$700/Month Bartender to over 7 Figures with Copywriting (The Exact Playbook)
In this long‑form interview, Nick Fisher talks with an experienced copywriter (referred to as Speaker B) about his journey from a low‑pay bartending job in rural Georgia to building multi‑million‑dollar funnel businesses. The guest recounts how a breakup and a Google search led him to copywriting, early experiments with affiliate funnels that validated his skill, and a pivotal mentorship with Dan, Taylor, and Chris that turned a $1,500 monthly salary into a paid copywriting role. He describes his first major wins – the Inbound Closer funnel that scaled to $50k‑day ad spend and 6× ROAS, a publishing arm that produced several high‑performing book and biz‑op funnels, and the eventual collapse of that empire due to over‑investment. The conversation shifts to his current role as copy chief at Awesomely, where he works closely with Patrick on offer architecture and big‑idea generation. He outlines a systematic framework for extracting big ideas (promise, proof, intrigue, macro story, micro story, market fit, urgency) and explains how he combines market research, avatar profiling, and AI tools (ChatGPT, Claude Sonnet, specialized copy bots) to ideate, draft, and edit copy. A major focus is a new AI‑driven quiz funnel that segments the income‑opportunity market into security vs. independence motivations and age buckets, using a “money‑making DNA” hook and identity‑based positioning (e.g., “Veteran DNA”). He also shares his preferences for research‑first workflow, his dislike of endless rewriting, and how AI now handles first drafts while he focuses on editing and strategic structuring. Throughout, he emphasizes networking through masterminds, the value of mentorship, and the evolution of his copywriting process from manual outreach to AI‑augmented systems.
Chapters
Hey guys, if you are a copywriter who wants a new bag of tricks, Robert pretty much has seen all of them, especially in the income operating space. Today he's going to share some sick strategies. Towards the end, he's going to give us a ton of game on in a very innovative approach with a quiz funnel and segmentation that you guys are going to want to see. Check it out.
I want to say, you know, we've been orbiting, it seems we've been orbiting in the same sphere for a long time. And I've learned that you're behind some of the really awesome stuff that I have looked up to both in my past and even now. You know, some of the things I. I've only watched a couple of these, of these podcasts, but what I've heard from your track record is quite impressive. So I'm really excited to, to get to know you and, and how you think about this stuff as well. So likely when you were working with Sam Ovens, I was looking up to him as like a guru at the time. Also, New Reach, I found out that you're a co founder in New Reach and I connected with your business partner Josiah at a mastermind. Patrick Riddle's Half Ass Mastermind.
And yes, which is the actual name of it. Right?
Yeah. Have you been to Half Ass yet? There's another one coming up soon.
Yeah, he invited, he invited me last year to one and I was like, that's such a funny name for a mastermind. It's a good frame though. Then there's low expectations too.
It's the coolest thing. I mean, it's just like basically a bunch of industry friends getting together and having some beers and getting to know each other better and sweet. There's no note taking, there's no presentations.
It's just cool. Which is like usually people's favorite part of the mastermind. Anyway. When I ran my free one, it sounds like the opposite of it. It was just like all in depth and no experience or fun. I didn't plan anything fun other than being in the office. So I appreciate that though. That's what most people want when they come. It's just that deeper relationship on a casual setting. So. So where's the location?
Well, it was in Charleston, the.
That's right.
First couple years that I went and then I. It was in Miami the last year that I went, and then I wasn't able to go last year because my wife was like seven months pregnant or eight months pregnant at the time and so couldn't. Couldn't swing that one, but I think I'm going to swing down there this time. It's in Florida again. I can shoot you the link if you'd like. I'm pretty sure that I'm allowed to invite people, but. Yeah, I'll fire over that. I mean, you've, You've. Yeah, I'll just send you the link.
Cool. Yeah, no, we. We know each other and he's invited me before, but I would. I would love to kind of experience it. Is it real estate people mainly, or what's the. What's the vibe of the room?
Yeah, a lot of real estate. A lot of people from the family, if you're familiar with that. Mastermind. It's like the real estate thing and not all real estate. Like, there's some crypto people there that I ran into. Yeah, it's. But it's. It's mostly people that are related in the real estate world. But it's just a good time more than anything. So I got to meet Josiah there a couple years ago. We were pickleball partners, actually. I don't know if you'll remember that. Oh, we were pickleball partners and we got.
I see him walk by here. I'll. I'll bring them in and. And have them ask some questions myself. But I've played pickleball with him and against him, too. Good pickleball player, at least like he was last time we played.
Well, he was carrying me, bro. I was so out of shape at the time.
That's funny.
Yeah.
Josiah's the best. And I couldn't have asked for a better business partner, to be honest. He's. He's been a huge blessing. Yeah. So how'd you and Dan meet originally?
Well, Dan. So I. Let's see. How far back do we go? I. I got into this. Yeah, Yeah, I got. I got. I got into this world in like mid 2018 or so.
Okay.
So about seven, eight years and early 2019, having eaten a lot of. With my first client, I. I basically found Dan through a. A mutual friend of ours and learned of his coaching group and basically sold him on joining it. And. Yeah, so it's like I was dead broke at the time. I had zero success in this business at the time so far. And, you know, I was like. I had just landed my first copywriting client at the end of 2018, and this was the beginning of 2019 when I. When I hired him and I took out like a couple credit cards and paid them for a couple months and I got a. That Was actually, like, where my first win came from. And then I was able to make enough in royalties to, like, keep them around. And yeah, I, I mentored under Dan for. Well, ever since, like, three weeks ago. He, like, he's no longer doing that coaching group. He's on to bigger and better things.
