[RTB:EP32] How To Charge More As a Freelancer In 2021 w/ Co-Host Ed Reay Now Charging $1,500/Hour 😲

Hey, you're listening to the Road to a Billion podcast. I'm your host, Stefan Georgi, and I'm glad to have you with me here today. The Road to a Billion is a call and radio show style podcast where you can ask me questions about freelancing, copywriting, entrepreneurship, mindset scaling, funnels, relationships, money, and more. The reason for the name is because I've hit around a billion dollars in sales with my copy, both for in businesses, both for myself and people. I've worked with clients, and I want to make an impact in the lives of a billion people over the next nine years. I guess we would say now we'll start taking calls in about, I don't know, maybe 10 minutes or so. And the way that works is if you're on the zoom call, you just put your questions into the Q and A section and then my friend Ed Ray goes through, reviews those questions and feeds them to me. Ed, you want to go ahead and introduce yourself and say hello to everybody?

Hey, what's up? My name is Ed Ray and I help people get back on Facebook if they've ever had their pages, personal profiles, ads, accounts, or business managers banned, restricted, or disabled.

Awesome. By the way, I'm getting consistent love on the sweater. I saw that Grant Poulson gave me some too. Really appreciate that. The love on the sweater, everybody. Cool. So we'll start doing questions and like I said, I have 10 minutes or so. Feel free to pop them in the Q and A now if you want. What brand is it? I honestly don't remember. I. It's like, I don't know. I'll check later. I don't want to take off my shirt on camera.

Dolce and Gabbana, yo. Take it off. I'll do it if you do it.

It's not Dolce Gabbana. It's. I gotta find Nordstrom, but I don't know, I don't feel like messing up too much, but Laura really likes the sweater too, but, like, anyway, so here we are. Wonderful, beautiful day. It was kind of snowy here in Vegas the last couple of days, but bright and sunny today. And yeah, glad to have everyone here. And like I mentioned, I've got like, Covid, but frankly, doing good. One thing I'm trying to figure out is, like, I know Covid affects everybody differently. And so my attitude was always like, if I get Covid, I'm gonna crush it. And like, you know, that's basically what my immune system has done. So I have this kind of, like, level of arrogance about that. In a way, because I'm like, yeah, I'm young and healthy. My immune system crushed it. But I know at the same time, there's plenty of exceptions and stuff like that. I mean, so I shot a YouTube video about this yesterday and how basically, like, I was looking at statistics and this is true. Like, you are more likely. And basically any age range, you're more likely to go to the hospital for a car accident than you are for Covid. Like, I actually think it's up to, like, 65 plus. After 65, it's about, like, neck and neck, and 85 plus, you get Covid. You're pretty. You're pretty fucked, generally. But I think that the big thing to point out, though, I guess a couple notes on that is like, I'm doing fine. I think mindset is really important, even with, like, something like Covid and things like that. Like, I don't know if I'm supposed to say this or not, but I'm saying I got it from. From. From Dr. Paul Saladino, who's like, you know, the carnivore doctor. Because I got to spend several days with him. Like, we shared a room together. He gave me some, like, raw elk liver, and, like, I ate the raw elk liver from me, handed it to me. We're, like, sharing the thing of dates. Like, we're eating food together. And, you know, he. I started hanging out with him on, like, a Thursday, and on, like, a Friday, he, like, was like, my throat's scratchy, and I don't feel 100%. And I'm like, you know, didn't really think too much about it. Like, maybe he's just talking a lot. And then, you know, then he kind of. He's like, fine, but just sort of like, whatever. And then Sunday morning, I started feeling kind of crappy. And then. Yeah, but, you know, he put a post on Instagram about how he had it and how he's, like, immune system was gonna just destroy it and all that. And it kind of got me fired up. So then it was kind of cool seeing that example, which is why when I'm nonchalant about it, like, I'm just. I'm not being. Again, totally get. Lots of people have died, there's terrible things have happened, all that. But, like, I also feel like, you know, we have balance. Just, like, it doesn't mean for most people who are young and healthy, they're going to be okay. Right? Dave Ryan, I know you said anything about red meat, and you have to understand there's conflicting advice about all of this stuff, so. I mean, I hear you, but for me, I'm pretty sure Carnivore helped me just crush the vid. I don't know. I don't really have anything that interesting to say, though, besides the fact that my body is crushing Covid and I feel great.

Today.

My fever broke. Ed, how are you doing? Let's talk about you. Yeah, I can taste. I can taste.

I'm doing really good, man. A lot's been going on in my world. I mean, anything you specifically curious about?

Yeah. How's your offer? I mean, you're doing this whole Facebook compliance offer, right, where you're, like, basically helping people. Not compliance, you're helping people to get reinstated on Facebook, essentially. Right. And it's kind of high ticket, but I think you said it's going pretty well, right?

Yeah. So it's very. I'd say it's a very much needed offer that no one has ever had the solution to until now. I know that's, like, a really bold thing to say, but it's true. Because you mix my Facebook compliance skill and understanding of Facebook's thinking, mixed with my partner, who's able to wave his magic wand and find out exactly why Facebook, you know, bans people for whatever they're doing. And then we work with them to basically make a case to disprove whatever Facebook's like, their. Their allegations against you. So whatever they think you did wrong, we'll work with you to basically say, hey, like, this is incorrect. You know, please get the account back. And we have ways to, you know, even overturn final decisions, personal blacklists, everything like that. But, yeah, super high ticket. I think we've. So last week, I think we enrolled an additional two new spots. I think there was a post in the traffic and funnels Facebook group, like, two days ago, and someone's like, oh, my stuff got banned. And I think three or four people were like, yo, go talk to Ed. So that's how you know you're doing something right. When you have, like, five people who are attacking you and other people's posting, you'll hire this guy. So it's going great. It's going really, really well. And I'm really enjoying be able to help people. I don't know if it will be.

A household name, though, for being a household name.

Yeah, just a little niche. A little niche. Grant asks, how's the course going? The course is going well. The course was more so a positioning piece for me, being like, I'm the first to have a Proper Facebook compliance course. Like that's more, more than like the, the money play. It was more of a branding play. So I was able to be like, yeah, you know, I charge a thousand bucks for my course for the recordings. The live version was 2,000 bucks. And people know that now. So when they, you know, when they hire me for 1500 an hour for consulting, or when they want to pay, you know, anywhere from 6k to 25, 30k for our services, it's like, yeah, makes sense.

Yeah, that's. That's awesome. What I think you've done such a good job of Ed. I think it's a good lesson for everybody watching and who will listen to, you know, this on itunes or whatever it is that like you did. You decided, you know, a year ago at the Copycarter event and in Vegas, the last live event. We did, yep. You know, you were still kind of trying to figure out your niche. I mean, you're leaving your previous position, you're going on your own. It's kind of crazy. It's about to be your one year anniversary and I actually want to talk about that, how much your life has changed. We'll do that in a second. But like after you did leave, I mean, for a while you're like kind of looking at your niche and you ended up kind of settling on Facebook compliance because you got it, because you've done it a lot of your previous job or whatever. And then so you just started like posting about it and be like, oh yeah, I'm the expert of that. And then everyone's like, oh, I guess I'd raise the expert on that. And then now it's been a year and now like, you're like, you are the person, you want to be the person that people think of first. Right? And that's what you are. Like today somebody messaged me, I referred them to you and they're like, hey, I need help with like face compliant version of the sales letter for Facebook. And I was like, talk to Ed Ray. Instant referral and that Facebook traffic and funnels like Facebook group, same thing. It's the same thing with the media buying. If you wanna do a media buying course, it's like Justin Brooks's ad skills course is instantly what I think of hopefully for copywriting. RNBC is one of the things that people think of. It's pretty prevalent. There's still obvious people who have never heard of me, which is good. Cause it means there's more opportunity. But. But you've done a good job, Ed. And for Anyone there? I mean, you don't have to. It's easy to pivot. We've talked about pivoting before. It's also, you can just take ownership of stuff pretty fast. It's like you don't have to wait for permission to just become like the go to person. I mean, you need to have the knowledge and you did. But you've done a really good job of making your sort of name synonymous with Facebook. Not just compliance, but even now, the Facebook magician. Right. The person who gets you back on and waves his magic wand, as we said, and gets you to your accounts reinstated, that kind of stuff. And I think it's really powerful and cool. So just good job with that.

Thank you. I can go off on that because there's a lot of strategy involved. This is something that I've done many times over the course of my career for people, if they're interested in learning about basically how to just position yourself and charge a fuckload for doing a little bit.

Totally.

If you're interested. Only if you're interested. I mean, just buy my 9, 97 course, you know? Yeah. So kind of the, the dealio behind how it all happened, something that I really abide by. This is like one of my. My core principles in business. Something I think is probably like my, my flagship concept is take complex problems and solve them with simple solutions.

About.

The complexity of Facebook compliance. Think about how much skill and effort that takes to get that sorted and then think about how simple I make it simple, meaning, yeah, I do it for you.

Right.

Or teacher. Like, hey, like, if you guys have been through my. Some of you, I think, have been through my Facebook compliance course, now you understand the matrix of how to look at Facebook and that simplifies it. So no matter what niche, what industry, anything that you go into, you find out what the overarching really, really big problems are that you can solve and then think of how to solve them in ways that are unconventional, new and better than the alternatives. One thing that I really took to.

Heart.

Was niching down because it's easy to want to do anything and everything. I think, like, especially because I know, like, a lot of people on here are copywriters. It's good to start off with taking on whatever projects you can just to see what you like. It's kind of like, you know, dating around a whole bunch before you find someone that you really want to be with for a while because you don't really know what you don't know. It's like, hey, like for me Like, I was in a kind of weird relationship with my mom's best friend for, like, two months, and she's 30 and I'm 20. But, yeah, that's a whole thing for another day. Yeah, that's a thing for a whole other day. But, like, you know, we go through all that stuff and we find out what we like, what we don't like.

Oh, man, that was. Yeah, you were saying open loop, and. Yeah, that's one hell of an open loop right there.

