[RTB:E13] "The Most DANGEROUS Word (w/ Justin Goff)" - The Road to a Billion with Stefan Georgi

Hey, you're listening to the Road to a Billion podcast. I'm your host, Stefan Giorgia and I'm glad to have you with me here today. The Road to a Billion is a call in radio show style podcast where you can ask me questions about freelancing, copywriting, entrepreneurship, mindset scaling, funnels, relationships, money, and more. The name the Road to a Billion comes from two different things. One is the fact that my offers will have hit a billion dollars in sales by end of this year. Both offers for my own products and companies and for the ones I've helped other clients with. And because my goal is to make an impact in the lives of a billion people in the next 10 years, we're gonna start taking calls in about five minutes from now. And the way that works is if you have a question put into the Q and A section in Zoom and Ed Ray will go through, he'll read off questions, we'll bring you on live unmute you, you'll ask a question and we'll answer it. And it's awesome. People also upvote questions, so that helps a lot. Ed, do you want to go ahead and give a quick introduction for yourself, let people know who you are?

Sure. My name is Ed Ray and I am the compliance brains behind some of the biggest products, brands and influencers you see on Facebook.

Awesome. And in addition to Ed Ray, we are also joined this week by my friend and business partner, Mr. Justin Goff. I think most people know Justin, whether that's from from my email list or the copy starter mastermind that I run. But Justin is a direct response marketing genius who has built his own supplement company in partnership with Alan Baylor and the team to 23 million in revenue in a single year. He's a master of funnel optimization, upsells finding ways to increase conversions and AOVs. He's a brilliant copywriter, and he is a great partner for copy accelerator Justin. I kind of stole all the thunder by doing that, but is there anything you'd like to add as you say hello to everybody here?

No, man, I think you covered it.

Okay, perfect. Awesome. So Justin is going to be with me joining and answering questions as well. And we'll get started in just a minute from now. Before we do, I do want to do this section of the show. I always do, which is sort of my opening monologue. And I just enjoy doing that. And I have a good one today. I kind of wrote it out for you guys, and it's about the most dangerous word in the English language, which is the Word. When. So when I start making more money, that's when I'll save and invest. When I start getting clients, that's when I'll create a portfolio. When I hit six figures in income, that's when I'll take a vacation. When I take a vacation, that's when I'll relax. When I'm a millionaire, that's when I'll be happy. When my daughter starts school, that's when I'll have more time. When I retire, that's when I'll finally pursue my passions. When I move into a new neighborhood, that's when I'll get back into jogging again, right? Always looking forward to when is a cop out. We used to justify the way things are now, but now is what you can control. Now is when you can set aside $10 or $100 or $1,000 a month to invest. Now is when you can create a portfolio and start getting clients. Now is when you can give yourself permission to relax and to recuperate, to go on vacation, to regenerate. Now is when you can be present with your loved ones. Now is when you can pursue your passions. Now is when you can take action about your mental, emotional, financial and spiritual health. So don't get me wrong. The word when isn't always a bad thing, right? If you're broke and you want to be a millionaire, it's better to talk about when I become a millionaire than to say if I become a millionaire. I truly believe that talking about when you're going to reach your goals instead of if you reach your goals is crucial and really powerful. And in those cases, it's better to think in terms of when than if. But the problem is, if you're using when as a way to defer your dreams that you have today to some undefined and vague point in the future, that becomes an issue. You're just pushing things down the line. So if you're broke now, you have the opportunity to take action to fix it now. And if you have a damaged relationship now, you can take action to fix that relationship. Now you have control over your present. And that's really immensely powerful position to be in. So I kind of was meditating on that during my walk this morning and thinking about that and how when has its place. But it can also be such a dangerous, dangerous part of the English language. And I wanted to share that and kind of rap on it. So that's my opening monologue. And with that, we can go right into starting to answer some questions that people have. I already see 10 in the Q and A. And again, if you have your questions, pop them in there. Justin kind of knows what's going on. We're throwing into the fire. But like I said, Justin, Ed is going to pick questions from the Q and A and then he's going to unmute those people. They'll be able to kind of share their question and we'll do our best to answer it. And again, if you're on Facebook Live. Love you. We're not going to answer questions on Facebook Live, but you can join us us over on Zoom. We've got 88 people here and plus we've got 15 people watching on Facebook Live, so it's awesome. And we'll go from there.

Yeah. And Dirk, real quick, make sure to ask your question in the Q and A chat, not in the actual chat function. So we have a question here from. Oh, Andy. Jeff shot up. So Andy says, I'm going to take on the challenge of teaching someone copywriting. I'd like to get them up to speed and getting their first client in the next three months. Any tips on mentoring people to learn all this snazzy stuff?

What's up, Andy?

What's up, people?

How you doing?

Oh, I'm good, man. Yeah, the positive juices are flowing through my veins.

It's all good. Love it, love it. Yeah. So you're going to help mentor somebody in copywriting?

Yeah.

So I don't know if you remember, but when I first joined Copy Accelerator, Brooks mentioned it in my post. I wanna, I'm a musician and I want to kind of like create a band of musicians that also know how to make money online so that we can tour and still support ourselves, you know, income wise. So I have one guy that's interested in taking on this challenge of like, you know, learning copywriting and making them come online. So yeah, I'm gonna teach him how to do it. And yeah, it would just be cool to know like some get some. An idea of how I can best support him and get him up to speed and get his first client. Like, I know I can obviously follow the structure that you guys say. You know, the whole free email sequence for getting clients and all of that and actually buying your freelance course at some point would be cool. But yeah, just in terms of like the actual mentor, you know, coaching, teaching side of things. Like, do you have any tips and points of that?

Yeah. Justin, since you're our special guest and you've mentored Tanner and a few others who are now having a lot of success as copywriters like, if you have any thoughts and you want to lead off Justin, I'd love to hear any thoughts you have.

Yeah. So a couple things I would be aware of. I've mentored three, actually four if you count Blake. Blake. Blake's not a copywriter, but definitely been helping him a lot as well. If you count the four I've mentored, three are successful now. One just basically kind of quit after a couple months. One thing I would say right up front is getting a buy in from them.

Right?

So, like, one of the things with, like, Tanner and Alec that made it very obvious that they were serious about this was I was living in Austin, Alec lived in la, Tanner lived in Toronto. And I told them both, I was like, if you're serious about learning copywriting, you need to move to Austin so you can be around all the other Internet marketers. You can be around me. I was like, it'll just obviously make. Make your progress go a lot quicker. And when both of them did that, that's a very obvious sign that, okay, they're not, they're not gonna quit this in two months. Like, they're very serious. It's not, you don't have to have an investment that big. But I would be very hesitant to mentor someone where they're not. Where they don't have skin in the game because the odds of it going well, I would say, are not good. And you also, obviously, if you know these people, you probably have a good idea. Are they going to follow through? Are they not going to follow through? Certain people, it's very obvious. Like when I mentor with Tanner, like, Tanner is very obvious. I was like, if I just. He's the type of guy, if I put him on the right track and showed him what to do, I knew within six months, 12 months, he was going to be successful. Other people I would not have that same confidence in. So I would look at a lot of that first. And then in terms of the actual tactics of mentoring someone, I'm a big, big fan of starting with the simplest things they could learn, which I taught all them how to write email. And my thought process on that was I could teach you how to write really good emails in probably three months, four months. And once you're doing that, I already know there's a huge need for email copy. There's a never, never ending need for email copy in our industry. And if I could get you making three grand a month or five grand or seven grand or whatever, you'd be pretty damn happy with that. I Mean, if you went from not knowing a damn thing about copywriting and five months later you're making three grand a month, most people would be pretty happy with that. So that was kind of my whole thought process around the thing. I know, I know Stefan's had success teaching other people long copyright out of the gate. I have more of a preference of chunking it down and teaching them email because it's just, it's such a condensed form of copy and it's a lot easier to learn than writing a long sales letter. So that would kind of be mine, my starting point. And then really the biggest thing is like when I taught tenor and Alec, they run a pretty strict program. They had to write two to three emails every single day. They had to give them to me in Google Docs at the end of the day and I gave them feedback on each one. And if they weren't following, I didn't have like a hard rule. But like, if they would have started missing days, it would have been, that would have kind of been the end of it. So I was pretty strict about that. But luckily like they were committed to it, so that'd be one thing to watch out for. Like if you're giving them feedback on stuff and they're not hitting deadlines and they're not following through, that would be something I would watch out for.

