[RTB:E33] Most CRUCIAL Skill In Entrepreneurship + Clubhouse Talks w/ 8-Figure Marketer Sean Vosler

Hey, you're listening to the Road to a Billion podcast. I'm your host, Stefan Georgi 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 skilling, funnels, relationships, money and more. The reason for the name the Road to a Billion is twofold. One is I've hit around a billion dollars in sales for products that I've owned or that I've run copy for and that have appliance to scale and, and because I want to get to a place where I've impacted the lives of a billion people over the next 10 years. So we'll start taking some calls in about 30 minutes from now. The way that works is you put your questions into the Q and A section on Zoom for those of you who are on Zoom watching live. And then we'll go through and we'll answer as many as we can. But before we do that, I'm going to be talking with my guest today, Sean Vosler, who is a certified badass and somebody I'm thrilled to have on. I've still never gotten good at introductions, but I'll try. So if you don't know Sean, he is very kind of ubiquitous in the world of marketing right now. Known for helping copywriters and entrepreneurs become highly successful by leveraging the power of marketing, messaging and momentum. He's helped to scale several eight figure businesses along with designing dozens of seven figure marketing campaigns for himself and clients. He's the founder of Increased Academy where he teaches everything from web design and funnel building to seven figure copywriting. He's the author of the seven Figure Marketing Copy Guide and he does a ton of other stuff. He's killing it on Clubhouse from what I've seen and all kinds of other good stuff. So Sean, thanks for joining me today.

Dude, good to be here. What a great foundation for a show by the way. I was just thinking like Road to a Billion Dollars is kind of like, you know, that's fine, but impacting a billion people, that's a good goal right there. I like that man. So good to be here. Excited to talk copy, freelance scaling, copywriting, whatever we want to dive into. So it'll be a good discussion, I'm sure.

Yeah, absolutely. And yeah, I love double entendres. You know, probably as a copywriter it's like anything where I can get kind of a two for one thing for.

My buck, you know, happy about that.

And by the way, David Ryan said, don't swear because your daughter is in the room. I'm still probably going to swear, but she'll just have to. You know, it's like being raised on a pirate ship. It's like you're going to see some shit, you know what I mean? And it's kind of the way it is living in the Georgia household. But anyway, Sean, so let's talk to me. First of all, I didn't know where to begin with you, man, because we've been secret admirers from afar. We've kind of cultivated a friendship on Facebook. You're doing so many amazing things. Your Facebook ads and for your copywriting products are just freaking awesome.

So take me back from the beginning.

How did you get into this industry in the first place? Let's start there.

Sure.

Yeah. So, you know, it's interesting. I've recently transitioned from, and I'm sure you experienced this as well, where you're like 90% client work to about 10% of your own stuff. And then recently I've transitioned more 90% my own stuff, 10% client stuff. So it's been an interesting transition there. But I really got my start where a lot of I think copywriters do, which is like web design, like literally building websites, right? So that was my first business. And over the years of doing that, kind of doing the feast and famine freelancer stuff and really getting my teeth kicked in, no pun intended, for anybody who's watching the video, I started to really observe that the happiest clients I had were the ones who had great messaging in their website. So I'd be building the framework if they gave me good copy, they would never complain about their bills. They would always be happy to expedite things, pay more. The clients who didn't have good copy and I just had to make it up. And I didn't know what copy even was back then. Really, from a marketing standpoint, they were unhappy. They weren't getting leads, they weren't getting sales. That realization really led me into that direction of shifting my focus to the messaging versus the actual building stuff. Over time, the actual agency side of my business has changed from building out websites to building out funnels to actually shifting into more of an equity consulting kind of deal where I mainly now only work with clients and in the last couple years, who I do partnerships with and then I write the copy and build the funnels for them on a profit share margin. So that's really been the transition till now where over the last about year and a half. I've been curtailing down the consulting side and focusing more on my information products and group coaching and stuff like that.

Awesome, man.

So, yeah, it's a cool transit. I mean, it's a great story and a cool transition. It's one that I. I struggle with and go back and forth on, like, because, like, right now I've got kind, I don't know, like, four letters to write for clients over the next month or two. Like, I'm about to finish one, I'm gonna jump right into another, and I've got two more after that. And I go through spurts like that where I won't do anything for a while, and then I will, like, suddenly take on a bunch of client work. And then. And then I'm always like, at the end of those first, I'm like, I gotta be done. Like, I don't need to be doing this. Why am I writing so much stuff for clients? Like, I, you know, don't need to do it. And then I always come back to it and I have a hard, like, part of my justification is just like, well, I teach a bunch of copy, right Everyone copy accelerator. I do this stuff. I want to be active and relevant. And that's true. But I still honestly struggle with it because I'm like, it'd be great to not have to do that every morning when I wake up. So I'm curious, how has that transition been for you? I mean, do you miss, like, the client work or do you just. Are you pretty happy with where life is now and doing more stuff for yourself?

Yeah. So it's funny you say that, because every once in a while I'll take on. And I've only done a couple of these in the last few years where it's like, they'll actually pay me, like, a flat fee to write something. So I generally don't do that because of that kind of, like, if I'm going to spend the amount of time I know it takes to write something great in that world, it's got to be worth more than me spending that time on my own business. And does, you know, where does the math settle out? And I happen to enjoy writing, you know, that kind of stuff, like sales pages, webinars. But they do take an exorbitant amount of time, even if you've got it down to, like, a really systemized approach, if you don't know the niche that well or you want to get to know the audience. Like, the research part just takes up a ton of time. So to answer your question, I don't miss it that much. There are times where it's like, I feel like I should. Like you said, it's like you feel like you should be active in that world just so you have more case studies and things like that. But what I'm finding recently is I'm still able to get a lot of experience by, or test a lot of things by attempting to sell my stuff in different ways in different niches and different audiences. So I don't miss it that much. But it is a struggle at times to say no to 20 or 30,000 bucks just in the pot right away for a landing page or a webinar. But I will say not to get too deep into the weeds on the freelancing side. The biggest transition that I made in my freelance agency world was to that equity side. But as you know, like, that can be. That's inherently more risky. So you need to make sure that you do it right. Right. And take on the right clients. It's a easy mistake to make to just someone come to you with a big idea and you're like, yeah, yeah, let's do it. And you do all the work, but it doesn't connect or you misjudge their audience size or something like that. Because a lot of freelancers get tempted by the equity stuff or profit share, but they don't do their homework on the customer. So there's pros and cons to all of it. But now it's more. I generally will only take things on equity, and my goal is to do about 500k a year per client. So I only really have to get one or two clients a year if I'm going to do it like that.

Yeah.

So I mean, how does that. Have you had some examples of really big kind of wins on the equity side recently? And I guess what's your criteria when you select somebody who you're going to do that kind of deal with? How do you kind of vet them and if they're a good fit?

Yeah. So I think any copywriters in here will like this technique. It's not all that complex, but it is important to follow, like, very specific rules with it. So I'll just. I'll give you an example. What I'm looking for is I'm looking for two types of clients. I'm looking for clients with big distribution but not a great, like, product offering. And then I'm looking for clients with great products but not great distribution and judging. That is a whole set of criteria. But what I'll do is the marketer copywriter is. I'll do. They call it JV brokering or whatever, but really what it is is building a promotion between the two and then pitching it to both of them at the same time. Like, hey, client A, I think you should promote client B because they have a great product, and here's the numbers. I know that work, and client B, I think you should have client A promote you, which isn't usually a hard sell, and let me do all the legwork and the marketing and the copywriting in between. Right. So I actually did this with a fellow named Tai Lopez, who a lot.

Of people heard of him.

Yeah, a few people have heard of me. He's all right. But he had great distribution, but he wasn't, like, monetizing it terribly well. I mean, he was making really good money, there's no doubt about it. But he was not optimized. His earnings per lead were, like, way below, you know, what I've seen with much smaller players. So I went, found I have kind of a catalog of people I think have really great products. And then, you know, so the one I reached out to at that point was a fellow named Sam Ovens, who, you know, brilliant, brilliant guy, runs consulting.com and basically brokered a deal where I would create a promotion between the two. First, I do usually a small percentage, just so it's not like too much of a liability on each side. Right. And then I literally, I wrote up all the promotion materials, the emails, the webinar, and I even set up the tech because I know how to do it and I could outsource it, probably, but I kind of enjoy it. And then manage the promotion, which can be fun or not fun, just depends on the people involved. But, you know, that one did eight figures pretty quickly over the last couple years and then was able to replicate that model with quite a few different individuals. But even if you're just getting started, you can broker those kind of deals with, like, they might be inherently smaller players. Right? Like, they may just have a udemy course or something like for the client a, the product person. And then you might just have, like, a YouTuber or Instagram personality who can, you know, could potentially promote that product, and you just bridge the gap in between. So, you know, I've done probably 30 to 40 of those types of deals over the last few years. But the, you know, the strategic end game is to have all my clients promote me when I'm ready to actually take my stuff more mainstream. But that's the basic model is find someone with good distribution, find someone with a great product, then you become the broker in between. But you're not just connecting them, you're actually doing the work too. You're doing the copy part. That's where you can really bring the value, I think.

