[RTB:E34] 3x Your Freelancing Income In Less Than a Year With Advertiser and Copywriter, John Robb 💪

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 and radio show style podcast where you can ask myself and my guests questions about freelancing, copywriting, entrepreneurship, mindset scaling, funnels, relationships, money, and more. The reason for the name the Road to a Billion is twofold. I've hit around a billion dollars in sales with my copy and both for clients and my own stuff. And I want to make an impact on the lives of a billion people over the next 10 years. We'll start taking calls in about 30 minutes from now, let's say. And the way that works is you will put your questions into the Q and A section in Zoom for those who are on Zoom, and then my friend Ed Ray will review those questions and feed them to me and we'll bring you on live and basically we'll answer them. Me and my guests will introduce in a moment as well as Ed. Ed, do you want to go ahead and say hello and let people know who you are and what you're all about and all that good stuff?

Hey, what's up guys? My name is Ed Ray and I'm a Facebook compliance specialist.

What does that mean, Ed? What does it mean to be? What does that mean?

Oh man, where do we start? So one, when people get banned on Facebook, I help them get unbanned and I also help them prevent getting banned through high converting Facebook compliant copy, which is basically copy that actually Facebook likes. And we'll show to more of their people and more of the audience that you want to get in front of because you're following their super strict yet incredibly vague policies.

That's a good way to describe it. They are super strict and incredibly vague. Awesome, Ed, we're glad to have you with us as always. And our guest today is the incomparable John Robb. So John Robb is a member of Copy Accelerator and we'll talk about that story a little bit. But he's also just a fascinating guy with a ton of experience in advertising and marketing and a really cool journey that is reflective of a lot of people who end up in this crazy world of direct response, freelancing and copywriting. So John did study advertising and at university, as he calls it, as a British guy back in 1998. And after he graduated, he basically did a bunch of stuff, but ended up landing a job in New York with one of the world's biggest and best ad agencies. Only lasted For a little period of time, but ended up moving to LA and writing commercials after that. He's written for Google, Beats by Dre. He's done stuff for PlayStation, Toyota, Sprint and countless other brands. He shot commercials all over the world. Milan, cape town, London, Louisiana. He's worked with Serena Williams and 2 Chainz and lots of other famous people. And eventually after 20 plus years of getting rejected and like, I don't know, we'll talk about not loving what he was doing anymore, he decided to transition into the world of entrepreneurship and digital marketing and from there stumbled into copywriting and became a really successful freelance copywriter very quickly in like about a year. It's almost kind of like the year anniversary of when he really, I feel like, started to have a lot of success. And so John, we're so happy to have you here. Thanks for joining us.

Thanks man, I appreciate you bringing me on. Yeah, it is like 12 months, almost 12 month anniversary. Right? But also 12 month anniversary of COVID Huh.

I don't know, it was like in order for you, your career to thrive, other people had to suffer.

I think.

You know.

I truly believe that. Right. Which is, I mean it was weird because everyone was like, wow, this is going to be the end of the world. Our careers are over. And then it suddenly, everything suddenly went. I mean, who would have guessed it? Everything went online and then everyone started buying stuff because they were bored, I guess. And yeah, it went great from there. I just, I just gotta just address something Ed said in the chat. I've been working advertising two years longer than you been alive. Is that right?

Yes.

That was 1998, right?

Yeah, yeah.

So I was born in 2000.

What? What? That is crazy. So you just, you've never used a dial phone then?

You just.

No, never. I didn't have to do wind up Internet either or dial up Internet.

Yeah, we'd go into the outhouse and just crank it. Wait, that sounds really weird.

Sorry, I wasn't born in the 1800s, man. My bad.

Yeah.

Oh, goodness. So John, I mean, God, where do you even start? With you. I'm so happy. By the way, John's a very, very funny person, which I love.

No pressure.

Yeah, I think it's a British thing. You British just have a really good, somewhat self defecating, but yet endearing sense of humor. Is that, do they teach you that when you're like a young child? Is there like a class that everyone. It's a cotillion for like, you know, waspy people who like the rich people. Dance class Thing you have to do when you're like 13. Is it like a British version of that for being funny?

I mean, I mean, pretty much. You just described English society. Really, like, we don't. You don't really talk yourself up because if you do, everyone's like, like, that dude thinks he's fucking fancy. Can I swear?

Yeah, you can swear.

You can swear, but thinks he's fancy or something. So coming to the US was a whole. When I came to the US it was like, wow, it's like you really are your own cheerleader here compared to, to England. And it's not. No one, no one frowns on it here in England. Yeah, the people that are like the go getters in England who are like, you work in a company and there's that person who really wants to succeed and they're like going above and beyond. Everyone else is like, weird.

We hate this guy. Cool. So, okay, so talk with me about the. That first ad agency where you only lasted six months because you got hired and then the recession hit. You know, what was your role there? And then what was it like when you kind of lost, you know, this job that I'm assuming you kind of thought was going to be this huge, big deal, like this dream job and your big ticket in life and you know, to lose after six months. I mean, what was that experience like?

Yeah, I mean, I had like the classic plan in my head that was. And I guess you kind of, I mean, I don't know if people do nowadays, but I mean, it was drummed into me that, you know, you go to college, you come out of college, you get a job, you work your way up the thing and da, da, da. And being in the ad industry, I kind of looked around and saw that the best way to make money there, to make proper money, was eventually to start your own agency. And so in my mind, like, that was what I was going to do. It was like, I'm going to jump up the ladder, get some experience, start my own thing. And then in England there was a lot more. Like, it's harder to get rid of people and that. Not me personally, but it was a lot harder. I don't know what it's like there now, but it was a lot harder to lay someone off or fire someone. So there was a lot of job security. So when I moved to New York, yeah, basically when I moved to New York, I got this job at this agency and that was it. I was like, this is the pinnacle of like what I wanted to do. I'm in this place where it's like the greatest minds and I'm gonna learn off these people and it's gonna be the next step. And I had a lot of, what's the word? You know, I wasn't shy in telling people about the fact I've got a job there. Like, it was like this big thing and look at me, I'm getting out of London, I'm coming to the us I'm working this place. I was, I was bragging left front center about it. And then getting in there, it was like, man, behind the scenes was a whole different thing from the facade, which I should have known having worked in a lot of ad agencies. But the goal obviously is you want to get somewhere creative. You want to be somewhere that's known for creative work. Because then you're going to do the most fun stuff. You're going to get to work with the most creative people. The clients are going to want creative work. This is what you think. And then you get in there and you realize that it's like anything really. All the work that they publicize is the great stuff. But there's a lot of work in there that pays the bills that they don't talk about that you're doing that stuff because you got to earn you strikes before they'll let you play with the fun stuff. So yeah, I kind of got in there, started working on stuff and then yeah, it was a weird, it was a whole weird thing because also I didn't again social. The culture coming to America from England, like I said, I mean the culture there is totally different. There's a lot of here, it's very different. A lot of, a lot of high fives, let's put it that way. Everyone's like high fiving in the office and I'm like, I'm English, man. I don't know, this is kind of weird to me now. I get it. But so yeah, I didn't really fit in. And then when the economy tanked, they, it was nuts. I was doing like 60 hour weeks. I don't even. It was nuts, man. I was like leaving the office at 3 in the morning to get back in at 6 to do more work. And I worked all weekend. And then my boss came and tapped me on the shoulder on Monday morning and I thought he was gonna, he wanted to see what I've been doing over the weekend. He's like, we've got a chat. And the tone of his voice, I was like, man, I was like, oh, that's scary. It sounds like, you're going to find me or something. And then he promptly took me in his office and was like, yeah, we're going to have to let you go. And I did not see it coming at all. It was like super because they'd been telling me they were going to hire. When you work in brand advertising, you work as a team. So I was a copywriter and you work with an art director and they do the pictures. And it's not as basic as that, but you know, you're both coming up with concepts. But when it gets to doing the work, like one of you is doing the right and one of you is doing the visual stuff. And I didn't get on with my. Which is part of. I didn't get on with my art director at all. We were just total polar opposites. And they, they were telling me, don't worry, we'll get someone else. We're going to hire another writer, we're going to hire another, another art director. We're gonna hire another art director. And then they hired a copywriter to work with her. And they're like, this new copywriter announced it and then like literally two days later laid me off. And I was like, oh. And then suddenly the like as I was like walking out of there with my. And it's a crazy because in England if you get laid off, it's, it's, it was like, they'll give you a month or it'll be two weeks notice. So it's not like you're out the door that second. So I'm in this office and I'm like, what? Okay, what happens next? I'm like, oh, just pack your stuff in your bag in your, in your, in a box and you can go. It's like 9am on a Monday morning and I'm like walking out of the office with this box full of stuff and I'm like, I have nowhere to be. I don't know. I barely knew anyone in the city because I'd only been there six months. So I'm like. But, well, tangentially, I was married at the time to a New Yorker. So I just literally called up my, my brother in law who was also, he'd also been laid off. And he's like, yeah, just come over to mine. And we went to a bar at like 10am in Park Slope that was randomly open. He knew the owner and they let us in and we did Jaeger bombs. Yeah, I don't remember leaving that place, but we did a lot of Jaeger bombs. Let's put it that way. So, yeah, yeah.

