[RTB:E7] “Turning Adversity into a Weapon (With Ian Stanley)” - Road to a Billion w/ Stefan Georgi

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 where you can ask me questions about freelancing, copywriting, entrepreneurship, mindset scaling, funnels, relationships, money and more. The name of the podcast, the Road to a Billion, is kind of a double entendre. I will hit a billion dollars in sales for my own products and my clients products this year and I'm trying to help a billion people in the next 10 years. And by help, I mean make a meaningful impact in their lives, whether that is getting a better income, having a better mindset, whatever that may be. So we'll start taking calls in about five minutes from now, or questions, I should say, if you have one, go ahead and put it in the Q and A chat here. And then what will happen is once we start taking questions, Ed Ray will answer, we'll kind of go through, curate them, select your question, he'll then unmute you, put you on where you can actually talk with myself and my special guest who I'll be introducing in a moment and we'll answer it and talk through. So Ed, do you want to go ahead and say hi to everybody and give a quick intro and let them know who you are?

Sure.

Yeah.

Hey everyone, I'm Ed Wray and I help make people's funnels Facebook friendly so they can get some of those Zuck bucks. I'm really excited here to help co host the show and always love being here. So thank you for having me.

Awesome. Thank you. Yeah, always good to have you here, Ed. And today I'm going to also be joined with a or by a special guest, my good friend Ian Stanley. Ian I've known since 2015. Definitely 2016. Maybe 2015, it's been a while, but.

2015 or 16, whenever we were in.

France, before France, you always forget Ed.

Oh yeah, before France, Ed o' Keeffe's.

Time collapsing the When I first met Ian, we sat at the same table, chatted, and have been friends ever since. So Ian's going to be joining me today. We have a freelancing course coming out in the next couple weeks here that we'll talk a little bit more about during the show. But for right now, Ian, do you want to go ahead and just introduce yourself to people who aren't familiar with you and kind of share who you are and what you're all about?

Yeah. Super underwhelmed to be Here, don't feel honored at all. Unlike Ed. Just really. This just feels like a huge inconvenience on my day and really wish I wasn't here. But since I am, I guess I'll just try to enjoy myself. So, yeah, my name is Ian Stanley. I am half English and half American, which means everyone thinks I'm Australian. So I just want to get that out of the way because otherwise you'd be sitting here the entire time going, where is this guy from? I just. I don't know. His accent, so weird and so I can't understand. I don't know what he's. I can't listen to him because I need to know where he's from first. Or you'd just be like, oh, he's a story. And so my main thing now, I would say is that I help people make more money in less time while having more fun. So. And yes, I am Australian. Very good. Very clever little pun there. And you may have seen me as people are now popping into the comments here. You may have seen my parody characters. I have Lie, Topaz, Very Grinder, Chuck Kent, Gardone, Richard Thanew and a couple of other parody characters. Muscle Funson, Silly Gene, Ryan, Danielle, Moron.

And.

It'S been a lot of fun making these crazy videos. You may have seen them. Well, you probably haven't. I don't look quite like I do in the videos. And then people go, what? You're the guy from those videos. No way. Billie Jean actually freaked out when he first met me. He was like, there's no fucking way. You have an accent, bro. You're American. There's no way. And he literally walked away for about five minutes when he first met me. He's like, I can't deal with this right now. And then he came back, he's like, get the fuck out of here. And then I made a Silly Gene parody. So I've written a lot of copies, sold over a hundred million dollars worth of stuff. I've made videos drinking from toilets and done all sorts of weird viral videos as well as more traditional copy. And I'm very, very good at email marketing and coming up with if you've ever seen people send from a weird from name like your abs or your buns or your thyroid, I'm the guy who made that happen. And so I'm relatively creative. Your poop. Yep, that's me. So if you look up Ian drinks toilet water, I think you can still find some of my videos.

How many views do some of those have? Like, I Remember, like, years ago, one.

Of the, one of the toilet water ones had millions.

Yeah.

The most viewed video actually is the one about my dog. It was like 9 million views on Facebook.

That's crazy.

The story about feeding the wolf and my dog and then, and then the parodies. I think the biggest parody one has like 100 and something. Thousand. It's. They're not, they're not huge globally, but they're big within our industry.

Yeah. And they're kind of more niche anyway.

Yeah, exactly. Yeah.

Awesome. Well, Ian, I'm thrilled to have you here. And Ian. Ian and I are going to be answering questions in just a couple minutes. The one thing, the way I start these shows off is with a monologue. However, since I've got Ian with me today as my special guest, it'll be more like a dialogue. And what I want to talk about real quick before we go into taking questions and answering them is really this idea of turning adversity into a weapon. I wrote about this to my email list this morning and I was inspired to write about it after some conversations with Ian this week. I was talking with Ian about these cool stories of all these people I come into contact with and get to help and, you know, through Justin and Stefan Talk Copy or my email list or whatever it is. And I was mentioning Win, who is in Nigeria. He's 20 years old and he was sharing content posting, talking about his story, his struggles, and I ended up hiring him and people just absolutely love him. He's on the call here, Win. What's up, buddy? Jeff, who's on this call too, Jeff Kahuthu, who's in Kenya, messaged me, was in like 150 square foot. Like I was about to take a one bedroom apartment, but it was just one room, right, Jeff? It was just like, you know, your bed, your kitchen, your workstation and like a small room. And then, you know, you've over time become like a really incredible copywriter and you've got all these awesome clients and you're, you know, you showed me a picture the other day of like your monitors and computers and your whole professional setup. All this awesome stuff, man. You know, talk to Kimmy Doo, who's on this call. She's 16, she's, you know, crushing it, working with clients, doing all that awesome stuff. Elijah, who's in Nigeria, there's Krishna and Hadley who are in India. There's always people who are doing amazing stuff. And the thing that Ann kind of pointed out to me was like, for all these people who I'm mentioning who are all incredible human beings, incredible copywriters, incredible marketers. They could sit around and look at being in Nigeria or being in Kenya as a disadvantage. Well, if I was in America, I'd have an easier time getting American clients. Or Kimmy could be like, well, I'm 16, so that's why I'm not getting hired. But instead of that, all the folks I mentioned and more are just, you know, they're taking what could be a disadvantage, you know, as far as getting clients goes and building their careers. And they're turning them into like these wins and these victories, and they're doing it by sharing their story. And when you share your story and you share who you are and where you've come from and you're really authentic about it, people really resonate with it. And so I think, Ian, like, you point that out to me, really helped to. I kind of knew it a little bit subconsciously, but I really appreciate that you were so explicit with it and it was really inspiring. And then with that being said, Ian, I want to let you go ahead and speak to this sort of idea a bit because I know it is something you're very passionate about.

Awesome.

Yeah.

I mean, so when it comes to adversity disadvantages and you know, how most of the world looks at the world, I believe that the only constant is change. And the only true constant outside of that is that everything in the world is a double edged sword. Nothing exists on its own as a good or bad thing. It's just our perception and our attachment of values to it. The reason why babies are so stoked all the time is because they don't look at a tree and go, that's a tree. They just look at stuff and they don't have any labels and they don't have any attachment values to anything. And then we start to become conscious little humans who can speak and label stuff. And then we get really bummed out. Uh, or maybe if you, you know, maybe you don't. And I tended to have a pretty good happiness meter, which was nice, but the reality is that everybody looks at somebody else and tends to think, well, they've had it easy or they've had it hard. And the reality is nothing exists in a vacuum is a good or bad thing. It's just the values attached to it. So when somebody, you know, it's very easy to look at my life and I even have a joke, I do stand up as well and I have a joke. And, you know, I talk about being about white privilege and you know, yes, it's a real thing. And I say, people just look at me and they just assume that I've just had this really easy life. And I have. And so it's, you know, people just think, oh, a white guy, that's, you know, that's the ultimate right now. Well, the reality is, actually it's probably the worst time to ever be a white guy. It's been great for a long time, don't get me wrong. But right now it's, you know, we're not the most popular group of people, but you know, what people don't identify with is the story of. Well, so I was born to a mother and father with above average intelligence who are world class athletes who both spent a good amount of time, a lot of time with me and loved me. And of course, you know, I'm human, I have traumas. There were issues, of course, but the reality is, you know, you could look and go, that's a pretty solid, you know, upbringing, right? And. And then you can look at somebody like win or somebody in, you know, somebody in Nigeria and go, well, man, they've got all the disadvantages. But I don't have that story. And you do have that story. And we were talking about the guy who's in a wheelchair, right? Yeah. And you can easily go, right, he's a quadriplegic. And you go, man, that's so sad. And of course, of course that is. But there's. He's got a story that's so much that is deeply impactful inherently. And so you can look at these things and go, well, I'm a victim of this. Or you can go, how is this disadvantage my biggest advantage? I've written entire newsletters on this about how, you know, there's two things I wanted to touch on. One is that we all become a victim of our strengths. And nobody talks about this. Not just that we have weaknesses opposing our strengths, but our strengths quite literally create weaknesses. We become a victim of whatever our strengths are. So because I write copy super fast, right? And I've written most of my best sales pages in about 45 minutes, I go, I'll come back and, you know, tweak it and make it better later. But it works. And so I just become a victim of that strength. And I never go back and really dial it in to get it to that completely next level, right. Or you look at somebody who's very good at paid ads and building a list, right? And they're so good at building the list that they don't become good at monetizing the list. We had a guy on a unit call yesterday, which is my membership group and he was like, yeah, there's this. These people are running paid ads. They do 300 grand a month and they've got a million person million leads that they've never sent an email to. Now that's because they're so good at generating leads that they don't even bother sending them anything because they go and sell them to other businesses and stuff. So whatever your strengths are, whether it's, you know, some people go and look at a good looking person and guess what? Most good looking people aren't that interesting. What's ideal is if you spent a bit of your teenage years being fat and looking like a little girl, which is how I spent some of my teenage years. That makes you develop a personality. And then if you become mildly good looking later in life, now you're interesting. Now if you're ugly, you end up having to probably be funny or do something else. There's always a resulting benefit of whatever your disadvantage is. So whatever it is that you're experiencing, there is some opposite advantage if you look at it. And this is the last thing I'll say on this, so we can keep going. But when it came to doing stand up, which is the thing that I love the most in the entire world, I basically stopped for a handful of years, for a few years because I had this idea in my mind that I don't look like a traditional stand up comedian. So I would say to my friends, I'd be like, you know, the worst thing you can be in stand up is an in shape, reasonably good looking white guy. But there's nothing funny about healthy white people, especially healthy white men, right? Nothing funny about that. And so I would tell that to my friends and I just went, yeah, and that's, you know, and other comics don't, didn't like me, to be perfectly honest. They would make comments about me on stage after, they'd be upset. It's like American guys don't like English guys. Like, oh, you should come over here and have sex with our women. You just go up and you know, and I, you know, I say, guys, just assume. I just go up to a girl, say a few sentences and she wants to sleep with me. And it's like, that's not true sometimes it's only one sentence. And so that's why I love that joke. But the reality is I let that stop me because I thought of this thing as this disadvantage of I Don't look like a traditional comic. So therefore, how am I going to succeed in this world of, you know, you can be in shape and black, you can be in shape and Asian, you can be skinny and white or fat and white, but you're not supposed, you know, you can be weird looking and white. And so I went, well, there's no space for me in this. And so I let that stop me and then one day realized this is not my disadvantage. This means that I can be the only one to fill that space. I can have my own niche. I can dominate this category and acknowledge it because other people you've got to. It's comedy and copy are very similar. The number one rule is to enter the conversation in their head. So when I walk on stage, people to. I don't like, I don't want to like this guy, right? He just looks like a bit of a douche. Look at his hair and, and that, well, Dane Cook's not a good looking guy. Look at that guy's face. That's not a good looking person. That's a, that's an energetic. That is not a good looking person. And so when you, when you get on stage, you have to enter the conversation in their head and you have to acknowledge the things that people are already thinking. And that's what I loved about. I don't know if it was win or if it was somebody else who we were looking at one of the things they sent to some or what they maybe sent to you, Stefan and they're like, I know I'm from Nigeria. I know what you're thinking, oh, this is another scam. You know, you have to acknowledge and acknowledge objections in advance and deal with the thoughts that are going on in their head and stand up and copy a very similar in that way where you think of the objections in advance. You think of what are they probably thinking. That's why I have to say the accent thing. I've done that joke for five years. I've never thought it was that funny. It has never not gotten a laugh because it's the conversation going in their head. And so whatever it is that they're thinking, you have to acknowledge that and take your dis. What you think is a disadvantage and what this is what I would. I'll end with this is make a list of what you think all your disadvantages are and then make a column right next to it and put what are the resulting advantages you could have from those disadvantages? Well, I'm a, you know, I'm a Quadriplegic. Well, guess what? That makes for an incredible uplifting story.