Yeah, that's a really cool model. And I agree. I mean, I think that there's.

What's interesting is connectors struggle to monetize.

That a lot of the time.

I can think of well known people in our space who have massive Rolodexes and their super connectors, but they kind of end up kind of bitter because like, man, I don't have like I helped all these people make millions of dollars together, but like, I haven't gotten a piece. I think it's because while connections are valuable and you can make money from that, like, you know, it's sort of, I don't know, they're fleeting. But like to your point, like the idea of when you connect but then you actually add value, you add that layer, that middle layer, that sinew, right. That connects like the tissue, you find that it becomes way more valuable because now the webinar scripts, the emails and I think it's a really cool model. So that's awesome, dude. I guess switching gears a little bit, I'm just curious, like, I know you were being super active of like Clubhouse for a while. Are you still on there a lot? Are you still using it a lot? And how's that been going?

Yeah, well, when I started it was like 30, 40 hours a week. I was like addicted to it. It was a really cool platform just to explore different subject matters. Right. And it's very unique. Have you used it much? I saw you joined. I wasn't sure if you've been on there.

No, I need to more probably. It's intimidating in that there's like a lot of. I feel like a lot of people I talked to are like, oh man, I'm doing 16 hours a day grant. I'm like, dude, I don't have time to.

I'm not as much anymore. Yeah, I was. And then I realized, you know, where I am in my business, like production wise, it was very valuable for connections. And I've actually made some really good networking on there. And I think the key, by the way, that maybe you're not doing and we could talk about it offline, but you need to connect with people who are very active in there and then build almost like a little mastermind syndicate thing so that everybody can support each Other if you're just kind of hopping in, which I did at the beginning, which was never a problem, to just give value, I mean, that's very enjoyable too. But if you want to like, quote unquote, game the system, you really need to network with the people in there. You know, I'm up to like 20, 25,000 followers in there, which is cool. But the people I'm connected with in this little mastermind I'm in, like, they're up in the hundred thousands now. It's like growing very quickly. Last two weeks have been nuts, but I think from a like, copywriter standpoint, like, if I was still actively looking for clients, I think it's a killer way to do recruitment because it like client recruitment. Because what you can do, if you jump into rooms about marketing and entrepreneurship and you start sharing gems about messaging and the power of copywriting. Right. And the, the tool and the. You know why most entrepreneurs are missing out on big bucks? Because they're not optimizing their copy and writing XYZ stuff that know, like. And trust factor builds so fast in that group discussion framework. Like, it's. There's like no other platform like it because I guess you could emulate it on YouTube and stuff, but really, honestly, it's just. It's so powerful to hear someone's voice. You're fully focused and they're giving you gems like you want to connect with them. I've connected with a ton of people that I'm now big fans of that I had no idea existed before bought their stuff. So I think it's a really good tool to capture and recruit customers. If you do it strategically, do you.

Consider yourself an introvert or an extrovert?

Good question. I think technically an introvert, but I enjoy doing extroverted things sometimes. Right. I think a lot of entrepreneurs might fall in that category. And it's why I like, Club Clubhouse is nice because you can. You can jump on for an hour or two, discuss, and then you can just leave. You know, it's kind of what I do at events anyways.

Yeah.

Yeah, that's cool. I mean, because that's what my. One of my challenges is like. I'm the same way, I guess. Like, I've done the 16 personalities test and I basically. I forget what I was.

But it was like, you're probably an intp, something like that.

Pretty sure it was. It was like, yeah, it was like you're. You're an introvert, but you're the most extroverted of all the introverts basically what I got. But I think as an introvert with Clubhouse, it's like, I go. Because if I just go into a room and there's like. I'll see a bunch of my friends are, like, talking, right? It's like, you're there, or Frank Curran's there, or Jen and Chris Gottlieb or Chris Winfield, Jen Gottlieb or whatever.

And I'm like, oh, cool. But then I'm like, what do I do now?

I'm like, do I raise my hand? But I don't wanna ask a question and be like, oh, hi, Sean Stepan here. So, like, do I, like. So I'm like. I'm realizing to your point, it's like, I need to be more premeditated, where it's like, hey, are you going on? Or let's go live together? And then I get lazy about that. But I think that that's been my. It's like a laziness and an introverted kind of, like, veil that's made me a little bit skeptical, or not skeptical, but reticent to, like, embrace Clubhouse. But I do see people leveraging it and making a ton of connections and sales and growing their business. And so, yeah, I was just curious about that. Cause I've seen that you've been pretty good with it, and I was wondering, like, is Sean just, like, a. A total introvert or what's the deal? So good to know.

Yeah, I think. You know, and what we'll have to maybe talk about between you, Frank, and a couple other mutual friends, maybe we can start a little Clubhouse club of copywriters who just, you know, want to jump in and talk copy. That's. It's honestly, like, Perry Belcher, who I've jumped in a lot of rooms with and just talked about storytelling and things I really enjoy just discussing. I mean, it's. It's. It's also just a nice way to vent messaging. And here's another really small tip that I think a lot of people in here who do a lot of customer research will like. Clubhouse is a great place to go because a lot of copywriters write for different niches than just the one they're in. I don't normally write for physical products and things like that, but if you do, Clubhouse is a great place to go and listen to your audience talk a lot. A buddy of mine was telling me how he has a product for people who love tea. Like, it's very expensive. I don't even know what it is. It's like, A tea decanter or something. And he went into a clubhouse room. It was about 30 people, but super passionate tea drinkers. It's a niche, I guess. Who knew? But he listened for a couple hours, just took notes on the language they used and how they. So it's like the old days where you'd go and read forums and things of your target audience, but it's just nice to hear what they're complaining about, what they're excited about. So that's another, like, small tip for people who want to get to use Clubhouse without necessarily, like, being on stage speaking all the time.

Yeah, that's actually. You call it a small tip, but actually that's a really. That's really smart. It's one of those things where you said it and I'm kicking myself for not thinking of it. Damn, that makes so much sense. Like, yeah, whatever market you're. Yeah, you're researching, there's conversations going on. It's also amazing to me, like, when I've gone and listened in Clubhouse, I feel like everyone is, like, really good.

At speaking because it was.

It feels like you listening to a podcast. I'm like, man, people are so, like, polished now. Granted, I'm in marketing rooms where people are on podcasts a lot and speaking live. I'm not in, like, Prepper 2021, like, Armageddon Rooms where maybe it's a little bit different. But yeah, man, it's really fascinating.

But that's, That's.

Yeah, that's a huge tip. Jazz.

It's good for. It's good for practice. It's like Toastmasters, right? Like. Cause, like, when I get into a room, I'm generally trying to collect a response for, you know, five, ten minutes before I get to speak. So if you're. If you want to practice that too, like, you'll get good at being concise, getting to the point. Like, it does train you to do that. But yeah, it's. It's a cool platform. Definitely one worth checking out if you're, you know, client scouting. Because people reach out every single day. Every time I speak on a stage or something, I get messages on Instagram, like, non stop, because that's how people reach out generally. But yeah, it's a really cool platform. We'll have to explore it a little more together maybe.

Yeah, that'd be awesome. I love that.

So what are your main focuses going.

To be for 2021? Do you sort of have like a roadmap in your head? Like, what. What are the big goals? Like, what are the objectives for you in this coming year and what are you focused on?

Yeah, yeah. So it's interesting in context with the Road to a Billion, I don't know if I'll be able to impact a billion people, but I am very passionate about the subject matter of copywriting as it relates to entrepreneurship. And that's really what I wrote my book about. There's a big problem in the entrepreneurial world where someone might do a lot of the due diligence of like, how to make a great product. They may even set up all the infrastructure, the membership sites, the landing pages and stuff. And then they're like not making any sales and they're not sure why. Right. So I've really honed in on that situation that people are in where they're confused as to why they're not making sales. And so for 2021 for me is a lot of. It's exploring that subject more on any platform I can get on. And then finishing the gosh darn book. I've launched it for the last two years about now, and it's up to about 400 pages. But I've been selling it all digitally. So every time it updates, people get the content automatically. But the goal is to get that thing physically printed this year and done with. So those are the two main focuses, that message and communicate. Getting that frigging book done.

Those are great goals.

And by the way, for people who do want to get the book, where can they go to buy it?

Sure, it's not on Amazon just yet, but you can. Sean co so S E a n copy that'll take you to the page with all the details on the book. But that book was really born out of. You probably have one of these. I. I kept a kind of informal journal while I was working on client stuff. And like, you know, I'd take notes of, oh, this worked well, or this, this message worked well. Or I found this interesting and I started creating these like, sops and things around how I did the copy for my clients. And then it, you know, it is funny you mentioned early on in the conversation about sometimes getting pissed about like making a client so much money. And you're like, why can't I do this for myself? You know, one day I was just. I mean, it's a bad motive, but it's. It is what it is, right. I was just like pissed off about the same kind of thing. I was like, I'm doing, I'm getting paid. Well, I'm not complaining, but I'm still kind of pissed. I hadn't done this for myself and created a product to actually apply my own knowledge to sell. And that really was what. I sat down and wrote like 40 pages of the book that day because I was just so like, like, I'm gonna create something, you know. But yeah, that's. That's not a great motive. But it is. Is the, the birth of it now. It's. Now it's actually a bit more, you know, cathartic. I enjoy doing it, but I don't even remember what the question was. Oh, where to get the book, Sean? Copy. I'll send you a copy, a physical one. When it's. I'm getting some test prints back, I'll have to. I'll make a note to do that.

