Sue Rice - How To Stand Out In The Inbox And Get 50%+ Open Rates

This is an intro. Intro, intro, intro.

Hustle and Float, Shark with your boy.

My boy, Matt Wolf. Jo Fier. Hey. Bonjour.

Bonjour.

French?

Was that a question?

Bon appetit.

Isn't that. Hello.

Bon appetit.

No, Bonjour.

Oh, yeah, I think so.

Well, that's what I was saying to you because we're talking to Sue, Sue Rice. She's in France.

Oh, you mean the one who hammered in that she's a California girl but.

She lives in France.

That's true.

Oh, Matthew.

She's one of those French California girls.

One of them.

Actually she's more of a Californian French girl because California was first.

That's true. And she's probably been in France, I don't know, equal time or so.

I have no idea.

I don't think she told us that. But today we're talking with the one and the only Sue. Wait, hold on. Sue, the female David Ogilvie Rice. Yes, that is true. So Sue Rice. Yeah, she's awesome. And you'll get it from this conversation is that we can go all day long if we wanted to and just talk about just any kind of tangent, but bring it back. We always relate it and connect it to what the main topic is that we're trying to get across.

And that is actually kind of the topic of this episode is to talking about things that don't seem related and then bringing them back to being. So this is an episode about copywriting and storytelling and persuasion and getting people to buy more of your shit.

That's it.

That's what this episode is. And you know Sue Rice, she's a longtime marketing strategist, professional copywriter and an international communications expert. She's famous for the award winning copy. She has written for countless entrepreneurs as well as prestigious companies such as Ericsson, Lego, Nike, Salomon and Wrangler.

Them jeans. Yeah, and her email copywriting. So in this episode she gets into how she's getting some record breaking open rates, like consistently throughout a whole sequence, not just like the first email or two, like that's kind of normal. And then click through rates that are crazy because, you know, like we all know email. Just attention and the clutter, everything's just. Well, attention's decreasing and clutter is increasing. So she talks about how to get attention and do it in a very smart way without doing the shouting that most people do.

Yeah, we're going to talk about how to get 50% open rates on your emails.

How to write 40 to 60.

40 to 60. Well, I averaged so it'd be tough. We talk about subject lines on emails and how to write better subject lines, how to write better emails that get more clicks, how to bake in scarcity to your offers to make sure people take action now and what scarcity to use.

What's best.

Yeah. A lot of good stuff that's gonna help you write a lot better copy.

Yeah. So you're gonna need those notes if you're a new listener or even if you're one that you've heard this a million times and you haven't checked notes yet. You're crazy. It's insane. So we always have free notes on every single episode that we have on this show. We're even going in the backlogs and doing this for other reasons, because we have a cool little membership site that you get access to everything. But we're talking about the notes for this show right here. We take notes every single time we have a note taker. It's not us, but we have a.

Whole crew of people are me, I've taken a couple of them. A couple?

I've taken none. I love to read the notes, though. So actually someone that. I'm not gonna talk about it now. Cause it's a different episode. But Bas, he loves to read the notes. He used to listen to podcasts, but then he's like, man, I want to save some time and get those notes instead. So he just reads the notes exclusively. We'd love if you listen to the podcast too, but just know we got the notes. So if you're a new person and you want quick takeaways, where are they going to get them?

Well, there's two ways to get them, Joe. They can go to hustleandflowchart.comcomp. that's hustleandflowchart.com comp.

Hustle and flowchart.

Yeah, I hiccuped a little.

Okay.

Hustleandfloachart.com comp or second way. Did I say shart again?

No, it's just like hiccup at a good.

I'm glad I didn't shirt on that one. All right, so the other way to get them is you can text the word comp C o M P to 38470. And a lot of people are doing this. I'm actually very surprised how many people are actually pulling out their phone and texting comp to 38470.

Good segue. No, it actually, in all actuality, if you have a podcast or if you're just trying to do Something online. Ask them to do a little opt in to sms. Who do we use?

Call loop.

Call loop. So we just use call loop. Except the, you know, you opt in that way and it's freaking work. It's awesome. So it must be convenient in helping you out. So what's the number again? I still haven't memorized.

I know. I haven't either. I'm actually looking at my notes. It's text the word comp C o M P to 38470 or you can go to the old fashioned website and opt in the old fashion way.

Yeah.

Eastland flowchart.com comp.

Cool. All right, well let's all. Let's go.

Let's go get a copy on.

Get your copy on. Sue, welcome to the show. Finally.

Thank you so much for having me. I'm really glad to be here.

Heck yeah. I appreciate it. And we're on opposite sides of the globe. Or maybe not totally opposite. You're in France, I'm in France. Sitting by a nice big old fire. We kind of jealous. Yeah. Big old glass of wine. No, you don't have wine there. I was hoping you did. We're sipping on coffee, but yeah, this is.

Sorry about that. Caffeine is my drug of choice. I'm really sorry.

Yeah, that's okay. Mine too.

I think this is our third try making this call happen. So we're, we're excited to finally make this thing happen. We've been looking forward to it forever.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And big shout out to Sramko, James Schramko, our mutual buddy, for making this happen too.

Yes. Thank you, James.

I'm sure he's listening. He claims he does at least, but yeah, let's. Sue. Yeah.

You and I actually it was like right when he connected us. I think you and I had like a hour long chat or something. It felt like we were sitting at a cafe or something. I think we were both drinking some kind of drink and it was just a video. Looking at your. I don't know, it just felt like we were just hanging out. It was a good time to connect with you. You kind of told us a crazy. I mean you've done everything it seems like from California over there in France. We've done a ton of stuff in between too. So I want to hear it from you. Where did this all start?

Yeah, so I guess it all started in California. I'm a California girl, third generation. I don't even think you can find one of those anymore.

That's true.

My kids are third Generation.

That'S tr.

It's like California as a country. But, yeah, I grew up in what is now Silicon Valley. It was a little bit less developed back then. And I went to Stanford, but always sort of had my. I don't know, I always have this.

Sort of.

Wanderlust, I guess is the best way to describe it. And so I ended up doing my graduate work mostly in Bologna, Italy, through a program, an international economics program with Johns Hopkins, which of course is nothing related to being an entrepreneur and being a copywriter. But after I came back from Italy, I landed in New York and started this whole thing off, literally, I mean, classic, on Madison Avenue working for Ogilvie and Mather.

How cool is that?

Yeah, it is pretty cool, right? And Todd says to me, gosh, no one has that experience working for Oakville. Yeah, you know, it's like. And it was. It was really kind of the heady days of advertising. And it's sort of not. Maybe not Mad Men, it was not that far back, but it was sort of that kind of the end of that world because that really doesn't exist anymore. And then I ended up going to BBDO and I was in their international department. And very shortly after joining bbdo, I was, much to my surprise, I and three other men went over to Paris to start their BBDO European headquarters. And it was a huge opportunity, to be honest with you. I mean, I hope none of them are listening, but I think they thought I would just be like the pretty little.

Secretary kind of. But I ended up sort of grabbing, grabbing the opportunity because, you know, a lot of times in these fledgling. I think it's a sort of the glamour of being in a startup or being an entrepreneur. You know, sometimes in these startups there's huge opportunities.

Right.

And it was just. It was huge. What, you know, it was like, I literally went from being, you know, a lowly assistant to. I was. I was a communications director of BBDO Europe and had. It was just an amazing experience.

Yeah.

And loved it. I was. I did. I don't really want to go into. Don't spend too much time on it. But what I did was basically our remit was that bbdo, unlike a lot of ad agencies, had not grown organically. They had bought all these creative agencies and creative agency. All these little creative agencies around bbdo and our remit around Europe and our remit was to kind of get them to work, all these creative egos to work together.

Yeah, that was. So what I came up with this idea was we did started doing These sort of studies called future studies, Future Man, Future Woman. And they were super. And basically what I did, it was like really simple. I just, I asked them to go out and it was sort of like social media, before social media asked people, you know, what was going on in their lives. And we packaged in all these offices, got all these offices involved, and then we packaged it up into this really sexy presentation. It was like, you know, lots of film clips and music and.

We just, I mean, on the basis of those studies, it just, it made. We made millions and millions of dollars off of them because no one else was doing that. It was sort of like. It was like trying to talk about what the emotions were, like what women were feeling, what youth were feeling, what men were feeling. And I mean, it was. The original one was done for Gillette because BBD worked with Gillette. So it was like the whole, you know, the. I don't know if you remember the best a man can campaign. I don't even know if it's still running. But it was on that, with that study was what that idea came from.

Really interesting. Okay.