But, wow, he caught a legend in a certain era. Yeah, that's helpful.
Yeah. Yeah. So I was listening to that podcast that you did with Dan, and yeah, it's like a similar situation how he kind of stumbled into his, Perhaps purposefully stumbled into his relationship with Aaron Winter. I, I was able to do the same with him and is. Yeah, life changing.
Sweet, dude. So that's what, I'm curious. Back before then, before you said you were struggling, what got you in? Or what was the tipping point that got you into this corner of the Internet?
Oh, man. Well, I fell into it in a very similar way to the way that my market falls into it. So I, I, I specialize in the income opportunity market. And so. Yeah, and so a lot of those. Well, basically, towards the end of my college experience, I went through a really tough breakup. And one of the reasons why she left me, she was like, I just think you're gonna stay stuck in this city forever. It's like this broke. I was like, I was bartending at, like, one of the, Basically one of the poorest little towns in, In America.
Where's that or what's it close to?
It's close to Valdosta State. I was in Rimmerton, Georgia, bartending there. It's like this little town in the middle of Valdosta. And yeah, so I was bartending there, like, six months after graduation. And, yeah, just not doing so hot financially or emotionally. And I was like, all right, time to make some changes. So I Googled how to make money on the Internet as a writer. I thought I was a good writer at the time. Uh, but I wasn't. Of course I was. I was. God awful. I was just. I went to school for philosophy, so I had to do a lot of writing, and I enjoyed writing at the time. And so I was like, all right, let's see if I can do this Internet thing that people are talking about. And so I started just diving down the rabbit hole, looking at the typical stuff, affiliate marketing being one of them. But it started off with, like, blogging and things like that and just diving down into the YouTube rabbit hole. And I eventually stumbled onto copywriting, which led affiliate marketing. I was like, wait, people can. I found this video from this chick on, on YouTube, talking about copywriting. And I was like, wait, people can make five grand a month just writing? I thought like this caps out at like, you know, three.
Yeah.
Wow.
Yeah.
Yeah. So I was like, I mean, I was, I was making like 700 bucks a month at the time. So, like, those were big numbers. And so I kept plunging down that rabbit hole, learning about people like Halberd and all this. And then I stumbled onto affiliate marketing and I was like trying to get clients with copywriting at the time, and it was not working because I had no experience, had no testimonials. And so I stumbled onto affiliate marketing. I was like, man, this would be a really great way to like, kind of get my feet wet, start getting some wins, validate my skills, and then I can transition into client work after. And so. That's what I did. I ended up like writing this funnel where I was selling affiliate marketing as a biz op to copywriters because it was exactly what I was trying to do myself. And I was like, how do I speed run this? I'm going to sell the same thing that I'm trying to learn.
Yeah. Which I've, I've seen executed successfully. Right. It's, it's hard to do as your first thing that the degree of difficulty in doing. That's hard, but, yes, possible.
So I was like trying to learn copywriting, trying to learn affiliate marketing. So I was like, I'm so deep in this world right now, I bet I could just speak to these people. And, and so I put together this little like affiliate funnel. A headline on it was like, how to land or how to break into any copywriting niche in one week without any experience or whatever. Something to that effect. And it was a sales letter that sold this free 5 day email training that I put together on how to do the thing. And people would opt in and then they land on Onyx and Gall's circle of profit book funnel at the time.
Oh, that's funny.
And so, yeah, I started spinning ads on it and I, I think I had spent. It was. I was spending like five bucks a day and I like made one sale after a week I had given up. And I checked my account like a week or two later and I had 142 bucks in there after spending, I think like 10. I mean, I had no idea what I was doing. Obviously I didn't realize I could like do something with that. So I was like, all right, that's all the validation I need. And I just turned off. I had already turned off the ads. But I, like, stopped doing all that and tried to land clients again. But anyway, after that, I kind of had that validation and I stumbled on to. I was like, looking for how to get clients as a copywriter. And I stumbled onto traffic and funnels, which. That kind of crosses over with the Sam Ovens world, because they kind of came out of that world. And so I think I saw your LinkedIn.
But what. What year is this now?
This was in. This was still in 2018. 2018.
Golden era of traffic funnels.
Yeah. Yeah, they were. They were on the way up at the time, doing pretty great. There was no, like, other branches in the business, like sales mentor and wealth cap and these other entities, but it was just the traffic and funnels and, like, client kit thing. And so I basically, I found them and I bought their $7 a month newsletter to try and learn how I could land clients. And then I fell through the ascension funnel and wound up on a sales call with one of their people. And I couldn't afford the 10k thing, obviously, but I, like, got on the phone, I was like, I have not. I'm not going to be able to afford this. But I just want. I just want to hear about it. And so he told me about it. I was like, all right, I'll go and make some money then, and then I'll come back and buy this. And then so, like, I decided to copy their full funnel. So, like, I wrote myself, like, my own webinar funnel.
I love this.
