Copywriting Super Panel: Part 1 with Clayton Makepeace, Brian Kurtz, Jennifer Hudye and Craig Clemens From Joe Polish and Genius Network - I Love Marketing Episode #358

If the world only remembered you for your marketing, does it accurately represent you and the message you're here to share?

I'm Dean Jackson, he's Joe Polish and.

This is the I Love Marketing podcast.

Today's episode is a special copywriting super panel and it's part one of a two part series. Experts Clayton Makepeace, Brian Kurtz, Jennifer Hoodie and Craig Clemons share how they've written lucrative copy for their clients and how you can too. Whether it's authenticity or basic fundamentals, each pro has valuable insight on how to make copy work. In this episode, four panelists will give immediately actionable advice to consider when hiring a copywriter or writing your own copy. You'll learn the role of storytelling, how to stand out and how to drive people to act in an authentic and effective way. You'll also discover what many online marketers don't know, but should. If you'd like to join world renowned entrepreneurs at next year's Genius Network annual event, then apply today for your invitation to attend. If you'd like to learn more about the Genius Network annual event or to apply, go to geniusnetwork.com Clayton Makepeace, we're.

Going to go with you first. Clayton, you have literally sold. You've written copy that has sold in the billboard range of products, services and whatnot. Right.

I think Mary Ellen was getting a little enthusiastic there. Last time we counted it was about one and a half billion.

Really?

Okay, well you know, still it's not chump change and you know, I've seen you speak, you're absolutely got some profound, incredible stuff. So for people watching this video, just some fundamental business advice on direct response marketing, the must know things in order to be successful as a business owner.

What would you say get Bob Stone's book Successful Direct Marketing Methods. You know, the gurus love to talk about the flashy stuff, the copywriting, the headline testing, the Taguchi method, all of that. But so many of the people that I meet today that do online marketing are not aware of the nuts and bolts, the fundamentals of direct marketing. They don't know what statistical reliability is when testing. They don't know how to properly construct an AB split. They don't know the work that's done to select the best prospect names, both online and the stuff that's done in the back room, by the way, marketing people, you know, but they need to know that because that's how they know who they're writing to. One of the most powerful tools that you can have if you're Creating any kind of a promotion is a data card that gives you the demographics and psychographics on the people you're going to be talking to. So you know their age, you know what they bought in the past, you know their income level. And that allows you to craft something where you're writing to somebody and not just at them.

Copywriting is defined as the act of writing text for the purpose of advertising or marketing a product or service to encourage the reader to take action. Brian Kurtz is an expert on copywriting, even though he himself is not a copywriter. Yet, over the last 38 years, Brian has hired, worked with and coached some of the most successful copywriters in the world. Brian is a direct marketing genius and expert. He's been responsible for selling billions of dollars worth of products in every medium, online and offline. He took his beloved former company boardroom from approximately 5 million to over 150 million a year when he headed up sales and marketing. Now Brian teaches his own mastermind groups and consults with some of the best marketers on the planet through his writing and speaking. Brian says he's in about 1300 B.C. when Moses came down off the mountain, he had two stone tablets in his hands containing the Ten Commandments. Those Ten Commandments change religion and the world for the better. Today, right before your eyes, Brian will come before you carrying a slide deck with 10 more commandments from the copywriting closest to God, who you may have never heard of, but you will now know him. Give it up for my dear friend, Mr. Brian Kurtz.

Thanks, brother.

And you'll feel way more confident whether you ever write copy or whether you ever work with a copywriter. What to ask, what to think about. So who is Jim Rutz? Anybody ever hear of him? Not many. Jason Fladlane, of course. But Jim Rutz was the copywriter closest to God. He besides, he was one of the highest paid copywriters. He was one of the most in demand copywriters in the 80s and 90s. For direct mail, he wrote long copy. He was really a very, very special talent. So you really need to pay attention to what I'm going to tell you today. Even though you've never heard of him. The number one sin and admail is being boring. And over half of it richly deserves its quick death by wastebasket. Now, being boring. We were talking last night at dinner about long copy versus short copy, online versus offline. And there is no such thing as long copy is better than short copy or vice versa. There's only boring copy. It can't be too long or too short, just too boring. And storytelling is a big part of that too. And if you tell stories, that's a big part of what Jim did and what the great copywriters do. Number two, never write to a crowd. And what I like to say is lists are people too. List segmentation has never gone out of style, never will go out of style. So the idea that in direct mail, Jim Rutz never wrote for the Internet, but in direct mail, he was able to write personally to different segments of lists when it was way more expensive with postage and printing. And resorting to online. To not be more personalized in your copy and write to an audience of one is a sin and should never be. And that's why there's a commandment that.