And so they were super. They were really, really powerful. And it just, you know, oddly enough, I still think that kind of thing is powerful. You know, it's still about connecting with where people are emotionally right now. We didn't have the social media. We didn't have, you know, it was the 90s, so there was, There was a lot of. There wasn't anything that we have now, all the tools we have now. But the sentiment is still the same, right, that when you, when you write, when you create ads, when you. Is that you need to connect up with where people are and maybe a little bit ahead. Right.

It's kind of. Yeah. Future pace, like where they're going to go.

Yeah, right. I mean like the future woman. The whole theory behind it, which was really simplistic, to be honest with you. I mean, I basically wrote it on the back of an envelope. But was the idea that people that women were more confident. So now nowadays that's like. Well, yeah, duh, duh. But back then it wasn't that obvious.

Yeah, I'm sure you were ruffling feathers in the process too.

You know, just when the Spice goals, there weren't all these girls bands, there weren't all these things that were started to happen in the 90s. It was before all of that. And. Oh yeah, definitely ruffled some feathers for sure. But you know, so like kind of looking a little bit. And if you're, if you watch Things carefully. You can't, it's easy to see. There are things happening even now, like on the Internet, that if you're, if you watch that, you know, in two years time, you'll say, oh, well, that's obvious. Right. But it's, but if you're, if you're, if you listen and you watch, you can see trends coming forward. Right, Right. So that's what, basically what I did. And then, to be honest with you, I, I, we were giving away that for free. We were getting tons that we've gotten literally probably about somewhere between 20 and $50 million of business on the back of those things. But I realized it was a business. Right. So I, I left and I started my own company and my first client was Nike.

Wow.

And I did a study for them, actually, but it was interesting. I did a study for them about European women and their, their kind of approach to exercise, which is totally different than American women.

To be honest with you. They weren't crazy about the message.

Well, yeah. So let's, yeah, give us a little. So you're in Europe at this time still?

Yeah, still in Europe. Yeah. I left the agency, but I never left France.

Gotcha. Okay.

Yeah.

Right.

So, yeah, so I started working with Nike and a bunch of really big companies.

Because in the process of doing all those presentations, I was on tv, people got to know who I was. So getting business was like super, super easy. But don't forget, I was an entrepreneur when that room was pretty empty. Oh, yeah, this is the mid-90s. There was no one. I remember going to a women's conference in Brussels in the late 90s and talking about how great it was being an entrepreneur. And people were literally looking at me with a blank face like, why would you do that?

Who are.

You know?

And I always thought it was so great because you could actually have this really great career and also, you know, have the flexibility to be looking after your kids when you needed to and at their school events and all that. I always thought it was kind of cool. But talk about being a little bit before the trend. I was at least 10 years before.

Well, seeing like, did you have, did you. Obviously you're in the middle of this company. You saw the connections. I feel like you. And you're good at future pacing or at least spotting what's coming. Is that kind of what was a big catalyst? Obviously the lifestyle? It sounds like you've always been very mobile too. You wanted that flexibility, it sounds like, to become an entrepreneur and create something from everything you've honed your skills with over the years.

Yeah, I think what drove me, I mean, yes, the flexibility was I'm pretty much. Yeah, I always wanted that. I always wanted. I'm not really a great person with authority, basically. I think that might be something that links up a lot of entrepreneurs. So I. That was just, you know, I was much. I'm fine with working with clients I'm fine with, but. But I wasn't. I'm not really good in bureaucracies. That's not my thing. That's not where. That's not the pool I want to swim in. And. But I think what I was trying to do in those early days with people like Solomon and Leg and all these people that I worked with and I worked at pretty high levels. I was working with, like the CEO of these companies. What I was trying to do was show them. Because it wasn't a little bit. Now it's again, it's like, duh. But back then it was like I was trying to show them that the people they were advertising to, the people they were marketing to were real human beings with real emotions and real struggles and real triumphs. And so, for example, you know, once. I don't know, you probably. You guys are probably too young to know this, but, you know, once upon a time, the way people would do research is they would bring people in and I don't know if they still do this, but they would have like a glass wall and people would be behind all the, like, advertising agency. And the client would be behind eating MMs. Watch it. Listening to, like these questions. Like they were like sort of like laboratory rats were. That's how. That. There was this huge sort of physical divide between you and your client. And so what I was saying to people is like, let's not do that. Let's. Let's really get to know what the, you know, the real emotions. And we. So I would. I remember, I got Nike, I got their.

I brought them to Italy and we were like playing football with their. With a bunch of. I said, no, we're not doing. We're going to sit around in the living room or we're going to go play sports, but we're not going to because these are real people. You need to interact with them as real people. And I did many, many strategic projects like that for the many, many companies. Salomon was another one. I don't know if, you know it's a ski company in France.

Oh, yeah, yeah. Actually, I recommend. Yeah, definitely. Well, I want to actually, before you go, a little Further, could you walk us through like say with Nike for instance, and getting that true connection and researching, maybe expand on that a bit because it sounds like that's something anyone can still do or at least put themselves in the shoes of their customers a bit.

I mean one of the tricks that I use now as a copywriter, which is sort of fast forwarding to today, to be honest with you, all of this was I was always a strategic copywriter so I would take the strategies and then I would write, I would write up their brand communications internally and externally, but the point of departure was always their consumer. Right. So nowadays you can short. I mean we have so many tools that can shortcut that we don't have to like bring people to Italy and play, you know, tug of war with them. But what we can do is you can. One of the, I mean it's a trick that a lot of copywriters use, but it's super good is you go on and you read reviews, right? You do review mining and not five star review mining because they're all pretty much the same, right? But you go into like two or three stars and you start hearing people's pain points. You start hearing what's really going on and what they're struggling with and how that particular, you know, we're not critiquing the book but we're trying to understand what people are grappling with. Right. Versus old fashioned research where you talk to them on the phone. I mean you can do that, but there's a lot of sources now. You can look in communities and forums and Facebook groups and start getting a handle on and also just experience. Right. Like I remember reading.

Sales Letter from that I've always thought was one of the greatest is. I can't remember the name of the guy who wrote it, but it's for, it was for.

The woman who lives in San Diego with you guys. I can't remember her name right off the bat, but she was talking. What he was talking about was they were. It was, it was for a. It's for Amy. Right. And she was, she sells an email list building.

Product. And the pain point, he's so right. The pain point that he talked about was that people are embarrassed to say what size their list is.

Ah. Yep.

It's like the walk of shame. Like how big is. It's like, it's like the question no one wants anyone to ask them. Like how big is your list?

You don't have over 10,000 people. What's wrong with you?

You know what I'M saying it's like just experiencing.

You don't have to be a huge researcher or you just listen to where the real pain points are, because a lot of times the real pain point isn't that you're 20 pounds overweight, it's that you have to wear that dress to that event, and it's embarrassing. Right. You know what I'm saying? It's the. It's those moments that, you know, like the reunions where you're like, oh, my gosh.

I don't want to look like her.

I know.

Exactly. So, you know, I feel like it's. We're so lucky now because there's so many places that we can source that, but it's just really a matter of being listening.

Yeah. And I don't want to stop the flow of your. The progression of what makes you, of course, your story, but it sounds like you're always identifying the struggles first, and then from there, because you said, even back in what you said, real humans, real struggles, you kind of always try to identify those struggles. And then from there, what do you do? Is it kind of like you just basically dive in deeper on the. The most common struggles, or do you build stories from them?

Well, I feel like when I, you know, I thought about this a lot because. And we'll get to why I thought about it a lot. But, you know, I have this. This huge story library that I use to illustrate what. What people are dealing with. Right. And I, you know, so I've had to sort of categorize what the story is about. And I. When I think about it, they're kind of two categories. Right. So they're the struggles people have, the pain points. But a lot of times the pain points are driving us towards something. So if I have a pain point that I'm overweight, I want to get rid of that. I want to go to that place where that doesn't exist anymore. But there's also. They're not just pain points, they're also obstacles. There's things that physically we don't have. We don't have enough time, we don't have enough money, we don't have enough information, whatever those. Those are. And then there's, of course, the famous obstacles that we have in our head, which probably the most universal. You probably safest when you go to those, because almost everyone has that little bird on their shoulder saying, I'm not sure I can do this. Absolutely positive I'm going to be able to do this. So, you know, there's the. There are the things that prevent us from doing things. And then there's the pain points that are kind of propelling us forward to getting. Because it's pain. It's a pain point you want. It's like, you know, if your hand is being burnt on the oven, you want to move away from the oven. That's what the pain point is. So the pain point propels us forward and the obstacles prevent us from that.

Momentum from that. Yeah, that makes sense.

Kind of different category. Coreys, I think.