So how did we go? I mean, so from there you end up in LA and we ended up writing TV commercials for some. Really. And commercials in general for some big brands. I mean, you told a funny story in your bio about, forget who it was, who just basically scrapped a $250,000.

Oh, Jimmy Iovine. Yeah, Irving. I can't remember how you pronounce his name.

Yeah, yeah. So how did that transition happen? I mean, how did you go from being laid off to what ended up becoming a 20 plus year career and. And writing commercials?

Well, I mean, the thing about that industry is like, I had that agency on my resume and I'd shot a couple of commercials when I was there. And so with freelancing at the time, like no one wanted to freelance at the time. It was seen as. I mean, there was a few people, but it wasn't like it is now. It was seen as, oh, you can't get a job. Like, if you turn up an agency as a freelancer, you. If you did good work for them for a month, two months, six months, whatever you turned off every day, they would inevitably offer you a job because they thought that was what you wanted. At the end, they'd be like, oh yeah, we've really been happy with you. We're going to offer you a job, we'd love you to stay here. And then they'd be shocked when you turn around and say, oh, yeah. It's a weird dynamic because you're thinking, oh man, I can't say, yeah, I'm not interested. Like, because they might not give you work again if you offend them. So you're like, oh man, yeah, that's really great. Like, it's not quite. I got a couple of plans and you have to kind of like skirt around it. So I was getting a lot of freelance work, no problem, because I had that. Because I had that agency on my resume and people are. I mean, people are pretty lazy in that industry. Like, it's not. Well, that's not fair actually. But the recruiters are generally kind of young and they don't know the industry because no one wants to be an ad agency recruiter. So they'll come in and they won't really know the industry and so all they do is look at your resume. Well, this dude worked here and he did this thing. Let me have a look at it. Oh yeah, that's good. Okay, cool. We'll get him in and then they'll show it to the. And then it's like. It's kind of like direct response, in a sense. But you show up and you do the thing that they want you to do. You make their life as easy as you possibly can, and they'll hire you again. So, I mean, once I got a couple of gigs freelancing, it was just. I was just getting, like, referrals and doing other stuff. And that just kind of. That snowballed for. Yeah, I mean, like the whole time. So 12 years, I guess. And then I ended up at the agency working for Beats in la, I think it was. Was it the first. No, the first gig I did in LA was for Samsung. That was nuts. And then. And then this. It was. The second thing I did here was working for an agency that had Beats. And at the time, Beats weren't owned by Apple. And they would. They were crazy. Like, it was Wild West. They were really good company to. Well, okay, they were not. But they were like, just do anything. Whatever you think works, just do it. And so we were writing, like, crazy stuff that they. Well, I guess. I mean, they loved until they paid for it and shot it. And then. Well, that was the other thing that would change their minds on a whim.

Shocking. Never heard of a client doing such a thing.

So, I mean, my two stories. My two. Jimmy, I've never met him, but my two stories with him is we shot. We shot a commercial in a Burbank airport in a hangar. We had two chains. We had this camera called a Phantom, which shoots like super, super, super slow mo. It shoots like tens of thousands of frames a second or something ridiculous. And it costs an absolute fortune to hire this thing. And we were shooting two chains doing donuts. We covered the whole hangar floor in like, terrible earbuds. Like rubbish. Not like these apples, sorry, but like, rubbish earbuds. And then we had two chains doing donuts in a Ferrari over the. In super slow mo over these earbuds. And I was like, man, this is gorgeous. Like, it was beautifully shot. And they were into it until. I don't know what happened, actually. It went somewhere to someone higher up. And they're like, yeah, Jimmy doesn't like this. And this is after they'd spent. I mean, they must have spent about. It was at least 250 grand, maybe half a million on it. And they're like, no, I mean, literally, it was, like, edited. We gotta get this done. We're gonna get this done. We're in the editors. We're in the post house where you, like, colorizing everything. And we're like working crazy hours. And we, and then we send it off that night. Yeah, we got it finished in time. And then the next morning they're like, yeah, we got some news. It's dead. We're not doing it. And we're like, wait, what? You just paid all this money? And so I had like a six month experience where I shot some great stuff for beats I did. I shot a couple of things with Serena Williams, which. And she's the sweetest person. It's funny when I see stuff online about her and I'm like, and she was the nicest person I've like the nicest famous person I've ever met. She was just super down to earth. Like she was supposed to give us about an hour of her time and she ended up giving us like eight hours or something ridiculous. She's like, yeah, I've really got a beanie wear. And then. But to do the wild west thing, she. We had her running. We had a running across. This was another airport hangar store. We had a running across an airport hanger barefoot with a samurai sword. But the samurai sword was a proper samurai sword. It was like fully sharpened. And I'm standing there watching this and I'm thinking, I'm not the production dude. I'm pretty sure they're going to have like a, like a fake samurai sword. And she's running across the thing with a samurai sword, like barefoot. Is that a real samurai sword? And the client Saniff said, yeah, it's. And I'm like, do you think, I mean, you've got pretty good liability insurance then. I mean, if she trips over and like slices her leg off or something. Because the reason I knew it was a real samurai sword because the client had his team, they were throwing. There was a still photographer on set and he's like, check this out. And he's got his thing throwing fruit to him from the fruit from the dining car. And he's slicing this fruit, getting him to shoot on this phantom, which costs like, who knows how much more than I make a minute in a year to hire this thing or whatever. And he's like. And he's getting the still photographer to take shots of him. Like, wow, I'm trying to get out of the line of in case he loses his grip on the samurai sword. I'm not, I don't want to get the samurai sword in the head from this guy. So. And then they go, oh, come on, finish doing this. We got to, we got to start shooting. And they just hand the samurai sword to Serena Williams. So it's like, oh, okay, it's the proper samurai sword. And then, yeah, it turned out they didn't have. I don't know, man. I mean, it's kind of nuts. So there were. She could have lost a leg and I could have been there when it happened. Like, she might not have all those grandstands because of some stupid TV commercial that I wrote for them. So that was like the high or. No, actually that. So that got shot and that was good. Oh, we had her with a flamethrower as well. And that was another. And then. And then, and then just before I left, I've done like 12 months, I think, working for them at this agency. And I was kind of sick of it by the end. It was because it was just nuts. They were all kind of crazy. And I wrote this like, manifesto. They wanted to do some brand stuff for Beats. They're like, yeah, let's do this. We're gonna do this epic thing. And it was based on the fact that Jimmy and Dr. Dre had both worked for like a ton of. They produced a ton of records. I mean, if you look at their discography, between the two of them, it is just like every great thing that's ever been made, they produced it. And so I had this idea of like, we were gonna be. It was shot in like a white gallery and. And the album covers were all going to be on the wall as if it was a gallery space. And then there's like creepy music playing and then the black wax, the black stuff was going to start running out. So it was like the records were kind of liquid, kind of like Terminator 2 liquid, like dripping down the wall. And so it's all like the walls are bleeding with this black liquid coming out of all the famous things. And. And then it like forms the. I can't remember if it was the Beat. No, the Beats logo sounds kind of cheesy, but it was something. Maybe it was a product launch and it formed the product, all this liquid and had this stirring voiceover written over top of it. This like manifesto style thing. And I left and I was done and I was out. It was like two weeks after I left. And then I get this random call on my phone, a voicemail from. From the account, like, yeah, Jimmy Irvine wants you to come into Beats right now. He wants to speak to you. He, like, he just heard this. He just heard that. We just presented script. He said, you're the only person that understands the voice of Beats and you're gonna have to Come back in and work for them. And I was like. I was on vacation and I was like, I think I was back in England. I was like. And I'm like, all right, I'm not coming. How am I gonna come into the office now? Like, I'm gonna. You're sending me a private jet or something. So.

Yeah, they should have.

You should have.

You should have hardballed it and like, all right, send the jet.

