Great Leads: the six ways to open a sales message, rewritten as VSL openings

Great Leads is a book by Michael Masterson and John Forde, published by American Writers & Artists, that names six reliable ways to open a sales message: three direct leads (offer, promise, problem-solution) and three indirect ones (secret, proclamation, story). The more aware your viewer already is, the more direct your VSL's first 30 seconds can be.

What is Great Leads, and who wrote it?

Great Leads: The Six Easiest Ways to Start Any Sales Message was written by Michael Masterson and John Forde and published by American Writers & Artists, better known as AWAI (AWAI). Michael Masterson is the pen name of Mark Ford, one of AWAI's founders (AWAI). John Forde is a direct-response copywriter who writes the Copywriter's Roundtable newsletter and was AWAI's Copywriter of the Year in 2008 (Copywriter's Roundtable).

Ford has summarized the book's premise in his own words: of the hundreds of possible ways to begin a sales presentation, only six work consistently, whatever you're selling and whoever you're selling to. Three are direct and three are indirect, and he describes the indirect ones as telling a story the prospect wants to hear, making an intriguing statement or prediction, and teasing a secret the prospect would like to know (Mark Ford).

Forde, writing in his newsletter, describes each lead type as aimed at audiences at a different level of awareness: a promise lead states the promise outright, and in the other types the promise gets progressively less direct (Copywriter's Roundtable).

Direct vs. indirect leads: matching the lead to awareness

The awareness idea comes from Eugene Schwartz, who described how much a prospect already knows about the problem and the product (see the five levels of awareness). A viewer who already knows your product needs little warm-up, so a direct lead respects their time. A viewer who doesn't yet recognize the problem will tune out an obvious pitch, so an indirect lead earns their interest first, then turns toward the offer.

A practical starting map. Treat it as a hypothesis to test, not a rule:

Direct vs. indirect leads

Each lead: its best-fit viewer, then what the first 30 seconds does

Direct leads

For viewers who already know the problem or the product.

• Offer. Most aware: knows the product, needs a reason to act. First 30 seconds: states the deal and why now.
• Promise. Product-aware or solution-aware. First 30 seconds: states the biggest benefit and why to believe it.
• Problem-solution. Problem-aware. First 30 seconds: names the problem sharply, then promises a way out.

Indirect leads

For viewers who need to be drawn in first.

• Secret. Problem-aware or solution-aware but skeptical. First 30 seconds: teases a little-known fact or method behind the problem.
• Proclamation. Unaware or jaded. First 30 seconds: makes a bold statement or prediction you can back up.
• Story. Unaware or skeptical. First 30 seconds: opens a story the viewer wants to see finished.

The six leads, written as VSL openings

Each example below is an original script for a fictional product. Read them for structure; the claims are invented and would need proof in a real VSL.

Six ways to open a VSL

Three direct leads, then three indirect ones

OfferPromiseProblem-solutionSecretProclamationStory

1. The offer lead

You open with the deal. It fits retargeting, past buyers and viewers who have seen the product and need a reason to act now.

Example (DustPilot, a robot vacuum): "If you've been thinking about DustPilot, this is the best time to get one. Trade in any old vacuum this month and we'll take a third off the price. In the next two minutes I'll show you what DustPilot does that your current vacuum can't, then exactly how the trade-in works."

Watch for: urgency must be real. If the trade-in runs every month, don't present it as a one-time deal.

2. The promise lead

You open with the biggest benefit. It fits product-aware and solution-aware viewers who want to know what they'll get.

Example (Lingo Loop, a language app): "In the next twelve minutes, I'll show you how to hold your first real conversation in Spanish with fifteen minutes of practice a day, without memorizing grammar tables. Here's what day one looks like."

Watch for: the bigger the promise, the more proof the next two minutes need. A promise you can't support turns into refunds.

3. The problem-solution lead

You open by naming the problem, then promise a way out. It fits problem-aware viewers who feel the pain but haven't found the fix.

Example (CalmWalk, a leash-training program): "If your dog drags you down the street every morning, it isn't stubbornness, and it isn't your fault. Most leash advice fights the pulling. CalmWalk works on what your dog is paying attention to instead. I'll show you the first step, and you can try it on tomorrow's walk."

Watch for: keep the agitation proportionate. Naming the problem clearly is enough; piling on fear invites complaints and ad-policy trouble.

4. The secret lead

You open by teasing something the viewer doesn't know that explains their problem. It fits viewers who've tried the usual fixes and need a reason to believe something new.

Example (RootWell, a garden watering kit): "There's one watering habit behind a lot of split tomatoes, and most gardeners never suspect it, because it feels like the responsible thing to do. Once you see it, you'll change one thing about how you water, and your next harvest will show the difference."

Watch for: the secret must be real, and it must connect to the product. A pseudo-scientific secret is the fastest way into a compliance problem; see unique mechanism for how to find a true one.

5. The proclamation lead

You open with a bold statement or prediction. It fits unaware or jaded viewers who have heard every promise in the category.

Example (Invoicely, invoicing software for agencies): "Within two years, the way small agencies get paid will look very different. The ones who change first will stop chasing invoices. The ones who don't will keep sending reminder emails nobody reads."

Watch for: a proclamation has to be defensible. Bold is fine; false is not. Back it up within the next minute, or cut it.

6. The story lead

You open with a story the viewer wants to see finished. It fits unaware and skeptical viewers, and any market where every competitor leads with a promise.

