How to Make Half A Billion Dollars Using Your Words

This episode of beyond you'd why is brought to you by our why App. Head over to yinstitute.com to take our free why app and discover your why today.

So today we're going to be talking about the why challenge to challenge the status quo and think differently. So if you remember, these are people who think outside the box. They imagine extraordinary, they think about possibilities. This is Steve Jobs why and Richard Branson's why. So if you take somebody with this why and you put them in a box and you limit their possibilities, they just die. And if you let them outside the box, they imagine extraordinary and they create amazing things. And so for today, I've got a great guest for you. His name is Stefan Georgi, and he is a direct response copywriter and entrepreneur who has sold over $500 million in products, including over 30 million of his own products in the last year and a half. Now, he currently runs a digital marketing agency that helps clients to launch offers online. And he provides a full done for you model where they write the copy, they build the sales funnel, they bring you traffic, they help you monetize your email list, and they provide customer service through their own call center. So, Steffan, welcome to the beyond you'd why podcast. Thanks for being here today.

Hey, absolutely. Thank you for having me. It's great to be here.

Well, you know what I think we ought to do, Steffan, is let's just start with your story, because you got a fascinating story. And what I have found interesting about it is it's very similar to so many people that have your why in that they struggle up front and suddenly make that pivot and it take off and they do something amazing. And I know that's what you're doing right now. So tell everybody a little bit about your beginnings and how that all started for you, because it's very fascinating.

Sure, yeah, I'd be happy to. You know, I started, I guess, back in 2011. I was working at an outdoor school in the hill country of Texas in a double wide trailer with eight other guys teaching kids about, you know, nature and wildlife and following the Texas kind of state curriculum on that. And I thought when that was in like the spring of 2011, and I thought that when that ended, I was gonna go do another program in Florida to teach, you know, help kids again, just sort of being an outdoor ed instructor. But then I found out towards, I guess in about May of 2011, that my dad had cancer. So I ended up going back home to San Diego from Texas and to Help my mom with my dad and was there every day, sort of trying to support my family and then trying to help my dad with the doctor appointments and everything like that. And it was a difficult time for me. I didn't really have an idea of where I want to go or what I want to do. You know, historically, I'd always been sort of a mediocre student, good at subjects I was interested in and not so much the ones that I wasn't. And it always sort of had a challenge holding down a job because I just felt like if I. You know, I just never felt like I was being utilized or my talents were sort of being, you know, underused. And it just was a difficult kind of thing for me. And so I found myself being very restless and very transient. So, you know, I was there in San Diego.

Towards the end. My dad ended up passing away in October of 2011. And during those kind of final weeks, my mom had emailed me that Southwest Airlines was having an airfare sale. And so, kind of just wanting a break or to get away or something, I put a thing on Facebook and was like, hey, you know, Southwest has these crazy cheap, you know, rates for airfare. Does anybody want to go somewhere? And a friend from Florida, you know, commented, and he's like, hey, I'd like to go to Las Vegas. I've never been to Las Vegas before. And I was like, okay, cool. Like, I'm down. Let's do it. So we got a trip booked for the. I guess the very end of November. So my dad passed away in October, and it was a really difficult period. And then in the end of November, I went out to Las Vegas and met this friend who I hadn't seen in several years. And we were staying at the Circus Circus, which is not a great hotel. It wasn't then. It's more run down now. I live in Vegas now, but it's not. I can't say too many great things about it. But, you know, the first night we were there, I didn't have much money. I mean, I seriously was a couple hundred dollars in my checking account type. That's like all the money I had in the world. And, you know, so we gambled the first night, and I lost most of the money, had maybe 100, $200 left. And the next day, on a Saturday, my friend was like, hey, let's go play poker. And. And I hadn't played poker in years. I played when I was younger and actually for a period, thought maybe I'd want to be a Professional poker player. This is when I was actually a senior in high school, because I grew up in San Diego, where there are Indian casinos and you could play when you were 18. So I would actually go play for my job my whole senior of high school. And I liked it, so I was an okay player. But it had been close to, like, I don't know, maybe six, seven years since I played. So my friend and I went and played poker Saturday at the Mandalay Bay, and we each won a couple hundred dollars. And I was like, wow, that's great. This is a lot better than losing. And so, you know, it was a big relief. And then Sunday we woke up and we were like, you know, let's go play poker again. So we went to Caesar's palace and went to the card room there, and we sat down, and we were playing at the poker table, and this girl walks in, and I saw her immediately walk into the room. And I joked to my poker table. I said, I hope that she gets seated at our table. And everyone kind of laughed. And then she did get seated at our table, and so we started playing, and somebody at the table asked, what do you do for a living? And she said, I'm a writer. And I wanted to hit on her. So I asked, oh, what kind of writer are you? And she said, I'm a copywriter. And I was like, wow, that's really cool. Copywriter. That's amazing. And I took out my phone, which is probably the iPhone one or two or whatever it was, and I literally went to Google and I googled, what's the copywriter? Because I had no idea. So found out what it was. And my friend ended up losing some money, and he left. I kept talking to her. She moved over and sat next to me, and we ended up spending the rest of that day playing poker and into the very early hours of the next morning. But I had to leave for a job interview in Florida for a job with a Fortune 500 company. And it would have been a very respectable job and sort of something that I was hoping to get. So I went to Florida for this job interview, ended up getting it, and then about a month later, I moved to Florida for this job. And I was there in the very first weekend. This girl who I'd stayed in contact with decided to come out and visit. So she came, and for the weekend, it was actually the super bowl weekend. Some of the Giants were playing, I guess. I don't know if there. It wasn't the first time they beat the Patriots, but it was where the second time was that they were in the super bowl in the 2000s and or 2010s. And, yeah, we just had a really good time. And she basically just decided she didn't want to leave. And I said I didn't want her to leave either. So before we knew it, her car was being shipped down from New York, because that's where she was from, and we were living together. And so then I had this job doing, you know, outside sales. It was very long, long days in the hot Florida sun. But they gave me a car. They gave me gas. It was a good free gas. It was a good salary for someone in his mid-20s. It was, like a really good job. But I'd be out in the hot Florida sun, working all day, and I'd come home and, you know, she'd be in her pajamas, drinking a beer, and she would have made 10 times as much money as I did. And I was like, well, you know, what the heck's going on here? Like, what are you. What are you doing? And, you know, she was, again, there's a copywriter. She was working with clients and getting paid pretty well. And so, you know, before long, I kind of was like, hey, can you teach me to do that? And she was like, sure. And so I put an ad up on a website called warriorforum.com and it was for a copyright for hire. I charged $149 for sales copy. And I woke up the next day, and somebody had actually took me up on my offer, and I had $149 on my PayPal, and. And that was, like, one of the most exciting moments of my entire life, because I was like, oh, my God, somebody's gonna pay me to write. Like, I get to be creative, and I write, and I'm gonna get paid for this. So as soon as that happened, that was the beginning of the end for my corporate life. I started taking on more clients posting there. I made an account on Elance, which is now upwork, and did any kind of writing job I could find and started, you know, making to me what was a lot of money. You know, a couple thousand bucks a month. But it was, like, enough to pay the bills and everything and to, you know, do it without a boss. So I quit my corporate job and, you know, kept taking on more client, where clients would say, you know, can you build a website? And I'd be like, yeah, of course I can build a website. And then I'd Google, how do you build a website? People would say, are you good at SEO. And I'd be like, oh, I'm the best at SEO. And I Google, how do you do SEO? But I worked my butt off to actually make sure I was good. So I would get clients, I would get results, I would get referrals. And so I actually ended up creating like a marketing agency and then got a group of doctors. I had like 120 doctors who were all sort of offering this service called neurofeedback. So they're sort of licensing that out and ended up servicing these guys and doing all the marketing for their central office and then a bunch of the individual, individual doctors as well. But I kept having that call back for copywriting. And so I ended up working with a client who hired me for, I think I was charging at this point, $497 for a sales letter. And he was like. He hired me on the same Warrior forum site. And he was like, I'll pay you $997. Just make it really good. And I was like, oh, my gosh, right? Like, this is crazy. I better do a really good job. And I did. And so through that, the guy kept hiring me. And before long, I was writing copy for them exclusively. And I helped them sell over $100 million of products in a single year. Mostly informational products. So, like ebooks, guides, how to. So I would write the sales copy for that stuff. They continue to ramp up and do really well. And I had this really great, prolific period of writing copy. And then in 2015, I decided.