Right, right. But I knew the real thing was I would have turned off, and they would have been like, actually, this isn't as good as you thought it was. So, like, within two days, they would have completely changed their mind, and then my life would have been. So I got a good story out of it, but I never went back and worked for them again. So.

Yeah, so those are awesome stories. I mean, the sort of. The samurai sword is just amazing. I mean, a bunch of them are, but. Okay. So I mean, I'm curious about the parallels between, you know, writing these commercials and coming up with crazy ideas. And then, you know, now that you're a direct response copywriter, you know, the. How that may have helped you or hurt you making that transition. But I also do want to talk about kind of the transition in general. So to go from, you know, commercials to. And I had a brief foray where you're like, I'm gonna start an Amazon business. And then that just did not go great. Right. So, I mean, how did that journey from there to where you are today? What is. And, you know, what does that journey look like? How did you. How did you. Once you left, I guess mentioned the Amazon thing kind of briefly. I'd love to hear that story. And then let's talk about how you ultimately, you know, got to where you are today.

Yeah, I mean, I got to the point where I was like, so the thing about the rejection thing in brand advertising, like, it's 99% rejection, basically, of your work. So you're writing 10, 20 TV commercials a day. For any given brief. You might write like 100, 200 scripts, of which, I mean, I worked for clients for two years and didn't get any. I didn't make a commercial for them. Like, I wrote hundreds of scripts for them. And so after, like, after, like, 10, 15 years, whatever, it starts to grind. I mean, everyone I know, most people I know who were in advertising tried to. Are either out of it or are trying to get out of it in brand advertising. Because you. Yeah, it's just you get to the point where that idea, like, you have to have a creative hobby outside of it like that. Let you do something creative and get that stuff out. Otherwise it will just crush you because you just spend all of your time with some random. I mean, I've had, like, meetings where the CEOs secretary or assistant like, got to decide if my scripts were good enough. Because she was a real person. No, she didn't. Sorry, all of those things are dead. Because she didn't like any of the. She didn't really think the talking unicorn was convincing. If you've ever walked out of a meeting and someone said that to you, you're like, what am I doing with my life, man? This is the. So I got to the point where I was like, okay, I gotta get out of here. And then the other thing is, it's quite an ageist industry in a sense, which is understandable. They want younger people with energy and ideas, and you gotta be up on the latest things. So you get to a point where you kind of get aged out a bit. And I saw that coming. So I was like, okay, I got to figure out what my plan B here is. You know, I had. I had a chunk of money in my savings. I was like, okay, cool. I got a bit. I got some breathing space here. And then. And then for some reason, I don't know how it happened, but I was like, oh, Amazon, I must have seen something online. I was like, oh, I'll start. I had an idea for products. So I got this product made, went to like, I didn't know anything about any of this stuff. Dealt with Chinese manufacturers. Like, went through months of reading the product, reading the products, and, you know, all that stuff, all that fun stuff. Get it on Amazon. And then it kind of sold. It. It kind of sold at first. It sold at first enough that I made a massive mistake, which, if anyone, if you can take anything from this, like, I dropped all. All of my savings. This is the dumbest thing to say now. And it's funny how much I've learned being around smart people that I wish I dropped all my savings into this idea because I'd sold a few units at first. And I'm like, this is it. Everyone's going to want to buy this thing. And I, instead of concentrating on the one variation, I made like 10 variations of this thing in, like, different colors and for different models and da, da, da. Which, if anyone wants any of them, they're in my garage.

What is the product?

It's not glamorous in any way, shape or form. Have you ever heard of Sous vide cooking.

I don't know. Help us.

Let me educate you. It's French for unacuumed. So it's when you vacuum pack, say, steak. Best steak you'll ever eat in your life. I'm not even joking. Vacuum pack, it's like steak. And then you put it in a water bath and this immersion circulator, which is the sous vide cooking thing, it heats the water to a very specific temperature, and then it will sit at that temperature. So it cooks the steak to a perfect like 129 degrees or whatever. You leave it in there for an hour, and when it. When it's done, you sear it on both sides, and it's the best steak you're ever going to eat. So. But this is where you're like, wow, did he come up with some new sous vide cooking thing? No, I didn't. The immersion circulator is like a wand. It's like the weirdest shaped thing. You can't really do anything with it. You, like, have to store it in your cupboard. And so I just had this idea. I'm like, oh, make a stand for this thing. So I made a stand for it. No one was making a stand for it. And real super simple stand, like folded stainless steel stand. And then. And then no one. There wasn't such a thing when I invented it, I invented a stand.

You're an inventor.

And then I didn't just invent it. I got a patent. I have a patent. I have a design patent, which cost me I don't know how many thousand dollars. Just. I mean, I've got it on. I'm gonna put it on a wall in my office. When I finally get my office, even though it's totally redundant, I never needed a patent. This is how dumb I am. I'm like, I didn't even think. I just didn't know anything at that point. So, yeah, so that didn't. I have a lot of stands, although I'm sure they could hold other things. I keep thinking maybe they could hold other things and I'll. But then the other thing. Voice in my head is like, this is like an anchor wain around your neck, dragging you to the bottom of the ocean. Just put them on Craigslist and say, if Anyone wants like 2000 stands or however many thousand, come and get them, and then I'll be done with it.

A lot of people in the chat, though, are big sous vide fans. Apparently. I saw a lot, a lot of love for sous vide. So, you know Hey, I know a guy who's got. Who's got a couple of stands if you need it for your magic wand.

Yeah, just text me your model number and I'll send over whether you want. If you want red, I've got red, black, stainless, white, if you want orange. Orange was not a popular seller, amazingly enough. But if you want it, I've got orange.

John, have you thought about putting that on Amazon?

No, they're on Amazon, so I sold them on. That was my. So I didn't know anything about marketing online at this point, but I'm like, okay, I'll put them on Amazon. Amazon will do all that stuff for me. I got banned on Amazon before I even sold a single unit, which I then had to hire a lawyer to get me unbanned off Amazon, which cost me like two grand. I think it was two grand. Just like, they sent like a. Like a form letter. I'm like, man, I could have written that. That just cost me $2,000. Got my account back. I've had products suspended. It's a sell on Amazon is. I just hate. I can't stand that thing.

Unfortunately, I specialize in Facebook compliance, not Amazon compliance only.

Well, I've been banned from Facebook as.

Well, so quickly, John.

Yeah, because. So in my. While I was setting up my stands, I had a couple of. I had another side hustle is the. Is the. I guess that's the call.

Oh, it's how it goes.

Yeah. Right. Where. So I love classic cars. I'm, like, super into classic cars. I got a few classic cars. I got. I got a collection of classic cars. Let's put it that way. That sounds way more impressive than it is. I have a lot of old cars on jack stands. Like, slowly rusting. That's my collection. And so I was like, oh, they just launched Merch by Amazon, which was like the print on demand thing. So I'm like, okay, cool, I'll print. I'd made one of these people who, like, does stuff themselves to my detriment. Like, I spent, like, months making this BMW illustration of an old BMW, and then I was like, I'll put it on a T shirt. But I used BMW in the listing, and that's why they shut me down. Because it was apparently. Even though it was a picture of an old BMW, and I think it was like, classic BMW T shirt. They're like, yeah, no, you're not part. I guess they had some stuff. I guess they got their algorithm. Basically, their faceless algorithm was like, hold on. Someone just used a Trademark BMW name. And then, boop, overnight just shut down. And this is why I had like, I think I had like a thousand units of the stand that were on in a container coming from China on the ocean. So I'm like, okay, my account just got shut down, but I've got thousands of dollars worth of inventory come in and it's not going to stop. Yeah. Anyway, that whole thing was just a nightmare.

So from Amazon and that debacle. And by the way, I mean, one thing for people who are, you know, watching now or gonna listen or watch the replay or listen to the replay or whatever is, you know, I mean, there are a ton of good lessons there and a lot of us, you know, I think back to one of my Laura and I had when I was still my last job, as I was kind of my freelancer, we were gonna start this like, like a shoe search engine called Shoe Vu. So shoevoo. Com still honestly think it could be a successful idea. It was really like a super customized shoe search engine where it's like, there's obviously plenty of sites where you can go on and like, you know, like shop for woman. It's like woman's shoes. Right. But this idea was essentially we had, we're pulling in affiliate feeds, which I didn't know anything about this, but Laura knew a little more. So you're pulling in from every kind of store you can imagine all the shoes. And then it was getting tagged either automatically or manually by people in the Philippines for like every feature you can. We had like, you know, 50 plus features. So you could go in and basically put in any features you want, like hit search and then like, you know, the shoes that matched your criteria. So any shoe you could dream up, you could find really easily. So it was kind of a cool idea, spent I don't know, maybe $15,000 on that. And then we had like one time in New York, radio station talked about it and we made maybe 600, $700 in sales, then stopped doing it. And at some point I didn't renew the hosting and the entire thing got deleted and we never did anything with it after that. So lessons learned there would be, including you make sure that you update your hosting and probably validate, but maybe get a proof of concept before you spend. To me at 15,000, my grandfather died, I think I got $10,000 or something like that. And I basically just was like, oh, put it into this shoe search engine because it's gonna be like massive. And then like, you know, basically got $600 ever in sales from it. And yeah. And wasted all that money. So the point of that all being like, validate. But also everyone fucks up. It's cool. It's cool. You need to have your fuck ups to get to your successes. I mean, it's so important. You need to have your failures to get to your wins. And, and it's painful at the time, but yeah, it happens. So this was your thought.

