Like all my best ideas, this guide arrived via a meltdown

I’d turned 45 a few days prior.

I started optimistically wondering what the next 5-15 years would look like for my work, career, business.

I even explored the possibility of doing a Master’s (because Future Laura has a lot more time and energy than Now Laura).

And then the daydreaming turned into a doom loop that looked something like:

• I love writing, I love exploring the power and influence of words, I love understanding how our brains and nervous systems work
• I want to get really, really good, knowledgeable, clever at those things
• I don’t want to use that to ‘hack the buyer’s brain’ or ‘hijack the reader’s eyeballs’
• I need to make money
• But the people making money seem to be quite big on the brain-hacking, eyeball-hijacking style of marketing and selling
• But I don’t want to do that
• But I need to make money
• Oh why must I self-sabotage, hold myself back blah, blah blah blah (all of it nonsense noise that felt real in the moment)

More of a doom spiral than a loop, getting tighter and tighter, until I’d lost all sense of perspective, and I couldn’t see any way for me to continue making money online and retain my sense of self at the same time.

After a good cry, a cup of tea, and a snack (a snack is always the cure), I could zoom out, and think more clearly.

I remembered that a lot of the people already in my audience and the clients I have already worked with were also not fans of the brain-hacking + eyeball-hijacking approach to sales and marketing.

I didn’t need to throw away my business.

I needed to more clearly state how I approach copywriting, marketing and selling.

I spent a few weeks researching the terms already out there, trying to find a way to explain my approach.

I couldn’t find anything that felt quite right, so I’ve invented my own:

Relationship-Focused Sales Pages.

What is a Relationship-Focused Sales Page?

And how is it different from a conversion-focused sales page?

A conversion-focused sales page is written to get the reader to take the action you want them to take – usually fill out a form or complete a purchase.

The priority is to get the sale (or sign-up).

In the most extreme versions, these pages are written to drive the conversion at all costs – even if that means prompting the reader to feel ashamed of their current situation, despairing of the future, a fool if they don’t say ‘yes’ to them, and hurried to make a decision or risk missing out.

You are most likely to see these sales pages for lower-cost digital items sold via social media ads by a brand/person that is new to you. There is no relationship-building. While they have your attention, they will squeeze you as hard as possible to get the sale.

Or you may have been a subscriber during Buy or Burn style launches for higher-priced programs. The business owner has one or two huge launches each year. The goal is to get as many buyers as possible, while accepting that afterwards their subscriber list is burned out, and they’ll need to start over with audience-building for the next cycle.

Being ‘conversion-focused’ does not automatically mean a business doesn’t care about the relationship – the examples I just gave you are extreme.

And I am not saying that being ‘conversion-focused’ is always manipulative or unethical.

Conversion-focused and relationship-focused are not opposites.

They are different priorities that sometimes compete, and sometimes co-exist.

A conversion-focused sales page prioritizes the sale.

A relationship-focused sales page prioritizes the quality of the interaction between the buyer and the seller.

With a relationship-focused approach, the sales page is the start, or continuation, of a relationship that lasts longer than the 2 minutes it takes to read the page.

It’s not an extraction – getting a sale out of them.

It’s a collaboration – helping the reader make a mutually beneficial buying decision (some people will choose to buy, some people will decide this isn’t right for them right now, and that’s OK).

What kind of businesses need Relationship-Focused Sales Pages?

• You care about the impact your work (which includes how you market and sell your work) has on the people who interact with it.
• You sell something that takes a while for people to commit to. They need several interactions with you, and read your sales page multiple times before they’re ready to buy.
• You want buyers to make no-regret decisions they’re still happy with after they’ve had time to process what they just committed to.
• You work with people who experience self-doubt or shame, and/or who tend to act to please others rather than prioritise what is in their own best interests.
• Your work requires you to build a relationship with your client where you trust each other, and collaborate towards a common goal or outcome.

3-point checklist for a Relationship-Focused Sales Page

The checklist asks you to consider how well the sales page is achieving three goals, and what (if any) changes you want to make to the page.

Maybe they should be called ‘Reflection Questions’? I don’t know. You didn’t come here to debate the definition and practical application of the term ‘checklist’.

Here’s how you make your sales page more relationship-focused.

1. How well does the sales page represent the offer it’s selling?

The reader can only buy your offer, and start a collaborative, high-trust relationship with you, if they understand what the offer is, and they know that this relationship opportunity exists and is available to them.

