#261: Stefan Georgi on How He’s Built a Multimillion Dollar Copywriting Empire in Less Than a Decade

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.

Welcome to the High Income Business Writing Podcast. I am your host, Ed Gandia, and this is the podcast for business writers and copywriters who want to earn more and less time doing work they love for better clients. You can find detailed show notes for this episode@b2b launcher.com episode 261. Those notes always include a summary of our discussion as well as links to resources mentioned during the show. I started my freelance journey by studying direct response copywriting and applying it in my job as a software sales professional. And one of the main reasons I love the copywriting craft from the very beginning is that in my mind it was all about selling on paper or, you know, on screen, digitally. However you want to talk about it.

It's just a metaphor.

As someone who was already used to selling, this to me was a new way for me to practice core concepts and strategies I was already applying to some degree in person during my sales process. And even though my business quickly evolved away from direct response and into content writing and eventually teaching and coaching, I've always admired the direct response copywriting profession. Because if you can sell effectively on paper, you can write your own ticket. You'll always have a ton of options and you can reach financial success very quickly. So no, I mean, if you do this well, you'll never starve as long as you're willing to put yourself out there and continue to work on your craft. My guest today is a great example of this. Stefan Georgi is considered one of the top direct response copywriters in the world. Since he started copywriting in 2011, Stefan's words have grossed over $700 million in sales for himself and his clients. That's an amazing level of success in just 10 years. And again, it goes to show that if you're great at direct response, you're not limited by your ability to generate just client income. You also have many other options for making a great living. Rather than focus this conversation on copywriting tips and tricks, I didn't want to do that. I wanted to learn more about Stefan's journey and I wanted to better understand his thinking, his mindset around going after progressively better clients and raising your fees and multiplying your options for earning income. I thought that that would be a more interesting conversation and it'd be something.

That you would get more out of.

And I hope you agree, whether you're A direct response copywriter, copy content marketing writer, or any other type of marketing professional. I think you'll enjoy this conversation and get a better understanding of the kind of mindset these ultra high earners in our business have adopted.

Hope you enjoy it.

Stefan, welcome.

It's great to have you here.

Thank you. It's really great to be here.

Yeah. Hey, I've been wanting to have you on for a while and, you know, you. You're a big name out there in the copywriting world. I do have some listeners who I suspect probably haven't heard of you before. So before we dive in, why don't you give us kind of a quick story, you know, the Stephan story, including, you know, up to, like, what you do now and what kind of clients you work with and you know, what you're involved in.

Yeah, absolutely.

So I first discovered copywriting back in 2011. Before that, I was working at an outdoor school in Marble Falls, Texas, and teaching kids about nature. But my dad had got sick with cancer, and I went back home to San Diego to help out and kind of be there for him. It was like a stage four type of cancer. And he passed away after four pretty brutal months. And so I thought I was going to just be doing stuff like in outdoor ed and nature and then kind of life down the way. And after that happened, I took a trip to Las Vegas to kind of blow off steam. And I met a girl at a poker table, and somebody asked her at the table, what do you do for a living? And she said, I'm a writer. And I thought she was really attractive. So I said, hey, what kind of writer? She said, I'm a copywriter. And I said, oh, that's amazing. Wow, how cool. And I pulled out my iPhone one and googled, what's a copywriter? Because I had no idea.

But then her and I hit it.

Off, and I ended up taking a corporate job in South Florida. And she came down to spend a weekend. And at the end of the weekend, I said, I don't want you to leave. She said, I don't want to leave either. And so she didn't. She stayed. And the one thing I noticed is that I was doing this outside sales job in the Florida sun, working 10, 12, 14 hours a day in a cheap, crummy suit and sweating my face off and getting home, and she's in her underwear. She has a beer or whatever.

And she made like $1,000 that day.