I totally agree. And I think like the thing is that risk what other people would look at and be like, that's crazy. I'm gonna hold onto that $10,000. It's like that risk is why you are where you are basically now. Right? You have that level of like, you understand that maybe you didn't at the time, but you kind of intuitively understand that, yeah, I gotta throw some money at this thing and let's see. And like, it's not the end of the world if you lose that money. Like as long as you, you know, because you know you can make more money. I mean, you might not at the time, but in hindsight, like, yeah, like the reason I'm, the reason I'm doing direct response now and at some point will hopefully be running my own offers is because of the Amazon thing. Like, I was, I was so frustrated that they had like my sous vide balls in a vice that I was like, man, I got to figure out how to, how else can I sell this thing? And so that took me off on a path of like I started. I think it was like first thing, I think it was like smart. No, not smart. What was. What's Ryan Dice's company?

Digital marketer.

Yeah, digital market. Like I stumbled upon that stuff and then I start learning about that and then I start learning about, you know, I like it. I started learning about like all online marketing stuff. Funnels that I'm like, I don't understand any of this. And so I'm start learning about funnels and I start learning about. And then by some random circular fate or whatever it is, I stumble upon direct response copyright. So I think I do, I think I'm the only person in the world. I'm going to take this, I'm going to give myself this, this title that fell from copywriting into copywriting. And I'm like, huh, wait there. Like, why have I been trying to like, I could make money doing this thing. I know how to write. Like, all I got to do is relearn the, or learn the methodology of this. So yeah, I wouldn't be doing this now if I hadn't of like totally screwed up on Amazon if all of those stands weren't still in my garage right now. If anyone wants them DM me, I'll send them to you. Actually, you gotta come and get them. I'm not paying for. But yeah, I wouldn't, like, I wouldn't be doing like, I wouldn't be doing that this now. And I wouldn't have met all of the people that I've met and be in the group, in the groups that I'm in and be surrounded by people who are like, way, way smarter than me that I'm just leeching information from right now. So it's that weird thing when you go from like, how is any of this gonna work, I don't know what I'm doing to even though I'm now I can see a path to. I'm like, okay, these people are doing this thing and they're smart and I'm just gonna copy what they're doing. And if they can get there, then I can just, I can probably get there as well.

That's one of your huge strengths. You know, Justin and I talk about. Justin is my partner in Copy Accelerator for those who listen or watching don't know. But we both are such advocates for swiping and, you know, swiping being taking something that's working already, modeling off of it and applying it to whatever you're writing for. It's just the easiest way. You write faster. I've been lately, I'm like, I need to be swiping more honestly because like my every time I swipe, it's like, it works and it's easy and I write fast and it's good and all that. And we always feel like we need to reinvent the wheel and we don't. But it's funny because you came from an agency world where, you know, you have to be super creative and come up with brand new ideas, right? And yet when I had you, I hired you to, to kind of write some stuff for me and adventure I was involved in. And you know, it was kind of like, swipe this. And then you did the best, I told you at the time, like, you did the best job of swiping like anybody I've really ever seen because you really swiped it right, which, it sounds so simple, but I can't tell you how many times people you're like, swipe this. And then it's sort of like a quarter swiped, but a bunch of weird stuff thrown in and just. And you didn't do it. And so I literally had less feedback for you as far as constructive criticism of, again, almost anybody I've ever worked with. And the stuff you wrote was successful. I think you mentioned you're still getting commissions on some of this stuff and it was just like tremendous. And so I am curious about. I guess I won't talk about how Copy Accelerator changed your life and I'll try and do it in the least self serving, kind of self promotional way possible. But let's talk. I mean, it is interesting, I guess. Did you just like, is it just that philosophy of this is working, so I'll model off of it, which is what we want people to do when they don't usually do it or, you know, how are you able to be so good at swiping? Because again, it seems like a simple thing, but nobody does it right. And you did. Do you think, is there anything you thought about from a mindset or mental approach when you went to kind of start doing that when you want to start writing long form?

I gotta think, okay, so I gotta phrase this in a way that doesn't make me look bad. I'm not like, I'm not lazy, right? But I'm not. I've been around enough. I've been around after. I'm like, I'm not trying to reinvent the wheel. Like, what, like, that's what is the. It doesn't make sense to me anymore. That's the thing. It's the antithesis of what I was doing before. Like I was trying to. In brand advertising. That was it. It was the, like, what's the thing? Although hilariously, it's all copied off someone else. And you know, you try to hide who you're copying off. I mean, okay, that sounds weird, but not intentionally. But anyway, so. So with the swiping, before I go off on a tangent, I mean, you literally said, you literally asked me to be like, yeah, I want this, but I want you to do it for this product and redo this mechanism and whatever. I remember sending the first draft to you and thinking, oh, man, I probably cough. I probably swiped this too hard. It's probably going to. I think I actually wrote, let me know if I swiped this too hard. Because, like, I was thinking, man, I don't want to look at it and think, what has he done here? He's just copied this thing. And this is. You're like, now this is cool. This is exactly what I wanted. And so that gave me permission. Essentially, I'm like, oh, okay. And I'm.

And this is.

It's not copying, right? I'm not talking about like, I'm just like, copy and paste it. But the other thing was I read the book when I first joined Copy X, I read. But when, when I went to. Before I went to Austin event. So before I was a member, I got in the group and watched every single video I could watch. I went through everything. I watched your event in. Was it Austin as well? The $15,000 event you did, was that.

That was in Vegas? Yeah, that was my Vegas first live event I ever did in my RNBC kind of copywriting intensive or whatever.

Right. And you had. And there was two books in there. Like anyone who's going to the event, who's got access to copyright accelerator right now on this call, there's two books in there. One is the thousand page book, the Tony Flores one, which I'm still slowly making my way through, but, man, it's so freaking long. I actually printed the whole thing out and it takes a whole shoebox. Sorry environment. But yeah, the other book is about swiping. Up until that point, I didn't really know what swiping was in my mind. I. Or the way some people talk about it. It's like, oh, it's a bad thing. And you know, some other kind of copyright folks are like, you don't want to touch that. And so to me, I was like, oh, swiping is just copying. And then when I read that book, I'm like, oh, okay. No, it isn't. You're like taking the structure or you're taking the, you know, maybe you take a chunk of the copy and you're like, look at like, okay, what are they doing here? And it's like, I'm going to do exactly the same thing, but I'm going to change the words. I'm going to make it contextually fit with what I'm doing. But I'm still just going to do exactly the same thing. Like, that's the whole point of it. And I don't have any problem doing that because. And I don't have. I don't have any like hang ups about doing it because I'm trying to learn this thing and it is a like, right in a sales page. A 10,000. I just finished a 10,000. Well, I finished a 10,000 works I page last night. You got to give me feedback in the group on it. So enjoy that. But that is a lot of like 10,000 words. That's. I wrote like 8,000 word thesis at college. 10,000 words. Is frigging a lot of words. And so when you first start learning this thing that is, you know, sales page, right? And whatever, to get your head around all the things that are going on, man, it's like, it's just a pitfall after pitfall, especially when it's a whole. There's all that mindset thing where the voice in your head is like, yeah, you don't know what you're doing. You can't do this. You don't really know. Like, it's chipping away every. Whatever you write. And you're like, oh, this isn't good enough. This stinks. Okay, fall back on this framework and then just fall back on what someone else has done before from their framework. And right, I've got rnbc, which is the kind of big framework. And then everything's chunked down into. Okay, this is what you're doing in the lead, and this is what you're doing with the background story. And this is what needs to go here. And da, da, da. And then swiping is like. Then taking it down to another even more like, okay, I need to hit these, this and this and this and this point in here. This is like, okay, I'm looking at the psychology of what he's trying to do here. And. Okay, I need to write.

