Captivating Marketing: 5 Lightbulbs to Illuminate Your Marketing Approach with Billy Broas

When a market gets very saturated, the successful companies are the ones who shift their messaging emphasis from the promise to how the promise is achieved, which is the same light bulbs terms as shifting your Messaging from light bulb 5 the promise to light bulb 3 the approach.

Hey, I'm Joe Fear and welcome to the Hustle and Flow Chart podcast. This is where we talk all about building businesses so they give you the freedom and fuel for your life. I I'm not here to help you build a billion dollar business, but I am here to help you create a business with systems that work for you so you can make more money than you need just by working part time. You know, I was a chronic Hustle mode kind of guy and I want to share my experiences and mentors I've met along the way to help you reframe things to be the most effective as an entrepreneur. I wish I had this guidance and insight when I was younger, so that's what I'm doing here for you. Please share and enjoy.

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Thanks, Joe. Yeah, it's good to reconnect. Yeah, we. We got quite the backstory. I'm just glad that we're coming back around and kind of talks marketing and talk some copywriting. So I appreciate you having me. Love what you're doing with this podcast.

Appreciate it, man. Yeah. And you're a local San Diego boy as well, so. Yeah, it's just, it's. It's meant to be. A lot of the marketing brains are out here, and it's, it's fun to connect and, and throw around crazy ideas. So that's, that's kind of like how we, we originally got connected through Bracket Stanzo. So big shout out. And there was this website that you had. You started, what, years back. And I want, I want to, like, I know there's a journey prior to that leaving, you know, the kind of the workforce and all that stuff. So I guess take me through that journey really fast. But before, before the journey, I guess. Talk about Homebrew Academy and what. That was kind of like what we collaborated on for a little bit.

Yeah, I launched this website, Homebrew Academy, and I sold beer brewing courses. So this is how I got into online courses. And so, yeah, it was a lot of fun. I mean, I was a subject matter expert, expert beer brewer and drinker at the time. I mean, this is back in my, in my early 20s. I was fresh out of college. And like you said, I was trying to leave the workforce and, and, and it took a few years. You know, you hear a lot of these stories where people just, like, you know, bail immediately, but it took a few years for me to build that up to the point that I was ready to leave. And then, then I did, I did that. And that was a whole different experience. You know, I was kind of cocky going into it, thinking, well, I, I got this because I have a science and technology undergraduate degree. But then I got my mba, and I was using that for the job that I was in. So I was like, I got an mba. I'm going to be great at running an online beer brewing website. How hard can that be? Turns out it's really hard to sell stuff. And, you know, when you, when you get a business degree, it assumes that someone else is doing the selling. You're just kind of moving pieces around. Right. You're like, you're like upper management at Walmart or something. But when it comes to Boot on Boots on the Ground selling, I found that very difficult. And I was like, oh my gosh, like I'm, you know, my clients and my real job are like Department of Energy and these multinational corporations and I can't sell a $49 beer brewing course. So that's how I discovered copywriting and that really made all the difference.

Yeah, man. And that's. It's funny. Yeah. Because I went through marketing, got the degree and all that stuff. I was one of those lunatics that just like jumped right into things without knowing enough really. But I figured it out and maybe it was, it was better that. Because the, yeah, the corporate game or you know, the workforce, it's almost like you're set up so you're seeing just like a fragment of business or marketing or whatever the heck thing it is. But when you start to like deep dive into your own business, even if you're selling like you said, $47 beer brewing course, you'd think like, oh, everybody's gotta buy this. I'm the expert. You know, I've done my work, I got target audience. But the messaging usually is what falls flat. You know, the story there.

Yeah, that's what I found. And I found online marketing very overwhelming. I found a lot of really fun. But then there were so many different things that I could do. Right? There's social media, there's SEO, there's, there's blogging, there's, you know, YouTube was becoming big at the time. And so, you know, and I'm the kind of person, maybe you're the same that like likes to try to learn everything and dive into everything. And so I got pretty good. I mean I would call myself a T shaped marketer because I have this broad skillset, Google Analytics, I was doing entreport consulting, I did it all. But then eventually, and I think it's from my. Because the company I worked for was an engineering company. And so like, and I have a science background so I naturally think in terms of leverage, like what is the highest leverage thing that I can do. The smallest input that will get the biggest output. And I saw that that was really, it was really messaging that if I just, if I just rewrote a headline, I found that amazing. I can just rewrite a headline and double the sales that I was making on a page. So that's when I got out of specializing in say I was doing Facebook ads at the time and saying, you know, What? Like, if I just find the right words, I can distribute those words through Facebook, through YouTube, wherever. But it's the words that matter most.

So starting that website, how long did you. You had that for? I think a couple years at least. Right before Brad got involved?

Oh, yeah, Yeah. I started in 2010, and then I left my job in 2014, so it took about four years to build that up to the point that I could leave that job.

And.

And then I sold it to Brad in 2017.

Yeah, I mean, that's a lot of years slugging along, but obviously it's a passionate thing you had, you know, beer brewing. I did the same kind of thing back in the day. Just never made a business out of it, but it was fun working together on it. But I remember, Yeah, I mean, messaging. So I kind of want to go back to, like, what are some of the. Obviously, it was really difficult if you can't sell any products. So what was. Was there a light bulb moment, no pun intended here for you? You know, when it came to, like, maybe the first sale or a couple of sales for that, for that website?