Yeah, no, I like that. And that that helps a lot. And thanks for doing that because it's almost like the pain points connect to desires a little bit and then you have the obstac or like you said, limiting beliefs. It's all the stuff that we're all walking around with. We all have something. So your job is to identify.

Yeah. There's also another thing. I mean, and I'm sure you guys have all experienced this. We've read, copy or seen a video or whatever where someone talks about our pain points that we can relate to. They talk about the obstacles that we can relate to. But you know what? We just don't really like the person who's talking about it. That's the thing. A lot of people just forget that sometimes. I know. Sometimes I just don't buy something because I'm not really sure about the messenger. Right. So it's also about. And there's nothing wrong with that because fortunately everyone doesn't love everyone.

So I think it's also part of being marketing and being an entrepreneur is understanding who will be more likely to gravitate towards you.

Yeah.

I mean, we were talking earlier about introverts and extroverts and I think sometimes that's why partnerships work. Right. I remember when I used to work with my. My husband, it was, you know, there were people that would gravitate. He was more sort of the boys boy. You know, he played the political games. And I'm like hopeful that. And. And then there were, you know, I was sort of more. The More sort of creative people would. So we. We kind of balance the room off. Yeah. You know, some people would gravitate towards me and some, you know, so that's why partnerships can be so strong. Right. So that there might be one in the partners that some people will be gravitating towards one member and the others to the other. And that's good, though.

Yeah. I feel like that makes it good. Any relationship in general too, you know?

Exactly.

Yep.

Yeah. I think in marriages that it works that way often, too.

Yeah, I agree. So that's. And that is interesting, you know, like, the messenger just matters so much, and then connecting with that other person, you know, in. In maybe the language or the. The tone, like, there's a lot of stuff happening other than just words or, you know, there's a lot of relatability that has to happen. That's unseen, it seems like.

I think so. I mean, I think so. I'm. I'm not never really sure if everyone feels that way. You know, you got to remember, I've. My entire adult life, I've been living in a country where I don't. I mean, I speak French, obviously, but I. It's not my maternal language. So it's almost like you become, you know, when they say, you know, like, if you're blind, you end up having another sense that's stronger. So I feel like my intuitive sense is super strong because simply because I. I've grown, I've become an adult person in a country where that I'm not speaking there. I don't speak that. That's not my maternal language. Right. If that makes sense. So I rely on my intuition much more, and. And also I work virtually, so I also have to rely on it there. So I. But I think that there's always that sort of. That feeling that someone just doesn't connect, and I feel like, as marketers, we need to be aware of that. And it's okay, right? It's okay. You know, I'm sure there are people listening to this. Like, you know, sue sounds stupid, so. Right. It's fine. That's okay.

It's real talk.

You know what I'm saying? There's some people that will connect and then some people. And that's what. And understanding who is connecting, of course, is super important.

Yeah. Well, I feel like just trying to be the person that connects with everybody just by doing that, there's going to be people you don't connect with that. That, you know, they see the fact that you're trying to be everything to everybody, and that single thing is going to be what repels them from you. You know, it's like.

I think. I think it's a detriment when somebody is trying to be everything to everybody and try to appeal to everybody. And I think that's a big mistake that a lot of marketers make is they try to say, how do I make this product? How do I make this offering? How do I make my messaging appeal to every single person that sees it, which tends to.

It's like. Yeah, I mean I think a lot of. I mean I'm a woman so I will say I find that in my observation and my humble observation. A lot of women do that in life too. It's like this people pleasing thing. And the reality is you undercut your power when you need to be liked by everyone and you. It's a marketing lesson. It's a relationship lesson and one of the one unfortunately, one of the things I learned really early on is you know, if I care what everyone thinks and want to please what everyone thinks, I'm making, I'm making myself smaller. Right.

You're giving your power away, essentially.

You're giving your power away and to what it's like sort of the ether. Right. You know, it's like whatever. And so I feel like obviously it's important to be as kind as you can be and all of that, but I feel like at some point you have to say.

This is me. And if that doesn't feel comfortable to you, I totally respect that. But this is where I stand. And you can see it in marketing. People who do that.

Oh my God.

Are much more successful.

Yeah, it's. It's almost like they disqualify folks a lot more than they try to qualify them.

Yeah, I mean.

I mean, yeah. I mean I don't do this very. I mean I normally if I feel like that there's not a connect, I'll just, I'll there. I do things, I try to do things to sort of dissuade people so that they.

Right.

Rather than just say. But every once in a while I say, you know what, I just don't think this, this is a fit.

Especially working with a client one to one. It's like why would you want to work with someone that you don't connect with?

But even with an info product, if you have a great offer that's very clear and the ads, for instance, you're paying for traffic and you don't want everyone under the fricking sun clicking that ad and not buying. But let's get really targeted. It's really coming down to the targeted avatar. It sounds like on. In the online space.

Yeah. But I think one, I think people also need to be gentle with themselves because I know everyone talks about this and it's. And the reality is it's an evolution. We learn as we move forward, as we put campaigns together, as we talk to people. Who is really our avatar? Who isn't? I think people are always saying you got to do that up front. Well, sometimes it's like you're guessing at the beginning.

Yeah. Oh, we struggle with that for some reason.

I think everyone struggles with that.

Oh yeah, I totally agree with that. I do feel like you put an offer out there, you make your best effort based on sort of what you know already about who you think the ideal avatar is for this. And then as you collect data, you find out, well, I was close here, but really far off here, and this is who my real avatar is. And then you adjust and optimize and it works better. And then you start to collect new data because you get more volume and it's just an iterative process that always evolves.

Yeah. And I mean, I know for me as a copywriter, particularly when I do one on one work, it's like super important that I get the right fit.

Oh, yeah, yeah.

Because when I don't, it doesn't. It just doesn't work.

Yeah.

Right. I mean, I don't, I just. It's very difficult.

Oh, yeah, yeah. Especially with client work. I mean, that's. That it's literally someone you're. You're agreeing to hang out with a lot, you know, and spend a lot of your mental and emotional. Emotional energy into it. It's like, you better pick them. Right. Oh, yeah.

We ditch clients very, very quickly these days. If we tell it's not gonna be a good fit after like the first call, we're like, yeah, we don't want your money.

Don't need that.

Yeah. I mean. Cause it's just at the end, every time I haven't listened to that, I've regretted it. Like big time regretted it.

And that's.

Yeah, I know speaking personally here is. I've had a hard. That's been my biggest lesson. My evolution through business is saying no and picking the right folks. Because naturally I am more of a people pleaser and I will, I'll definitely, like, yeah, I don't mind working the crowd, make it all, you know, but it's. There's certain folks that really, I've learned to connect with and repel the others nicely, kind of quietly in their mind being like, yeah, I'll just refer you over here to someone else.

But, but, but it's. I mean, all that's so great though. I mean, it's because I know that's been a huge. I mean, like, you know, I started this at the end of the 90s, so we're talking 20 years now. Right. And. But that I'm still learning that. And I. And I think that a whole idea that saying no is actually is a really important thing to be able to do in life in general. Not just in our work, but in. And being able to say, you know what? That isn't okay. I can't do that. And that's, that's why I mean I think being an entrepreneur I accelerates that understanding. I think I'm a big believer that being an entrepreneur is probably the best self development journey that people can go on. Right.

I couldn't agree more. Yeah.

And it's not for everyone. It's like you really have to be, I mean tough. I mean there have been a few times.

Mainly for personal reasons, not my business, that my back has really been against the wall. And you know what?

Sometimes every once in a while I'll say to my daughter, God, it was really nice back then when this. That was that. She goes, yeah, but you're so much more interesting now. Right?

That's right.

Right.

You know, it's like, you know, you like.

There was someone was talking about Demi Moore, you know, he just came out with that book and they, they were saying, you know, her daughter was saying she was forged. Not you know, you know, that's what happens when you're an entrepreneur. Whether you're, you know, you for forge yourself. Right.

You'd like. I love that analogy.

And some people just don't do can't do it. Right. They just, they'd rather be caught standing beside an entrepreneur but doing the actual entrepreneur gig. No, I don't think so.

Right.

No. It's funny, it was making me think of like a song that's on the radio all the time here that it goes like A hundred good stories or 100 bad days means 100 good stories. 100 good stories makes me interesting at parties.

There it is. It's so true though.

But I also think it gives, I personally think it gives unflappable confidence because you know when you go through the fire and you walk out the other side, it's like seriously, nothing can happen that would. That I don't think I could handle. Right.