Right?

It means that you don't have to waste your time with things like running and lifting weights. Right? Look at these. As much as that may sound like a joke, seriously, write out your disadvantages and then write in the column next to it all of the resulting advantages that could happen because of that. And it'll completely change your life and you'll stop being a victim.

That's awesome, Ian. Thank you so much for sharing that. And yeah, I think just looking at the comments and the chat people were just like, holy shit, I love this perspective, you know, great insights. This is good. And it is, it's so, it's so powerful, man. It's so motivating and so really glad you're. I know you hate being on this and I know you're really disappointed that you've had to spend your time here, but really glad to have you here. So cool.

I'm happy to be here.

I know you are. And so everyone just got to get that kind of out of the way. Ian and I have a freelancing course coming out in the next couple weeks here. It's called Freelancer Freedom. We started a, we did a live event back in November. So we kind of took people who are already freelancers and we showed them how to triple, quadruple, quintuple their income. So I had a lot of advanced freelancer strategies about how to get better, higher paying clients and do less work but make more money. And then we went into Mindset and a bunch of really cool strategies. So that's awesome. So that's part of it. The course is the recordings from that event as well as the PowerPoints. But then on top of that, we went and got case studies from a lot of people on my community and the INC community about how they got their first client, how they got clients early on. There's like 15 different case studies that we'll be starting with people sharing how they got clients through Fiverr. Like Ariba Ahmed, who shared one of the case studies. She shares how she does gets $1,000 gigs off of Fiverr. You know, for five charging $5, she turns into $1,000 gig for content writing. There's people talking about LinkedIn. Kimmy do has one of the case studies. She talks about what she did with TikTok, which is really cool. There are strategies on going to clickbank and cold outreach to people. There's just all these amazing case studies and we did that. So basically there's no one. There's no one right way to get clients, right? So we put these case studies so that you can look at these different paths and you can try things out and see what works for you. But if you follow that, you will get clients. And we kind of focused on it being how to get your first client. But then really, if you're like, if I had that, these case studies in 2012, even 2013, even if I already had some clients, it would have helped me to get way more clients and it would be way easier and I would have grown my business way faster. So the case studies are incredible. And in addition to that, we've done some other videos about following up how to kind of post in Facebook and use LinkedIn. We're creating a ton of content for it. So the course isn't live yet, but it'll be live in the next couple weeks here. And we're really excited about it. It's going to be really awesome.

And we're going to send you guys a video from basically how we decided to do all this. I've found that the best products I've created have come from the idea of what would I have wanted when I was starting with this? Or the way I like to think of it for myself is, what if somebody erased all of my brain of the things I had learned about this topic? How could I learn it in 1/10 or 1/100th of the time that I had to learn it, that I learned it in? And that's where Stefan and I, we were going through these case studies and we were recording some extra content for this course, and we were just like, damn, neither one of us had this shit. We just figured it out. We had to figure it out. And especially with freelancing, one of the hardest things, when I started really freelancing and making good money, I was like, you don't know how to set up your deals and you don't know how to. There's no real way to just. You have to get experience or you just mimic the successful people. And I didn't have these really great contract deal setups. And then I thought, figured that out. And that's what made. That's why I've been able to make so much as a freelancer while not working very much. And so it's really cool that Stefan and I finally are getting this out because we did this in November. And the results for people, by the way, were crazy. The people who are in the room, one went from doing, you know, his biggest month ever was six grand now he's done over 30 grand a month. He's doing over 20 grand a month consistently. We've had probably four or five of the people who've doubled to quadrupled their income from showing up just for that one day in that room. And now we've added all these other pieces to the. To the content. And so I'm super excited for people to go through it, because this is stuff that Stefan and I literally didn't have. And I think what separates Stefan and I from so many freelancers is how much we're able to charge and how little we end up tending to work compared to other people who, you know, who do the same type of thing. So if I was a freelancer, you know, it's something that I like starting, not even starting out at any point. We had people who had been doing it for, what, 10, 15 years who showed up and who still double tripled their income. And it's a good sort of mix for Stefan and I because we have different types of personalities. And so we originally had the idea of this introvert, extrovert system of if you're more extroverted, my methods are going to work quite well for you. If you're more introverted, Stefan's methods are going to work really well for you. And you have to base it off of your personality. And so we ended up. Basically, we had this idea, and Stefan was like, I want to take a private jet from New York to Vegas. And I was like, you should. He's like, should I do it? Is that a good. I was like, it's definitely a good idea if I'm on the. On the jet with you. And he's like, well, how can we. You know, how can we pay for it while we're on the jet? And that. And that's also one of the most important shifts in living that you can ever make, is instead of asking the question, can I afford it? You ask the question, how can I afford it? And so we had this idea for this workshop. We came up with it while we were on the flight. We sold the workshop and we made the money back and we recorded it. But what we did is we recorded a video on the jet for about an. It's an hour and 20 minutes of content talking about money, about persuasion, about freelancing. And we're going to give that to you guys for free. So Stefan will send it to his list, I'll send it to mine, and we'll give you guys that video to watch as well. So, yeah, Just as a little aside there for you.

No, that's great. And yeah, the jet thing is cool. We'll get to questions in less than two minutes. I'm super pumped about it. But that is a good point because even with the jet thing, I get it. Not most, you know, most people aren't going to go get a private jet. But like, for us, again, it was like, well, we want to do this. How do we make it work? How do we create an ROI from this activity? And then like, by creating content on the jet. It was super fun. We weren't like, annoyed. It didn't feel like a chore. We're here just having awesome conversations and recording it. Then by the way, that also turns the jet flight into a straight up tax write off, because it was already kind of a write off, you know, because it was for business travel. But then if the government wants to come to me and like, look at, you know, and be like, well, you can't write this whole thing off. It's like, here's the video. We literally recorded and worked on this jet the whole time. So then that entire flight is in a write off too. And when said, I see the introversion in your eyes, I didn't know. I didn't realize that it was, you know, they were that true, revealing. But I appreciate you letting me know when. But the point is it was turning something right. That's how you kind of take a liability and turn it into like an asset. So with that being said, let's go ahead and hop in and answer some questions. So if you haven't put them in the QA yet, make sure you do that. And our Q and A, Ed, thanks for. Usually we would have heard more from Ed, and I do miss you and your sweet voice, Ed, but we're going to get some more Ed Ray time here. So, Ed, you want to go ahead and just sort of tell us who we got up first?

All right. I got plenty of Ed time. I'm good. I'm good on my Ed time. Been having an hour or two a week with him, you know, and it's just. God, it's excruciating dealing with this kid.

Yeah, pretty much. My mom would say the same thing. Anyway, so we have rehad, who asks when you're just starting out like a newbie and want to become an email copywriter? What's the step by step process you follow?

Nice rehat. How's it going?

Hello? Great. Are you here?

Awesome. Yeah, I can hear you. Glad to have you on.

Yes. So My question is, when you are just starting out and you want to specifically be an email copywriter, what are the step by step process you will follow to achieve that?

Cool, that's a great question, Ian. Since you are a email copywriter extraordinaire, I will let you take the first crack at that one.