Yeah. You know, I started out selling courses kind of the way that anybody would in more of an academic way, like if they were college courses. So I had Beer Brewing 101. Right. Introduction to Beer Brewing and things like that. And. And those were. Those did okay. But I had a big aha. When I really got. I really learned more about customer research and. And listening to people and being really customer driven. So rather than saying, this is the course that I want to sell, asking the question, well, what do people want to buy? And I remember doing these customer interviews, and the way. The way that I do them is I have people. Because people can't really tell you what they want. Right. You just.

Yeah.

So what I do is I have them tell me a story and walk me through maybe a cycle of their life. In this case, it was a cycle of beer brewing. And. And one thing I kept hearing was that they would always tweak their recipes, these beer brewers. So they would take a recipe off the Internet, but then they would add in some oak chips or some chocolate or something like that. And then. And I would ask why they would do that, and they would always say the same thing. It came down to the same phrase where they would say, well, I wanted to create something I could really call my own. And that's where I said, ah, okay. That's what they're really after. Because it's not about so much if a novice copywriter were to come in and write copy for my business, they would write a headline about how good the beer tasted. Right? Like, brew beer is so good that it just blows people away. But the best copywriting is really subtle. The best promises are very subtle. And so it wasn't brew the best tasting beer. The winning headline and product was brew a beer you can call your own.

Yeah.

And so it's about that moment that the home brewer, they have a buddy over, maybe Joe, you're at my house. And I'm like, oh, man, I got this new batch you got to try. And I go to my kegerator and I pour a glass for you. You take a sip and you go, oh, my gosh, where'd you get this recipe from? And my response is not, oh, I got it off some guy on the Internet. My response is, I came up with it, man.

That's so applicable to everything too. You know, like, we want that sense of ownership, that feeling like, oh, this is made for me, or I can make it myself. I have control in a way. But at the same time, the messaging has to align. You know, where they're thinking. And it's so hard to get into the brains of your prospects unless you're somehow getting information, interviewing them, I guess. Is there a process or a way? Because I, I do remember there's a whole community and, and a whole bunch of back and forth. But, like, how did you. Obviously, being a brewer yourself and a beer drinker helps, but like, how, how do you recommend mining for this information? Maybe if you're not a subject matter expert.

The best, I mean, it's. People don't like to do this, but the best way really is to talk to people, to have conversations with them. Surveys can work, but you can't dig. You ask one question and then you get a response and that's it. But if you're speaking to someone, for example, when I had them walk me through that pattern of brewing a beer, I could listen for things. And when I heard people say, oh, yeah, I would tweak it, I would add some chocolate. Then I could follow up and go, whoa, whoa, whoa, back up. Like, tell me more about that. And I wouldn't have found that out if it were just a survey. So I don't think people are surprised that the things that work the best are also the hardest, most uncomfortable to do. And the thing that works the best is really talking to people on the phone. Or zoom.

Go figure. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, like, because that's, that's what I've noticed as well, is like you start to notice these little words that. Yeah. And the written. You know, when you're. The whole survey thing, people have to write and think. It's almost like speaking. You get more of the. The true emotion or the feelings that people might have. And then when you hone in on a specific word or phrase that they might use a couple times, often it kind of comes up. It's like, ooh, write that one down. It's like, this is how I kind of think about it. You know, it's like, oh, that could be something used in copy or to initiate some kind of thinking or something, you know, like an anchor from. From what actually matters to them.

Yeah, yeah, exactly, exactly. And then. Yeah, like you can anchor it or you can anchor everything to that or the way I think about it is that becomes your North Star. Right. So. Excuse me. So with this promise of brew a beer you can really call your own. I can then orient the entire. So I created a course around it, and I oriented the entire course around that promise. Whereas I would have done it differently if the course were about brewing the best tasting beer. For example, one of the bonuses was I partnered up with a company that made beer labels, custom beer labels, and I got my students a discount on those beer labels. Because if the thing you really want is to brew your own beer, your own recipe, then you want to have custom beer labels too. So everything then moves in the direction of that ultimate promise.

I like it. Yeah. That it's the North Star. Okay. I like that. So that's the starting point. And I would assume, I mean, you start everywhere with the North Star. It's kind of like the vision. It's like now everything can kind of assemble below that. It's like our brains can go wild a little bit on how to fulfill.

And I found in studying copywriting more and other entrepreneurs that. That this is like this, this is a thing, this works. That this idea of these subtle shifts in your promise. I know. I remember one from Ramit Sethi, I'm sure you're well aware of. And. And he had one where he had a promise for one of his courses. It was like to leave your job, but it wasn't quite that. It was make a thousand dollars on the side.

Yeah. Achievable.

Yeah. It wasn't like, say, like a lot of people were saying, oh, yeah, screw the 9 to 5, say F you to your boss and leave. He was saying, no, you can keep your job, but you'll have the option to leave it if you want. And that's another example of one of these subtle shifts in your promise that just makes a world of difference. And then like he did, he. He assembled everything underneath that promise.