And I made $200. And so after a little while, I said, hey, I kind of want to try what you're doing? This seems like way better than driving all around Florida in South Florida traffic, sweating and doing something that isn't super fulfilling. And so she showed me a little bit about what she did. And I put something on a website called Warrior Forum where I did like an offer, like a classified to write copy for people. I charged $149 to write a sales page for a person. So kind of like a sales letter is what it's called, and basically a marketing script. And I woke up the next morning, I had $298 in my PayPal account. And after that I was pretty much like, well, that's that. So I quit my corporate job a few months after that. And the kind of really abbreviated version is that I became a freelancer. I struggled like everyone does. I had visions of being on a beach in exotic countries, sipping on pina coladas while I worked for my laptop and making tons of money. And it was like the reality was there was months where I made a good amount of money and months where I was really stressed about paying the rent and not having to pawn a musical instrument to pay it and learning a lot about working with clients and just a lot of different headaches to go into being a freelancer. And then I made every mistake you can imagine. Started an agency that was okay, but ended up killing my soul. Went back to freelancing with clients, and then I started a health supplement company and started working with higher profile clients and started a copywriting mastermind. And obviously we can kind of dive in on stuff, but basically where I am today is considered one of the top direct response copywriters out there. I've grossed over $700 million in sales through my writing, both for my own different kind of products and companies and for clients. I work with a lot of people in the health space. So like in health and wellness, people like V Shred and Sculpt Nation, if you ever see them G plants. I've written for Golden Hippo and Gundry MD and people like that. And yeah, just it's super rewarding. And then I teach and have the mastermind where we help both copywriters and business owners to kind of scale their funnels and their businesses and their offers through the power of effective copywriting.

Man, what a journey. I mean, it hasn't really been that long when you think about it. And I know this wasn't a linear path with, you know, right a lot of mistakes, a lot of wrong turns, a lot of dead ends. And this is going to lead into what I'd like to get to in terms of our core discussion. But, you know, you had no idea what this world was about, and then you start learning about it. I mean, it sounds like you just went ahead and started experimenting and you put something out there, and before you knew it, I mean, 290 bucks in your PayPal account. I know what that can feel like, right? That's huge. I mean, sometimes that means more than getting the big checks, because it was the first couple hundred bucks you made. So was that the moment you said to yourself, okay, this is going to be it. I got to transition out of this job? Because, I mean, that's not a lot of money, Right? But it's enough to help you see that there's a future here for you?

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, it was. And it's like, I didn't quit my job the very next day, but I immediately tried to get more clients and to kind of get enough of a study. I mean, studies are kind of not even the right word for it, but enough income and enough proof of concept to feel like I could quit my job and have enough money coming in through client work to be able to basically take care of my essential needs, like paying for rent and food and shelter and things like that. And so as soon as I. Because I've always been drawn to creative stuff and, like, music and writing, and as soon as I realized that I could get paid to do that, it was perfect. And it's funny, because I'd never really been able to hold a job for a very long time prior to that. My dad, prior to passing, had called me an unguided missile because it seemed like I was bouncing from thing to thing. And I remember before I went to South Florida, sitting at the kitchen table with my mom and my cousin, and this is after my dad had passed, but being, like, talking about what Laura did a little bit. So the girl I always forget to close the loop, she became my wife. We're married. We have a beautiful daughter who's a little over two and a half years old now, and we have been together since 2011. And I love her, and she's changed my life. But at the time, she was this girl I just met. But I was telling my mom and my cousin about what she did, and I was like, I don't know, I think maybe I can just make, like, make money by, like, just writing, like, you know, writing for people, like, on the Internet. And they both were looking. I was crazy. And they're like, you Know, go take that job. Like, what are you talking about? And so I did. But again, as soon as I had that validation, like a win there, and I knew that people were willing to pay me to write and to be creative and to. It felt like, you know, the greatest. Like I just had won the lottery. I mean, it seriously did. It felt like I won millions of dollars because I saw this path to where I never had to be. Be an employee again, and I never had to have a boss again, and I could just have more freedom. So as soon as that happened, I quit my job within probably about two months, maybe at most three months from that first kind of those first deposits in my PayPal account.

Wow.

So that leads me to something else that comes up quite a bit. And I see this a lot with copywriters, which is the whole dilemma, the push and pull between I want to earn a much better income or I want to earn income as a copywriter. But I don't know what. I don't know. I don't, you know, I don't have the skills yet. You know, how did you balance early on? This need for earning more, plus the need to, of course, learn your craft? Because when you did this, I'm assuming maybe you knew some of the basics, but you were, I mean, really green at that moment.

