#106: Kevin Rogers’ Winning Formula for Improving Your Copy with Stories and Humor

Welcome to the High Income Business Writing Podcast, helping you propel your writing business.

To a whole new level. And now, here's your host, Ed Gandia. Hey there.

Thank you for joining me for episode 106 of the High Income Business Writing Podcast. My name is Ed Gandia and this is the podcast for business writers and copywriters who want to take their writing businesses to the six figure level or the part time equivalent. As a quick reminder, you can find the details show notes to this episode by going to b2b launcher.com episode 106 as writers and copywriters, I think most of us understand the power of storytelling and humor in copy and prose. But how do you use these elements appropriately? You know, it's very easy to get that wrong and have it backfire on you. And my guest this week is going to explain how to do this right. His name is Kevin Rogers. In case you don't know Kevin, he is one of the top copywriters in the business. He's the Amazon best selling Author of the 60 second sales hook and the founder of Copychief, a thriving community of the world's top online marketers. Kevin spent years traveling the country as a dead broke stand up comedian until he discovered how a simple joke formula could be used as a powerful marketing hook. He began to teach that formula to marketers and these days, entrepreneurs and business owners all over the world use Kevin's techniques to grow their profits and their businesses at record pace. So today, Kevin is one of the most in demand sales consultants online. He works closely with high volume information marketers, with corporations and, and local brick and mortar businesses to turn around sluggish ad campaigns. And in this interview he is going to reveal the formula he uses to inject humor and storytelling effectively in copy. And Kevin's got a great story of his own. I think you're really going to enjoy this. Going to get some valuable information out of it. So let's go right to that interview.

Kevin, it's great to have you here, man.

Ed, I appreciate it, man. Looking forward to it.

Yeah. So this will be fun. And, and before we get to the meat, let's start with a bit of background. So tell us a little bit about yourself, the, the kind of work you do. And I know we're going to be talking more about that, but if you could kind of give us the, the short version of your background.

Sure, man. So yeah, my official title now is Copy Chief. So we know in marketing, any kind of business, we need to write good sales copy to, to advertise our business. I spent 10 years as a freelance copywriter working mostly with entrepreneurs on their information products, a lot of stuff in health and wellness. And now what I do is I team with a copywriter or maybe a couple of copywriters to sort of oversee the work they do with the client. And I also have a community of business owners and copywriters called copy chief, where everybody kind of just gets in the room together. It's like a big marketing laboratory. It's really good time and we were able to do a lot of good for a lot of business owners and how they market their business in there. Before that, I was probably the most interesting thing on my resume is that I spent about a decade touring the United States as a stand up comedian. I was a high school dropout. I started comedy when I was 18 and I was very fortunate to win the House MC gig at my home club here in Clearwater, Florida. And that was, you know, a huge boon to my development. I was on stage eight shows a week for about a year doing that. And then I went out on the road at 19 with my 74 Nova with a 4 barrel carburetor getting like 4, 4 miles to the gallon.

Yeah, I remember the nova.

Yeah, the 74 Nova with the, with my, my awesome Krako sound system and.

With an eight track.

Yeah, I'm not quite that old, but yeah, I did have a cassette up until a few years ago, I'll admit. But yeah, it was great, man. I worked, you know, and then I moved to Chicago and had a running gig at the improv there when there was an improv in town and got to work with guys like Chris Rock, Louis ck, Jonathan, you know, Jon Stewart. One of my best friends is a guy named Billy Gardell who's still one of the best touring comics you'll see. He was on a show called Mike and Molly with Melissa McCarthy. And so I've just had this blessing of amazing, colorful people in my life, you know, all through comedy. A lot of those guys are, you know, still my, my best friends that I met when I first started comedy. And you know, copywriters are very much the same breed, all the same bizarre personality quirks. A little too loud at dinner. I've bought, you know, a few dinners for strangers at the table next door because I knew that the cursing was probably too loud for their children.

Yeah, that's awesome.

But you know, I wouldn't change a minute of it. So it's been, it's been an epic journey, Ed.