Yeah, like, wrote myself my own webinar funnel and ads and everything. And it was like me and my garage, and my garage was so shitty at the time. There was like this busted down jet ski that belonged to a buddy of mine. There was like my books in the corners trash, and my, like 2003 Pontiac Vibe at the time. And. And that was my background. I was like, I'm here in my garage. And so I recorded the ads and I recorded the. The. The webinar and I went to go and launch it. And I don't know what happened. I got cold feet or something, but I ended up not. Not launching it. And because the idea. It was because of an idea. Yeah, I was like, hold on a minute. Why am I trying to, like, replicate their success so I can go and make ten grand and then mentor under them If I could just go and work for them and mentor for free. Yeah, like, that's how I'm gonna learn this. And so I was like, all right, I'm gonna go and land a job with them. And so I reached out to Taylor over Facebook and just started spamming him with free copy to test. I was like, hey, man, no strings attached. I rewrote your newsletter. Go and test it. Have fun. And he didn't, he didn't respond or even open it for a little while, but I was very persistent. So, like, he had, his inbox was being blown up by just free emails and stuff.
Yeah. Taught me how to get clients. Now I know.
Yeah, well, that was not even, that wasn't what they were, that wasn't their method either. No, there was. Theirs is all like, you know, authority and leadership and, like, run ads or whatever. I was just like, straight super gung h. Spam them, like, outreach and which is still, like, to this day. If any, like, new copywriter comes up to me and asks, like, how do I get my, how do I get some traction? How do I get my first gig? I'll say, just pick a company you want to go and work for and then spam them with free ads and basically ask them to get on the phone. And it's not going to pay much at first, but you start getting the ball rolling and it goes. And so that's what I did with them. I, like, Taylor eventually responded and then he ignored me for a week. So I spammed him with more copy and we got on the phone like a week after that. He's like, my business partner Chris is going to call you. So Chris calls me, and I'm like, shaking because he's like my guru. And yeah, Chris is a man. We're still close. But so he, he, he was like, so you want to come and, and work for us? And I was like, yep, absolutely. He's like, okay, when can you start? I was like, Monday. And then they thought that I was like, volunteering to start for. They thought, well, I'll skip this. But like, it was like, basically there was this confusion. Like, I was like, let me please come and come and work for you. So it's like they thought that I was asking to come and work for free. And I was like, yeah, I'm paid intern. Yeah. And so, like, okay, when can you start? And like, I was like, I can start Monday. And then I texted Chris after. I was like, wait, so we, what do we do about money? And, or something to that effect. I worded it more tactfully than that. I think my answer, my thing was like, hey, man, I, I, I really want to go all in with you guys. And to do that, I got to be able to quit my, my rotten bartending job. And he was like, all right, so how much are you making there? He's like, or how much do you need? And I was like, well, I. I can survive off 700amonth. That's what I'm making now. And he was like, all right, we'll pay you 1500. And so that was like my first. That was my first ever copywriting client that was at the end of 2018. And then I wrote 600 or 300 and 600 emails, whatever it was, that never got tested because they were so bad. Rewrite them all for me. So.
So how many were you. How many did you owe? Or did you do that on your own accord? And then they would review. I'm curious. Their style at that time when you would write and then they would copy editor just decline. Straight up decline.
Oh, yeah. I mean, there was no process. It was just like I'd hand in the copy and then Taylor would rewrite it from scratch.
Cool. That's similar to me and Tim Oven's actually relationship. And anyone I've worked with who I came in and I was trying to earn the right to ghostwrite for him. Right. You just end up. I always tell people, I'm like, it doesn't faze me now at this point too. Just someone doesn't like it. I'm like, I have. Maybe not as deep as you, but I always tell people, like, one tenth of my stuff I've written is out there. Whether it's bad or good is like subjective. But, you know, if the creator doesn't like it, it's not good, then I suppose it's off tone. It's not what they wanted to say. You didn't do the research, whatever it is. So. And then having Taylor, especially Taylor, rewrite who I love his style, that's so that's. That's a great way to learn really quickly for. For that. So now, dude, that's. That's super cool. I love the copy from that era too. So they know that you were contributing during that. It's. It's not like I. I love Taylor's challenging, bold, like, I'm gonna be combative style.
It pulled me in at the time. And so, yeah, from there, like, the connection to Dan was basically, I had written 300 or 600, however many emails it was that didn't get tested because they were so bad. And then they had this promo coming up and Taylor had more or less given up on me. But like, Chris took me under his wing. He Was like, I'll, I'll, I'll keep your copy. He was like, I'll, I'll rewrite your emails. And so I, yeah, I started working more closely with Chris and then they wanted to launch this book called Wealth Secrets. And they were like, can you write the sales page for it? I was like, I don't know. But yeah, I said yes. I really didn't know. And that was around the time when I was like, I gotta find a mentor to help me out here. And so my plan was I had heard of Dan and I, I knew about the, the group and there's like four, four people in his, in his mentorship, like copy coaching group. And I, I heard about that and I devised this plan to aggressively sell him on letting me join and then taking out a credit card to actually do it. And so that sounds like it's part.
Of your style across your career.
Yeah.
And then go get it.
Yeah, I was, I was a lot more risk tolerant than I am today with like a family and everything. But for sure, back then it was like really, really gung ho, like looking back. And so I took out a couple credit cards to hire Dan for two months and we committed to rewriting or to writing the sales page that sold this book. The whole, the funnel that sold the book. And so I mean, I have, I'm in debt up to my eyeballs now. I have a, I mean I had no assets. It was just nothing but debt and 1500 bucks a month with no plan to pay off the credit cards.