Yeah, so it depends on what you're talking about. If it's the client side of getting clients, then you know, honestly I would just say get this product when it comes out and follow the case studies and do that. When it comes to the step by step process of learning the skill of email copy. Actually Simon just put it into the comments. The 8020 copy course. And that's not even me just trying to like so that it's. The reality is this is what I asked myself when I started, that was the first product ever created. And I said, what if somebody erased my brain and I had to become a great email copywriter in four weeks? And. And so I would, I would. Basically I. The way that I teach things is what I call ppe. So it's principle. So you teach the principle of whatever it is that you're learning, then you practice that principle and then you execute on it. So within the context, and then with like this new almost passive income challenge thing, I do what I call pse, which is principle, and then the story that helps drive that point home and then the execution. So within learning about email copy, you learn the principle, then you practice by hand copying emails that have made a lot of money. So you literally sit down and the way that I have it structured is you do 25 minutes of hand copying, preferably in cursive on blank paper if you're willing, and then you spend the next 25 minutes writing your own email. So executing and doing that. There's lots of people who hand copy, which is one of the best ways to ever learn copy and get better at email copy or long form copy. But then they don't write their own shit. And you're like, I remember back in the day, I'd seen a guy, he had done over 300 days in a row, hadn't missed a day of hand copying. And I was like, oh, so what have you written? He's like, I haven't written anything yet. I just keep hand copying, like it's time to write. And so the 8020 course is the most in depth email copywriting course out there. So you know, if that's. I know Riyadh, I think you're on my list. And you may already have it, but that's definitely the most structured step by step way without getting the course. I would still tell people, find emails that you know are actually making money, hand copy them, and then really learn how to tell stories. Learn how to take your everyday life and turn it into stories. Nothing bad ever happened. This is the way I look at combi and email copy very similarly. Nothing bad ever happens to a comedian. Only funny stories happen to a comedian. Because let's say you have a bad story. You know a story where, you know, you're in Belize, you've just had a Starbucks, the only Starbucks coffee on the entire island, you're going diving, and they tell you that there's going to be a bathroom in about an hour, and they lied to you. And instead you're in the middle of the ocean in Belize and you've just had a huge cup of coffee and you have Crohn's disease and. And you're going to poop. And if I just say that and then I go, and then nothing happened, that's a boring story. It's a much better story that I had to jump off the boat, lean off there, poop into the clearest water you've ever seen, watch the poop rise up and karate chop it in half. Right? That's. That's a much better story. So it's the same with being an email copywriter. Nothing bad happens to you. Only stories happen to you. And you learn how to turn everyday things into stories. And people like stories and they love. Actually, Dan Ferrari said something beautiful today. He's writing email to his list about some of my stuff, and I think he said it better than I've ever said it. Is your relationship with your list, not only is it an individual story, in each email, you're telling one very long story with characters and open loops and this long, long story about your life. And that's always getting in, enhanced and changed by characters and pulled out. And it's. That's what keeps people around, is this long thread of a story. It's why you watch Game of Thrones for seven or eight seasons, because there's an overarching longer story that's going on underneath everything. So if you can master storytelling and telling emotional stories and being vulnerable, that's kind of the shortcut, is to be vulnerable and tell stories.

Awesome. Riha, does that help you out?

Yes. Yes. Great answer. I just want to ask Ian one more question. If you.

Yeah, I mean, go ahead. Yeah.

You said, Ian, that the story telling is the most important part of the email, and I agree with that. And what is the best way to learn telling stories? And what is the best way to learn to tell stories that will rely with my audience? Stefan, you want me to go again?

Yeah.

I mean, you give your couple of cents here, and then I'll.

The best way to learn to tell stories. I mean, I just look at the hero's journey. I mean, there's a sort of a narrative, like, to it, right? There's usually this idea of where you started. There was a call to action, something that brought you into action or made you realize that a change was going to occur. There was a moment where you had to step outside your comfort zone, and there was a decision. You crossed the threshold, and you did that. It was uncomfortable. You faced trials, challenges, and tribulations, and yet you also learned lessons along the way.

And.

And ultimately, you came out the other side as a changed person. And here's what you learned from doing that. And if you look at that structure, it's in every great story, every work of fiction from 3,000 years ago until today. So I really recommend that. I mean, even Ian's story kind of follows it in a way of like, he's in Belize, has coffee, things are normal. Gets on a boat. Suddenly he's got a poop. You know, he's got Crohn's disease. He's drinking coffee. There's this, like, moment of a decision where he has to figure out what's he gonna do. And, you know, does he hold it or does he do something bizarre and uncomfortable and embarrassing? He takes the leap, in this case a literal leap, and hops off the boat, hangs on, you know, makes it from everybody.

Contact with the dive instructor while he decides to fill an air tank while I'm doing that, and just doesn't look away from me and just like, okay, bro. Hey, not now. This is a big moment in my life, and this is the clearest water you've ever seen in your whole life. One of the best ways to get good at stories is to, at the end of each day, write a story about your day. Like, go do if. Even if you did nothing, learn how to write stories about boring stuff. The best writing advice I could ever give anyone is to go read Scott Adams article about how to be a better writer. Just type in Scott Adams how to write. That article is about seven or eight paragraphs, and it will give you everything you've ever needed to know about writing, outside of the fact that you should also put all of your writing into the Hemingway app. It's just thehemingwayapp.com you don't have to download the desktop. People like, oh, it costs money. I've never paid money for it, and I've used it for 10 years. And try to get your writing down to a third grade level. And then when it comes to stories, it's understanding. First off, the shortcut to telling great stories, to tell stories you don't want to tell. So if there's a story that is really hard for you to tell, it's going to make you feel things. And when you feel things, you write from a place of feeling, and that feeling is going to transfer into the page and into the people who are reading. Doesn't matter how good you are at storytelling or writing, the best stuff you're ever going to do is when you're feeling something. And so if you can tell the stories that scare you the most, tell that. Here's a shortcut is you just straight up, you go, what is an embarrassing story? So we used to do this at the workshops that I. That I teach, and we. Well, when we do workshops again, I still do it is you start out the day with everybody has to tell an embarrassing story in front of the group. And what happens is it makes you vulnerable, it opens you up, it allows you to feel, and it connects people to you. Connection happens around the rough edges. It doesn't happen. And you know, you know, we don't like, Superman's boring as shit because there's nothing wrong with him and there's no flaws. And so you want to have flaws and you want to, you know, right. Those. Those rough edges. And then learning story structure as well, like, like Stefan talked about, the hero's journey can be really beneficial. But just learning how to build, basically, at any point in a story, you're either building, you're either amplifying feelings or you're reducing them. So understand what you're trying to do. You're trying to increase fear. Decrease fear, increase pain. Decrease pain, increase joy. Decrease joy. And then you let the feelings dictate the story.

Awesome. Riyadh. Is that good?

Yes. That's it for today. Thanks.

Awesome. Thank you, man. Ed. Yeah. Thank you for. Ed teased in the chat that he's going to tell a story of his porn addiction sometime in his email list. And it's not a joke. It's a real thing. And I'd be curious to hear that story, too. So, Ed, your Ed's getting close to launching his email list. And when he does, everybody should absolutely Jump on that. We'll make sure. Whenever, if it's live by next call, whatever, we'll put a link in the chat and, you know, I'll promote it to my list and make sure everyone gets on your list to Ed, because I know. Awesome. Of course.

Appreciate that.

Yeah, man. For now, who. What's the next question we got? Sweet.

Next up, we got Win the man. So he asks what should I exactly focus on learning to make my copy a six out of ten in two months.

What's up, Win?

Win?

You're muted if you want to unmute yourself. If not, we can answer with without, but we'd love to have you. There you are.

Hello.

What's up? Very well.

Thank you.

Good man.

Okay, so I want to know what should I exactly focus on learning to become a 6 over 10, copyright or improve my copy 6 over 10 within two months. So I. I know that it's best enjoyed. You write one point to another. And there are a lot of things I need to go through and experience firsthand in order to improve my copywriting. What if you could compress the learning curve into two more?

Cool. Yeah. When so. And one thing is, I know you are in my RNBC method course now, and, you know, I think that is really one of the shortcuts, the reason why. And it's not trying to. I'm not trying to do anything where, you know, someone asked about email and Ian's like, get my email course and you ask what copy? Oh, yeah, cut out. The interconnection is a little unstable. When. When I'm gonna. When I'm gonna have you mute yourself because unfortunately your connection is a little unstable. But I will give you a good answer.

But I need to focus on that.

Hey, can you mute. I'm. Win, I'm sorry, buddy. I love you, but I just. It's cutting out a little bit. So. Yeah, okay. But yeah, back to what to do. I mean, look, RNBC method, my course is because. The reason, like, my course is super good is because it is a structure. Because that's the thing. If you understand the structure of good sales copy, once you see that and you realize that there's sort of an order of operations to writing a good sales letter or a good email or whatever it is, that helps you tremendously. It's as simple as that. If you look at all the best sales copy out there, it's almost always following a similar structure. That doesn't mean you can't innovate or do unique things or whatever, but especially as you are learning and getting good at copy. And on that journey, it really helps to just have a structure. I see a lot of the mistakes I see from up and coming copywriters is they don't have a clear structure, they don't have a clear process or template. So their copy's all over the place. So you'll read one section that's like really good copy and then just goes on a complete right turn and starts talking about something else. And they don't have like a narrative, they don't have a thread, they don't take a potential prospect through a journey. And really that's a huge part. And then the other thing is really continuing to look at once you know that structure, even, you know, if we're talking about like long form, going from like the lead to the background story, kind of this about, you know, hey, so the lead is like calling out the pain point, promising a solution. You're teasing a unique mechanism. You're teasing an emotional story, like a discovery story, if there is one. You're addressing skepticism, you're briefly adding in credibility and proof. And there's some testimonials. You pop those at the end, then you go into the background story. So whoever the spokesperson is, is sharing the story of, hey, somebody, me or somebody like me used to be like you. They were in pain. Here's the emotional story, here's what was going on. There's always a turning point, right? Going back to the hero's journey. There's some kind of moment that made the spokesperson realize that they couldn't keep going the way things were going. They had to go out and search for truth and answers. They tried traditional solutions, they weren't working. And eventually they stumbled onto the real cause of their problem, which is the unique mechanism of the problem. And then here's what that is. Based on that, they realized that the solution could be as simple as this, which is the unique mechanism of the solution. It's logically connected. If the problem is X, then the solution is Y. But they found that there weren't any out of the box solutions that could really solve this problem for them. They had to roll up their sleeves and solve it on their own. Or they found a company that was solving it and they partnered with them. And at that point, after trial and tribulation, product was born. So now we've revealed the product, then we get into the close. And the close is like the same structure every single time, right? It's kind of like, here's what's in it. The features and benefits. You're doing the price build up justification reveal and you're going through the checklist all the way to the call to actions, the guarantee and then you're getting to your FAQs at the end. So it's the same structure like every time for a good sales letter and really even for shorter sales copy and like 2 to 3 minute videos on like brands econ pages, they're kind of doing the same thing, the good videos. So knowing that, knowing that structure, you can write the same structure every time you're writing. But then go look at other winning sales copy and other winning sales letters. And like Ian talks about handwriting, hand copying them. I say the same thing. I don't do it by hand, I type. But look at winning copy and then just go through and don't just read it, but look at is this following the structure that I know in my head works. And you'll be like, oh, it is. And then you know if it differentiates somewhere totally cool, where's the differentiating? And keep reading good letters with that frame and you'll kind of realize that there's this like you'll get, get a rhythm and you'll get much more familiar with it. And with that being said, Ian, I'd love for you to chime in as well.