Well, that's that sounds like, that sounds like a lot of fun. And I'm curious, you're not the first person who's had a background in comedy and ended up as a copywriter. So first I'm curious to hear how that even evolved. And secondly, your take on what's, what's the connection between comedy and copywriting?

Yeah, good question. Well, the way it happened for me was pretty bizarre. I mean, for me, the way I came into it was that, you know, I, I knew there's something missing from my life and that was any, any kind of business sense whatsoever.

Right.

You know, I made a conscious effort to, you know, stop touring as a road comic by the age of 30. If I wasn't seeing some real career direction, some sort of, you know, mystical sign that I was should be doing this and was actually going to, quote, unquote, make it someday. I had no business sense or any, any idea of the notion that you could actually have some control over your success as an entertainer. I've since looking back, I could see some great examples. It's probably no coincidence that guys like Carrot, you know, has a marketing degree. A good friend of mine, Brian Regan, is a very smart business person, but back then I just thought, can't I just show up and kill the room? Isn't that enough?

Right.

So when I got out of comedy, I, you know, ended up through a not so interesting circumstance, working for a guy who had a telemarketing company, which was about the furthest thing I could ever imagine wanting to do or even be around. I never worked the phones, but this guy made me an offer I couldn't refuse. He said, you know, Kevin, I've got, I need help to run this company. I've got 30 people out there on the phones who could all probably run this company. I don't trust any one of them. I know you don't know anything about this and you might end up not liking it at all, but I know I could trust you, so I'm going to pay you. Yeah, I think it was like something seems ridiculous now. It's like $500 a week to sit here and next to me and just learn what I do learn about this, this company. And at the time I was a bellman and making like, you know, if I was lucky, I think 300 was a good week in tips, you know, at this like slow hotel.

Yeah. So you think at 500 I'll do whatever? Sure, yeah, I'll sit next to you.

I sit next to you in this smoke filled room and Listen to all the drama of, you know, half addicted telemarketers. That'll be great. And you know what the. I think he knew I liked writing and I was interested in websites. And I think that's the thing. He said, just start rewriting my website. He was a very smart, kind of manipulative guy, and he knew that that would interest me. So that's what I did. I sat there and played around with the wording on a site. I had no. I didn't even know there was a thing called copywriting then. And so anyway, he ended up hiring a guy who was a direct response junkie named Chris Tomasulo. And Chris is the one who really hipped me to direct response and, you know, said, you love to write. You should look into copywriting. I bet you'd be good at it. And he turned me on to Gary Halbert and John Carlton and, and that was that. I was, I was really hooked on it. But then I had no idea how to get paid for it.

Right.

I mean, you know, I was kind of doing it for that company, but I thought, well, if I can do this, I ended up running that guy's company. I was the vice president for years and, and it was very stressful. And really, again, not my scene. But I did learn sales. But then here's the bizarre part, because you asked about comics through, through a, a comic that I'd fell out of touch with named Vin Montello through a weird chain email. I saw that he was reading and said, what book are you reading? And he said he was reading the Michael Masterson six figure copywriting course. And I was like, what? No way. That was like the only book on the subject at the time, right?

Yeah. What time was this?

This was, this was probably 2003.

Okay.

And so I reached out to Vin and I said, man, I can't believe you're reading that book. And turned out he'd been, he'd been studying it less amount of time than I had. But he wasted. He had a. He was more business savvy. He'd spent years in, in Hollywood writing for television. So he knew you had to hustle and really sell yourself as a writer.

Right.

And so he had no, no hang ups about that. And. And he had quickly started getting gigs and was, you know, making a name for himself. And so we fell back into a friendship and he became my first mentor and gave me. Helped me get my first clients and helped me have confidence to deliver those jobs. And that was it. You know, once I had a couple of Clients. It was really no looking back, it just kind of snowballed from there and here we are, you know, I mean, a decade or so later and I have community of, of copywriters that I coach now.

It's, it's amazing to think, wow, life's little serendipities, huh? You never, you never know where you're going to end up. Yeah, that's fantastic. So in obviously comedy, storytelling, there's some similar elements there. I'd like to talk a little bit about storytelling because I know you're really big on, on storytelling in copy. So I'm curious, what's your take on that? And in both, both elements, storytelling and humor, when, when writing copy and especially when prospecting for clients, because I know you have a unique way to describe yourself and what you do using those, those elements. So, so like what turned you onto that and what do you feel is important about including those elements?