Oh, yeah. There's so much stuff to talk about. Hold on. I think I saw a question in the comments here. Any. Any recurrent notches where your service are mostly requested? Marco, what do you mean by that? But essentially, also interesting tidbit. Is this my course? Yes, it is. New podcast, Road to Landing Cougars. Hey, man, the. The older. The older women like me. I don't know why, but I don't blame them. So. I love my job. So, man, got back on track. Back on track. So, like, one thing that I teach in my compliance course, I did, like, a bonus call and for the. For the members. And one of the things I talk about, which I think you guys will really take value from, is not just being, like, a copywriter, because that's important, for sure. It's a skill, but instead transitioning the mindset to how can you holistically help a business grow? Because when you're. When you're. I don't want to say like, just a copywriter, but when you come from that mindset of being an order taker and you know, a client says, how many ads? Sorry. So client goes, I want Facebook ads or I want emails. And then what do most copywriters do? How many do you want? Right, okay, you're an order taker. Go work at McDonald's. This isn't for you until you change your mindset, in which case, I'll give you a perfect example. I had someone reach out to me through my email list, and he was like, hey, what's your rates for Facebook ads? And I was like. Wasn't super sure if I wanted to take it on because I'm kind of busy with a lot of this stuff right now. But he's running like a religious offer. Very funny because I'm Jewish and he's running, like, Christian, like, summaries of, like, the Bible, basically, and, like, most compelling stories and, like, very easy to remember and understand ways. And he was telling me about it, and I was like, yeah, not really sure. Like, can you tell me. Tell me, like, what your Offer is, what numbers are you running? Like, what's your back end look like? He's like, yeah, I'm doing 8K a day with this on Facebook. I'm basically getting two to one ROI, you know, spending $10, making $20 back on Facebook. And he sends me all of his links and stuff. And I look through it. I'm like, okay, there's some serious opportunity here. Here's how I think you can best use my time. So I said, I suggest I write you five Facebook ads. Normally, I charge 500 bucks per Facebook ad, but I actually really wanted to do this project. Cause it's like, really fun. It looks really fun. So I was like, I'll do 300 bucks per Facebook ad. So that's 1500. And then I also suggested consulting to help him find out the key leverage points in his funnel and in his business to increase his ROI and further scale. So it's not just, you know, 2 to 1 ROI on the front of it. Maybe 3 or 4 to 1 with my help. And so I suggested consulting, and he wanted two hours at 1500 price point. So that's $4,500 in total. If I had just been like, oh, here's my price on ads, and here's how many and how many do you want? I could have been screwed. It like, he's like, yo, three ads, 300 bucks, 900 bucks versus 4500. That's a. What's that, five X? Yeah, like, that's. It's completely different because you go from the mindset of what copy do they need to what can I do to help them grow their business? What are they not seeing? What do they not know? Can you elaborate on giving people fine numbers on what you can do? Grant, what do you mean by that?

While he's elaborating or while he's elaborating on his request for you to elaborate? You know, I think also, like, the kind of the consultative thing. One mistake a lot of freelancers make is not being the expert or authority. Like the fact that you came in and you sort of. You guided the client, and that's what the client wants. I just see this so often, even if, like, you know, John Camel. I helped get all those cool, you know, gigs for the email writing and the sales letter and which I put the post on. It was really neat, by the way. We made him basically $20,000 in like an hour. This is a guy who's about to quit freelancing and go be a security guard, which is amazing. It's the power of your network. And I gotta talk about that story at some point. I haven't literally email about that.

Man, that's a good one.

I know. I will. I will for sure. Because we had like five people at 1500 each, which is what, 7500. And then got a sales letter for like 6500. So that's. I could do math. 14,000. And then Austin Dixon, like, referred to somebody else for like 6,000. So it was like $20,000. And literally it was just from like me putting a post up, like, hey, I'll want to help this guy out. And I will put my. I'll review it. I'll, you know, I'll help copy chief operator stuff. And it was just fucking awesome. So hopefully John doesn't mind me telling this story. But basically, the one thing I noticed. So with the people, he was great. He's responsive. He's messaging them. But then he's like, I've reviewed your stuff. Thank you. Especially with the emails, it's like, you know, emails just aren't. Shouldn't be that hard. It's mostly email creatives. It's like, you look at the offer, you do a little research, and you know, if you have rbc, you can follow Jared's or Gerard's like, p. Wat stuff. But like, you know, then you write the creeps. It's not like, it's not rocket science. But he's like, after that, he. Then for the clients, he's like, hey, can we get on like a call and discuss more? And I basically messaged him like, hey, like, why are you trying to get in calls with these people? You know, because they gave you all the info you need to write the emails. And he's like, well, you know, I wanted to just chat more, make sure I wasn't missing anything. And I wanted to just find out what they're, you know, if they're in a rush and what their deadline is, because, you know, that way I can sort of balance it. And I was like, dude, I'm like, don't. Like, don't. Don't ask them to tell you they want it as soon as possible. So tell them, okay, great, thanks for this info. I'll get to you in 10 days. It's not like, well, when do you want to buy? And they're like, I don't know, as soon as possible. Well, do you want. It's like, then you start, like, just once you make like a client or anybody start making a bunch of decisions and having to think and like, all that, like, it becomes such a turn off and then you become a headache, and then they don't want to talk to you because, like, oh, God, they're asking more questions. Like the questions from freelancers. I know. I'm going a little tangent. I'll go back to what you're saying.

This is great. No, this is great. Go for it.

I just think it betrays a lack of confidence. Sort of. A lot of time is like, what it really is. It's like you're asking a bunch of questions to sort of, I don't know, feel like you're in control of the situation maybe. But, like, you know, you don't need to do that. It's like you can just, like, you need to be project confidence by guiding the client. Right? And so going back to what you did, I feel like you did the same thing. You're like, you're guiding this client and you're not just saying, like, well, what do you need? You need ads. It's this. Okay, you'll send me the money. Yay. You're like, well, here, like, let me give you this console of step by step thing. But I'm the expert. I'm guiding you. Like, really looking at every person who hires you as, like, a peer. It's true. Maybe they're an amazing offer owner, right? Awesome. Well, you're an amazing copywriter, marketer. So you're two expert peers meeting together and collaborating and working together. That's the way you should approach every relationship. It's not like they're the client. I'm this little, like, grunt. Oh, boy, I hope they hire me. Like, right? Like, it's so hard. But you have to have that confidence. It makes a world of difference. You come, you meet them up here, and then you guide them along, and you guys both contribute to the relationship. So with that being said.

Can I go on that? Yeah, I'm gonna. I'm gonna use a dating analogy. Dude.

Okay.

I gotta say something funny though. My list is so obsessed with my dating life.

It's like, it's insane.

It's so funny how much they love my dating life.

But.

So here's the dating analogy. It's like, imagine you're a dude on a date, right? And you're like, imagine like, you're waiting for her to approach you. Like, nah, dude, you got to go do it. And then you're gonna wait for her. Like, she's like. He's like, so, like, do you, like, want my number? And then she's like, I Guess. And then.

And then.

And then it's like, what time do you want to hang out? Like, where do you want to grab dinner? Like, you know, that sounds funny, but, like, that's how most freelancers and copywriters end up being. It's like. It's like, hey, I'd love to hang out with you. What's your number? I'd love to work with you. Like, what's your. You know, are you taking on positions for copywriters? Right.

Yeah.

Heidi said, I just want to know what my. What Ed's mom thought of all that. Actually, my parents came over last night. We had a good chat about it. It's a good time.

By the way, Seth, I saw you put a question there for most of the questions. Pop them in the Q and A, especially if they're general questions. Grant.

What an evasive answer. No, my mom, she's chill with all it. She's very supportive of what I'm doing now, both in terms of career and dating. And she's just happy that I'm happy. And she said this. As long as I am a productive member of society, I'm happy and I'm healthy. That's all that matters to her.

She's like, and if you happen to, you know, just get it on with my friends, what can I. What can I do? She's like, God, I cannot have friends over when Ed's visiting. Just gets so weird so fast.

No, but like. And the funny thing is, so my mom, so we. She's our neighbor who lives across the street. So, like, at my parents place, you walk outside the front door. That's her front door.

Wow.

Yeah.

Back. My little. The cougar next door. Of course, this one is like, 30. I'm 35. So to me, she's like, not even a cougar. It's just like, you know, a normal person. But, you know, you're 19 or whatever. You're 20. Are you 19 still?

I'm 20, bro.

I'm 20. Yeah. Okay, well. Well, you're an adult now.

Exactly.

Yeah. Don't invite hot friends over when my son is older. Heidi. Yeah, I know, right?

It's like, yo, Heidi, don't. Don't invite your hot friends over when I'm there.

Yeah, walk away. It wasn't. They're like, walk away. Lock up your daughters. Is like, lock up your friends.

That is fair game, though. That is true, Heidi. That is true. I am fair game.

You know, that's.

Yeah, shoot. Like, there's. There's so much stuff I'D love to talk about. Just. There's been a lot of my mind lately. One thing actually. So I started looking into emotional trauma therapy. All of us have like micro traumas. Like that sounds like dramatic, but that's like the word is just trauma. It could be like. So for example, for me, when I was, when I was a kid, like almost every single night my dad had to take me to the the hospital because I had like severe croup. If you're not like sure if you've never heard of croup, it's basically like strep throat times seven. So I had that almost every single night as a kid growing up. And so when, when a child is like separated from their mother for too long, psychologically or like physically, you start to have this like distrust and basically have issues. Oh my God, Stefan.

What? I don't know you're talking about. They don't know if it's a live. They don't know, bro.

I was, oh my God.

I put in the chat. I was like, I heard you get troupe from making out cougars. So that's why I was laughing.

Yeah, bro, when I was two years old, man, I came out of the womb just hitting, hitting it with cougars.

You know, beard was coming in strong. It's like rocking it.

Yeah, beard game on point. We're at the moon man group and not Krug, huh?

At the coug throat.

Oh my God.