I've got to.

I'm going to put in a claim here, and then I'm going to back this up with some. I can see he's putting in a claim or he's putting in a promise, and then he's going to put in some, and then he's going to back that up with proof. And the proof is like studies or it's so. I mean. Yeah, it seems nuts to me. Like, why wouldn't you. Like, why wouldn't you do that? Because it just makes the chance of succeeding, like, so, so much better. You like standing on the shoulders of people who've already done this before and like, swipe people who are super freaking good, like, to give you a. Give you a little plug. Like, RNBC applied is the hands and the best money. It's the best monthly investment that I make, like, every month for the money. I mean, this sounds like what you're paying me to say this, but for the money, it's nuts. Like, how much? I mean, I just got a couple of things right. You did one last Friday, and then we're doing another one this Friday, and then you're going to do one on the Wednesday.

I know. Yeah.

I'm like, is this a Mistake. Someone we double booked. Is this wrong? But those seeing you breaking down your sales pages, I mean, it's just totally. I'm like, okay, now I get it. And I'm learning and I know that these work. So I think that's one of the biggest differences between brand advertising for me and direct response and why I actually perform. Direct response is like, brand advertising is like very subjective. You can look at two people could look at something and be like, ah, I don't really like that. And someone could be like, this is amazing. And it's really. At least it used to be. I don't know if it's changed, but tangibly like to say how successful some of the best advertising campaigns, the best in creative senses, the ad agency people fall over and give each other awards like they didn't make any more sales. They like bombed for the brand. But the thing with direct response is like, you wrote this thing you're showing me on RNBC applied, you know, it crushed because the client has showed you the numbers. So I'm like, okay, this works. I'm going to use this thing. Like, like, why wouldn't I? I don't know. It's just, it's like just a total shortcut because this, like, it's so hard. It's like direct response is. It's, it's. What is it? It's simple, but it's not easy, right? It's like the building blocks are there and you can, you can break something down and you know, to learn. I think it's. It is simple to learn, but that doesn't. It's not easy to write. I mean, you got. The only way to get better is to get your reps in. But like, it's that vicious circle of where you're. The only way to get better is to keep. To get your reps in. But, like, at first you don't want to get your reps in because it's like pulling teeth unless you're okay. I mean, I'm. I guess this might resonate with some people on some other writers, but like, personally, even though I've been writing for so long, it's freaking hard every time I sit down to write anything, like that voice in my head starts up, oh, yeah, you don't really know what you're doing. This one's probably going to stink. Oh, man. You shouldn't have taken the money off the client. Oh, is the 50% payment. Is it too late to. Can we cancel it already? Can you tell them what is there? What's A good excuse to. Man, telling one of your cats is sick, you got to go to the vet. That's a big problem, you know? And then I start writing it, and. And I'm like, oh, man, I hate this thing. This is killing me. Why am I doing this? And then suddenly, something will click far enough in, and I'll be like, this is great. I love this, right? I'm like, man, this mechanism really works really well. But anyway, the process is hard, and it's. But what makes it easier is having the confidence that you're like, yeah, okay, I know where I'm going. I've got this thing to fall back on. And that'll, like, if I. If I lose my. Because I think that's all right. And you gotta have a path, but you can't sit down and start something and not know where you're going, because it's gonna just wander and be, like, rambling. And you're gonna end up being like, oh, I don't know where I'm going with this. And then chips away your confidence. Like, I write plans for, like, everything. I didn't used to be like this, but I'm like, I mean, this is gonna sound like. This is gonna sound like Craig Valentine kind of like five things I do in the morning. But in the, like, if I'm writing. Because I don't write every day, but if I'm writing in the evening, I'll make sure that I know exactly what I'm doing in the morning. So I won't sit in front of my laptop first thing and be like, oh, man. What? And I don't mean, like, in terms of like, okay, you gotta write this thing. I'm like, okay, what's the plotted? Okay, I gotta write this and this and this and this joins to this. And this is how, like, if I'm writing a mechanism or if I'm fleshing out a mechanism, I make sure from an outline, I'm like, okay, I've got all. Make sure I get all this. I've got all the studies I need. I've got the basic flow of it. So I can just sit down and start writing it. Because if I don't have a plan. And I think that works on, like, every single level of writing. Writing a sales page, because your mind is gonna. Unless you're like. Unless you're like, some crazy narcissist is like, I'm fucking brilliant. This is the best thing.

But nobody's that way. I mean, I totally agree. I think, you know, that's the Whole strength of RNVC method is, like, it gives you a plan and step by steps, and you follow it. I mean, what you described is. Yeah, I still go through that practically every time myself. Honestly. I mean, like, literally, I could just refund it. I literally have to write something over the next couple of days. And I'm like, I got paid for two letters. Wrote the first one, Love it, crushed it. Really unique. So stoked. Crazy. Different clothes than I've ever written. So happy about it. And then I'm like, I have to write another one. I'm like, well, I gave them one good one. What if I just refund them the money for the other one? I don't know if I want to do this. But then you start researching and you're like, oh, well, fuck, that is kind of interesting. And you find the mechanism and before you know it, you're like, you know, just typing away. But it takes time. I mean, just. I'll be honest. Like, it is weird. I do meet people who just. It's usually when you're earlier on in it and you're like, you know, you just, like, love copywriting, and I've been there and felt that way, but there's a lot of times where I just, like, you know, I'm one of the best in the world and, like, I just still go through that, like, cycle you described, like, almost every time. And, you know, I don't. I don't think it goes away, but I think, you know, a lot of copywriters, especially early on, try to just sit down. They kind of have a plan in their head. It's like half in head, half the plans there, it's half baked. And they start to write and then they get stuck and they get lost and know what to do, and they know how to connect the dots and there's missing gaps. It's like, well, fuck, I can't really explain this very well. I can't really explain the mechanism. I can't really explain the product. But if you actually did the brief, which is the part that most people skip the most often, then you've actually written all the copy. You're forced. You're forced to know what the product is and to know how to sell it and how I'd explain it. And the same thing with, like, novels, right? Like, the idea of, like. Like who's like, Mary, like, Shelley wrote like, you know, Frankenstein in, like, a week, but was also super high on cocaine and like, just like, you know, a prodigy and so cool. Every now and then you hear that story. But, like, the vast majority of time you want to write a novel, you start down to write, and you write for, like, a couple pages, and you're like, this is really good. And then you're like, I have no idea where to go. You know, you have to have a plan and a roadmap for almost anything in life. And it's just the same with this process. No, Grant, my advice is not to do a bunch of coke to be a good copy.

I did not know that about Frankenstein. But that's. But the thing is, you spend your entire life, those things are getting held up. And, like, Mozart wrote his first concert when he was three years old and whatever. And so you're like. You're thinking, like, man, I'm not living up to this. I got to be at that standard. Like, what am I doing wrong? Whereas, like, the reality is, like, 99.9% of us are all in the same. We're all in the same boat. We're, like, trying to figure out, like, we're not met. We're not doing a ton of cocaine and writing Frankenstein. Let's put it that way. I want that on my. I want that on my headstone.

You know, having. Having been, you know, a substance abuser in my early 20s, late teens, early 20s, I can tell you that it did not, you know, I was in no position to write a great novel at that point. You know, you wanted to chain smoke cigarettes and, you know, talk about big plans that were never gonna materialize. I'm your guy. You want me to write, you know, an amazing novel. Not gonna be. Not gonna be the one to do it. So let's just talk. I didn't wanna take the questions. We'll move to the Q and A's in just, like, two or three minutes here. But I guess to share, like, the event for Copy Starter is coming up. It's at the February 23rd through the 25th. It's kind of on a year since, you know, you've joined. You know, a couple of episodes ago, we talked with Ed and kind of talked about the conversation I had with him at the event last February and how that led to him, you know, charging more and a lot of cool stuff. But I know you like. We had a little breakfast. Justin and I were like, hey, you know, if you're kind of on the fence about joining, you want to come talk to Justin and I, come meet us for breakfast before the kind of day get started. And you were there. I think Art McDermott was there and some other Guy was there and we.

Were really in r. I think, I.

Think at one point another guy came and he was like, kind of like just really on the fence. And we were like, oh yeah, don't join. You know what I mean? But then for you having the success with commercials and you know, you just seemed like a good fit and art too, and both of you have had tremendous success. But you know, why, what is it about having joined? I mean, the event great. Like everyone should buy a ticket for the event. And I'm not trying to promote. Everyone needs to join Copy Cider or the. Lots of people could benefit from it. But why, you know, why did it help you? Like what, what, what happened in the last year? I mean, you know, what's changed and why do you think?

