10x vs 1000x marketer, 3 questions for copywriting success, and LTV: the most misunderstood metric

The 10x marketer versus the 1000x marketer. So the reason I came up with this one was because, you know, there's— let's say you're working with a developer. A 10x developer would be if you have the ideas, you give it to the developer, they just execute it flawlessly. That's a 10x developer, right? But a 1000x developer is someone that will also figure out what to build and then they'll just go out there and build it. And I think we're going to see a lot more of those. And so I'm like, okay, well, Then what is a 10x marketer versus a 1,000x marketer? So 10x marketer, you might have to tell them what to do and they'll go execute it, but then they're going to be waiting for orders, waiting for orders, right? But 1,000x marketers going to be leveraging like Cursor or different workflows, agentic workflows. They're going to be building out all this stuff and they're going to be coming back to you and say, hey, Neil, I solved this problem over here. Here's the results. I'm going to move on to this thing over here. And it just— they just keep going, keep going, keep going. And it's hard for you to even keep up with them, right? And that's what— it feels good. It feels good to be pulled by the 1000x marketer. Whereas with the 10x marketer, you still have to push them a little bit. Yeah.

And to me, the 10x marketer is more like a 0.5x marketer. And they're just an order taker. The person who's 1000x, they're better than you at a lot of things. And they can go and figure out things on their own and you learn from them. And those are the ideal people to hire.

And you got to unblock those people no matter what, you got to give them resources if you can. You got to surround them with stuff, otherwise they're going to leave.

Yes, when those people want to run, you let them run because typically they'll produce better results and make you more money.

All right, what do you got?

Another one that I got is there was a report from 404 Media. So is your phone listening? Marketing firm confirms that—

Dude, what is 404 Media? You're acting like that's the popular media.

I have no idea what 404 Media is. 404 Media is an online publication focused on technology and internet. So they're getting it from somewhere.

Okay.

It's like a research company is what it looks like.

All right, go for it.

But 404 Media reported, according to them, they have confirmed that smartphones are not just tracking users' online activity, they're also listening to what you say out loud near your phone. Hmm.

I mean, but that's been like that for a while though.

I don't know if people are listening to me when I'm, you know, around my phone and it's not— Talking to someone?

Have you heard about the concept of the cocaine phone versus the kale phone?

I don't know what a cocaine phone is or a kale phone.

I'll let you finish and then we'll talk about the cocaine and the kale phone.

Well, let's talk actually about the cocaine and the kale phone right now.

Okay. So, cocaine phone— so, cocaine phone is a phone that has all the apps, all the distractions, right? You might have Instagram, you have Uber, you have all these notifications bombarding you and you're just constantly checking, constantly checking. Dopamine hit, dopamine hit, dopamine hit, right? And well, it ends up making you— you still have stuff. You have email and stuff. That's still dopamine hits, right? And you check your email all the time. I know you do.

No, but go message me or send me an email. It doesn't notify me.

No, I know. I don't have that either. I don't have notifications on. But my point is I'm still susceptible to checking stuff even though I have all these blockers, right? It doesn't let me use Instagram from like 9 AM to 7 PM or something. And like Twitter, I can't use it either. But point is a kale phone, has no apps. It has no apps, it has nothing. You can just use it to make phone calls and text people and that's it, right? And so, when you do that, it makes you feel a lot calmer. And you just use your old phone for that. You might have to pay for another phone number to do it. But I do find myself like the more I use this, if I go over like 2, 3— over 3 hours of screen time, I start to feel anxious. Less than that, I'm alright.

So— I don't have these problems. I also don't just check my emails randomly or I don't put blockers on my phone. I just don't use it that often.

Yeah, well, you have discipline. Most people don't. Most people don't. You're also single, looking at a lot of— No, most people, most people don't need to use— um, sorry, most people do use their phones a lot. And I see, dude, I see the behavior of like my friends. And then, you know, if I'm traveling or whatever, it's constant scrolling, constant. I— when I took my mom to Vegas, I was surprised. I'm like, oh shit, she knows how to use YouTube. And she's just browsing Shorts and she just keeps scrolling.

But wait, let's go back with you.

Yeah?

How much do you think your screen time would decrease if you weren't—

I don't have a lot of screen time on Instagram.

Not Instagram. If you weren't texting people that you're dating.