Yeah, I think that's really good advice. Justin and Andy. I think that's super important. Like with your friend who's down, I mean, just making sure that they really are like committed and down to learn copy and like, because sometimes we, I feel like we try to like force we discover copywriting and freelancing in this whole world and we realize that you can make such a great living doing it and then we want to share with other people that we care about and love and like, which is awesome. But if they aren't actually committed and they don't have the buy in, it's just not going to work. We just can't force people to like to do anything or to change. Right? So like that is number one, making sure you have the buy in. I remember I had a friend in Florida who, when I started freelancing and having success and he was talking about how he was getting kicked out of his parents house and he was going to be like homeless and living on the street. And I at the time was not, you know, I was making maybe five to $10,000 a month at the time. But I was like, hey man, like, you know, here's like what I'm doing of copywriting. Here's how to do. I think it was emails as well. Justin and I basically gave him this whole blueprint, this long email, show him everything. Had like, you know, offered to pay him like 20 or $30 an hour, which, you know, in Pensacola, Florida when you're in your early 20s, it's like a huge amount of money, you know, enough for him to all this stuff. And the guy basically just like never responded. And I followed up again. He like didn't respond. And a month later I saw him like bitching Facebook about how like he couldn't find a job and things were hard and it's like it drove me crazy. But I realized like I can't, you know, man, if the guy does, maybe he wants to just that's he'd rather kind of be a victim than change his life and you just can't. Yeah, I did basically unfriend that person for my life.

Right.

You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink that kind of stuff. So. And then Justin, the other thing I was gonna mention too, and Andy, this is relevant. I do, I have had success teaching people how to do full sales letters and I enjoy doing that. And even while with my new office, I'm kind of toying with the idea of hiring a few people from Craigslist who literally know nothing about copywriting, teaching them and filming the whole thing and then using that as massive social proof for RNBC and marketing it and all that. Which I think it'll be really cool. But that being said, even when I teach people a lot of times like I have them go kind of part by part through a sales letter and then if they're my copycub, usually I'm like, all right, start working on headlines or give me a bunch of leads or work on the clothes or like I'll give them modular stuff rather than usually just be like, alright, start writing full long sales letters. It depends if I have the luxury of time and I don't, you know, I can really throw them into the fire. Great. But I do think bite sized chunks. I think that's really good advice from Justin as well. Is this helpful, Andy?

Dude, so helpful.

Yeah.

And I think it's definitely.

Something that.

I need to emphasize when taking someone on because obviously that's a lot of my time that I'll be investing in them. So getting like a secured like, you know, this is something that you're serious about is definitely important. And also one thing like, you know, it Might not work out of this guy. It may be someone else. I'm going to start looking. I might even make a Facebook post on my profile about this later today. But, like, you know, I want to communicate the message that copywriting isn't just like sales, you know, which sounds boring and kind of just like, you know, not everyone wants to do sales, right? But it's, It's. I want to, like, communicate the message that this is more about like. Like, it's a creative thing, right? You're. You're a creative storyteller. And the opportunities that getting good at copy can open up to you are endless, right? And especially for, like, songwriters, you know. So for instance, my friend that I'm talking about right now, he's a lead singer, he's a guitarist, and if he learned copywriting, then that's gonna like, exponentially improve his songwriting in his music, right? So I also want to kind of like get that message out to them. Like, I'm not just teaching you how to like, you know, be a salesman online and be an online marketer, which, you know, not everyone kind of gets the idea of that, but also kind of presenting it like, hey, this is a really, like, fun, creative thing to do in a world that not many people know about kind of thing, you know?

Yeah, 100%, actually. That's a really good point. And I think, especially for creators, I think that's the reason that a lot of creatives are drawn to copywriting. Like, Laura is a poet. I would write a bunch of poetry when I was in college and had my hipster phase and somebody found a poem I wrote and put on Facebook from 2010, like, the future is Orange, which is like, not a bad poem. But I don't know how it got commented on, like two days ago. And I'm like, who went that deep into my Facebook history to find something from seven years ago? It's like, sorry, more than that. 10 years ago. It's remarkable. But yeah, Andy, even. Cause yesterday I was. I'm not trying to sound cool, but it was cool. I got interviewed by a reporter from CNBC and it was supposed to be like a 20 minute interview, and it went for like 45 minutes. And she was like, oh, I think we can write three stories off of this. And like, it went really well. But she was like talking about. She was kind of asking what I like about being a copywriter, because I was talking about freelancing and copywriting, all of that. And one thing I said was, for me, one thing I love is getting to talk to experts and learn a ton of stuff. I'm basically getting paid to learn. I had a call with a new doctor who's going on the team of G plans this week and this doctor was voted the top doctor in LA for 2020. And we and went to John Hopkins. He's one of the top like gis in the entire country. And he's like from India originally and moved to America when he was 4 and just like has this incredible story and he's telling me all this like cutting edge research about like gut health and even stuff about COVID that I didn't know. And like I'm like, this is so interesting that I'm getting paid to like learn right now. And you know, when I did this stuff with Golden Hippo and like Tony Horton, I got like paid to talk to Tony Horden and like, you know, like kind of interview him a bunch of times and like thing it's just like really neat. So there are those aspects and I think that's a good way to look at it is like, yeah, you're selling and you're making money, but it's like you're also getting paid to just to learn things and be creative. And I think that's a really underrated aspect of copywriting as well.

One more thing I just want to elaborate on is that someone mentioned this in the comments. It has to be more about them wanting it than you wanting it for them. Because if it's more you wanting them to have income so that you guys can all hang out and blah, blah, blah, they're just not going to be dedicated enough. I can tell you that from experience. It has to be one of those things where like, if you stop talking about it, they're coming back to you over and over again. Be like, hey man, I really want to learn this from you. When can we get started? Hey man, I really want to do this. Like it has to be on their end, otherwise it's just not going to work out.

Yeah, that's, that's a really, you know, good point there, Justin. And yeah, I'll keep all of that in mind.

Yeah.

Because obviously like I'm super passionate about this idea, but it's, it's about finding people that are going to have that level of like, you know, motivation too. So yeah, super helpful guys. Appreciate it.

Awesome. Glad to help Dandy by the way too. I'm gonna take five seconds to give a shout out to my mom because I haven't mentioned this people but like I do these obviously I'M putting them on Facebook Live. And literally every week I get these texts from my mom, and she's like, we were very supportive of you when you were, you know, young. And, like, I read to you every day and, like, that I helped her. And I'm like, yeah, mom, I know. I'm like, this is like a. You know, it's like a radio show, mom. But she'll, like, she'll, like, text me, like. So, mom, if you're watching this, I love you. And I'm really. I'm really appreciative. You were incredibly supportive. You helped to foster creativity, wonderful activities. You encouraged my love of reading. You're supportive, great. You know, kind of like labeled objects in the house for me so that I would learn and develop my vocabulary. So, you know, mom, if you want to shoot me a text later and just acknowledge that you got this, you know, there you go. So shout out to my mom.

I'm jealous. We had very different mothers.

I know. I told her after last week's show, though. I was like, mom, if you text me, like, and kind of like, if you take things personally, I'm going to stop putting these on Facebook live because I don't want, like, every week, like, get texts from you where you're like, why didn't she mention this? It's like, mom, like, I. You know, but I love her. She. She's wonderful. And gets a shout out. Yeah, Justin, I can't. I can't. Obviously. I can't imagine you. You having that same.

Yeah, I mean, my mom, when I was 25 years old, called me a scammer. So there you go.

Yeah. Yeah. Different. Different. Different experiences for sure. Ed Ray. What? Let's jump into another question here.

What are you gonna ask about my mom? Just kidding.

I mean, feel free to give a shout out to your mom, too. This is gonna be the rotabilion Mother's Day in August.

Mother's Day special. I love you, Mom. Thank you for putting up with my shit. So we have. Next up, we have Pedro asks how to build my freelance copywriter personal brand.

Good question. What's up, Pedro? How you doing?

Hey, Stefan. Justin.

Hey, man.

So, yeah, I'm a freelance copywriter and beginner, and I want to build my personal brand, but I don't have any clue how to start with that. And I have no experience, no results to show publicly, so I. I don't know actually what to do.

For sure. Yeah, I mean, I think one of the things is it's easier to build your personal brand as you're getting results. You know, like I took a while to try to build my personal brand. I was, you know, getting results for several years and then really only committed to putting myself out there more publicly, I guess. You know, I did the copy intensive in Las Vegas and early 2018 and then doing copy start with Justin, I put myself out there a bit more and then really just towards the end of 2019 is when I really created my email list and started really being more active. So I, you know, I think like developing a full on personal brand, like results help, right? Because I can point like even with that CNBC reporter yesterday and she's like, you know, 700 million, like is that a real number? And I'm like, well yeah, I'm like, so like I started writing off Lions publishing in like 2013, 2014. There's this place called ClickBank. You can look it up. They'll do over a billion dollars a year in transactions. I had 8 of the 10 off 10 top offers on ClickBank. They grossed over a hundred million in a year. Then I started working with like this person I was listening off and I'm like, you can actually like, it's hard to like go through an audit, but you can audit it and like my number actually backs out. Like if you, if you, you know, really dove in super deep. Like I'm probably, it's probably, I probably under lowball my number, right? So then that helps with the personal brand a lot. But that being said, I mean things I think you can do right now are, you know, as you get clients like publicize and celebrate your wins, like feel free to talk about those, like share case studies like, you know, things that you've done, success you've had posting regularly in the Facebook groups, like attending shows like this, being present. But I think really just being like a regular, a regular and active contributor to like communities like Justin7 talk, copy, things like that can help a lot. I mean, John Caprani has been doing that and he's like just been snowballed with opportunities and he's sort of like one of those people that literally came in the chat here and everyone's like, John Capratti's here. And like John's done a great job of just being really active and you know, like so a lot of the regulars frankly on the show do that who are in the chat right now. So that's some of the, that's sort of the start I would say is just being active. But Justin and Ed, I'd be curious to see if you have anything additional to add?