Oh yeah.

Basically, I didn't always have the best relationship with my parents, especially because I like used to live with them. But now I'm really developing a really, really awesome relationship with them. And like on Monday I went over my parents place, hung out with my sister and my brother. Last night my mom and dad, my dad came over for wine. We had like a nice hundred dollar wine as like their Christmas gift. I got like, you know, a little fruit tray made. And then tonight my older brother, my dad are coming over to hang out and it's like, it's, it's, it's interesting to say this, but I feel like as my relationship with my family, my parents is deepening and improving, I feel more of a man. Like I feel more like I'm stepping into myself. Like there's a study done where apparently I think it's like 80 or like 90% of people with like cancer, stomach ulcers, like really nasty stuff going on with them. They all have terrible relationships with their parents. And so I was like, damn, like okay, shit. So definitely, you know, especially if you're younger, even whatever age you're at, like, change your perception of your family. Like, your parents did whatever they could, the best they could with whatever they received. Because, like, you know, I was always a little bit upset about my mom for being very critical and controlling and negative. And then I heard about her stories of growing up as a kid, dealing with her mom, and I'm like, she's just passing on what she received. She just is giving whatever she, like, what she knows. And it's like, when you come from that perspective of understanding, it's a lot easier to forgive, even if someone's done something horrible to you just because, like, you understand, like, what they're going through. Like, people only. Only broke, only hurt people, hurt people. So, you know, give them love and move on. So, yeah, that's a little.

Little philosophical, but really, it's really enlightened, inspiring, I think. I love it.

There's a really great book I'm reading. It's called. Hold on, let me find it. Actually, I think it's called it didn't start with you. Give me a second. Check it real quick. But, yeah, I think I saw some questions earlier. Yeah, it's called It Didn't Start with youh by Mark Wallen. It didn't start with you. Really, really good book. Definitely give it a go. So someone asked in the chat, innocent omoyibo. How do you fit? So going back to our conversation about being the expert and guiding the client, how do you figure out exactly what they don't know that you can capitalize and offer to help them? That comes with a bit more experience. But let me give you a very, very easy example that you don't have to be a crazy expert, but you come across as one. You guys cool with that? So another big fatal flaw a lot of copywriters make is they charge for piecemeal instead of for, like, a campaign. So somebody will go, hey, copywriter, I want emails. And then you go, how many do you want? Right. Okay, that gets you a few hundred bucks worth of stuff versus, you say. So they say, hey, I want you to write me emails. You say, sure. Tell me more about what you got going on. What product do you want me to promote? What's the price point? What's your upsell look like? How is the offer currently doing? Let's say, for example, someone's running a new webinar or a new sales page, and they want to promote it to their list. So now you know, okay, it's a new offer that they have not really promoted much before or they don't have, like a lot of retargeting emails. And it's a new, fresh product. Okay, so now we know. Okay, I'm gonna write, let's say, three emails to kind of pre hype people for it and get them really, really stoked on the idea of the product before I even promote it or start talking about it. That's three emails. And then let's say you're going to have a week launch and you can do. You're going to have two emails per day for the first five days. On day six, you're going to have three. On day seven, you're going to have maybe another three or maybe four. And then not only that, you're also going to have retargeting emails. So if people visit the checkout page and they don't buy, you're going to be like, hey, you know, make sure to get your thing.

That's.

That went from literally, I don't know, let's say you charge 100 bucks per ad or per email. That went from what would have been a $300 gig. But because you charge for a campaign, not just piecemeal, that becomes a $2,000 gig because it's 20 emails. Does that make sense?

It does. Sorry, I'm just ripping in the.

I know you are, but Heidi says Ed is an old soul. That's why he can bag older babes.

No, it does make sense though, Ed. It does. It truly does. But I know. I just want to run off the rails a little bit of the cougar stuff. Not a bad way. Yeah. Ryan Connolly just said spitting fire right now on the Facebook live. You are spitting fire, Ed.

Thank you.

This is nice. I feel like I'm just not, you know, I feel like I'm just enjoying hearing you talk. We'll go to questions in maybe five minutes, but anything else you want to free flow on, Ed?

Dude, there's so much stuff to free flow on.

Well, tell me this, Ed. I do want to know. I mean, let's just talk real quick about who you are, because again, you're sounding so in line right now. And you are no man for being 20. For being 20, you are. And for any age. It's not like. Because I hate the age qualifier, right? Because it's like, I know like 50 year olds who are wildly emotionally immature. Um, I know like 16 year olds who are incredibly mature. Um, so, like, yes, sure. I think if you look at like, like plot the lines, like, usually there's, you know, more maturity comes of age usually. But Definitely not all the time. There's plenty of exceptions. Um, but, you know, you were. You were wise a year ago as well, but your life was in a different place. And I'm just curious about, you know, just. Just maybe reflect on that for a few minutes. Like, well, you know, because again, a year ago, we were about a month out from the event in Vegas, which, by the way, our next event is virtual, but it's happening February 23rd through 25th for CopyCarter, if you're happy. We've got, I think 85 people have applied, 50 plus people bought tickets already. We've got our 220 plus mastermind members coming. And we've got John Carlton, Pauline Longdon, or not John Carlton, John Benson, Pauline Longdon, Steve Gunn. Crushing it. Gosh, like, who else? Just a ton of amazing people. James Van Ellswyck, Carlene Ingle Cole is coming again, and she's sharing, like, breaking down a bunch of stuff. It's gonna be awesome. But I'm gonna put a link in the chat and Facebook group in a second for that. But anyway, I'm not saying it's all to, like them promote the event. I'm just curious about. I'm thinking back to a year ago because I'm sentimental, because it's like, you know, we're kind of on a year, and you were still at a job, you hated it, you were gonna leave, and then you did. But how's life changed in the last year?

Well, man. So I guess to give people context, so back then, I was working for Influencer, who's well known. I worked for free for that person for six months. And then for two years, I worked with them about 60 to 120 hours a week. Only by the time I got to the top of the food pyramid in terms of, like, not food pyramid, top of the food chain. I was, you know, I was making decent money, but I was still, like, grossly underpaid. Like, the amount of work that I was doing, the amount of revenue I was generating for that company, they made millions off of me directly. Like, the one sales letter I wrote in the first 30 days made 100k, the first seller I ever wrote. And I didn't see a penny of that. And I was seriously getting burnt out. I was in a very toxic environment. And I just was not really happy with myself or how I was being treated, so. Or how my friends are being treated either. So I was like, I'm not sticking around for this anymore. So I was. It was really hard because it's like, leaving your family. I love everyone so much, But I knew it was time for me to move on, do my own thing. And at the copy accelerator event, I was kind of telling Stefan, like, hey, man, like, I'm thinking of leaving. Like, I'm not really sure. And it was obviously, like, Stefan didn't convince me to leave. Nothing like that. But as someone who was, like, a friend of mine and someone I really trust to help look out for me, I kind of confided in him. He's like, dude, you're gonna be doing, like, 10, 15k a month, easily. I was like, no. Remember that dinner? Remember that dinner?

Your eyes getting all wide, and you just were like. And I was shocked that you didn't realize it, but I get it, because you're like, I don't know what you're getting paid there. It was like, six or seven or something like that.

4,500 Canadian. So that's like three us.

I want to talk about that. I want you to continue, but I want to talk. There's a huge lesson there and how that person fucked up. I'm such a. A massive level. But. But yes, I remember telling you that. Yeah, like, you could be doing 10 or 15, and you just. Your eyes getting wide. Like, like, so wide.

Yeah. Yeah, man. And then by that. By the time I was, like, ready to quit, they were, like, wanting to get me to stay for longer. And I was open to it, like, to talking about it. They said they needed me for a few months because I was teaching the program for copywriting. And then as soon as that happened, they were like, hey, can you stay for a few more months? We'll double your pay. And I was like, no, I'm done here. My loyalty can't be bought. Like, back at. When I spoke on stage at the first event, V. Shred was hammering me all night, trying to post. Be like, what. What's your guy paying you? We'll double it. Come work for us. And I was like, my loyalty can't be bought. Same goes when you hurt me for the person I did everything for. My loyalty can't be bought. So when they tried to double my pay, I was really offended. And I was like, so now you see my value? Interesting.

Do you think if they had. I mean, I think the double your pages wouldn't have been enough anyway.

But, like, no, like, it's still, like, half of what I probably should have been paid for the amount of work I was doing, I should have been getting paid, like, probably 10 to 15amonth.

Dude. Well, also, that business, like, basically fell apart after you left, which is amazing. I mean, the person is bouncing back a bit now. And, like, we won't go too deep into that. Like, my. I'm not gonna say the person's name, but, like, my belief, and I've said it to other people, is that this person clearly messed up. They basically started making these big promises they couldn't fulfill upon, especially not without Ed there to help. But people were kind of like, again, I try to have empathy for everybody. So even for this person, from my perspective, I'm like, this person's gonna. Will bounce back and do more things and be successful again. And then they already kind of are bouncing back some, which is fine. But it's a good lesson because again, they had to go through like six months of just like complete like hell or more after you left. And it's like. Or they could. And they're making millions of dollars, right? Like a month. Like a million dollars plus a month, whatever they're making. And it's like. Or they could have paid you like, $15,000 a month or 20. It wasn't just about the money. But if they come to you and been like, look, we've been fucking up. Like, we want you to be a partner with us. We want you to build up. We're gonna, like, dramatically increase your pay. But it's not just about the pay. It's about how much you mean to us. Like, you contribute. If they couched it in, like, a deeper meaning and offered you a raise, I think you would have been less offended, right? A big part of it is that they're just sort of like, yeah, we'll double it. You say now? And you're like, no, because it's not just about money. It's about all these underlying issues. But I just wanted to note, I've always been a believer in overpaying. And there's times where it's stupid. I mess up sometimes. I'm like, fuck, I overpaid this person, right? But ultimately, I've just never understood if somebody is making you $100,000 a month extra profit or a million dollars a month in profit, and you're paying $6,000, but this person's solely contributing to that. And then why would you not pay them $15,000 a month to keep them, right? And it's like, oh, because other people don't pay. It's like, okay, cool. Like, do you care what other people do? Or do you care about the fact that you're making $100,000 a month or a million dollars a month profit and you want to keep that up. I've just never understood it. But there's a lot of big companies, big, big companies in our industry and other industries do this all. I mean, that's why I hate the corporate world in general, right? That's why I couldn't stay in the corporate world. Because you can have these massive contributors and they're getting paid like, you know, $3,500, $4,000 a month. And you're like, you know, good job. In a year and a half from now, you're going to go to $5,000 a month and you're like, dude, fuck this, I'm crushing it. I like a meritocracy. But even then you think, okay, well in Dr. And online marketing, what I love about it is that there's much less of those kind of glass ceilings and things like that. But I've just never understood and I just think again, it's a really important lesson for people who are entrepreneurs and business owners. It's like, pay your best people really well, you know.