Yeah, Yeah, I like that. Yeah, it's very achievable. It's. I mean, you did the same, I know, with Homebrew Academy, and. Yeah, it just. It, I guess, yeah. If you can make it your own, inherently, you have a feeling like, oh, I can do this. You know, I can. I can literally make this thing myself. I just gotta follow the, I guess, the process and then I could tweak it from there to my liking.

Right. Yeah. And this is why I said earlier that I look for leverage. And the highest leverage thing that I found is messaging. And hopefully your listeners now, after hearing these examples, know what I mean by that? It's these subtle shifts where I could pour a ton of effort into running Facebook ads for that old promise for the beer brewing course. And just tweaking the promise is gonna make the Facebook ads and everything else that I'm doing work better. So I'm always going upstream to find what's highest leverage and then let everything trickle downstream.

I like it. Well, how about this without me asking a bunch of random questions around the model and everything, Because I know you have a whole copywriting model and this is what you specialize in anyway. And it feels like, yeah, you cut your teeth in the brewing space, which what I found, you know, working with them and I know a bunch of brewers myself, it's like they could be very finicky, very specific, very, you know, it could be a tough market. So the fact that you, like, perfected it in this space, I mean, yeah, it's. It's wild.

So, yeah, I don't know if I perfected, but I made some headway in it and had some success with it. Yeah, it was a tough market. It was kind of a relief actually, because. So, I mean, it was just a stepping stone. I didn't want to be the beer guy my whole life. I wouldn't say I'm like a natural born entrepreneur, but I definitely have that itch and wanted to do my own thing. So I was running that site, I started to meet all these other online entrepreneurs similar to myself, but with even bigger sites than what I had yet. I could use what I knew about marketing, messaging, copywriting to help them. And then that became the new thing. And then eventually my interest waned in the home brewing site. That's when I sold it to Brad. And that led me to what I do now, which is I've been the behind the scenes marketing guy to a lot of big name entrepreneurs and just in the past few years have developed this framework that you referenced, the Five Light Bulbs, which is my messaging copywriting framework. So I'm now kind of coming out from behind the scenes and running programs and teaching, consulting on that framework.

Yeah, and thanks for doing that because I feel like, I mean, this is like the time tested even before AI, you know, now we have a lot of prompts and ways to get copywriting going for people that might have not, you know, tried it too much. I feel like this is a skill, you know, obviously, you know, for years past you have, shoot, I'm blinking Eugene Schwartz's old book there. You know, it's like the copywriting manual. Oh, is it back? Yeah, it is.

Background.

Yeah, there it is. Breakthrough advertising. Yeah. Looking at it, I'm like, oh, that's a title. So I mean like all the way from there there's so many principles and then now we have all these tools like AI and all that. But again, we need the framework, the structure in between, because anyone can learn copywriting. And I'm kind of setting you up a little bit, but it's like I'm talking to myself or talking to, you know, an engineer like yourself, you know, where it's like, yeah, maybe, maybe the persuasive writing doesn't really come too natural. But I feel like when you understand a framework, then it's like everything starts falling into place.

Yeah, it's a good way to put it. And I found that. And I can, I can walk through the framework if you'd like for your listeners. We can go pretty quick. But yeah, yeah, so what it does. Yeah, so we'll go into it. So it's, it's called the Five Light Bulbs and it's a messaging framework. And again, this idea of leverage, it's very high leverage where even if you're not a professional copywriter, you know that if you just check these five boxes or you just, as we say, give voice to these light bulbs, then you're going to be in pretty good shape. You're probably going to have some wordsmithing you need to do, you know, like the writery stuff down the road. But if you just hit these points, like, you'll be most of the way there. So. Right. Uh, so, and, and it's very visual. I'm a very visual thinker. So I hired a, A, a really top notch illustrator to create a whole world for this Thing, it's kind of crazy. We got a bear, we got an owl, we got a bridge. So Definitely go to 5light bulbs.com to. To see the visuals. The whole framework is right there. But to walk you through it, Light bulb one. So this represents your customer's status quo, or what we often call their unacceptable status quo. You, you mentioned Eugene Schwartz. He was a big inspiration for my work. And he talks about this idea of you can't create demand. You can only channel it. So that's why I call it their unacceptable status quo. There has to be existing demand there. And that's what lipo1 represents. It's where they are with their problem. And what you want to do is give voice to that problem. You want to use the word you. It's one of the most powerful words in copywriting. Whereas you go to a lot of websites, and it's the opposite of that. It's we, we, we, I, I, me, me, me. We've won these awards. So if you check this box, you give voice to the customer's problems and really show empathy. I mean, it's not about twisting the knife. It's saying, hey, I see you and I hear you and I understand you. And in many cases you might say that really sucks. That situation that you're in. That's how you get off the ground. And you make that cus. That prospect say, oh, well, this person, they seem to really understand me. And they're talking to me, not at me. Let me hear more.

So it's like an awareness of the situation, you know what they're feeling, or at least a general sense of the situation they're in. And you can likely relate to it, but at least you're communicating that up front to them.