And what's the worst thing like if you fail as a business owner or whatever. There's a little thing called bankruptcy. If anyone ever wanted a little fallback option, it doesn't your fine, you'll live. You know like if, if you need to get. That's whatever. Yeah, there's. There's these. Like you said, you can walk out the other side of the most horrific scenario or shittiest client out there and be. You're fine. You'll live.

But, you know, I grew up. I mean, you know, I don't know if, you know, I grew up in a town called Atherton, which is near Palo Alto. And, and it was. The only way I can describe it, it was a perfectionist culture, was that you had to be perfect.

Was it, was it anything about, like the, just the obvious.

It was about money, it was about, you know, you had to be. You had to, it was everything. You had to be beautiful, you had to be thin, you had to be smart. You know, you had to go to Stanford. You had to. It was just like perfection, perfection, perfection. But you know what? Because I was writing, so I was actually writing some notes about, you know, some of the mistakes I've made in my life. But one of the biggest mistakes was that, right, that, that compulsion to be perfect. Because if you're trying to be perfect, you can't evolve.

And that's what's so great about being an entrepreneur, because it's impossible to be perfect as an entrepreneur. Not. It's not just not possible. You can kind of fake perfection in the corporate world, I think, but you can't. That's hard to do when you're an entrepreneur.

Well, how. Yeah, it's hard to. Yeah, it's hard to mask that if, especially if your personality is so ingrained as an entrepreneur or as your business. But even if it's not in the brand itself, it's with your company, you know, it's with your team, the culture and everything you bring. So it's everything you can do.

If you want to be perfect, you won't move forward because you'll be too afraid. I mean, I'm sure you've heard the story of Sara Blakely's father, who's like, they would come to the dinner table and he would say every day, how did you feel today?

How did you feel today? It's awesome. And I love this exercise. I just wrote it down because I want to do it, is literally go through and just write down every single mistake I can think of that I've made. And it's almost like just an ever growing list. But it'd be cool to always, occasionally obviously look back at the list and you do some meditation. You could journal on all that stuff. But, you know, like you said, it's going to be an evolution.

Yeah. And on the other side of every mistake is a.

You know, you, you learn about yourself, you evolve, you get ideas from that. You know, if your back isn't against the wall, why would you don't what's the motivation?

Yeah, you get comfy, you get too comfortable and you're like, eh, I don't need to. I remember working, bad habit of mine.

I worked with a guy, it was actually at bbdo. And I can remember him, I remember being so shocked by this. He said, I'm just going, I'm being as quiet as I can in my office until retirement because I don't want anyone to notice me. I was thinking, that's so horrible.

What kind of existence is that like.

Oh, and that's exactly what he did.

That's. It's too bad. Yeah, but like you said, as an entrepreneur, if you do that, it's like, well, you're obviously not throwing offers out there to people. You're not telling people what you do, showing your value to the world. But it's not cut out for everyone. And that's okay. But we all should. I love the whole mistakes. And we totally took a detour from your story and where you're going. I think we went down this rabble of pain points, obstacles, but then I think you were going to hit on experiences.

Yeah, I mean, so, I mean, we've kind of left it off at the. I mean, to me, a lot of what I do, I mean, I think a lot of what a lot of people do is just. It's just like a Mexican meal, right. So you have the same ingredients. So what I was doing for Lego and Nike and even BBDO really isn't actually that different than what I'm doing today. It's just, it's just looks. It's like it's a burrito, not a taco. Right?

So true. Growing up in San Diego, we know.

It'S about being strategic, it's about listening and being intuitive about where people are. Because that's really what it's all about. And it's about expressing that. See? And of course, I'm totally biased on this particular topic, but I think to me it's what matters are not your little boxes in your little funnels and the lines that connect the boxes up, but it's what the, the words that are inside them. It's all about the words. And I think it's one of the reasons why a lot of people get frustrated. Right. Because they line up their boxes and they do their fancy funnels and then it doesn't work.

Right? Yeah, we've been there many times.

We're there constantly. We're still there constantly when we're putting out new offers.

So, sue, how should we approach this Instead of funnels first.

It's really about the. It sees so much about the message, and it's about having those sort of fresh insights about where people are. Right. And I mean, one. One, you know, sort of fast forwarding to what I do now is, you know, like. And again, this has been all. Been an evolution, but I've been doing strategic copywriting essentially from the beginning. That's what I've been doing in different guises and in different forms. But now what I. You know, because I prefer to work with. I mean, one of the things that started to frustrate me with. I remember I did this huge thing about. With Solomon. We've traveled around the world, we talk to people because, you know, they're all about the experience of the mountain. Right. But they're just sitting there talking about fiberglass and the fact that it's, you know, 2cm of this and made up of that, and it's just like, all about no emotion to it. Right.

Yeah.

So we went around and we talked to skiers. And anyway, I did this whole presentation, which.

The board gave me a standing ovation. It was epic. And I came back three months later, and they hadn't done anything with it.

Yeah, of course.

And so I thought, you know, I can't do this anymore. I can't. I need to be working directly. I need to be working in smaller companies with people that can really implement what I'm doing. So that's one. And also, it sort of coincided with the fact that the Internet was coming more and more sort of not on the. That wasn't a side anymore. It was the, you know, the main meal. And. And so it kind of all just. So I started working with much smaller companies, and that's what I'm doing now because I prefer it. I work with a lot of business owners and entrepreneurs.

It seems like you have traction, or you can see the traction fairly quickly when you're working with a smaller. Maybe not a smaller. Well, it is a smaller company, but you can actually, like, hey, do this, like, move the. I don't know, adjust these words this specifically, and then you'll get that impact that you desire as a copywriter as well.

Yeah. I mean, one of the battles that I had, given my advertising background, which I don't actually confess very often. So, you guys, I'll be confessing it here tonight is. Or morning, your time, is that I always had a battle about direct response. So direct response copywriting really works, right? It really does work. But I always, having come from the advertising Side.

Once upon a time, there was this huge. The direct response agencies were sort of. You kind of felt sorry for them. Right. They were like we were the big advertising agencies doing the big super bowl ads and they were stupid direct mail pieces. Right. And. But then of course, the Internet turned that one upside down.

Right.

So, and I, and I. It's obvious you can see the power of direct response. But I always was, I always had a battle with the tone and manner. It was too in your face.

For me. It just felt too. And I actually still believe that. So that's when I started experimenting with wrapping up, using direct response conversion methods. But wrapping it up. I mean, I guess Todd Brown would call it his big ideas, but wrapping it up in stories and metaphoric storytelling so that the, the product or the pain point that we were talking about could be seen in a different light, if that makes sense. And that is. And.

To me, it wasn't that it softened the direct response. It actually does the opposite. It makes it even stronger, but it feels like. It just feels much more friendly, if that makes sense. And in stories, I mean, you know, it's proven by studies, stories get. Engage people much more completely than sort of just rational arguments. Do. Yeah, you need both, of course, by the way. Yeah. You know, so that's sort of that. So, you know, there is a line that took me from those. Hate those advertising days on Madison Avenue all the way to where I am now. And I, you know, I do do direct response copywriting, but I, and I, by the way, you know, I think words are super important. But I will also say that words are not. Are not all equal. And how, you know, pieces, you know, people, it's not, I think that there are certain key writing assets that people have that drive the most sales. And in the. At the top of that list, whilst it's often forgotten, are emails. In my opinion, it's where the action happens. You talk to any successful marketer and they will all tell you the same thing, from Perry Belcher to Justin Brook to James Schramko, to just know that the bulk of their. At least half of their revenue is coming from email. So if, you know, I mean, theoretically, at least 30% of your revenue should be coming from email, but people don't. It's like they're leaving money on the table because they don't really know how to do it. And you can see, just open up your inbox and you can see how badly it's. How bad. It's bad.

Yeah, it's getting bad.

They're it's really bad. It's like, really? Am I allowed to swear on this?

You can say whatever you want to.

They're kind of crap, right?

Swearing. Come on.

Come on. So you can do better than.

I was expecting more out of you.

People pleaser.

Right?

No, but, you know, and so, but what is sort of ironic is it's so crowded and everyone's yelling and everyone's shouting and it's so easy to stand out. It's the biggest paradox of what's happening right now because everyone's using the same templates and the same funnels and the same boxes and the same. And all you have to do is step slightly to the left or to the right and do something slightly different. And I mean, I just did a product launch for someone, you know, we sent out 30 emails and we. All the way through we were getting 40 to 50% open rates.

That's awesome.

He made. Yeah, all the way through. You know, that's okay. The first couple.

Sure.