I mean, I think so, like as much as I'm like blabbering on here, like I'm a pretty introverted guy, like in a social situation. I knew when I went to the event, like I knew I'd never been to an event before, but I'd heard that like, you know, some people were like, you should, you need to go to events. And network networking scared the shit out of me. I was like. And then I walked into the event and I knew Jared Harlan from another group I've been in, but that was the only person I knew in there. And he was with Natural Health show up at the time. So he was on their table. So I walk into the event and I'm like. So I went and sat at a table and then other people came and sat at the table and then I'm like, oh, okay. These people are just like human beings. Whatever, it's right. Everyone's chatting, everyone's trying to. Everyone's kind of got the same goal. And then, yeah, we did. Wait, what was the question?

What changed? I mean, what decided in the last year? How did you know the event and then I guess joining Copy Accelerator after that. Like how, you know, what kind of impact does that have?

Yeah, I mean, I knew I had to. It's funny how much has changed actually, because I knew I had to do something to get better clients. Like, I was like, I was like a lot of, I mean a lot of copyrights, right? I was scrambling around, I'm trying to find clients. I'm like sending cold emails, which is just the most soul destroying thing in the world. You know, I'm getting referrals off people. And then these people are flaky and they're like, I don't really want to pay, like I'm. Got any money right now? But, you know, so it's all that kind of shit where you just like, not like you can't. You're doing 40 hour weeks or whatever it feels like, and you can't. You're not making enough money to barely make ends meet. So I, I'm like, okay, I know that I can do this because I knew I could write. So there's got. There was a missing piece there for me and I didn't have like, I'd heard of masterminds, but I was like, man, I'm like, I don't want to. I don't know. I didn't believe. It wasn't. I didn't believe in masterminds, like fairies or something, but I didn't, like, I didn't think that was for me. And then I. And then, yeah, I came to the event, I saw what was going on. I saw people there who were like crushing it. And I'm like, okay, I can't afford to do this thing. I mean, I said that to you when we chatted. I was like, yeah, I've got the money to do this. But you know, know, if you think I can do it and I can make the money to pay for it, then I'm in. And you're like, yeah. But you. And Justin was like, yeah, no problem. I mean, you obviously saw something that at the time, I was like, yeah. And then in hindsight, now it just makes total sense. Like the two things I've got from that is, one is like, I'm learning. I get feedback from you guys and I'm learning constantly. But like, the network is the thing, right? It's like, who? You know, suddenly you get access to people who understand the quality, they understand direct response marketing, they understand its value, which is just, man, you don't have to have that fricking conversation where you're trying to convince them like, no, this is. You should do this, this is great. And you're thinking, I'm trying to make you money here and this thing's gonna make you money. And they're like, I mean, 500 bucks is a bit expensive, isn't it? It's like you think, dude, this is. And they don't even get the concept of like, you spend 500 bucks and maybe it'll make you 10 grand, maybe it'll make you 5 grand, it's going to make you more than 500 bucks. But they don't get that concept. So to just be working with people or for people who understand that Concept like yeah, like Max just said roi, right? They understand that they're going to pay you and they're going to get that money back. It's just, it's a game changer. Once the game changer is like the mindset shift. Once you get around those people and you're like oh yeah, I mean this makes total. It's just suddenly it's like a shift where you're like I mean I'm spending, I was just looking at my, I'm probably averaging. I was making like what four or five thousand bucks a month I think before I joined and that was like four. I was working for an agency, it was like 40 hours a week. It was like a lot and I had to deal with like slack pinging on my friggin laptop every second and all that other crap. But half my day wasn't spent even right and it was just dealing with shit. And then I was making four, maybe five and then now I'm averaging probably about 15 grand a month. Something like that of which I'm spending 5,000amonth on mentorship masterminds. I mean a couple of other masterminds. I've got lots of one on one coaching going on. Like I don't pre copyright, pre copy etc. Would have been like wait, what? You've making 15,000amonth and you're spending 5 of it? Like why don't you like hold, you need to hold on to that money as if. And now I just totally like being in the group is just totally shifted my mindset to like the most important thing right now for me is like invest in yourself. Like learn from the other, learn from people who are smarter than you. Because my, my new favorite catchphrase is like I don't, it's. I don't know what. I don't know. So like I'm writing stuff. Like I think I'm a, I'm a pretty, I'm a good, I'm a competent copywriter, I'm good but like I still don't know a ton. I mean does anyone ever always know everything but I still don't know a ton of stuff. Like I'm writing stuff and I kind of get why I'm doing it sometimes but I don't know the full power of it necessarily or I don't know that I'm missing a certain thing that could make that so much better if I just put that thing in there and so like okay cool, I'm going to pay someone who's done it and been There. And he's going to tell me like, yeah, actually this is the thing you should be doing. I mean, Justin talks about it a lot, right? Justin Goth about working with David Deutsch and how it just exploded is thing. I'm like totally on board with that now. It makes total sense to me. Like, I'll make 15 grand a month and spend 10 of it to make myself like a better writer because it's an investment in. Well, actually I won't spend 10 of it because I can afford my bills. But anyway, you get the point. It's an investment in me and it's. I'm like. And it's not like, ew, it's a woo woo investment. Like, it will pay off. I'll be at a charge 15 grand for a sales, like I'll be able to charge 20 grand for a sales, like in the future by getting better at what I'm doing. That is literally a financial investment. I'm like spending money now to make more money later, basically. Yeah.

It's so tangible, it makes perfect sense. And I mean, again, it is what I love about our. And I said again, because I haven't said this yet, but what I love about our industry, I mean, I just, you know, there's so few places where you can, you know, 3x or more like your sort of income in less than a year. Right. If you live at the event making four or five and now you're averaging 15, I know you've had, you know, months where you've done like 20. Right.

And I did a 30 grand month last year.

Yeah. I mean, to go from.

I was like, I was exhausted mentally. But yeah, but yeah, right.

It's wild.

It is nuts. And seeing people, seeing other people in the group who have just gone, it's the confidence it gives you. Like Michael Roshin, you know, seeing him come in and it's funny because we were chatting and he's like, outwardly, he's more vocal about his. What's the word? Not shyness, but yeah, right. His anxiety. And then I'm just chatting with them, I'm like, yeah, no, I go through the same thing. And he's like, what? Wait, that's weird. You do the same. And I'm like, yeah, I'm not as vocal about it, but yeah, I have that same anxiety. But seeing him. Just get the confidence because there's people around you who are like, you can ask anything if you've got. There isn't like, if you don't know what you're doing, ask Someone. And there'll be someone in the group who will tell you, oh, no, this is what you should be doing. Here's the things you should be looking at. Here's a couple of emails that are killing it. Here's the thing that you need. And then that gives you like so much more confidence because you know that if you working for a client and like, you get in a position where you don't know what. You don't necessarily know what you're doing. Someone knows what you need to be doing and you can ask them. And then you know, it's that snowball effect. You get better, you start to notice the patterns. You start, you can become a better writer. You get more confidence, you start to make more money. But yeah, you're totally right. It's crazy how, I mean, how you can go from making X to making three times, four times. That is. It's almost. I mean, it sounds like bullshit. I think it's part of the problem. It's part of the problem. But I mean, it's. And I get it because if I was on the other side, like 20, 19, John, I would have been the same. Like, yeah, that sounds weird. I don't know. But I mean now, I mean, I guess it's like, I sound like a weight loss. No, now I've seen it with my own eyes. I'm like, whoa. Yeah, I mean, right.

I think that's a big part of it too. And we will get to questions in 60 seconds from now. But like, you know, sometimes it sounds like there's. There's certain people out there where it just sounds like bullshit. And they're like, you know, yeah, right. That probably didn't even happen. Like, John. Even right now, someone will watch this and be like, John is probably lying, right?

But there's.

