In a recent cri­tique for a coach­ing client, the issue of “gap analy­sis” arose. Gap Analy­sis is some­thing I learned in sales, and it was heav­ily taught by sales train­ers like Brian Tracy, such as in his course “The Psy­chol­ogy of Selling.”

Gap Analy­sis is an immensely pow­er­ful sell­ing tech­nique. It’s also an impor­tant fea­ture of copy­writ­ing. Most peo­ple will know a vari­a­tion of it, which is often called “Problem-​​Agitate-​​Solve,” a term coined by top copy­writer Dan Kennedy.

I pre­fer “Gap Analy­sis” because it dri­ves home the rela­tion­ship between those three ele­ments. So what is Gap Analy­sis and how can you apply it to your sales copy?

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Scotty Stevens asked me an impor­tant ques­tion. So impor­tant that I’ve decided to reprint it here, with his permission:

“How far would you travel to meet a poten­tial client, if they had the deposit ready for your ser­vices? My girl­friend thinks the cus­tomer is pulling the strings if they don’t at least meet me halfway. Before, I’ve always trav­eled as far as it takes, even if it meant dri­ving all the way to the cus­tomer, but is that set­ting a weak precedent?”

Good ques­tion, but it’s the wrong one.

“How far would you travel” is irrel­e­vant. A bet­ter ques­tion is, do they value your time? Do they respect it enough that they are will­ing to pay for it? In other words, are they will­ing to cover your travel expenses and pay for you to go out of your way for them?

If so, then I’d be will­ing to travel anywhere.

I would always con­sider trav­el­ling to meet a prospect if the project was large enough, and pro­vided they paid for what is com­monly referred to in this indus­try as “TMI” (i.e., travel, meals, and inci­den­tals). And in some cases, for my time, too.

(By the way, travel includes lodg­ing, and inci­den­tals include pho­to­copy­ing, long-​​distance calls, Inter­net con­nec­tion in the hotel room, car rental, etc.)

Plus, I would ask them for an advance so I can take care of my own expenses. I would avoid get­ting them to han­dle my trip on their end. I would want to have full con­trol over the choice of air­line, hotel, restau­rants, etc.

If you were dri­ving to meet them, then the client — or, in this case, the prospect — should pay for your gas, nor­mal wear-​​and-​​tear on your car (such as $[X] per mile), your meals, and any inci­den­tals. And lodg­ing too, if you were stay­ing overnight.

There’s a very good rea­son for this.

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As a copy­writer, one of the most impor­tant parts of my job is con­duct­ing research. And in fact, when my copy fails, aside from poor tar­get­ing or a poor offer, it’s almost always due to poor research.

As copy­writ­ers, the infor­ma­tion we need may not be as read­ily avail­able as we want it to be, par­tic­u­larly when we’re work­ing with a new com­pany or prod­uct. We have to dig. Or as my friend and top copy­writer John Carl­ton says, “We have to put on our sales detec­tive hats and dig deep.”

Sure, we can go through the prod­uct. We can go through the client’s col­lat­eral mate­ri­als. We can con­duct com­pet­i­tive research and per­haps even check out com­peti­tors’ products.

But the most impor­tant and salient research comes from…

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