Yeah, that'd be awesome. Everyone I know who has gone the book has said just incredible things. I haven't yet.

I should.

Although now I might wait for my physical copy. But I did put the link in the Zoom chat and on Facebook Live as well. And we'll make sure it's in the show notes. So pretty easy. Remember, Sean S E A N co copy. I would highly recommend grabbing a copy of it. Cause like I said, I've heard awesome things about it. Yeah, yeah.

And I like that.

The business focus. It's funny, I just had a. A call with my team yesterday, like Saba Karimi, who's like my CMO and Brooks and because we're talking about that with my own personal brand and it's sort of like we just need to get one funnel up and running and really like working and I've got, you know, good resources and like a good team. And it's like we're doing 25 different things. And it was. So I'm like, where do I focus? And I think actually where I'm, you know, the conclusion was business owners for the same reason, copy. And then also just like the optimization of their funnels, right? Because it's like for all these people trying to sell online, it's like there's five kind of steps as I see it. There's like their ads, right? To get people to the funnel. There's a landing page, there's the checkout page, there's upsells, and then there's sort of their like post marketing, like email marketing, stuff like that. And there's just these really easy levers for them to be like dialing and pulling, both copy and optimization wise that they're not doing. And they're good customers, right? Because then if you want to do like a two day workshop where you charge $10,000. Like there's a universe of those people who are down. So you get like, you know, 15 of them and hey, cool, I just made 150 grand for two days. But it's like, I think what I like about what we said there too is that really, I think what copywriters miss out on. A lot of copywriters, they just kind of, they keep things in a vacuum where it's so like, it's like really direct response related or it's like really in the small universe. And you know, I think there's nothing wrong with being niched down, but I think we've lose sight of the fact that there's just so many. Everyone can benefit from knowing copy. Right. And I'm guessing that there's a parallel there between you talking about that with business owners this year, your book, and even Clubhouse to your point, right? When you go on and you talk about messaging and branding. I've been amazed by that. On random chats where it's like, I don't know guys in real estate or dudes who are like that dude who is like the marketing manager for Daymond John. I forget his name, but he sent a bunch of our circle hangs out in and they're all like, well, you know, your copy really needs to be dialed in. And you're like, oh shit. You almost feel like they know some secret that you didn't think they knew. You're like, oh, wow. Like really successful people that I don't think of as direct response marketers are really into copy. Have you ever given any thought to like, how do you, how do you bridge that gap? Like, how do you, how do you approach that when you're talking to like a business owner who maybe doesn't know a lot about copy but maybe knows.

It'S important, how do you really get.

Them excited about copywriting?

Yeah, well, there's quite a few ways and you hit the nail on the head. Like, you know, I could have marketed my book just to copywriters and that would make sense, right? The book is called Seven Figure Marketing Copy. But I decided, you know, and it kind of was a conscious decision, but it also just, you know, maybe just intuitively, but I knew from my experience with people at work like Ty and Sam and the Morrison brothers, like if you want to target a broader audience, you have to address a different situation, right? Like if I want to market to copywriters, I'm going to write a different message than if I were to Write to entrepreneurs in general. So the sales page that my book actually has, it's a content page I teach on there. And the theme of the page is the number one entrepreneur skill, entrepreneurial skill. And then I make the argument why I think and why, from my experience, that copywriting is like one of the most, if not the most critical skill when it comes to copywriting is that skill. Because it gives you everything you need to make the sale so that you can do all the other things that the other skills think to harness them. Right. You can't optimize a funnel if you're not getting sales. You can't transition to webinars if you're not getting sales. Like, there's a lot of things that copy is the foundational unit of where most entrepreneurs look at the foundational unit as the product, and they get so hung up on that that they. They don't think about the message. And if you want to target broad, you're going to have to change your message. So my Facebook audiences I target are like 30, 40 million people, usually for that, the book. But the messaging in the ad itself is segmenting the audience. So I say, you know, basically, are you an entrepreneur who's confused as to why you're not making sales? Right. And then the argument I make on the page is pretty simple. People prioritize all these other skills where it's like, if your audience doesn't understand how valuable your product is and why they should use it and what benefits are in it for them and, you know, what risks are if they don't use it, then your message isn't going to connect and you're not going to make the sale. So that's a. Once you get that in front of an entrepreneur, generally the light bulb will go off. And that's what I'm shooting for in my copy is like, eureka. Moment generally is like the. That's when I know I've got a good piece of copy. When I'm like, oh, yeah, they're gonna. They're gonna like that, you know, but that can apply to everybody, whether you're selling a service, you know, consulting service, whatever. Like, take it up a level and market to a different need than the base level that you were going after before.

Yeah, absolutely.

I love that. What.

And by the way, we're good. We're going to answer questions for people who are watching live. So if you have a question, put in the Q and A. Ed Ray did join us.

He.

I haven't even.

He's.

He's been on mute. And I'm going to let you ask a question in a minute or two as well if you want or anything like that.

But.

But by the way, Ed, glad you're here.

Yeah, yeah. Had some tech issues at the start and focus.

You've been here for a while, but I know you've just been listening and all that, so. But yeah, put your questions in the Q and A, I guess. Two more questions I have, Sean, one related to what you just said. I mean, so what percentage of the people who are buying your book, like roughly are kind of copywriters versus entrepreneurs, I guess. What's like, what is the split? I'm just curious.

Yeah, I would say it's about 70, 30 in favor of entrepreneurs. And the. It's probably like 90, 10 when it comes to ads. So the way I target ads, you know, and there's just not that many. There's a lot of copywriters, but not like it's not like a million person audience. There's 500,000 new businesses starting the United States every month. So it's like you've got fresh crop of people who are interested in selling stuff, especially nowadays. But I find most copywriters come through referrals like, you know, either affiliates or they just said, hey, someone said I should pick this up. So it's a mixed bag. But generally, like I said, I try to focus on that entrepreneur side because it is a bigger audience and it is really who I want to help. I mean, I love copywriters. I don't actually consider myself like a copywriter per se. As far as I want to sell that as a straight up service, I don't have a page where you can say, hire me as a copywriter because really conceptually, and this is advice for anybody who's selling copywriting services, I take it up a level. I don't sell copywriting. I sell growth services, you know, which is like marketing lingo for traffic leads and sales. Right. And then the message when I go at a client isn't you should improve your copy. It's you're missing out on X number of dollars because you're not doing this, this and this. Here's how I would help you do that. Or you can just someone else can do it, right? And generally they're like, you should do it. So, yeah, that, you know, just raising that level up one or two more niches, going broader. It's counterintuitive, but it will connect you with more people so that you can sell more quality stuff to them.

Cool. That makes perfect sense. And then the other question I had that. I don't know why I want to ask this, but I just do. I just kind of.

Sure.

You may have heard the whole thing where it's like, hey, you don't have a traffic problem. You have an offer problem. And like, we hear that all the time. I'm actually just really curious. Do you agree with that or do you think. Because I'll give you my answer real quick, which is like, I sort of think that's the case sometimes, but I also honestly think sometimes people just have a traffic problem. Having been on the front line and tried to, like, scale a ton of offers and succeeding and failing, I think sometimes it is like a offer problem.

A lot of the time, if you.

Don'T have a good offer, it's very hard to get traffic. But I've seen good offers that just. They struggle to get traffic because they don't know media buying and they can't find somebody. And I don't want to give away too much of my opinion, but that's my take. But I was just curious if somebody who kind of knows both sides of this on pretty high level, what do you think of that sort of expression when you hear that?