But it wasn't just the money for me. I was done with that. I want to just make it clear, like even if they offered 15, I would have been like, no, I was done with that.

Let me ask you this though, Ed. If they had six months prior to that, before you were completely burned out, if they come to you and offered you 10 or 12 or 15 and they talked to you about again, your meaning to the organization and they wanted you to contribute more and have more input and all that kind of stuff, like, don't you think there's a reasonable chance that you would not have ended up leaving in February? I think you still might have, but I think it got to a place where you were so burned out, plus your underpaid, and then like they try to offer you more money. But I think like you don't think so. Like if they six months prior to.

That point, no would have been same. Honestly would have been same. I, I was, I was kind of, I was happy with the money that I was making. Like I wasn't like, you know, I was living with my parents, I wasn't like, you know, hurting for money or nothing like that. Let's put it this way, by the time of working with them for two and a half years, I was making what I was making back when I was 17, I was restarting. Just wasn't super stoked at just how everything happened, just culture, environment, how everything. The money wouldn't have made a difference.

But again, if it. But you don't think it, I won't be the dead horse. And maybe I'm just wrong. That's fine. I can accept, you know, pretty arrogant. So I like assuming I'm right. Laura always jokes when I admit that I'm wrong, and I'll be like, God, I guess, like, once a year, even I'm wrong, you know, But I'm joking. Like, 90% joking. But I'm really joking a lot, actually. But you don't. You know, the culture sucked. Right. So. But if they had given you the opportunity to change the culture, if they'd been like, we want to change it with you again six months prior to.

You leaving, then, yes, I would have been open to helping with that, and I always was. But it's just like, they burned the boats on me. Like, I was. I was willing to stay for, like, at least a few more weeks. And I was like, yeah, like, I'm happy to work with you guys and figure this out. And I got an email from HR that's like, yeah, you've basically been fired. Yeah, I was like. I was like, you guys said you needed me for a few more months, and, like, you're firing me. I was like, okay, cool. All right. This is like a confession session anyway. There's a lot more than just what we're talking about. But anyway, so comparing to that working 120 hours a week and. And feeling stressed and never really having my own personal life or any life, really, and now I have a personal life, I actually understand what it means. The best way to describe the difference is I feel like I'm actually human now. Like, I have emotions. I have feelings. I'm not just, like, you know, suppress and bottle up all my rage and all my emotions and get the work done and be a workhorse. And I'm no longer. My personal value is no longer tied to what I can produce and what I can do. It's just. I'm tied to just being me because I'm a good person as Ed. Not just as a copywriter, as a workhorse, as someone who produces millions of dollars for companies. That's definitely been a huge shift. Yeah, it's. Yeah, Lisa, it's definitely really powerful when you realize, like, especially in our entrepreneurial community, like, we're so focused on producing that we forget that and creating value through production that we forget that we are valuable in and of ourselves just as we are. Thank you, Lisa. And, yeah, you're enough. Exactly. That's Something I had to learn. Also had a massive existential crisis. I'm like. After I left, I was like, now what. What do I do with my time? Because all my time was just work. I. I couldn't. I didn't break dance, I didn't play the trumpet, I didn't sing, I didn't, you know, hang out with my friends. I had, like, my relationship, my family was horrible. So I kind of had like, reassemble my life. Yeah, I played the trumpet. I played for like eight years and I just picked it back up again. And I'm actually living life. I'm spending time with my friends and my family. I'm spending time doing things I really want to do and I'm making decent money doing it. And it's. It's just like with. Without being part of Copy Accelerator, I would not have gotten here nearly as fast, especially under the guidance of Stefan and Justin. Like, it's. Seriously, it's been really helpful. Just great group of people. And at this point now, um, I'm working, I would say probably like, I was dealing with serious burnout, like the past four or five months. Just like, I guess it was collection of or like residue of, you know, five years of just grinding for like 60 to 120 hours a week. It hasn't stopped. Never really took vacations or weekends. And if I did, I was always thinking about work. And so now, like, I had burnout. So I barely. I basically, I was doing well enough that I could literally work a half an hour to an hour a day, maybe like three hours on Sundays when I really worked hard. And my. My body just. Just wouldn't let me work more than half an hour. Like, I would write an email and like, I'd have to go like, like to. To my list and I'd have to go lay in bed for rest of the day, basically because, like, my body was just revolting at the idea of work because of all the trauma that I went through. I've probably. Yeah, I. I looked at my therapy bill, like $9,000 to deal with what happened. Yeah. And. I'm like, I'm grateful for it. That happened because it kind of helped develop me as a person. It gave me the skills I needed to get to where I am. So I'm super, super grateful. And I'm like, honestly, I would not change it for a thing. I wouldn't change it for a thing. I'm so grateful that everything happened that way. And like, now I'm doing pretty well. I'm doing stuff. I Love. I'm working with really, really great people and I'm actually living a life like, you know, all those dreams and stuff people pitch you on and these sales letters and stuff telling you you can do this and that. It's like, doesn't come. It usually doesn't come as fast as they tell you, but once you stick to it and you work with it, it'll come. It'll be worth it.

That's awesome. Appreciate you sharing all that.

Yeah, I haven't revealed any of that like publicly, publicly before. There's a lot more.

Yeah. But yeah, we'll continue. We'll talk about this more. We'll have more riffs. I mean, dude, on Facebook Live, I feel like we got 26 people watching on live. Someone asked a question, which I'll get to there, but I'll burn out. But I feel like. I feel like you got. People are captivated by The ED race. 27 people. ED race story on top of our zoom, obviously. But damn, man. Well, I don't know. Let's go to questions. I don't want to answer questions. We got 10 in here and it.

Yo. Virtual hugs, you guys. Thank you so much. I appreciate that.

Yeah, I love going on the chat. So every on Facebook Live for like, why are they pausing? There's just a lot of love thread in the chat. A lot of hearts. A lot of hearts.

Thanks, guys. Appreciate it.

Yeah.

Teaches you that you start to get your own validation from yourself instead of other people and you start to see your own value. You start to see that you are good enough as a human being as you are. Especially when you used to put all your value and you basically put. Put your hands, your. Your self worth in the hands of somebody who obviously is incentivized to squeeze the juice out of it. Once you get rid of that, like, you start to see like you hold your own power, you hold your own space and you are a strong individual. That's good enough. Just as you are. All right, that was heavy. But. Thanks people. You guys are amazing. You guys are still, still blowing up the chat. Oh my goodness. James goes. Now look at you. Writing your own offers, dating older women. Truly live in the dream king. Exactly. Yeah. And by the way, so for those of you who I have cut off before because of the non compete, I removed the application from my email list if you're interested. So that's all good to go now.

Nice.

That was just a filtering process, unfortunately, but at this point, fuck it. What are they gonna do? Sue me anyway? I don't really sell them my list much anyway. So you just get to hear about cougar stories and elevator dating stories.

Elevator dating story was like, that was probably gonna be your one of your most read emails. Like, I immediately read that.

You like that marketing lesson from flirting with a brunette.

Through Edwin.

Cool.

Let's go to some questions I want to dive in and tackle.

Let's do it.

Cool.

All right. I got the question from James. Oh, I need co host Stefan.

Oh, my God. I was so wrapped. You can't get mad at me for not giving you posts on this one. I was just so captivated.

Honestly, don't worry about it.

Yeah, I'm not. I'm not. Not. Sorry. Not apologizing.

Yeah, man.

Make co hosts, honestly.

Yeah, like, I haven't. I've been having a hard time writing emails to my list lately. That's why I haven't mailed in a little bit. I'm not even sure what I want to talk about anymore, but we'll see.

Do you do that prompting I've talked about? It's kind of helpful. I gave. I showed Paul Saladino too, actually. But basically, it's like a spreadsheet. Let me pull this up really quick. I'm not gonna screen share, but I'll just sort of share the idea of it. What is it? Prompts. Yeah. So basically, like, I create, like, I don't use it a ton, but I basically created this, like, spreadsheet. Fuck it. I'll share my screen real quick. Even though I want to normally do on the road to a billion. Real quick. Go for it.

Go for it.

Oh, yeah. Okay. So basically, like, if you look at like, essentially like, I created this again, I don't actually even use it that much, but like, I basically create these categories, like, pivotal moment in your life, personal struggle, victories, failures, a conflict with yourself or another a recent discovery. And then I just go through and just dump thoughts as I'm thinking about pivotal moments in my life. I'm like, meeting my wife at a poker table is one. Being hired by Yi off of Warrior Forum. And that led to me making $80,000 a month as a writer for the first time. My first profitable business through a referral, Right? And then a personal struggle like depression when I was in New York or how I don't like lifting weights or add or. I mean, I like lifting weight. Whatever. Point is this, I can brainstorm stuff. And then I did some other stuff too, like tangible value where it's like, this one's not even as, like, fill it Out. But you can do, like, quotes and passages from books. I love copy specific stuff, specific beliefs I hold, how tos, deep thoughts or ideas. It's sort of like. And then even sharing other people's stories, like, whether it's someone from, like, a book or testimony or whatever. So just a cool framework for people that if they. And you might want to try that too, Ed.