I appreciate that.
And so I, yeah, I joined Dan's group and we rewrote the or we wrote the sales page for, for that thing. What is like weekly calls. I'd like submit my work to him. He'd review it. And we basically wrote this sales page together. They go and test it. And by this point I had negotiated with Chris. I was like, okay, man, I'm going to do this and I'm going to hire this mentor, but it's super expensive and I can't afford it, so I need a raise and I need a royalty agreement on this funnel.
Well, to ask.
Yeah. And yeah, I don't, I don't know. I can't remember if it was like that direct, but it probably was something to that effect because like I was very in a, I was in a tight spot.
Yeah. Well, then it was honest. It was, then it sounds like it was just honest.
Yeah, I was in a tight spot and I had to, I had to make something happen. So I was like, here's what it is. What can you do? And, like, here's the cost of this and my situation. What can you guys do in order to help me fund this education? And they're like, all right, we'll bump your pay to 3,500amonth, and we'll give you an X percent royalty on this funnel. And so I go and write the funnel with Dan, and it works. And thankfully, it works. And I start making, like, just barely enough to. To pay him. And so I. I leave my apartment down there in South Georgia, I move into my mom's basement, and just all the money that I'm making for the next six months just goes straight to Dan for mentorship. And after. After that first funnel, there was another that also worked. And then by this point, these offerors were spending, like, a two or three grand a day. So it was, like, decent money for me at the time. And then. Then I wrote a big winner for them that turned out to be their biggest winner in history. And it was their biggest winner all the way through to the end of the business. It was an offer called Inbound Closer. It was like this biz op that sold high ticket sales. And so I wrote that funnel, and that thing just took off like a rocket. I mean, we were at 6x roas on Facebook on. On day zero, just the front end, and we saw those numbers, and we were like, all right, gas pedal.
Yeah.
And. And so that. That thing ended up scaling to, like, 50.50k a day and spend. And we started a whole, like, publishing branch that ended up launching two more. No, two more or three more. Two more. Two more sort of brands or funnels or profit centers, and both of those smashed as well, but never saw the light of the day because the whole thing kind of caved in on itself, which has a lot of really painful learning lessons that I'm open to at least sharing a couple from. But. So there was one book funnel that scaled to 100 buyers a day before we even had. Not a book funnel. It was this biz op teaching how to start a bookkeeping business. And it scaled to 100 buyers a day. $97 offer, 100 buyers a day before we even had an upsell live. And then. And then there was another one that turned out to be a dud at first, but one lead test, double those conversions, and it started to scale. But as soon as that started happening, that Inbound Closer spaceship was plummeting back to Earth, and it brought the entire enterprise around and. And with it into, like, this Singularity black hole explosion. Because we have, we like over. Over invested like team and resources and, and a lot of basically human leverage. And so it, it, it imploded when, when, when I went inbound, closer gave out. And that was basically the end of that. But that's kind of how I was able to get my foot into this industry. It went into freelancing. From there I met Patrick. I started working a lot with Patrick and now I'm his copy chief and senior copywriter at Awesomely. This is a publishing.
Cool.
Sweet. Yeah. So super close orbit, you and I over there.
Amazing. Yeah. Like last time I saw Patrick it was at Webinarcon and I didn't even know to the depth of Awesomely. I met Patrick 2014 or so, but just over I knew him as an affiliate partner at Clever Investor. We would, he would buy solo drops on our list and to buy the solo drops on another real estate email list, you have to have really good singles or email copy. And I told him his. I still remembered sub lines that I sent for him. I'm like, bro, I used to swipe those because they. The like earnings per click were. It was the best on any single affiliate email I'd ever sent to the list. And his best one was just assignment contract was the subject. And I was so mad that that beat pretty much anything that I had written up to that point, even internally. And I knew who the list was. So I was and certainly was number one affiliate offer. So I was like, dang, super simple, very clear headline, gave people what they wanted. He just knew the market better was my kind of takeaway from that. So you working with him, what have you learned or observed is like the copy chief or what has come to form both your own style of how you win at copy and like observably from. From him at Awesomely.
Yeah, great question, dude. And Patrick, Patrick is the man. You know, I've gotten to hang out with him a couple times at these like half ass events and all that. And he's just such a cool dude even outside of. Outside of business. But yeah, he runs a great ship. He's a really amazing leader and operator and. But his, his role, especially in the earlier days of me coming on board or starting to work with him, he was really, he was the one putting together the offers. You know, like he would go and look at the guru or the partners, the publishing partner on the back end and be handed this like mountain of information about what they do and what they sell. And so basically his superpower was consuming all of that and identifying like the one thing that's actually going to smash, like the one strategy, the one sort of hook, the one product and then sort of architecting the ascension funnel back to front based on what they were selling in their high ticket program. And so I picked up a good bit of that and which is really cool for me looking at it because it's really similar to how I started evolving myself as, as a marketer. In most of the situations that I've stepped into myself it's been like I've got this control funnel that's doing 10 grand a day or whatever or I have this mountain of information about like an offer that's about to launch and then my job is to find the singular idea that's most likely to smash and develop it and then structure the funnel and structure the front end VSL and then draft and polish the whole thing. And so that has really aligned well for me getting to work so closely with Patrick. Our sort of strategies aligned really well. So yeah, that led to some good control funnels there.