Yeah. So don't type unless you're Stefan. Do not type up the letters. There's a completely different level of brain power that happens when you write out by hand, especially if you're willing and I don't recommend everybody do this to start, if you can't write in cursive, but write in cursive on a blank piece of paper with no lines. Because what happens is your brain has to use spatial awareness in order to keep the line straight. And when you use a, when you use an online or when you write in cursive, your brain basically has to activate more in order to keep the pieces together. And it's just like in college they've done, I mean, countless studies on how handwriting is more effective for learning than typing. So even if you think of writing at school, right. If you're in, when we were in, when I was in college, all these kids would have out their computers and all they're doing is typing with the teacher saying there's no codifying of information. When you write by hand, first off, it slows you down. And what that forces you do is to codify the information and create actual memories about what you're writing. So I highly recommend, if you're going to do it, handwrite cursive on blank paper. If you hate writing in cursive, do what's easiest for you to start. I spent the whole first year of hand copying doing actually longer than that, three, four years just doing it online paper and in print writing. That will be better than almost anything. However, if you're next level motherfucker, you can write on online paper in cursive and it's going to amplify the results even more. So go read Stefan's copy and hand copy it. Right now, Ed is going through a rather intense boot camp that I've been putting him through where he has to hand copy one of my emails or sales pages every day and he has to then write a big idea based on what I've written. And so because he's doing some writing for us and I'm trying to get him to be able to write in my voice to some degree. And so I'm like, just copy, hand copy my shit. There's no better way to do it. And it's stuff that's made a bunch of money. So that's something I highly recommend for everyone. It's just so you just learn at such a deeper level because it trains your subconscious and your unconscious mind and that allows you to write without thought when you're not thinking about your writing. That's going to be the best writing you ever do when it's coming from the base of your skull rather than your frontal lobe and when it's just your actual self writing rather than this idea of what you should be writing. But in the beginning, as you move through to what, where Stefan is or where I'd be at, which would be unconscious competence or sorry, conscious competence, where you know why you're good at what you're good at. You start out in unconscious incompetence, which means you don't know what you don't know. Then you get to conscious incompetence where you know what you don't know and you have to improve it. And then you go to. And then you go to unconscious competence. And then so basically you go through these levels. And so I would say hand copying is great. And then. And the reason why Stefan says go get his RNBC course and why I say get the 8020 email copy course is because in a five minute little thing, we can't tell you what we've put together. That's a, you know, a 30 day course where you receive emails every single day that have been structured and thought out and delivered, delivered to you. And you can't get. Stefan can't tell you the RNBC method in a five minute little thing. So, you know, that's why we say that. And then the other thing I'd say is focus on only improving one thing at a time. So when you start out anything, you can get good at a lot of things fast. If you go to the gym and you've never lifted, guess what, you're going to get those gains because you have nothing that you're building on. But once you get good at copy, once you get decent, what you need to do is focus on one piece of your copy at a time. So for me, it was transitions. I could write great sections, but my transitions were a bit clunky. And so this is something I've been working with Ed on, actually. And I created a new sort of phrase for this stuff where I say he has what I call these hammer transitions. Like it's. He's got this section and then it feels like you just got hit over the head by a hammer and it's suddenly this other section. You're like, where did that come from? So I call it. It's a sandpaper transition. So you got to sandpaper that piece of it to make it this really smooth flowing thing. If you read Stefan's emails, they just flow, right? They're very smooth transitions. It may be telling a story and suddenly it's telling you to sign up for something. You're like, how did he do that? It's sandpaper. It's smooth. And so pick the thing that you're not great at. Maybe it's I need to inject more personality into my sales letters. Maybe it's, I need to use more interesting words. Maybe it's transitions. And just focus on that one thing for a week or two weeks and then try and master something else. If you try and master every skill of coffee at once, you'll master nothing. If you try and master one thing at a time, you'll slowly master everything.

That's great. That last part, I mean, it's all really good, but that last part is such golden advice, man, I love it. And the transition thing is interesting because I do notice that with Copy Accelerator and all the stuff I do, I look at a ton of copy and it seems like a little thing, right? Because even if you get these big sections, right, but if you have these really awkward, weird transitions, the minute you kill the flow, it can kill everything, right? The whole goal is you're trying to like enchant and entrance somebody with your Copy. So from the moment they start reading, you don't want them to break their. That spell until they're done and they take in an action or done whatever. So even just one crappy transition can just sort of like jar them out of this trance and totally screw conversions. And one.

One bad transition can literally stop them reading the entire sales page. Like, you might have 98% great, but you have one section where you just lost everyone and it's just. That's it. You're gone, they're gone. And it's in what most people. It's early, right? It's early on in their letter. And people are gone forever after that. And so you really need to focus on those transitions and making them smooth, sandpapering them out, because you can feel it. And one of the best ways to get good at copy actually is one more thing. Read it out loud. So just read your copy out loud and don't rush through it. This is so painful. If you're willing to do it once, twice, three times, even more times. I used to do this when I started out. You will hear all of the shittiness of your copy. You will hear every broken, clunky transition. You'll hear the. And if the phrase doesn't sound like a human would say it, get rid of has to sound human and it has to flow. And by reading it out loud, it's painful and it's slow, but God damn it, does it make you better?

Awesome, Ian. Great stuff there, Ed. Let's move on and do another question here. Let's do it.

Excellent. We have a question. Let's make sure it's still on from Gillies, I believe is how you pronounce it. How do you differentiate yourself from others when newer to copy with a limited portfolio in reference to applying for positions at agencies or getting a shot at gigs.

Cool.

I think it's Giles, right?

It is, yeah. Giles here. Hi. What's up, Billy?

Don't worry.

That's fine.

Yeah.

Nice to. Nice to be on here and nice to say hi and thanks for everything you do for us. I just finding, you know, I've had a couple of. I've got a couple of like, testimonials and a couple of pieces that have done well, but it's really limited. I'm finding, you know, when applying or, you know, writing that sort of intro piece to prospective clients or agency owners, you know, it either feels like I'm sort of going to be ultra hypey or it could be just super sort of vague. I'm just wondering how to really be distinct and stand out and be different from the other 20 or 30 people.

They'Re going to get.

You might have more experience and more portfolio sort of results than I would have.

100%. Cool. No, that makes perfect sense. Yeah. The things that come to my mind immediately are, one, like, confidence is really important. So just having confidence, projecting confidence. I'll go into that more in a second. And then number two would be humor, Something Ann's really good at. But, like. And I guess overall, it's like. It's like personality. I think the more personality you inject into your application or your cover letter or your email or whatever, the better. Like, when I can tell you, as someone who hires a lot of people, when I get those generic sort of. Dear sir hiring manager, I have looked with the greatest of interest upon your. It's like, oh, my God. Like, when I have somebody who comes in and they have, like, personal personality, telling a story, right? Like, kind of building rapport, being like, hey, here's my story. Like, what we talked about, the opening of this sharing. Nicki, maybe a story of who you are, where you came from, why their job is meaningful to you. So building affinity. If you can see something that they have and you can create a connection, if there's a profile and there's something you guys have in common, like you're both from a similar place or have a similar interest, but really the biggest and most important thing you can do is. Well, it's really all that. It's. Projecting confidence is really important. And then injecting personality into your email and then kind of acknowledging it. I also. You can even be like, I always acknowledge the competition. I'd be like, yeah, look, I know you're gonna get a ton of applicants and lots of them, I'm sure, great. But none of them are gonna be the right fit. I'm the only one, and here's why. And I'll give them reasons why. And that's the confidence side of it. But it doesn't have to be like, my portfolio is amazing. You can just find specific reasons and talk to experience and things like that. So, Ian, what do you want to add to that?