Thank you.

Yeah, because then if you just. Again, if you just brain dump it all down and then you don't know what you're gonna write about, you just go and look and, oh, yeah, that's an interesting story. And you start writing it. So it's a pretty useful prompt.

I was trying to think of, like, ways to promote my, like, asset recovery services to my list. And, like, every time I mail it, like, I mail about it, like, I get at least like, one or two responses of like, hey, like, my shit's been fucked.

Like, can you help me?

And I'm like, yeah, sure.

Okay.

I'm just trying to think of more ways to do it. And I've been in my head lately about, like, you know, wanting to, you know, give value. But then, like, I've seen some people unsubscribe from my list because I haven't talked about Facebook compliance in a while. But there's only so much you can talk about Facebook compliance without, like, me giving away basically my whole course for free, you know? So, like, yeah, I'm trying to figure it out in my head.

Yeah, it's tough, dude. I mean, like, and I do, again, I want to get to questions because I want to pop and get to as many as I can, but I can't forget what I was gonna say. But. Oh, yeah. I mean, what is my. My list has kind of been stuck at, like, about 3,550 people. And I'll get, like, 15, 20 new people. I'll say 10 to 20 new people per day subscribers. But I think especially because I'm getting more people from Instagram who I don't mean mostly about that, because people are helping. My Instagram are, like, putting these, like, Bentley, like, pictures again. I put a picture of me and my daughter for, like, toy Bentley next to my Bentley. And like, that's like, you know, I don't know. That was like a kind of. It was cute and, like, I get it, but it's like just me in a convertible, like, you know, mindset. And it's like, eh. I was like, hey, guys, let's tone that down a little bit, right? But I think some people come from ig. And then they're like, you know, and then I'm talking about a bunch of, like, deep shit, and they're like, hey, I just want to know how to get a Lambo. Right? Bye. And then like, also people come onto my list. Like right now I'm promoting the virtual event, like a very. In pretty much every single email. So it's like, hard. Cause in my head, I'm like, man, people are coming out of my list and they're just seeing me promote something every single day. So it's like, they're probably gonna be like, oh, all this guy does is just like promote stuff the whole time. And it's like, annoying because you want to be like, hey, no, I don't. But I am right now. But I'm like, yeah, fuck it. You know what I mean? If they stick around, great. If they don't, they don't. But the point is, it's sort of like challenging. You're not gonna make everyone happy. So the way I've looked at that is like, just, you know, you can't make everyone happy. But the ones who stick around are going to be, you know, the ones you want on your list anyway. And the ones who leave, that's good. They self selected and filtered themselves out and so, you know, I don't know. Same thing about you. It's like the people who leave, they just leave. What can you do about them? They weren't the right people anyway. They're self selecting.

That's true. That's true. Actually. Yeah. Funny tidbit before we get to the next question is I remember I was feeling very much like I wrote an email about love because I, like, I think it's a very interesting topic. Somebody unsubscribed from that email. I was like, damn, who hurt you? Like, bro, like, talk about, like, what love is about. Freaking unsubscribes. Sad, man. Anywho, question here from James.

About.

Foundational copywriting rules.

Cool. What's up, James? Pull them up.

Hold on.

Yeah, get him.

Doing a bajillion things at once right now. There we go. Beautiful. There he is.

Hey, what up, James?

I wasn't expecting to come up. What is this, Clubhouse?

You were the first person on too, because you came right in and I think pointed out my sweater and just, you know, made me real happy.

So, yeah, it's a good sweater. I dig it. It's very clean. Looks like. What's. What's that? I don't know. I'm not showing my Star Trek Nerdness, I guess. But there's a planet that's like, everything's perfect, and everybody just, like, goes around and like. Anyways, it reminds me of, like, there's that clean look of like, dope. Anyways, yeah, so, yeah, I was talking to a buddy about foundational copywriting rules the other day, and he reminded me, I haven't read Eugene Schwartz's Breakthrough Advertising.

In a long time.

And he reminded me about gradualization. So I went back and read it. And then I read another post about the same topic, but it kind of painted it with the metaphor of the Hobbit and. And how the Hobbit is kind of like the intro to Tolkien's world. So gradualization being, you know, where you meet them at, that message they're kind of thinking of and gradually walk them down to the belief you want them to believe by the end of the sales page. And it just such a great foundational rule that I'd forgotten about. So I was wondering if there's any other, you know, kind of, like, persuasion foundational rules we should kind of keep in mind while writing copy.

Yeah, that's a really cool question. I think that, you know, the basic one, I feel like I don't have a sexy answer, but, you know, the biggest ones are. So speaking of that, holding their hand and leading them down a path. And I think that, you know, is another way of looking at the path that you want them to go on. You grab by the hand and you guide them. And generally I just really go back to doing that by speaking to their heart first and their mind second, you know, going emotional first, logical second, that kind of stuff. I really think that the biggest thing is, you know, connecting with your prospect through emotion and then going to appeal to logic afterwards. Because the one. One of the biggest mistakes I just continuously see people make is, like, leading their stuff with stats. And it always drives me crazy when it's like, hey, you know, are you struggling to lose weight? Well, statistics show that, you know, seven out of 10 people are now obese and that, you know, 35% of them are even severely obese. In fact, according to the cdc, obesity isn't. It's like, why, you know, if somebody's, like, fat or overweight and they want to lose weight, then, like, they don't need statistics. They know they feel a guilt and a frustration and an anger and all these feelings. They're feeling emotions and. And like, you know, just talking about emotions and connecting and being like, hey, I understand you. Right? Like, I understand you. And I can relate to you. I am you. And based on that, once you've gotten them, that's how you grab their hand, right? You hold their hand by building that rapport with them. And from there you're like, now I understand you and I am you, but I'm future you. And so like, while I was where you are today, I'm so different. I'm going to take you there now. Come with me. Let me show you how I went from, you know, past you or present you to future you that you want to be. I'm going to guide you along. So I don't know if that makes sense or not, but I think for me that's really the most important thing beyond, you know, that's the way I would look at it with copy. I think that's one of the most important things.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, that definitely makes sense. And it kind of, kind of reminds me of that Hobbit metaphor where it's totally. At first nobody wanted to read the Hobbit because it was just a giant world. And then they were like, need to put something else in there. And so he introduced or not the Hobbit, but you know, the Lord of the Rings because it was just a giant world of like all this stuff. And then he put the Hobbit in there as like the lead end of the story. But yeah, it also puts the image of that old picture series of the girlfriend leading the guy by the hand. And it was that whole like a long time ago. I guess it was a name anyways. Yeah, definitely makes sense.

Well, I think, I think one more thing too, I'll point out is. Yeah, I think also just, it just works for your marketing in general. Like, because I think another mistake that people will make is to they try and explain too much, even in email marketing or in a sales letter, and they're trying to tell you too much of like how a program works, right? You're selling a program or something and like you're trying to tell them all that. But that is the same thing. Get them in the door for a lot of stuff. You get them in with a big promise and once they're in the door, then you can kind of share more. So it's like that's the other way of looking at it too. It's not just like a tripwire, like a short little page or seven dollar offer and you don't have a lot of copy. But it's like, say you're teaching people how to get clients on Instagram and get high paying clients on Instagram and monetize them and then like, you know, you kind of. That's a promise. But then people will write something like that and then go into like, here's everything you get and like how to get on the phone and call the clients and how to cold call and how to close and how to do this. And it's like, nobody wants to do that stuff. They just want to get clients. So, like, not revealing so much. Right. Is kind of another way of looking at that too. It just came to mind, I mean, to get really nerdy. Right? Okay. If the Hobbit is like your. Your Legion, Tripwire, introduction, whatever, and then you get into the Lord of the Rings sequence, which is where most people go, and then stop. But then there's more. People are going to read a bunch of tokens, other stuff like the Simulion or however you pronounce that, which is basically his creation myth. I took like a Tokian, like literature, like, class in junior college back in the day. Read the Similion, which is actually like really dope. I was like, wow, this is sick. But it's like way out there and it's like most Tolkien people aren't going to go that far. But it's kind of same thing with like your, you know, your intro course and then like the Lord of the Rings trilogy is your, you know, like your one of your thousand dollar course. And then like the Simo Rulian is like, you're like, you know, $30,000 mastermind. It's like most people aren't going to go there, but once you're really into, you are. So just another kind of nerdy way of thinking about this that I figured I'd add to the conversation. Cool.

Thank you, guys.

Yeah, absolutely, man. Thanks for the question.

That was fire, Stefan.

Thanks, man. Anytime. I get to reference some. Some obscure Tolkien JR token, like, you know, work. I'm into it.

All right, beautiful question here from Manuel Zapata about what information to take on when having a new client.

What's up, Manuel?

Hey, Stefan. Hey, what's happening?

Hey, man.

So, yeah, I wanted to ask you your perspective. So I took our NBC. So I get the research part. When working with clients, I do have like an idea of what to get from them the first time we're working together, like on the offer on like them and their authority and all. But I wanted to know like, what your approach was and also ED's, like, what do you take from them?

What do you ask as far as when you're kind of onboarding a client? Is that the question? Yeah, yeah, exactly.

When you're onboarding a client, it's the first time you've never met them, so you need to know, like, everything about them. Like, what I do is I actually get on a call and ask them, like, everything that came from their life story and what we're gonna promote, but it's too open. So, like, I don't have a framework for it.

So.

Yeah, like, what do you get from them?

Exactly.