How do you guys differ in extraction of the big idea? It sounds like you guys both excel at that but do it maybe in slightly different ways. How are you filtering it out?
Yeah, that's another good question. I don't really know too much about his process. I could probably speak to it to a degree but he and I haven't really dove into those weeds together.
Maybe maybe between one of these two options because I've noticed that actually three, there's three different ways I've seen copyrights extract or focus in on some like product market fit. So they're. But they choose one first in product they're like they think about the brand and the tone and what they do exceptionally well and then try to match it to the market. Others I see match from market problem to what the person is good at. And then the third group is those who look at competitive analysis I think first and they're like what? Where can I position different? I generally fall into the third category but I. If there's not much competition, your first mover, then you have good. You got to do one of the two first ones I have found. Is there something that he's doing maybe even different or than that?
Yeah. And I, I love the way you broke that down. I hadn't sort of put those three together in my head. The way that I had thought about it in the past myself was like you either start with the market or you start with the solution, but you're Bringing in. Start with the comps, which is really what I've been doing myself more. I might need to move into the light here.
All of a sudden. I don't mind, but if you. Whatever you want to do.
Okay.
Anyway, so makes your aura actually more mysterious and dark now.
Nice. Just this, like, dude lurking in the shadows.
Yeah.
Classic direct response copywriter, I guess.
Right. You just need like a cigar now and then.
A magic system to sell.
Yes.
Anyway, so, yeah, I've kind of gravitated towards that comp beginning myself and in particular with. With AI and my last project where I used a lot of it to develop the idea of stepping into a new market from. For. For my work. And. Yeah, so I really. I really love that. But generally the way that I have approached big idea generation is one. I come from the Joe Schrefer camp, Agora Financial Big idea generation. Like, what is a big idea? And then how do we come up with it? Which they come from Ogilvy for the most part, and they're basically their super intelligent marketing brains applied to Ogilvy and then expanded. Yeah.
So the question of. Did it make me gasp that checklist a bit?
Yeah, did it make me gasp? And it's like, it's important and exciting and beneficial in the eyes of the market. And I also pull from Aaron Winter, whose idea of a big idea is basically. He. I might butcher this, but with a big idea, you're basically throwing a little pebble at a windshield. And if you have a good big idea, then you start to see the cracks in the windshield.
That's a analogy. I've never heard that.
Yeah, it's really interesting. He's. He's. He's a brilliant dude if you ever get to. Have you. Have you listened to him?
Oh, like, it makes me. Well, if he came up with that, I was like, yeah, I'd probably like his style. That's interesting. Unique in itself.
Yeah. Brilliant dude. I mean, when. When Dan says that he's brilliant, he really is. And so I. I'd kind of pull from that as well. But where I've started to think more along, I guess started to meander more creatively out, out past the giants whose shoulders upon which I stand. And perhaps not so much because a lot of this comes from Dan. I think of big ideas as more or less a combination of little ideas. So these little ideas, or assets, as Dan would call them, as I call them, are basically these little things about your product or solution or guru or whatever, things that exist within your universe of marketing elements. And they are these little things that the market would perceive as important, exciting or beneficial. And they typically fall into like whatever seven categories or something like that. I have this written down somewhere. It falls into these categories of like a promise, promise proof, intrigue, macro story, micro story, market fit and urgency. And so like I filter all of the inputs that I consume like the product and interview with the guru that the control, marketing, whatever. And I consume all of that through the lens of I'm hunting for buried assets and I'm looking for these little things that the market would perceive as important, exciting and beneficial through the lens of promise proof and these other, other filters. And I literally list them out like in a document and then I start combining them. And when you combine them, big ideas, bigger and better ideas start to come to the fore. And as you add on strategic elements within these categories, then the big idea becomes bigger. Like if you have some like say some weird affiliate marketing thing that gives you access, AI powered affiliate marketing system that gives you access to a claim like this 3 click chat GPT hack turns your phone into a money vacuum that sucks cash out of the Internet pretty good.
I like that.
That's like a really interesting beginning of a big idea. But then how can we make that bigger? We might ask ourselves like what is a compelling macro story that we can wrap around this, this, this idea?
What's going between, yeah, macro and micro story.
So macro story is like what's going on in the world, the economy, the news, like think macro picture what's going on out in the world. And then the micro story is like the story of what's going on internally for the market and for the hero that goes along the hero's journey for.
The market to discover market condition. Okay, yeah, makes sense.
Yeah.
So is one rooted in maybe their internal belief system and the ones rooted in like the external realities of the world. Is that the kind of thing or no?
That's a really great, that's a really great way to put it. The questions that you might ask are like, what's going on in the news around chat GPT? What is the market's perception about chat of chatgpt? What's their experience of it?
How do you, if you have an audience already, what's your first thought as far as how you verify that? Do you call customers and you like user research or do you just Google or do a lot of kind of introverted, more methods of getting there?
Yeah, good question. It's for a long time it was very manual, like interviewing customers like that's what I would do at. At Traffic and Funnels more than once is I'd just hop on the phone with like, hop on Zoom with like 30 customers and hit record and just ask them a bunch of questions and get it.