Example (DryDock, a boot dryer): "Three winters ago, Dana stood in her garage at 5:40 in the morning, holding a boot that was still soaked from the day before. She had a twelve-hour shift ahead of her and nothing dry to wear. What she built in that garage over the next week is the reason I'm making this video."

Watch for: the story must be true. A founder or customer who doesn't exist is a fabrication, and the FTC's 2024 final rule bans fake testimonials, including those attributed to people who don't exist (FTC). This isn't legal advice. Forde has written that the book gives stories a full chapter of their own (Copywriter's Roundtable).

How to choose the right lead for your VSL

Four decision rules:

• Start from the traffic. Retargeting and email traffic are usually more aware than cold traffic, so they can take an offer or promise lead. Cold traffic from broad targeting usually needs a problem-solution, secret or story lead.
• Check what competitors lead with. If every ad in your market makes the same promise, another promise lead blends in. That's the mark of a sophisticated market (see market sophistication), where indirect leads and a new mechanism do more work. Keeping their openings in a swipe file makes that check quick to repeat.
• Match your proof. A promise lead needs strong proof within the next minute. A story lead needs a true story. Pick the lead you can support.
• Match the ad. The lead must pick up the ad's promise in the first seconds. A story lead behind a promise-driven ad feels like a bait-and-switch.

How to write three leads for one VSL and test them

Six steps, from one body to a verdict:

Three leads, one body, one test

1. 1Keep one bodyWrite the body of the VSL once (mechanism, proof, offer) and write three leads that all land on the same transition line into it.
2. 2Pick three different typesOne direct (often promise or problem-solution), one indirect (secret or story) and one wild card. Three promise leads with different wording is a headline test, not a lead test.
3. 3Write a landing lineEach lead should end on a sentence that makes the body's first line feel inevitable. If a lead needs a different body to make sense, it's a different VSL.
4. 4Produce cheaplyRecord the three leads separately and edit each onto the same body.
5. 5Split traffic evenly and keep it stickyIn RevvyScales, a folder splits new visitors between VSL versions by weight, and each visitor keeps the same version (folders and A/B splitting).
6. 6Judge in orderRetention at 30 and 60 seconds, retention at the lead-to-body transition, pitch reach, then revenue per visitor. The second-by-second retention chart shows exactly where each lead loses people (reading your analytics).

A worked example, with invented numbers. Three leads, 3,000 visitors each; retention at 0:30 is a share of viewers who started, and pitch reach is a share of all visitors:

Revenue per visitor by lead

Worked example with invented numbers: three leads, 3,000 visitors each

PromiseRetention at 0:30: 71% · pitch reach: 22%$1.12

StoryRetention at 0:30: 64% · pitch reach: 26%$1.31

SecretRetention at 0:30: 75% · pitch reach: 18%$0.94

The secret lead hooked the most viewers in the first 30 seconds and still finished last. One likely reading: the body didn't pay off the secret quickly enough, and viewers drifted away before the pitch. The story lead lost more people early but kept the right ones. Early retention is a diagnostic, not a verdict. For tests that hold up statistically, see VSL A/B testing; for opening lines grouped by awareness level, see VSL hook examples.

How to turn a written lead into a spoken VSL lead

Great Leads was written with sales letters in mind, and a lead that reads well can still play badly. Four adjustments when you move a lead from the page to video:

• Split the job with the page headline. The headline above the player can carry part of the lead's work, such as naming the reader or the promise, so the spoken lead can start one step further in. Make sure the two never contradict each other.
• Write the first line for silent viewers. On a page with muted autoplay, many people meet your first lines as captions or on-screen text before they hear them. The first sentence has to make sense read, not just heard.
• Show what the lead describes. A story lead needs the garage, the wet boot and the clock on the wall. A secret lead needs the split tomato on screen. Pictures carry an indirect lead much further than voiceover alone.
• Time it. At a typical speaking pace of roughly 140 to 160 words a minute, a 200-word lead runs well over a minute. If your retention graph shows viewers leaving before the lead ends, cut words, not just pauses.

One player detail matters more than it looks. If the video autoplays muted, a viewer who taps for sound halfway through the lead hears the middle of a sentence. A player that restarts from the beginning on unmute lets the lead work from its first word; RevvyScales does this on every VSL (player conversion features).

Common mistakes with leads

• A lead that doesn't connect to the body. If the lead promises one thing and the body sells another, retention drops at the transition and refunds rise later.
• Too slow for warm traffic. A three-minute story in front of retargeted viewers who only need the offer wastes their patience.
• Too pushy for cold traffic. An offer lead in front of viewers who've never heard of you asks for a decision before they care.
• A secret that isn't one. If the "secret" is common knowledge, skeptical viewers leave. If it isn't true, you have a compliance problem.
• Invented or dressed-up stories. A composite or dramatized story presented as real misleads viewers. If you dramatize, say so.
• Testing leads on different bodies. Then you're testing whole VSLs and won't know which part made the difference.

How to apply this to your VSL tomorrow

Work through these in order; the ticks stay in this browser:

Your next lead test

• Identify the awareness level of your main traffic source and write it at the top of your script.
• Label your current lead: offer, promise, problem-solution, secret, proclamation or story.
• Write two more leads of different types, each ending on the same landing line into your body.
• Check each lead against the ad that sends the traffic: does the first sentence pick up the ad's promise?
• Cut each lead's claims back to what you can prove in the following two minutes.
• Record the two new leads and edit them onto the existing body.
• Split traffic three ways and decide in advance how many visitors you'll wait for.
• Judge by retention at 30 and 60 seconds, pitch reach and revenue per visitor, in that order, and keep the winner as the control for the next round.

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