Yeah, I mean I would just say starting out, less focus on building your brand and more on just getting results for clients. Because that's really where the whole thing stems from. Because without that you really can't have a brand. It's really hard to like tout yourself as a copywriter or funnel marketer or whatever it is if you don't have results. So I'm probably more of a fan on just putting your head down and working and getting results for people. And then as you start to get the results, start to show those off and tell people about them.

Got it.

Pedro. One thing too. Real quick matting. Because I think it's tough because I like, you know, I'm a lover of freelancing and being your own boss and autonomy and all that kind of stuff. But early on for some copywriters as well, if you can get sort of like a retainer or sort of in house job with like a big well known client, that can really help too. Even if it's like not like a exclusive job, but it's like you're doing exclusive, you're doing work for them consistently. That can help a lot as well. Because even I think about like Ed and the person he worked for previously who was really well known and then when Ed went on his own, it's like, oh, he had that, that pedigree. And I look at some of the people on Copy Accelerator, like, like Jared Harlan or I mean Tanner. You have people work for like V Shred, Natural Health Sherpa, like you know, Ming who works for like Dave Sinek and Paleo Hacks, all these folks that like as you're doing that kind of stuff like then like you get associated with those big brands and then it's a lot easier when you do. You'll get a lot of wins cause you're working with these people. And then as you go on your own like you have more recognition because you're able to leverage the credibility of the people that you were working with previously. I was able to do that with the Lions guys. Cause even though it was like niche, it was like anyone who was running kind of like aggressive info product offers or who was an affiliate on Clickbank or really just studied the offers on ClickBank, had seen a ton of my work. So it was easy for them to be like, oh shit, like yeah, you're the guy who wrote all that stuff. And I was like, yeah. So just another thing to think about as well, Pedro.

Okay. It's very, it's Been very helpful. Thank you.

Yep. Absolutely. Sweet. By the way, real quick here, this isn't going to turn into a Secret, Secret Webinar 2.0, but I do want to mention one of the reasons I have Justin on is because we have our virtual event for Copy Accelerator coming up. It's September 10th and 11th. Basically, this is our full mastermind that we do for our members. So we do two masterminds a year for our Copy Accelerator members and our lite members. And this year, the second one that we're doing is virtual because of COVID and all of that kind of stuff. But it's going to be amazing. A bunch of you. Honestly, I'm just looking at folks in the chat here. I know I already have tickets. Like Girlen's coming. A ton of people like Lutfi will be there. Yeah, a ton of people here are going to be here. Yeah. Gregory Brazil will be there. So, you know, if you haven't looked at the page yet, Krista is going to be there. Yeah. Like looking at all these folks here and we've got 113 applications, 73 tickets sold. So in addition to our full members, Jose is going to be there. Love it. You know, it's going to be a really awesome. Ed Ray will be there, of course as well. Justin. It's going to be an awesome. And Sal will be there. It's gonna be an awesome thing. So I'm gonna pop into the chat just a link to the sales page. If you haven't looked at it yet, Mario Castelli is the one who wrote it. I gave Mario a shout out last week and you wanna see how good that copy is. Like, even if you just want a steady copy, it's worth checking out the page. And then if you haven't applied yet, I would apply. Lorraine. Yep, Lorraine's coming. Joey's coming. Yeah, Love it. I just love seeing all you are coming. It's gonna be awesome, Kenneth. So I'll pop in the Facebook Live group too and I'll put a link to the page in case you haven't checked it out there. But it's gonna be. We have a ton of amazing guest speakers. You can look at the page. I'm not gonna turn this into a hardcore promo, but Darren, of course. What's up? Darren Harrison. Love it. Jonathan Gaydon. I mean, yeah, like I. Basically most of you have already signed up because, like, you know how awesome it's gonna be. But I did want to share that. So Jamal will be there. Love it. Awesome. So with that being Said Ed Ray. Let's go to another. Another question.

So we had a question here from Shuria. What were the biggest challenges that you faced when you were on the road of hitting your first million?

I love that one. I'll go. What's up, Shira?

Hey, Stephen. Hey, Ed. Hey, Justin. So, yeah, that's the question. What were the biggest challenges that you faced when you were on the road to hitting your first million? And not only just the business side of the things, but were there any problems or challenges that showed up in your life, relationships, or health? And how did you deal with them? Obviously, I'm no close to hitting a million right now, but it's just amazing to learn from experience.

Yeah, that is a great question. And Justin Shura, you don't know, is 15 years old in India killing it.

He.

He'll be a millionaire way before either of us became millionaires. It's so dope. I'll start, I guess. I think for me, there was a lot. I mean, there's mindset is a huge part of it. I think just being like that, you can actually do that. And then there's also the two things. There's, like, getting, like, a million dollars in revenue and then getting a million dollars, like, in, like, net worth or, like, you know, cash or whatever. And then they're two super duper different things because I hit, like, a million dollars in revenue way before I hit a million dollars in kind of actual net worth or whatever. And that's actually important because we can look at revenue, and revenue is such a vanity metric, so it's cool to be like, wow, I did something that brought in a million dollars. But that doesn't mean you're a millionaire. In fact, you can gross $10 million and be broke AF. Right. So I think that's a really important distinction to make. But as far as. Actually, another one for me was like, I think I was always like, I'll just keep making more money. So, like, I'm not gonna save a lot because, like, I'll just, like, I'm gonna. I, like, I kind of, like, lived like a millionaire before I was a millionaire. And I was like, well, I'll just. Eventually I'll make enough money that, like, I can't. Like, unless I'm Mike Tyson, I'm not gonna outspend what I'm making. I don't recommend that for people. I think for me personally, you know, had I been more prudent, I could have become a millionaire a lot faster than I did. But, I mean, there's a trade off. It worked out for me, right, where I got to like, live this kind of pretty nice, like, lifestyle and do a lot of kind of cool stuff. But, but man, I didn't always have a ton of money in the bank. So there's, there's a trade off there. But a lot of it was just mindset realizing that it's. It's. I guess the biggest thing for me, honestly is like, it's not gonna happen one fell swoop, right? Like, because I would think, like, well, if I do this or do this, maybe someone's gonna pay me a million dollars. I'll sell a company for like $5 million. I'll do this. And like, that's not really the way it actually happens. It's like you chip away at it. It's incremental and it's about like, what you're bringing in, the things that are generating cash for you, the way you're generating income. And then what you're doing with that money, are you investing it? Are you saving it? So going back to the way I lived like this, I'll spend my, you know, live beyond my means a bit. So great. But then I wasn't that close to becoming a millionaire because I was taking money in, putting money out and so realizing. But I'd be like, well, you know, then I'm going to get like, maybe Agora Financial will hire me and pay me like a million dollars. Cause I'm a good copywriter. That's not how fucking. That's not how it works. Right? But when I was a young, I didn't know that. So I'm like, maybe someone's gonna be like, hey kid, here's a million dollars. Like that. That's not how it works. It's about again, chipping away, like saving, investing and sort of like, you know, over time, letting it compound and actually it compounds pretty fast. It's the whole thing of, like, people underestimate what they can get done in a month and. Sorry. Overestimate what they can get done in a month and underestimate what they can get done in a year. It's the same thing, I think, with money. So that's probably one of the biggest and most important things I would say. But I'd love to hear, Justin, your take on that too.

Yeah, so in regards to getting to the 1 million in revenue, the biggest thing for me was just realizing that it's just all about getting the offer and the funnel and all that dialed in and just making sales. So like, when you're starting a company and you're going from that zero to a million, you really don't have to worry about operations. You really don't have to worry about, like, your whole focus should just be on making sales and acquiring customers. Once you get to a million, then you need to start shifting to that other stuff, because going from a million to 10 million is very different. And you start to need operations, you need a team, and you need all kinds of shit like that. But just getting to that first base level of a million or 2 million or whatever it is. Yeah, the whole focus should just be on acquiring customers. Acquiring customers. Because once you have that asset of, let's say, 50,000 customers on your email list, you could start to make real profit doing that just by hitting up those customers and selling them more stuff, whether that's more of your own products, whether that's other affiliate stuff. So in regards to getting to the 1 million in revenue, that's what I would focus on. Similar story as Stefan with getting to a million in net worth. I hit that when I was like 33. Mine was interesting because I started off pretty shitty, where I was making like 30 grand, 40 grand, and I had had like one year where I made a hundred grand. Then, like, I think the next year I went back down. I was. I made like five grand then eventually, though, around 20, 10, 11ish, I got over six figures consistently, where I was like a hundred thousand, 200,000, 200 I kept. I was actually stuck at like 200,000 for a couple years. But then mine really shot up with Patriot Health Alliance. When that did really well, I went from like 200,000 to, like, I think it was 700,000 then to like 2.2 million. So it took a while to get there. Stefan definitely probably got there a lot faster than I'd have because I've been doing online marketing stuff since like 2004, so definitely took me a while to get there, but yeah. Ed, were you even born in 2004?