That was awesome what I was doing. I was getting paid very well as a copywriter, but there was still that ceiling. Cause I wasn't getting any distributions. I wasn't an owner in their company, even though they were growing and doing nine figures a year. And that was their, quote, unquote, secret weapon, there was still the ceiling. So in 2015, I decided to start my own health supplement company. The first year, I struggled through that, and we did like a million bucks in revenue, which sounds great, but we lost a couple hundred thousand dollars because I had no idea what I was doing. But then the following year, we really figured it out. And that company did $18 million the next year at a 20% profit margin. And then I started some other supplement companies that all did eight figures and everything as well. And I learned a ton of lessons. I mean, you know, but got really good at that. And so then in the summer of 2017, I decided to kind of stop with supplements because I wasn't stopped doing it for myself because I just wasn't that passionate about them and to create an agency that would help other people to launch their own offers and to you know, create whether it's supplements or E commerce or whatever it was and to you know, kind of mimic our success. And the reason I did that people are kind of like why would you stop doing your own offers? There's a couple of things but one of them is I definitely have an entrepreneurial add but through the agency I'm able to sort of work on a bunch of different projects that I think are really interesting. But I still am only focusing on quote unquote one thing because I'm still focusing on the agency. So even though we have a lot of projects, I'm not being a bad boy by you know, going and starting 10 new companies which is a major problem for entrepreneurs. We all want to constantly start things and launch things and everything.

And that's what agency is. And we've grown that to where you know, it's only been live since the summer but we've already done seven figure company going very quickly towards eight figures. And I believe it's ultimately a nine figure company or clients are having tremendous success. We just sometimes we're having a problem right now one of our clients where they don't have enough merchant processing because we're getting sales for them so fast. And we're just having a lot of success. I'm having a lot of fun. I built out a great team. I've got copywriters under meet me now. We have a call center that is extremely focused on high quality service interactions. It's non scripted and we, you know, work with a variety of clients and a variety of industries. But we've got about 25 employees and we're actively hiring from both the call center and I'm trying to hire more copywriters. Our business is growing and I'm extremely happy and fulfilled with where I am and what I'm doing. And when you go back to 2011 and my dad being sick, it's definitely been a pretty wild journey to go from that. And by the way, the girl's name from that story to close the loop, there is Laura Katella and she's now my wife and we have a seven week old daughter and you know, we still obviously we still live together and everything and so it's crazy. One of those wild life altering moments is completely by chance and coincidence and the culmination of all this other crazy stuff happening. And it's wild how those little moments can then suddenly take your life in Such a different path. But I'm extremely thankful and blessed for how that's how that's played out.

Wow. So the moral of the story is what happens in Vegas doesn't necessarily stay in Vegas, huh?

That's exactly right. Yeah. Take it with you. Yeah.

Meet it in Vegas and take it with you.

Yeah, that's right.

Well, let me ask you a couple of questions then, Stefan. How the heck did you learn to write copy so fast? I mean, because I've tried to write copy. I know lots of people that have tried to write copy, and half the time it's just terrible. At least what I write. And how were you able to learn to write it so fast and so well and get such great results?