Yeah, you have to. And, you know, I mean, I've thought about writing a book like the Five Light Bulbs for Relationships, because it's just communication at the end of the day. Right. And I know, you know, being married for pretty, like, pretty newly married for a couple of years now, being a consultant, there are many times where my wife walks in the door and she's had a bad day, and I just want to solve a problem, but that is not the right thing to do. I'm sure you know this. Maybe you learned this lesson the hard way too. What do you want to do? You want to acknowledge your spouse's problem, you know, and sometimes you just want. Sometimes the best thing you can say is just, honey, that sucks.

Yep. Empathy. That's right, man. It's. They want to be heard People, everyone wants to be heard and know that they're in the right place. So I've always noticed. Yeah, when you start saying you are the right things and start nodding, you know, and especially if you're doing some, if you're, if you're testing this on folks or at least trying to mine some information, you know, if you're doing zoom calls or chatting with your spouse, your partner, try it out. Because it's, you know, not in a weird way, but it's like, yeah, it's good training that.

That's the big takeaway from this episode. Use light bulb one on your spouse. I promise you report back to me with your results. I promise it will go over well.

Bake it till you make it right.

Right? Yeah, that's good. I like it.

So then you have the person's attention. They're saying, okay, well I'm going to listen to hear more. But you have to ask yourself the question, am I the only game in town? Am I the only option that this person has to solve their problem? And of course the answer is no. As much as we like to think that we're the only option, there are thousands of other options out there. Everything from direct competitors to maybe more outside the box or ways that you hadn't thought about that your prospect might be considering to solve the problem. And what you don't want to do is just put blinders on and ignore those other options or other bridges. As you'll see in the individuals, what you want to do is speak to them.

And not in a way. And look, marketing is one of those things that can easily be used for bad or for good. And we definitely promote an honest and ethical way of doing this. And part of that is not just like throwing rocks at those other bridges or saying that guy sucks, but rather laying out, but making an honest and compelling argument by making claims and backing them up with proof, laying out the criteria and saying, if you're in this situation, prospect, here are some reasons why those other solutions may or may not be best for you. And when you do that, you get again, a lot more buy in from your prospect. And what you're really doing is you're sort of a buyer's coach. You're coaching them on how to become a better, better buyer, a better shopper of products like yours.

I like that. A coach. I think that's a good reframe as well. It's not. You're not talking at them. It's not a sales pitch as much as more of it's A enrollment conversation or something that is. It's a coaching type of feeling, so it feels comfortable, and it should to. To your prospect. Yeah.

And this is. Again, Eugene Schwartz has talked a lot about this. I found that. That the really great copywriters, they're not so big on making these big hypey promises. They're much more about making claims and backing them up with proof and making strong arguments. He was that way. Schwartz. Gary Bensivenga has a quote about that where he says that I always built my clients arguments, marketing pieces based on the strongest proof elements. So you really. You almost want to be more like a lawyer in the courtroom making an argument rather than a. Like. Like an infomercial guy or a hype man.

Yeah, yeah. Definitive proof, something that stands on its own, separate from you, that you can call out. It's like, I'd imagine that just builds trust because you're not ignoring the fact that this thing exists or these competitors might exist out there.

Right.

You're just kind of putting it all out there on the stage for them.

Right? Yeah, yeah. It's like that, that quote, if you have a skeleton in the closet, take them out and make them dance.

Yeah, there you go. I like it. Yeah. Yeah. Cool. All right. Yeah, I like that. So, yeah, you're kind of. You're getting them seen first, and then now you're talking about probably what's already in their head. Maybe the comparison game. Like, wait, hold on. I just saw this other guy or this other thing. I have these other options. I've tried these other things. So that's kind of like phase two. So cool. Okay.

Yeah. So then we go to phase three, or Light Bulb three, which. Which represents. And so Light Bulb two, just to recap, was the other options that they've either tried before your prospect or they're currently being tempted by, and you want to speak to those. Light Bulb three represents your bridge, your approach. It's not your product, it's your approach. And this one is really interesting because you see this and fair warning to your listeners. Once you see the light bulbs, you can't unsee them. So it's become a whole language where you'll look at an ad and say, oh, man, that's a Light Bulb 3 AD. Or look at that Light Bulb 2 headline and Light Bulb 3 especially, you will see across all different product categories, in the more info space, the more online course space you're going to see formulas, blueprints, signature systems, methodologies in software, it might be a certain technology in the clothing space. You've probably seen those shoes that have that vertical jump technology in the heel, right? Or Under Armour with their moisture wicking technology. So that's not the product, that's the approach, it's the philosophy. And what we found is that when we. When we dedicate more messaging, when we shift, in many cases the messaging away from the product and the offer and all that stuff and load it into the light bulb 3 the approach. By selling the approach, you better sell the product.

Yeah, yeah. So it's basically, would that be kind of like how to make your product an MVP or not mvp, sorry, a usp. It's almost like, here's your unique selling proposition.

Yeah, exactly. And again, I found this pattern everywhere. Schwartz talks about this, again, where when a market gets very saturated, the successful companies are the ones who shift their messaging emphasis from the promise to how the promise is achieved, which is the same five light bulbs terms as shifting your messaging from light bulb five the promise to light bulb three the approach.