It's really rare that you thought to do that. 30 or how would you even go about that?
I would not do 30 today if I were to do that today. And I wouldn't even do it at all today.
Okay, okay.
But back then, that was like the only way I felt I could get accurate information.
So it wasn't. It wasn't me. Are you saying that like you. Do you feel like there's a shortcut now that you've seen or you just don't have. You don't have the. The, I guess, willingness to jump on with 30 people at one time and listen to them all? Because that's a long call if you have 30 people yapp@ you.
Yeah. And it can be emotionally taxing because you're like digging into their pain.
Right. And you're not selling them. It's not like a salesperson who has leverage. Because if it's a group call, now all of a sudden you're on a Q and A call that you know they didn't pay for. Yeah. Uhhuh.
So we'd like hook them up with free trainings and whatnot just for their incentive.
Oh, that's cool. I like that as an incentive. That's a good tactic.
Yeah. So yeah, I'd jump on there, ask a bunch of questions, and basically turn it into a market research doc the old fashioned way. But now with AI, it's a lot more streamlined for one, but for two. Yeah, I see now the value in collapsing that time and applying my brain power to points of higher leverage. Like we have diminishing returns on how much market research we can. We can do. There comes a point where you get it good enough, it's a clear enough understanding and accurate enough understanding that it's like I'm going to move on to developing the idea or structuring the promo or writing.
If you had to rank those, whether it's just like your. Where you like to spend your time or where you actually think the importance is for copywriters. How would you stack it as far as structure, promo, market research, et cetera.
Huh. Well, where I enjoy it is. Yeah, I love the research more than anything though. I love ideation and structure.
Cool.
Coming up with the idea and structuring the funnel, structuring the vsl, the front end vsl, all of it. I'm. I'm not a. Not a big writer anymore. I. I fell out of love with the actual writing of the copy because I can be such a perfectionist or I was such a perfectionist for so long it became very painful to write copy. I'd rewrite the same thing 300 times.
I've been there. Yeah, you're looping kind of thing.
Yeah, just. Yeah. I mean I. I'd stare at half of a page rewriting it just all day long until I'm just like fried. AI has been massive for me in that way because I don't have to write anymore. I just, I think and I edit and that's the other thing that I love is the editing.
So you use. It's interesting to see a. Copywriters use AI because I feel like that's more rare. Most people are writing with AI and copy editing that's like seemingly the most common, obviously is like no qa, qc, sled, AI, ship the thing and copy edit. But you're saying you enjoy a. Did I hear that right? Where AI maybe you generate the idea, it does draft and you're like copy chief on the AI or the flip where you write first draft AI copy edits.
No. Yeah, no, I don't leave the editing to the AI, but I do. Chief. I. Chief, the AI basically is how we think about like I. I'm working with AI to ideate and come up with the idea. And then I'll think, I'll think about that idea for like a day or whatever and that'll give me a structure of the vsl.
Is there a certain system or large language model like. Or platform that you prefer to. To do it on?
Yeah, I do a lot of the slow thinking and I'm open to your perspective on this because I know that you're more plugged into these tools and AI than I am. You seem to have really wrapped your head around it. But my sort of simplistic thing that I do is like for deep thinking and research and things where I want the AI to kind of work slowly. I'll use chat for the most part. And then for writing I'll use Claude Sonnet. Because it's a little faster. Yeah. And it seems to write better. And I, I also use some bots that I bought access to. There's the. You know, people are coming out with these like copywriting bots these days that are pretty solid.
Yeah, we just budget in five months. Prompt, prompt, slash, semi automated system.
Yeah, I have to look at that I haven't, I haven't looked at his. But I did buy access to Luke Mills and Mario Castelli's bots and they are pretty bomb. There's one that I use a lot which is basically the writing, the writing bot and it's trained on Mario style and if you prompt it right then it can do really, really great stuff as a first draft. And so yeah, I spend a lot of time like refining the idea and then I'll spend a couple days structuring the vsl, working through the. Basically weaving together the macro structure and the mic or the macro story and micro story. Basically the, the hero's journey of the micro story and the, the. The hero discovering the macro story as he works through it. And that leads to the, the secret and then eventually the product. And so I'll think through that's anyway, that's one sort of templated structure that works in the space. But I, I work through the structure and then I basically by the time that I sit down to tell AI to write for me, I have a full market research doc with every deep insight you could possibly need on the market.
What format do you prefer? I remember working with Cole on sta launch and he was basically an empathy map or a breakthrough advertising style kind of research method. I see some people use rnbc, rmbc, rmbdc, rnbc. I think you know what I'm talking about. Certain. Is there a format that you prefer?
So the sort of filters that I've been using are with another one of those guys, bots. They have this build a buyer bot which is like basically it's, it spits out a really awesome structure for market research. It's got like the major emotions you need to filter by and like the specific moments that they experience, particular emotions and their beliefs about their solutions that they've failed at and you know, the ideal transformation, what they don't want to do to get the result like the. Without statements and even if statements that come in copy. And so I found that if I can identify the median prospect in a market, then I can use those basically market psychologist bots to turn that sort of very accurate and concise understanding of a particular avatar in the market and expand that into like a full psychological profile.
Interesting. I've never heard anyone talk about that. So median, you get to the median just by having a large enough data set. Like you said, at some point you key in on the median. The median doesn't change.