Yeah, that's a good question. I mean, I don't. I don't. I should write up a framework for people, like a checklist or something, and put it into rnbc or maybe make it, like, a free, like, thing or something. But because, like, I want to do a lot of the research. I mean, really, I want to know, like, what the product is, you know, like, and not just, like, on a broad level, like, what's in it, what makes it unique or different. Why did they create the product? Assuming they created it, or if they did, who created the products and why did they create it? And within there, it's not just like, again, it's really about multidimensional or, like, deeper layers of questioning. Because you're like, why did you create this product? And it's like, oh, I wanted to help people to have better relationships. You're like, okay, that's not a good answer. Right. Why is that important to you? Well, everyone needs a good relationship. It's almost like they say the whole finding your why. If you ask somebody why six times, you get to their true why. You almost need to do that with clients, too, when you're talking to them, because they're like, oh, everyone could have better relationships. Okay, cool. But why is it important to you? And it's like, well, you know, eventually get to like. Well, like, I. As I grew up, my parents were always fighting, and it made me feel unloved. And then I acted out and had, like, a drug addiction when I was in my 20s, but found a mentor who changed everything because they showed me this and that. You're like, oh, God. Oh, now. Now you wrote the copy for me. But I think you have to, like, go a couple layers deep. But, I mean, who's the market, the demo, if they know that? I mean, I still would do my research. I just had this happen. I wrote, like, a new lead for a friend where, like, their demo, I don't give away too much on it, but basically it was like the demo was. He targeted, like, 55 plus, like, women. And I went on all these forums and did research. Even though I was just doing a new lead, I, like, I went and did research and I just saw that, like, so many women in their 20s and 30s, in their 20s and 30s,. Were, like, suffering from the same problem. So for the new lead I wrote for him, I basically targeted. I didn't specifically target them, but I purposely spoke to them more and things like that and helped. So I think there's a caveat there, which is like, they may know their demo, but they also may not. They're really dialed in company. They know their demo, but there's also times where they don't. Yeah, yeah.

You talked a couple of things, I think, over here about, like, not having your client give you the research aspect. So I'm totally on board with that. But, like, so what I've done in the past is, like, I basically asked for them for the life story. Like, I go. I try to go as deep as I can, and they usually turns out, like, two hour conversations one week apart. So I do, like, the first one, get everything I can, then I start writing. Questions come up, and then I go to the second one and then fill in the gaps. But, yeah, that's like, what I've done.

No, I think that makes sense. That's a good. That's a good approach as well. For sure. Ed, do you want to add anything to this?

Is this in terms of, like, research or this in terms of, like, knowing how to.

Like, this is in terms of gathering the information from the client in order to start, like, working.

Oh, so like actual research, not like what we talked about earlier, which is like, knowing what leverages or what levers to pull in their business to. Yeah, basically, Whatever what Stefan said. That was super on point.

Thanks. By the way, Rachel. Sure. She has a client questionnaire project response that she just shared it. That's dope. Thank you, Rachel Savage.

Thanks, Rachel.

Cool. All right, man. Thanks for the question, man.

Okay, great. Bye.

Bye.

Beautiful. All right.

Hey, John Caprani on the Facebook live. Good to see you.

John Caprani is the man. Seth Ellsworth.

Oh, man.

All right, buddy. He's having trouble writing copy for his offer, so here he is.

Let's talk about what's up. Snap.

Mr. Seth.

You guys hear me? Yeah.

Yes, sir.

What's happening? I'm taking my son to the dentist.

At the moment, so.

A manual shift in the right hand and left hand driving with my knee.

No worries, man.

So, Ed, you're familiar with what I'm doing. I essentially have an issue of. I'M in the personal development space, and I have basically a vehicle. I sell the vehicle, and people hop in and drive it wherever they want to go. So basically, I help them get out of their way and install a single habit that they want. I don't care what the habit is. And I'm having trouble selling it on the front end because I don't know whether to sell a particular habit, meaning write the sales letter for a popular habit, like, say, 5am club, getting up early or something similar, versus writing a sales letter for the unique mechanism and vehicle itself. Does that make sense?

It does, yeah. I mean, I would look at the habit. Yeah. As part of, like, the habits are part of the mechanism, like, the formation of the habits. Like, I'd look at, you know, writing to the specific pain point or pain points that cultivating these habits are going to alleviate. And I would focus on the lead and stuff like that, being around the pain points. And then, like, how a simple, you know, maybe a unique name for the habit instead of just saying how, you know, cultivating this one powerful habit can allow you to do this, this, this, and this. You know, you could do that. I mean, maybe I'm thinking about maybe, like, if it's like, instead of, like a. You have a sexy name. So. Because habit isn't that sexy, it kind of implies work. I mean, there's atomic habits. There's, you know, like, habits are powerful. So maybe. But, like, I think if it were me, I'd look at, like, you know, promising. The habit is like, the unique mechanism of solution is, like, cultivating these habits or a habit. And so you're basically explaining, like, the real reason why these pain points are happening in the first place. And then it's, like, tied into, like, in these habits of solution that help you to solve the pain points. That's the way I would probably approach it. Does that make sense to you? Totally does.

I didn't think of it that way.

Yeah.

Awesome, guys. That's it.

That's all I needed.

Thanks.

Thanks for the call today, fellas. Has been awesome, for sure. Tuning in.

I know. And I do want to. I do want to answer Max serious question, but only because I'm going to kind of rant a little bit on it. Okay.

Okay. I wasn't sure about that. So. Yeah, let's do it, baby.

Let's go.

What do you mean you're gonna ramp on it?

Yeah, you'll find out. So what, was you gonna share your question for everybody?

Yeah. So, okay, so I'm gonna give context here. So I used Stefan's and Justin's, like, tactic and strategy to reach out to, let's call it like perfect clients. And you just provide some free copies and samples and contact them with value upfront. So I did this, and sure enough, like Nick and Vince, for anybody that doesn't know it, they're the CEOs. So if you want to write for any big company, whether it be like financial or fitness, you can do it. Doesn't matter if you're beginner. Since I saw here a few questions from people that say there were junior writers you can do anything with, whatever strategy Justin and Stefan teach you. So what happened is I contacted them, and right now I'm writing the copy. But I wonder, how would I apply Ed's advice on helping Vshred in this case grow beyond just providing my services as a copywriter? Does it make sense?

It does make sense. So they. They replied to you and said, cool, man. Yeah, go ahead. And like, we're gonna do they. Did they pay you? Are you doing for free? What's the context of that part?

I just contacted them even before writing the copy, and I told them, hey, I'm gonna. I decided to write some samples for you, and I'm gonna get them to you no matter. No matter what. So if you tell me a preferred email you'd like to receive them at, this is just gonna be easier and tester for you. So they both responded to me and they were excited to receive some copy and test it.

Where would you rate your copywriting right now on a scale from 0 to 10?

I mean, I started like six months ago. I wrote, as you may remember, for this marketing, like, Facebook ad. Facebook, like, recognized marketing in Europe. And I can leverage some of that authority. My copywriting would be compared to yours. If yours is like 10, I would put it in, like, compared to you, it would be like a 4, 3 compared to you. But I've written some Facebook ads and some sales letters, and the people I wrote it for who actually have done copywriting and hired copywriters, they liked it. So I have decent confidence. But I also told him, like, if you. If you think the copy is shit, it's fine. I'm just gonna improve it and reach out to you or any fitness company again until you consider it good enough to get an ROI on me, because I want to be an asset for you.

So basically good enough to get a client, but not stupendous 2.

Good enough.

So it's like, good. Good enough to write for somebody that's Long story short.

Okay, exactly.

Well, and then what kind of copy were you going to do for them? Do you know yet? Are you going to do Facebook ads? What were you thinking about writing for them? Max, you there?

Yeah, I'm here. I thought you were asking it.

No, no, you. What kind of copy were you going to write for them?

Emails or Facebook ads? Since I'm just starting to learn long form copy and it's harder to master and I also have a network of people that are actually writing for some. Do you know Stephen James? Yeah. So my friend is a email copywriter, so he actually writes the emails for Stefan James and that way I can also leverage his experience in that and write some Facebook and email ads and we both do like this feedback loop and. And I can make sure I can provide better quality emails or Facebook ads to Befred as well.

Right. Yeah. You know, with these guys, like, based on where you are in your career, I would just focus on delivering really good Facebook ads to them. I wouldn't go to consultant consultative with them because, you know, they are doing whatever they're doing 200 million plus a year. And I just think, you know, if you have a cool idea, like, that's good. But I think with somebody like, at this, that scale, I just would focus on the Facebook ads. The reason I was gonna rant. I'm not gonna rant at you. The one thing I've seen is I just see a lot of people who even have come into Copy Starter in the past, whatever it is, and they're like pretty early on and then they just like want to write for V Shred. And I mean, I've written, you know, three VSLs for those guys, you know, at least two of which were. One was super successful, was pretty successful, and I don't really know the other ones doing honestly, but they're extremely hard to work with or for. It doesn't mean like that's not a knock on them. Like, I would tell Nick that to his face and he would laugh because it's true. They're extremely high standards. I've seen them just, you know, shred writers apart. I've seen just, you know, it's, it's. They're the, they're cool because they'll give anybody a chance. But if you kind of like don't do a good job, then they're just like, they have no time for you. And so the warning for other people watching or listening is like, I always kind of feel like when people come in and they've been Writing for three months, and they reach out to V Shrug, and they're like, I'm gonna crush for you. And then, like, Nick hires, and I get messages from Nick like, what the fuck is this? This is garbage writing. Blah, blah. I'm like, oh, God. Like, wish this person just had, you know, like, taking a little time before they went after, like, kind of like one of the biggest fish in the industry. So that's sort of my warning to other people or a caveat. But again, you know, I think for Facebook ads, if you've got some good experience there, you know, fine. But I honestly would just work on. I'd give them some really good Facebook ads, Give them a couple, see what they think, try, you know, hopefully they'll say, this is good. You want to do some more? And I would just go from there and over time with more, like, just the value and the credibility. But if you actually started writing Facebook ads for them regularly, and you're like, oh, yeah, I write a lot of Facebook ads for V Shred. Like, that alone will help. You can leverage that into so many additional opportunities. So I would just. I would just stick with that and I wouldn't go deeper. Okay.

And by the way, which. Which companies, maybe Ed and you. Which companies have you most enjoyed writing copy or working with? Because it's not only the money. I mean, if you. If you're good with the money, you're also looking to enjoy the partnership you're going into.

Right?

Sort of safe.