Well, this is a topic that I'm very passionate about. I've written, I think, four separate newsletters about how to not be boring. One of my absolute top rules of all marketing and honestly, life rules is don't be boring. And most everybody is. And there's. I don't believe that there's any such thing as a Saturated market. I think there's only board markets. There's only. There are markets that somebody go, that's saturated. It's overplayed. Well, it's. The taxi market was super saturated until somebody went, what if we could just make everybody get their own private driver? And now Uber's a massive company. There are. There are markets that are bored. And so these. And also, I'll tell you what, this person hiring you, they're a human being who goes home, who probably has a drink, who probably maybe sometimes has intercourse with their significant other, who likes to swear and watch shows. And they're a human. And we think that because they're at business that they're at a business that they're not a human being anymore, and that we need to treat them like this certain corporate way. First off, you probably don't want to work for anyway if they're like that. So what Stefan said, I think is really smart to acknowledge the competition and do things that other people aren't willing to do, and even things that other people can't do be willing to be interesting. One thing is, every time I go to a conference or anything now, almost everybody there has seen at least one of these, you know, parody videos. And so I have an instant, well, these people think that they have a relationship with me, and I don't know them, and then they don't tell me, and they act like we've been friends for a while. I'm like, have we met? Like, I'm sorry if I'm an asshole. Like, no, no, no. And I'm like, then why are you acting like we know each other? And. And so. But it makes. It gives me something interesting, no matter what, to talk about. But so what I would do is, if you're sending a letter, like, what Stefan just said, you got. You know, I know you've got a bunch of other applicants and people talking about it. You can even literally be like, but can any of them do this? And then you make a little video and, like, I can do this weird thing where I can move all of my hair, right? And you just make a little gif where you're going like that, and you go, but can any of them do this? I bet they can't. I have incredible forehead control. And more importantly, I'm really good at writing copy. And guess what? Not one. I'm not most. I've only met one other person that can do that. And then, actually, weirdly enough, my business part and his son, who's six years old, I was doing at their house, he can suddenly do it like, oh my God. It's very rare. But the what you want to do. Like, even if you make a gif of something weird of just like a little, you know, just a moving image of you doing something or something weird about yourself, they're going to remember you. And it's better to be remembered and not accepted than to be completely forgotten, because that's what almost everything is, Stefan. And I get these messages. I get them on Instagram every day. I really like your profile, bro. I just started working with this team who's really good at growing profiles. So sometimes if I'm bored, I'll just respond and be like, oh, yeah, what's your favorite part? And then they have to go and look and be like, oh, I like this. Oh yeah. Which character do you like the most? Oh, my God. And so it's like the. The thing that you want to do is stand out in some fashion because you will be forgotten otherwise. And so just think, what is nobody else willing to do?

Yeah, that's great, Giles, does that help?

Yeah, that's really great. Thank you, Stephanie. And who would have thought the answer would be jiggle the eyebrows? And I mean, just to finish, you know, I spent. I did a sort of like a bit of improv and done some stand up in my sort of things I've tried. It seems as though get to the keyboard. And the residue of corporate culture that I've been involved in, you know, over the years, not so much now just seems to all come to life and like you're saying all of a sudden goes into and hello, sir, how can you. But yeah, to start doing, you know, weird, funny things and have the freedom to do that.

One of the best ways to do that is to pretend like you're writing it to your best friend. At least your first draft. Just write it like you're writing to them and then edit it for the other way. But don't write it like you're trying to be. If you're writing with someone else in mind, you're not writing. You're just trying to produce something to please other people. Write that first draft for yourself and just put whatever you want to put on the page. Start outrageous. You can always become less outrageous, but start being going to the craziest end with just really weird. You know, you can have a weird from your from name. You could send from your next copywriter and have a subject line that says you'll be sad if you don't open me or something right and it's like, hey, this is your next copywriter. I know that sounds like a bold claim, but here I am, I'm a bold guy. See? And then you, and then you put, you caught. You copy. You put bold in bold type. Like, see what I just did there? I even use bold words. And I bold. You know, I bolded the word bold. How clever was that? I know. Now I see American. It's okay, I promise. I'm good at this. And I'm like, if you write something like that, people, even if they don't hype, even if they don't respond to the first one or something, you will not be forgotten. And you have so much better of a chance by standing out than by just being another boring bastard. And if you find one that works, repeat the same joke. Right? That's what I mean. Great comics. The reality is, yeah, like, there are certain jokes that you're gonna tell over and over again. Like, I tell the accent one because it's. It's important to. Whatever I'm talking about, if it works, use it again. They haven't heard it. You know, Find your one little joke that you can put into the second sentence of your approach and keep using it.

That's really cool. Yeah, thanks, Ian. I think that's really helpful. And yeah, it sort of puts a whole new spin on how to. How to approach it rather than sort of putting them in an ivory tower. And this sort of can sometimes come across a little bit. It's almost desperate, especially in the beginning. So that's really helpful. Thanks, guys.

Awesome. Yeah, glad to help.

Or if you're Ed and you want to send like a video to someone, have your dad walk in the background and then make it like a foot dad, I told you, I'm trying to get a job right now. And then have your dad pop up and be like, my son is the best person you'll ever hire and then have him walk. Well, you'd be like, damn, that was funny. Like, it's just, it's more important to. Stefan and I went over this in this follow up thing that we were going through and this guy followed up with him and then totally dropped the ball. And he wasn't even very good at his follow up. But he made one. He made one joke in the second email and it was actually, it was mildly decent. And by being mildly decent, it's great because it's unexpected. An email. Now, if a comic goes up and tells an average joke on stage, you're bored. But if you're a Speaker. And you can be mildly funny. Suddenly it's amplified to the nth degree because they're not expecting you to be funny. And now it's a bonus on top of everything. Everything else. Cool.

Sweet. Well, Giles, thank you for asking that question. I'm glad that that helped. And yeah, thanks for answering it, Ed. Let's keep going here. This is so fun. It's really nice having Ian kind of contributing.

This is a really cool format. I like it a lot.

Isn't it really nice? Are you guys getting value? Can you put in the chat? You know, I know you are. It's kind of self indulgent, but I do also want to make sure people are or getting value from.

It just wants external validation, that's all.

I just want external validation. So if you guys could just provide that. That just be super.

Nothing's real unless people tell you you're doing well. Okay. You should not learn how to self validate. You should get all of your validation from outside. From objects like money and cars, you know, sex. It's all that matters.

Oh, thanks, Larry. Yeah, I think I'm still waiting for that person one time to be like, no, I fucking hate this. You know, and then it's gonna be like, oh, shit, like, you know, what's.

The end of the call?

Yeah, maybe the same guy who does like the dislike the one person who does like the thumbs down on my YouTube videos. But for now, Ed, let's move on to our next question.

Sweet.

I just really quickly want to acknowledge Noah's. Noah's comment. He said my motherfucker level has been raised three belt notches. And that's exciting to hear. That's. That's a very important thing to increase levels in.

Congratulations, Noah.

Impressive. So we have a question here from Rob Tidwell, who asks, how can I get rid of my perfectionism for good?

Lol.

Or what helped you turn the corner to make it manageable?

Rob. What's up, Rob?

What up, Stefan?

How you doing?

And Ian.

I'm doing quite well.

Yeah.

Yeah. Hey, here I am. Just an afterthought to you, Rob.

Oh, this guy. It's been so long.

Who introduced you to Stefan, bro? Huh?

Some. Some. Some coach somewhere.

Some douche asshole. Some. Some asshole.

Yeah, I don't like those guys.

Yeah, yeah.

What's up, Ian? I'm doing great. Except for the perfectionism thing. So here I am on your show.

Or Ed, by the way, Ed said. Who's the real afterthought? No love to our sweet, sweet Ed Ray here.

Right he didn't say anything, so I forgot about him.

Aw. Well, Rob, first of all. Yeah. Glad to have you here. Rob is for people watching, too. He's a member of Copy Accelerator, and he was at the original Freelancer Freedom event and talked about how he was like, I really want to quit my job. And what did you do a few months after that, Rob?

Yeah, I quit my job. Boom. And then doubled my income the same month.

So that's good.

Hey, you want to put yourself on camera and just say that again and then we can clip this out and use this as a testimonial for the Freedom Freelancer event.

I have a testimonial from Rob. I got one. Yeah, that was pretty well said.

That's about as concise as it gets, though. I liked that. Yeah, I quit the other one.

That's true. Well, at least have the audio. But, Rob, to your question about perfectionism, I'd love to hear, you know, a little background on that.

Yeah, so I just feel like everything. So my last job, like, I repaired crash damage aircraft where perfectionism is preferred. So now that I'm a copywriter, it's not quite the same.

And then I have like one client.

Specifically that I don't know why. I just have this perfectionism going on. So I procrastinate on that client's work till the last minute. And it's giving me a lot of fucking anxiety. I'm trying to figure out how to chill out a little bit on just like, that's just the way I'm programmed and I've always had to do my job is like, everything has to be perfect. So just wondering if you have any thoughts. And I knew you're gonna say, or I assume you're gonna say, we all suffer from perfectionism, so it's never gonna go away. But that's why I put lol.

Yeah, I have thoughts, as I'm sure you do as well. Ian, I'm fine with you. If you want to go first, feel free to.