Yeah, so, yeah, sort of answer the second part of your question that I think the commonalities between copywriting and comedy are mainly that you have to very quickly establish yourself with your audience. Right. You have to know how to get attention and express your Persona so that the crowd can hopefully make a favorable decision about you and they're going to laugh at who you are.

Right.

The idea of a stand up comic is that, you know, within 5 or 10 or 15 or 30 to an hour minutes, you're going to make them feel like you're some old friend or somebody they've known forever. So it's like this condensed relationship and in order to do that, you have to really establish your character right out of the gate. And so I say that's a big similarity or at least a big advantage any comic who becomes a copywriter has is that if you stood alone on a stage with a microphone and won and kept attention and persuaded people to not only like you, but laugh their faces off at you, you know, for, for any amount of time. That's a pretty rare skill that you've developed and it's a little different to sit and sort of write to an imaginary person or you know, however well you can develop what we call your avatar. But a lot of the same instincts apply. Something interesting I, I've sort of realized recently, Ed, is that the writers write in different modes, right? Like some people are almost like technical about it and they just, they really love formulas and they're able to sort of methodically make their way through a sales letter and it's just a job. And they show up that day at A certain time and they write the part that needs to be written. And that's all fantastic. Most writers are what I call performance writers. Meaning they have to feel it.

Right.

They know. Yeah. If they're not feeling it that day, there's parts of the offer they can write, like the, you know, product description and maybe some of the bullets and stuff like that. But when it comes to really getting across the hook and the storytelling, like you mentioned, the, the emotional parts of the copy, it's like a performance. You got to work yourself up for it and you want to really feel it when you sit and you start typing. I always picture a great copywriter or any great writer sitting at their keyboard. And you know, imagine like this, the scene. Their little dingy office turns into a concert hall and instead of a keyboard, they're sitting at a, at a grand piano. Right? Yeah. You know, I, I just picture like that's, that's what it kind of feels like when you, it really gets good to you. And, and so I think that that's what it is. It's the performance background and the ability to understand instinctively. I'm losing them right here. This is not going to keep attention. I need something, a joke or a little aside, a little wink or something right here to draw the reader back.

In, you know, And I'm curious, so do you have any tricks or hacks when things just aren't happening to kind of snap you back in or help you come up with some ideas? Or is it really just a matter of, you know, I need to step away from it and come back tomorrow?

Yeah, great question again. Yeah, there is. I have one where what I do is if I'm really frustrated and I feel like I'm making this out to be more than it is, I write the onion esque version of the sales letter.

Oh, yeah, right.

I'll just start mocking the whole thing, right? I'm mocking the reader, I'm mocking the product. And it's just to kind of get, get it out of my system. And what's interesting about it is, you know, copy needs to be a little bit over the top anyway. I don't mean like hypey, you know, manipulative stuff, but even really good storytelling, it's going to feel over the top when you're writing it. And then 40% of that is going to get sucked into the process of getting it into your reader.

Right.

And so you need to go over the top for it to feel at all exciting. And so writing something that's like satire isn't that far off from the gear you actually need to be in to write good copy. So I'll find when I do that, I'm writing the, you know, the mock version of it. Before long I'll go, ah, all I got to do is, you know, kind of change my tone a little bit here. And I'm, I'm saying what needs to be said, you know, and so that's, that's one great trick.

I love that. That would probably work really well for me because I'm, I'm such a cynic sometimes and it'd be very easy for me to just. I'm tempted times on social media, for instance, just to say something really smart and cynical. But I love that.

So let's talk a little bit about.

Kind of shifting gears a bit into talking about yourself to a prospect. Whether you're doing this on your website, you're doing this in a conversation with a potential client, you inject many of these same elements into that description, into that conversation. Can you talk a little bit more about that?

Yeah, sure. So do you mean as far as the appropriate way to talk about yourself or how to share of yourself?