I would think, yeah, super green. So the couple things I did, I mean, I did model off of what I saw working. So for example, in the. That Warrior forum site, it was a lot of like, it was like an Internet marketing forum. So people would release some new, like, FB ad scraper and some software that would, you know, pull like, the best Facebook ads and give them to you, and then you could model off them and use them. And so there's like, other products like that in the market. So I would kind of look at what the top products, like the sales copy for those top products, and then I would just kind of model off of that, which I still model off of what's working today. And then, you know, today I'm getting paid like 50, $75,000 to write stuff, which is a crazy increase. Right. But that part hasn't changed. I'm like, if I'm doing something right now for in the beauty space. So it's really cool, like a neuroscientist doctor and like a celebrity. And I can't say too many details, but it's great. But I'm still looking at, okay, what are the other top kind of like funnels and quote unquote offers in the Marketplace and what are dissecting them, looking at them, what are they like, and then taking that and figuring a way to kind of not copy it, but to model off of it. So that's one thing. And I did that right from the beginning. I think anyone can do that too. If you just find what's working and you model off of that, the probability that what you do is going to be at least pretty good is actually really high. And then the second thing, I really honestly was just taking anything. People talk about finding a niche and everyone. You got to find a niche. You've got to find one thing, one market segment that you write to or whatever. And I really don't like that advice early on for people, at least for me personally. And I was on Elance a lot, which is now Upwork, and I did everything. So I did market research for a guy who wanted to do, gosh, it was like, I think, like data, like server storage, like warehouses or something like that. I wrote like a kid's college paper, I think two college papers. I wrote SEO stuff for people. Oh, huge. Like a logistics company. I wrote a bunch of their web copy. I just did whatever I could. And I think it was great because it just exposed me to all these different businesses and styles of writing and finding out what worked and what didn't work. So for me, I think early on, the big thing is just be open to taking on whatever, but look at it. Worry less about the money. Early on I get. We all have our needs and we need to. We don't get out on the street. But, like, within reason, like, I would worry less about money and more about the experience and the exposure. And then I guess the third thing too, though I did start doing this pretty early on with Elance, which again, is now upwork is I would. I think I started at like 15 to $20 an hour for my writing. And I do, you know, really custom proposals and sort of like you're going to get a lot of people, but here's why I'm the best and, you know, like really speaking to the clients. And then when I was getting, I found that, like, I would get. Some people just wanted to hire cheap, right? They were like, oh, this is a place where I can get people to do stuff for $5 an hour. Like, that's what I'll do. So I was never going to get those clients when I didn't want them, right? So I wanted the people who had a high budget, who seemed like they were going to look for more premium types of freelancers and contractors. And for them, I took the time to really craft customized proposals. I'd look at their website, I'd give them suggestions, I'd be consultative. And I just did all this kind of intuitively, honestly. But then I realized that I was getting a lot of my proposal was accepted and that nobody was balking at 15 or $20 an hour. So I very quickly raised it to $30 an hour, then $40 an hour, then $50 an hour. I didn't worry about my experience. It was like I was getting results for them and nobody was saying no. So I was like, I'm going to keep raising my rates until people start saying no. And honestly, no one ever got to that point. I just ended up getting so many referrals and things like that that I stopped using that platform.

Wow, that's awesome. I like what you're saying because what I'm hearing is, and this is the advice I gave my coaching clients, it's like, look at the beginning. Say yes to everything. You're buying lottery tickets, you don't know which one's going to hit. And you know, in fact, sometimes the biggest breakthroughs come from the most unexpected places. So you just got out there and just started, right, creating activity and eventually that started leading you somewhere. And had you done way too much planning and strategizing and not enough action taking, but it sounds like you wouldn't be where you are today because you would have just kind of been married to a specific path that maybe didn't exist.

Yeah, 100%. I mean, I think about it and to your point, I wrote for this company, I think they were called 3DP or 3PD. They were considered one of the largest white glove, last mile, third party logistics companies. I think they're publicly traded and if someone else had been hired, her agency had been hired to completely revamped their website. But then she subcontracted a ton of the work to me and paid really well. It was like, I think $40 an hour or something like that. And it was a lot of work. So I made, who knows, well, at least a couple thousand dollars a month for a few months writing for them. So in my head I'm like, ooh, this client, this is the one, right? But then really what's funny is another guy, this guy Dr. Farrow, who I'm still friends with today, hired me off of elance to write emails for his random quote unquote random health company and then paid less. But we've maintained this relationship. And then he introduced me to this chiropractor named Dr. Guy Nunziata who had a, this thing called a NeuroFeedback and had 120 different doctor's offices underneath. All licensing is technology. And then I did stuff for Dr. Guy and then through him he let me then market do a webinar to all of his doctors. And then that's the first time I started making five figures a month was through them. So the reason I bring that up is because you would have thought, ooh, this big billion dollar company, that's where my big breaks can come from. But after a couple weeks, the woman who was sort of the intermediary disappeared and I haven't talked to her in years and years. And then the random dude who I thought was just sort of a complete one off project ended up introducing me to this amazing additional client which led to me having an agency and making 10,000 plus in a single month. So you just never know what. You really can't judge a book by its cover and you also just really don't know where it's going to go. And rather than spend too much time planning, obsessing and worrying, it's better to just take action and do. And then you'll be surprised by where life will take you sometimes.

