the key to their desire only if it will help your prospect feel more significant, respected, and valued. If it can help increase your prospect’s mental, physical, social, emotional, sexual, or financial wellbeing. Or if it can decrease or eliminate the risk of events that will negatively impact your prospect’s mental, physical, social, emotional, sexual, or financial well-being.”
  • Phase 3: The New Mechanism — The new mechanism part of your ‘one belief’ is where you present the product or service you’re offering to the customer. After presenting the new opportunity and showing how it is the key to achieving the reader’s desire, you have to make him believe that your offering is the only thing that can help him. The way you do this is by telling them HOW your product works. This is where you get into statements of proof. This is where you provide evidence and outline how your offering will deliver the benefit you’ve already touched on earlier. This is where you provide vivid details about the product and how it is made or how it works.
    • Quote (P. 24): “While the new opportunity reveals WHAT is unique about your solution, the new mechanism reveals HOW it works. It’s the vehicle that delivers the new opportunity. It’s the secret sauce that explains why your solution works. In the financial niche, it could be the proprietary algorithm behind the strategy/trading system you’re selling. In the biz op space, it could be a mentorship program about a new type of online business. In the health niche, it could be a unique combination of natural herbs in just one pill, which is very common in supplement offers.”
  • The ‘One Belief’: Examples — Below are several examples of the ‘one belief.’ The author wrote these out after studying each of the products. Again, the one belief is just something you create to give yourself a goal and a path for your copy. It gives you some direction and can be pinned to the top of your document. If you want, you can also wordsmith-it a bit after first following the formula.
    • Ex. P-90X — Avoiding the plateau effect (new opportunity) is the key to building muscle (desire) and it’s attainable only through the P90-X “muscle confusion” system (new mechanism).
    • Ex. Proactive — Attacking acne at every stage of the cycle (new opportunity) is the key to keeping your skin clear and healthy-looking (desire) and it’s attainable only through Proactiv’s Combination Therapy® (new mechanism).
    • Ex. Invisalign — Aligning your teeth without ugly braces (new opportunity) is the key to getting the smile you want without disrupting your life (desire) and it’s attainable only through the Invisalign proprietary technology (new mechanism).
    • Ex. Subway — Eating healthy fast food (new opportunity) is the key to losing weight (desire) and it’s attainable only through a diet based on Subway sandwiches (new mechanism).
    • Ex. Weekly Paycheck Indicator — Getting in the trade before the news is published (new opportunity) is the key to making easy money every week (desire) and it’s attainable only through the patent-pending Weekly Paycheck Indicator (new mechanism).
    • Ex. Penny Stocks Screening System — Trading penny stocks on Friday (new opportunity) is the key to making easy money every weekend (desire) and it’s attainable only through Tim Sykes’s proprietary news screen system (new mechanism).
    • Quote (P. 26): “I could go on and on. But the truth of the matter is you could write the one belief for every single successful marketing campaign throughout history. So what’s the one belief for the project you’re working on?”
  • Chapter Takeaway — Before starting any kind of persuasive sales copy, identify the ultimate goal of the piece (what you want the customer to do) and use the formula above to create your ‘one belief’. Pin these to the top of your document and write to these targets. 

Ch. 3: Injecting Dopamine Into Your Prospect’s Brain With Question #1

  • Question No. 1 — The first of 10 questions this system wants you to answer as you write copy is this: How is this different from anything else I’ve seen? The point of this question is to get you to focus on what’s unique, different, or new about the product you’re offering. This is where your USP comes in. 
  • “New” Unlocks Dopamine — Humans are wired to pay attention to things that are new. In a world where it’s difficult to grab a person’s attention, things that are framed as “new” are effective because they activate dopamine pathways in the brain. Cognitive neuroscientists Nico Bunzeck and Emrah Düzel used MRI images to study how the brain reacts to information that is framed as “new.” They found that there’s a region of our midbrain called the substantia nigra or ventral segmental area that “lights up” when we see new stuff. This “novelty center” of our brain is activated only when we come across something completely new. If it’s something familiar, it stays dormant. This is why you want to frame your offering as “new” in some way. It could be a new cure, a new way of losing weight, a new way of saving time, a new way of making money, etc.
    • Quote (P. 30): “Here’s the bottom line. Only novelty will release the right dose of dopamine that will get your customer into ‘exploring’ mode — that will get them excited enough to keep reading a sales letter to find out more about that “new’ thing.”
    • Quote (P. 30): “That’s why your USP should always be in your headline and at the beginning of your sales letter. The new opportunity needs to feel like a breakthrough. It needs to feel like you just figured something out, and you’re revealing what you discovered to the reader.”
  • Chapter Takeaway — Once of the first things you want to do in your copy is show how your offering is unique and different from anything the customer has seen before. Things that are framed as “new” tend to be effective at getting our attention. 