But it's because they were, they were. They were dressed up. They were framed in these beautiful metaphoric stories that were pertinent to the people I was talking to. Right. So not just any story, but they were actually something that they could relate to. Yeah, I mean, you know, like, you know, you know, there's a lot of things that we watch every day. We, we listen in the news that you can, you can grab stories about the California fires or about. And you can, and you can. Any story out there can be made to have a lesson for your business and the pain points that you address and the products that you. And services that you offer, just with a little extra. It's a little extra thinking you can't find it in a template, unfortunately.

So you actually just reminded me, because I believe, unless I'm just making this up. When you and I talked a couple months ago, you said you save a ton of stories that just connect and then you kind of store them away and you use them in the exact same way that you're talking about right now for client.

Yeah, I have a story library.

Talk about that a little bit.

Yeah, I have. I collect these. I've been collecting them for years. And I. And I use. I mean, the. I will. I want to give credit where credit's due because I learned how to do this. He didn't talk about it exactly. It's the same way, but I learned how to do this years ago. I went to a.

I don't know.

If it was a workshop or I guess, sort of A mini conference or workshop that was given by Matt Fury. Do you know him? Yeah, yeah, yeah. He's a genius. He's a really interesting guy. And he basically, you know, he had this formula where you would, you know, you'd start off an email, you tell a story, you'd have a lesson of the story, and then you connect it up with your product and service. So that's when all this began. I started doing. And now I've kind of developed it into my own system. But, you know, that is where it's, you know, it took me a while also to figure. Because it sounds so simple. It took me a while to figure out how genius it really was.

Right.

Because. Because, but, you know, but if you look at your inbox, no one, you know, there are a few people doing that, but people talk about storytelling. They're always talking about, talking about their brand. It's like. No, that's. Yeah, that's one story maybe, but it's boring.

Yes.

Talk about what people really care about. Let's talk about, you know, stuff that's happening, you know, happening in the news. What's happening right now. And let's, let's, let's lean into our prospects world because what we're all doing is trying to get them to lean into our world. That. And this is, this is where we, the dots connect backwards to what I was trying to do with the Legos and Nikes of the world. Let's lean into their world. Let's listen to what. Well, let's talk. You know, people talk about the conversation in their mind, but they're talking about the conversation in their mind about their products. No, I'm talking about their conversation in general.

Right.

What they're talking about at their dinner table tonight. Right.

This is just like it's. You're leaning into their world because it's like a conversation. I mean, a conversation doesn't go one way, but I could see a lot of folks. Yeah. In email specifically, like you said, they're, they're shouting. They're not having a conversation. They're not listening. They're not giving a little into. Yeah. Showing a little relatability to that reader's world. And that's exactly what it sounds like you're doing with your stories.

But the stories, I just want to underline this. A lot of times the stories that I write about have nothing to do with the product category or the market that my client is operating in. Right. It's about. So like, let's just take the California fires. So you could talk about the California fire. You know, everyone talks about how horrible it is and everyone's losing all their homes, but the reality is it's actually. There's a reason those fires are happening. There's a natural reason those fires are happening because the brush is supposed to burn out. It's a natural thing that happens where the brush, the fires. I mean, I think it gets a little bit. Because California, there's so many people and all.

Yeah, it's like a combo here.

But yeah, it's natural occurrence at the fundamental. There is a natural occurrence and it's good for the earth and it's a little bit, you know, you could make. Draw parallels to, you know, there's a natural rebirth and sometimes we have to get rid of things in our lives that aren't good, things in our business that don't working for us, things in our relationships that aren't working. You can easily draw that parallel to an array of products and markets. You with me?

Yeah. And.

But bringing in a story that everyone's watching. Everyone's watching Trans. I mean, there aren't any fires right now, I don't think.

No, I think we're good.

There certainly are in Sydney. Right. But. But, you know, that's not just another example of. Or, you know, you could, if you dare. I'm not a big person on bringing politics into things because I just know it. It's very. It can be a bit tricky to deal with that. But if you, you know, if you, you're brave enough, you could talk about the impeachment process and what all that means. Right. And the, and so, you know, there's. So there's a lot happening, but there's also universal stories.

Stories about insecurities, stories about people redeeming themselves, redemption stories. So there's a lot of also what I would call more timeless stories that aren't in the news today. So there's just so much children's stories. Right.

So with the emails, telling a good story obviously has an emotional response, gets people to take actions. But before, before they get to the story, they've got to open the email, they've got to be compelled to click on it and actually read this story. What sort of advice do you have? Because you said that you just worked on a launch and got 50% open rates across the board. What kind of things were you doing to make sure people were actually paying attention to the emails you were putting out there?

Yeah, the subject lines. Some people say subject lines aren't important. That is always sort of slightly.

Bewildered me, I don't understand. Because if people aren't opening the door, they're not going to walk into your living room.

Right, right, right.

You need them to open the door. And that's what the subject line does. Right. So I think a lot, you know, I mean, you just look at your own behavior and like, why I open up, it's almost always because there's a curiosity factor. I mean, there's many different ways that you can do it. But, you know, question marks, you know.

What about you? Or things that are sort of incomplete, that you're like, okay, what about me? Why are they saying that? But it just means that there needs to be the thing about it. It can't be tricky.

Yeah. So it's got to kind of create an open loop where they're like, I need to know what the rest of this email's about.

Yeah, exactly. And it's sort of incomplete.

The one thing I will say, though, I think it's important that like anything, it has to be a balance. So email is all about the Ying and the yang. Right. So you have to have a lot of people think emails are about just setting up autoresponder sequences, which is sort of like saying, okay, I go to this party, I say, welcome, really good to see you. And then I don't talk to someone for eight months, and then I expect them to, like, know who I am. It's like, no, that doesn't work like that. So there's a Ying and a yang between autoresponder sequences and more dynamic sequences that you're. You're creating ongoing. There's a ying and a yang between. You can't have every single email either be story based. Right. So you have, you know, sort of transactional emails that I think people sometimes that are actually really are. They got really high open rates. So there might be a way of like squeezing out the mileage of a transaction email that people don't do. You have. You know what I'm saying? So I think that, you know, there's a crafting of sequences and of an entire strategy so that it doesn't always feel like if you. Every single time I get an email from sue, there's a story. It's like, oh, I know that, you know, there needs to be some unexpected. That goes for the subject lines because you can't use the same.

Tactic every single time. If that makes sense.

Yeah. You know what the interesting thing is, surprisingly for us, I think the emails that get the best open rates are the ones this is in Our scenario are the ones where we're flat out saying, hey, this offer is 50% off today. Only grab it right where it's just straight up, hey, we're doing a sale. Here's what we're doing. Click the email. And those emails get the best open rates. I don't like sending those all the time because I think they will become less and less effective. But for whatever reason those are truly, they do work.

But that's also, that's a good example of balance. So you.

I don't think any piece, any. I don't think there should be gratuitous emails. I don't think there should be gratuitous content. I think every single thing that you write should have a purpose and should be creating a desire for what it is that you are ultimately selling. It can be done in an elegant way, but I don't believe in just sort of, just sharing, just sort of create goodwill. You know, you want to be planting seeds elegantly in people's heads. And you know, there is no doubt about it because I've read, I mean I've written thousands and thousands of emails and every time you do, the 50% off flash sale ends tonight at midnight. Those are the ones that get open the most and those are the ones that react. But you know, you need to remember that. But you can't only have those either.

Right, right, right.

Because you need to. There needs to. It's just like, you know, if you, the person, you had a friend and every time you talk to him it's like, hey, you know, I've got this really great idea. I have this, I have this fantastic thing I want you to buy. But after a while you're like, can we just like talk about something else? Right?

Yeah.

So it ha. There needs to be. That's what I talk about, the yin and the yang. You, that's why. But even the story based emails are not just sort of gratuitous stories. There's a reason behind them. They're illustrating in a new way how your product can help them. They're illustrating their pain points so they can relate to it better. Right?

Yeah. The story kind of creates an analogy that makes the offer make more sense.

It's metaphoric and using analogies. It's like I always. And some of the best marketers in the world, like someone like Steve Jobs. Right. I mean, you guys all know about the 1984.

Oh yeah, yeah, yeah.

Right. That was a metaphor. It was a metaphor for IBM versus Apple. You know, IBM being the conformist you know, no one has any opportunity to express. Whereas. And Apple was the woman who ran into that room and. And was the only one in color and who basically threw a hammer to the screen and destroyed it, basically saying, you know, and it was. All that was. Was a very clever metaphor. He was really good at those metaphors and those analogies.

Yeah.

And that's, you know, but he. He even went one step farther, which was, you know, we talked about leaning in. He was also leaning in to the sense of self empowerment that the baby boomers were all about. Right. So he was leaning in. He was like becoming. He was making Apple part of that lexicon, part of that dialogue. It was super clever.