Yeah, that's a great question. I mean, it wasn't like I was instantly, like, a copywriting master, but I also didn't, like, study a bunch of the greats. Like, you know, I'm in copywriting, like, Facebook groups, and I go to forums and look at those sometimes, and, you know, those people do a really kind of rigorous. There's some people read these books, do this, do that. I didn't really do any of that, to be honest with you. The stardate, you know, Laura was a good mentor to me, and I really, like, just looked at. I looked at other copy that had been successful, and I said, okay, well, this is successful. How can I now take the same structure and the same template and the same kind of tone and language and apply it to what I'm writing? So the biggest thing ever was, you know, in copywriting, it's called swiping, which is sort of like the art of copying, but not really copying somebody else. I still do it all the time, and I'm considered one of the better, like, living copywriters to sound really cocky, but, like, with some. At least in our, you know, the kind of online marketing, Internet marketing space. I'm doing an event April 18th and 19th in Vegas, and I've got, like, 50 people, you know, all paying a good amount of money to come learn copy from me. And they're guys who are very successful in my space as well, so. But, you know, that being said, even though I'm successful, a big part of it is totally not reinventing the wheel every time. You know, Like, I think that's the huge mistake that somebody can make is trying to look at what works. Look at the kind of the template, the blueprint, you know, the structure and figure out and internalize that structure that you see, and great sales copy. And then Once you have that, you can just take it and apply it to other copy. And then I will say too, with that client who, you know, hired me for 997 when I was charging 497, he and one of his partners in the first business they were involved in, they did invest some time and energy into kind of helping me figure out to hone in my process a bit more too. And today I've got a really good process, which I'm happy to share. And as I've trained my copywriters, I'm actually in the office with one of my copiers right now who's working across like the room from me, Ebonique. And she's got headphones on so she can't even. She doesn't even know I'm talking about her, but she's looking at me. Oh, there you go. Yeah, but she's doing an awesome job. I've had her for like, you know, just like, I guess two months now, and she's already producing like extremely high quality copy or other copywriter. Jamila, same thing. And it's because we followed this process. Yeah.

So what do you. What separates the good copy from the great copy?

Yeah, great question. I mean, I think you have to be a little crazy and have big ideas and have, you know, something that fascinates people and hooks people in.

But I think as far as the product, you mean.

Yeah, not even the, I mean the product, but how you sell the product, I mean, it depends. But finding that unique angle or that unique way of presenting information, you know, like if you give 10 different copywriters the same health supplement as an example to write about, you'll get 10 different pieces of copy and then really, what's gonna the winning ones be? The one that kind of best presents the ideas and then the argument for the product. So like, I kind of, there's like, I call it the, like rmvc, which is sort of research mechanism, brief copy. So basically like those are the four kind of steps to writing great copy, in my opinion. So the first step is obviously researching the product and, you know, and the market and what's behind it, the pain points of the market and everything. Mechanism is. There's two parts to that. There's a mechanism behind the problem that your customer or prospect is facing and then there's the mechanism behind the solution. So for an example, I've got these guys who I'm working with who have a structured silver product. So essentially it's like the next evolution from colloidal silver. Right. It's colloidal silver without some of the health concerns that won't turn you blue, all this kind of stuff, and it's made in a really high, you know, highly advanced way and they're doing really want to have a lot of success. So for that, like the way we're marketing right now is sort of something you would want to take in conjunction with a probiotic. So the mechanism, the problem is you've got low energy, you've got fatigue, you're having mood swings, you know, you're not sure why and you're frustrated. Well, you know, basically all this and so many health issues, it all stems from your gut. And you've got like 100 trillion flora or you know, gut flora there. And in what your gut is called the microbiome. Basically when your gut's unhealthy, when you've got a disease called dysbiosis, so like a disbalance of good bacteria to bad bacteria, it affects your health. On top of that, your gut is actually home to 70% of your immune system, right? Is inside your gut. So basically when your gut's unhealthy, you're just not healthy. There's just no way because essentially your immune system is under attack and inflamed and not good. So that's sort of like the problem, right? You have these issues and the mechanism behind the problem is that you've got dysbiosis in your gut. There's an imbalance between good bacteria and bad bacteria. The mechanism behind the solution would be, okay, well if that's the case and how the solution is you need to get rid of bad bacteria and create an environment where good bacteria in your gut can flourish. And so in that case, we look at our product and we're here. This structure of silver is anti, pathogenic, antibacterial, antifungal, all these things. So essentially when it goes into your gut, it helps. It actually does through your entire body. System wide, it kills bad bacteria, but because of the unique structure of the silver, it doesn't kill the good bacteria. So like that's sort of the mechanism of the solution. So it's very logical. It's like a two step thing, right? Like, here's the problem, here's the real cause of the problem, here's the surprising solution, here's how it works. So I do all that. This is all before writing, I figure all this out and then I go to like a brief where I basically go through, go back to like, okay, who's the market? What are Their short term pain points, what are their big pain points? You know, what's the big promise that we're offering? What's the surprising information? I like to look at it like, you know, typically if you can present it as the prospect had 99% of the answer already, but they were just missing that 1%, that really helps because then, you know, you can go there and you can tell somebody, okay, look, you already knew all this. Maybe you knew about, you know, your gut and gut bacteria, but you didn't realize that, you know what, I don't know, whatever the reason is, I'm trying to make some on the spot. But like essentially you didn't realize that there's this one thing that's happening in your gut that you weren't aware of. And, but this actually causing all of your problems or whatever your problem is, whatever the pain point is. And you know, then get into some other specifics and then look at the story, right. If it's like staying with the health example, if it's like, you know, a doctor who invented the product and kind of his story, how he discovered it. So I sort of do all the background there and then I go to writing the copy because then I can share the story, I can talk about the kind of, you know, the promises of what they're gonna, you know, gain from the copy, etc. And the one other thing I'll say to you real quick on the copy is like, I think a mistake that a lot of copywriters make is trying to sell the product way too soon and way too early. So you know, I think I mentioned, I mentioned before, we've had personal conversations, but I, you know, sometimes we'll do a video that's like 40 minutes long and you know, we might not even tell them to buy the product until the first 30 minutes have passed. So we'll spend like 30 minutes just educating the prospect before we even tell them to buy a product, which I think is super important.

So you, well, so you said RMBC research mechanism was B for big, promise for brief.

Brief, yes. So the brief essentially is like your outline and your sort of document that answers all the big questions you need before you start writing.