No, I was born in 2000.

I was born in 2004.

Let's go. Yo, you're the same age as my little sister, bro. You should hit her up.

That's the year I graduated high school, 2004.

Awesome. One thing I really would highly recommend, and Stefan mentioned this with, like, saving, investing, all that stuff, one of the biggest mistakes I made, and sounds like Stephan made the same one, was my expenses went up at the same ratio as my income went up. That's a big, big, big mistake. And I really wish I would have done that differently. Because if you start saving money when you're younger and start investing it when you're younger, like, it compounds so much. Like, the difference between money saved when you're 18 versus money saved when you're 32 is. It's huge. Is a massive, massive difference in how much you're gonna end up having when you're 50 or 60 years old. So I would highly recommend. Yeah. Do not let your expenses creep up so much that, like, if your income goes from 50 grand a year to 100 grand a year, your expenses shouldn't double as well. Like, one thing I actually really like about, I actually spent a decent amount of money. I don't think I spent anywhere near as much as Stefan does. But I'm at a point right now where, expense wise, I'm actually kind of, like, maxed out. There's not really anything else I want. So it's pretty cool that, like, if I go from making a million and a half to 2 million or 3 million or whatever in a single year, my expenses really aren't going to go up because there's honestly just not anything else I really want to spend money on. So I'd highly recommend kind of getting to that point where you're not just letting the expenses creep up and then you still. Because the worst spot is being one of those people who makes good money and you still live paycheck to paycheck. Like, that's. That's a really bad spot to be in.

Yeah. I'll never forget, I was talking. I have a friend who's a real estate agent in Vegas and he's, like, super successful. He's, like, flipped a ton of homes and, like, he just was featured in the Wall Street Journal and kind of called like, the housing crash and blah, blah, blah. But I was talking about, like, buying houses there for, like, rental income. And, like, I haven't actually done that, but remembering, like, yeah, like, you know, the ideal person for, like, you're talking about 400, $500,000 homes. He's like, you know, it's like that lawyer, somebody who makes six figures, but they're like, constantly just, like, you know, outspending and living beyond their means. So even though, like, they have, like, you know, great income and, you know it's gonna. You can pay rent, like, they're never gonna have enough money to actually buy a house because they just have, like, they put all this money on the credit cards and, like, that's like the perfect tenant. And he's like. But then I'm like. I'm like, yeah, but in my head, I'm like, oh, fuck. He's kind of describing me like, that's the way I've lived a lot, right? And I'm like, fuck, I'm. And I'd lived in that. At that point. I'd, like, rented really nice places, but I never, like, owned a house or anything. And it was like, man, like, that was an eye opener for me because I'm like. To, like. I'm really kind of like a sucker. You know what I mean? It's like I'm just here I am, like, living, you know, from paycheck to paycheck type thing and stuff like that, and not from paycheck to paycheck, but just not actually, like. Like, be more. More. I don't know, as smart as I should be. And I think another thing, too, is having good mentors helps. I mean, even, like, Justin's, like, a big fan of putting money into just, like, index funds and stuff like that. And, like, I have my investments, but I've always. I'll try to, like, play the stock market and I'll pick stocks and things. And even just like, two weeks ago, I was like, I really need to put money, like, automatically into, like, index funds like Justin does. And so I had even hit him up. I'm like, which index fund do you use? He told me the one, and I set it up to where now it's just debiting from my account regularly. And I'm just putting money in because I'm like, if I just have that going in the background, you know, like, every single month for the next, like, 10 years, 20 years, whatever, like, I'm going to be in a crazy position. And so. But. But honestly, it took Justin that was saying he influenced me on. So he, like, served as a mentor to me in that moment because he's more disciplined than I am. So, yeah, having mentors and having people to model off of is really helpful, too. That helps. Shura.

Yes, definitely. Love that. And yes, I just started with the book by Benjamin Graham about investing.

The Intelligent Investor.

Yeah, the Intelligent Investor.

Yeah. Nice. I've never actually read it, but, I mean, it was good enough for Warren Buffett. It's probably. Probably good enough for you. But you're gonna be. Dude, you're 15. You're reading that book. You're on these calls. Like you're doing stuff. Like, you're gonna be a crazy place. You know, I mean, just. Just be smart and, you know, keep doing what you're doing and focusing on the right stuff. And by the time you're in your mid-20s, you'll be like a millionaire several times over. And by the time you're in your 30s, you'll be like, laughing at peasants like Justin and myself. So, you know, excited for you.

Thank you.

Absolutely.

Sweet. All right, next question from Krista. Krista asked, do you have any specific organizational tools that you'd recommend using for writing emails, research resources, etc.

What's up, Krista? How are you?

Good. How are you today, Stefan?

Doing great. Love your energy. Got me fired up already.

I think it's a little nervous energy, but that's okay.

Good energy, good nerves.

Yeah. So, yeah, just I know you use a lot of spreadsheets. I've seen it in the courses and I've taken a lot from that. But any, like, secret resources we should know about getting started while we're trying to keep track of everything ourselves?

Yeah. And I want to give. Ed, do you have anything? Because I want to give you a chance to be, you know, participating as well. Adam, you're such a wonderful co host. I can definitely chime in and I'm sure Justin might too. But do you have anything on your end and you're muted right now? Yeah. There you go.

Yeah. I was gonna say, I don't know about organizational tools, but I live in Google Docs. I recently started using this really awesome application called draftin.com like D R A F T D R-A F-T I N.com and I turn on the Hemingway mode. So basically it removes the use of the backspace so it forces you to keep writing so you don't get caught in editing mode, which is very helpful to promote flow and having. Just not starting and stopping. That's all I got for it. Now, I'd love to hear what you guys have about organizational tools.

Yeah, on my end, I really. Yeah, I use like Google Drive and Google Docs. I use Evernote as sort of a centralized place where I just keep, like, links to a lot of stuff. So I just have different folders in Evernote. So. So whether that's like swipes or interesting samples I see online or interesting like sales letters and sales copy. I also use it because my issue, what I don't like about, like with Google Docs and Google Sheets is like, okay, now I just have a shit ton of Google Docs and sheets. Or maybe you create one Google sheet that's like your master sheet that has links to all the other sheets. But I always get A little bit overwhelmed. Like when people just share Google Docs, you're like, that's great. But then it kind of like gets lost in the fray. So I kind of like will have an Evernote that I have a centralized things that if I have links that are really important, I'll just sort of keep those links in different categories in Evernote. And that's really the main thing that I do. It does help quite a bit, and I'm sure there's better solutions than that, but that's mine. I don't know about you, Justin, do you use anything? Anything special?

I should actually not chime in on this because I am probably the most unorganized person on this call. Yeah, my shit's all over the place. I'm not even going to give you advice.

Cool. But there's some good stuff in the chat too, Chris. So, yeah, hopefully between the power of everybody combined, it'll kind of give you some good places to start. So is that helpful, though?

Yes. Yeah, very helpful. It's also just helpful, you know, that everybody has different answers. So that's good to know too.

Yeah, for sure. 100%.

You know what? Actually the only organizational tool I use, rnbc.

The perfect one. Yeah.

It's a technology. It's not just a way to write copy.

Yeah. Thanks, guys.

Awesome. Thank you, Krista. Ed Ray.

Dude, you call me before. I'm like, right before. I'm just about to hit the unmute button and you go, ed Ray. I'm like, dude, just give me a second.

I just know. I just know it's time.

You know what's gonna happen. Oh, also, that's a good point. Someone said in the chat, Pomodoro is also helpful. I used to use a whole bunch. I haven't used it recently, but it did help me quite a bit. Back in the day, Zacchaeus asked, how do you tap into the dominant psyche of the audience in your copy?

Ooh. What's up, Zacchaeus? How you doing?

Hi.

What's cracking, man? You doing good?

Yeah, very well. Good, good, good. Just excited to be on the podcast.

Awesome.

Yeah.

Actually, I went through your advice of studying copies, writing copies based on the last questions I asked. And I've been seeing a kind of template and the structure of what a copy ought to be about. But I'm kind of curious because I've been going through. I was able to go through two of your sales copies. Then I went through, going through. Just missed email. Your email. S email. And I found out that it kind of Strikes my feelings where actually reason based on that email. And it caused me to take action. I'm kind of curious, how do you tap into the dominant side of your audience you're writing to in your copy?