Oh, yeah. The crazy ones. And then just kind of expanded on that. He just expanded that whole different. Yeah.

And that's what baby boomers were proud of. They were proud of the fact that they were thinking differently. They were independent. They were. They were saying no to the conformism of the 1950s. And he knew, being a baby boomer himself, he knew that, and that was, you know, so he took metaphors not just to the product level, but to. He basically made Apple part of a social. The social. Cultural dialogue. And so he went. He made, you know, he really, really did lean in. And that's why Apple, you know, Apple, if you look at the stats, they were like, had like 8% of the market. They had no percentage of the market. But the reason they survived and why everyone wished they bought a lot of Apple stocks in the 1980s is because. Because of that. That's how powerful it was.

He just wrapped that message, those beliefs. He knew the pains that people were dealing with, and, you know, it was tiny, like you said, you know, they had similar obstacles. And he's like, here's a new mechanism. Here's a new thing you can do. And wrapped it in every piece of that business.

Yeah. So it's really fascinating. So, you know, and you see that. So the power of that. The power of whatever you want to call it, word wrapping or metaphoric storytelling, you know, because, like, as, you know, everyone talks about storytelling. You probably had a lot of people on your podcast talking about storytelling, but everyone talks about it in terms of storytelling. Your brand, but.

That'S like a tiny sliver of what you can do. Right.

That's like the kindergarten version of storytelling.

It's true. Yeah. There's so many dynamics to it. There's modalities. And with us, a lot of our stories come out on the podcast right here. So we talked about attention and Connection. Well, well, we've seen no better, at least in the way of creating content like this than having a podcast. That's why we love it. But then emails help. But then it's great because I hop on calls with a lot of folks that we have as potential clients and just whoever our subscribers, and they talk like us, they relate to us. It's like we're buddies by the time we get to that point on the phone. And there's so much to be learned through that. But it's interesting the way that you can buy for attention, but really it comes from the relationship that's built through time. It's not an immediate thing. And that's where I think the blend. If it's like you were saying just straight up direct mail all the time, or these shouting all the time, it doesn't have a lot of longevity to that.

Yeah. And you feel like you're being sold to. And that's sort of the antithesis of what, at least what social media was supposed to be like. I feel like we've kind of. We've kind of reverted. I don't know. I just feel like social media sort of is in a crisis right now.

You know, and. And it's a pity because it. There's something very. I mean, like, I always felt, I always joked that I was doing social media before social media because I was trying to make that connection. And then there was like this sort of honeymoon period where we were making this, but now it's just disintegrated. And we have influencers that. It's like faux influencers and faux entrepreneurs and folks. I mean, and I mean, you know, and people that are so successful and then you, like, you know, you open up the curtain. It's like the wizard of Oz inside. It's like this tiny little person that has, like, is like earning, you know, $30,000 a year.

Speaking of analogies, that's an amazing one.

I know. It just all clicked. This is great.

I could totally visualize, you know, what I'm talking about. And I'm like, am I always telling my daughters? It's like, oh, look at how she has a. Don't believe it.

Yes.

It's like, just don't believe it. Because I mean. And I know, because I, you know, when working for the many people as I have, you see behind the. You see behind the curtain.

You do?

Yeah, you do. So when it comes to the storytelling stuff, what advice do you have for somebody that wants to sort of build that gene into themselves? They want to get more proficient at being able to tell stories. What can they do to get better at doing that?

Well, I think.

One of the things that this is going to, hopefully, I hope this doesn't sound unhelpful.

But the whole thing about what I'm talking about is making connections between things, things that are seemingly unrelated. Right. So a lot of people think that you just have to be super genius and super smart to do that. But I think it's also a habit. Yeah, right.

Yeah.

Of connecting different things. Because, you know, I don't know if you've noticed, but during this conversation we've talked metaphorically many, many times.

Right.

It sort of like, you know, I read somewhere, it's like we're swimming in a sea of metaphors and people don't. Are almost unconscious of it. So part of it is just being conscious of it and part of it is one of the ways that you can make connections between unrelated things, which makes things so much more interesting and brings. Puts what you're doing into a much newer, fresher light for people is extensive reading. Extensive reading. Watching movies, getting out of our world of I'm selling supplements or I'm, you know what I mean? Because the reality is the magic is in all, everything that's around us.

Yeah.

Right.

So are you a fan of watching the news or do you avoid watching news because it's all just sort of negative stuff being pushed on you all the time or what are your thoughts on that? Because I've heard the point of view that if you're going to be a copywriter, you need to kind of know what's going on the world so you can tie it into your messaging. But then I've also heard avoid the news because the, the news is just toxic and putting bad, you know, negative thoughts in your head and trying to tell you that the world is horrible all the time. So I'm curious where you stand on that.

Well, yeah, I've, I've heard that logic about, you know, keeping the toxic news out, but I've never really understood that. I mean, I've always been with, I've always, you know, certainly the men that I've lived with always been newsaholics. So I've always sort of the news, you know, and I'm like, I have, on my phone, I have, you know, it depends on where you're getting it from. But I, you know, I'm an avid reader of BBC. They're really, really. If anyone doesn't have a BBC app on their phone, they should put it on because it's really. They're very clever, they're great writers. There's also something that I learned from Andrew Chaperone, which is a thing called, I think it's called Flipboard.

And you. It's an app. Is that what it's called? Yeah, Flipboard. And it goes, you know, you can pick the categories that you want to follow and. But there's everything, you know, from articles from buzzfeed to just everything. And the thing about it is the more, you know, you don't want to like go insane and be like, you don't want to disperse your energy because we all know that that's a challenge for us. But I feel like it's important every day to spend a little bit of time doing a little bit of sort of collective brainstorming by just seeing what's out there and what people are talking about and what. Because we're trying to connect with people, like I said, they're not. Otherwise if you completely divorce yourself from that, you're. You are defining your, what you are doing for them on your terms, not their terms. It goes back to what I keep saying. You want to lean into their world.

You want to be entering the conversation in their head, not necessarily about your product, but they're just general conversation, what they're thinking about, what they're reading about in their Facebook news stream or on Instagram. And if you're not watching that, I don't know how you do that. But I think people get afraid because.

The big irony of the Internet is it's a 100% linear, digital, linear world. But the beauty, the magic isn't in the left brain, it's in the right brain. It's where we're making connections and it's a circle. And we talk about things like we have tonight. A ton of things frankly aren't always related to each other, but it all kind of works together because that, you know, and I feel like if people could embrace that, it's a little bit scarier because it's not like, you know, point one, I do this. Point two, I do this. Point three, because you know, and I mean I used to do these strategic sessions with people with these big companies and they were like, you know, it was like they're like, oh my gosh, we're talking about everything on the moon. And.

But sometimes you have to brainstorm and be creative and talk about non connected thing to get to shed light and insights on what you're doing.

100%. So much sense.

So going back to kind of the news question. There's a good chance that your audience, the people you're trying to talk to, are watching the news. They are in tune with what's going.

On in the world.

So you might as well be also so that you could speak to them where they're at.

This is actually interesting because I kind of went the route like you said. Sue is cutting off all that input because of like, I was just like, okay, I'm just gonna focus, I'm gonna deal with my own stuff. But I almost. Cause actually, as you've been talking, I've installed the BBC app in Flipboard. So I'm changing this and reinstalling Instagram on my phone because you just gave me the permission to start on social media. No, I'm just kidding. But. But I kind of cut myself a lot off from these inputs and I could see where that is a detriment. Obviously there's a balance there.

So there is a balance. And like, but like, I watch Netflix. I watch Netflix. I mean, I work really long hours because I have Australian clients and I talk to people in California. So like, I've really long. But I treat myself every night. I'm always watching Netflix. You know, people say, you can't do that. Oh my gosh, what a waste of time. But you know what it's for? I feel like, I feel connected. I could see, you know, and it's like some of the stuff I watch is stupid, but, you know, it's okay. It's all right. Sure, it's all right. It's all right. And it's, you know, and I also have young 20 something daughters, which is helpful. So I'm very connected through that as well. You know, I, you know, I would. I feel like, you know, we need to get out of the worlds that we've defined. Defined for ourselves in a lot of different levels. Because it really does in the end, A, it makes us happier. Second of all, it makes us more interesting. And it also makes what we're offering to people at who more interesting and more textured and more and more. And that's why when you go into your inbox, just to give an example, or even the news stream on Facebook, it's. It's like, oh my gosh, it's so flat. And it's always the same thing. And it's. There's a scene. I can't remember the name of the movie. It's. It was a movie. I'll have to find it for you guys. It's with Christian Slater Was made in the 90s. It's not that well known, but there's a scene that. He's like a. He's like a.