Yeah, and you can use, you can use. I mean AI has enough stuff in its brain that if you just have a conversation with it and you know, tell it to research things when it needs to research things and like help define the market, then you can, you can get it to identify basically your median prospect. And then I'll also identify like three or four prospects on the periphery of the median to make sure that I'm hitting the outliers who might represent smaller segments of the broader market. Because AI has this tendency to over optimized copy for the avatar that you're writing to. And you run the risk of alienating a lot of the market if you just write to one person that intent intentionally or intensely.
And so like expansion. So how do you do that? Most people, like I don't even know how I do that necessarily. I don't have like a thing that comes to mind which part of just like expanding like solving that problem. Because you mentioned that you know or like can either prompt it or you do it with the expansion yourself and widening. So how do you keep it from doing that and filling it out so you have larger target market appeal?
Oh, sauce. And I'll, I'll identify the median prospect in a particular segment of the market and then I'll identify three or four other avatars that exist in that market and represent a big hole. Basically what I'm trying to do is like I want every single person in this market to be able to relate to very closely one of these avatars. And the lion's share of them, if we're looking at a bell curve, will exist at the median peak bell curve and then the others kind of exist on the lower ends of the, the bell curve.
Yeah, that's super fascinating.
Yeah. I as I think about this market quite a lot and the, and I just did a bunch of research actually very recently because I just wrote a quiz funnel for, for awesomely that segments the market. It aims to segment mass market income opportunity prospects into four buckets. And I filter, it's really an eight bucket filter that I would use in an ideal world, but four just to kind of consolidate it. But basically this market that you and I are in segments into two major buckets the way I see it. And one is the security bucket, one is the independence bucket is people who are driven by an urgent need for security now. And then the, the people who are desperately want escape, they want independence and really they want control over their time. And that shows up in, in all the different ways that we see in the marketing. But then it then it segments further by demographic. Right. And so like I, we have the security bucket, and that's like 80% of the market probably. And then we have the independence bucket. And then we have people in their 30s in their four, and then people in their 40s, people in their 50s, and then 60s in each. And so, you know, a lot of these like, really mass market biz ops that you see doing like a thousand buyers a day selling like phone hacks or Amazon FBA hacks to people with very low awareness. They. They're going into this security driven segment of the market, which is so much bigger mostly, I think, because the, the financial situation of most people in America is a lot tighter than we would think. And that's, that's part of it. But then the other part is like in the security bucket, you got everybody, the whole spectrum in terms of ranges. So people in their 30s all the way up into like their 70s. And so I segment this, I segment it by, mostly by like, which bucket they fall into and then what their age is and just by asking questions and this quiz funnel and segmenting based on two of their responses. I basically segment them into four buckets and give them an identity tied to like, who they want to be in the eyes of others. And we, it's like the, the big idea is basically, what's your money making DNA. We found an analysis of 43,000 successful entrepreneurs that there are essentially. The word essentially is not in there. I don't like adverbs.
As writers. You use a Hemingway editor too.
Yeah, yeah, adverbs. Adverbs have no place in, in my.
I agree. Anytime I catch myself in writing, especially in writing, it's embarrassing. I'll let it slide since this is speaking.
Yeah, yeah. So we. In this, in this funnel, and we just launched it like a week ago, and it's showing good early signs.
Which funnel? Can you plug it or do you not want to?
Yeah, I can. I can plug it. Well, it's. I mean, I guess you'd have to see our Facebook ads to. Or I can give you a link if you'd like, but either, but yeah, it's this. It's a funnel where the headline on the quiz is basically, what's your money making DNA? We analyze 43,000 successful entrepreneurs to learn that there are nine types of money makers and only nine real ways to make money. I would dial in the headline. Like, I ended up, I wrote the funnel and then I wrote the quiz and then I wrote the ads. And now that I've written the ads, I plan on testing a new headline because I Don't like how in the weeds. I went there with the types of.
Money making with your money making DNA. But that hook, you know, is the big kind of idea that people really lock into.
Yeah. So that's the hook. And then we kick off the conversation by calling out the people who have failed or are failing at their chosen side hustle. And we say the reason why you're selling or why you're failing is because you're in the wrong vehicle, basically.
Okay, so they're in wrong opportunity vehicle. They need to get into the right vehicle. It's not their fault because of they've.
Been sold into these one size fits all business opportunities sold by gurus who only teach because they can't do. And so that, that's the kind of differentiation. And then we say like take our free quiz to discover your money making. I frame all that first.
Is that, is that top of funnel, like actually segmenting the framing of the offer itself or is it actually different lenses of the offer, like different splinters of the offer that you.
So we, we plan on branching it into different funnels because we're one of the rare companies in this space that could do that. That's cool.
Yeah, I don't know too many people who are top of funnel with the quiz like that, that segment as well as you guys.
Yeah, this is our first real stab at it. And it's only been really feasible because of AI's ability to accelerate the research and the segmenting. And it's just, it was a ton of research and thinking particularly about the market before PEN ever went to paper. And, and, and AI is what, what really made that possible. And we're able to market so much more personalized to people because of it. Like you know, the, the, the quiz segments these people into four buckets. Security or independence and then 30s and 40s or 50s and 60s. And and we, we can make assumptions about their psychographic profile. Once we know that much about them. We know that the majority of the market, the biggest people, like the biggest pool is going to be 50s and 60s security buyers and then probably 50s and 60s. And this is actually what we're seeing in the early data too. 50s and 60s independence is going to come next because our market skus are older. But so the security bucket has basically a ton of people in every age group. And then the independence bucket focuses mostly in 30s and 30s and 40s. Now this is basically who everybody in biz op markets to. It's like the independence buyer in their 30s and 40s who desperately wants to fire their boss and not.