Ch. 4: The Man Who Helped End World War I With Toilet Paper

  • Question No. 2 — The second of 10 questions this system wants you to answer in your copy is: What’s in it for me? At the end of the day, this is all the customer cares about. You have to clearly communicate early in the copy the primary benefit that your product will deliver to the reader. If not, you will lose him. Focus on the benefits! Do not get distracted talking about yourself or your company; nobody cares.
    • Quote (P. 34): “Dale Carnegie talks explicitly about how we’re all interested in what we want. For that reason, the only way to influence other people is to talk about what they want.”
  • State Benefits Early — The average person’s attention span these days is so short. You have to get to your benefits early in the copy. Consider stating them in the headline and subhead. We are all bombarded with information and simply don’t have time to pay attention to things that aren’t relevant to our life. That’s why you have to clearly communicate the benefit you’re offering — by doing so, you make yourself relevant to the reader’s life. Everybody wants to solve a problem or live a better life. State the benefit you’re offering right away in your copy and keep the focus there. 
  • Chapter Takeaway — People only care about what’s in it for them. You have to communicate how your product or service will benefit the prospect. By answering questions one (previous chapter) and two (this chapter), you’ve captured your reader’s attention. The next step is to back up your claims with proof. 

Ch. 5: In a World Full of BS, Proof Is King

  • Question No. 3 — The third of 10 questions this system wants you to answer in your copy is: How do I know this is real? Once you’ve told the reader how your product is unique/offers a new opportunity and what kind of benefit it can deliver, your next step is to back up your claims. People don’t like to be swindled. To avoid sounding like a manipulative salesman, you need to spend some time proving your claims. This is where you use testimonials, charts, graphs, analytics, etc. to prove your statements. This is where you discuss HOW the product is going to deliver the benefit you’ve presented. It’s where you can discuss the vivid details about how the product is made. Get into the details here. The more details you provide, the more believable are your statements.
    • Quote (P. 38): “If you’ve done your job right on the previous two questions, your prospect will be pretty skeptical at this point. If you don’t show some proof that you can deliver on your promise, they might leave your page.”
  • ABT Proof Structure — The ABT method is a good way to lay out your copy and add some storytelling to it. It’s a simple story-telling format that stands for “And”, “But”, “Therefore”. “And” helps set up the background and give momentum to the story. “But” creates conflict, adding tension. And “therefore” gives the story a conclusion. Trey Parker, the co-creator of South Park had the following to say about the method: “In a documentary about the show, Parker has explained how he edits the scripts: ‘I sort of always call it the rule of replacing “and” with either “but” or “therefore”… this happens, THEREFORE this happens, BUT this happens.’”
  • Chapter Takeaway — Back up your claims! People don’t like to be duped. Once you’ve stated how your product is unique and discussed the major benefit it will provide, you need to back it up with proof, evidence, and vivid details about how the benefit will be delivered. 