Yeah, well, so there's those three pillars, right? There's traffic, there's the offer, and then in between is what we'll just call it the message. Right? Like what your TED Talk, what are you selling conceptually before the offer? Because the offer, in my opinion, is like, what are your solution to the problem you just defined in the message and what are you offering to do about it? And the offer can be a product with a bunch of bonuses. It can be a service, it can be whatever. It can be a neck brace, whatever. Of course, traffic is critical to scaling. There's no doubt about it. But I will say, if you don't have that message part right, which I've struggled with over the years, until I know that the message is working with small amounts of traffic, I won't really take it to scale. So when, especially when I launched my book, I didn't launch it to ads for the first, like, six months, I just used a Facebook group where I was preaching that message and recruiting heavily from my own network to begin with and singing that song of like, if you're an entrepreneur and not sure why you're not selling, like, here's my take on it. What do you think? Right, Like, I think you need better marketing copy. So I think traffic and offer is super important. Of course, Maybe they're all equal. But getting that eureka kind of message down pat so that you can get excited about it, so that people who buy can get excited about it, so that you can write content about it. I think that's a step a lot of people miss out on where they may need to refocus. Like, what are you actually trying to convince somebody of? What's the philosophy you're trying to get across? Like with your rc? I always get the letters kind of rnbc. Yeah. So your offer is like a system to do what you do quickly, effectively and awesomely. Right. That's like your offer, your copywriting offer. Your message, as far as I can tell, is that copywriters, like need to improve their copy, like their ability to write copy. So you sell to copywriters. Kind of a middle ish price point, whatever. So you got the message because most copywriters would agree, like, I would agree with that too. Like, I can improve and I wish I had better systems to do that. Oh, you have it. Great. I'm gonna buy that. Right. If you wanted to reach a broader audience, like the discussion we've been having, if you reframed it as an entrepreneurial tool to help them create, I don't know if it helps people create offers, but you could probably frame it that way and the messaging and solve the traffic problem by getting the copyright. Like, you could theoretically do that. Right. And reach a much. That's what Frank Kern does so freaking well. He's selling copywriting stuff really at the end of the day, wrapped around a very much like lead generation framework, which people need. So, yeah, I don't think you can weigh one over the other. Like they both need to be equally solid. But I'd rather have less traffic in a great offer because if I get the messaging right, I can start building like momentum around the traffic. Even though, like you say, like, if you can't get the ads right, it's going to make things tougher for sure. But that's when my books really started taking off. When I got the ad just like solid, but I couldn't. I redid the sales page probably four or five times before that actually took off.

Yeah, super interesting and it makes perfect sense. And yeah, totally of rnbc. I mean, I think because I go back and forth on that, it's sort of like a niche product, but obviously within the niche. It is kind of like the gold standard. But yeah, I talked to interview Jake Hoffberg. He's a really smart guy from the financial space and he's doing a lot of, like, equity raises and stuff like that now. But I know he kind of talked about RNBC as, like, a technology, right? More than, like, anything else. And then my friend Dr. Farrow, I know, like, he used, like, the research methodology for. He has a company called Better, and they're like, like, approved by the Blue Cross Blue Shield to, like, actually, like, reverse diabetes and all this stuff, because it's like, just a, like, healthy eating program, plus, like, accountability, coaching, all that. But it's really cool. He's been doing it for over a decade. And, like, a cool example on RNBC is with. With the research part, because he came in and actually started. They're doing meal. Like, meal delivery. So, like, kind of, you know, prepared meals. You get them, that kind of stuff. And they actually did, like, the research, and then they realized, like, the huge pain point that their market has is mostly women. And a lot of them are married and they have, like, kids. And it's like, even if they go on, like, a.

Like a pre.

Like a prepared meal plan type thing that gets delivered, like, great. I stuff to cook for my husband and my kids and stuff like that. And then so they're like, oh, shit, you know what? Instead of doing individual size, let's do family size. And that way the whole family can eat together. And so, like, they literally were not, like, making any sales because of the research component, right? They switched, and then they did something like $250,000 in, like, prepared or prepaid. Keep saying, when I say prepaid, prepared meals in, like, the first, like, 30 days or something crazy like that. But it was because of research.

So.

Yeah, it crosses my mind where you're like, man, you know, you can just teach. It's a way of thinking differently. Right? It's not just about the copy. And I just think that that's super interesting. But, Ed, I got two questions in the Q and A, but, Ed, do you have any questions for Sean before we open it up to the audience?

Oh, man, have I got some questions for you, Sean. So. Dude, by the way, so first things first. I fucking love your sales page. I'm so. It's very much my style of, like, it's. It doesn't feel like a sales page, but you're being sold. I love that. I love that.

Thanks, man. Appreciate that. It's gone through a lot of evolutions over the years. I'm testing right now kind of the, like, guided tour version of the page. It's a little weird, but it's converting really well. It's like 6% with cold traffic.

Wow.

I was just checking that out and I was going through it, I was like, oh, damn, this is good. I was like, shit. So, dude, I would honestly love like to hear your psychology behind like how you put this together. Like what you decided, like why you decided to make it the way that it is.

Really?

Yeah. So, you know, there's a lot in messaging that people try to get too. I guess they get too caught up in the elements on the page. Like how many should be there? Should there be 12 steps? Should there be 21? Like all this stuff on sales pages. What I'm really trying to do on a sales page is obviously build that know, like and trust factor, like, but I think the way you do that isn't so much through like authority building or telling your own story. You'll notice on my sales page I don't even share who I am or what my story is till almost near the bottom. And initially I did that out of ego. I was like, I want to sell this thing without anybody really being like me being put in the forefront as the authority figure. I want the message to preach. Right? So the big thing from psychology or whatever you want to call it is I want to make an argument and I want to convert them on that argument before I try to make the sale. So on the sales page now as it is, I'm like telling them I'm going to sell them something eventually. But I mentioned like, you know, on this page, it is a sales page, but first I want to teach you something. And that teaching section is what we've been talking about, about the why entrepreneurs need to learn copywriting. Right. And if I do my job in that section well, it'll convert. Right. Like, because what's happening is I'm introducing into their mind like a little, I don't know what you'd call it, like a germ of an idea that something they're doing and have been doing for a very long time is wrong and self destructive. And that germ on my page is that they've been focusing on the wrong skills prior to prioritizing the wrong things without getting the messaging right as well. And then if that resonates with them and I resolve that conflict and share with them the solution which I do on the page and I give them a shortcut on the page, it's a really long page. Then I sold them on me and my message. Once I've done that, then I can transition. There's like a yellow bar halfway down the page. Where I basically say, hey, look, I've given you some good information here. I'm sure you'd agree with what I've been saying, and if they don't, then I'm not going to sell them anyways. And then I say, and I've also put this guide together on how I do it and here's what's in it, and I make it sound really good. So the psychology really is build that trust factor by convincing them that what I'm saying is right and it's solving a problem they may have not even understood before. So if you can do that on a sales message, like, you're golden. That's all you really need to do. All you need to do, quote, unquote. And then of course, like, I like to make the page look pretty. So I think that perceived value of the actual sales page matters as well. But yeah, those are some thoughts on the messaging behind it for you.

That's sick. The other thing I was also curious about is I was reading through it and so it says that you are doing like, basically like lifetime iterations and updating it monthly, but you're only charging for the $37 once.

Right.

What's your. What's your kind of like thinking behind the business model of that?

Yeah. So, you know, just to get tactical for a minute. Like, I have an upsell in there, it's 199 and I have a really small team. Like, I don't have like much overhead. I don't need to make a lot of sales to like live a lifestyle I want and not have to take on clients and stuff. Fortunately, it does fine as it is. But my goal with the book is building that big old list of buyers. So I'm up to about 30,000 buyers now of just the book and they are very responsive. So on the back end, the upsell does okay. It's an agency problem product, how to do equity stuff. I should probably have a copywriting upsell in there. But about half my income is affiliate stuff that I'll promote over the year and optimize. And I'll generally just promote things that I like and use. And I like to try to get software in there. So Clickfunnels is a big one. But generally the goal is on the front end. I've considered this quite a bit like changing it into a course and charging a thousand or two thousand, which I know I could do. But I think when you're getting started, it helps to build that foundational base of customers, you know, like, and trust You. And as you come out with things like workshops and, and other programs which I'm working on, I'll have a good buyer's base of people who really know and trust me to buy my new stuff as it grows out.

Got you. And so you're adding to your membership, we'll call it, which is the $37 one time monthly.

Yeah, my average customer is about $65 per sale when it comes down to the upsells and down sell and then about double that per year on affiliate side. And then I just, I get to keep refining my book. So I launched it and on the page I say like, like you're getting an unfinished guide. But that's great because I add stuff to it all the time. I've rewritten pretty much every chapter in there. I've added, you know, I've got the like, like the physical test print back and it's like, you know, it's great. It's very close to done. But like, I don't know if anyone else struggles with perfectionism, but I definitely am the poster child for it because like, I have a really hard time saying it's done. But the. So to solve that problem for myself, I made it a living book and I framed it as that so that I could keep working on it and refining it and get paid very well to do so. And also, like, people understand what a book is very quickly. Like, everyone buys tons of books. So it's not a. If I framed it as a course, even though when you get in the members area, it's like it's a PDF you can download, but it's. It's got modules and a lot of different training in it. So it's technically a course. But I found a course is harder to convince people to buy because it sounds like work where a book, it's like everyone gets it. Like you pay 30 bucks, 37 bucks, whatever it is, you might read it today, you might not. Right. Like, people get the medium of it very quickly. Like Stefan, I would, if I were you, I would write an rnbc, like light book, man, and just have that be a front end that you run. You know, I wouldn't even. I wouldn't call it that though. I would, I would just bake that in as the, the solution to the problem in the book is about the problem, which is whatever you define it to be. Right. And then you could run, you know, 100k worth of ads a month to that, even if you broke even, you know, upsell 999 you'd crush it and you'd have a broader name recognition. Not that you have great name recognition anyways, but that never hurts. Yeah, but that's the idea behind it.

Yeah, yeah, sorry.

Yeah, I thought about that.

I get like, I have like a lot of a book outlined and then it's just a matter of bandwidth. But yeah, I totally agree. I think it's so smart the way.

