The Undefeated BAR test

In the last article we made sure that your content doesn’t scare off your ideal prospect.

If you haven’t checked it out, it’s here:

Alright, now your content looks the part. It’s time we make it actually easy to breeze through for a reader.

Once we’ve lured them in it’s our job to keep them reading whatever we wrote.

So how do we do that? 

The same way you’d do it in a bar.

Use The BAR Test To Fix Your Writing

“As a business owner your job is to solve problems. Someone having electrical issues? It’s a good thing you're a certified electrician with your own business to solve that customer's problem. This is the basic principle of running your own business most business owners already know, but what happens when no one knows you even exist? How are we supposed to solve problems if Larry from across the street doesn’t even know who you are as a business? We Market, but we market in a very specific and strategic way that actually allows us to attract clients and make sales.”

If you make it through all that without your eyes glazing over or thinking that your friend was taken over by AI… you’re a braver man than I am. 

That is actual text from an actual article I saw recently. 

It doesn’t pass the BAR test.

Ok, What Actually Is This Mythical BAR Test?

The BAR Test is undefeated and undisputed. It has worked for centuries and will work for centuries more. Even if there are no more bars in the future this test will still work. As long as humans walk the Earth you’ll be able to use this to drastically improve copy.

Here’s how you use it:

You look at a piece of text (we call this ‘copy’ in the biz) and you ask yourself: 

‘would I say this to an actual human being in conversation?’

It’s super simple and it works every single time.

Look at this sentence:

”As a business owner your job is to solve problems. This is the basic principle of running your own business most business owners already know, but what happens when no one knows you even exist?”

In a real conversation, that would sound something like:

Most business owners already know they solve problems for a living. But that’s hard to do if people don’t even know you exist, right?

See how that makes more sense? And how it’s much easier to read?

The first sentence sounds like an alien pretending to be a human. The second sentence sounds like an actual human.

Here’s The Quickest And Easiest Way To Fix Your Writing:

Here’s a trick that works every time. It’s going to sound simple and almost childish… but if you give this a try I promise you that you’ll be hooked.

Read your copy out loud.

See if it flows. Where do you stumble? Where does it sound weird? Would you actually say this to a human? 

Pretend you’re talking to a friend. Here’s another example that I read recently:

”But, most of the people running businesses nowadays barely even think about what problem their product is even solving, let alone whether or not their most likely buyer is male or female, what their age range is, what their interests are, or even what haircut they have.”

This is a 47-word sentence. If you read this sentence out loud you’ll probably notice it’s a run-on sentence. It needs a period in there somewhere. Because in real life we rarely talk in 47-word sentences.

Conversation has a flow. Some sentences are long, others are short. 

Like this one. Only three words.

Get into this habit. It’s going to change your writing for the better. I guarantee it. 

Apply this advice to your content and see how much more response you get to whatever you write. 

Talk soon,

Eric

P.S. Want me to check, rewrite and improve your materials using the BAR test and other principles we’ll be talking about?

Get in touch with my agency today. If we’re a good fit I will personally take a look at your company and your marketing, come up with a strategy of what I’d do differently and discuss it with you in depth on a call. 

No cost, no obligation. 

If you want to work together I’ll tell you exactly how that works, if you don’t want to work together that’s fine too. No hard selling, no pressure, no annoying sales tactics.

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