Yeah, the appropriate way to talk about yourself. I think a lot of us have trouble just describing what it is we do, whether it is in person. I know that's a tough one. Or on your website and using. Because I think a lot of people take a very kind of matter of fact approach to it. But kind of, if we go back to the whole storytelling and humor thing, what elements of that could you use to really talk more about what it is you do, how you help clients, et cetera?

Yeah. Yeah. Great, great question. So I have a, I have a formula. The easiest answer is that I created a formula that helps people get across their story in 60 seconds or less. And it's actually from an old joke formula that I just changed the last part of to make more appropriate for business. And what's interesting about it is there's the one element that's really critical to the whole thing, and that's the second part of it, which is struggle. And I'd say the easiest way and in some ways the most difficult way to ingratiate yourself, to bond with your best prospects or your, your audience is to share a struggle. You know, I think we've gotten better at it as an industry in marketing, but we still could go further just to be really transparent, to be like you just now admitting that you, you're, you're a bit of a cynic sometimes. And you have these cynical moods. I mean, that's something that your listener can relate to. And it's a little bit courageous of you to, to admit that kind of thing. It might not seem that way to you because you're, you know, podcaster, and podcasting is all about being real. But most companies, and most people, especially in business, you know, they spend their whole lives fighting against any, any perception that would make it look like they're struggling, right? Or that they've, they've ever had a challenge. And so it's still interesting to have somebody share their struggle. Because you're going, all right, I could trust this person. He's telling me this horror story. And you know, obviously, hopefully there's, there's a part coming where they got out of it. But, you know, that alone is something. A huge, what I call the unfair advantage we have over a bigger company. Anybody, you know, with a board, a legal team, you know, all these sets of eyeballs and people trying to justify their salary, reviewing this, the statement, the message before it can go out. And we get to wake up and hold up our iPhone and say whatever crazy things on our mind and stick it up on Facebook, you know. Yeah, it's really important that you share a flaw about yourself or, or even the product. Joe Sugarman, famous copywriter, inventor of blue blocker shades and a great teacher of copy, talks about announcing the flaw of the product and he's even done it in the headline, right? And you say, wow, that's the most counter instinctive thing I can even imagine. Why would you talk about the flaw? And the reason you do that is if you can announce what the problem is with the product and then still make it sound so appealing that you're willing to forego the flaw and justify why it's a great bargain because of the flaw. You know, the thing will sell like magic. So he. So an example is he had this thermostat and Joe was famous for, you know, he would come across, meet somebody who had, I've got 10,000 thermostats that nobody wants, you know. Yeah, well, but they work like, they're amazing. They have this like space age technology, but nobody wants them because they're ugly, right? Or they, they don't hang on the wall, right? Or something, I don't know. And so Joe will say, he'll write about that. He'll say, look, he'll just tell the story, Hey, I met this guy, he's got this thing, he told me it's the most amazing thermostat you could ever have. But it's ugly. I said, well, how ugly can it be? And then he pulled it out of the box, and I was like, wow, that thing's really ugly. But then I. I used it and it was like having it. It was like having a new house overnight or something, you know, and so you're. And so that's sort of the. The idea of. Of, of using a flaw, whether it's about you or your product effectively. And, you know, then of course, you balance it with a lot of knowledge, expertise, you know, you. You kind of leave the struggle behind. And now you're on this journey, it's like the hero's journey, right? It's like that you've bonded because they. They see your flaw, they see your struggle, and now they watch you develop. You tell them how things evolved and how you. You were sort of like forced to become this expert on this topic because life threw you this curveball. And when you describe the journey and the things you overcame along the way, and then, of course, you have results to back up what you discovered along the way that really helps anybody who's had this struggle, suddenly the struggle is just a huge advantage, because if you hadn't had the struggle, you wouldn't be the expert.

Right.

And so by that time, they're way more focused on where you are now than where you were then.

I love that. Very, very powerful. So let's go back. You mentioned a formula a little bit earlier. Can you maybe walk us through that and how you think through this in a. In a methodical way?

Yeah, sure. Happy to. So the formula is. I call it the 60 second sales hook. And it's a. It's a joke formula, as I mentioned. And what's interesting is the more I looked into this joke formula, if I'm being really honest, I knew there was a joke formula, something like this, but I actually came up with the sales formula first, and I just knew it was interesting if I said that it came from a joke formula.