No, I don't have— I knew you were going to say that. I was trying to avoid it, but you still went into it anyway. Still went into it. Trying to avoid it. Not a lot. I don't use a lot. So if I use—

Or communicating with them with Instagram or any of these apps.

Here, let me look at my screen time over here. So my screen time, okay. Sweetgreen, I was on for 56 minutes today. I don't know why I was on for 56 minutes.

Wait, Sweetgreen has an app?

Yeah, I use it to order. I ordered a Green Goddess chicken salad. It's amazing.

Why don't you just go through Uber Eats?

Because it's more expensive that way. Oh my God. And you get Sweetgreen, you get a membership.

Do they deliver to you though?

Yes. And they go through Uber anyway. But the thing is you get a discount. They give you like $10 discount sometimes, $3 discounts. There's like, you can be a member. All right. Okay. Gmail today only. Okay, so most used today is 56 minutes on Sweetgreen. X was 41 minutes. Instagram was 37 minutes. Messages was 25 minutes. Gmail's 12 minutes. Slack was 11 minutes. LinkedIn, 5 minutes. I was—

I've used this for—

It's off.

There's no way you're on Sweetgreen for 56 minutes. It's tracking it when you weren't using it. I think a lot of the tracking stuff is not perfect.

Okay, let's check for the week. Okay. Instagram, 2.2 hours a day.

A day or total?

Total for the last 7 days. And then messages, 2 hours. Okay. That includes you as well. And then X would be 1 hour, 46 minutes.

Eric does something that's really interesting. I don't do it, but I think it's a really smart move is he just keeps his phone on do not disturb. So that way when anyone texts him, it just does not notify.

Did you know that with even random phone numbers, you can just block them? It just goes straight to voicemail. Do you have that set up?

Yeah. Yeah. You dial like something star something or pound something.

No, no, no. It's just a setting. You just, Tap it and then that's it.

You can dial something where it just blocks all spam callers.

Oh, really?

Yeah.

Oh, I didn't know that.

I saw that on Instagram. Someone shared it with me.

Oh, you got value.

They texted it and they're like, dial this and your iPhone will block. And I'm like, this seems like a hoax. And then I just tried it.

Oh, you got value from a reel.

And then I was like, oh. And then my calls decreased drastically. Wow.

Okay. What is the star? Do you remember what you texted?

I did not. It was a long time ago.

You could have got a lot of views from this reel.

Yeah, but I would've got a lot of views. Guess how many customers?

Zero.

Zero.

Zero.

So it's okay. But yeah, going back to the phone listening, I think these companies are going to use this data more and more to just target us with ads.

Yeah.

And just wait till they start doing everything offline and AI gets integrated into your fridges and into your dishwashers and into your—

Your toilet.

Yeah, your microwaves and all that kind of stuff.

It's like, Neil, your poop is very soft today.

Yes, you need to take these pills. It will arrive in your house within 1 hour. Do you accept?

Yeah, whoever makes that toilet is gonna make a lot of money. The affiliate commission toilet.

It's gonna be great. Dude, the amount of health data that's probably in your stool.

Yeah, it's probably ridiculous. It's gonna be a subscription and then whatever they recommend, they're gonna get a cut and then they'll probably partner up with other health companies to sell that data, right? The stool is worth a lot of money, Brad.

Brad, are you going to create this company? Anyone who creates this company, feel free to hook us up on a commission, idea equity stake.

Yeah, idea equity stake. Yeah, yeah, 5% each is fine.

And Eric will invest.

Neil will invest. I'll be the ideas guy.

No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.

Okay, I got to take a minute to tell you about the Agency Owners Association. This is a peer group for agency owners. Think YPO or EO, but for agency owners, and I just wanted to read you a couple of testimonials. So this first one comes from Carrie, and we asked her, what do you like most about the group? She said, having a group of people to discuss and bounce ideas. The leads are great too. Yes, we share leads in this group as well. This one from Ollie, and he says, the ability to really post whatever I want and need, and the group responds. Great experienced members. Getting a lot of insights from conversations with other members. Getting a lot of value from sessions from Eric. Getting advice from others as well. And so if you want to grow your agency faster and you want a peer group to do so, just go to marketingschool.io/agency. This is a group that both Neil and I created, and our hope here is to create a vibrant community of agency owners and do a lot more with it in the future. So again, marketingschool.io/agency, and we'll see you inside. I saw this really good, uh, there's this guy that's been up and coming. I tried to actually give him money, um, when he was like 21 or so. This is a couple years ago. You can tell when someone's rising star, right?