You did it and the price point's perfect. And then, yeah, the organic kind of iterative process. By the way, though, when you just show that test print of the book, it looks so fucking sick. Which is important. I mean, that design, like I was, dude, I need that. You know, like, that's like a.

Cool. So it's funny because like. And I'll just show like. So I do all the design work too, because I actually went to school for design and I really enjoyed doing it. I wouldn't necessarily recommend like, you know, freaking doing that, but there is a. The ad that's done great for it for the last year is just flipping through the book, right? And it's like if we look at marketing context, the Last hundred years, 100 years ago, maybe. Well, more like 70 years ago, black and white TV, you know, here's a toaster oven by it kind of thing, now we get hit with banners all day. So I believe this is one of the best book on copywriting, but I'm not gonna convince anybody of that unless they buy it and read it. And the added, like, it looks very visually stimulating. Which since everyone has ADHD now, like, it's just something that I know a lot of my buyers appreciate. But you can do that without spending a boatload of money on designs. Like I. I license all my visuals through Adobe Stock iStock, stuff like that. And just some really well picked metaphorical images connected with your messaging goes a long way to make the book's material more digestible. Especially when you're talking about stuff like the hero's journey. It's really cool to use. Use imagery around heroes and villains and you know, so I try to. A lot of times I'll just go through stock sites and browse for hours and pick cool imagery. And then I'll do the biggest sin in marketing, which is like work the language around the image. But wouldn't recommend that. But yeah, man, I recommend anybody like a book. A book is tough, but if you have one big central theme idea that you can get excited about to teach in that book and make the sale about, then the RNBC methodology becomes the solution. How not the title of the book, but yeah, it's been a fun journey as far as the design side goes. I actually really enjoy that. But it's, it's not. I don't recommend people learn design just to make a cool looking book. Go, go pay somebody on fiverr 5 bucks to make every single page look great. And it'll, it'll save you money in the long run.

Totally. But yeah, that's amazing.

Go ahead.

Ed.

Yeah.

One thing I want to point out is I love the fact that you're doing this shit because you like it. Like, I know that's like a weird thing to say, but literally so like me, like, like me asking about your, your business model behind like you know, having multiple iterations of the book. That's not a, I mean it is a long term business move in terms of providing the best product for your customers. Absolutely. But you're doing it from my perspective more so because you want to do that. Like you want to create multiple iterations. Like you're probably a very optimization focused individual by the sounds of it. And that's what, you know, gets you excited. I love that.

Well, and it solved one problem that I have mentally, which like there's this. I won't even dive into it too much, but there's something called the theory of constraints. And it's a really cool like theory about how creativity is generated and how like people work and get things done and that sometimes constraints are very useful and sometimes they're very destructive. So I have a constraint where I'm a perfectionist. I can either get over that, which is an option, which I think is not a bad option, and write the whole book, finish it and publish it, or I can apply a constraint, which is the messaging part of this. You're buying an unfinished guide. But here's what I'm going to do about that as an added value for you because I would not have finished this book without that like leverage of like, I don't have, I don't have the anxiety of having to have it done at any particular time. And it just so happens that people connected with that message as well. Even though it's kind of risky because not too many people want to buy an unfinished guide, but it's solid enough in the form that it's in. Sorry, that was loud. That you know, I have lots of testimonials. Really happy about it. But, but, but you gotta get, sometimes get it out the door so that you can get going and get the momentum building for sure.

Yeah.

And Also like how you mentioned how you just enjoy doing the frickin graphics and you like, you know, most copywriters like they shouldn't do that, but that's something that brings you joy and you know, that's like a lesson for a lot of people is like, you know, you're successful person, you're doing what you want to do because you enjoy it. Not necessarily because it makes money. It's fucking s. Then it makes you money.

That's awesome. Yeah. Try to find ways to monetize the things you like to do for sure. But yeah, it's not simple. I timed it out. I recently got really into timing stuff and on average it's about four hours a page between research, design and writing. If you average it all out over the course of 30 pages or whatever. And you can do that in a tenth of the time if you are just focused on the messaging probably and not worried so much if you don't have to do a ton of research and whatnot. But it is something that people under. I think people underestimate the value of. There's a lot of good books. Half the books on my shelf, by the way, are on how to structure content and how to teach. Because to me, the best salespeople in the world are teachers. Like the really good teachers, TED talk, TED people, they just. The call to action at the end is just different. Right. So like, you know, you guys are in direct marketing. I am too, I think, technically. But most of my focus is on getting that teaching message in the sales piece and then wrapping it around with, you know, direct marketing stuff. So, you know, learning the things about how people teach, how people learn how to how content is structured. I think that's incredibly useful for copywriters. Like learn rhetoric, the basics of it, learn how to do proper argument structures and present facts in a way that convince and stuff like that. That's an underestimated skill set within the copywriting world, I think.

What are some of your favorite books? I mean, obviously aside from your book, which is obvious, what are some of your favorite resources on rhetoric and structuring content? Because that's actually something that's super interesting to me is like I don't really love classic sales letters and stuff like that that we are taught a lot, like to learn from, like me personally. And so I love structuring content in a way that gets the sale across in a way that actually educates the buyer. It makes them feel like their time was actually really well spent.

Right? Yeah. No, there's tons of Good books on teaching in general. The two areas I try to get around that in is lesson planning for teachers and then argument development, even for lawyers and stuff like that. But there's one really good book called Understanding by Design. You could probably get away with just that book on the teaching side. It's all about how to design content in a way that people learn. It's a little bit of a heavier read, I think it's like a college textbook, but you don't have to read the whole thing. I just go through and I find things that like. Oh, that seems applicable because people talk about content marketing, brand building, and direct marketing, and they really like. They separate them in their own little boxes. But if you can blend them in a very uniform way, like content marketing to me is such an important aspect of a sales page. The content on the page should be relatable to people to convince them that you're an authority. Right. And challenge their assumptions about things. If you can do that, it's killer.

And.

And a lot of that stuff comes from teaching, because to teach someone something, you have to challenge their belief system and introduce new information and convince them that that information is useful.

Right.

So Understanding by Design is really good. Another really good book I love is On Writing by Stephen King. Even if you just like. It's got a lot of great. Just insights on writing in general, but if you even just study the structure of the book itself, like meta analysis or whatever you want to call it, it's a really cool way to explore how to develop arguments and messaging and story really well, I just picked those up.

Thank you.

There you go. Yeah, and sorry, the. I guess the gardener's here, so I'll try to mute myself when I'm not talking. If it's in the background.

It's a Wonderful Life that if you are lucky enough to have a gardener that they'll show up to whenever it is that you're doing. You know, whenever you're on a zoom call, basically.

Exactly.

Hi, Laura.

Bye, Laura. Or photobombing as well. Video bombing. Cool.

Let's move to the.

It's On Writing by Stephen King, Jason Lee, and by the way, everyone, make sure you're doing panelists and attendees so.

People won't see your question.

Yeah, but, Ed, let's move into the Q and A section here.

All right, sweet. So we've got a question here from Robert Walsh about the curse of knowledge.

That's a good question.

Hey, I know Robert. What's up, Robert? That's the same Robert I know you.

Don'T know this Robert. What's up, guys?

How's it going?

Yeah.

Do you want to go and share what your question is for everyone?

Yeah, man, I wasn't expecting you to.

Put me on mic here. I'm glad I didn't have my music playing.

I usually do.

So, I mean, I guess I'm reasonably established in what I do with copywriting.

Right.

I've done a lot with E commerce since like 2013 or something. I've been selling physical products and then probably helping people sell their info products and events and whatnot since probably like 2017. I'm trying to get away from the dump you stuff. I mean, obviously I work with some pretty big names, so I have some. Some decent experience, I guess, in how things are done as far as, like, the events and, you know, info products or ebooks or whatever it is they're selling.

Right. Training or whatnot.

But as far as experience doing it myself, I really don't have any, like, insight on really how to get started or really what I should be teaching. Right. So as far as like, the curse of knowledge, I mean, I think that's copywriters. I think probably with anybody but copywriters specifically, I'll say, because it's the one I can relate to the most, is at a certain point, like, you. You don't really know what people want to learn anymore versus what they need to learn anymore, what they're willing to learn anymore. And really how to compare that to what you know. Right. Like, I'm equally like, I don't know what I'm talking about as I am like, I know everything.

Right.

So I can translate your question, Robert, because I've dealt with this a lot. And so you're talking about creating product and actually selling it in a way that appeals to people.

Right.

And I think maybe we've messaged about this a little bit, but you were considering putting together a training course or a guide or a book or something. Right. On copywriting in general. Right.

Probably all of them at one point. Right. But that's where I'm not sure which one I need to move forward with and how to really move forward with it. I'm stepping on my own toes.