Okay, so research mechanism, brief and then copy.

Yes.

Ah, okay. So research the product, find the mechanism behind the problem and the solution and then come up with a brief outline and then write your copy.

Exactly. Yeah.

We share the story and the promise. I can tell you when I write copy, I don't do any of that. And that's probably why My copy is so bad.

Yeah, most people don't. And most, even good copywriters, I'm actually, I mean, I'm guilty of this too. So that's the process. And like, every time I follow that process, I've like, Almost, you know, 90% success rate of creating really successful copy and offers that, you know, do really well. The problem is, like, once we start getting good at copy, there's two problems. One is people who don't know, they don't know what they don't know, and they just sort of don't ever do that. But even good copywriters might know, have a process like this. But as they start getting good, they want to start taking shortcuts and they want to find ways to just go. They're like, oh, I'm really good at writing copies, so I can just skip all this and I'll go. And what will happen is like, at least for me personally, it's like I'll write a page or two of really inspired copy, but then I get stuck because I'm like, oh, crap, now I don't know, you know, where to go and what to do. And like, I need to answer these questions. And I was lazy and, you know, I tried to shortcut it here, but now I don't know where to go with the copy. So, I mean, like, you know, Stephen Covey talks about the law of the harvest, right? And like, putting, you're planting the seeds in the spring so you can harvest in the fall, but if you don't plant the seeds, you won't have the harvest. And I mean, it's the same thing with copyright. Same thing with tons of stuff, but including with copyright. I mean, I think it's really important. I can write once I have, you know, RMB done, right? I can write 7,000, 8,000 word scripts in like, you know, three hours, four hours, like it's nothing. It's the easiest thing in the world. It's just like. But. But I might take like, you know, two weeks on the, the RMB part. Wow.

So are you finding that.

So a lot of marketers will say, yeah, you've got to have really short copy. And a lot of them will say, you've got to have really long copy and you got to have short videos versus long videos. And what are you finding today that works the best?

Yeah, I think it definitely depends on the product and what you're selling. You know, if you're trying to sell like a something for $1.99 or you're just trying to get somebody to download a free report by giving you their email address, then you definitely don't need like a super lengthy piece of copy. But I think for higher ticket items, like anything for me, even like $39 or up, you know, having some longer copy I think is beneficial because the more you educate somebody, the more likely they are to buy. You know, if they understand. I mean like they're just much more likely. So if I have a long text sales letter, same thing, say it's like a 7,000 word letter but you know, formatted on a website, I probably won't put a buy button until 5,000 words plus in. Now that being said, this is definitely within the realm of direct response. And there's certain products and things that lend themselves to direct response. Well, you know, you can do great with E commerce too, but what you'll see there is there's usually more of a variety of other sort of marketing materials that have helped someone get to that page. Like a basic E commerce page, maybe your products are really cool and it will sell. But usually there's like a, you know, a short Facebook video at the start and then on the page there's a bunch of testimonials and you have like you're retargeting them so they're seeing more video ads on Instagram and on Facebook and on other websites you're seeing ads. I mean you can, you can definitely do it without having a really long copy. But I think in the realm of direct response especially, typically longer messages work well. And for me what's kind of fun is trying to find products that haven't traditionally been sold through direct response and then test that out on those. Because we know supplements, you can sell those for direct response investment advice. So you can sell really well with direct response golf products. You can actually sell really well. There's certain things that are great for direct response, but for me what's fun is finding stuff that maybe is being sold through E commerce and people are doing well. There's. Okay, that's interesting. Now if we take, take that product and wrap an entire story around it and try selling it that way. And we've done this a few times with products that guys have had a lot of success with just doing a more traditional E commerce standpoint. We'll come in and we'll do the long form sales letter and direct response and we'll see. We crush those guys usually. So it's kind of fun.

So what would be an example of a product like that.

One we've had some success with is like basically a tongue retaining device. So it's something that keeps your tongue out while you sleep so that you can't snore.

The magic of it is that there's a really nice kind of testable proof component. By that, I mean, you can tell somebody, look, make a snoring sound, and everyone can make a snoring sound. And then you say, okay, stick your tongue out as far as you can go and try to snore. And basically you can't do it. Hopefully anyone who's listening to this right now, try it yourself. You'll see it. You can't snore, and you're basically okay. Awesome. Cool. Well, this product holds your tongue out at night, and then as a result, you can't snore. It's not like the, frankly, not the most comfortable thing in the world. It's not that great. But if you're really. If snoring is ruining your marriage and you can't sleep in the same room as your wife anymore, and you're never intimate or you're suffering from sleep apnea and you don't want to wear this giant Darth Vader CPAP machine, then this device, which is FDA approved, you know, is a great way to, you know, help you if you're snoring. So that might be an example, you know, teeth whitening, but even stuff like, like dog food. We just did a long sales letter for some guys who have a really high quality brand of dog food. It's basically raw, dehydrated dog food. It's got 14 ingredients in it. They're super high quality. It's like 80% protein from like wild caught salmon. It's like super, super good. So we created a long sales letter. The owner's got an amazing story. The guy, you know, get a dog named Zorro. Zorro died of like a, you know, dog cancer after eating the kind of supermarket dog food his whole life. And then he kind of looked at it, the owner, and he was like, what could I have done better? And started looking into dog food and realizing all the crap that we put into it and the grains and everything. And, you know, kind of realized that this isn't how dogs eat in the wild. And, you know, through this whole process of trial and error, created this really awesome dog food. So that's a great one. It's a great story to tell. But yeah, there's tons of examples. I mean, you could. I mean, I thought you could sell cars with long form. You could definitely sell, like IT services. I mean, I really think you can apply it to almost anything.

It sounds like the story is the. Is the most important thing.