Yeah. Ready, fire, Aim. Right.

Exactly.

No other way. And that's very uncomfortable for a lot of people. I know. I think for most people it is. But I find that you get more comfortable with it the more you do it because especially when you're busy, you just. And then the money's coming in. It doesn't feel like that huge of a risk as you're moving along through all this. I love this because you're showing us the good, the bad and the ugly. I've never seen anyone be a nine year overnight success. I'd never seen anyone with a clear path or an overnight path to where you are. But how did you. It sounds like you're really good at deconstructing things and looking at the core elements in a piece and just understanding why something is working. So if you know it's working, you can kind of deconstruct it and kind of pick it apart and then kind of imitate and use some of the same elements. How else did you learn, you know, those first few years when you're now getting a little bit more and more into direct response copywriting, you know, what other tools, what other sources helped you get better at your craft?

Yeah, it was a lot of studying what was working. And then I had, I Got lucky. I got good clients and who mentored me. So these guys in Romania who were had like a survival company selling guys on how to build your own home, aquaponics systems and things like that. But you know, they were doing 10 to 15 million a year probably at that point. But it's still a lot. But especially at that time I was like, oh my gosh, right. Like you can make that much money online and. But they didn't just, they gave me a lot of feedback. I mean, they mentored me. So they would look at what I was writing and they would leave comments and then they would give me resources to study. So there's a kind of famous within the world of direct response newsletter thing called the Screaming Eagle newsletter that was put out by a copywriter named Clay Makepeace. And then him and his kind of protege at the time, Tony Flores, had one all about something called fascinations, which are really just like curiosity bullets. And so if you look at through reading inside, you're going to discover the three reasons why you should never call a plumber when your toilet's leaking. If it's making this one sound like, hint, this can save you up to $500 every time or whatever. It's like a random thing that gets your curiosity and you're like, oh well, what is it? And you want to keep reading or there's going to be used in the actual selling a product if it's an informational product and you're like, hey, say you're selling a health guide and it's like inside you're going to discover why one roadside weed can be more powerful than aspirin when it comes to alleviating headaches and getting rid of your aches and pains. And like better, you know, even better, it's completely natural and side effect free or something like that. So, you know, get the guide to find out what it is. So basically they had me like, they gave me resources like that so I would study those things and that really helped. And then just a lot of practice, practice does make perfect, or at least practice makes better, not perfect. There's no perfect response. Yeah. And then I kind of created my own methodology, this thing called the RNBC method, which sort of helped me to be more like take an assembly line type of approach as well. And you know, that helped too.

When did you start feeling like, you know what, this is getting to a different level? I mean, do you remember a point where you maybe took a huge leap, a quantum leap forward in your business? What was that like and what did that feel like?

I mean, it was really when those guys started mentoring me and gave me some of those documents and were giving me breakdowns that they had done of other sales copy and things like that. And I think that was really where it started. And then having success. I mean, the biggest one was like in 20, I guess, like late 2013, early, I got probably 2014 actually. And one of the guys, he went on to like a health company kind of doing alternative health stuff. So like info products about how to lower blood sugar or things like that. And I was writing copy for them and he came out to visit me for like a month and which I was like, wow, he's coming for a month. And this whole thing is like, I don't think you realize like kind of how good your stuff's doing because I wasn't really getting data. And I was like, well, like, what do you mean? He's like, well, I mean, if I told you how much, you know, like revenue that you were generating off of the copy that you're writing, you'd be blown away. And I'm like, you can tell me. And he's like, I don't actually think I should. And I'm like, like, I'm like, I was like, I'm not going to ask for more money. Like, it's fine, you can tell me. And then he was like, oh, well, you know, we're like going to probably do around 100 million in revenue this year. And I was like, I need more money. But the validation there, you know, I mean, because that validation, like, oh my gosh, like this, what I'm writing is generating this kind of revenue. You know, that's the part where you're.