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Exactly. Yeah. The five light bulbs works because it's a story. It's the human story of making a buying decision. So it's, I know where you are right now. You're having this problem. Here's some of the options that you're considering. Here's my option. Why I think it's better for you. And now if you want my help implementing this option, then that's when we get to light bulb 4. And that represents your product. Yeah, but we call it your offer. And I'm sure your listeners have heard that term before. Your offer includes your product. But it's more than just that. It's your pricing, it's your guarantee, it's any bonuses that you include. So this is the, the, the one action step. And you'll see in the visual, you see the bear start to cross the bridge in this one. So this is where the value is exchanged. And it's important. Definitely. The offer is super important. But what I often hear from people who learn the five light bulbs is that they say, well, I have, wow, I've only been talking about the offer, the light bulb 4. Now I have all these other light bulbs to talk about. So funny enough, when you talk about the other light bulbs, you get more action on your light bulb four.

That makes sense. Yeah, because the offer itself, I mean, would that be kind of like, would you see it as like an 80, 20? It's almost like that's the 20% of maybe the full on thing. Everything else is almost like the lead up to it. It's the story story, the relatability.

Yeah, totally. And look, in some cases, someone has seen all your marketing. They've been on your list a while and all they need is a good offer, a good discount. But there are many cases where an offer is being made and, and I'm actually, I'm writing a book on this right now. They don't have the beliefs that are required to accept your offer. And what you need to do is something like hit on the other light bulbs like bulb 1, 2, 3 or 5.

Okay, what are some. And not to distract because I know we have one more light bulb. But what are some beliefs that. Or I guess some objections that you would commonly come across that could be solved by, I don't know if it's just by light bulb 4, but some common ones that you think people just, they just should have in mind, you know, as, as we're going through this story writing process.

Yeah. So I can give your listeners a, a good little. I guess it's a heuristic or a hack that you can use and just fill in the blank here. But the, the, the sentence would be blank is important. And I, I'll give an example of that. We take these things for granted, like things that we think are important, our prospects don't necessarily think are important. So my co author on the book, this guy, Tiago Forte, client of mine, wrote a book called Building a Second Brain that's done very well. I helped him a lot with his marketing. We have this phrase that we generated for his business, which is note taking is important because that's what he teaches. He teaches a digital note taking methodology. But we can't take that for granted because a lot of people hear note taking and they're like, well, what the heck is that? How would I use that? How can that benefit me? So what we do then is we instill that belief through making an argument through education. We show examples and everything. Because someone who doesn't think note taking is important is not going to buy a course on note taking, which is what he sells his light bulb for. So that's a good example of selling the light bulb 3. To better sell the light bulb 4.

Okay, yeah, that makes sense because you're basically calling out the audience that is looking for what you need right there. And you're not going to be swimming upstream with, with this messaging. It's just going right into it. And yeah, I mean, Thiago's the man with, when it comes to note taking as well. So that's, that's, that's pretty cool. Sweet. Okay, so, so we have that, that's the offer and there's multiple components within there, it's not just the product, like you said, but the guarantee, the pricing. Probably some. Some other. Are there any other components that I'm kind of missing there? Pricing buy button.

I would, I would pick features under that as well. Under. Under Lipo four we're speaking about. Yeah, I put features under there as well. You know, more in my space, like coaching, online courses, info. We don't usually speak in terms of features. It's more of word from the software world. But, you know, a great example of five light bulbs in action. Not that they're a client, I wish they were. But if, you know, you need a budget, the company, the software company, or ynab, they have a budgeting tool. If you look, they. They have a light bulb three that they call the four rules of budgeting. And they sell that thing really well. Their methodology and that methodology drives their features. And the features are the features of the software, like their reports and, you know, and saving for a rainy day and all that stuff. Which is different than what their competitors do. Right. Their competitors just have the features. They have a philosophy that drives the features. So I would put features under light bulb four as well. And if you can drive your features with your light bulb three, then, man, you're in really good shape.

Yeah, yeah. With the approach that you have. Okay, now I like that. Good comparison and example. Always like all these little examples that we can. We can kind of Google and start looking at at least the good ones that you found. So if you have any others, as we're going through Light bulb number five, definitely all ears. But hit us with that last one you got.

Yeah, there's a lot of good examples for light bulb 5. So as you might guess, that's. That's the other side of the bridge. That's where the birds are chirping and the sun is shining and. And you want to give voice to that. Like, you don't want to just assume that your prospect knows what's on the other side of the bridge. And they want to know that you know what they're looking for too. And this is a trap that a lot of the people I work with fall into because they're such subject matter experts and so close to their thing that they forget to connect those dots. It becomes all about their tool and not what the tool can do for someone. So again, you want to check that box and give voice to the light bulb 5. You want to paint a pleasing picture of the other side of that bridge. And there's a lot of good examples for this one, I like the travel industry because it is so visual. Anyways, so I look at some of these old travel magazines and you see how, like, American Airlines, how they did their ads, and you can totally borrow some of those ideas for your industry, no matter what type of product you're selling.

Yeah, that's actually. It's funny because I was just booking some flights last night and I was thinking about the destination, not the part in between the actual plane ride. And obviously, honestly, it's not always the most pleasant or especially with me, a couple of kids now, it's like, not really looking forward to that, you know, Hawaii trip for seven hours with two crazy kids. But at the same time, it's like, there's that destination in mind. It's like, I know I will be in an island paradise, you know, and that example, you know, Hawaii. But it's like, yeah, the travel industry, they're definitely selling the destination more so. Or at least I'm starting to see it a lot more in the smart ads.