Says.

Never write to a crowd. Number three is don't be a jerk. Everything we send and every medium must achieve something. Now, this is contradictory to some of the stuff that I was taught by some of my other mentors who said, well, in direct mail, we had to sell something every single time because it was too expensive. We were paying postage and printing. I think this is even more important today that everything that you send does not have to sell something. And I actually have my own quote for this, which is, it was a relationship event. And in online, it's cheap. Just like Joel taught me that slides are free. It's cheap to do online marketing compared to what we did in direct mail. But Jim was way ahead of his time on this. Number four is grab your audience. Craig Clemons, who's one of the great copywriters out there right now, he says, start your copy like you're in the middle of the action right away. And I love that. I love that advice. And I think he talked about that at the Genius Network annual event. Spend half your writing time on concept, teaser, offer, headline and first paragraph. Now, Jim is saying this to copywriters he's training. But you, as someone who might hire a copywriter, this is what you want from them. You don't want full blown packages right away. You want them to show you this part of the copy so that you know that they're going to send them back to do the heavy duty, the heavy lifting on writing. So you always want to spend most. They want to spend their time right away on these aspects. Concept, teaser, offer, headline and first paragraph. David Ogilvy said, on the average five times as many people will read the headline as read the body copy. When you have written your headline, you've spent 80 cents out of your dollar. Now, if he worked online, he'd be talking about subject lines too. So the idea of not spending more time on your headline and on your lead just doesn't make any sense.

Get this. Studies show that consumers are exposed to as many as 5,000 advertisements per day. And a survey done by Salesforce.com revealed that 85.7% of people say authenticity is important when deciding what brands they like, support and buy from. It's no secret that the online world has become a noisy, crowded place. It's changing fast, which means there are more messages and competition than ever before, making it difficult to stand out. On top of that, consumers filter who they are going to buy from based on how truthful and authentic the company and brand shows up. So does your marketing accurately represent you and the message you're here to share? It is often that somebody so young can be so wise, but our next speaker, Jennifer Hoodie, is one of our youngest Genius Network members at age 25. She's half my age, damn it. She is wise beyond her 25 years, especially when it comes to marketing and copywriting. Jennifer has founded and co founded four businesses, one of which sold for seven figures three years ago. She started her current business, Conscious Copy and Co, and has built a team that has worked with hundreds of clients. And many of those clients are in this room, including strategic coach Dean Graziosi, Evan Pagan, Allison Maslin, Cameron Herold, and of course, myself. Yes, her clients turn to her for copywriting and marketing ideas. Yet one of her unique abilities is to help her clients discover how to communicate the real message they're here to share in a way that connects and converts. The power of authenticity doesn't just work in your personal life, but in your marketing and copy. Jennifer's title is the Truth Sells. Why authenticity is your best selling tactic. Please help me welcome Jennifer Hootie.

Darling.

Thank you.

Awesome. Kill it.