Like, wow, I guess I must be pretty good at this.

So for you, you know, that's one of the beautiful things about direct response copywriting is, you know, in terms of value based pricing, in terms of, you know, bringing your fees up, it's. You have that confidence because you see the tangible results, right? Even then, I see a lot of direct response copywriters who have a hard time with it. You know, they really get shy about that. But, you know, I'm curious, what advice would you give to someone where maybe the results are not as visible because they're more indirect. So if I'm writing content for a B2B company and it could be a $3 billion a year company, how do I build up the confidence to start basing my fees more on value than on my time or the word or what I think it might be worth. Or what Susie next door is charging.

Right?

Yeah. I would look at it as, I mean, so much of it just comes.

Down to positioning and marketing yourself. I would. Even if you're not getting really tangible feedback, there probably is something like engagement impressions, whatever it is.

So I would be trying to get.

Whatever data I can from the clients. And then if the client keeps hiring you for more work, that's usually a good sign too. I would look at getting testimonials. I think it's really important from those clients and the permission to use them.

And then I would look at some.

Kind of unique mechanism or differentiator for yourself as a writer. Right. So if you, at that point, if you're, say you're niche, then and you're doing a lot of B2B stuff and maybe it's in the. Whatever it is, like, I don't know, like, like a tech or something like that.

It's like, you know, oh, yeah, like.

Look, this is my specialty. I'm the best at it. Here's why all these companies come to me for it. You know, here's my list, right? Here's what they've said about me. And then maybe even some kind of like, unique thing with how you, like, you know, how you approach it.

Like, gosh, waiting, like, you know, one of the reasons why is because I used to live in the Bay Area and I actually lived with a bunch of tech employees who went on to found startups. So I really understand the thinking that they go through. And I've learned how to communicate that to a broad audience or whatever that reason is. You talk to the doctor who wants to do, and this is copyright, but wants to do health copy. I talked to literally a doctor the other day. She's been doctor for 20 years, and she wants to do freelance copywriting because she's passionate about it. And it was like, she wants to do health copywriting. I'm like, well, you realize you just come to them and you're like, well, there's lots of health copywriters out there, but very few of them are doctors. And like, you know, so I just understand it better. But same thing with, I talked to a computer programmer who wants to do copywriting. And it's like, you can be like, hey, you know, copywriters are these creative types and that's great. But like, I bring the logical kind of sequential process of being a programmer, and I marry that with my creativity and passion. So I'm able to deliver a copy that hits and speaks to both sides of the brain. And you can do the same thing with content. So just finding a reason, like a bit of a story that kind of differentiates you and explains why you have more of a mastery and are better at connecting with the market than any of the other content writers out there. I think if you just do that, plus the other stuff I said, that will put you pretty far ahead.

So it sounds like even though at first it may not make sense to specialize or to get too narrow, because again, we want to buy a lottery tickets, what I'm hearing is there are cases you believe that as you grow, you should maybe narrow your field. So you can say, I'm the best in here, I'm the best in this area.

Exactly. And I think that's where when I say that I don't like that advice of niching down, I do mean specifically for people who are just starting out or early on. Because it's like anything, you get a lot of exposure and then you funnel and narrow down and you become an expert in a singular type of thing. And at that point it's really valuable to do that is you want to command higher fees and prices and things like that. So, yeah, absolutely, it is. It's just I think people who are at that level where they are commanding higher fees, think about how they've niched down and that got them there. And that's why they say, oh, you got niched down too. But yeah, like once you know what you're good at, what you like, what's getting results, then you should. But early on, just again, play the lottery, you know, expose yourself to chaos. And then after that, you can start to bring more and more order and more definition to what you're focused on.

Yeah. Because you won't know the answers to those things unless you walk down the path.

Right.

And you can't skip that path. I think that's the case in virtually any field, but especially here.

I'm curious to get your take on.