Yeah, sorry, I'm gonna have you repeat that because I just got the. A very weird comment on Facebook Live from Bobby Hines that said security takes control of Squidward's house and begins attacking the city, leaving the mayor to give Squidward community service for the damage he caused. Even though spotted spongebob and Patrick were in the house the whole time and responsible for everything. God. This episode. This episode is when the Squidward torture porn started to become regular, stable, and SpongeBob's episodes. I can't even. I'm not gonna finish here, but if anyone wants to see something that is just absolutely Cookie Dukes, then go check out Bobby Hines.

Can you copy paste in the Zoom Chat?

I'm actually like, I want to see this. You wanna put in the Zoom Chat? Yeah.

What in the fuck?

Yeah, I'll put it. I'm not. I just. I just, like. I just. I'm listening to you, Max. But I just saw that on the Facebook Live and it clearly distracted me as, no problem, bro.

But, Max, honestly, writing for myself has been my favorite okay, yeah, exactly. Right. You make the money and you work with people you enjoy. But jokes aside, or not really jokes, but it's hard to name drop because, like, there's. There's been quite a few I've really, really enjoyed writing for. But more so usually than like what I'm writing, it's more so like the people I'm working with while I'm writing for it. Like, I've written for traffic and funnels and I've enjoyed that because I worked with some really cool people and I really like them. Or I've written for Ian Stanley. Like, I loved, right, Working with Ian and talking with him and hanging out with him, like, that's for me, it's a very people oriented thing where it's like, I don't really care. Obviously, ethically I do care about like, you know, product is a product good, but like, as long as the people are good, that's the most important thing. That's what makes it enjoyable. Like.

Yeah, it's hard to say. I mean, because I'm not gonna, like, name names of people again. Nick and Vince, I've written a bunch of stuff for them and I'm. Once I, you know, get done with my, my covet, I'm gonna, you know, Nick and I are gonna get dinner soon and I want to maybe do like a live stream thing with them, which he's open to. And yeah, I love those guys. I've been to their Christmas parties and, you know, like, so it's not anything. They're just hard to work with.

But what the is that comment, dude?

Yeah, I don't know, man, but I'll.

Have what he's having, bro.

It's my favorite comment thus far. You know, I get some unique stuff, Like 20 lines long, bro. Yeah, let's say, let's probably just let's. Yeah. So, Max, hopefully that helps, man. As far as the class, right? Just depends. I mean, every client is different. It's hard to know sometimes until they paid you money and you, you start. I mean, I think the big secret is if you hate working with somebody, then, like, don't come back and do it again. I made that mistake before. Where's the guy? I'm like, oh, my God, this client's such a pain in the ass. But then they're immediately like, hey, you know, can I pay you for, you know, another one? And you're like, well, that's money. Yeah. And they're like, oh, crap, why'd I do that? And then, you know, but you know, the I mean, like Mike Geary and Ed Scow, I've just wrote two things for them. I have to write a third thing I'm working on, which I wanted to finish it on Friday, but Covid slowed me down a little bit. But, you know, those are guys who've been great to work with. As an example. They're like, literally just like, sent me the money. No negotiation. Send me the money. I mean, I don't like, negotiate my rate really. Anyway. But I'm just saying they were just like, okay. And then I gave them the copy and then they tested it and they're like, here's the data. And you know, that's. That's the client. I want the client who's just like, really? The bad clients are the ones who are honestly the more of, like a committee and the more of the. The more SOPs they have, honestly, the more of a pain the ass it is as a copywriter.

Oh, my God.

My biggest thing is when they're like, here is this document. Please read it and acknowledge. Once you've read this document, then read this now. Have this. Now I do this call now. You're like, dude, I don't need your process. I have my own process. You're paying me because I'm one of the best in the. So I'm using my process and give you something world class and test it. And so I hate that when they have all these kind of like this process I'm supposed to follow prior to giving them what essentially is just the same thing I would always do anyway without their process. And then they have a committee to where once they have it, they're like, now we're going to have everybody review it. And it's like, you just see all these comments and it's like Jan from accounting who's like, I don't know if I like that word. I'd use a different word. And like, you know, Bob and like fulfillment. It's like, well, would you really say struggling or would you say having a challenge? And you're like, dude, I don't like what is going on. Like, I don't need all this, like, fucking test the copy and if it bombs, then we'll talk. But like, you know, I don't, I don't want like. Like, it drives me crazy. It's like hiring like a plumber to come fix your toilet. And then you bring in like a bunch of friends to stand around and like, sort of like comment on what he's doing and like, tell anecdotal stories. About what? You know, why, how you think a toilet should be fixed. And you have no experience over fixing one.

Nah, man, you're doing it wrong.

Yeah, like, nah, I don't know. Like, well, you're using that screwdriver, but what if you used a different screwdriver? Like, it's like, it just makes it sound.

You know, in my experience with fixing fucking toilets, you know, I use this type of screwdriver, you know?

Yeah.

By the way, I'm super happy for you.

Keep going.

Thanks, man. Appreciate it.

Cool. All right, let's get a couple more, and we'll do one more main one, and we'll go to rapid. Rapid fire.

Okay. There's some really good ones. Got a really good question from Xavier. Actually, do that one about providing value without turning to a free consultation.

Let's go.

Xavier.

Hey, can you hear me?

Yes, sir.

All right, I'll try to do a quick explanation. So I found this client in the background.

Or like a dying parrot. It's my daughter. She's just. Oh, no, she's five months old. Oh, yeah. That's super cute then.

Yeah, I wish I had a daughter.

Oh, man, after your story is, who knows what's gonna happen?

Dude, I have one. Hey, you looking for a stepdad? It just passes away.

All right, let's get back to the question, please.

Okay, so quick story. So I sent out some free value to a person. I've been following him on YouTube for about two years now, and he has a product for sale. It's like this. Like, his product literally is a unique mechanism, and it has to do with sports. And I've been following him for two years, and his marketing is just really bad. So I looked at his webpage, and it was even worse than the emails I've been receiving. So I'm like, this guy needs some help. So I wrote up a webpage and I sent it to him, and then he's like, well, I really see the value in your work. Let's hop on a call.

Right? So he got on a call, and.

I started talking to him, and I was like, oh, let me just write a welcome sequence for you, because, you know, you don't know me. You don't know who I am or what I can do for you. That's like, a simple thing I can do, and you can use it and see if it gets results, and then we can go from there.

Right.

But then that conversation took into. Or like, I started asking, like, do you know how many people on your list actually bought from you? What they bought from you. Do you know how many people are like new? Because I want to make sure this welcome sequence will help him, right? I'm trying to understand how many people there are on his list so that he can actually get results that turned into like an hour long consultation. And now instead of writing a 10 email welcome sequence, I'm writing 10 emails for him for upselling into his consulting, which is like 3 to 8k package. So I'm wondering how could I have dealt with that better and not just like spent a whole hour consulting with him?

And you're writing the emails for free too, right?

No, no, no, I'm writing, I'm getting paid for the emails.

Oh, okay. Well, that's good. Thank God. I don't know, I mean, I don't hate. I mean, an hour is a long time. I mean, honestly, my biggest thing would just be maybe controlling it more and making it like a shorter conversation. But like, I don't, you know, because an hour is a long time. If you talk like 15, 20 minutes and gave a bunch of value and then you know, pivoting back to like the work you're gonna do and be like, all right, cool, I'm gonna jump on it. You know, I think that that's, that's fine. I think again, I think selling should be consultative. Um, and so providing value and demonstrating your kind of mastery and expertise and all that kind of stuff is important. Makes it easier for people to be willing to pay you. And obviously if this goes well and the client then continues to, you know, pay you more. So like, yeah, to me, I don't think it's actually a huge deal. Like, I don't like, like the call, like, I think the biggest issue is just that the call in for too long. Honestly, from the perspective, I just think like, if you just kept it to like 15 or 20 minutes, you know, that would have been better. I mean, I guess you could have said if he was asking all these questions and like, you know, like depending on how you super far, you can be like, well, you know, like, dude, like, honestly, I do some consulting too. If you want to like kind of book a consulting call on top of the emails, I'd love to do that, but you know, this is enough for me to get started.

It's just when I started talking, I thought it was going to be a short 15, 20 minute call. But then every time I asked a question, it's like it showed me his knowledge about the marketing and so I had to explain another thing and then it turned to another thing and then another thing.

So what did you guys even talk about? Like, like, what did you consult him on?

Because I was talking about, like, where he's getting traffic from, how. What he's actually using getting traffic because he has, like, a YouTube channel, he has Instagram channel, he has Facebook ad, but he's only using one ad right now. And so. And then I was consulting, like, thinking of what I should do for him to get more traffic, because I think that's where his bottleneck is right now.

Smart. Okay, so you're being consultative. That's good.

But then I also told him, like, I'm not sure how proven his offer is because of how much sales he has. And I don't want to just, like, start, like, he was thinking to run a vsl.

Mm.

I'm like, yeah, that would be a good idea, but, you know, I don't know your market that well. I don't think he knows his market that well either. To run like an ad to a opt in page to a vsl, Like, I think that's too much right now. That's why I said, let's write some emails and throw in a bunch of different hooks and see what sticks, and then we'll take that and go use that for ads. I think that's a better strategy.

How did that become an hour consultation then? Like, that, what you just told me, that was like, that could have been covered in 10, 15 minutes. Like my, My. My sales calls, which are from 6k to 25k package. It's 20 minutes, maybe 30 for really pushing it and having a good time. So I'm trying to find out, like, how did you get to an hour of what you just told me? Plus, there's more.

I guess it's because after the fact, like, I understood if his business better as I kept asking him questions. I didn't know. Like, it's easy to explain all this after the fact. After I went through his whole business model.

Yep.

But I guess I was. I kept have to ask questions and then say, okay, maybe we should go in this direction.

So, yeah, I think, like, honestly, dude, so two things from my perspective, I think, one, you did good. I mean, if that was. If. If you're not, like, consistently doing this, I think this is a good learning method. I mean, you didn't, you know, you didn't fuck up, like, did nothing wrong. Like, it was good.