If the world only remembered you for your marketing, does it accurately represent you and the message you're here to share? Because get this, 79.7% of consumers said that authenticity of content is the most influential factor when they're deciding to become a follower of a brand. But the online marketing world up until this point is filled with funnel hacking and copying others and swipe files. And it works, but only to a certain degree. Because who here sees that the online marketing world is changing fast? Consumers BS meters are through the roof and now more than ever they're craving to connect with real people and real brands. So by the end of this 10 minute talk. I'm going to share with you why it's important to infuse your message into your truth, your personality into your marketing and copy, how to organize it so everyone on your team is on the same page, and then how to apply it and amplify it out into the world. Sound good? So, like Joe mentioned, my company, Conscious Copy and Co is known as the top copywriting agency for the top coaches, experts and results leaders. And one of the things that we use that really helps us in infusing our authenticity into our marketing and our clients is what I'm going to share with you today. So my path to finding my voice and my authenticity and my marketing was a rocky one. Who knows this guy, Fernand Bouchard? So when I first started off, I was super inspired by his videos. He had these black backdrop with a white shirt and he'd be like, did I live? Did I love? Did I matter? And I was like, I thought I was great. It was so inspiring to me. So I went and I got a black backdrop and a white shirt and I was like coming up with my slogan. I'm like, did I write? Did I like, did I flatter? And like, that didn't really work. It didn't feel true to me. And then I stumbled upon Marie Forleo and I love her videos. I think she's so cool. And, and she wears these super cute outfits and crosses her leg and has an iPad and she is like, create a business and a life that you love. I'm like, oh, yes. So I went and got a super cute outfit with my iPad and crossed my legs. My slogan was going to be create a business and a life that makes people on social media make you think that you love your life. Just keeping it real a little more real. And then I stumbled upon this guy and he inspires the hell out of me. And his slogan, every genius network or every problem can be solved with the right genius network. So I went all in, shaved my head and everything. But my slogan was going to be, every copy problem can be solved with the right wizard network. Pretty good, right? And all of that, you know, all kidding aside, it wasn't until I really found, you know, my true voice, my message that I'm here to share, and figured out a way to amplify it out into my marketing and into my copy that things really started to pick up for me. And a tool that I use that's really, really helpful is called the character diamond by David Freeman. David Freeman is a Hollywood screenwriter and he created something called the character diamond, which basically infuses your personality and humanizes his characters in his movies. And lots of big brands and marketers started to use this because it is so powerful. And I actually happened to learn it from Ryan Dice after implementing this for myself and our clients. We've used this tool to make sure that our copy and our marketing infuses the message that us and our clients are here to share. And tens of millions of people have watched the copy or have read and taken action on the copy that I've written. And we've generated our clients millions of dollars with this tool. So that's what I'm going to share with you today. So step one is uncover your truth. There's the saying, it's hard to read the message when you're in the bottle. And so what you want to start by doing is making a list of all of your favorite influencers, books, movies, celebrities, and why you're drawn to them. And when you boil it down, you'll see that what you're drawn to them for is actually what you have inside of you. And you'll have a clear roadmap of what you really stand for. Step two is you want to organize it. So this is where that character diamond comes in. The first point is what is your superpower or like Alex shared your verb or your unique ability. The next point is your kryptonite. What is your weakness or the thing that can take you down? And every person and every business has one. A lot of the times we try to hide this, but it's our secret sauce. And what I found after doing this exercise for hundreds of clients is that our North Star and our Kryptonite tend to be the same thing, just on different ends of the spectrum because our weaknesses are our strengths turned up too loud. Next up is the hill you be prepared to die on. What is your number one value or non negotiable? And then what makes you human and shows your personality? This is your quirks. So let me give you a couple examples and I'll walk through the worksheet here in a bit. So no need to fill it out yet. We got Steve Jobs, who knows Steve Jobs of Apple. Yeah. So his North Star is innovation. His kryptonite is forcing others to adapt. The hill he be prepared to die on is simplicity. And his quirk being different or the creative type.

By a show of hands, who has a product or service that solves a problem. Now those of you that said yes, who has a product or service that solves the problems that millions of people have. Literally millions. Okay. It's a good amount. Okay. Imagine if you could connect those two dots. How much would that bring to your bottom line? In most cases, it could be tens or hundreds or millions of dollars. The problem is most entrepreneurs and business owners don't communicate effectively enough that their product or service is the best fit to solve their prospect's problem. That's where Mr. X comes in. He is a copywriter and communications master who does this better than almost anyone else on the planet. Every single day on the web, hundreds of thousands of people watch ads crafted by Mr. X. He has put products in the hands of many millions of people and is responsible for over a billion dollars worth of sales. M Mr. X has distilled his wisdom down into a simple four part formula that you can use and he has never shared it on stage before. The formula will work in your emails, sales videos, blog posts, webinars, you name it. Before I bring Mr. X out and divulge his identity, I need to tell you how special this occasion is. Mr. X doesn't usually speak at events as he's so busy printing money with what he does that he doesn't need to speak or share it anywhere. People have been begging this guy to write a book or do a course or coaching club and he's not planning to do that ever because he doesn't want to give away his secrets. But I got to meet him 15 years ago, before he was Mr. X. And blackmail works. Anyway. Just kidding. He's a longtime friend and is it with great excitement. Drum roll please. That I want to introduce you to Mr. X, whose title is 100 million views secret. Please give it up for one of the best copywriters to ever write a single word. My dear friend, who you'll see in a moment. Please welcome him up. Mr. X. Craig Clements. Give it up for Craig Clements. Awesome. Thank you. And by the way, this is not what Craig normally does. This guy's a total badass. I'll let you take it from here. Thank you.