Ways to fairly represent the offer:

• Be clear about the problems or symptoms it may help with
• Be clear about what is included, so the reader knows what they will get in exchange for their money
• Be open and clear about your credibility, experience, past results so they can estimate how likely this is to work for them

Ways to unfairly represent the offer:

This can go in two directions – I’m guessing you’re more likely to drift into the second group.

1. Over-hyping – Minimising the work or effort required, over-stating the possible outcome, or likelihood of achieving it, and/or attributing inflated financial value to the items included in the package.

Sounds like: ‘Triple your salary with three 60-minute career coaching calls with me’

or

b. Humble-mumbling – Focussing on the facts of what’s included without explaining why you structured the package in that way, how it’s going to help, and the outcomes it can help achieve.

Sounds like: ‘Would you like three 60-minute video calls with me to chat about your career?’

Alternative, fairer representation of the offer:

‘Combine three 60-minute coaching calls with me (a career coach with 10 years’ experience), each focused on different aspects of your current career, with a 20-minute homework exercise before each session, so you can identify the potential opportunities to maximise your salary over the next five years, and choose the career trajectory that feels right for you.’

2. How well does this sales page respect the reader’s autonomy?

Does it respect and support the reader’s ability to make a well-informed decision?

Or does it assume the right decision is to buy, and attempt to make the reader reach the same conclusion?

Ways to support the reader’s autonomy:

• Giving them the information they need to make that decision
• Present the information in a clear, easy-to-understand way
• Avoid presenting one future as right, and the other as wrong
• Communicate real deadlines clearly
• Invite the reader to get in touch if they need more information, or help making a decision.
• Offer additional tools (besides the sales page) to help them make a decision – like a Buyer’s Guide, or Discovery Call.

If you do part one well, ‘How well does the sales page represent the offer it’s selling?’, you’re already a long way towards achieving part two.

Ways to undermine the reader’s autonomy:

• Withholding important information like how much effort they will need to put in
• Listing things that are included, without explaining what they are or why they’re included – for example, ‘Office hours via Slack’
• Using fear/shame to make not buying seem like it is not an option

Reader Autonomy Example #1

I am not labelling these examples – read them and feel the difference between them for yourself

• If you don’t take action now, Christmas will be ruined
• What does Christmas look like if you DON’T start fixing this now
• Imagine Christmas 2026. How do you want it to go? What do you need to change between now and then for that to be possible?

Reader Autonomy Example #2

• Includes a library of 250+ micro-trainings to help you achieve XYZ
• Includes a library of 250+ micro-trainings to help you achieve XYZ – each one under 10 minutes and available as text, audio or video.
• Includes a library of 250+ micro-trainings to help you XYZ – each one under 10 minutes and available as text, audio or video. Click here, and a pop-up form will ask for your email address, so I can send a spreadsheet of the complete list, with the complete list and show you how to search it

3. How well does this sales page reflect the experience you intend clients to have when they work with you?

Somehow the reader has found out you exist. Maybe a friend suggested your Instagram? Maybe they heard you on a podcast.

And one day they may be working with you in the closest 1-1 way you work with clients. Making themselves vulnerable by explaining their problem, their stuckness, what they’ve tried, what hasn’t worked, their hopes, dreams, what they want to be different.

And somewhere between those two relationship points sits your sales page.

Does the sales page feel like a real conversation with you?

Is this how you would speak to them during a 1-1 conversation?

Ways you can achieve this:

• Write a list of words that reflect how you want people to feel when they work with you, speak with you, read your content. And make a list of feelings you want to avoid creating in the reader
• Look at your testimonials – how do people say you make them feel?
• Find two or three pieces of your content that you love, that sound like you on a really good day. These can be your About page, a blog post, a social media post, a podcast interview – anything you feel is a great connection builder. Read it to help you find your voice before you write your sales page. Once the sales page is written, read it back and compare against this content.

Will this help me make more money?

I can’t tell you that adopting this approach will 10 x your income.

Instead, I’ll ask you…

• Is there a chance that your current sales page is poorly representing your offer? And does it make sense that upgrading your sales page to be clearer about what the offer is, and how it helps, would result in more sales?
• Will feeling good about your sales page encourage you to share it more? And does it make sense that would result in more sales?

Want to explore this further?

None of those terms were quite right for my approach to selling and marketing, but the ideas behind them were very useful, so if you’d like to do your own research, start with those terms.

Want help with your sales page?

The Easy To Buy Checklist is a great place to start. Assume there are already people out there who want and need what you’re selling. This checklist takes you through 12 things you can adjust to make it easier for them to buy from you.