Cool. Yeah, that's a good question. And the audio quality is a little bit poor, but I mean, I got that question for sure. So for me, you know, part of his research from RNBC and by going on to forums and blogs and things like that, and just reading what you know, the market is the conversations they're having, the emotions that they're sharing, the way they're talking, the language, I think that can really help a lot. You know, watching YouTube videos from the target market, like that helps because then you can hear them talking as well. And. But really, like if I. There's only a few real dominant emotions regularly, right? It's like there's like anger, there's like frustration, there's sadness, there's hope or joy. There's not like a ton. And so there's really only a couple dominant emotions generally. But I'm getting most of it from research and I'm just seeing the way people are talking, what kind of words are they using, how are they expressing themselves and things like that. And then I try to be like a psychopath and I basically just try to become that person. So I've talked about this before where it's like I'm writing to a bunch of, you know, 55 plus overweight men. I become like a 55 plus overweight man while I'm writing and I'm like, angry and I've like told people stories before that aren't my stories or someone else's story. But as I'm writing, I'm like shaking with anger because I'm like an empath and I'm like emotional and like, you know, or if I'm writing like something to, you know, really conservative people, and I'm just sitting there typing. I'm like the fucking government. And I'm like, yeah, this is your angry grandpa while I'm typing. And then I like go away from the computer and come back to like being normal. But I'm like a character actor and I basically do become the avatar, as Marcus explained the chat. That's what I do. Justin, I'm curious if you have anything you'd want to add to that one.

Yeah, this is actually funny that you asked this because I just finished writing my print newsletter for September and I actually wrote the whole intro about this topic. But actually what I wrote about the One emotion you left out, which I think is probably the most powerful one, is definitely shame. I think at the core of every really good sales letter and vsl, you're tapping into shame, which is really just the feeling that I'm not good enough as I am, which is a pretty. Is obviously a very common emotion among every single niche that you're in. So if you look at, if we look at the survival niche, which is a really interesting niche, the 50, 60, 70 year old conservative guy who is the main buyer in that niche has a lot of shame about not being a good enough provider, not being a protector of his family, stuff like that that you can tap into that to me digs down and just kind of twists a knife in something that's way deeper than even anger and sadness and stuff like that. Because at the heart of it, it's just all about I'm not good enough. And if you look at really every niche, I mean, men's dating is really all the really good VSLs. Dig into that, where it's like the guy just at his core feels like he's not good enough and that he can't live up to the women he wants. If you look at women's skincare, like, why would you actually buy a wrinkle cream? It's because I'm not good enough the way I am right now. I have to, I have to look better. I have to look like the girls who are 20 years younger than me. So to me, I think shame is really the master emotion that if we keep just peeling back the layers and going down and down and down to the root of everything. I think shame is at the core of all that. So that's usually the one that I tend to target in Most sales letters, VSLs and stuff like that.

Yeah, that's awesome, Justin. That's a really good point. Yeah, that's excellent. I forgot my daughter's about to walk into the room, so I'm not going to go on too much of a ramble instead of that. Was that helpful, Zacchaeus?

Yeah, sure, sure. For you. Thanks so much. Thanks so much.

Cool.

All right, cool.

So next up from Peter, what are the biggest needle movers to get More conversions on a front end offer as well as boosting aov.

Nice. What's up, Peter? No, he's still muted. Peter. Any Peter Samus in my life. I think we don't get the picture. Peter's like super jacked. We don't even get his, like, picture to like. I can feel shame whenever I see Peter's like, photo, like that's when I feel my full shame, you know.

That's good to know.

Yeah.

Yeah. Hey guys.

What's up?

Good. Yeah. There's no really context to the question of that. I'm been tasked to beat some controls for some pretty big guys. So. Yeah, any obscure things that you've learned or other than like just not the general stuff would be great.

Cool. I mean, Justin, you and I spent a lot of time talking about that. I'll let you. You can start right away.

Sure. I mean, I would say in our copy accelerator group, Stephan and I are pretty dialed in on this. When somebody's going to beta control, it's there's really only about three or four kind of leverage needle movers, whatever you want to call them. The lead is without a doubt the biggest one on a VSL or a sales letter. A good lead that really hits. I mean we've seen 70, 80% conversion boost even higher sometimes. So I would definitely start there on a sales page. Did you also say average order value?

Yeah, yeah.

Some AOV boosts. Whether that's like increasing like the abandoned cart stuff or.

Yeah, okay. So your biggest AOV boost is always going to come from fixing the first upsell. That's where 80% of the upsell average order value comes from. So getting that dialed in specifically, there's a couple things you really gotta get dialed in. I'm not gonna be able to share everything with you. But the biggest thing is that the offer is congruent with what they bought on the front end. There's nothing more important to an upsell than getting the actual offer. Right. And we've seen offers go from mediocre offers that are doing 15, 20 sales a day to 1000 sales a day by simply getting the upsell right. So that's a big, big, big one. What else am I missing stuff?

I mean, upsells is huge. Well, you're getting the offer, right?

The length of the upsells is probably the other big thing. So many people, even smart people, just, they have the, what I call the T Rex arms where they just like hold back. They're like scared to sell on the upsell because they're like somebody just watched the 40 minute BSL or someone just read my whole sales letter. So I'm gonna do this really short upsell. And the reality is you want to sell pretty much just as hard on an upsell. Like if you're doing a video, it should be 15 to 20 minutes. If you're doing a Sales long tech sales page. It should be pretty damn long. That's gonna easily increase AOB right there. So yeah, two biggest things are definitely always the lead and then the first upsell.

Yeah, those are big. I would add for physical products on the, in the sales copy on the front end. Like if it's, if there's a 1, 3, 6 or there's different package options even for like a service package. If there's like a, you know, a gold and a platinum, like doing the, like I have my AOV money close. But really it's just the idea that smart people buy more or they buy bigger packages and really explicitly telling them that I've now to me has always been so mind blowing that when you just tell people like hey, like and buy the biggest package. Like you should buy the biggest package. Oh, most of our customers buy the biggest package. Like the smart people buy the biggest package. Like you know, so like, well, life of the biggest package will look like this. Life of the less big package will look like this. Like life of the biggest package is better. Really simple stuff like that. I mean just I'll never forget because the first time I did that for a supplement offer, we were getting like a 1:40, 150 AOV and like it went to like a 220 AOV and it was like, oh my shit, I wish I'd been doing that for the whole time I had my health supplement, you know, company. But again, it doesn't have to be supplements. It could be like, you know, consulting or things like that. So don't take for granted how people want to be told what to do. So explicitly telling them, hey, do this is good. And then when you show the product, right? So for example, in supplements it's like you should show the six bottle package when you're showing the package a bunch of times. Like versus showing the one bottle image. Because if people like you're constantly telling to buy and they keep seeing a picture of a one bottle, then their head, they're like, okay, I'll buy the one bottle. If you keep telling them buy and you show the image of the six bottle, they're like, oh, I guess I should buy the six bottle. Even the order of how the packages are displayed, right? Like the one package is on the left and it's like sample pack, right? And the six bottle package in the middle. Like best value. Smartest people get this like, you know, savings like that and then the three package there. So that's just another AOV booster that works every time. And yet is often ignored.

Okay, cool. And for the leads, would you recommend, I guess, emotional story leads probably smash the best. Or have you seen other stuff?

I think emotional is really good. It's hard to beat emotional story leads. Um, I think they're really effective. Again, with that being said, it has to be relevant to the pain point of the prospect and it has to relate back to the prospect pretty fast. One problem I see a lot with emotional story leads people are using right now is like, they, they think they're an emotional story lead, but instead they're just basically writing like a, like a sob story and like a, like a multi page, like bitch and moan session of the spokesperson and they're not relating back to the reader. So when somebody's like a cold prospect is reading this and it's like the guy's like, and then this happened, and then this happened and then this, and it's like, why am I just reading about this guy? Just like going on about all this terrible stuff that happened to him or his wife or whatever. Right? Like, you can you have that? But then you're like, and while I didn't know at the time, this is what would lead me to discover this amazing breakthrough that made everything better and that's now helping tons of other people to have, like, improve their lives as well. Like, I've been studying all the top weight loss offers on clickbank because I'm writing a clickbank weight loss, like, control killer that's gonna beat all of them. And literally every single one of them, Every single one of them uses like the same, like, thing. It's like the emotional story for a couple lines and then it like, goes into like, and oh, wow, it was terrible. I'm sharing it because this is what led me to. And that's what I've always done in all my emotional copy. But I still see a lot of writers today who don't do that part. They just keep going with the emotional story, but it's not that interesting. Like, I don't. Why am I listening to this guy or this woman tell me about this horrible stuff for like, you know, after like a while I'm like, what am I doing here? Like, right? Like, I. The trance is broken because I'm just like, this is like, I don't want this negativity. So you have to tie it back to like, the future casting, future pacing, and like, positive benefits as well.

Cool.

Yeah. I have on my notes to take a look at your breakdowns in the copy accelerator group, so I'll pay attention to those.

Yeah, check those out. I did research and leptoconnect so far and then I'm doing one called Proven Next and I've got like five more that I've got the transcripts coming in for that. I'm going to kind of go through all of them.