Yeah, it's really important. I think, you know, a compelling, engaging story that acts as a mirror that reflects, you know, back reality, a recognizable reality to the. To the prospect, where the prospect can hear the story, you know, see the story, read the story, whatever, and, you know, be like, oh, I recognize myself in the protagonist of this story. And then they become invested in it. And then when the protagonist, you know, finds the solution, it's very easy for them to see themselves as also finding the same solution and wanting to, like, you know, get it because they've identified with whoever, you know, the main hero of our story is. I mean, Kylo Ren goes back to, like, you know, the hero's journey that, you know, Joseph Campbell talked about as far as. Of the Odyssey and stuff like that, which is like, basically all good. All good stories follow the hero's journey, and so does all good copy. And I can break that down for you if you. If you want. I don't know if you're familiar with the hero's journey or not.

I am a little bit, but I'm not sure everybody else would be. You know, maybe. Real quickly, tell us, what is the hero's journey?

Yeah. Okay. So basically, like, you know, it's just this circular thing. So basically, you know, the hero, you start off and everything's normal and ordinary, right? So you're in your current state like you are today, and then there's like this call to adventure. So, you know, you, for some reason, you're about to be thrust upon this quest, taken out of your comfort zone and put onto, like, this journey to find, you know, something. Basically, you'll have the refusal of the call where there's like, the reluctant hero who's not sure if they're the right person to heed the call or not. Usually the person will then find a mentor or a guide who will kind of show them that there's a better way and help guide them towards the object of their quest. Right. So then once they've had their mentor, they'll kind of, what's called, they'll cross the threshold. They'll, you know, they'll. They'll go out there and they'll really in earnest, begin their quest. They'll have tests, they'll have allies, they'll have enemies, they'll have setbacks. They'll ultimately get very close to the goal and have a good supreme ordeal. That's like the Most difficult test of all. But ultimately, they'll triumph. They'll, you know, reap the rewards. They'll then go back to, like, you know, back home, back to, like, you know, to finish the quest and wrap it up, and then they're basically. They're back home. But it's never really, like, the same. Things aren't quite the same. They're like. They're. They're. They're freed now, but they're, you know, fundamentally changed, both, like, psychologically, maybe physically, internally, whatever. So going back to, like, a, like, you know, example of, like, a silver offer I talk about, right? There's essentially, there's like a, you know, a doctor in Florida. He's a real doctor, and, you know, he's happy in his practice, but he realizes that a lot of people, his patients are having these issues with gut problems. And so he starts kind of looking into it and is having trouble having dead ends. Then he meets Another doctor named Dr. Brian Frank, who's a guy who is in Oklahoma City, but he does medical missions all over the world. He takes this silver with him. He uses it to treat malaria really fast. He uses it to treat skin issues in Nepal, does all this kind of stuff. And so basically, Dr. Frank shows him about silver he starts using on his own patients. He finds that he's having lot of success with it, and then now he's like a changed person who believes in this product and wants to, like, you know, share it with you or. Another example was the movie Moana, which I just watched because I was with my nephew a few weeks ago, and I was like, damn, this is, like, literally, Moana is just, like, text. And most of it is. Most movies are especially these Disney movies. It's like their textbook hero's journey. You want to understand the Hero's Journey, Just watch Moana.

Okay. You know, I've always heard the Hero's Journey, and you've got to use the Hero's Journey, but I like the way you laid it out there with the product, because I couldn't ever quite translate it over to a product. It always seemed to get confusing to me. And, you know, who's the hero and who's the mentor and whatnot? So you use the Hero's Journey in all of your copywriting, you know, most.

Of it, for sure. I mean, it's not always, like, every single, you know, like, not that I'll always use every single element of the Hero's Journey I don't have in front of me, like, a checklist. But typically, the Big themes of, you know, things are one way. There's a call to action. There's usually some kind of mentor, like, you know, like a Yoda there, right, who kind of, like, puts them in the right direction. There's the adversity, the setbacks. They find other solutions, but other solutions don't truly, you know, bring the results that the person's looking for. Then they find, like, the true solution, and, you know, now life has changed. That is pretty much like the crux of direct response, in my opinion. I mean, that's pretty. Pretty universal.

So how important have you found it to be?

So you sell mostly products, right? Not really a person. You're not really selling, like, a speaker or anything like that?

Typically not. I've definitely done that stuff in the past, you know, helping guys who are doing live events or programs or whatever. But it would definitely be the same thing, though, right? I mean, it would definitely be the same thing. You were, you know, you were. Whatever the story is, you're in your mom's basement and broke and. Or, you know, hell, my story, right? You were in Las Vegas, and you're in. You're in Florida. You're doing stuff. Your dad has cancer. So you have to, like. I basically have this call to action to go to San Diego and then from there to Las Vegas, and I'm kind of lost. And then Laura is kind of my spirit mentor. And then as I moved to Florida, I'm trying to do the corporate job, but I'm not liking it. And I basically, through trial and error, get really good at this other.

Set of skills and leave the old job. And, I mean, the old job, when I left them, they were pissed because they moved me to Florida. So they wanted $8,000 for reloc money, and I didn't have that. So I had to try to, like, you know, fight with them to get it down to, like, a couple thousand dollars. And even then, I had to scramble and, you know, pawn instruments to pay my rent. But ultimately I was able to, you know, figure out this copywriting thing and this marketing thing and, you know, create this new life. And now here I am on the other side of it, and things are like, you know, I'm back in Vegas today, right? So things are the same, but very different, you know, and so for a public speaker, it would be the same thing. Your story of how you got to where you are, you know, in your journey, I think that's textbook. It's perfect application for people who are doing events or who are, you know, selling Themselves as well.

Yeah. So what do you do, Stefan, when you're working with somebody? You write all this copy. You go through these steps, like, what percentage of the time do you get great results? What percentage of the time does it bomb? What happens when it bombs? What do you do about that?

Because I've had experiences where I've written what I thought was good copy, but I don't think anybody else thought it was.

I didn't get the results that I wanted. And what do you do?

Yeah, that's a great question. I mean, I'm lucky in that my success rate is really high.

I mean, I probably bat like, 700 or 800, which is really, really good for copywriting.

Yes, it's awesome.

There are times. I mean.