It's the millennial trope. Right. So it's like almost rooted in cultural sensitivity for that age group. Is that it? Because to me I'm like. Or is it always 30 to 40s are stuck in independence or do we like keep that with us?
Well, no, I think that gets it stays with them. I think it's just like when you get older you start to worry more about financial security than, than independence.
That makes sense. The psychographics change. I never really thought about that psychographics changing over as like related to the demographics. That's super interesting.
Yeah, they do. They, they start to skew far more heavily in the security driven bucket as they approach retirement.
Okay, so financial security is 50s types.
Yeah. And so but like the, there's still 50s and 60s independence. And what we're seeing in our funnel right now is that that segment is hitting harder for us than any of the 30s and 40s. It's basically like 50s and 60s security. 50s and 60s independence. 30s and 40s security. 30s and 40s independence. Now one interesting thing to note there is like the smallest segment of the market that at least we're being, we're able to pull in and filter with Our current top of funnel face is the smallest segment of the market at least that we've, that we've seen. And everybody just focuses on that and that makes sense. If you're selling things like, I don't know, some super technical digital side hustle like digital marketing, you're not going to sell that to like a 55 year old car mechanic.
Yeah, hopefully. Well, I've seen it done.
But yeah, yeah, it can be done. And, and there is one business I can think of that does that really, really well actually. It's the entre guys, the Jeff Lerner.
Oh yeah, yeah. There's obviously there's ways to. I know what you're saying though is like you, you're selling black box digital marketing systems to 55 year olds and knowing they're probably not going to do much with it.
Yeah. So that's, that's, that's one of the things there. But also like the, the independence people are further along financially in terms of like the hierarchy of needs. They have their security needs sort of covered and now they're like what's next up the rung of aspirations? It's, it's control over one's time and, or just control.
Right.
You get what I'm saying? So control over time, control over location, control over your life. So it's really agency that that segment is after, not freedom, but they call it freedom. And so.
Agency freedom, the ideas of agency freedom, independence and control and how they interpolate. I 100 agree with your assessment. Yeah, those who value or seek independence, at a certain point, they integrate and bend towards like wanting more control. Whether they did. Yeah. Whether they like articulate that as agency, almost never. But I think you're absolutely right. That makes a ton of sense. I've never thought about it like that.
Yeah, I think, I think it makes sense to me too. And it's not something that really, I noticed until, until this last deep research that on the segmenting funnel and what.
Are the other two buckets? The independent financial security and the. I'm blanking now.
Yeah, so there's 30s, 40s, 50s, 60s along one side of the matrix and then independence and security along the other side of the matrix.
Okay, so that gives you the eight total.
Yeah.
Okay, got you. Understood.
Yeah. So that, that funnel segments them into four, four, four buckets. It consolidates the age groups basically. And when I know that much about who's watching the vsl, it's really easy to write to them because like with the, with the deep research that I did and the avatar development that I did, it's like I had a median prospect and other avatars, really accurate, really deep research on every segment. And so then, you know, I knew I wanted to go with this like money making DNA big idea. So it's like how do I give them the identity that they really want to step into in a cool way. And I wanted to label each, each, each identity. And basically it's like once, you know, your money making DNA, then the, the best money making opportunity for you just like jumps out at you instantly or you're able to find it instantly. And so, you know, I gave them these identities like the security 50s and 60s was. I'm going way back. The. Not the veteran. Yeah, the veteran. It is the, I called it the veteran Veteran DNA and what I mean there. And I say this in the, in the lead and of the, of the vso, but it's not like military, but it's like workforce veteran. These people have a lot of, a lot of their identity and self worth tied up in being around for a while, like being in the marketplace as a working man, like more experience and real world experience. And they hate the 30s and 40s independence bucket because they're like telling them that their work experience doesn't matter anymore and they're going to be Replaced by AI.
Yeah. It is tangible and I, I get it. So it's finding like what's the common identity, group, group shared identity that you can create and, and dig into.
Yeah. And then it, and it's the identity that they can believe is going to turn into an advantage for them when it comes to making money. So like when, when I say, congratulations, you have veteran DNA, then I go very directly into some brown nosing that basically just hypes them up and says what everybody perceives as your weakness is actually your greatest strength.
Got it. And perception is like, you're a boomer, you're out of touch, whatever. Those things that labels that they get hurled at them and you take the label, reframe and.
Yeah. So like your, your decades of hard earned work experience, AI can't replace that.
Yeah.
Those corporate hotshots gunning their way up the corporate ladder behind you can't replicate that.
Yeah. And they're not even going to get Social Security, so they're screwed.
Yeah.
Double screwed.
Yeah. So that the, the lead, all four of those leads just kind of say, congrats, here's your DNA. Here's what's awesome about you and why you actually have a massive advantage in the marketplace today. The key is to find the best opportunity for you, and I'm going to give it to you today on a silver platter. And it basically transitions into the, the old control lead for this offer after that.