Dj, but, like, he like pirated. He's like a pirate dj. Right. So he like pirated a radio station and there's a scene in it and he's like, this is made in the 90s. He's like, there's nothing new, it's all the same. And I'm thinking, wow, like he was talking in a crystal ball. That's how I feel when I'm looking at all this stuff. It's like. I mean, like Hollywood, just forget it. The Hollywood movie, I can't even watch.

They're all the same. Yeah.

All of a sudden, now it's a formula. Yeah. Yeah. And now the formula is, oh, strong women. It's like, no wonder why that is. But you know what I mean. The formula used to be stupid women and now it's like really strong women.

Oh, there's a trend here. This is. Oh, let's get on.

Yeah, that in superheroes. Yeah, Right.

That's right. So. But, you know, I feel like, you know, it's like. And I just love that scene because it's like. Yeah, yeah. It feels like it's all the same.

Yeah.

And so. But the good news is you just have to be a little bit more connected and a little bit more thoughtful and think a few extra steps and you can stand out without having to shout. You don't have to shout. You can actually even whisper and stand out. You just need to be talking about the right things. Right.

This is so cool.

I did have one more question in the sort of copy realm, and it might be kind of a tactical question and I have a feeling it's going to tie back to. Nothing's really changed, it's all the same. But.

Sorry, sorry, I didn't mean to silence you here.

But I'll tell you, when it comes to copy, with the stuff that we write, emails and sales page copy and anywhere in between, one of the things that I struggle with the most is sort of baking scarcity into the offers to give people the idea that they really should get it now and not wait. Because I don't like doing the false scarcity thing, right? Where you say it's going away next week and there's a countdown and the countdown just starts over. You see people do that all the time and that just pisses me off when I see people do that. Right. And then you've got like this sort of launch Models where people launch a product and so open for a week and then they shut it down and then nobody's allowed to buy their product for a week. And I just really don't like that model either. And so that's one of the things that I've always struggled with when I'm doing copy for our business is really just how do I get people to want to take action now without feeling sleazy about it?

Right. No, I think it's a great question. And by the way, you have to have scarcity. Right? So it's just like, remember I talked about the yin and yang? You cannot have every single email with a scarcity. It's like every, you know, saying midnight on whatever day, whatever day is it today, you know, and you can't, you can't always use the exact same tactic. But there's two ways of having scarcity. One is time and one is quantity. Right. But you have to have it because we humans don't act. I mean, I was working with a guy for over a long period of time and yet he actually had a list that hated him. I mean, I was like, he tried to hide the woman, but oh my God, I saw some of the comments and, but we, over time we got them to like him and. But every single time we had a, you know, whatever you want to call it, a flash sale or you know, a short term, two day sale, you know, the number, you know, the numbers go up.

Right.

But so you have to have you, you know, it either has to be quantity and you can do it. I don't, I think time works really well.

Yeah.

And what I see more and more people doing is really shortening it. I mean, I'm not a big, I mean, you know, basically I think you should be having some kind of whatever. I don't really like the word sale, but some kind of offer that is limited in time or has a discount or whatever it is.

At least once a month. I know people who do it once a week. I think it's, you know, but I would do at least once a month.

But wouldn't the argument against that be that it's sort of training your list, training your audience to just wait for the sale?

Well, it depends on what, you know, it depends if you're always offering the same thing. Absolutely. But you need to do different things and you need to, it could be that you have a bonus.

Like you, you know, you have, you have, you know, some kind of bonus or a free book or what, I don't know what Whatever it happens to be. Or a phone call with you guys or.

The offer. You know, you can be selling the same thing.

You can have one product and you can have 50 offers. That's what people don't get. And they just. You just. You just dress them up in different clothes. Right. And it does. But it doesn't have to feel. There's no reason that you have to feel like that. It's sleazy. There's a way of doing this elegantly and, of course, making sure that you're always offering value, which you guys always do.

Yeah. I mean, the only time that I feel like it kind of starts to get borderline sleazy is when you get the fake countdowns. Right? The countdowns that are really just counting down to nothing. And then they just start over again to try to get people to, like, buy now.

Yeah. My favorite is the countdowns.

And then.

Oh, well, actually, we're just opening it up for another couple days. It's like, what?

Yeah, I am not a fan of that.

Oh, you know, my dog ate the computer wire or whatever.

You know, it's funny. I think one of the good examples of this is really. I mean, it's a very famous example, but the Sports Illustrated football phone example, right. Like, I used to have a subscription to Sports Illustrated. I don't think I ever read. Had one issue that came to me, but they were giving away a jacket that had the San Diego Chargers logo on it. And it was like $15 a year for the subscription. And I'm like, oh, I want this. I hate the Chargers now. But at the time, I loved the Chargers and I wanted this jacket. So I paid for the $15 subscription to sports Illustrated to get the jacket. And then literally every single issue that came, maybe not the Swimsuit Edition, but every other issue that came went in the trash can.

Well, you know, there are a lot of people. People who really believe in those sort of premiums, like the free mugs and the. I don't do that that often, but I know they really, really work. Right.

Gora does it all the time. I mean.

Yeah. Gora's big on that. Right. I mean, that's a classic direct response.

Yes.

Tactic. But, you know, they're. You know, and I. I think every once in a while, you can throw that in. You know, I know a lot of people who do that. I wouldn't do that every single time. But, you know, you can also throw in other things. Right?

Yeah.

I mean, so I feel like. But one. Human beings do not act unless they have to if you leave it open ended, the sale isn't going to happen. Just the nature of why. I mean we're all the same way. We're all, I mean, you know, if we all fess up, we've all been there that night, you know, at 11:55 when the midnight thing is about to. It's like shut. They were like do this or not. Right.

Yeah, we've all been there. Right. Because. And you know, and it's, it's. Yeah, we, and we all know, we're all marketers, we know that deadline is somewhat artificial. Right. But we still, it's still effective even for us know it alls right.

Yeah. Quantity and time. I mean but like you said, the time probably being the, the, the bigger presser of the scarcity that we're. Yeah.

I mean it's really hard.

And then people use discounts too. But I, I'm not a big, big fan on discounts. Same.

Yeah, I mean it's really hard to sell on quantity when we're like in the digital realm that we work in. Like, hey, there's only 50 copies of my ebook available. Oh, bullshit.

Yeah.

Yeah. I mean, I think for. Yeah, I mean I don't, I do either done with you or done for you. So for me it's more, yeah.

Hands on. Practical.

Yeah. Like I can't, there's, there's a limit to how many email sequences I can provide people. So. Yeah. So for me it may, I can use that because people get that. Right?

Yeah, for sure.

But, but there's a way of doing it where it's not, it doesn't feel sleazy.

Doesn't feel sleazy. It's real. It's, it's not going to ruin the connection because that's again, you want to, to keep that relationship open. So.

Yeah, exactly. And the problem is, you know what people don't get is the. Probably the, the. I mean, I'm sure you guys have heard this but the two most precious assets we have besides time, not, you know, our trust and attention, they're hard to get. And the trust, if you break it. I mean, I was telling the story of someone I probably won't, I probably shouldn't say the name of the company, but someone contacted me. This is years and years ago, like it must have been 2006 maybe. And this guy.

Contacted me, said I really like the work you do and I would really like us to partner together.

So I got on the phone with him and he started to pitch me. It was total bait and Switch. And this is a reputable company that you guys know, and everyone listening to this knows. And I've never. I won't have nothing to do with them because the trust was irreparably broken. He was, you know, he like, kind of. Kind of lured me in to just, you know, if you wanted to pitch me, that's totally fine. Just say, I want to tell you about my offering, but not, oh, we're going to be partners together.

He never had any intention for us to be partners. He wanted to sell me, which is fine. But just tell me that.

Yeah, yeah. Be honest with me.

Right.

That's too bad.

Yeah. So. Yeah. So I feel like, you know, it's like any of these tactics, I mean, we've all had things like that happen where we feel people have kind of bait and switched us. It's not good.

No. Yeah. Well, tell us, because we want to wrap up. And you've been so dang gracious with your time. We've been going on for a while.

It's fun.

It is. I know. And I'm. I was thinking. I'm like, I could literally. Because this is how you're. And I talked when we first got introduced by James, I think it was like, I don't know, almost an hour. Just felt like time flew. I'm like, these are just fun to tell stories. And, like, it's exactly what you do is connections between unseemingly related things or unrelated things. And I could just see how it just makes for great conversations.