Sure, sure. Well, the first thing you need to do, and this was something kind of came late to me in the process of. I started developing content just because I needed it for my business, like the sops and stuff. But when you decide to make a product, I wish I would have known this more in hindsight because it would have helped me a lot. It really helps to define very clearly who you're creating it for first, even. Even more so than the problem you're solving at the beginning. You need to do both. But if you don't know who you're talking to, it's very hard to communicate, right? Like, if you don't. And there's really three levels. There's beginners, intermediate, and experts. You might be talking to all three. But you need to frame the conversation in a way so they know whether you're talking to a beginner, intermediate, or expert. So if you're writing, let's just say you're writing a book about E. Com copywriting. If your target audience is copywriters who have intermediate experience in copy but want to get better at E. Com Copy, you can use a lot of the terminology that intermediate copywriters would know, right? Aida, stuff like that. But if you're talking to beginners who want to get into E. Com and have never done it before, you're going to have to give a lot more context to the conversation, right? You may even need like a couple of chapters on what copywriting even freaking is, right? And convince them, right? So really stepping back and reexamining, like, who you're writing it for, like, literally write it out in sentence form, like one or two paragraphs. And then also because that'll guide you. Like, it's a. It's very clear. Like, because you said the curse of knowledge. The curse of knowledge generally is there when you're not sure you're talking to. If I know I'm talking to beginner, then I know I have to step back and give more context. If I know I'm talking to an expert, then I don't have to do that as much. Then. Then the next step is defining that couple specific problems you really want to solve. And then you. You write back and forth between those. Here's who I'm talking to and here's the problem I'm trying to solve for them specifically so that you can communicate with them, it can be tough. But if you could do those two things before you start creating product or even sales page in general, it helps a lot. But that'll lift a lot of that headache off of you of what needs to be included. Curse of Knowledge is a really cool study, by the way. Go on Wikipedia and just type in that and read the article on it. It's really interesting. But it lifts that veil of that curse off of you when you know exactly who you're talking about, right?

On.

So at what point, like, how did you, I guess, personally decide and savvy can. Can answer this too. You guys both do a lot more shit than I do with people. So as far as like, your experience and knowledge level, like, how did you decide, like, what level to actually, like, help people out at? I know your book is pretty, pretty thorough, right? I've had it like beta, I guess, like, probably the first chapter or whatnot, but you kind of go from like, start to finish. But when you said to basically, like, find who you're talking to and focus on one if you don't necessarily want to talk to everyone based on your knowledge, like I said, we all know more shit than we think we do.

Right?

Everything is just kind of like we expect. We assume everybody knows everything we do, at least to some extent. And obviously that's not true.

Right.

I know people that can't flip an omelet.

Right. So.

How do you decide what level based on your knowledge and experience that you should. I'll put quotations on. Should be actually, like, trying to help and teach.

Yeah. And again, sorry about the noise in background. I'm actually on a call. Sorry, I got everybody yelling at me now. So check this out. This will help a lot when you are not sure, like, if you're qualified. I guess we'll put it that way. To help or influence somebody. That's a confidence gap. Another great book, by the way, Confidence gap. And what you need to fill that gap to be sure that you should or could do something is think of it in different terms. Like, of course, it would be great if I worked at David Ogilvy's, you know, agency for years, and I had billions and billions of dollars of sales under me to actually give back before I wrote the book. But my book isn't to help. It's not designed to help everyone. It's designed to help people who aren't as experienced as I am, bring them up to my level. That's really all you can do. You can't. Can't make. You can start somebody on a journey that takes them way past you. That's really the end goal. But you should and could create content that helps people if you can help them improve up to your level. Now to get the confidence to do that, that's where the research comes in on how to teach correctly. That gives you a lot of confidence. The first version of my book was terrible. I'll just admit it now. This version is a lot better. And before I take it print, I know it'll be a lot better. And I've just become okay with that. I know it can keep being improved. So admitting that to yourself that it can get better, but that you can help certain individuals. You know, you said you've worked with a lot of good names, you've got a lot of good experience and you can set aside the time to research the things that you might feel like you're lacking in. Just remember that like I'd say 80% of my book was not in my head before I started writing. It's not like I sat down and wrote like the book. I got general pieces in there that I knew worked well and then I got started with the R, you know, the research part. And you're going to want to do research. The best books out there, in my opinion, the ones that really help people are ones that don't just like, they're not just pontifications. I haven't read 10X by Grant Cardone. I know you worked with him for a bit, but my guess is a lot of books like that, they're more about branding and marketing than they are content. Nothing wrong with that. But you kind of got to decide what kind of book you want to make and who's it for or course or whatever. And once you've done that again, like it's going to make things a lot easier to, to, to pursue and just kind of get out of your own way and focus more on the content than yourself. And you know, that makes life a lot easier too. Easier said than done, of course.

Kind of like overwhelming myself by looking like at a bunch of different options rather than like looking at them individually.

Yeah, and you know, I started with a book because it was kind of like to me it was the least painful of the like ego trips that you go on when you create something and give it out to the world. Like creating a $2,000 course from scratch when you've never done any kind of product before. You're going to have a lot of hang ups along the road that are going to shoot yourself in the foot. You may get over them, you may not, I don't know. But if you start with a lower ticket offer, that solves a very specific problem and then you go in and do your best at it. Worst is going to happen is people ask for a refund. I've launched products, by the way, where I didn't feel good about them when I brought it live. And I refunded everybody after the webinar because it's like I'm just not ready for it yet. And that's okay, too, right? There's. There's a lot more options than just do or don't. You can try and fail and learn. You can experiment. But doing something generally is better than doing nothing. In my experience, if it's something you want to do.

You and I have been talking about getting on the call together, I think, for like a year and a half now, and this is the first time we actually got around to it.

We'll make it happen sooner than later again, my friend, because, you know, everybody. I believe everybody, by the way, Robert. Like, everybody has a message inside them that can help someone else. You need to flesh it out. You need to put it into usable frameworks and learn how to do that. But everybody's solved problems in their life that they can help other people solve. And to me, you know, we live in America. It's a capitalist system. There's no way around you need to make a living. So if you need to make a living, why not try and monetize the things that you can help people with? It's very logical to me. You know, of course, the emotions come in and throw you off the grid, but if you have it in you to want to provide that value to people, it never hurts to get it out there and at least try.

Well, thanks, dude.

I'll let you guys answer other questions, man. I don't want to hold up too much of your time, but I appreciate it. Thanks, Stephenson.

Thanks, Sean.

And I'm sure we'll all be in touch. I'll send you something.

Robert, good to hear you, man.

Later, guys.

Thanks, Robert. Sweet.

No, that's a good question and good answers. I really like that idea of the curse of knowledge. And so much of it's. Yeah. So often it's a clarity issue.

Right.

It's a matter of who am I actually speaking to. And that's true of writing a book. It's also with writing copy. Right. The main reason I think people get stuck writing copy, and that's why research is the first step in rnbc, right, Is because they don't really know who they're talking to, and so they don't.

Know how to talk to them.

And then once you really, truly know who you're talking to, it becomes very easy to talk to them. And then you can go and take stuff from forums or from Clubhouse, per your tip or whatever, and kind of appropriate their language and, you know, there's little tricks and things like that. But, yeah, I really like that. That idea of, like, the curse of knowledge stemming from, like, a lack of clarity of who you're talking to.

Yeah, yeah. And. Well. And I'll tell you, there is going to. With any content development, every copywriter experiences, every content producer's experience. This where you start writing, and it just is like, it's painful. There's no way around it. And I've studied it a lot. There's. It's. It's not a skill that humans were naturally equipped to do. We're naturally equipped to talk and communicate. But writing is. It's only been around for a few thousand years and only like a few hundred when you talk about population. So learning to write correctly and actually practicing it, it's not like speaking. It's not like you can step away from doing it for six months and you forget to speak. Like, you know how to talk. Right. With writing, it's a different kind of skill. It's like, I don't even know what I would equate it to. But if you don't do it a lot, when I step away and I don't write for a while, when I come back, it's a real headache. It's hard to get the engine back on. But just knowing that will give you confidence that you're not crazy and you're not alone. It's part of the process. I just think people need to remember that. Some people, maybe. I wish I felt in that category of just natural writers, but no, not so much.

It's totally some muscle. And you have to kind of, you know, keep working it.

Same thing going back to the flourishes, I mean, or the flourishes, the flurries of copy. Like, when I go through, like, I'm about to finish one letter right now, and then usually the next one will be easier whenever that will be easier. Because if I'm doing. If I'm just writing a bunch like it is, becomes much more effortless. Right. But when I haven't written for a month or two, when I sit down to write, the whole process just drags, like, so much more. And you really. Yeah, you really have. And I think that's, you know, so. Cause I did that copywriter kind of habits, like, call with who was on it, like with Perry. Perry Belcher and David Deutsch and Jay Abraham came on it. But it was so interesting because, like, Jay's like, you know, I don't really think myself as, like, a great copywriter anymore. Maybe I was right. And then Perry Belcher said the exact same thing. But I think for both of them, a big reason why they felt that way is because they don't write that actively.

Right.

They're doing all these other things and so they're not writing regularly. And I think as soon as you get away from that, there's a trade off because again, that, you know, Perry and Jay have had a lot of success doing a lot of unique things. And people don't think of them as copywriters first, but they think of them as, you know, very successful entrepreneurs and business people who are going to copy. But to make that transition away from being a copywriter, you know, it's hard to do that and not have your copy suffer. And so I don't know, it's just an interesting observation and definitely it is something where, yeah, you've got to keep the, keep sharpening the saw, so to speak.