Yeah, well, all right. I'm going to go a little meta with you real quick. First off, nothing can give you anxiety. Only you can give you anxiety. There's no such thing as other people making you feel things. You only make yourself feel things. That's the reality of the world. And if you're willing to take responsibility for it and understand that life can change in a pretty profound way. It's not how you're programmed, it's how you've become programmed through years of greasing that groove in your brain and believing that perfectionism is who you are as opposed to just a thing you do sometimes. You know, my first thing would be to say, and I think you've probably watched it at some point, maybe the old. Like, even if you just go look at the old interview that Brent and I did about the four core issues and look at the teen category of perfection. You know, there's some ways to start working through that. I would 100% go through the untethered soul in the surrender experiment and start to practice letting go. But the reality is, you know, perfection is. Perfectionism is something people hold on to, especially because they want to have the perfect answer to let go of perfectionism. It becomes its own self perpetuating, you know, machine. And the reality too is that you actually have perfectionism grounded in reality based on fixing planes where a mistake costs people their lives. Now, this is my belief about life in general. And I. And I think that. And so we all have different categories where we have perfectionism. When it comes to tennis, I absolutely suffered from it. When it comes to business, I had none. I didn't have to deal with it. I just was like, what? It doesn't matter if it's perfect. Just get it out there, get it done, and let, and let people test it. And the great thing about copy is, guess what? People vote with their wallets. Your subjective opinion doesn't matter at all. So you get it 80% ready and then you put it out in the world, let them vote with their wallets, and then you fix it later. You can't put a perfect piece out because you don't know what perfect is anyway. Perfect doesn't exist. It doesn't exist in nature. It doesn't exist in any sort of realm other than the realm of the gods. And I believe that as humans, we were put here. And if you look at the myth, creation stories of different religions and everything. Why do you think Eve ate the apple? If God really didn't want Eve to eat the apple, he wouldn't have put the apple in the middle of the fucking garden. He had us eat the apple as humans. Because the gift of being human is the gift of imperfection. It's the ability to make mistakes. The first thing we did as humans is fuck something up. And God or the gods or whichever you want to believe in is jealous because he has to be perfect. And as humans, we are allowed not just the luxury, but it is. Our purpose is to make mistakes and to grow. That's why we're here in this realm. So it gives me deep peace to understand and know that I'm going to make mistakes. And mistakes no longer become something I just tolerate from myself. It's something that I can celebrate in the sense that I'm moving fast enough and doing things that matter enough that I'm willing to make mistake mistakes and expose myself to that possibility. And so stories can change the way you feel if you can change that identity statement. But I will say, if you continue to say the identity statement, that I am a perfectionist. Just like a people say I'm a procrastinator. Well, of course you are. You just fucking told me. It's like people who go to a doctor and they go, oh, you have anxiety. And they go, oh, I have anxiety. Because yes. Do you feel less anxious now? They go, no, I feel more anxious, I have anxiety. Didn't you just hear what you told me? You self diagnose and you fulfill the prophecy of whatever it is that you continue to tell yourself is your identity statement. So if you're willing to stop calling yourself a perfectionist, that alone will start to let go of the grip that has on you. But especially with something like Copy the Best, there's a great. This is a great story for everyone here. Gary Halbert wrote something in one of his newsletters that was along the lines of fuck Dan Kennedy. And it was like, what? And he's like, that guy makes way too much money and doesn't work anywhere near as hard as I do. Gary Halbert spent like a year and a half writing his one page Coat of Arms newsletter sales page, which made a bunch of money. It was done 18 months earlier. He just kept trying to fiddle with each individual word. And he goes, Dan Kennedy, he just puts it out there. He just writes it, it's good enough and he puts it out there. The difference between making a lot of money from copy and not a lot isn't necessarily the skill. It's the willingness to be done and send a version that's not perfect out. Version done is better than version none. You know, it's better done than perfect. You can hear all these phrases, but you have to go deeper into yourself to go and unhinge some of the, you know, the deeper blocks that you're dealing with. But the easiest and. Well, it's not easy. But the fastest way to start to go through this is to let go of that identity statement of I am this, I am instead of I'm a perfectionist. Just start saying every time you hear that, reaffirm it is I'm willing to make mistakes. I accept my mistakes as a part.

Of my humanity, I think, as well. And there's tons of gold. But I think the other part to that too is like, Rob, I would guess part of the perfectionism of this client is just the, you know, the fear of failure. Right. So perfectionism is this protection mechanism because you're like, well, if I keep putting it off, keep delaying it every day, I don't send it in every day, I don't start the project, that's one more day where I can't fail. Right. But then of course, that creates anxiety.

Yep.

And so I think that that's like something that really important to realize too. Like, it's like, yeah, sure, in the last job with airplanes, you know, it had to be perfect. But I think looking at the why behind the perfectionism is really important too. And thinking about how you're using this protection mechanism. And then to Ian's point, you have to remember what copy is. Copy is an iterative process. It's not giving somebody the Mona Lisa and being like, here it is, and then nobody ever tries to do anything with it again. Copy is giving somebody. It's testing. There is a scientific advertising component. Right. It's. Here's what I have. I think it'll go great. Let's test it. If it's not great, then we'll do tweaks, we'll change. And so you're doing your client and yourself a disservice as a copywriter and marketer if you're holding back so much by trying to make it perfect the first time. Because it's not going to be perfect, even just a story. I kind of mentioned this on a copy accelerator call two weeks ago, but something I wrote for V Shred, the newest thing for an info product. I hadn't done info product copy in couple years, and they need to convert at 1% based on their traffic and all this stuff. And it's converting at 0.60%. And I could totally expected that. And they did too. So it's totally fine. And we're like, okay, cool, that's a good baseline. The AOV is where we need to be. So what are we gonna do next? Well, I'm doing a new headline, a new lead. I'll get to you guys by end of night Thursday. So I'm gonna write later today and then like, I'll do that and probably get it up to 0.8, 0.9, maybe I'll hit 1%. And then from there I'll Be like, oh, cool, we're a lot closer, and then I'll do it again. So that's the big thing. And most clients understand that if the client doesn't understand that there's gonna be tweaks and things after it goes live, then that's an issue. But that's not on the client, not on you. Hopefully these answers help.

Oh, man.

It's great stuff.

I appreciate it, guys.

And to Stefan's point about the why you can't have a. This. This teen part of yourself that's seeking perfection, if underlying there's. The perfection is there because there's a defective child underneath that who wants to use perfection to feel okay. So it's really ultimately a fear of being defective that drives that. It's that. It's that what you do isn't going to be good enough. So then if you seek perfection in order to hopefully make up for that defective underlying piece, and then the version of that is realistic. And that was a word, by the way, that I hated when I first heard Brent tell me that word. He said, well, this is realistic. I said, I hate that word. That's a word my mum always used. And really what it just meant to her was pessimistic. But realistic is actually a more adult place to be coming from, where it's like, oh, this is. It's okay to be realistic. Perfection doesn't exist.

Yeah, it's awesome.

Hey, really appreciate it, guys. That was excellent answers, Ed.

I love you, buddy.

Awesome. Thanks, Rob. Glad to have had you on. And thanks for asking, Ed. Glad you got the love at the end, you know, Overlook no more.

Just.

No, you're a forethought. But Ed's on this call, trolling you. All right, Ed, who we got next?

Trying to find a different.

Yeah, give me some. Give us some cool, unique ones. Some. Some. Some new voices. Some folks who haven't maybe asked a question before. Things like that would.

I've been looking, but there's some interesting ones here. Okay, cool. Okay, here's a great question that I think Ian would kill at. So let's do this one. So it's a question from Simon. Simon asks, do you recommend a process or structure to get better on video for marketing?

Hey, Simon.

Hey, Stefan. Hey, Ian.

How you doing?

Thanks. I'm doing great. Good to see you guys.

Awesome. Yeah. Glad to have you here. So, yeah, you want to give us a little context on that question?

Yeah.

So the context is like, I can.

Write, and I feel pretty capable with.

Copy when it comes to getting on Video. Maybe it has to do with the same issue that Rob was talking about, like, self judgment, being on camera, overthinking perfection. And there's a little bit of resistance because I know, like, video is great for building up trust. So I was wondering, what do you got? Do you guys just, like, point and shoot? Like, you follow, like, a certain structure? I'm just struggling with a little bit of probably it's like the same issue, like, judgment and just maybe overthinking it.

That's a great question. I'm gonna actually talk for 30 seconds and hand it off to Ian, because Ian is the one who's great on video for me. Like, in my experience, just because I've been making more videos and even in the last couple weeks to put two shorter videos on YouTube where it's like me holding camera and talking. But it took me a really long time to do that, and I think it was just a fear of putting myself out there. What helped for me was just creating more content. Like, creating, like, doing this show and realizing that I had a lot of content out already, and then just feeling, like, looking at all these other people who are doing it and realizing that I'm doing myself a disservice and doing others a disservice if I don't share what I have and being detached from the outcome. For me, the detachment is a huge part of it. Like, if I'm detached from what's going to happen, if I don't worry about the views or the likes or whatever it is, because that's not where I'm going to get my validation from. Having made jokes about external validation a minute ago. But really, it's like, it's okay if a video bombs or if nobody likes it. And I'm just doing it because at least if I have something important to share, then I. You know, it's almost my duty to put that out into the world. And if people respond to it, awesome. If they don't, you know, no problem. But that's just my philosophy on it. But then Ian, who has, you know, got millions and millions and millions of views and does a lot more video than myself, I'm sure we'll have a really.

A lot of tens of millions.

Tens of millions of views.

God, Stephan, how am I supposed to get externally validated if you don't use the right statistics? That is supposed to stroke my ego in order for me to feel like a significant, worthy person. Sorry. So my. Everybody's got a different style. So again, so much of the advice people Give Online and just in the world is based on their own unique personality and we're not all the same. So for me, I excel in live video and doing things off the cuff. I've also written so much copy in my life that I can speak copy. And so I have a unique ability to get on camera and record a VSL in four minutes or even the more. The most involved one I did with the most moving pieces was two weeks ago. In one day I wrote and recorded and directed the entire BSL for the Choose Gut Health. There it is. Just happens to be sitting right next to me supplement that I'm launching. And I just got on camera and you know, and went for it and there were certain pieces that had to be written out and then and dealt with. But basically you got to find out a ua Are you a teleprompter person? By the way, I found that almost nobody's good at teleprompters. It turns people into stilted little robots. One of the best tips I can ever give because what I did is I was on video a lot and then I wanted to see if I could direct people and get paid to not have to be on camera. I love being on camera. But I'll tell you, a day of filming BSLs, especially when you're creating everything off the top of your head, is exhausting because it's. And so basically when I create these, I'm telling the camera guy where to be, where to shoot from. I'm writing the copy either in my head or on paper. I'm standing in front of a camera you're constantly on. And so I started working with other people and I'd stand behind the camera and tell them sort of what to say and give them pieces. And one of the best things you can do is get yourself into the right emotional state. So whatever feeling you're feeling, that's going to be transferred through video. So you could say the same exact copy in the same exact amount of time in a three minute video record, two versions, same exact words. But your energy could change the conversions by 100, 200, 300% just from where you are in your own energetic place. So there are some exercises you can do. One thing I do and it looks super stupid and that's one of the big. One of the best, best advice I can give you is don't record in a room with judgy people. There are certain people who will stand in a room, they just go like this while you record. It makes you just not want to do it record with people that you enjoy or. I do almost everything on my iPhone now and I just hit record and I just start going. I don't. The more I think the worse it goes. But the thing you can do is do literally stretch your mouth out and do the. How now, brown cow, the arsonist has oddly shaped feet. And you go through these ridiculous oratory exercises and it actually loosens up your jaw, gets you moving. I'll jump up and down, I'll do push ups. And then what I'll do is I'll actually hit like forehands and backhands as if I'm playing tennis. And I'll fully engage my body. And what happens is because I played tennis since I was 3 years old and at a high level, I know my body gets engaged and I start moving in that way. And so if you're a golfer, you use your golf swing before you record. If you're a baseball player, you practice swinging a bat and it engages your body and gets your body into what you're recording. And so the most important piece is getting that feeling right and feeling good about getting on there, tapping into your own feelings. Again, this is all very weird to be talking about in the context of sales, I'm sure, but that's going to make. One of the biggest differences is how you feel. And trying to find your style is your style. You make four bullets and then you fill in the gaps while you're speaking. Is your style to write it all out beforehand. And Perry Marshall has a really great thing called the marketing DNA test. You can take it for free. It's like a $37 test. There's some way to take it for free. It gives you your scale on live or recorded for videos, your preference based on your personality. I was a 10 on live. If you're a 10 on record. If you're a 1 and you're over at recorded, then you need to play into that strength of your own and understand yourself. Does that help? Yeah, absolutely. So I got state management and then just letting go of outcome. But I like the exercises. Super helpful, the exercises. So like, and I know you're, you know, you're athletic, so like move your body and engage your body. That's one of the best things you can do. It's like the old, you know, Ricky Bobby. I don't know what to do with my hands. Do I keep them? Do I keep my hands up here or what do I do with them? And when you feel that way, it's very hard to record. Awesome. Thanks so much. And have fun. Actually, there's rule number one. Try to enjoy yourself because your. Your fun becomes contagious. Absolutely.