Usually something isn't successful. A lot of times, I mean, I think it's. This is. I'll look at other factors first. Like, is it like a traffic issue, for example? Like, we have is a perfect example is like, this supplement offer that we. That Laura did that I kind of consulted with her on that. She launched in January, and it was, like, doing a handful of sales. Handful of sales. We tried offering to people. Nobody really seemed that interested. It was like, okay, I guess this offer is all right. And then we found one traffic partner who was like, oh, this looks interesting. And Suddenly they're doing 150 sales a day, 20, 30, $40,000 a day in revenue. We have to tell them to slow down. And then other guys who all pass on the offer are coming back, and they're like, hey, can we have this? Why don't you tell us about this? And it's like, we did. So I do. Look at that. I'm not saying I don't ever have a copy of the fops, but, I mean, I do think sometimes we're too quick to, like, dismiss something, you know? So I look at a variety of outside factors, too. And generally the copy FOPS is probably because I was lazy about the process, where, like, I didn't. You know, it's not a right fit, the product's not a right fit for the market, or, you know, I'm targeting the wrong market in the copy. So it's usually. It's usually very fixable. Um, but typically, I just don't. You know, again, I know this is gonna sound unrealistic or maybe arrogant, but I really just don't write copy that flops very often.

That's a great. That's a great.

Problem to have, I guess, you know, because I can. I can tell you most of them. Most people don't have that experience, so. So now I'm sitting here thinking, I got to have you do some stuff for me. And I'm sure other people are thinking, man, how the heck am I going to hire this guy? Because that's, you know, I would guess that a lot of people think just having a great product is enough to have the market want you. And how many great products do you see that just don't get off the shelf?

Yeah, constantly. And it's extremely frustrating to me as a copywriter, when I see a great product with bad copy. It just makes me very. I get, like, legitimately upset about it. You know, I get, like, kind of depressed, like, seeing it like, gosh, they're squandering such opportunity here.

And so how does somebody go about connecting with you, working with you? Who are you looking for? What kind of. What kind of people would you like to have contact?

You sure? Yeah. I mean, our. For the agency, our real wheelhouse is like, people who, you know, on the product side, it's products that are selling at a decent margin at a decent price point. So I really. If you want to sell something for a couple dollars.

Yeah, we'll look at any copy project. But I think if it's something like small, where it's like, we're not needed, then I'm usually very honest about that and be like, hey, we're not needed. But if it's something where you're selling a product at a decent price point of, say, between, you know, 39 and $200 on the product side of things, you know, potentially even more than 200. But sitting in that wheelhouse is definitely where we thrive. And then, you know, for example, for speakers or things like that, I mean, we're very interested in that kind of stuff, too. And there, I think, really just. We're not cheap, basically. So, like, you know, you need, like, we can make most things work, I guess. We're not going to write web here. Let me tell you what we're not going to write. I don't want to be hired to write the copy for somebody's website necessarily. Right. Like the. About us or even, like, just. I just. There's. We could do it, but that's not my wheelhouse. I don't want to do it. We, you know, are good email copywriters, but I don't really want to write long email sequences for brand building. That's not a good fit for us. You know, I don't want to write your resume, stuff like that. Not going to do that, you know, so really, I guess if you have a product that you want to sell via direct response and whether that product is like a physical product or it's like you yourself as a brand, you recognize the value of good copy. You are not like.

You'Re not cheap and you're not going to try and like, you know, because if you're, if you're cheap, contact me and I'll just refer you to somebody else. And I don't mean that like a kind of a snarky like way, but I just mean like, you know, you have some people who don't understand the value of the investment. I mean, if you look at it for some of the supplement offers we do, you know, we'll charge like 75, $100,000 up front. Right. But like the other day then we do the full service. So not, not only are you doing, are we doing that the copy and creating the website for you and all that, we're gonna actually help you get traffic. We have the call center, we'll monetize the email list. So it's like, yeah, we're $100,000 up front but you're, you know, depending on your processing capabilities, you'll start netting out $100,000 a month. So if you can't see that value and realize like, okay, like this is a big investment but like my return is going to be massive because if I make, you know, net 100,000amonth, the next 12 months, 1.2 million, you tell me if you could trade $100,000 and net $1.2 million like a year, most people take that trade every time. It's a massive return on your money. But you know that now when has $100,000, I get that, or whatever the number is. That's just an example for a specific type of funnel we do. So yeah, I mean, I think, you know, if you, if you are a high level person or, and have like a, you know, a product or a service that you want to sell via direct response and I think I'm definitely interested in talking and I'm very candid and respectful. You know, I guess I'm kind of like cocky on podcasts or whatever, but you're respectful too. And I'll tell you, you know, if it's a good fit or not. And if it's not a good fit, I'll maybe give suggestions of other ways to approach it and always give referrals to it. If it's a good fit, we can talk and we can see if this is something that works for us.

Yeah, because you've put together the whole package, right? I mean, you've got the copy, the sales funnel, the bringing traffic. How do you go about bringing traffic.

Primarily through, like, affiliates. So a lot of people might be familiar with affiliates on some level, but essentially, you know, an affiliate is somebody who drives traffic for you, and in our case, where they don't get paid for the traffic unless they make sales, so they get what's called a cpa, which is like a cost per acquisition. So basically, like, say, you know, your average order value for your sales funnel.