Yeah. And, and there's, there's just something about like just admitting that it is a process and understanding because early on, especially when I was first starting writing, I would only be able to write when I had like a deadline, you know, and it's still more difficult because that forces you to just like, like, alright, gotta get this done before noon or else an email's not going out. I'm not making, you know, money with the book. It's very different because I don't really have a deadline and I have to be self focused and it's much more difficult for me to do that. But like you said, it's like you got to get back in the gym, you got to start lifting again. And don't start out like trying to write a whole sales page. Right. Maybe write a letter to your mom about why she should do aerobics or something. Pick something random that just gets your fingers moving. It's one thing I try to do, like whenever I'm feeling that anxiety of like, I don't know what to do anymore, I completely forget how to write. Just pick something random that you want to convince somebody of and write a paragraph. It tends to help me a lot get unstuck.

Totally. That makes perfect sense.

Cool.

Let's go to another question.

Yes, sir. Next up, we got James Weiss about what happens when you're approached by a big fish.

Cool.

What's up, James?

Hey, what's going on? Hey. Yeah, so, yeah, so my question I guess is, yeah, say you're, you know, approached by somebody known in the direct response like an agency that kind of, well out there and they want to pay you a decently large retainer. But it amounts to, it's for, you know, writing three Funnels a week, which, you know, it's like a short sales page, like 10 Facebook ads, three emails, two ups and order bump a week. So it like drags the perfect.

All your time.

All my time.

Yeah.

So I guess the question is how do you know if, you know, taking the rate cut and possibly, you know, burning out, which I've done before with content writing is why I moved out of content writing. How do you know, you know if it's going to be worth the experience and added credibility? Because, you know, I'll get plenty of proposal or portfolio pieces.

But yeah, yeah, no, it's a good question because I struggle with that too. With, you know, I'll get. It's, it's one of those two. Like it's hard to say no to guaranteed. It's like the word retainer is like guaranteed. Right. So our brains are very loss averse. It's a copywriting thing, but it's also just like a human thing. So we look at that and give it a lot more weight than maybe it deserves.

So.

So we try to convince ourselves that'll give me more portfolio pieces. I'll make good money, I'll do this. But what I've learned to do, and it's still very difficult, and this is weird because it's advice I got from Tai Lopez when I first met him. Probably it's like killer advice. And it's where I was kind of like, you're kind of a weird dude, but I'm going to take this one. But he said, no matter what you're doing, try to always view yourself internally, mentally, whatever, as an investor first. And what an investor does is looks at the risk, looks at the reward and looks at the commitments that are involved and either invests or doesn't. Or the third option is to change the deal. So I think, I don't know all of your points of leverage and all your different needs and what it would fulfill. But the first thing I would think is if it's a killer deal, I'd take it. And if you're questioning it, then it's not a killer deal. Okay, so what are your two options? It's either not take it or change the deal before I generally will say no unless it's just very clear that it's not a good deal. I'll try to renegotiate and make it so it's a good deal.

Right.

So if they want to hire you for certain things at a certain rate.

And.

You have some leverage, you might just your job as a business Owner, investor, you, your company is to make the deal work for you. So you could ask them for either more money to make it worth your time, equity in the projects to increase your potential income, which is a killer model in my experience, or reduce the amount of work they're asking you to do. So, and just one quick thought on how to do that, like renegotiate the deal. Don't go in and just say, I'll do less and you pay me more. Right. Come in from a. Like, do some homework and some research on ways that other ways that they may be like missing out on big income gaps in their business and do a yes. And so you go in and say, yes, I'll do this, but I'll also do this for you. Because it seems your clients are. They're not doing affiliate marketing or their pricing's too low. You become a partner at that point, and you can turn like a deal like that into a much more affordable deal. One of the top copywriters at Agora did that on the financial side, and he makes upper millions per year. Now because he came in, they wanted him to just be a retainer and he negotiated a small bit of equity and everything he did. So I would just look at it that way. Like, not as a yes or no, up and down answer, but what would the deal need to be look like to make it worth your time to say no to all the other things you could be doing? That's what I would recommend, man. Yeah.

Thank you so much.

Love that.

Love that answer.

Yeah. Keep me in touch. I think we're connected. On Facebook, actually. Your name rings bell. I just don't see a face. But yeah, that's a. That's a good problem to have.

And smart leverage.

Okay, gotcha. Yeah. And. And I. It's a good problem to have, but don't let it.

We hear you. James.

Oh, hey. Oh, hey.

Oh, you're good. Sorry, I was just interrupting you. My bad.

Yeah, I was.

Yeah, I'm in the smart leverage group and actually I was.

I was.

I was gonna. Before, you know, I let you go, I was gonna compliment you on one part of your book, you know, seven figure marketing that I really love is.

And you cut out James right when you were saying the good stuff.

I know.

That'S called open loop.

James. Start again from what you found valuable because you cut out right as it. As you were sharing.

So one of the things I really found valuable was your. The way you went so in depth and explained one sentence, persuasion, and kind of your own Viewing.

Man.

Just like the whole diamond crap. Persuade, like that whole section I love. And I was curious in the physical print, are we going to get. I think it's four. Confirming their presumptions.

Yeah. So the last part. Right. Which I'm still working on, that's the open loop to keep people excited. So Stefan and Ed, I'm sure you guys have heard of the book, the one sentence, Persuasion, so Which, by the way, if you want to go down a rabbit hole, that that framework is based off Edward Bernays, who's like the father of propaganda. And like, it's all. It's all very, you know, deep into group psychology and stuff. But I really liked that angle because it. Or that sentence. So I expanded upon in the book. I gave him full credit, of course, but there's a lot of facets to that that he didn't really dive into in the book that I was like, man, I want to explore this. And ended up spending several hundred hours probably researching it. But yeah, man, I will definitely include that. I'll be getting the last bit in there too. It's just one of the more important ones. So I've spent probably eight months on it. Yeah, but it's. It's a fun discussion for sure. Like the. The ways of influence people in manipulation versus persuasion. Such an interesting discussion, but we'll probably have to save that for another time.

Well, anyways, yeah, thank you so much. Yeah, thanks for the. For answering. That was perfect.

Appreciate you.

Yeah. Keeps in the loop.

Sweet. Let's go. And go to just rapid fire. I think we have like three more questions, so I'll just answer those. So Sean, for these ones, we'll answer them, but we'll keep them like pretty quick answers so that we can end on time.

But by the way, Sean, I would love to see your perspective on the group psychology. One sentence, persuasion, all that good stuff.

Sounds like maybe get the book, dude.

I will, I will.

Don't worry.

Damn, Stephen.

Thought I was gonna get the book.

Come on. All right, so we got a question from Sam about. Recently had a sales call with a huge personal brand marketing company. I believe they're your partners. From a conversation they put me through two interview processes. I passed on both. They emailed me saying they've chosen me and to let them know when I'm available for a call. This was on February 1st. I replied on February 1st stating times I'm available but still haven't received a response. So basically this person got ghosted.

Yeah. So I'll keep it really short to me, customer acquisition is all about. I don't do inbound sales. If someone comes to me generally and tries to pitch me on something, I generally know the deal is in my favor and it's not worth the time and. Or energy. If you're just getting started, of course, that's not terribly great advice. But what I would recommend for everybody. Start thinking about your perfect client, what they look like, and actively pursue them with a deal that you have designed for them, as opposed to waiting for people to come to you and pitch you on a deal. That way you have the upper hand. They're excited because they didn't think of this thing, and you don't have all those window shoppers coming to you and ghosting you. So start thinking about outbound sales directly and recruiting clients as opposed to bringing them in.

Yeah, I think that's really good advice for Sam specifically, too, though. I mean, it's like, okay, that was February 1st. It's February 4th. So have you followed up yet? Because, like, also just follow up, right? Like, why are you waiting for them?

Like, follow up, email them today, and.

If you don't hear back from them, email them on, like, Saturday. If you'll hear from them again, email them on Tuesday.

Like, I mean, you know, I just think, like, you have to be, like.

Annoying about it, but, like, they're busy probably, right? So just like, why are you waiting for them?

It's kind of the same idea of.

Like, the outbound stuff, but I just think people are like, oh, I email someone and I hear back, it's like, okay, well then email them again. Like, they're busy, right? They're a big client, all that kind of stuff. And so I think people need more initiative with following up to make opportunities happen. If they keep ghosting you, though, then to Sean's point, I mean, it's like, maybe there's not the right fit for you because, you know, they're ghosting you now. Are they going to keep ghosting you once you're working for them? Is it going to be frustrating and all that? But definitely doesn't hurt to follow up a few times.

Yeah. And give them the benefit of the doubt at the first touch, you know, like, maybe they had a big emergency, something came up. I generally will try to do that, but by the second or third time, it's like, okay, this just isn't, you know, a good fit. I fired some big clients just because of miscommunication, like differences of philosophy. But. But yeah, it's important to, like you said, like, don't just assume they ghosted you until you followed up at least once, you know?