Ch. 6: It’s Time to Reveal the REAL Problem With Question #4

  • Question No. 4 — The fourth of 10 questions this system wants you to answer in your copy is: What’s holding me back? Nobody blames themselves for anything. The person looking into your product has a problem. They don’t blame themselves for their problem. One of your duties as a copywriter is to connect with the prospect by acknowledging their problem and blaming it for their issues. When you highlight the problem the customer has, you get on his good side. Never blame the prospect for the problem he’s having. To discover the prospect’s problem, you can reverse engineer your answer to Question No. 1.  
  • Blame the Problem, Give Hope — When you join the customer in bagging on the problem and frame your product as the answer to the problem, you effectively give the customer hope. And that’s what it’s all about. You always want to give the prospect hope, because hope is one of the reasons somebody buys.
    • Quote (P. 48): “You’re telling your customers the reason why they failed in the past is that all the solutions they tried never addressed the REAL problem. But now there’s finally a NEW OPPORTUNITY, a new solution that addresses the real problem. It’s all about giving your prospect hope.” 
    • Quote (P. 49): “You’re essentially giving them hope. And isn’t that what we’re all really selling? That’s why I said before that this is where the magic happens. Without hope, your prospect will not buy. And the good news is that you can use this in any niche.”
    • Quote (P. 50): “See how I took the blame of their failures off their shoulders and put it onto the old opportunities they tried? That’s how you plant the seeds of hope in your prospects’ minds. You’re starting to tell them, indirectly, that they’ve failed because they didn’t have what you’re offering. And FINALLY you’re giving them the opportunity to replace what’s not working with something better: your new mechanism.”
  • Chapter Takeaway — Connect with the prospect by joining them in blaming a problem for their failures. Then position your product as the hopeful solution to that problem. Give them hope. Hope is a major influencer. 

Ch. 7: It’s Time to Play the “Us vs. Them” Card With Question #5

  • Question No. 5 — The fifth of 10 questions this system wants you to answer in your copy is: Who/What is to blame? In the previous step, your job was to identify the problem and acknowledge it. Now it’s time to blame someone or something for that problem. The reason we want to do this is that having a common enemy creates rapport between you and the prospect. By joining the prospect in bagging on a problem and the person or thing responsible for the problem, you create an “us vs. them” dynamic. The prospect feels like part of a team. This strategy creates a bond, and that sense of team is what you want. 
  • Chapter Takeaway — Create an “us vs. them” mentality by joining your prospect in blaming someone or something for their problem. This creates rapport between you and your prospect. They feel like you’re on their side. 

Ch. 8: The One Sentence That Killed as Many as 21 Million People

  • Question No. 6 — The sixth of 10 questions this system wants you to answer in your copy is: Why now? One of the four levels of resistance to persuasion is inertia. In the end, we simply tend to resist change, and staying put is a lot easier than acting on something. That’s why you need to create sense of urgency in your copy, particularly in the call to action section. You have to give a reason for the customer to buy right now. You do this by using the “either-or” technique to create urgency. You either act on this now, or you lose out. Find ways to trigger FOMO. Common ways of doing this include:
    • Sale ends soon!
    • While supplies last!
    • Limited time only! 
    • Space is filling up fast!
    • Space is limited!
    • Deal ends soon! 
  • Chapter Takeaway — Use the “either-or” technique to create a sense of urgency in your prospect. To overcome inertia, you have to give a compelling reason for them to buy now. 

Ch. 9: How to Make Your Prospect Know, Trust, and Like You

  • Question No. 7 — The seventh of 10 questions this system wants you to answer in your copy is: Why should I trust you? This the part of the copy where you talk about your authority and credibility. People naturally trust others who are in a position of authority or are subject matter experts. These things bring credibility to the copy. If there is solid credibility, people are more likely to trust what they are reading. That’s why authority is one of the key elements of persuasion. A few solid authority techniques include:
    • “I’ve Been In Your Shoes” — The goal here is to show your prospect that you (the writer) went through the same challenges your prospect is facing right now. That at some point everything seemed lost. But then you discovered your new mechanism, and it changed everything. It helped you overcome all the challenges and achieve the same things your prospect desires.
    • The Robin Hood Storyline — In this technique, you are “stealing” a secret from somewhere and delivering it to the reader. Let’s say you worked on Wall Street for several decades and now you’re writing copy. You can say something along the lines of, “I worked on a Wall Street for decades, and here’s a tip that ordinary people never hear about.” You’re essentially offering the reader rare information that you’ve obtained from a prior experience.
    • The Expert Storyline — This is the traditional authority technique. If you, or someone at your company, has authority in the world, you should bring it up. If you or someone high up in the company wrote a book on the topic you’re writing about, bring it up. If your CEO is one of the few female CEOs in the male-dominated financial services industry, bring it up. If you have a lot of experience in a certain field, bring it up. If you’ve won a significant award, bring it up. You get the point. If you can position yourself or your company as an expert, you establish credibility with the reader. 
  • Chapter Takeaway — Always look to establish credibility with the reader. Authority and credibility are very important elements of persuasion.