$200, $250. Then, you know, the affiliate, you know, bring clicks, and for every sale the affiliate makes, you're paying the affiliate, say, $85, which might sound like a lot, but again, you just made $200. And if you know the numbers and you know your margins at 20% net profit margin makes sense. So there's really, like, for me, I love the affiliate space and I'm pretty solid there. And because there's no money up front, because you can go hire an agency, you can commit to do like a couple hundred thousand dollars a month ad spend or, you know, millions of dollars in ad spend, and then you're usually gonna give the agency 20, 30% or 10%, whatever it is, of that ad spend. So say the agency is gonna spend $300,000, but they want 20%, then you're paying them $60,000 to do that. But like with affiliates, so you really don't pay unless it's made. Now, what happens when people get scared with affiliates is that sometimes there's definitely. There's scammy people out there, there's fraud, there's all this kind of stuff. So why, you know, why work with us is that we've got these relationships where we'll go to those agencies that normally only work on media spend. But because we've got the relationships with them, because we have the track record and because we've worked with them on stuff, they'll work with the offers and the funnels that we bring on a CPA basis. So you're getting like some of the best media buyers, like literally the best media buyers in the world, and they're buying media for your, you know, your sales funnel, and you're only paying them when they make sales. So as a result, there's no fraud because these are really high quality agencies. The traffic's really good, the conversions are good. They're making all kinds of incredible creatives for you and you're not having to do any of that. It'll cost you a penny. So that for me is like just like the super logical preferred model. Like, why? Why? I'm all about cash flow and I'm all about, like, not spending money when you don't have to. Right. If you can. Same thing for, you know, when we work with supplement clients. Like, we have on demand partners where they can get the formulations on demand, which means you're not paying any money for the supplement until you sell it. So I'm all about helping people and, you know, and whatever, you know, obviously with speakers, if they're doing events, that's great because, you know, generally your margin is actually pretty high there already. But I'm all about helping people to get the best margins possible and also to have the best cash flow situation possible. I don't want anybody worse of us to have to go. Besides the initial investment in us. I don't want you to go out of pocket for pretty much anything else. And then I want you to get a massive return on that initial investment with us as fast as possible. Wow.

So you've gone, you think outside the box, right?

Yeah, no, definitely I do. I mean, if everything. Everything we do here, it's all about being outside the box. And that's. That's absolutely where my mind resides. Yeah.

How do you feel about. About being put inside of a box?

Yeah, I hate it. I absolutely hate it. I mean, you know, if somebody, you know, funnily, I don't mind somebody refers to me as a copywriter, but if they refer to me as just a copywriter, that would be an example. Saying that would really, really piss me off. Right.

You know, I dislike labels. I dislike, you know, being pigeonholed. And I think people, you know, I was talking about this last night. Well, I went to dinner with one of my copywriters and I was talking about that. You know, it's a human construct. Right. We have so much information, sensory data coming at us every day. I mean, there's literally thousands of data points a minute. And we're trying to make sense of the entire world. And so there's definitely, and there's, you know, tons of science that backs this up, but there's, you know, part of human nature. So we want to sort of put. Is to want to put people and things into boxes because that makes our life much easier. If we can kind of compartmentalize, label all that kind of stuff, that makes our entire reality more manageable. So I get it. You know, I Kind of get why we do it, but when it comes to me personally, it's just the way I'm wired and it goes back to my inner why, you know, I just can't. I can't, I can't. Just drives me, drives me freaking crazy. You just can't. I can understand it, but I can't accept it, you know?

Yeah. And what, what I found fascinating about your, your particular why is, is the people who have your why don't even want to be put in the box of not having a box or being put in the box of being outside of the box. They're like, I don't want that either. Just don't label me anything.

Yeah, no boxes. It's funny, it's a lifelong thing that's always driven me crazy. But I mean, until I kind of, you know, use the Y app through you and then did some work with you, I didn't really realize, you know, exactly. I couldn't name it. I just knew that it drove me crazy. And then after, you know, looking at my why more deeply, it's like, okay, well that explains a lot.

Yep. How has your why. I see how it's played out in your life and I'm sure everybody that's on the podcast has seen the positive aspect of being able to think outside the box. What are some of the challenges that you've faced in having this particular why?

I think, you know, earlier on in life and really part of my, you know, early adult life too, there's definitely that challenge of, I think, alienation. Alienation, like alienation, sorry.

Not fitting in or not understanding why. I can't just fall in line, I think, you know, with whether it was in school or, you know, career wise. And why can't I just like, you know, get a job, work 9 to 5, get up like a nice, you know, little house and have a family really young and just be happy? I mean, there's definitely a part of me that was sort of like, you know, why can't I just. Why can't I just be happy? Why can't I just be part of, you know, the system in a way. Right.

Like everyone else.

Exactly. And then that, yeah, that becomes challenging again. It goes alienating. And you sort of feel at times like lonely as a result of it. And so if you don't recognize that part, I think you can definitely go down a bit of a self destructive path. Mm.

Yeah, that's, that's one of the common thing themes, things with that, with your. Why is that people with your why? If they view it as a gift, they can do amazing things with it like you're doing now. And if they view it as a curse like you used to, then they want to get away from themselves and almost self medicate because, man, I'm. What's wrong with me? Why am I so weird? I must be defective. Right?

Right. Versus, Absolutely.

Versus I must be special.

Yeah, definitely. It's such a massive, you know, mentality shift and, you know, but I totally. And I mean, I definitely am guilty of that in the past when I was younger, like self medicating and whether it was with like, you know, like drugs or alcohol or whatever, it was. Right. But, you know, I'm lucky enough that I kind of realized that it was a gift and sort of found my calling. But again, there's definitely people who don't ever figure that out. And it's very sad. I think maybe especially I wonder if I'm even more empathetic to it because I recognize myself in those people, you know, that gone the other direction. So it's very, very difficult to see people who have these gifts but look at them as like curses or burdens instead. Yeah.

And, you know, it would have been interesting to see what would have happened to you had you stayed with that corporate job and how your mindset would be right now and the. The way that you got funneled into a box and you're stuck now. Now you've got a kid, you've got a wife.

You'Ve got to provide, man, and now you're stuck in this stinking job that puts you in a box. How's that going to work out?