Cool.

Thank you, Simon.

Thank you.

One thing. Yeah, Ian, I want to add real quick is that's actually just like a good rule for almost everything, right? Is having more fun. Like, I was reviewing somebody's copy the other day, and she was like a really talented copywriter, but there was just no personality in it. And she was so focused on just kind of checking all the boxes that I think she was. I could just feel the restraint. And the biggest advice I gave her was inject more personality, please. Like, you know, like, have fun with it. And you can just tell when I read copy, that's not fun. You can tell. But it's the same thing with creating videos or writing emails or talking on stage or going back to the answer we did about applying for jobs and things like that and having fun with your application. It sounds so silly. It's so simple. And one of the most powerful and effective things you can do is to just bring, like, joy and happiness and fun into, like, every action you take in life. And yet so many of us feel, like, afraid that we have to keep the fun bottled up that we need to keep it inside, and it just makes zero sense. So I just really love that.

Society has taught us that you're not supposed to make to have fun and make money at the same time. They're supposed to be separate, separate activities. It's in our culture. And so when you realize that you can have fun and the more fun I have a weird thing in my life where the more fun I have, the more money I make. Every time I try and push down my fun, I make less money, which is cool, but it's also makes you feel stupid when you stop having as much fun and then you watch your bank account also decline. You go, not only am I having less fun, I'm making less money.

Yeah, totally. Great point. All right, Ed, I know you've got a hard out today, so let's get to another one or two. So, Ed, who's. Who's next?

Mr. Pettit.

Nice, Ian.

The other Ian says, often when I'm feeling ambitious or inspired, I think that I can do it all. But even when I have a good streak of productive engaged days, too often I find that one or more of my projects is lagging behind schedule to make up time. I end up sacrificing good health habits to put in extra time to catch up. This then has a rebound effect. Making me less effective for the next day or more. How do you keep progress when trying to run multiple projects at once?

It's a great question.

It is. I have thoughts. Ian, what's up, buddy?

Can you hear me?

Gentlemen?

I can hear you.

All right.

No, the other Ian. Oh, hey, hey, Ian 2.0.

Hey Ed, thanks for taking my question.

Hey, you got it, man.

Oh man. Yeah, Ian. So that was pretty. Ian Pettit. That was pretty self explanatory. Do you have anything you want to add to it though? Any additional context?

I mean, the context for me is just that, you know, I try to fill a lot of roles. Husband, father, son, friend, band member, full time employee. And you know, I'm in the middle of a kitchen renovation and so I get all excited about learning about marketing and practicing copywriting. But I find that the more I try to spread out my time between all the different projects, the more one tends to fall behind. And the worst part is that when I do say, all right, I'm, you know, I'm on 10x this. I'm going to stay up till 1 in the morning and get it done, you know, the next day I'm just complete and total crap. And oftentimes days and days after that. So what I, I sort of know in my head is consistency is key, but I can't decide if I should keep all the things on my plate that I've got and just try to stay consistent and do a little bit at a time or find ways to set certain things aside and just do one thing till it's done. Just any insights you guys have, especially Stefan, I know that you have talked before about taking on too many projects and getting too excited about stuff. And so, you know, how have you alleviated that problem without getting burned out or. Like I said, the worst part is that I end up inefficient, ineffective, because I push too hard and then I just run out of gas the next day or two.

Totally. Yeah. I mean, my initial instinct would be that you're probably doing too many projects and like, because especially if you have a streak of being motivated and crushing it and all that, and yet you're still feeling like you're behind. Usually that's happening when you've got too many things going on and you do need to cut back. The easiest answer is doing fewer things, taking out fewer projects, but getting paid more for those things. So creating, you know, a better outcome and a better ROI on sort of those activities and your time, let's say, look at it quickly I mean, like, how many. What are some examples of like the projects that, you know, you're working on currently besides, I mean, I know you, I know you do the personal ones, but how about like, I guess let's focus on the professional stuff?

Well, the professional stuff is really just the conflict between having a full time job that sometimes expects overtime, especially this time of year, even with working from home right now, and then trying to find time to work on any copy projects at all with, you know, I got a four year old and a seven year old, I try to spend some time with my wife and all that stuff. So there's not that many professional projects. Actually, I barely have time to fit the full time job and any copy projects in at the same time.

Got it. And then on top of that, you know, obviously renovating your house and the family stuff. Stuff, sure. Yeah. I guess the thing I would say is like, you know, you do you get to control your time, like the copy, like, does it make sense to not do copy projects right now? Maybe. I mean, if you got.

That's actually kind of the conclusion I came to was I think I'm at least gonna finish my kitchen, maybe do the bathroom and then just tell my wife, hey, I'm not gonna work on the house anymore. I'm gonna try to make some money. Which sucks because the thing that concerns me about it is losing the momentum, losing the chops, losing the edge.

Yeah. So no, I mean, it totally makes sense. But yeah, to me it just seems like if you've got, again, if you're in a place where you feel like you're in a zone of like, you know, productivity or a flow state, and yet you're still falling behind. It's because you just have too much, too many things. And so you have to make those choices on where you're going to focus your time and energy. I think it's as simple as that. Ian, I know you have interesting thoughts on time and how time doesn't exist and all that good stuff. So go ahead and share your insights, which will probably be 10 times more interesting than mine.

Okay. I have a lot of thoughts on time. And the reality is, look, anybody who talks about time as much as I do, what that's often a sign of is the fact that you actually had a very bad relationship to time and a very intense one with it. And that's why you become the person who speaks about it. And so time basically became this driving factor of my life where I experienced what I used to consider an almost constant state of guilt. If I wasn't working or growing or reading or learning, then I was a fucking piece of shit. And, you know, and you have to always be growing and learning. And so I continue to typically meet the. The conditions to love myself because I was always doing shit. But God damn it, it gets exhausting and you burn out. And no human can sustain that. And so what. What you first off need to understand is that time is not something you can have. You can't have more of it. You can't have less of it. You can't have time. Anytime you say that I have time, you're implying the time actually has you. Or that you say that I don't have time. Because time is very much like a handful of sand. The harder you grip it, the harder you try and hold onto it, the more of it slips through your hands. You typically experience time in one of three ways. The first way is that you don't have enough of it and everything's chaos, or you have too much of it and you bought out of your mind. And it's what I call clock watching. Like, when you're in school and the teacher's talking about boring shit and you look at the clock every three minutes, you're like, how has it only been three minutes? And then there's the third experience, which is the experience that time doesn't exist. When you get into a deep flow state and time itself disappears, that is what you sort of seek to have in your life. And you start to understand that you can't have time. You are the creator of time. You can only make time for things, and you can only make time for a certain number of things that matter to you. And your life, no matter what you tell people matters to you. Your actions will tell you what actually matters to you. That's the reality. Whatever you're making time for now is what you're prioritizing. And so you realize, first off, you've got to give up saying the word busy and stop saying that you have or don't have time. You literally have to get rid of that shit from your vocabulary. There's no such thing as being busy. Busy is a choice. It's a thing that we wear as a badge of honor these days. I'm busy. Oh, hey, how are you, Tim? I'm busy.

I'm super busy.

Oh, cool. I didn't know you were better than me. That's so cool to know that you're so busy. Congratulations. Better busy than not busy, am I right?

It's super common. Super Common. It's like the default response. How you doing? Oh, man, got a lot going on, which is. It bugs the crap out of me.

You know, busy, you know, and you can have a lot of things going on without being busy. You can make choices. And so it's the. Yeah, it's Newtonian time verse, Einstein time. I recommend reading that chapter in the Big Leap, but what I'll say is, you're doing too much. It's the last thing you want to hear. I have been there many times. I have a tendency to basically believe that I can do everything and all things all at once and that I am God Almighty and that there is nothing I can't do. And then I find out very, very quickly, God reminds me that I am, in fact, a mortal human who cannot do everything. And so I have to make choices, and they're hard choices. And you have to decide what really matters to you, and you have to put those things first. And so I was in a. This mastermind group and Tucker Max, who wrote, you know, I hope they so Beer in Hell and all these books, which is sort of crazy because I read all his books growing up. And then here he was sitting across the table from me, and I rattled off what I was going through. This is maybe five, six years ago. And he just writes on this piece of paper in very Tucker fashion. And he just goes, put the things you love first in your life. He's like, this is your answer. And I was like, well, that's very simple for you to say. And I was also told to get a therapist by him and by John Carlton. And then when I finally did, after not listening to them, I tripled my income immediately. But the. The reality is you're gonna have to let go of some stuff. You're gonna have to give up some of your stuff. And I've gone through this multiple times. I had 1.6 or seven businesses, and I found that I do best with two. I finally got down to one business recently, and it's been growing exponentially. But what I've found is you have to understand, again, your personality. So what I've done is I have these side projects. And so now what I'm doing, and this is a new thing as of this week, is I'm only focusing on my one business Monday through Thursday. And then I'm only allowed to work on my almost passive income projects. So my business is called almost passive income. And then I have these side projects that create almost passive income, and they're only allowed to be worked on. On Fridays. So it gives you this separation. Because most fuel in a jet is used on takeoff and landing. It's not used to stay in motion. So if you're constantly switching gears from fixing the kitchen to writing copy, to talking to the kids, to talking to your wife, all of that fuel is getting burnt up by switching gears. If you can sit down, turn off the phone, put it in another room, put it in a drawer, turn it upside down, and just do one thing, that's what's going to make the biggest difference. It's like, it's very much. This guy just explained it to me, and maybe the best way I've ever heard. You're trying to start a fire, and you've got a magnifying glass, and you're holding this magnifying glass for 10 seconds over here, and then you move it over here for 10 seconds, and then you move over here for 10 seconds, then over here. Nothing's going to catch fire because you're not actually focusing all of the energy on this one thing. And so that's something that I would recommend is trying to pick the thing that matters most and put most of your energy into that.