There's just the people who. Everything's a scam and there's nothing we can do to those people. Right? But it's annoying. I wish I could because I'm like, fucking great. Keep living a shitty life because you can't be open to new things. And I think that a bigger percentage of people, it's less that it's like a scam and it's like more like, well, it worked for them. Okay, maybe it did work for John. But there's. He was. He wrote commercials. That's why. Right. I mean, I don't know what you say. With Michael Roshin, he was doing call center stuff and then basically within a year, you know, went to making 10 to $20,000 a month. And so, you know, like, I mean, but, but, but the point is there's, there's like, oh, work for them. That doesn't mean it's gonna work for me. Right? But what I think what's cool is when you do go to some like the event and you, or you join a mastermind, whether it's copy excited or another one, but, and then you see all these people and it's working for all of them and then you kind of get to know them and you realize that they're not that different from you. That kind of barrier, that mental barrier that would separate you from them, like it starts to dissolve because you're like, fuck. Like these people are all doing this. Like it's not like one person, it's like, oh, here's like 220, I don't know, like two or 20 people on our mastermind right now. Right? And out of that, like, I don't know, 170 of them are, you know, crushing it. And maybe there's like, you know, 50 people who are doing, you know, I don't know, 30 people are doing okay. And you know, for various reasons and maybe, you know, maybe there's 20 people who aren't doing great. And I can usually tell you reasons why. It's like they're not attending the trainees, they're not applying this stuff. They're, you know, there's like, there's, there's reasons but, but still you're like, okay, so like 170 people that I'm seeing all the time who are all just crushing it and then a bunch of them aren't any different than me, you know, like, it's hard to keep your bullshit kind of self limiting beliefs and excuses going when you're just surrounded by all these people who are all doing it, you know?

Yeah, definitely. And I think the one thing, the one constant is like you got to put the work in. Yeah. Like you said, whether that's showing up for the trainings or whatever, or writing every day, like you're not, there isn't a magic pill. You're not suddenly gonna like read something in a book or watch a video that you're like, oh man, suddenly now I get it and like the Matrix has appeared and I can write this thing, but you just gotta keep writing and writing and writing and writing and put. And if you, if that's too much work for you and you're like, oh, that's not, then you shouldn't, you're probably in the wrong. Right. You've Chosen the wrong thing. Like it isn't the thing's fault, it's your fault for choosing the wrong thing. Because like I have to. I'm. I sit down and write. Like, I mean, I sit down and write most days. Like I'll put in. I just, I just started and I'm like, I'm not an exception compared to most people. I have the same things. Or I'll get up some days I've just started this new thing where I don't. My phone doesn't leave my bedroom now because I would come and sit and get a coffee and start looking at my emails and then it'd be like I'd get up at like 6 o' clock in the morning and then it'd be like 11. And I'm like, man, where did all those hours just go? I should have started some work. And then I'd be like, yeah, you know what, I'm going to do this tomorrow instead. I'll feel better when I. And then I'd do the same dumb thing. So now my phone doesn't come out of my bedroom till 11 o'. Clock. Like I wake up, I turn my alarm off, I flip it over, I don't look at my emails. I come in here, I sit down like I'm in my, in my dining room, on my dining room table. I'm. That's it. And I do like post it note. I do like Pomodoros but with post it note instead of using a. Because I'm like a weirdly analog. Like I print ebooks. I don't know what's wrong with me, but I just get a post it note. I look at what time it is. I write 20 minutes or 25 minutes ahead or 30 minutes. If it's 11 o', clock, I'll write 11:25 and I'll put the post it note. And then my brain is like, let's go and look at something else instead. And I'm like, look at the post it note. I'm like, no, it isn't 1125 yet. When the post it note says I can leave, I can get up for five minutes, but until then. So that's my post it note pomodoro thing.

I love it. It's funny. Max Rea said deep work, right John? Which it is a deep work and fun fact. I literally just during this call somebody I'd been on a. I did a podcast, a two part interview this week and she just sent me Cal Newport's email address. He's the author of deep work. Because she was like, you should have him on Road to a billion. And I was like, I would love to. So she just emailed me his email address. So I'm gonna reach out to him. Hopefully we'll get Cal Newport on the show and we'll talk about deep work. Then you can be like, oh, you know, I was on the road to be like, you know, it's like Cal Newport, John Robb, you know, all that good stuff.

I'm sure Cal will watch this episode and be like, wow, that John's a.

That guy.

That guy gets it insights. Yeah.

You know, what if. What if I met email, like Cal, like 6am he replies right back on his phone. And then he's like, you know, just like constantly responding. I'm like, do you ever actually work, bro?

Yeah. You want Slack?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. He's joining my Slack channel calendar. Cool. We got just two questions in the Q and A, but I'd love to get to them. Ed, you want to. You want to bust in there and we'll do it.

Awesome. So both from Max Yuria.

Oh, look at that, Max. Two maxes with one stone.

That's right. He had a question about horror stories with clients and question about swiping.

What up, Max? Hey, what's up, guys? Both are from me.

Yeah, today. Always showing up. Okay, so you were talking about swiping before and that's something that I've even tried to find videos of yours, Stefan, on YouTube, but I didn't quite find. So we all have heard that when you're swiping, maybe you want to swipe other industries to get some outsider ideas and bring them to your industry. But sometimes you may also want to study your competitors offers and dial in on them to see what's working. Right. So my question was, how do you balance swiping between other industries in your own industry to have the best copy possible?

Yes, a good question. Maybe I'll, I'll go first and then John, I'll let you go if you want to add in. But for me, I look most often I look at the competitors first and I kind of go through their copy and what they're saying, their big ideas, their tonality, the language they're using, the pain points they're talking about, all that kind of stuff. With other industries, it's more like just being active and continuing to be a student of copy and looking and reading people's promos or watching VSLs and making notes of language or things that you like or the structure that's My approach. So it's probably 80% direct competitors, 20% other industries. John, I'd be curious to hear about you and your take on that.

Yeah. Where I am right now, generally it's 100% direct competitors because I know it works in that niche. So I'm just. I'm not experienced enough to know that I could be trying to swipe stuff that works great in one nation doesn't work great in another. So I think when it gets down to nuts and bolts, I'm just doing. I just generally swipe from the niche that I'm doing. I'll look up. I mean, and I learned this off Stefan, basically. You know, I'll look up the top performing stuff on clickbank and then I'll break that down. Or I'll just steal his breakdowns from the group and I'll swipe his breakdowns. Um, so, yeah, mostly just. Just direct competitors.

It's probably why when I look at your copy, I'm like, oh, this looks so good. This is like a narcissist. Like, you know, like falls in love with himself.

So, yeah, possibly. This sounds great. That sounds just brilliant.

You're a really good writer. You seem smart. Okay, that's great.

Thank you, guys.

And just to.

To kind of differ from that question, do you have any funny horror stories with clients? Like the ones. The real ones from the, from the.

Commercial days, I'm guessing, or the Asian.

Any, any, any, any, any story the three of you have, including Ed, if you have any funny horror stories to share, since we don't have any questions left.

Sure, yeah. John, you want to go first with a good horror story you have. You showed a couple good ones already. Kind of.

Yeah. I think I might have already. I mean, direct response. I'm too. I mean, direct response. I've only been right in a couple of years, so, I mean, yeah, I don't want to. I love all my clients equally. They're all great. Please give me more work. I mean, I mean, advertising. I could talk about horror stories all day long. Brand advertising. I mean, give us one.

You're like, fuck. I didn't actually mean all day long.

I mean. Well, the unicorn one, just to elaborate on that was. We spent. So this was with the CEO of. It was like. It was some food. It was kind of like a convenience store, like 711 type thing. But. But this dude was the CEO of Blockbuster when they declined to buy Netflix for a million dollars. So, I mean, obviously a smart dude. I mean, he was the CEO of a number, but he dropped the ball on that one, I guess, given that most people on school probably don't even know what Blockbuster is. But, yeah, he brought his. And it was weird because he made a very. He's like, if anyone. We walked into the presentation, he's like, if anyone's wondering why my assistant's in here. Like, no one was, because it was his assistant. So you're like, well, I mean, she's probably in it because she's your assistant. He's like, I just asked her to.

She's just.

We've got some stuff going on, and she's just. She's checking my course just in case. Well, okay. That was kind of weird, but okay, we'll carry on. And then we presented, like, 10 campaigns, which was like, you know, a campaign would be like, four. Four TV ads and four print ads and posters and online whatever, blah, blah, blah. And so this took us, like, a couple of hours. We present all this stuff, and then he. And then he. And then he had this whole weird thing where his assistant gets up and said, oh, that call you were waiting for has come. And they left for, like, 20 minutes. And then they came back in, and he said, okay. So I wasn't truthful about my assistant. And, like, yeah, no shit. Like, everyone kind of gets something weird. He's like, I wanted her in the room because she's a real person, and I wanted to see what a real person thought of all your stuff. And then that was when they canned all of this work that we'd spent weeks doing. So that was my.

That's.

That's my me getting rejected by the guy who rejected Netflix story.

That's a great one. That's an amazing story. How about you, Ryan?

Hey. It doesn't talk about his stories. We need to.

