Daniel Throssell - The Meat, The Baby - The Salesman (An Email Marketing Parable)

7/5/22, 4:24 PM Gmail - The meat, the baby & the salesman (an email marketing parable)
Joel Kelly <joelxoxkelly@gmail.com>
The meat, the baby & the salesman (an email marketing parable)
1 message
Daniel Throssell <daniel@persuasivepage.com> 4 July 2022 at 11:06

To: joelxoxkelly@gmail.com
Picture this scene:

The year is 2020.

It is a cold winter's evening in Perth.

I am sitting down to dinner with my wife Hayley, and my (then) two young
kids, Eli and Esther.

Baby Esther has just started fussing, so we’ve put her on the ground to
crawl around while we eat.

But Hayley, Eli and I are still eating our roast beef & sweet potato.

Eli, in particular, is enjoying it. He LOVES roast beef, and he’s scoffing it
down.

But then — as he goes to eat his precious last piece —

The unthinkable happens.

He lifts it to his mouth…

…and accidentally drops it.

No harm done, right? We can just pick it up.

But … no.

Because it just so happens that at this exact moment, Esther is crawling
by.

The meat tumbles to the ground, and…

Plop!
https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/?ik=f7892f58d2&view=pt&search=all&permthid=thread-f%3A1737438802457693593&simpl=msg-f%3A1737438… 1/8

It lands right in front of Esther. 

And naturally, Esther does what young babies do with new small things
they find in front of them:

She pops it
in her mouth.

It all happens too fast for me to even react.

But for a horrific micro-second, I can see what’s coming in slow motion.

My eyes dart from Esther, sucking on her tasty new prize…

…to Eli, whose eyes start going wide in abject horror.

And then slow-mo ends, and real time begins again.

And … the screaming starts.

“WAAAAAAGHHH!!!”

Eli throws his head back and explodes into an agonised howl.

He literally sounds like someone’s whipping him. Long, deep gasps of
intense pain.

Esther, on the other hand, is unfazed. She looks up, chewing casually.

I get up to intervene … but I already know I can’t win.

Because as I rush over to Esther and pluck the choke-hazard-sized
morsel out of her mouth…

It’s HER turn
to start bawling.

“WAAAAHHHHHH!!!”

I put the meat back on Eli’s plate, but it doesn’t console him.

He’s screaming. 

Esther’s screaming.

…and heck, for good measure, I’m considering screaming.

And then,
it happens:

Someone taps me on the shoulder.

I spin around to see…

…a … salesman?

He flashes me a smile, and says:

“LAST CHANCE!
My Broke-to-Business Blueprint Closes Tonight!”

I look at him and just … blink.

The kids keep howling in the background.

He grins and continues:

“Daniel, this is just a courtesy reminder about the sale I’ve been having
this week on my Broke-to-Business Blueprint, now fully updated with
ALL-NEW videos…”

My eye starts twitching.

I take one more look at the tone-deaf salesman…

I glance over to my steak knife, sitting on the table next to my plate…

My fingers reach over and grasp the blade…

And then, with a crazed snarl, I roar:

“All right, mate, you’re about to become roast meat—”

“WAIT!”

I’m interrupted by a cry.

My head turns in shock to see … you?!?

Yes.

It’s you.

Bursting through the fourth wall, you step into the frame.

“Don’t kill him!” you cry. “I couldn’t bear to watch!”

I narrow my eyes at you.

“This salesman? He’s metaphorical. Look.”

Before you can protest, I stab him with the knife, and—

Pop!

He bursts like a balloon.

“Look,” I say. “You’re too literal. Like I said in the subject line … this was
a parable.”

“A … parable?”

You’re confused by this whole thing.

What the heck is real here?

Was this whole scene fictional?

Sigh.

Yes, the part about the salesman was made up.

(Though I assure you the traumatic scene about the meat and my kids
was very, very real.)

A salesman didn’t actually rock up and start trying to sell to me at the
worst possible time in my day.

But … it happens virtually
a million times every day.

Hurried, flurried, worried people are busy with their problems. They’re
checking their inboxes for an escape from all the stress and worry and
craziness of real life.

Yet dopey, self-absorbed marketers come in with emails that talk about
“Here’s 5 NEW videos we put in the course!!!”

News flash:

NOBODY
CARES

Or at least…

They don’t care unless you figure out how to do email marketing the right
way.

And that is what I teach you to do in my Email Copywriting Compendium.

It shows you how to write fun, engaging emails that let you barge into
someone’s inbox as an invited guest, rather than an annoying pest.

“Now,” I say, “We must hurry. I need to give you the link for my
Compendium urgently.”

You frown. “How come?”

“Because you’ve broken the fourth wall that separates the real world and
my email world. There’s no telling what sort of fictional copywriting
monsters could cross the barrier now—”

I stop abruptly.

My eyes go wide.

“Do you … hear that?”

You strain your ears and listen:

Thump. Thump. Thump.

There’s a faint thudding noise in the distance.

The walls of my house begin to rattle a little.

Turning deathly white, I step forward and shove a hand into your
pocket…

…and pull out
a chocolate-chip cookie.

I look at it in horror … then snap my head towards you:

“Have you clicked any Facebook ads or anything lately?”

“Maybe?” you say.

“Think! Were they ads for any … copywriters or marketers?”

“I … guess?”

“Was there a book in the ad? A free-plus-shipping offer?”

“Now you mention it, there might have been…”

In the meanwhile, the thudding has grown louder:

Thump. Thump. Thump.

“Not good!” I say, hurling the tracking cookie onto the ground and
stomping on it. “You’ve been tracked!”

“Tracked? By who?”

“It’s not ‘who’,” I say grimly, “but what! Do you have your time-travel
remote still?”

Thump.

“Yes!”

Thump.

“I need you to press it, right now.”

THUMP.

“Why?”

THUMP.

“Just DO it! It has a retargeting lock on you!”

THUMP.

“But I don’t understand—”

SMASH!

The walls of my house explode open behind you.

I stare in horror upwards over your shoulder.

You can feel something flying towards you through the air, and—

“PRESS THAT REMOTE RIGHT THIS SECOND!!!!” I scream.

Your thumb lands on the button—

+24 HOURS

Next Episode: "The Goo-'Roo"
Read without time-skip

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7/5/22, 4:24 PM Gmail - The meat, the baby & the salesman (an email marketing parable)

Joel Kelly <joelxoxkelly@gmail.com>

Daniel Throssell <daniel@persuasivepage.com> 4 July 2022 at 11:06

Picture this scene:

a million times every day.

You strain your ears and listen:

Persuasive Page Pty Ltd

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