Yeah.

And so, it's this guy named Harry Dry. He has a— I guess the company is called Marketing Examples. And he did an interview with David Perell. I recommend everyone watch this. It's like an hour and 30 minutes. Definitely worth your time if you want to get better at copywriting. So, these are the 3 questions that make copywriting instantly work, okay? Number 1, can I visualize it, right? Number 2, can I falsify it? So, can you disprove it? Like, can you cause some tension in there, right? Number 3, can nobody else say this? So, let me give you an example. So, when Apple first came out with the iPod, the ad, do you remember that ad? The iPod ad?

Where it was like a silhouette dancing?

No, it's yes but no. The headline was 1,000 songs in your pocket. Remember that?

Yes.

Yeah. So, can you visualize that?

Yeah.

Yeah, it's in your pocket, right? That there's 1,000 songs in there. Can you falsify it? Can you say like, oh, that maybe that's not true? I guess you can say that, right? Because you want, again, you want there to be some tension. Because if there's no tension, it's like a story with no tension is boring, right? Can nobody else say this? That part's actually debatable because at the time when the iPod came out, I had other MP3 players that had like way more songs. But at least the visualized piece stands out to me. And they had a bunch of other ads. I think it's like, you know, the New Balance, right? It's like worn by like high-end, like high-end models and then also worn by like your dad at the park, right? And so like, that's— you can visualize that, right? And, um, you know, can nobody else say this? Like, I guess you can with New Balance. Do you have New Balances?

No, never had them. Yeah, but—

Do you? No, I don't. But it's like, it's like, that's, that's kind of cool because I— we've never thought about copywriting like that. At least I haven't. Like, I— if I were to stick with one question here, it's like the visualization. If you're gonna write something, can other people visualize it? Because if they can't, then it's harder. Like, you know what I mean?

Yeah. Speaking of an interesting fact, did you know Microsoft had an iPod competitor called the Zune or Zoom?

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Zune or Zoom? I forgot one or the other.

I think it was better tech too.

Uh, I know a guy named David who's working on that division years and years ago at Microsoft.

It's like 20+ years ago.

It was a long time ago. You know why Microsoft killed it?

Because it got no sales?

No, I believe it was generating $700 and something million a year and it was growing.

Wow.

Steve Ballmer had a mandate at one point saying anything under $1 billion or somewhere around there that's too small, just crush it. Let's focus on what's really important for the core business.

Hey, props to him for doing that.

Yeah, look at him now. $3 trillion plus business. Yeah.

Damn.

Sometimes, you know, what other people's gold is, is your crap. And even if it's doing really well for you, it could just be a distraction. You should double down on what's really working.

One man's trash is another man's treasure.

Yes.

Yeah. That's, that's, you know, I mean, we, I don't know if you, how often you do this, but just if the founder or the co-founders are super focused, that trickles down to the entire organization. Because if you're not focused and everyone else starts doing a bunch of different things too. So it's really important to check with, hey, what are your, Neil, what are your top 3 priorities this week? Right? X, Y, and Z. It's like, okay, how do your 3 priorities relate to your, your, your number 1 KPI? It's like, oh, well, these two don't relate that much. Okay, what are we going to do to fix it?

Right?

And you have to constantly recalibrate. You have to be the bumpers there. And I think the founders are the ones that are going to care about this stuff.

The founders are really going to care about this stuff. It's the shareholders, the ones who actually own a good chunk. I remember when Twitter was going through a sale to Elon. It was Elon or someone complaining, being like, the board doesn't even control the majority of the shares of Twitter. Do they really actually care about the corporation? But when people are really heavily invested, and when I say heavily invested, not owning a few percentage points or 5%.

20 plus.

Where you own enough and it's meaningful, that's when you really care. And you know, with your shares, you have an impact on the business and your say counts. I think those people really care and they'll go above and beyond to protect the image, the product, the service, and make sure things are done right.

What does Charlie Munger say?

Don't compete with Patels for motels.