Yeah, exactly. Yeah. I mean, the one, the one mistake people make with following up is then they make a dick like, hey, I haven't heard from you. Like, you're like, hey, dude, I gotta fuck you. You know, I'm busy.

I'm sorry.

Like, so like, you know, but just like, hey guys, want to kind of bump this to the top? Really excited to work with you. You know, here's some times when I'm available, let me know what works for you guys. Can't wait to get started and then probably, you know, do that again one more time. And after that, yeah, you can be like, hey, are you guys interested? Are we moving forward or not? If not, no big deal. But I kind of keeping my stuff clear to work with you guys. So you can do like, hey, like, I feel there's like a really good, like, sort of like three word email that people use where it's like, are you still interested? Or like, are you? Like, yes or no? Or something like that, which gives people, you know, when they see an email like that and they're like, they're like, okay, shit, I'll respond.

So.

But yeah, same. You're good to follow. Cool.

All right.

I know something there is. Can we do the other two really quickly?

Yep. Okay.

I've got, I've got time to do for that. How do you get rid of the excessive reading habit? I write two paragraphs a day, but read over 20 pages a day and I don't think it's healthy. Any tip to balance this quickly?

I think it's very healthy and I think you should read more. But pick up Jim Kwik's book Limitless. It'll help you read faster and retain more. And then also there's a book called SmartNotes. I like, keep it on my desk every day, all day. I like, look references. But Stefan, you know how important research is. But there's research methodologies out there that will optimize the way you research to save you a boatload of time. But yeah, I don't think you have a problem. I think I should read more. And some of the best advice I ever got is if you don't know what to write about, just read until you do because it will hit you if you keep reading.

Sorry, what was the other book called?

Subliminalist and Smart Notes. How to Take Smart Notes. The most boring title of a book ever. But it's an amazing book.

Yeah, I mean, I'm Gonna put in the chat. So, no, you know, it's feeding my writer's block. Whenever I sit to write, I end.

Up reading for hours.

So, I mean, it's like. But that seems like bullshit to me. Like, you know, you're just picking something to. You don't want to write. Your issue is not going to write. It's going to do with reading. Reading is not the enemy. So your question. The problem is not reading. It's like, you know, procrastinating or putting stuff off.

So you're not alone.

Yeah, you're certainly not alone. But, you know, I think, like, again, like, I read, I don't know, like 30 to 100 pages a day of books, but I do it night before I go to bed. And then sometimes I'll do half an hour in the morning or in the afternoon, I'll go take a break and read or whatever. But, like I've talked about before, it's like, first thing I do generally is I try and wake up and write. If I have to do copy especially, I just jump on it first thing because that's when I'm freshest and there's less resistance and less distractions. And I would really just say do the same thing. Like, you know, like, hey, I'm writing first, I'm going to read after. Just tell yourself you can read. You know, I'm writing for the next hour and a half or two hours or whatever it is, and then I'm done. And at that point, I can read. So if it still sucks, if you still have a crappy session because you just sit there staring at a blank screen, you know, like, there's. There's frameworks and tools. There's rnbc. There's, like, Sean's book. There's a lot of stuff you can do to figure it out. But, you know, I would. I would apply that. But, like, just reading is a scapegoat in my opinion there. It's just that, like, you know, if you. Because when you don't read, you're gonna do something else. You're gonna start going on Facebook and getting an argument. So you just have to get over that hump mentally. Like, you know, you've gotta, like, just be like, these are. This hour and a half is for writing, or I'm gonna stare at a blank screen, and that's it.

Yeah. Call yourself out on your shit. Yeah, that's generally the hardest thing to do. But you're not alone, though.

Yeah, totally. And I'm not trying to be like.

Tough love on it but you know, cool.

And I think Ed, we had one more question.

Yeah, well we, we got two here. So when it comes to offer creators, why is it, why is it that some people like Frank Kern come up with a new offer every so often and others like Sam stick to one offer for close to 10 years? And how do you know what's, what path suits you best without taking all the contradicting advice?

I wish I had like a detailed answer on that. My experience working with Sam is that he is selling a system. So there's different types of products, there's information products that teach you a thing and then there's information products that are systems to get you to a place. Frank does a little bit of both but Frank just churns out awesome stuff. But the reason Sam can keep selling that and focusing on that is his business model is built so that new entrepreneurs, which is a huge niche can keep coming in and he doesn't have to make new products to sell it effectively. Still 20, 30 million a year, every year. And until he decides that he wants to do more or that he wants to do something different, there's no incentive to change it besides boredom, which you are much more likely to get bored before your audience is bored, going to get worn out. So I think it's, it's just comes down to your philosophy on it. But for me a couple core products that you can focus on and keep improving and get miles ahead of the competition in is much more advantageous than coming out with a new offer every month even if it's more profitable in the short term.

And final question here from Sep. Sean, do you still use Zettelkasten?

Yeah. So that's what that smart notes book is all about. The Zetzelkasten. Never actually heard it pronounced correctly method. And you can just go on YouTube and type that in. I have no idea how to spell it, but it's how to organize notes. But yeah, I mean when I do research that is my methodology now because it lowers my anxiety of like I'm always anxious because I'm going to forget all this stuff that I'm researching. I just know like just my nature or just being human, you're not going to remember everything but this system. It helps you capture the core ingredients of the thoughts that your research is developing so that you can review them in a systematic way later. And Stefan, you, if you're not already doing that methodology, you probably are a bit in the research segment of your book but are your course. But it relieves a lot of the anxiety that comes with research, in my experience.

Yeah, that's really cool. Actually, I'm not really familiar with zettle.

Casting, but you'll know it when you read it. You're probably already doing it. But the basic idea is as you research, you take literary notes, which is notes on what you're reading. And then you go back, you review the notes and try to write the core concept in your own words. And those become separate notes in a separate area and with tags. And then you can go back and compile tags and make complete freaking. This Guy wrote like 80 books in his lifetime through using this method and they were all textbooks. But yeah, you should look into it. It's really cool.

Cool, awesome. I will. Sweet. Well, that's going to wrap up today's episode. Shawn, thank you so much for joining us, man.

Dude, right back at you. You guys are a treat to talk to. And so Stefan, if I may ask you one question before we go, because I'm curious, what's the rest of 2021 look like for you, focus wise? Because I want to support you and I want everybody who's listening to this to be able to support you as well.

Cool.

Well, I appreciate that, man. Yeah, I mean, I think that there's like, you know, continue to grow Copy Accelerator. Of course, we've got our virtual event coming up end of February and that's like just tremendous group, tremendous resourcing. I'm really proud of. So Copy Accelerator, on the personal brand side, getting a couple kind of funnels, working on cold traffic by, you know, starting with business owners and just getting more reach to impact more people. Right. I mean, those are really the two main goals. I think, honestly, you know, I'm still going to write stuff for clients and I really think I'm going to take a break after I finish this current Sprint. But I've said that, you know, since like 2016 or whatever.

You know, you need some interns that you can release on stuff and then you just edit the copy. That's, that's when it starts getting really fun. But it's not easy.

I mean, I've done something before. I think the thing like I'm taking.

On in general more challenging projects where like, I really feel like it should be me. Cause this one thing is like a generic sales letter, right? And you're like, okay, like, look, I've trained a million people to do this. Awesome. But it's like one of them is for like a super, super famous celebrity. And it's like, well, I kind of want to write this one. So I'm gonna talk to that person and get to, like, interact with them, right? And then, like, whatever. But you're not wrong. But, I mean, it's cool, because I'm taking on projects where it's, like, I'm personally more interested in them.

But, yeah, I hear you, and I do the same. I'll just leave you with one analogy. You know, the statue of David. You know, whoever sculpted, I think. Was it Michelangelo? I can't remember 80% of it. The shipping to get down to the base form was not done by him. You know, it was the refining. But. But it. It has pros and cons. I will say, though, dude, I am. I have to look into Copy Accelerator. I'll have to. I know we talked about doing some cross or promotion stuff, so I might have to do that and look at the event and. And then, yeah, man, when you start doing your personal brand stuff, shoot it over, because I'll be happy to look at it and review it, but I want to. I think this impacting a billion people thing is a really cool goal, and I'm just. I'm glad that you were able to bring me on today to talk with you, because I. I got to learn a lot myself, so appreciate that.

Yeah, absolutely, man. I appreciate that. And I'll. I will.

I'll reach out to you.

I want to get a clubhouse going, too, so I'll hit you up, man. But. But, yeah, thank you so much. Really shared a ton of just really valuable gems, and that was awesome having you on. All right, brother.

Appreciate you.

Nice to meet you too, Ed.

Thank you.

Sean. Nice to meet you, buddy.

Thank you. Cool.

Well, that wraps it up for everybody who's going to be watching this on YouTube later. Make sure that you subscribe to my channel that you leave a comment, letting myself, Sean, and Ed know what your takeaways were. Make sure you hit the like button if you're on itunes. Make sure you subscribe to my podcast, and we'll be back next week with another episode. So thanks, everybody.

Thank you, Ed, as well. Appreciate you as always. Cool.