Right.

Rather than, like, hey, you know, whatever, in flight experience that. That might be going on. You know, I'm thinking of things like Southwest. You know, it's like, it's a little bit more budget at the same time. You know, you have. The destination is more framed as the selling point, and, you know, we'll get you there, whatever it is. But it's. It's putting that in the. In the mind of people rather than maybe the mechanism depending on the offer.

Yeah. I have two crazy kids, too, and we just flew to Mexico for the holidays. And yeah, the whole time on the plane, I just had light bulb five in my head. I'm just thinking about the beach and margaritas. So. So, yeah, that's. It's a great. It's a great metaphor and also a good place to look for examples of this stuff, too. And. And throw them into your. Throw them into your swipe file. I definitely recommend. And if you. And if you go to the five light bulbs, too, you'll see some examples there. And yeah, start a. Start a swipe file around this stuff because it really helps inspire you.

How do you. Yeah, that's a really good point. And the fact that you're working with Tiago, I'm sure you have a pretty dialed in swipe file, you know, second brain of your own.

Yeah.

Because swipe files are great, man. Like, how can you walk us really fast through, like, how your. You would capture these or, like, your system for doing that? Because I think that is one of the Most like valuable things for years that you can reference as you're writing these things.

Yeah, as you correctly guessed, given that I'm a second brainer, I actually took Thiago's course before I even met him, just as a fan and student. And then we connected and I partnered up with him. So, yeah, I got a pretty legit swipe file. So, yeah, I mean, whatever, you know, like what Tyaga would say is make capturing as seamless as possible. So often we only have a few seconds to capture something. So, yeah, I mean, walk around with. With your antennas up and look for things. Look for billboards, look for ads, of course, on your phone. Be ready with that screenshot and. And have a place to store that. And what I do is throw that into some kind of an inbox, and then I go through and I categorize it with. Usually with the light bulb and with the industry. So it might be something like. In the YNAB example, it would be something like. If I saw their four rules on. On their website, I would capture it and say, Light Bulb 3 software, and then maybe Dash YNAB. So I'm. You see, I'm like, getting more specific. So It's a light bulb 3 AD, the industry, the specific company, and then. And then you can go back and it's such a universal language, the five light bulbs, that it's so easy to apply these ideas to any type of product you sell.

Yeah. Oh, I love it. Okay. And that's what I was hoping for is like, how do you categorize this stuff? Because, you know, swipe files can be a big old mess after a while. You're like, wait, what am I looking at? Why was this important? But now you categorize that to a light bulb has now an intention that. Yeah. I mean, yeah, you. You start piling up, like, maybe five good examples of those, and it's like, now, no more writer's block. Right? Like, you have examples to work with. You have a starting point. So, I mean, the five. Five light bulb sounds, I mean, it's. It's legit. I'm actually on the page here looking at the illustrations, and it almost like, furthers what you're saying even more because, like you said, you got some really cool illustrations that kind of anchor in what the concepts are. So definitely check Those out at 5lightbulbs.com. You can see the framework there, and it's pretty sweet. And I like that whole the bridge analogy at the very end where it kind of recaps all five of them. There, in a nutshell.

Good. Yeah. Yeah. Thank you. Yeah. And shout out to mastery. Be my illustrator who did just a great job on this project.

Nice. Nice. Well, sweet. Yeah. I mean, in terms of so implementing this.

I guess. Where do you start? Because these are. They're sequential, but I could see maybe there's a popping around kind of approach when you get to writing some of this copy. Is there any best practices that you would recommend when someone sits down and starts to actually do the writing?

Yeah, it's a great question. And as you might expect it, I mean, it's the one that I had when I first. When this thing. When my light bulb came on and this crazy framework popped into my head.

So you don't want to approach it too rigidly. There's no set formula. Like, you put this light bulb there, you put that light bulb there, you put that light bulb there, and boom, it works every time. Take an experimenter's mindset into it. You want to. You want to test different light bulbs. And I mean, I've consulted with people, YouTube advertisers, people spending a lot of money, Facebook advertisers, running money on ads, and we'll. We'll test different light bulbs, and we might be surprised. We're often surprised where it's like, oh, man, that light bulb 2ad just crushed it. Whereas for another product, Thiago's a good example. He found that it was light bulb one for him, that he. That he wasn't turning on that light bulb. And when he did, it really just opened the floodgates. So that's my best advice, is to kind of poke around and test these different light bulbs, and you will find. It's the 8020 rule. Like, you will find one, probably the one that you just weren't speaking to as much before. That really does open the floodgates like it did for Tiago.

Yeah, that's good. And that's good advice for someone that's just auditing what something they already have. Like, I'm sure we're all sitting on some kind of sales copy, some messaging that we've thrown out there to the world. If we haven't, that's okay. You can still start fresh. But like you said, it's achievable because it could be the headline, the sub headline. But even specifically, like you said, talking to the customer, the status quo. Like, for instance, with light bulb one, like you said, or mention the approach and really go into that when maybe you've been talking about your features and kind of like, Their standalone, not set up with like, hey, what's this different unique angle at solving this problem for people's dreams? And yeah, it seems like you can kind of pick and choose pretty quickly once you do an audit for what's existing.