Right.

It works better. Yeah, yeah.

It's just much more interesting, you know, and what's great about that is sometimes our. I don't even call it a lie, but like, a little white lie turns out to be the best part about the. The product. So when I did finally go, all right, I better go back up this thing where there's a joke formula about this, I quickly discovered it working perfectly. And then I started to see it everywhere.

Right.

I started to notice that, you know, major advertisers were using it in commercials when the stakes were high, like when Weight Watchers hired Jessica Simpson, paid her $4 million to be the spokesperson for their product. And that's the exact formula they use when you need to be crystal clear about who somebody is and what their struggle is and what their expertise is, and invite somebody on a journey with you. There's just no better formula for this. And then I started to see more and more comics using it when stakes were high. Like, for instance, you'll often see this when a comedian is doing their first national television spot, right? So, you know, for instance, when Ray Romano did Letterman the first time, like, here's a little secret about seeing comedians on late night tv, especially with with Letterman show, because, you know, Letterman had the production company Worldwide Pants, right?

Yeah.

And so when a comedian would come on Letterman, a friend of mine named Eddie Brill was the guy who would book the comic and then he would work with them sometimes for six months just to get their five minute set perfect. And you think, what's this crazy? If you saw a guy in a club and thought he's got a good enough five minutes to come on the show, why doesn't he just come on next week? And the reason is this is the kind of stuff they'd work on, the stuff we're talking about here, the Persona, the hook. What's the hook of the comedian? What's going to relate to the audience and most important, be remember, rememberable about them.

Right.

And so the perfect culmination of all that effort was when Ray Romano came on Letterman. He did so well, he established his character so perfectly that the next day he had a call from Dave's company and they said, look, Dave really loved what you did on the show last night. We'd like to talk to you about a development deal and you know, start grooming you for a television show. And that show went on to become Everybody Loves Raymond, produced by Worldwide Pants. And Dave and Ray made a lot of money together. So that's sort of the what's going on behind the scenes when a comic walks out and does their five minute set. Okay?

Yeah.

And so this is the kind of formula that you want to use for an opening joke because again, there's no better formula for quickly establishing who you are and bonding with an audience. So I'll share one with you. My. One of my favorite examples is by a comedian named Karen Rontowski. And the first time she did Letterman, this is her opening joke. She said, my kids were so bad in Walmart today that I pulled a fly swatter off the shelf. And I spanked them. And the minute the fly swatter hit their, I thought, I don't have kids. Oh, it's a great show. And I couldn't change the word there. Sorry. But yeah, I love that but. And so just a great joke. And now think about it. I'll teach you the formula based on that joke. But what is that, 20 seconds? How much do we know about this woman? Right? She's earned our trust. She's, she's made us laugh. And we know she's not, doesn't have kids. She's sort of annoyed by kids, you know, and we really have a vision of what kind of person this is. And, and so the formula for, for a joke for a comedian goes like this. I call it the Persona joke formula. And it's, it's identity, struggle, discovery and then surprise. Because that's why we laugh, because there's a twist we didn't expect. So her identity as a mother, we think in, in Walmart, the struggle is that her kids are acting crazy. The discovery is the fly swatter. And the surprise is they're not even her kids. She's just beating random kids in the Walmart as we've all probably wanted to do a time or two. And so to turn this into what I call a sales hook, sort of your marketing message story, all we do is change that last part. Because obviously if I said, okay everybody, now go be really clever and come up with a unsuspecting twist at the end, not many people would be up for that. And frankly, it's not really what we're looking for. When we're building trust, we want to pay it off with some kind of result they could get, not some kind of trickery, right?

Yes.

So we just changed the surprise to result and it goes identity, struggle, discovery, and then result. So mine, if I'm selling you, inviting you to come learn this very thing we're talking about here, this 60 second sales hook, I would say, hi, my name's, my name's Kevin. I spent years traveling the country as a dead broke standup comedian until I discovered how a simple joke formula could be used as an irresistible sales hook and began teaching marketers and business owners how to use it to sell a lot more of their product. If you'd like to discover how you can use the same formula, you know, for, to sell yourself and your products, then just enter your email below and I'll give it to you on the next page. That's simple. And it's the same exact Formula. And you know what's cool about it, Ed, is like, I've seen it used across so many industries by so many different personality types, and it just works every time. I've yet to come across a scenario where. Where it didn't apply.