Awesome, thank you Steven. Thank you Justin.

Yeah. By the way, when you get a ticket for the virtual event for Copy Accelerator that's coming up, you get membership and Copy Accelerator light lead up to the event and in there you get to see the Facebook group where I'm doing sharing those breakdowns that I've been doing as well as like the weekly trainings as well as the members area which has literally the recordings of everything we've done since we started. So every week we do different trainings on like biggest needle movers, AOV boosters, like secrets to leads, emotional story leads, upsells, like Justin did a whole masterclass on emails. It's all in the members area of Copy Accelerator. When you buy a ticket you get like a free preview. So you're basically a full on Light member until the event. So you have access to all those videos, the Facebook group, all that kind of stuff. So oh and by the way, tax deductible as I've not been pointing out but then was pointed out to me. So your ticket is you know, a write off as is your membership frankly. So you know, one more little plug and with that one more little link to the, to the sales letter for that. But now yeah, Joey said mind blown by the stuff when Copycut started like the news feed is full of gold. Yeah, it's crazy. It's like a bunch of like again you've got over a billion dollars in annual sales between our members and it's people just sharing what they're like sharing the copy they're working on. Justin I. Giving feedback to those people like you're seeing like people just like talking strategy, talking high level stuff. I mean like the fate just being the Facebook group for like two weeks is worth I don't know what, $10,000. Seriously. And then the members area that you get access to is like it's like literally priceless. Justin and I were talking about this. If we ever stopped doing Copy Accelerator we'd have this asset that we could easily make, I don't know how millions and millions and millions of dollars off of because it's just a crazy amount of gold. So you know, just a little plug there and with, with that Ed Ray.

There we go. Question here from Gregory Brazil. What's the best way to get a personal mentor? That's a good question.

What's up, Greg?

Hey, Stefan.

How you doing? Can you hear me? Can. Yeah. Okay, good.

Yeah, I'm doing good.

I'm in.

I mean, I'm in all the courses and on all your sites, and I've listened to all the calls and I'm writing and I'm applying for some gigs, but I. And I'm studying things, but I think I would just go so much faster if I had a personal mentor.

Yeah. Yeah, it makes sense. It's really tough, I think about this because it's like, people, everyone always says, get a mentor. And you're like, okay, right? How do I do that? And that's your question. And, you know, I don't know if I have a magical answer to that. I mean, one. One answer is, like, paying those people, you know, which is not like a fun answer in a way, but it's like, you know, if you imagine people who are busy, like, you know, when you. When you're. If you're paying them for, like, consulting or things like that, like, you know, then they're gonna give you the dedicated time. And, like, there's a lot of times we're doing that then turns into. It evolves over time. Like, I think about, like, Ben Marcou, who is, like my coaching client, and he's like, paid me, but, like, I've told him, like, like, you can stop paying me and I'll, like, always be your mentor. And he, like, just wants to keep paying me because I've helped him a bunch. But, like, you know what I mean? Over time. I don't think you pay us to pay that person forever, but I do think that's, you know, a shortcut. And it helps doing work for the right clients over time, if you just get the right clients and you continue to work with them and, you know, and kind of you, you know, you don't want to be needy and be like, I need feedback. I need feedback. Like, you know what I mean? Like, you can't. Like, you want to make a client's life easier. But I think with the right. The right clients, over time, like, they can become mentors to you. You know, I think being part of masterminds, like, I think, you know, through Copy Starter and over time and the relationships you're forging and things like that, you're going to have the opportunity to develop kind of relationships with people who serve as mentors as well. Those are some of my top ways, because people Email me. Like, hey, like, can you mentor me? And it's like, no. Like, I'd love to. If I had unlimited time, I would totally mentor you. But, like, I just. I. I can't. Right? But then, like, I look at someone like Jeff Kahuthu who, you know, had hit me up on Facebook, and I hired him to do some stuff, and then I hired him more, and then I started giving him feedback, and it's like, I've kind of like, you know, I hired him, but I've served as a mentor to him. And, you know, I mean, Ed, I'm kind of like a mentor to you, but you're in Copy Accelerator. But then it's like, we've had those conversations, and now you're messaging me all the time, asking, you know, for advice or opinions on stuff, and I'm giving it to you, and, like. But it started with a Copy Accelerator membership, too. Yeah. I don't know. Justin, curious to hear your thoughts. I know somebody did ask Shura to said that you would love to know how you got David Deutsch as your mentor, by the way, David being one of the speakers at the virtual event. But, yeah, Justin, I'm curious to hear your thoughts on this, too.

Yeah, I mean, David was pretty simple. I asked him how much money he wanted to teach me copy, and he told me $25,000, and I paid him. So, yeah, that one was. That one was pretty simple. But one other way that a lot of good copywriters, I think, have come up is from working in house or working really closely with a good copywriter above them. So, like, Carlene, who's speaking at our event, worked under Clayton Makepeace for, like, the first seven, eight years of her.

Career.

And just did all the kind of grunt work of writing teaser copy and mailer copy and headlines and bullets for Clayton and all kinds of shit like that. And obviously, over time, she became pretty damn good. So, I mean, that's one path that I think a lot of people take. And I. It's kind of like an apprenticeship almost. I think there's definitely a path like that for a lot of people if they're okay with either being in house or being a freelancer that's kind of attached to just one company. Because the reality is, maybe you might not make as much as you would otherwise doing that, but you learn so much more, and in the end, you're gonna make a lot more money when you can kind of go out on your own and do that. So that would be something I would Definitely think about.

Yeah, Greg. The one thing I would be wary of though, too, is, like, there's a lot of copywriters out there who are, like, looking for people to mentor. But, like, if, like, a writer is, like, really actively, like, you know, come write for me for free and I'll mentor you. And it's like, you're making really, really vetting them. I mean, there's. I think of one I'm not gonna name by name, but one person who was briefly in Copy Accelerator actually for Jeff Kahuthu. It's funny because he had messaged me and was like, oh, I see. Like, you know, you're. You're hiring Jeff, who's one of my favorite, you know, my former, like, kind of, like, mentees, like, glad he's working out for you. And I was like, dude, I hired Jeff. He had no idea what the fuck he was doing. And then I basically gave him all these resources, assets, helped him into all this stuff. And now Jeff was, like, a copywriter, so whatever you did, like, clearly wasn't working. And then that same person ended up joining Copy Accelerator. And people would come in and be like, he had mentored some of the other people in Copy Accelerator who weren't very good when they joined Copy Accelerator, but they were good now. And then he was coming in and trying to give advice and was, like, bad advice. And then the person, like, left after a month because he wasn't gonna write copy anymore. And I think now he is, but the guy's like, a shit show. But he, like, somehow is hoodwinked people into, like, mentoring them. But, like, that guy's not a good mentor. You know what I mean? Like, I don't know. I'm not gonna name him, but, like, so being careful with who they are. I mean, you know, you can ask Justin and I, like, you know, our opinion on some of this stuff as a topic starter member. Like, I'm happy to share, but I like, I like what Justin said to you. I mean, if you can work under somebody who is proven. I mean, that is a good one. But just like, yeah, be careful. Choose your mentors wisely. It's really important.

All right? And I'm not opposed to any of that. I'm not opposed to working under someone or even having a job, so to speak, you know, for a while so I could learn more and more and more. Just wondering how I should go about that. And you're giving me lots of good, good advice. I suppose I could even just make a post in California Light and See what, See what somebody. See who comes forward?

Yeah, I think so. I mean I think that's, that's a good asset. And at the virtual event when we're doing the networking and talking, I think that's something you could share there too because you'll have access to everybody, the light and the full members and kind of be like, you know, I'm looking for proven mentor. Like I don't, you know, it's not about the money for me right now. I'm just trying to like work with like proven high level people who are, you know, gonna be able to help guide me and I will put in the work and I'm, you know, I'm hungry and focused and all that and I think if you do that, you'll probably have some people who are, you know, interested in working with you.

Yeah, I mean, I mean, willing to pay somebody too. Maybe not a lot of money, but I'm definitely willing to, you know, put my, put some coin in the game.

Yeah, absolutely. I think that, I think you're on the right, the right path there for sure.

All right. Hey, thanks guys.

Yeah, happy to help Beauty.

Next question from Chris Dixon. Hi guys. I'm writing emails for a client directing customers to four different Shopify e comm sites. I have four separate lists that I write and provide content for. What is the best way to get more people to engage in my emails? I'm not trying to do the just buy our shit thing. Are short or long emails better also? Should I try cross promoted to the lists?

Sweet. What's up Chris?

Hi guys. How you doing?

Good, how you doing?