Thank you.

Appreciate it.

All right, how's everybody doing? I'm Craig Clemons. I am a direct response copywriter. I have written some of the biggest advertising campaigns on the web over the last few years. And along the way, I have discovered some interesting things. The reason my talk is called the Hundred Million View Secret is because I have had some videos that have been viewed a lot of times. I was invited down to Facebook headquarters and they told me that one of my videos had been viewed by 129 million people. Usually, to get 100 million views, you have to be JP Sears saying something funny or Donald Trump saying something stupid. But I figured out how to do that with an advertisement, so I wanted to share that with you guys today. Does that sound good? Fantastic. All right, so before I do, I have a question for you. Who here has been at a point in their life where you've been feeling kind of stuck, frustrated and unsure of what you're going to do next? I can definitely relate to that. For me, it was when I was in my mid-20s. I was living in San Diego, California, and all of my friends were starting to graduate college, getting salaried jobs, company cars. And I was one of those guys who barely graduated high school. I had a 1.7 GPA. I did that thing in college where I would take the course and be about to get an F, and then I'd drop it at the last possible second. Anyone else done that? Okay, cool. I feel you. I did that a lot. Yes. Probably saw you guys at the dean's office. So at this point, I was working one dead end job to the next. Forget about chipotle and guacamole on a burrito. I was all about that. Two tacos for a dollar at Jack in a Box, you know what I mean? And then I was very fortunate. I had a friend of a friend. His name was Eben Pagan. He's here today. Eben, where are you at? My man? And Eben took me under his wing and taught me the art of. Of writing sales, copy. And he would hand me books and send me to courses. I got to learn from people like Gary Bensivenga and Gary Halbert. And I studied and studied. I started writing. My writing was very bad at first, but I kept going and kept going and eventually was able to generate sales with my writing over the next 10 years. Kind of crack the code, I think, on what I consider to be a primal way of storytelling that we've been using for hundreds of thousands of years. That is really simple to do, but not a lot of people are doing it. And when I started applying this to my writing, that's when those view counts took off. And when 100 million people are watching something, you can imagine a good percentage of them are buying something, too. So I'm going to share that with you guys today and pay close attention. It's really simple. It's only four parts. And if you apply this to your business, you're going to be able to do two very important things. You're Going to get people to pay attention to what you're saying, and then they're going to do what you tell them to. Muahaha. It's really easy. So pay attention. This is great. It works for any business. So I'm really excited to share it with all of you today. So no slides. It's that simple. I call this the impact arcs. The reason I call it Impact ARCS is because it allows you to make a big impact and ARCS refers to the story ARCS formula. And I also had to try to figure out how to put this thing into an acronym. And acronyms are hard as fuck to make. I don't know if anyone's ever tried to do that, but getting this to fit into the word ARCS was a bitch. I even had to add an S at the end. I really didn't want to add that S. I digress. Let's get right into it. Step number one, A. And if you're making notes, make an A on the top here and then a R underneath C and S. All right, A Ask a yes question. Who remembers at the beginning of this presentation, I said, who here has been at a point when you've been feeling kind of stuck, frustrated and unsure of what to do with your life? Remember I asked you guys all that? That was my yes question. So that's number one, ask a yes question. Number two, R. R stands for reveal that you've been there. After I asked you guys that question about if you'd feel stuck and frustrated, I revealed that I had been in your shoes. I. I told a story about how down in the dirt I was, gave some specific examples to show you I was really there. And that reveal is where you're bonding with the person whose attention you just grabbed with that yes question. The next step, 3, C. C stands for call out your discovery. What was the discovery that allowed you to climb up from the gutter and reach the top? You'll remember I mentioned my mentor, Eben Pagan, all the amazing stuff he taught me, how I wrote and wrote and wrote, studied courses and cracked the code on a primal way of storytelling. And the last part, S stands for send them to do something. So if you'll remember, at the beginning of this talk, I said, pay close attention to what I'm going to teach you today and think about how you can apply it to your business. Because when you do, you're going to be able to grab people's attention. They're going to do what you say. That was me sending you guys to do something. So it really is that simple. And it works for any business. And I'd like to now take some crowd examples and see if we can apply it. So who has a business product or service that we could plug into this formula right now?