Ed talks about his cougar stories.

But, yeah, I got.

I got some of those. I got some of those. There's Also one who's 24, and there's a block and a half away from me. But that's a story for another day.

Like, 24 is a cougar. This is. How old are you? What is this, 12?

Yeah.

I remember. I was 21. I briefly dated, like, she was, like, 26, and I was like, oh, my God, she's so old, you know? I felt like I was like, oh, my God. No one's ever dated a woman so old before, you know?

Yeah, John.

Yeah, John doesn't know about the mom's friend thing.

Anyway. What?

We're not gonna go back down. People can listen to the previous you.

Know, that's another story, John. Yeah, I got some tinned horror stories. I'll tell you.

I'm not going down that road. We're gonna finish.

Oh, I've got some of those.

I'll give you one client horror story. I'll share one. And we're gonna.

I don't have any.

I don't have any horror stories where the client was bad.

I had.

I have horror stories from when I was bad. I don't know if that counts. Yeah, Back in my early days of copywriting, speaking of swiping, so I was writing copy for this woman in the dating niche, and I literally copy and paste. Took somebody else's indoctrination sequence. And I, like, change a few words here and there as I was going through it. And I pass it off and I thought that's what swiping was. And so turns out, so I send it to one of my buddies who's a copywriter, who I kind of looked up to say, hey, can you review this for me? And then I send him, and he goes, yo, what the fuck, man? I wrote this. So I was, like, literally on the phone with this client for, like, three to four hours a day going over this sequence with them. And, like, you know, maybe like two weeks we were doing this together. So pro tip, don't write copy on the phone with your client. Because one thing, it's always better to make them think that you're, like, doing this magic voodoo shit behind the scenes and, like, stressing over it for, like, days on end when sometimes it's just like, oh, that's an idea.

Boop.

Done, you know, and it's just not as impressive if you do on the phone with them. But the thing is, it doesn't respect your time either, usually. And so basically, I was kind of done with this, with this client, and I didn't really know how to. How to tell her. So I pretended that my mom was, like, really, really sick and had to.

Take care of her.

And, like, I didn't, like, wasn't able to fulfill on the project anymore. I just, like, dipped. Yeah. So that's really shitty of me. So don't do that.

You, like, triple down on the things not to do with.

Dude, I told you, I'm. I was the copywriter from Hellman. My client from hell. Yeah, don't. Don't do that.

It is weird because I just started writing with a. I just started writing for some. For a client, and his thing was like, okay. It's like, all I need you to do is like, get this done on time. That's all I need you from you like the bars, like so low. He's like, you wouldn't believe how many copywriters cannot get stuff to you on time. Yeah, it is impossible, it's near impossible to find someone. So I think I'm gonna actually get it to him on time, which is great. You think?

Yeah, Copywriters are notorious for getting shit handed in late. You don't even have to be that good. And as I'm saying that, somebody just texted me because I know that they just fucked up something for me because they were like a couple days late on it. Which is very funny as I'm saying this because I know that they're listening to this. I see you. But yeah, that's definitely important to be at least three days ahead of schedule. Like, if you say, okay, I can get this done for you in a week, that better be done in four days.

Is that. That's the Ed. Damn. You're getting it.

If I say it's gonna be, I like it.

But yeah, if someone says to me, I need this by 12 o' clock on Friday night, I'm sending it at like 11:59 and 59 seconds. There you go. Done. As long as you're sending it in time.

Yeah. I mean, obviously I've got, I get more leeway because of my reputation and track record. But like, if something, if I tell someone it's, you know, done, done in seven days and they email me in five days, I'm just such a dick. I'm like, hi. I'm like, hey, it's been five days. So, no, I don't have it yet. I was like, I told you, I have it to you in seven days. So, you know, if you don't hear from me after seven days, feel free to follow up. Like, otherwise, you know, it's coming soon. Like I'm told. I'm so surly about it when people are like, hey, any progress? Is it done? Where we at? I'm like, I'm like, no, I told you. Like, I'm like, again, I'm not recommending this for people who are just starting starting out. But like, that is a nice thing about having a good reputation is you can just be a complete about that. And like, I, I am, you know, I'm not now, but I'm just very firm. I'm very like, why are you messaging me like this?

But it is good to set that boundary though. Like, you don't have to be asked about It. But like, I mean, you can if you want, Stefan. But most people, like, either way, it's, it's important to show, to set that boundary because it's like, hey, I told you this could be done like by this time. I will let you know when it's done. The thing is, people have been so burned in our industry that they're just fucking skeptical. Like, you know, client, like copywriter hands in their stuff two, three weeks late when it's supposed to be like a three day project or like they just disappear with their money.

Yeah. I think with a month long, when you're doing sales pages, if they're giving you like four to six weeks, I mean, I totally get it if you got like four to six weeks and you don't on a first project with a new client, I'll send them like an update after like two weeks and then I'll send them an update after. Like if it's a four week project, I'll be like, hey, just let you know I'm here. I'm doing like just for the first time because that eases their nerves because I don't know who the hell you are really. They don't know if what you sent them is really your samples. Yeah, you know, they don't know what, what, whether you're gonna like just disappear into the ether. So I've like calm their nerves first time round. Then the second time it's like, then you just do a Stephan. Yeah, I said four weeks, didn't I? Smiley emoji.

I like to do high touch point with my clients. For sure, that's super, super important because then it kind of gives them that peace of mind that you're working on it and you don't have to show them shit. You can just be like, hey, just wrapped up the research today, wanted to give you a quick update. That's it.

Right?

Cause when you start showing them your shit, you start to like second guess yourself and they start giving you fucking feedback when you don't want to hear it. And especially if you're in the middle of the process, that can ruin your whole thing. Worst thing you can do is give client access to Google Doc before you're done with it.

Never do that.

Oh, dude, I've had. That's a brand store. Okay. Another quick brand advertising horror story I had. I was working for a client and they were changing what I was writing in the Google Doc. I was writing it. They were like, it was like, it was like I was being chased like off a cliff by A tiger or something. They're like coming down the page and I can see them editing stuff and I'm writing and they're coming after me. It was like she was like. And she wasn't even a writer, she was an account director. And, like, leaving, like, questions that I'm like, this question doesn't make sense to me. Why are you asking me that? Yeah, that was not fun.

You just. I got severe anxiety. Hearing that giving me severe anxiety.

I had to walk around the other side of the office where our desk was and say, hey, could you stop? Could you not.

Could you fuck off? Thanks.

Why should I written this possibly. And then. But. And then I got. But hilariously, I then got a bit of a reputation in the office as being like one of these writers who's very protective of their work, which I'm like, is that very protective? Not wanting to get it edited 20 seconds after it comes out of my. That's.

That's like. That's like the equivalent of having like your. Your manager breathing, like their moist air down your neck and you can start to feel like the fucking dew drops.

Because they're so close. Yeah, but just the digital version.

Exactly.

Awesome. Well, hey, let's go ahead and wrap up here. This has been. This has been awesome. We're gonna get. Honestly, I'm starving. I was on a podcast a sudden this morning, like 5:30. And then I kept wanting to eat, but the podcast went for two hours and I had to call a vet for an offer I'm writing and I went right to this. So I'm gonna go eat some food. That's what I'm gonna do. So we're gonna wrap up. But John, thank you so much for being our guest, for coming on. It was a blast having you, man.

Thanks for having me on. I hope I didn't waffle too much.

Probably did, but whatever you did, you did awesome. It was a blast.

And say hi to Cal Newport for me.

Yeah, I will, I will. I'll email him a bit later today. Kind of nervous, you know, like, imposter syndrome never goes away. Like, what if Cal Newport thinks I'm a big loser? You know? But I'm going to go for it anyway. I'm going to do it.

I believe in you.

A big loser with your almost billion dollars in sales, Stefan, you know, not.

Only that, but it's like, what is like the worst case scenario as a Cal before it doesn't reply and then I'm like, okay.

He's like, I only deal with people who have $2 billion in sales, right?

Yeah. Yeah. And then I'm like, oh, God, I guess it's like 66 degrees out. Almost 70. That was unfortunate. Reply. I guess I'll go for a walk or play golf or, like, just go on living my life, you know, so it'd be okay. But thank you so much for everyone listening. If you enjoyed this, please leave a comment. If you watch on YouTube, hit the like button. If you're on on itunes, make sure you leave a review. If you haven't, make sure you're subscribed. Huge thanks to John Rob, Huge thank you to Ed Ray, as always, thank you to everybody who is here on this live recording. And we'll see everybody next week. Thank you all so much.

Thanks, guys.