Yeah, so quite self explanatory. Basically this is like my first kind of writing job as such. I worked for this lady I started in February and I've kind of gone my separate way from her but she's like, she almost like a retainer kind of thing where they see I sort of run their four Shopify websites and I sort of inherited Mailchimp. I know it's not the best AWeber, etc. So every week, every Friday and a Sunday I write kind of like for these four different brands that she's selling. It's a UK distribution company. So I'm just trying to find content every week trying to, you know, whether to. They sell sports eyewear, they sport, they sell kind of like training supports for like gym users and all. So I was thinking maybe I could cross sell some of the products on different lists because what I'm wary of is just like there's not a Lot of people coming onto the list new and if I start to just like bang this list, you know, if I start to hit it up more than once a week, then people I know, they're gonna kind of slowly disappear. So I don't want to like kill her list. So I'm just thinking of ideas to get people to kind of engage more. I'm trying to be as creative as possible as well.

Got it.

Just I got a lot of thoughts.

I can see your brain just going.

There, so one there. I just want to clarify, what are you selling again?

They sell sports eyewear.

Eyewear, what is that?

It's like sunglasses basically.

Okay.

And they do like photogrammatic chroma lenses, changeable lenses. They're sort of in. They're like a mid range. They're not as good as Oakley. Well, they are good as Oakley, but you know, they're not like top dollar. We're talking about in UK pounds. You're talking about like 30 to 120 pounds sterling.

What sport do people wear them for?

The top sports. They sell them normally. Golf is a big one. Running, cycling, a lot of cricket stuff. A lot of water sports as well, a lot of snowboarding in winter and stuff. So that's the sports eyewear. The other products are like the. Excuse me, the. If you see people down the gym, they're kind of, you know, someone has a knee injury or back injury, there's like this sort of brand that they have that's for all the sports. So I was thinking about selling, you know, the eyewear over into the sports supports and doing the other way. I just trying to, you know, I sometimes struggle to get some interesting content because I'm obviously talking to these people, the same list their existing buyers. A. I'm trying to increase the AOV and I'm trying to think of ideas for her to have more products as well. So I don't want to hammer the list too much.

So when you say sports support, do you mean like knee sleeves and like elbow sleeves and stuff, all of that?

Yeah, I mean it's for the whole of body. So like popular ones is runners like, you know, if you've got sprained ankles or wrist supports and things like that. Sports wraps. A lot of the stuff I guess you see down the gym when people nursing an injury.

How big are the list?

The sports I wear is probably about 2k, probably similar to the. For the sports sports. But what's happened is I picked up this job in February, the previous person went sick from October and the list Was not, you know, a lot could have been done and I'm the only person that's basically monetized the list. So I'm getting some money back off the list, I'm getting some sales, but, you know, it's just been left to kind of sit there.

Yep. So what's the. You're currently mailing it two times a week?

No, once at the moment for the sports I wear. It was twice a Friday and a Sunday and a Saturday for the sports supports.

What was the reason between. So two questions of that. What was the reason of picking those days? Was there a reason behind.

Was just kind of. I kind of do a kind of two separate products for the sports I wear. So you've got people on the Friday getting ready for the weekend. I tried different times of the day. It's going back to that question also, you know, I'm learning as well. So I'm kind of testing what times of the week are better to send these out as well. So I'm kind of taking on all this information and trying to make it work, trying to improve it.

So a couple thoughts. The easiest change you can make is just simply start mailing the list more. You're kind of. Your assumption that people are just going to unsubscribe is majority of the time not true. You definitely will get people to unsubscribe, but you're also going to make a lot more money, especially if you're sending emails that are actually like entertaining and good that people want to read. And I think with the kind of stuff you're selling, you could do that for sure. So I would definitely increase the emails. I'm a big fan of sending email every single day. If you can't do every day, I would at least increase it to three or four times a week at least. Just these first couple of weeks, kind of test it and see how that does. A little worried about sending emails on Fridays. People are not really in like buying modes on Friday because they're kind of in weekend mode already. People tend to buy more stuff on weekends. People tend to buy more stuff early in the week. Um, like Steph and I have talked before about having webinars and like the only day we had open is like Fridays. And we're just like, no, we're not doing it on Friday because like people like checked out halfway through the day. So that would. That would be kind of the biggest thing is definitely emailing more. And then I would definitely be doing story type emails. If you could. I'm sure you could find hilarious stories of like someone who's cycling and ran into a tree because they. The sun was in their eyes. Right, right. Tell a story like that and a really kind of funny, entertaining way. And like that wouldn't have happened if he had these sunglasses and then kind of like linked to your product. I would just keep telling stories like that. I would tell like success stories as well. Like if you have, I don't know, like some guy who won the Boston Marathon and oh, look at this, what a coincidence, he's wearing these sunglasses. Are sunglasses gonna help you win the Boston Marathon? No, but blah, blah, blah, and kind of like stuff like that. I would just keep going down the story path though, and just over and over tell these kind of entertaining stories about. Okay.

What's interesting from that point of view is that basically I started there in February and I always go to the mountains on a solo trip. Trip up into the mountains in the snow on my own. And I took some of the sunglasses and the sports supports and I actually did some social media posts and I came back and the biggest sales were when I came back and wrote about some of my actual, you know, real life story about being up in the mountains walking on rocks and snow with the supports on my knees and the sunglasses with a changeable light. So, yeah, I completely get the story aspect of that. That and I have tried to be a bit topical. There was the, there was the golf tournament in San Francisco a little while ago. Tiger woods was back and just using a sort of topical story. Looking at what's happening at the moment, that seemed to work quite well as well.

Yep.

Yeah, makes sense.

I think you're on the right path of that.

Yeah.

Okay. That's cool, right? Okay. I love the, it was great, the big money from email session yesterday. I really enjoyed that kind of. I got, you got to answer a question of mine. So I think I'm definitely going to go the email route to start with to kind of like, you know, it's a good sort of learning strategy for me at the moment before I can kind of, you know, I'm starting at RNBC from the beginning through. So. Yeah. So thanks guys for that. That's really helpful.

Awesome. Glad to help. Yeah. Justin, I want to say real quick too, I was like, I was kind of blown away by how popular that that email webinar was. I just didn't realize that people, I think was that sexy of a topic, to be completely honest with you. And it was at the most registrations we've ever had. The most attendees we've ever had, people just sharing it all over the place. Like, I was like a real eye opener. For me, I guess it just tells you you shouldn't assume stuff, you know, don't assume you market once.

Kind of the reason I came up with it was because I sent that survey to my list about the next products for me to put out. And email was the highest one.

Interesting.

And I honestly, I had the same thing. Like I put in email was like the fifth one I put in. Like just kind of threw it in there and wasn't really thinking anything of it. And it came out number one.

Yeah, it turns out you should probably survey your list. Another thing I learned from Justin, going back to mentors, I mean, even your partners can be mentors, right? And even I did that for stuff I've done, like with RNBC or even with like, I mean, the freelancing course, like the launch, I kind of boggled it. But like, as far as like stuff that was in it, like asking my list, like, what do you want to be in it? And then you get so many ideas you never would have thought of. I mean, you talked about that even with the post in Justin and stuff and talk copy about that. Like, what questions do you have about email? And there's all these questions that you would never would have thought would be on people's minds, and yet they were. So it really, no matter how successful you get as a marketer, like, you just gotta consistently never, never assume, you know everything and always be listening to the market. It was a good reminder. Let's do one or two more. Ed just hit me up that he has a hard cutoff at 11:30 because he's going skydiving. So no big deal. Ed Ray, no big deal. Just come back in one piece.

Hopefully. Hopefully I'll do my best. So question here from Elizabeth. Elizabeth says how to do the research phase for finding what supplements to sell when starting out. Great question.

What's up, Elizabeth? How are you?

Hi.

Good.

How are you doing?

Good.

Can you hear me?

Yeah, we can.

Okay, great timing. I just drink something really disgusting and then he said my name. I was like, oh my gosh.

It's like when you're at the restaurant and you take a huge bite of like your meal and the waiter comes in, it's like, oh, is everything. It's like the waiter knows to come after you take the bite. It's crazy.

Yeah. They're watching you around the corner. So. Yeah, I'm just wondering, how do you research about Figuring out what supplements like to even get started with, where would you, you know, figure out competition levels or you know, how what supplements are selling well.

And so this is like, you know, if you're starting your own like supplement kind of offer or company, right?

Yeah, exactly. I sold supplements a really long time ago, but it was a, I basically resold a supplement that was selling on an infomercial. So I didn't have to know. I didn't do any research about it for sure.

Yeah, I mean I think that the biggest. I'm trying to think of the best way I would do that. I mean because on one hand like I don't really care about like saturation. I like proven categories of niches. So I mean for example like going to like Clickbank or looking around on Facebook and other places and like seeing what like categories are being hit consistently. And I would probably just, I would stick with like a proven category and then I would focus on how to bring unique spin to that. You know, like it's like there's a gajillion weight loss supplements and yet weight loss supplements keep working, keep selling. People are still fat and still trying to lose weight. You know, same thing with like, like blood sugar energy, like anti aging stuff is always going to be popular. There's, there's a ton of people who are getting older and who feel crappy, you know, like kind of what gut as well though I'm not a huge fan of the gut niche in general. But I guess yeah, I'd be looking at just as you look at ads and then if you want to look at specific offers, you can use tools like similar web and go and see how much traffic certain pages are getting and then based on that you can kind of know the amount of. So for example, if you see an ad for some supplement and you go to their similar web and you look and it's getting like a million visitors a month and it's been gaining a million visitors a month for the last six months. You're like, oh, that's probably a sign that this is working. But typically like I just, I think a mistake people make and I think Justin, I see this is where they try to. They come in and find something super niche and they're like, yeah, nobody's doing this. And you're like there's probably a reason nobody's doing that. Right? Like if you find some weird thing where it's like for people who have some weird like fingernail disorder that like you know, 5,000 people have, it's like that's not a good category, Justin. I'm curious if you have anything to add on to that though, as you know.

