Writing · Pricing / Revenue Management
Most billboards I drive past are bragging. Atlanta's #1 HVAC. Best dealership in the Southeast. Best according to who, measured how?
Claude Hopkins flagged this in 1923. Vague claims cost the same as sharp ones and do a fraction of the work. A hundred years later companies are still buying those signs, just with better fonts.
Not this one, I took on the way to the gym. Skip straight to sold.
It isn't that specific either. No price, no timeline, and a hedge in the small print at the bottom. What it does is name the thing the customer wants and delete the part they hate. It sells an outcome instead of ranking the seller.
Alex Hormozi's value equation has four levers. The dream outcome, the odds it happens, how long it takes, and how much of a pain it is. This grabs those last two with both hands. No showings. No strangers in your kitchen on a Sunday. No six months of "we had an offer, they walked."
You pay for it. Roughly 5% service fee, another 1% in closing, a repair deduction after the inspection, and offers that often land under market. A normal sale runs about 7.5% all in. The gap between the two is real money on a $400,000 house.
I wouldn't pay it.
Somebody will. Divorce. A job starting in three weeks. An inherited house four states away. A landlord who is done. Those sellers aren't shopping price. They're buying a closing date they can circle on the calendar.
So write down the worst part of your customer’s process. The step customers complain about before you even ask. Then put that on the sign, with your fix attached to it. Add something, remove something, either works.
Ranking yourself is the cheapest claim on the market, which is why the price of a billboard is the same whether you brag or say something true. Only one of them survives in the minds of the customers.