Ch. 10: How to Make Your Prospect Nod His Head and Think “Yeah, That Makes Sense”

  • Question No. 8 — The eighth of 10 questions this system wants you to answer in your copy is: How does it work? This is where you expand on how your product or service works and how it’s going to deliver the benefit you promised to the customer. It’s important not to get too boring here. You want to explain how it works, but you don’t want to get too stale while you’re doing it. This is where the ABT storytelling method discussed earlier can help. 
    • Quote (P. 73): “Your prospect needs to understand exactly how your new mechanism gives him the end result you’re promising. The key here is to remember that this proof and the explanation of your mechanism are also copy. As such, they cannot be boring. That’s a mistake I see many writers making. Remember, if you wrap the explanation of the mechanism in an ABT storytelling frame, your copy will be much easier for the reader to consume.”

Ch. 11: From Flipping Burgers to Becoming the Richest Man Alive… All Thanks to a No-Brainer Offer

  • Question No. 9 — The ninth of 10 questions this system wants you to answer in your copy is: How can I get started? This is the section of your copy where you present your offer/price. The way you make your offer very enticing to the reader is by throwing in free “value adds.” Try not to cut your price. Instead, add value to the offer. This means throwing in bonus gifts and premium items — things like a free-ebook, a free trial, a free resource, etc. The goal is pile up a ton of value so that your final price offer looks like a giveaway. 
  • Risk Reversal — A risk reversal essentially makes the customer feel comfortable before buying. It’s a risk-free, money-back guarantee of some kind that will allow the customer to get his investment back if he doesn’t like your product. This reduces the anxiety of the purchase and helps the prospect feel more comfortable about making that jump to buy. 

Ch. 12: It’s Time to Close With the Powerful Push-Pull Technique

  • Question No. 10 — The final of the 10 questions this system wants you to answer in your copy is: What do I have to lose? This is where you attempt to close the deal. Whether it’s products, relationships, or anything else, people want what they can’t have. We chase things that are elusive. If you sound too desperate for the sale, you likely won’t get it. Never beg the customer to buy. Instead, remind the customer in the close about how your new opportunity is the key to what he wants and it’s available with your product or service. Then double down by telling him how his like will remain the same if he doesn’t act; whatever his problem is, it won’t be solved. This kind of close might put you over the top and get the customer to buy. 
    • Ex. Financial Product Close — “Look, you’ve seen how you could have made weekend profits of $8,780, $9,100 or even $15,820 all by using my simple weekend strategy. You saw how people who are following my strategy are already making a quick fortune on the weekends. I’ve negotiated a special charter membership offer with a one-time $2,000 discount. With a performance guarantee that fully covers the price of your subscription. Now it’s time for a decision. The Way I See It You Have Three Options. Option #1: Do absolutely nothing and stay exactly where you are right now… Option #2: Do it yourself. You can try to keep track of all the millions of financial news and blog posts that are published every day: Then try to analyze all the 1,887 stocks that are currently trading below $5. And hope you’ll pick the right one; the one that could pay you a fortune on Monday… Option #3: Let me do the heavy lifting for you. I’ll put my proven news filtering system to work for you. I’ll do the legwork and send you my research and video alerts. All you have to do is subscribe.”

Ch. 13: Putting It All Together

  • Using the System — Maybe the best way to use this system is to create your ‘one belief’ using the formula from earlier and then briefly answer the 10 questions in a sentence of two. That should give you a nice starting outline that you can expand on. To recap, here are the 10 questions:
    • Question 1 — How is this different from everything else I’ve seen?
    • Question 2 — What’s in it for me?
    • Question 3 — How do I know this is real?
    • Question 4 — What’s holding me back?
    • Question 5 — Who/What is to blame?
    • Question 6 — Why now?
    • Question 7 — Why should I trust you?
    • Question 8 — How does it work?
    • Question 9 — How can I get started?
    • Question 10 — What do I have to lose?