Yeah, yeah. And fundamentally, for me, you know, to your point about doing what you love and focusing on that and how you tend to make more money, the more fun you have. I know that fundamentally, at the core, just, I can't stand my job. I don't like what I do for a living. It doesn't have nearly the same ROI that I know investing full time into copy would do for me. And so it's just kind of getting to that transition point where, because I do need to support the family, where I can just say, all right, all of the other things that aren't like, the basic needs and keeping my job doing whatever is the minimum needed to stay employed, need to be devoted to copy and marketing so that that can take off enough to take over the job. Because I know for sure that where I spend as much time per week doing marketing, doing copywriting, that the amount of money that I make as a design engineer would seem laughable. So it's kind of just getting to that transition point.

But I want to congratulate you really quickly. I want to say congratulations on having a job you hate because it's a gift, because the worst thing you can have is a job you kind of like because there's no real motivation to leave it. You want that fucking dishwashing, shitty job, the thing that drives you mental, because that's what will make you get out of it. If you're like, yeah, it's a pretty decent job, actually. There's no real motivation. So if you have a job you hate, view it as a gift because it is. It means you're gonna get the fuck out of it.

For sure.

For sure.

I can't wait. Awesome. Cool.

Well, thanks, guys.

Yeah. Thank you, Ian Pettit, for asking and Ian Stanley, for those amazing answers.

Great name.

Just want to say, you know, you too.

Thank you. God, that means a lot. Do you get called lan by.

I do get called lan if they're not from an English speaking country.

I'm lan.

Hello, lan. Lan. Yes. And so I got to the point where my girlfriend and my best buddy call me lan all the time. Sometimes it's Jan Tan. I've gotten tan.

Ian Petite is my alter ego.

Is I and petite. Nice. Yeah. At least they can say my last name.

You know, that's interesting. It gives me ideas because I always thought if I did a parody video of Ian, which I wouldn't do because I don't do parody videos, you know, I thought about the last name and something like, you know, if, like Ian Manly or whatever. But now I could do land manly. Or I could do I am. I am manly.

Maybe I am manly would be the best.

I am manly. Yeah, that would be a good one. So just change the N to an M. That'd be solid.

Giving that external validation too.

At the same time, my Skype name is still Manly Stanley. Fuck. And I have not changed it. I got. This is a good example, actually, for people who think that they're supposed to be professional. Is I was just like, I'm going to. I still have my Skype name because I got it when I was 15. I was living in England and I was like, you know, Skype had just come out and I was Manly Stanley582. And I just went, well, I should change this maybe because I'm a grown up now. And then I went, fuck it. So now every time, when I say when I send somebody my Skype name logo, it's Manly Stanley 582. Yes. That's really my. That's not a typo. That's really my Skype name. Excited to talk to you. And it creates a fun little thing right away. So. And actually I just. Steph and I wrote more of the Killing script today. I Concept. Right. So fun. And I wrote this little section where I. The character who's named Ian goes to Starbucks and he orders 100 cups of coffee and when he goes to pick it up, the barista is just yelling, lance, is there a lan here?

Lant?

And I just go, yeah. Hey, I'm lan. Just give me the fucking coffee, please. So it's. It's given me some nice material.

Excellent. Awesome. Well, Ian Pettit or lan? Pettit. You know, Lan petite. Thank you so much.

You can call me. I pet it if you want.

It's fine. I pet it. Perfect. Well, hey, appreciate it, man. Thank you so much for the question. Glad.

Take care, guys.

Awesome. All right, now, Ian, Stanley, we are basically going to wrap up here, but I wanted to just rapid answer a few quick questions or one or two in the chat. One that is from Lutvi, who this is his third time asking the question, so I wanted to get to it. I don't have ed to like, remove people from like, as like panelists and do stuff, so I have no idea what I'm doing anymore. So you guys might just see Ian petted up here anymore. Oh, can I hide him?

I don't know.

I'm gonna hide you, Ian. Okay. I don't know if that actually worked or not, but Luffy said, how would you write a promo if the vehicle for the unique mechanism is unique too? The context is I was writing a real estate financial promo and the investment vehicle was a tiny house, which is a relatively new concept vehicle to people in the market. It felt like I had to educate three or twice. Firstly, what's the tiny house? And secondly, the unique mechanism for the investment. So I realized that the lead ended up being complicated, which affected conversions. Another example, let's say for a supplement promo, there's usually a unique mechanism for one of the ingredients. But what if now, instead of a pill or capsule, the vehicle for delivering the ingredient is something unconventional like a band aid or a suppository law? Yeah. Weird. I know. Yeah. I mean, honestly, Luffy, my answer to that is probably you're overcomplicating it a little bit. Definitely on the supplement one, because, like, I just still go for whatever the unique mechanism of the ingredient is. And then when you get to the product reveal and you're talking about the product, that's where you can kind of share those. How it has its own unique delivery system as well, and take a few seconds to explain that. But people don't really care that much about the unique delivery system. They care more about the result that they're gonna get. They care about knowing why they're having the problem and then knowing what the solution to the problem Is. And so unless you want to make the whole thing about. You can pick, I guess if you want to make the whole thing about how, like if it's vitamin C, you're not gonna really have a great unique mechanism for vitamin C. So there maybe in your offer, it's like how, you know, most people take vitamin C supplements, never actually get the nutrients that they want. It's because of like the delivery mechanism that's the problem. So the solution is to create a new delivery mechanism. And here we go. And then we would just have that. You want to just have one mechanism, though, every time something with like the kind of investment promo you referenced. If it were me, if the tiny housing, if nobody's heard of that and that, and it's a unique way to invest, then that to me is the mechanism. So, like, here's the problem of traditional investing. The solution has to be this new thing. Well, it turns out we've taken it and started leveraging it. And it's called the tiny house or whatever it is. So in that case, the tiny house is the mechanism. And you can kind of explain what makes it unique after that. But basically focus on one unique mechanism, don't have two. And you can always mention something unique about something like about the product later without it becoming the mechanism. So that's the answer to that.

This tiny investment leads to massive returns, right? Yeah, yeah, it's you. What I'm about to show you is quite literally a tiny investment, but the return can be huge. And that's your first line of your. Because when you say literally tiny and then your second line is. And I don't mean literally like most people mean it figuratively. I mean literally this investment is tiny. I'll explain that in just a second. And then that's. That is its own unique thing. And I'm curious, you know, what is the big idea? What is the actual overarching big idea? Because whatever that is should drive that. But I think that's actually the second I saw a tiny house as an investment that actually immediately caught my interest. I don't think you need a lot.

How this tiny house investment led to a mansion and a 10,000 square foot mansion in Connecticut.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. How to trade. How to trade tiny houses for mansions. Like, that's a. That's a pretty cool little idea, you know.

Yeah, it's fun.

There's a lot of fun you can have with that. And it actually makes sense as an investment because they are ironically, this tiny market is growing, becoming bigger and bigger. Like you can fuck with people with that for the whole beginning of that sales letter and have fun with it and pull people in with all sorts of puns and jokes and layered stuff like that. And so, uh. And because it's so small, people tend to overlook it and da, da, da. But that's. It's an interesting concept. I bet those actually make money just because people are getting more and more intrigued by that idea. Yeah.

That's awesome. The one really quick one I'm going to answer for you, Justin Lucas. When you do initial tests on your supplement offer, should you have your upsell different from the main product ready or is it okay to just start with a 1636 ball upsell 3 ball down cell? Yep, it's totally fine. Just start with that. You don't need to worry about the cross sells. Just get it out there, get data. The second and third upsell are going to be such a small amount of your overall revenue that you should have them, but it shouldn't hold you back from launching and testing. So I want to just answer that one real quick. And I'd love to answer more, but unfortunately I do want to respect Ian's time and I have a call pretty soon too, so we're going to be wrapping up here. I want to thank everybody for attending and asking questions, interacting. The chat was so fun. Reading everyone's kind of comments and the chat. I want to do a huge thank you to Ian Stanley for joining me on this call and for answering questions and just killing it. Good thumbs up, Ian. And I do really appreciate it. You know I love you and I'm so thankful that I got seated next to you at a table in, you know, four years.

I know, ma'. Am. It's led us down a pretty awesome path. I still have to send you the story I wrote about France because it's. It's wild what has occurred from that. That trip to that mansion and taking a leap of faith and investing money that at the time I didn't really have, that turned into what's been millions now. So on that note, I would like to say you should definitely buy our freelancing product when it comes out. It'll be one of the best things you ever invest in and I'd love to see you inside the course. We're excited to help you guys. And on a serious note, thank you guys for listening and hanging out for this long. It's been very fun.

Awesome. Yeah. I'll keep you guys posted on when the Freelancer Freedom course is coming out. Pretty soon. Like I said, in the next couple of weeks. But thank you again, Ian. Thank you, everybody. And we'll see you all next week at 10:00am Pacific Time on Thursday. So see you. And if you're an RBC applied, I'll see you tomorrow for an hour and a half long copy breakdown. All right, thanks, everybody.