Where you see this world going. You know, especially direct response copywriting. I get a lot of listeners who direct response copywriters. And I'm just curious, I mean, where is this going? It used to be that, well, you have to be great at direct mail. And then it was like, you know, all about online. And now it seems like, you know, at least what I've been seeing is you can't just be a copywriter. You know, you don't want to be an order taker. Hey, what do you need written? Great. I'll Write that for you. Right. Do you see that? You know, we're moving to a world where if you really want to do well, you got to be way beyond just a copywriter, where you have to be a consultant, where you have to truly understand funnels and how they work and be able to help the client with those things. I mean, where do you see success in the future?

I think that you should be like a consultant or consultative. You know, I think there are so many consultants out there. Like, I'm getting cold messaged on LinkedIn and Instagram by consultants all day, every day. And, you know, it's easy to ignore that versus a great copywriter. It's much more interesting to clients who understand the power of great copy. So I think that continuing to define yourself as a great copywriter is valuable. But once it comes to doing clients, you do want to be consultative. And part of my unique mechanism is that I started a health supplement company, scaled it to $23 million in the second year. I've since been involved with other companies that have scaled and grown to eight and nine figures. So if you were to hire me, I understand all these things about your business and what the copy needs to. Not just good copy, but copy is going to get you a high average order value. Because if you have a higher average order value, that means you can acquire more customers, right? Because you can pay more. So if someone's like, you know, if Bob's like, you know, sales copy means every time you make a sale, you get $100. And my sales copy means every time you make a sale, you get $200, because people are ordering more quantities. Then you're going to pick me, because at $200, you can pay $100 to acquire a customer, and you can't with Bob's. And the more you can pay to acquire a customer, the more you can scale yourself and make more revenue and whatever. So not to get in the weeds, but there's that consultative approach to it. That being said, to your broader question about where's it all going, I honestly think direct response is just super underutilized and leveraged. So I frankly think it's going to just become more mainstream. I saw this election. Obviously we're recording this the day before November 2nd, so the day before the 2020 election. And I can't tell you how many campaign emails I get. And this is the first election where I saw a lot of the campaigns copying techniques that we've been teaching and talking about in the kind of hardcore direct response world for Years, like as far as like the subject lines and the body copy and all this kind of stuff. So it's like the campaigns are kind of getting it, but there's still way more they could be doing. They could be using video sales letters, frankly, why can't you use a video sales letter to like, you know, sell a candidate or to just, you know, kind of dis the other candidate, I guess. And then even brands, even E Comm. Even like a lot of companies, like, they're just. Their headlines aren't very good or they're not having good calls to action, or there's just so many elements. I personally think where it's going to go is that you're just going to see the application of all these great direct response concepts that are proven to work around conversions, increasing average order value, engagement, storytelling, connecting emotionally, go more and more mainstream and get connected more and more to larger brands that will use them to their benefit, which is more.

Opportunity for all of us then way more. Yeah, I saw this the other day. It's so funny. So many little opportunities that could make. Well, let me put it simple. Opportunities that can make all the difference. So I'm really into wine. And I was ordering wine from this company, E Commerce, and once I placed.

My order, they said, hey, do you.

Want to fill the box with these other wines?

Right.

And I said no, but I was tempted. So a couple of days later, it's okay, we're getting ready to ship your order. Hey, this is an opportunity right now to add, you know, a couple more gems. And they suggested a few things based on what I had ordered. I thought that was brilliant.

This is something that you and I.

Are used to every day. But in that world, that's not something most companies are doing and think about, you know, increasing average order value. I mean, talk about you could take an order especially. That was my first purchase. They're just covering their costs, maybe even losing money. And now we're adding profit to it, which, you know, so I'm assuming that part of it will be like you said, maybe not so much positioning yourself as a consultant. It could still be a direct response copywriter in a specific niche. But when you're working with a client is maybe, you know, offering these ideas, is maybe talking through these things with them, right?

Yeah, 100%. I mean, the wine example is brilliant. I mean, another thing that they could do is if you think about, okay, like, who's more likely to buy a Rolex? Is it the guy who has 10 Rolexes already or the Person who's never bought a Rolex before.

Yeah, the one who has a bunch.