Yeah, I think that would have been pretty miserable. And I think that goes back to even with my companies now and all the employees I have and everything. And why this is such a huge motivator for me is seriously, I don't care about the money. Making money is awesome and everything. And so, I mean, I guess I care a little bit. So I don't want to say I don't care because it's bullshit. I don't know if we can edit that out. If I'm not supposed to cuss on your podcast. It doesn't matter. Okay. Yeah, but that's not like my great motivator. Right? My great motivator is if it was, I'd have way more money right now. But it's about, like, giving people better options. So when I hire employees, it's like showing them that they can come, you know, do something amazing and leverage their unique talents. And abilities and do really cool things and that then there's this really awesome career path. It doesn't have to be all about incremental, like, raises where, you know, you get hired for $14 an hour, and after a year, oh, you got to 1550, right? Like, nothing wrong with that. I guess that's how a lot of the corporate world works. But with me, it's like, if you come in and you're hired $14 an hour and you start producing, like, you know, as an example, as a copywriter, and you start writing copy that's grossing millions of dollars, I'm gonna find ways for you to get to six figures super quick. I want you to stay and I want you to be happy, you know, or again. So I had in house customer service for my supplement companies and, you know, had a call center. One of the call center reps, just an agent now is a part owner in my call center. He owns like 10% of it, and he does biz dev and shares the dream and the passion of other people. Another agent who we had a call center agent. So you hired for very, like, not. We always paid well above minimum wage. Let's say $12 an hour or something like that, $13 an hour. Now I'm backing her. She starts out, like a fulfillment venture that does fulfillment, shipping, all that stuff. And she's, you know, has up to 20% through vested equity. So I'm like, literally, I put my money where my mouth is, right? I'm like, I love taking people and, you know, letting them. They can start wherever their path is, and that's where they start, and that's appropriate. But I love helping them to get to these crazy soaring heights that they didn't think are possible or that a lot of society or the traditional corporate kind of structure where they kind of tell you is impossible. Like, you know, that. That's such. That. That pisses me off. Is that idea that, you know, you've got to sort of kind of inch your way up, right? Just sort of like rung by rung on the ladder. Like, screw that. Like, you know, like, let's. Let's. Let's. Let's fucking. Let's take the shortcut, you know, and so I'm all about that.

Yeah. Who said we had to do it this way? Right?

Exactly. Yeah, exactly. Why?

Who said that? Yeah, I don't. I don't believe that. And you're getting people and you're getting them outside their box. You're getting them outside of what's possible, and that's what makes your why so amazing is your ability to do that where many other people don't think that way. They're like, no, we got to keep them down. We got to keep them under our thumb. We got to keep them to the structure of this corporate world. You're like, well, who said that?

Why do we have to do it that way?

Yeah, that's the word, right? The most damning, awful phrase. And, like, you know, the English language is like, oh, well, it's always been done that way. Right. That's absolutely horrifying to me. That's, like, offensive. It's like you just said something terrible about my mother. Like, it's just absolutely a visceral gut reaction to that kind of language. Just drives me nuts, you know, it's.

So awesome to hear that you took what you thought was a.

Curse and you turned it into your gift, because not everybody does that. I can tell you, Stefan, I've meet so many people that are just completely struggling. You can just see they're tormented, and they have your same why. They're just completely internally tormented with, why am I defective? And you've taken that and just flipped it and taken off. And that's what's. What's so great about your journey is your ability to have done that. And now you see it for what it is because you have words to go with it.

Yeah, absolutely. And it definitely. It was a process. And then my hope is that, you know, for people who. As you continue to share your message and, you know, your work with more and more people, and for me, when my interactions with people, is that, you know, we can all help people to sort of skip that pain and realize that it is a gift. Right. I think that's a very noble pursuit or mission, and that the more people we can help, I think that that's, you know, you can literally change lives and change them dramatically by helping them to reshift their mindset and reframe their natural disposition.

Yeah, exactly. And so, in essence, what I talk about is that transformation is not about Stefan trying to be somebody else or trying to be like somebody else. It's about Stefan discovering himself and then being himself, because it's so awesome already. Yeah, that's what you've done. But the way you do that, you did it by lots of pain and trying to figure it out. But if we could catch somebody younger and actually give them the words to clearly articulate their gift and who they are, then they have that much more time to make a bigger impact.

Yeah, absolutely. And so getting them. Yeah, getting to them, you know, as soon as possible is urgent. And that's why. And I'm sure everyone who listens to this already does it. But make, you know, all listeners to share, not just our podcast, you know, but all your podcasts and your work, everything like that. I think it's important that people are getting value from what you're providing, which they certainly should be. That they're passing it on and sharing with as many people as possible so that they can impact as many lives as possible.

That's what I'm all about. And I know that's what you're about, too. So, Stefan, thank you so much for spending an hour with us. You gave us a lot of content, a lot of great stuff, and how can people get ahold of you?

Absolutely. Yeah. Well, my pleasure. First of all, thank you so much for having me. Yeah. They can go to our agency website, which is Red R E D ox O X consulting dot com. Most on Facebook for Stephen. Georgi. Stefan. Paul. Georgi. I have a LinkedIn. It's very generic and broad for a variety of reasons, and I need to update it, but I am on LinkedIn. I don't use it much. And, you know, if they're a friend of yours and there's a good fit, then you can always give them my email address, too.

Perfect. So I've been saying your last name wrong this whole time. You didn't correct me once.

So it's so funny. This comes up all the time. Because the thing is, pretty much everybody says it wrong and, like, I legitimately don't care. And then people go, what do you mean, man? Like, it's your name. I should say it the right way. And I'm like, yeah, I guess. But I just don't care. I have, like, lifelong friends. I have friends from, like, you know, second grade who say my name wrong, and it just doesn't bother me. I just don't care. Like, it's like, whatever, man. Like, so don't worry about it. Okay.

Yeah. Now I felt bad, you know, when I heard you say it, I felt really bad because it's like, crud. I just said it wrong right off the bat.

You're fine.

Okay. And you better spell it for people, because I don't think they would get it from how we both said it.

That's true. So Stefan S T E F A N. Paul is my middle name, and George I is G E O R G I. Or you can think of it as, like, spell out Georgia subtract the A. So, George, I.

And of course, your name's different too, so everything's different. Everything's outside the box, but everything is pretty damn amazing. It's been awesome to hear your story and see what you're doing, and I can only imagine where you're going to be another year from now.

Absolutely. Well, thank you again. I really appreciate you taking the time to speak with me and have me on your podcast. SA.