Exactly. Yeah. And you can't go wrong with having, I mean, dial them all in. You know, we, we put this in our trainings. We, we have a, we put them usually into a kanban or like a trello board type of a thing with five columns, one for each light bulb. But so, so dial them in. But then, but then you might find. Okay, well, light bulb three is. We should put more emphasis into that because that's what's really resonating. And I would, no matter what, have a strong light bulb three, because again, that's your differentiator. And like I said, what Eugene Schwartz discovered and so many others, like, that's how you stand out in a crowded market. And what market is not crowded these days?

True. Yeah. Yeah, that's a good point, man. And that's the unique approach there. So what are some, I guess a couple things that some people get wrong. And I know we talked about some of them, like not talking to your clients or your prospects and actually communicating with them. Are there any things that are, like, glaringly, like, common? Because now you're consulting with a lot of people. You've obviously. Sure. You're looking at a lot of existing copy with your clients and optimizing that too. So are there a few things that stand out that are just like, okay, this is so common. People need to know this and just maybe start there?

Yeah, I can think of two or three things. So, so one, kind of what I said earlier, claims and proof. So it's not all about just making big promises, but have an argument, like, have a, have a stance that you take and argue for something and, and make those claims and back them up with proof. If you're Tiago, make claims, make an argument for note taking and why it can really help someone before you go and you pitch your course on note taking. So, so that's a big one. And you know, and it's, it's a fundamental. But I'm, I'm big on fundamentals. I'm not like a shiny object, like, new software kind of guy. I'm like, more old school. So go back to those fundamentals, like that study rhetoric. That's really what copywriting is. I studied like, Aristotle and all these people who wrote about these things long ago, but their teachings have largely been forgotten. So Claims and proof, that's one of them. Storytelling is another.

And it's such a great way to connect with someone. And the five light bulbs itself is a story. So by now you're kind of. It's sort of a cheat code because you naturally, your copy, if you use the light bulbs, will naturally take on this storytelling element. So definitely recommend you lean into storytelling.

Yeah, it kind of has that hero's journey esque to it. Different because it's highlighting specifically like on a copy side, what you should really nail on. But yeah, in that kind of order. It's taking people on a journey and that's what it's all about. And what I take away from it is paint the picture of where they want to go and make that vividly in their minds that you understand that along this journey, it's almost like maybe not leave it all the way to the end to show them the green grass and the rolling hills and all that.

Well, yeah, I mean, this is going to sound. A lot of marketing experts listening to this are going to get mad. But I'm not big on customer research and let me qualify that the pro. Here's the problem is that one phrase that I say so often when I'm working with clients or people in our programs is I'll interview them and surface their light bulbs and then I'll compare that to what's on the website and I'll say, why aren't you saying that?

And so a lot of marketing experts will come into an engagement and say, well, the first thing we got to do is customer research and we got to line up these customer calls and talk to customers and all this stuff. But what I found is that, but that's often like, you know, you have an expertise and you tend to just be in that box and you're not, you're not, you're not displaying empathy. Right? And these, these entrepreneurs, like, they're, they're busy. They gotta get campaigns out there. They don't always have time to hop on 20 customer research calls. So if, if they have knowledge that should be on the website already, why go do more calls? And who's to say that if you were to do those calls, that that new language would wind up on the website? So I take a very pragmatic approach where I'm like, hey, let's surface what you already know. Because most of my clients already know their customers pretty well. That's not the problem. The problem is they're not saying it. So I would start there and make sure what's on your website or wherever that shows up. Right. Your emails, your ads, matches what you already know. And then from there say, okay, well, do we need to go back and do additional customer research? But oftentimes you can get pretty far and frankly, make a lot of money before you have to do more calls.

That's a good point. I like that. Yeah. And I'm happy you said that because it's. It's a lot more actionable. I know a lot of entrepreneurs, we suck at homework and doing, like, this nitty gritty stuff that feels tedious. It's like we want to move, you know, like, we want to put something new out there. And if we have, which most of us know enough of what we're doing or trying to do, and probably tested a lot of stuff and failed and got feedback that way, it's like, well, great, let's package that up and verbalize it a little bit. And on that note, like, are there any mechanisms or processes, like you said, interviewing your clients? But like, let's say someone's just listening and trying to do this themselves. Like, is there a way to extract that stuff out of their brain that maybe isn't typing? Because I feel like there's like a disconnect, you know, from what they know to typing. Maybe it's a verbal approach. I don't know.

Well, I'm filling in the five light bulbs is a great place to start. And just going through and saying, okay, for the way you want to approach it is. The way we approach it is we run an offer through it. So we'll say, okay, like, what, what is my product? And then what are the light bulbs for it first? Who is the customer? And then what are those light bulbs? So that's where I would start by asking, well, what is the light bulb one, what's the light bulb two, three, four, and five. And. And yeah, if you didn't. If you weren't ready to hop on calls, you could find a lot just by listening, by listening on social media or for me, back in the day was the home beer brewing forums, where, I mean, people are pretty. The good thing is people are like, for better, for worse, very transparent online. So, like, you can find people who aren't holding back, that's for sure.