It's the Hero's Journey, really what it.

Is a super condensed version of the hero's Journey.

I love it. And I mean, it's. That's why we're wired to be receptive to that. And wow, I love that. I love that. So could you give us a couple of other examples? I mean, this is starting to sink in. I think I get it. But maybe examples where we've seen this done really well in advertising.

Yeah, sure. Well, I mentioned the Jessica Simpson. I don't have it in front of me, but there's a great one. I saw the candy bar wrapper. It's probably the smallest space I've ever seen one used. And it was about how they, you know, we were on a trip to Madagascar or someplace. They were, and they discovered that they had the best cocoa beans in the world. But they really wanted to be respectful of the. The culture there. And so they decided to use local resources to produce this amazing candy bar. And the result is, you know, this deliciousness plus pure cocoa beans, plus helping this community, you know, rise. Rise above circumstances or something like that. And so that was like, wow, I'm in a candy bar, right? Here's another one from a. This woman is a divorce mediator. And I love this one because she. She nailed it so hard. I didn't touch a word of this. You know, a lot of people ask me to look at their hooks and to help them kind of perfect them. This is one that was sent to me, and it didn't need to change a word. So she says, hi, I'm Bev Lewis. I'm a divorce mediator and single mother of four adult children. I separated from my husband in August of 2002. I admit I didn't have the friendliest divorce for years. I was in and out of court, fighting to protect the rights of my children. I was angry, frustrated, and resentful. And it was difficult raising four minor children when I was alone and had no resources. I'm sure I screwed them up in the process. Then I discovered the power of mediation, and I realized that there was an alternative to the traditional hostile court process. I was determined to create a system so other families could avoid the emotional and financial whirlwind that I experienced. Since I started my business in 2005. I've helped hundreds of clients to create a positive solution to their separation experiences by supporting them with resources and information every step of the way. See how there's no selling going on up to this point?

Yes.

And then the call to action is to learn how I can support you too. Enter your best email address below and you'll get free instant access to my special video, the Power of a Positive Divorce.

Wow.

Right?

It's like, I mean, perfection. And you're just going, why we. Who doesn't want that? If you're in that scenario, here's this person and you see what I'm talking about with the struggle, right? She, she, she digs into her struggle and the fact that she's willing to say I, I screwed up my kids in the process. Wow. That's just makes the hair stand up, right?

Well, yeah. To any parent, that's like their ultimate fear. It's like I'm screwing them up.

Right.

Even if in a happy marriage, I have that fear. Yeah, but, but if you're now faced with this, you're blindsided by the idea of being divorced and you go, oh, I just want this not to be ugly. And, and like you said, that's. She nailed their biggest fear, but she did it by sharing her true story. So that's all we have to do. And that's the power of, you know, we hear all these buzzwords about being, being transparent with your marketing and, and keeping it real and all these things. This is what it means. If you're willing to not do it as a tactic, but do it sort of out of, out of a calling, out of passion, then just nothing resonates more deeply than that.

Man, this is, this is really powerful stuff. So I think I've accidentally used this strategy many times and I think when I put a course together or a program of some sort, it was developed because of my struggle. In fact, the first thing I ever sold out there was an ebook years ago in early 2008, because I had such a hard time transitioning from a full time day job to full time freelancing. And I was so disappointed that there were no resources out there that answered my questions on how do I do this when I'm the sole breadwinner that I, you know, I wanted to put a resource together once I figured it out.

Yeah.

In fact, my sales copy was about that. I didn't realize that's what I was doing, but it came from struggle. That was my motivation. I don't want other people to have to face the Same struggle. And it did extremely well.

Yeah, it's funny because I. I see that all the time too. Like, really plug. And again, it's because it came from a genuine place for you, right?

Yeah.