Right, exactly. And so even from an upsell standpoint, and we've been doing this in direct response for forever, is if you. The best thing to upsell somebody who is buying a physical product is more of that product, right. Besides, like, a car, maybe you might, like, go buy a Mercedes. Hey, buy three more Mercedes at a discount, right? That usually doesn't work. But like with wine, even with the wine you were getting, and I don't know if you got a variety or what, but, like, you know, especially some. Yeah, if it came in and you're like, hey, like, you know what, you can, like double your order, but you'll save, you know, 25%. Like, here's why we're able to do that. Like, the shipping is really expensive, but because you're already. We're shipping this out, we can add these and kind of what they did with actually, like adding more to the box. But even just like sort of like having that reason for why I like to get more. And even if you just bought one, you know, three bottles of the same type of wine, to be like, hey, you just bought three bottles, you must really like it. Well, honestly, you know, there's a lot of people liking it. We don't always have it in stock, but we do right now. So how would you like to get, like six more bottles and save, you know, 10% or 15% off your order? I mean, even just doing that stuff, like, they would a lot, a surprising amount of people will say, like, yes, that it would increase their average order value and their revenue per customer significantly. And so just things like that the companies aren't doing, that would just. Could be a game changer for them. It could add 25, 50, 70% boost to their revenue, you know, more. And so, yeah, I think there's just huge opportunities there.

So as we start closing, Stefan, I'm curious, what advice would you give an experienced copywriter? Okay. They've been at this for a while who have hit kind of that income plateau. You know, they just. They're kind of stuck in this area. And they're skilled, they're very good at what they do, but for some reason, they're just. They've been stuck there. What would you recommend they look at or try?

Yeah, I'd look at a couple of things. I mean, I would look at. I would just be curious.

Why.

Why are you stuck? Is it because. What could it be? It could be clients. It could be like that you may just need new clients. It could be positioning for yourself, like how are you positioned in the marketplace? You know, it could be the industry category or niche that you write in and that there's a ceiling there. So I think you got to identify really, why? Cause I know it sounds simple, but I having a mastermind with 250 plus copywriters and business owners, I see this a lot. And you know, a lot of times we kind of, we're a little bit passive about it. When we get stuck too, we're like, yeah, I don't know, I'm just stuck. And you're like, okay, well like, you know why. But again, if you find that right client, maybe you don't get stuck anymore. Like for example, if I'm just writing for a bunch of people and like the weight, like the muscle niche, like building muscles and like the go to there is that they'll pay no more than $10,000 or whatever it is. And then you move over to like a broader health supplement niche and someone's going to pay 25,000 or 30,000. So sometimes it's as simple as making kind of a lateral move. You're not moving out of health altogether, but you're moving to a different segment. And then I think also I would look at do you want to keep being a freelance copyright or not? Because if you do, which is awesome, then what I just said, kind of. But if you don't, then maybe it's time to look at starting your own venture, your own business. Because one of the reasons I did start my own company and have now since started many companies, is because of the ceiling that even when I was writing for those guys in Romania and they were doing 100 million plus a year and I was making really good money for the first time in my life, there was still a ceiling for me where I was still kind of like never going to have ownership in that business. In hindsight, I don't think I actually really wanted it. But still I was like, I couldn't never get ownership in this business. I could never really go to making more. I kind of capped out and I was like, well, I have no path to keep moving and growing. And so that's one of the reasons that I left. So I think evaluate that too. I don't think. I think being a freelancer is being an entrepreneur. And then we shouldn't make the mistake of thinking it's not because you're your own boss, you're managing sales, you're managing customer service, you're Managing fulfillment. But it's also great training for if you do want to move onward to potentially starting your own business or venture. The one thing I would caution against, and hopefully this doesn't go against what you teach, because. But I personally think that too many people start agencies and that that's not the right move because I think agencies can be great and can be fine. I just think a lot of folks, it's like, oh, I'm the bottleneck, but if I get three people under me, then I can take on even more business and I charge the same. But I'm actually paying people a small amount to do it, so my margins are higher and it sounds really great. But then suddenly you're running a business managing people, managing multiple clients. You overload yourself. So I would caution people against diving right into the agency model without really thinking about it. But, yeah, I don't know, it's kind of. It's a hard question to answer. So I don't know if that was a good answer.

Yeah, no, I think because you gave us different ways to look at it, maybe you give us kind of a diagnostic approach, which I think is really helpful. But I do love what you said. And it doesn't, by the way, go against what I teach. I tell people, look, you know, scaling like that as an agency is not for everybody.

Exactly.