Hey there. It's called the invisible close. So we teach how to sell without being salesy on stages, teleseminars, webinars, and events.

Okay, great. So when you're coming up with your yes question, I think it's good to think about where your prospect's at. You know, Eugene Schwartz says you need to enter the conversation that's going on in your prospect's mind to be able to connect with them. So your prospect, I'm guessing, has done some speaking and isn't getting that back of the room selling. Right. So maybe you could say something like, hey, are you feeling frustrated with giving talks but just not getting the response you wanted? Or seeing sales come in for your products at the end?

Like, do people love you but they don't buy from you?

Right, right, right. And the yes question can be long. It doesn't have to be like, hey, is this, this. Explain. Like, are you frustrated? Like, you know, people aren't buying from you, maybe they're giving you a round of applause, but the sales just aren't coming in. Right. So, Lisa, have you been in their shoes?

Yes.

What happened? What was going on for you before?

Let's see. Time when people love me and they didn't buy from me. Actually, I can't really remember a time like that.

Well, you're a stone cold natural.

I think I better go a different direction.

No, this is actually great because, you know, I work with a lot of different products and services and, you know, some of the things I sell that the person hasn't been there. So I work with a lot of doctors that have solutions for people, and the doctor can't necessarily say, like, you know, I've been there because they've, you know, learned in medical school what to do. Right. So instead of talking about yourself, you can talk about your patients. So you could say, you know, hey, if you're feeling like that, like, don't worry, you're not alone. Over the last few years, I've worked with hundreds of people who have had the same thing, and they've felt that they couldn't get it together to be able to make those sales. They felt like they didn't have that charisma or they just didn't, like, want to be a slimy salesperson.

Right.

But that's not true. And you can do it without that.

That's perfect. See how you can use your clients?

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So what was the discovery, Lisa, that allowed you to become such a stone cold closer?

You have to ask, you have to make your offer irresistible and you have to get your offer out of your mouth.

So let me ask you, was there a time when you weren't closing quite as much as you were?

Yeah. I mean, look, I've done webinars that, you know, people loved the information and they wanted, you know, then they nothing happened. Right. Or I've been on a stage where I give, give, give and give an amazing presentation and they want to know where I got my shoes. So. Yeah, it's happened for me too.

Yeah. I was wondering about your shoes.

Right, I know. Tell you later.

Cool.

So, you know, this is a place where you could talk about that and you could also share client stories, too. You could say, you know, after working with hundreds of clients, I've noticed that there's one thing, 90% of them are missing from the end of their talk. And if they add just this one simple thing, they start closing like crazy.

Yes.

So if you want to find out what it is, what's your send? What do you ask people to do?

It's a limiter. Or wait, don't. You're saying don't answer the question, tell them what to do.

Well, I'm asking where do you send people?

Like, what is your app?

You want people to sign up?

If you want to find out what it is, go to boostsalestoday.com and get our irresistible offer blueprint. And that's true, actually.

Boom.

Yeah.

All right. Thanks, Lisa.

Thank you.

Great advice. Thank you.

Don't miss another episode of I Love Marketing. Subscribe today@ilovemarketing.com subscribe if you'd like to learn more about the Genius Network annual event or to apply, go to geniusnetwork.com if you'd like access to the show notes or the exercise to help you take action on what was discussed, please visit ilovemarketing.com 358.

Sam.