And that's the other fascinating thing about this formula, is that people use it unknowingly all the time. I'll see people and go, hey, cool. Maybe they read the book and find out, no, they've never heard of me or the book. They just. They just. It's instinctive. So it doesn't surprise me. And having known you now for 38 minutes, it doesn't surprise me that you nailed it instinctively, because you're clearly an authentic person.

So I'm curious what happens when you're working with a client and you're trying to find some of these elements, you know, the struggle, and you're doing research or asking them, and just. It's just not coming out. So have you ever faced a situation like that and how do you get around it or how do you ask the right questions or dig deep enough to. To really find a struggle that's going to work?

Yeah, yeah. It is like pulling teeth occasionally. You know, some people are just a little bit guarded and they have all that protective nature of. No, no, I need to. People need to. Especially with, say, like, a health supplement. You know, I can think of an instance where there was a client and he. He knew he needed to step out and be the spokesperson for the product. It was built from his passion, but he felt like, yeah, but my experience, my credentials are not relevant. I'm not a doctor. I'm not a professional health practitioner. He was a journalist who. But his motivation was to help his mother, who had a lot of anxiety and. No, I'm sorry. His mother was an herbalist. And so he always grew up around, you know, those kinds of things. And his girlfriend had, you know, really debilitating anxiety, and it cost them their relationship ultimately. But his motivation to. To put together this formula was to try to help her because none of the terrible drugs she was trying were working. And that's how we came across this formula. So that's a great story.

Right.

But we had to really dig that out of him because he was reluctant, first of all, to believe that his. He had a story that was relevant. And then secondly, to embrace, you know, a hurtful, personal story. Now, I will say there. There are times, and this is what's great about having a community where people are using this actively. And some people once in a while go, yeah, dude, I tried it Every which way. It doesn't work for me because there is a solution. I had a guy who was an architect, his name is Mark Zedel. Really bright guy, really passionate architect. And he said, you know, I. I've just written this every which way, and it's just never makes sense. I never struggled to create the perfect home or, you know, I'm not. He creates like green structures. And he's like. But I didn't do it because to right some wrong or something. There's just no passion behind the struggle. And I said, well, the solution is easy, man. Tell the. The struggle is in the clients that you help who are faced with trying to build pro the kind of property that's important to them on a space that might not seem like it's. It's good for it.

Right.

Or they've tried. They've looked at every architectural design they can come across, and just nothing's the right thing. You're the guy who comes in and solves that for them. So talk about their struggle, their frustration, how they almost gave in on something less than what they truly wanted. And when you sat down with them, they were like, eureka, this is it. And he did that and started, you know, not only writing about those case studies, but interviewing those people and making videos with people like that. And it became this amazing dynamic marketing, you know, campaign where people, if anybody was in that scenario, we're talking about, he doesn't need a ton of gigs. This is not a volume thing.

Right.

So it's easy to sort of make sure you're getting in front of the right prospect. And then you show them a struggle that they can relate to and really feel like, hey, we're resourceful people and we haven't figured this out. Somebody comes along and goes up, I got it. Maybe you can relate to these people. I mean, you've won that gig.

You know, I think that's brilliant because I do know that a lot of businesses got into that business not because of some aha moment or a personal struggle, but they're just. They're true entrepreneurs. They saw a need and they wanted to fill it, but there's no real personal passion necessarily behind it. They're looking at it as more of an asset, for instance. So I think you just gave us a great way to then look elsewhere for those opportunities where you could discover that. That struggle and tell those stories.

Yeah. And I would say, even if your story is really the best one, still use this formula to. On your testimonials.

Right.

And it's. It's a great framework to provide somebody who's eager to give you a testimonial but they have got writer's block. That happens all the time. People go yeah and I'd love to, love to sing your praises but I'm just, I'm not a good writer. I'm not sure what to say. And then you just say, well, just tell me, you know, talk, tell us who you are and what you were struggling with before you found my, my product or my coaching and tell us a little bit about how life is now that now that you've got it now that you licked the problem and that's it, now suddenly you get a great testimonial.

So is this something that you feel should be incorporated into all promotions or is this something that you kind of start with but sometimes you go in a different direction? I mean, what's your take on that?

I say that I can't imagine a promotion where.