It's a different set of skills that you need. In some cases, you're going to want to hire some of those skills because you may not have project management or people management skills. But one of the things I love about this craft is this is something you can now take and use if you end up launching your own venture. Because one of the hardest things to do is really the sales and marketing. And that's not something that I would automatically outsource to somebody else. If you have that skill, that's one of the most valuable skills you could have. And then you kind of fill the other slot. So I think that's awesome that you've been able to use that to launch and grow other businesses.

Yeah, absolutely. 100%. And yeah, I think that's the big thing. You hit the nail on the head of the agencies. It's not that, like, again, nothing wrong with the agencies. It's just that I think people go into them without realizing that it's an entirely different business and you need entirely different skills. And it has to be done really intelligently. And if you do intelligently, it can be a great model and great business.

But they think that's the default thing. Well, I guess the next step for me is this. Well, not necessarily. Yeah, I hear you.

And it's kind of haphazard, right? It's sort of like, okay, I'll just hire three people and then I'll go get more business and then, oh, boy. Oh, like, the people I hired didn't do a good job. Now I'm fixing that. But now I don't have time for this. And now the clients, you know, it's just. It's sort of. It's like, again, this is not being strategic or intentional.

That's the big thing, Right?

But yeah, to your point, I mean, that's what I. The last. I mean, we can talk as long as you want, but the last thing I'll say about to just echo what you said is what I feel like is a great, like, before becoming a really accomplished direct response copywriter, I wouldn't have thought of myself as like a salesman or like, ever, you know, use that. Or maybe would have thought it was like a, like a word that wasn't a badge of honor. And now I would say I'm an incredible salesman and I love the idea of selling in person. And I've done, you know, talk from stage and sold like a million dollars from stage. Or I've just done presentations where I'm not selling at all, but I'm giving value, but I'm crafting amazing stuff. And like, it's like just that skill. It can be applied to so many things. Like, once you're really good at selling through the written word, you're really good at selling through the spoken word as well and in different situations and in so many different contexts. So thinking about that and maybe ways that you can diversify or apply what your skills to other areas and niches and things where that could be valuable, I think that can really help you to get out of a rut or.

Kind of move forward in your career as well.

Yeah, you'll never starve, basically.

Yeah, totally.

Nurses are never going to starve, and good copywriters will never starve.

So, Stefan, tell us a little bit.

About, as we wrap up your. You know, how you're helping copywriters these days? Because you've mentioned the mastermind. I know you got several things going on. So how are you helping and supporting others who are looking to grow their copywriting income?

Yeah, absolutely. I think, you know, a couple of things that I'm doing. I spent a lot of time on this, honestly. And so one is like the mastermind. So it's called copy Accelerator. We Have a, like a full version where we provide feedback in a Facebook group to the different writers and business owners, but the full version is full so that there's like a pretty long waiting list for that. Then we have a light version, but we're teaching and training every single week. And it's a whole community of writers and super supportive and so, you know, people can check that out. Copy accelerator I think the website's copy and funnel accelerator.com, but to be honest, we don't even use the website a lot. But the better thing too, honestly is if you just go on my email list, which is. Are you okay with me sharing that?

Oh, of course. Please do.

Sweet. So it's just. Yes. StefanPaul georgi.com subscribe so Stefan S-T E F A N Paul P- A U L and then George I is G E O R-G-I.com subscribe I send out a daily email to my list where I talk about a lot of stuff. I mean copywriting, direct response elements, but also mindset scaling businesses, just all kinds of good things. I don't really pitch people that much on my list. You don't get on it. And I start sending you links and trying to sell you courses occasionally. Obviously I do if I have like I have a course called the RNBC Method. So of course I want people to buy that. But really it's about sort of providing as much value as possible and building an authentic relationship with my list. And then the last thing is I have a weekly podcast which is kind of calling radio show style called the Road to a Billion. So if you want to check out the Road to a Billion, you can search for it on YouTube or on iTunes as well. And so those are three ways to.

Kind of, I guess, be supported by me.

Awesome. We'll make sure to include links to all that in the show notes. And man, I just appreciate you coming on today. Really enjoyed our conversation. This is great stuff. And listen, what you've been able to grow is. It's really inspiring. So thanks for sharing that story with us.

Yeah, absolutely. I really appreciate you having me on and I love sharing and just happy to have gotten to talk with you. So thank you for having me.

The High Income Business Writing Podcast is a production of B2B business launcher. Learn more at B2B launcher dot com.