Yes, he says that. But no, related to this, he says, show me the incentive and I'll show you the outcome. It's all about incentives at the end of the day. You got to set them up correctly. Otherwise, you're going to be in trouble. Like, by the way, when you set up incentives, and you've seen this 1,000 times, when you set up incentives with someone that's really motivated, everything just flies.

Yeah.

You know what I mean? And J. Paul Getty, I went to the Getty Villa the other day. But the Getty— what? The Getty Villa. He has a Getty Museum here and a Getty Villa.

I know the museum.

What's the Getty Villa? Yeah, he built like a Roman villa. It's right by Pacific Coast Highway. Check it out. It's free. You can go.

Oh, but what is it? Like, I don't understand what a Getty Villa is.

It's like, so he built like a Roman villa and it houses all his art. Like he has like a bunch of vases and like torsos and things like that. It's interesting.

So another museum.

Yeah, it's another museum. But he really was inspired by like Italian, just art and culture. And so, he decided to build a villa out there. That's why it's called Getty Villa. But his whole thing is— what were we just talking about? I was tying it to something.

The Charlie Munger.

The incentives, right? It's like he had a guy named Simon or something, a very capable guy, right? And this guy was one of his— he ran one of his oil rigs. And he's like, dude, Simon, like I come in here, I inspect the place and I figure out the problem, the solution in an hour. You're a really smart guy. Like why can't you figure it out? Because I can figure it out. And Simon's like, Dude, you own the damn thing. You own all of this. Of course, anyone that's incentivized is going to figure it out much quicker than someone that's not. And then so, J-Paul Getty is like, huh. So then he goes home and he's like, you know what? He goes back the next day, he's like, okay, I'm going to give you a profit share and all this stuff. Everything goes flying, right?

Yes.

And so, you can't give incentives to someone that's incompetent because I've done that before. I don't know if you had. It just never works. They still fall flat. But when you have it set up correctly with someone that's motivated, oh my God.

Dude, totally.

I want to take a second to tell you about my podcast co-host's agency. So NP Digital, so Neil Patel Digital. What they do is they do a whole host of marketing services and they are global. They're worldwide. They have SMB services as well. They have mid-market to enterprise services as well. They cover the entire gamut. So you could just go to npdigital.com to learn more about it. And now back to the episode.

The number one reason that I see marketers fail with their marketing is not truly understanding the LTV.

Hmm.

I don't know what it is, but marketers believe once you get a number of your lifetime value of your customer, and a lot of people actually have the wrong number, but once they have it, they believe, all right, now I can spend up to X dollars to acquire a customer. What a lot of marketers get wrong is when you're optimizing your marketing per channel, the lifetime value of your customer Usually is a little bit different per channel as well. For example, we see Google SEO traffic driving a much higher LTV than Instagram ads, right? And marketers just take this arbitrary number of their LTV.

You mean they blend it?

They blend it.

Yeah.

But then they're taking this number and they're just like, oh, okay, if our LTV is $500, profitably we can spend $200 per channel.

Yeah.

If you're just blending it, but the majority of your customers come from Instagram now instead of Google, and your Google LTV was more like $600 and your Instagram LTV was like $350, you got a problem.

Yep. And by the way, one of my opinions is like on LTV, maybe you should optimize on gross profit LTV.

You can. We look at your lifetime value and we look at All the numbers.

My point is you should look at, potentially look at both.

Yes.

Because people get lazy. I think the more you can get marketers to think like business people and then bring them into the business world and then talk, maybe they're sitting in on some finance meetings, the better they'll be in terms of performing better.

Yeah. And then their goal should not just be to get more traffic and generate more customers profitably. Marketers also need to focus on maximizing the LTV. In other words, can you send more emails and get more repeat purchases? Can you figure out the number one reason people don't come back and buy your product or the number one reason they churn and start fixing some of those things? Can you figure out how to introduce new products and get them to buy more things within your ecosystem so that way they spend more money? Because if you can do a lot of those kinds of things, not only will your LTV go up, it means you can spend much more money to acquire a customer And it opens up usually in those cases new marketing channels that you haven't tested before.

All right, that is it for today. Please don't forget to rate, review, subscribe. Go to marketingschool.io/agency. It is now application only, so you can't even pay to get in if you wanted to get in now. You have to apply. And so that is it for today. But other than that, we'll see you tomorrow.