Yeah, it does make for good. I'll tell you guys a little unrelated stories. You know, I do a lot of bike riding and I do a lot of walking, and every once in a while, like, go out and I just don't come back for, like, three hours and, like, my kids will start panicking and calling me, and I'm like, oh, just don't worry. I'm just talking to X, Y, Z, or. Yeah, so I can. Yeah, I'm good at that.

Yeah.

Well, tell us some folks that are listening. Obviously, some of them might want what you have or you do some work. But tell us about your copywriting. For a lot of companies, how can they learn more about you and follow you and maybe reach out if they want to hire you?

Sure. So just in terms of. I mean, if people want to reach me, I'd be happy just to. You guys can just write me at my email, which is super easy. It's sue s u ewrice.com and basically I work with people in a couple different Ways I do, I. I'm a big believer in because I think writing is hard for people and getting it right is hard for people. So I have. I do a lot of done for you services. I create dynamic sequences for people.

And, you know, it's basically a dumb. For you, but I've. I've made it.

Pretty affordable for people because I sort of feel like right now people have two choices when it comes to copywriting. They just have kind of templates that they just plug in things in and it doesn't really work very well. Or they have expensive copywriters, which is kind of hard to do when you. Particularly for ongoing emails. Right. Because depending on what your business is doing, it can be difficult for people. So I have that. So I have it done for you. And I also offer.

Workshops, you know, small workshops, maximum 20 people, where I teach you. I can teach you, I can train your team how to do this. So that's the other option. And I also do. I'm doing this lesson loss. But I do do copywriting critiques for people. So I can. What I do is I'll go through and I'll. I will tell you exactly what you need to. Need to do to change. And you basically can either do it yourself or you can give it to a copywriter that's less expensive than me to do it. And yeah, so I do that, but I'm doing less and less on that just because I don't have the bandwidth.

Yeah, it's a time thing. That's awesome. Well, yeah, well, what in. In sue rice.com would that be good to check out? Obviously they could write.

Yes, of course. Sue rice. Yeah. Sue rice.com is the name of my site. You can. You can figure you can find out a little bit more about my background. I have some writing samples there.

Cool.

Which updated as, you know, the famous website updating and. Yeah. So, you know, I'd love to hear if you guys. If you just want to talk, I'm happy to. I'm always, as they say in French Alley, I like to listen to people.

And I write only.

Don't worry, all my writing is in the English.

That's true.

I will not write French. Yeah. I'm in California. Don't forget that.

Now, are there any. Are there any books around copywriting or storytelling or anything like that that you can recommend to people?

Yeah, there's a book that no one knows about that I wanted to recommend and I wrote it down because I always forget the name of it. It's called. It talks about the power of metaphors. Okay. It's called the Tall lady with the Iceberg and the Power of Metaphor to Sell, persuade and Explain anything to anyone. And it's a woman named. I think her name is Ann Miller. And she actually trains people to use metaphors in presentations and in selling. So it's slightly applied differently, but I think that's. And it's something that most people aren't even wear that book and you can't buy it on Kindle. You have to buy a real book. But it's really, really, really interesting.

It's what she talks about. It's really, you know, it's really, really the whole. It's something that very few people are talking about, but it's super, super powerful and it's a great way to stand out in an elegant way, I think.

Awesome. That is one we've never heard of.

Yeah, that's. That's the first time we've had that book recommended. Recommended. Awesome.

Yeah. I think it'll probably be the only time. Al know Todd Brown likes the book, but she came out one. The original edition of it was, I think, called something just Metaphors. But she. So she. But she decided to put a metaphor in her title because she's a. She's tall and she talked about how.

A metaphor can, you know, it's. It's more than just the tip of the iceberg a lot of times, and it allows you to go deeper. So, yeah, that's why she's a perfect title.

Yeah.

She'll explain it better than me in the book. So. Sorry if I par. I'm. To My apologies, Anne, if I'm paraphrasing it.

Shout out to Todd Brown, too, a few times.

But I know he says he reads this book. I mean, like I said, it had a different title initially. He reads the book once a year because he's. Because he. Because, you know, there are a lot of people who write who believe that metaphors are the most powerful way of communication, but I think a lot of people get intimidated by it, which is why I offer this done for you service. They get intimidated by it because they feel like, oh, my gosh, I have to be like this amazing writer or this amazing whatever.

But I do encourage people to think about it because creating those connecting up unconnected stories is a way of surprising of and of, you know, giving people the unexpected in, you know, so that we don't have Christian Slater as that pirate DJ going, it's the same old, same old.

Yeah. Or Groundhog Day with Bill Murray it's like.

Yeah, that's right.

You don't want to live that over.

We're doing it over and over again. The same thing. Well, that's right. That's exactly what we're doing. We have. We're living a ground hall. Groundhog World. Yep, pretty much. Well, yeah. So anyway. So that. Yeah, we've kind of done the tour.

We've done the tour. But, yeah, maybe we'll do another tour. Because I bet we can go a lot other angles, you know, with copy and storytelling. That would be interesting. Sue. Thank you so much.

Yeah, all of that. There's a lot, actually, we could go a lot deeper about.

Yeah.

I think copy is actually easier. The writing part isn't always easy, but the actual concept behind it is easier than people think.

Yeah. Yeah, I agree. I think most people believe that it's like if I rearrange these specific set of words in a certain way, that'll magically just start converting without thinking of, well, what. I don't think enough. People put themselves in their customer shoes and try to look at their product from the. The perspective of a customer. They kind of try to convince the customer that this is what they need.

Yes. I don't think. I think that, you know, I always use the words. I'm a strategic copywriter. I use that for a reason. Because what people don't get is all words are a reflection of thoughts. So if you don't have the right thoughts, you're not going to get the right words. You don't have to have fancy words. You don't have to be a fancy writer, but you do need to have the clarity of thought about what it is that you're trying to communicate. And it's not just about what your product's about, but what that person on the other side of the table you're trying to convince is grappling with. And that's the missing piece, right?

Yeah. It's research. Right. That's why copywriters are constantly researching and gathering, gathering, gathering, and then finally, all that's all work. That's probably like 80% so iceberg.

Well, yeah, the research thing, I just don't even get people. I mean, I spend days researching. I am working with a guy who's an architect, actually, and who's split between the west coast and the East Coast. And I have literally spent. We started in August. I'm still working with him. We spent five months just researching, talking to his clients. And it's been. I mean, there has been such a wealth of ideas and insights about what he's doing and what he brings to the party. But without that taking that time, we wouldn't have figured that out. Yeah, that's one of the basic research, is just getting on the phone and talking to people.

That's probably the easiest way.

Yeah, it is the easiest.

Yeah. All right.

Anyway, listen, thanks so much for the time. I'm sure you guys are.

Thanks a lot. Take care.

All right. You take care of yourself. We'll talk soon. Bye. Bye.

Bye.

Hey, hey, hey. Thank you for listening to that episode. This is Joe Fear. I'm sure you probably already knew that. And Matt is not here right now, but I'm pretty sure he enjoyed the episode just as much as you and I did because he went into the production of kind of making that thing right along with me. So thank you very much. And I want to give a quick shout out to our. Our buddies over at Easy Webinar. These guys have been supporting us for a while, a long time. And Casey Zieman is just a super good guy all around. He's actually been on the show before. He's the founder of EZ Webinar. So if you look up Casey Zman on any podcast platform you're listening to, go check him out. Go check out his backstory, what he's all about. You can learn a lot about webinars as well. And right now, EZ Webinar, these guys are actually hooking you up with, with a great trial. It's a completely free trial to test out their software, soup to nuts. Check it all out and see if it's a good fit for you. If you go to easywebinar.com hustle, that's H U S T L E. If you didn't know how to spell hustle, there you go. So if you go to easywebinar.com hustle you can go grab a free trial. And Easy Webinar literally lives up to its name. It's super simple. I mean, super easy. And it does all the stuff that you're looking for in any kind of thing with webinars, I mean, they literally cover every single type of webinar you possibly can do. So from live to automated to scheduled at specific times and all these crazy features in between, can't even list them all out. I'll be here way too long. They give you a ton of advanced analytics. What's working, what's not. During your webinar. Based off all these actions, you'll see who attended, how long they stayed. If they clicked the offer or if they didn't, basically, you're gonna make more money and you're gonna work less with this thing and you're gonna create better relationships with the folks that are listening because it's a good experience. You wanna give that good experience along with some great content, of course, and a killer offer if that's what you got for them. So go try it out yourself. Go check out easywebinar.com hustle that's easywebinar.com hustole Alrighty. Righty. So that is the end of this episode. Thank you so much for listening to this episode, enjoying it. Hopefully you did. I'm pretty sure you did, if you lasted this long. And go check out Easy Webinar when you get the chance and we will talk to you next time.

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