Oh, not really. I think you gave a really good advice.

Okay. Does that make sense, Elizabeth?

Yeah.

Yeah. So you would look at ads to find the URL to put into similar web. Basically just go looking around at offers on Facebook and places like that.

That'd be a big part of it. Yeah, native ads too. And then I think you can go to ClickBank and sign up as like Cypress, like in like an affiliate or like some like a vendor on clickbank. And that way you can see all the offers and they have like their. In the health category, they have like the supplement side of things. And you can look at all the top supplement offers are in clickbank. And if you just do that, you'll see like the categories like if I, you know, it's basically like weight loss and there's a tinnitus offer, which I personally wouldn't do. Tinnitus. I've done tinnitus supplements before, but it's just a tough category. Like refund rates are really high because it's like if you're like, hey, this gets rid of the ringing in your ears. And it doesn't get rid of the ringing in someone's ears. They're like, no, it didn't. And they're pissed. Whereas if you're like, this helps with energy and it, you know, they feel like it has some caffeine in it or something, you're like, oh, wow, yeah, I have more energy. So like saying like energy, you know, is better than tonight's. But that being said, at least to get a feel for what is what the top ones are, I think going on clickbank and looking at the supplements and then sort of going through the top ones, there would be a good way to understand what the best sellers are too.

Okay, thank you. And can you remind me, what is the name of that supplement manufacturer that you said does drop Shipping.

Yeah, there's. Yeah, Ship Offers is the one that I generally recommend and they're a sponsor of Copy Accelerator, but they're. I've used them since like 2015. Always had great experiences with them. Refer a lot of people. So, yeah, definitely Ship Offers.

Ship Offers.

Ship, yeah. Some put in the chat too, like Ship, like shipping an offer to you. And you can always just email. I'll put it in the chat here, but you can just set up Josh Noble, which is I think just joshipoffers.com. yeah, I'll put that his email in here too. You can tell him that I sent you, but. Yeah, Joshipoffers. I mean, that's what's funny. Even on the clickbank, I was looking at that lepto Connect one, which is one of the top weight loss offers, and it's like, you know, it's just like the. It's just a ship offers on demand immunity supplement. They just took it and then, like, re. Did it for, like, weight loss. And so the other stuff gets repurposed a lot. But yeah, they. They have a good selection of on demand products. Okay.

All right, cool. Thank you.

Cool. Happy to help. All right, Ed Ray. Should we. Should we do rapid fire? Should we do rapid fire? Okay. Throw some out there.

When writing samples to reach out to potential clients, is there an average turnaround time I should be hitting? I feel like I'm taking too long to create samples.

I try and have them done in advance. I mean, if you're going after the same types of clients consistently, then, like, if you're trying to build a portfolio and you don't have one, which is a good strategy to create your own portfolio. But just don't even wait until you talk to clients to do it. Just be building them. And the more of those you do, the easier it becomes. But I would just keep writing, like, pieces as samples and just do that. Like, don't wait until you reach out to a client. They ask for a sample. Just preemptively be creating samples, but consistently.

Got it. Are there thematic elements common to the most successful leads?

Yeah. Justin, you want to handle that one? Yeah.

I mean, I would say the ones we see that usually do the best. They have curiosity, they have credibility and proof. They have a specific benefit that's promised. They have something very unique about them. That could be the unique mechanism. That could be something else. It's something that piques that curiosity. So if I was to say, like, the tinfoil secret for eliminating your back pain, that's got a lot of curiosity in it. It's got, like, a little mechanism in there. Anything like that really just kind of like, gets you to keep reading. I mean, obviously there's a lot more stuff I can't think of off the top of my head, but those three or four things that you definitely want to hit on all the time.

Yeah, that's great.

I'm writing an advertorial for a client. It's coming off not so strong or emotional as a sales letter. It's the first time I'm doing an advertorial for native ads. Any advice?

I mean, the fact that you recognize it is good. I mean, advertorials are by nature generally and depends on the client, but they're gonna be a little less emotional because it needs to feel like it's like a news story. But I think if you can still capture emotion and like the lead in and by telling somebody's story, you know, like, I mean, like when Julie's dog, like, started having trouble walking, like she was worried she'd have to put her down. Like, her heart sank, like. Cause she'd been. You can still tell like an emotional story. And then the dog found this great dog food, blah, blah, blah. Like, but like, you can still have it in like the kind of lead end of the story. And then, then you're gonna go more into like, you're like a reporter mode, I guess. But really, I mean, if you're recognizing it sounds like you just gotta revise it. But of course it's gonna be different than like an emotional VSL because, you know, it's, again, it's serving a different purpose kind of.

What are your best recommendations for improving subject lines?

Biggest one is to really hammer home the curiosity. Um, curiosity gets clicks more than anything. So anything that you can do that going back to that headline I just kind of said, which was like the tinfoil secret to ending your back pain, like, that's something you're. Anybody who's got back pain or any type of pain whatsoever is probably going to open. Um, so, yeah, really being specific, really pumping up the curiosity and if you can add kind of that credibility proof in there. So mentioning maybe how there's something from Harvard or how the FDA approved this and blah, blah, blah, those definitely tend to work. Yeah, those are some easy tips that work every time.

How do you handle a zoom call with a client? What are the ideal questions to ask and whatnot?

Yeah, I mean, build rapport, first and foremost. Be relaxed, be like in control. That you're like a valued consultant. You're not somebody who's sitting there just like, you know, hoping to get the gig. You're like, you're, you know, an expert and a peer. Like, treating clients as, like, as peers, I think is very valuable and important. And then, I mean, as far as questions, it's kind of like, obviously it depends on what the client wants. Um, but like, you know, generally we're just trying to discover, okay, have they. What have they done already? It's almost like research for like a sales letter. Right? It's like, what have you done in the past? What have you tried? You know, is it working? What do you have currently? Is this a new offer? Like an, you know, revamp of an offer? You know, what's going well? What are your goals? Right.

What are you.

What are you trying to do with this copy? What's, like, your ideal outcome? What are the guidelines? Like, what are you, you know, what are your kind of what's on your, like, can't do list? Right. Or do you want me to, like, stick to, like, do you have a story or a spokesperson? Do you mean to stick to that? Can I have, like, some more like, leeway? All those sorts of things. So really. But just about kind of like, where are they at and what is the outcome they want? And then figuring out how you can help get them there with your copy.

Did you have a core offer as a freelancer?

I mean, early on, at the very beginning, I had stuff like on Warrior form, like, I'll write a sales letter for $149 or I'll write you, you know, X amount of emails for $20 each or stuff like that. But, you know, over time, more so it was me trying to find different gigs and have more exposure and things like that. And let's get to Rob's real quick too, because I saw that one. Yeah.

If you're writing for a new product where there are already some products in the market, what is your strategy for writing a copy versus the new supplement ingredients?

Say that again.

Yeah.

If you are writing here, I'll answer live. If you are writing for a new product where there are already some products in the market, what is your strategy for writing the copy versus the new supplement ingredients?

So I guess, like, I think what he's trying to say is kind of like differentiate.

If, like, there's already multiple products of the same ingredient.

I mean, I'm just looking for. I mean, the short answer is like, I'm just looking for different unique angles and things like that. Or a big idea or hook. Right. I mean, I guess the questions were a little bit strangely, unfortunately. So I'm not 100% understanding it.

I think it's like similar question where the answer is like, how like Schlitz beer, where it's like every single beer company does the same filtration process. Was the one marketer that talked about it, and then that became like the beer brand for a few years, like, number one, number two, or whatever. So find, find, like stories. Find information that no one else has talked about regarding the ingredient and then make the angle around that.

Yes.

And the ingredients yeah, for sure.

I gotta hop off now.

All right, no problem. Thanks, Ed. And we'll go ahead and wrap up hero end here. If we didn't get to your question. Sorry. But we love you regardless. And Justin, I want to give you a big thank you for coming on and being my guest today. I appreciate that.

Yeah, man. Thanks for having me on.

Absolutely. Cool. So as always, if you're listening to this on itunes, make sure you subscribe and that you like and leave a review if you can. It'd be amazing. If you're on YouTube, same thing. Comment, subscribe like. And we'll be back next week. And don't forget to check out the virtual event for Copy Accelerator, which is coming up September 10th and 11th. I'll have a link in the show notes and in YouTube. I think that. So thank you, everybody.

See you.