Yeah, Reddit's really good for that too, if you want to get real on topic.

Totally.

Yeah.

Totally.

Sweet. Yeah, I like it, Billy. Yeah. And because it's just asking questions, following the light bulb. Ask questions, fill in the blanks, maybe record yourself. There's all These tools, there's one called the Oasis that I've been using where you can talk into it, but it'll capture your voice, but you can even help, help augment that and your ideas a little bit further. So that's just kind of like a tool I've been using for, for using visual or speaking it out rather than trying to slug through a whole bunch of writing. Just depends on your modality, I guess. So totally. Billy, like what other resources? Like obviously we mentioned Breakthrough Advertising. I think that's great actually. Be like shout out that and then, and then let's tell people where they can go. Dive in deeper with you because I know you have some programs, you work with people when you're not so busy because I know you're slammed and working with some top notch clients too.

Yeah. And I've been been transitioning more and I've kind of gone top down from consulting into more my own program. So we just came out. So we have an online course. If you want to go through the marketing methodology that I use, which of course uses the five light bulbs, we have that, that's on five light bulbs. Com. Also a. If you go to that website, you can get on my newsletter. I like the light bulb thing. So it's called Billy's Monday Light Bulb. That's my weekly Monday marketing newsletter. And, and please reach out, say hello, love to connect with everyone. And I know this marketing thing is hard. I'm not a natural marketer, like I said, I have a science engineering background and so it's always going to be hard. But it can be, it can be simple, which is different than easy, of course. Right. And, and the five light bulbs makes it simpler, which. Who doesn't want marketing to be simpler?

That's right. Yeah. And there's skills and skills are learnable. It just takes focus and time and repetition. Yeah. Is there another. I'm just thinking of books or some other resource, you know, that you find yourself referring to. You know we mentioned Breakthrough Advertising, that's one of those classics. Is there another related copywriting book or storytelling book that you can reference here?

Yeah, you know, one of them I just recommended to my newsletter recently, sadly, the author who's a friend and mentor just passed away, a guy named Mark Goldston and he has a great book called a best selling book called Just Listen. Mark is a psychiatrist, FBI hostage negotiator, suicide prevention specialist. When I think of light bulb1 empathy, I really think of Mark. So it's not a marketing book but. But it is a Marketing book, if you know what I mean. So definitely read. Just Listen. By Mark Goldston Goulston.

All right, I'll pick that up. Sounds perfect. I mean, let's be honest. We're all communicating. That's all this is. And it's not like it's not like that's all it is. That's literally the human experience, so you nail it. The empathy part, you know, and kind of storytelling and really talking with someone. I feel like, like you said, business gets easier. It's all kind of rooted in copywriting and messaging and anyway, on or offline, doesn't matter what modality AI will be around. But we're still humans, you know, so we got to perfect this and be able to connect with others, so.

Well, Amen. Yeah. And that's always the risk is that when you have something like shiny new technology, which there's a new one every day, you have to ask, well, what are we forgetting? Or what are we drawing our attention away from? And from what I've seen, we're drawing it away from the human element, which is, which is the most important thing. So. So, yeah, when everyone is zigging, you should zag. And right now, zagging is going away from technology back to the human. And Mark's work, starting with his book, is a great place to do that.

Nice, man. Well, cool. Well, Billy, appreciate it, man. And showing your framework and going deep in on it. Go to 5light bulbs.com join the newsletter. All that fun stuff. Follow Billy around. He's working with the best of the best, so. Thank you, my man. And, yeah, are you still drinking, actually beer? Like, is there a go to beer? I mean, I don't know why I didn't ask.

Well, you know, I, I, I turned 40 this year, so I've cut back on the, the craft beer. I've gotten back the light stuff. It adds up, man, especially being here in San Diego, where we are. There's Those, those big IPAs go right to the belly. But. Right, but, yeah, so, so I'm a big fan. I really like German beers. And you can find, like, a good German Hefeweizen. I mean, they've been brewing, like, there's this one brewery that's been around since the year, like, 1080, I think. That's right. The oldest brewery in the world. So, you know, you dial in a recipe over that many years, so. So, yeah, again, when everyone's zigging, you zag. Everyone's drinking IPAs. Drink some German weiss beer.

I was hoping you would do something like that because. Yeah, at least on the west coast. Out here, it's everything. Ipa, you know, but.

Drives me crazy.

I'm sure it does. We won't go there now. All right, Billy, man, I appreciate you so much, and let's do this again soon.

Thanks, Joe. Really appreciate it.

Take it easy, all right? All right. That's what I got for you today. And remember, it's not all about living to work. It's all about working to live if you need to do the work. But, you know, work can be fun, and it should be feeling. Feeling your life. So if you enjoyed what you just heard, if you got some nuggets of wisdom that you want to share or you're just noodling on right now, please go tell others. The way that people find this show and how you can help others get their aha moments is through word of mouth. So if it is telling your friend, telling your family, send an email to your list writing a review or whatever it might be. Everything helps. So thank you so much for listening to the Hustle and Flowchart podcast, and I will see you next time.