You.

You did what you got to do. You got in, you got out a bit longer than it probably should have taken, but didn't do anything wrong. Second thing is, you have to lead the conversation more. Like, sometimes, like, people will message me and be like, hey, Ed, my got banned. Like, how does it work? And I'll tell them how it works, and they'll be like, hey, like, let's. Let's hop on the phone and chat and, you know, see if you can help me. I'm like, yeah, for sure. Can you tell? And then I just. I'm like, yeah, for sure. Can you tell me more about your offer and what you do? So I. You, as the professional, you pace the conversation. So if you find them getting off track, you point it out and you say, hey, let's keep on track here. Or you bring the conversation back to where you're trying to lead it to. Don't let the client take control, because that's how a client's not gonna respect you. That didn't happen in the situation. But going forward, it's important to keep control of the conversation and lead it because you're the one in charge. I think if you take that into consideration during your next one, it'll probably be a lot shorter. And again, as you start to practice more and more and more, you'll see kind of how it should look and sound. The overall framework, you're still probably feeling it out, seeing what your style is, and that's cool. That takes time to figure out and learn. But, yeah, dude, keep rocking.

All right, cool.

Cool. Awesome. Good advice, Ed. Thanks for that question, man.

Thanks, buddy.

All right, let's go. I know we're pretty much up at the end, but let's try and rapid fire a few of these, because I would like to give away.

Chaka says, if you had to do it over again, Ed, how would you have started your career? I would have done the same way I was doing it. Nothing changed. And for those who don't know what my start was, I was posting on the cult of Copy job board back when it was, like, a lot more legit. Like, now it's kind of overpopulated and stuff. You still get gigs from there, but not, like, crazy amounts. And I built up a brand and a reputation for myself with just, like, one Facebook post on there. I got, like. I think it was like, six people.

60.

I fucking know how many was. I got a lot of people kicked out of the group, but I made, like, 3,500 bucks off of that one post when I was 17 selling $500. I'm gonna hoard myself out. Write whatever copy you want. So, yeah, I would do and then, and then work in house at an agency or at a company. That's what I would do. So there you go. Me and my friend are about to start a mastermind with copywriters in Latin America. We're junior copywriters. Any advice to run it?

Who is from Mastermind Copyright in Latin America? If you guys are junior copywriters, I mean this one's like, I feel like we do want more details, but in general consistency in providing value and over delivering, I mean those are the most important things. Like obviously if you're junior copywriters, I'm assuming your mastermind's gonna have other junior copywriters. If you could bring in some kind of expert higher level person who sort of is part of your mastermind, who is providing trainings regularly and stuff like that, it can increase the value of your offer significantly. So I look at doing that, but. And then just really? Yeah, I mean I think weekly, like, like, you know, like, like I love Copy Starter. I mean we do a great job. So you like the weekly training calls, plus we have like the members area, plus we have the events, plus we do feedback. I mean we just have a lot of. It's, it's very, there's a lot of compelling reasons to stay and there's a lot of pain from leaving because we have so many amazing things that we are offering. I would just look at doing something like similar and then just listen to feedback too. I guess that's. Yeah, that's actually one of the biggest things because like Justin and I, when we first launched Copy Accelerator, we had thought that we were going to. Basically the idea of Copy Accelerator was we're gonna get business owners and help train their copywriters in this mastermind. So the whole pitch was kind of like, hey, business owners, put your copywriters into this mastermind and we'll help to train them and make them better. And then we realized that that wasn't really there. There was some of that, but it was like the actual copywriters, like freelancers wanted to be in it and actual business owners wanted to be in it. So we kind of pivoted very quickly and realized that we didn't have our messaging correct. And that made all the difference to where we're now, you know, 220 plus members and all that kind of stuff. So, you know, I think being responsive and adaptive and flexible is another really good piece of advice there too. Edrew's who's next? Grant said will ever cap it? Well, cap. Okay, that's got to Go.

Fine.

I'll do a couple more rapid fires. I get that. I love you.

Love you too, buddy.

All right, Goodbye. Oh, Bye, Grant. I don't know if we'll cat light. We don't need to cap necessarily. I mean, maybe we will, but the full is cap now. I mean, you can't. It was a waiting list again to the full version of the Mastermind, but Light honesty has just become a crazy. That's another example, which I'll give, like, five more minutes and I'll stop. I keep telling myself I'm gonna aggress, you know, because of my coveted. But I'm like, it's gonna work. But, like, you know, with Light, like, we. At the last virtual event in September, you know, we had a lot of people come in who were really new to copywriting, which we hadn't really had before. And it was, like, a good thing. It was exciting to get these people in and to be able to kind of help them. But they're, you know, beginners, so they had a lot. They needed a lot more support. We realized, you know, you have, like. Again, we have like, you know, V Shred, Golden Hippo, Paleo hacks, credit secrets like Steve Gunn and his. I mean, we have a bunch of, like, the biggest names in direct response. In our Mastermind, we have a bunch of, like, Dan Ferrari is in Copy Accelerator Light. Chris Wright is in Copy Accelerator Light. You know, Randall Pruitt, all these people, like, so there's all kinds of, like, Pauline. So we have that. But then we, you know, that version of Light, we had a lot of beginner people coming in, which, again, I love. Cause I wanna help everybody. But realizing that they need more support. So we went from just our normal stuff to we're like. And with Light, you don't get direct feedback from Justin or myself, but we gotta provide feedback. So we got Saba Karimi to start doing a weekly call where people can get feedback on their copy. Then we got Mike Abramoff to do a weekly call where people can get feedback on their copy. And then we had Brian Spirinello doing a weekly call on the business of freelancing and how to get better freelancing clients, how to close clients, how to charge higher rates. So now for Light, you actually get four calls a week. Where originally we just had one call, you know, the main call. But so we realized, like, oh. In order to fulfill our promise to people who have joined and who are investing in us, we need to, like, we need to fulfill our promise on a deeper Level because we do have more people who are starting out now than we did before. And so basically we brought up three additional calls that, you know, additional expense to us, but it's like no big deal because it's like we have to. So again, this goes back to pivoting. By the way, I love the love there that. I mean, I know that Lisa said the additional calls are valuable. Matt Murphy said Calate was the best investment I ever made. Ken said the additional calls are killer. And Grant Paulson said I've experienced more value than I hate to go to the event in the past two days already. Yeah, totally. I mean, there's a lot of. I will link to the, to the sales page where you can apply one more time for the Mastermind, because, you know, why would I not do that or apply to the event? So if you want to come attend the event, the event's 14 and 50. And then you actually get put into copy Accelerator light for four weeks leading up to the event. So. Well, basically until the event happens. So you get the weekly training calls, all of them, the weekly training calls with Justin and I. But you also get the two feedback calls a week and the business of freelancing calls with Brian Spirinello. And you get a whole members area archive. So yeah, if you haven't applied to get a ticket yet, that's all for 1450, it's worth like $20,000. So anyway, let me answer those final few questions real quick. Innocent. How do you figure out what exactly they don't know that you can capitalize on and offer to help them? How do you figure out exactly what they don't know you can capitalize? I mean, I think honestly, like it's. That is from a conversation in a sense, like if you're talking with the client and asking questions, it does come with experience. If you don't have a bunch of experience, then maybe harder. But it also depends on the client and what's their experience? Because if they're somebody who is, you know, you look a lot like these influencer type of people, like for going back to Dr. Paul Saladino, carnivore code author, awesome guy, really happy. I got to spend a bunch of time with him last week and Justin and I were sitting there chatting with him and we were talking about his email list and we were like, dude, you just like, like, why are you only emailing once a week? And he was like, well, you know, I used to email daily. But then we'd have some people respond and say, why are you Emailing so much. So I stopped. And then Justin and I both just like went on this whole tangent of like, no, man, you got to email every day. You know, you can't listen to the feedback of a few loud voices, like, and all that. And he was like, oh, wow, that makes sense. And then he ended up actually hiring a writer from Copy Accelerator Light to write daily emails for him. And he's doing that. He listened to us, which was awesome, actually. Really cool. Cause again, I'm super passionate about carnivore code, so getting to hang out with this guy and he's this awesome dude and all that. But, like, so in that case, just because someone is well known doesn't mean that they know a lot. Sometimes it may be that, you know, they know a lot about a certain thing, but they don't know a lot about marketing. So there's a balance there because for something like that, it's as simple as email every day. Or, you know, the same optimizations that you see people like Justin and I talking about all the time, or anybody talking about. You can bring those to a lot of people who aren't that sophisticated from a marketing standpoint. And, you know, it seems like you're a genius to them, but if you're working for a very sophisticated client and you're early on, then it's a lot harder. And at that point, I would probably focus more on just providing value through really good work they've hired before. So that's my answer to that. Shock had to leave. I'm not gonna answer your shock experience. You had to leave. Just wanna talk GameStop and Reddit, if you guys didn't already. Michael McGovern, glad you brought that up. Michael. Yeah, let's talk GameStop and Reddit. Let's talk specifically about how, like, that is not gonna end well. Like GameStop and AMC, I think GameStop wants like $500 the stock overnight. One point, its market cap was bigger than some massive company. For those of you who know we're talking about right now, there's basically these Reddit groups and communities that are just pushing certain stocks to insane valuations. Again, GameStop, AMC, some other ones. There's a really good article in the Wall Street Journal about it, which I read yesterday. It just reminds me entirely of the crypto bubble from 2018. As soon as you start seeing a bunch of people who have no idea about investing and they're posting on Facebook about holding or selling or whatever it is, it's going to end really badly for a lot of People, if you sell now, great. Or sell out, at least take your profit back. I was really into crypto in 2018. I got super distracted from it. My portfolio went from $20,000, like $150,000 or something like that. And I knew it was a bubble. And I would talk to Laura about how it was a bubble. But then for the most part, I didn't sell. I sold out of a few positions, but not others. And it all just went way down. And then I just held it for the last couple years. I was like, I'm just gonna hold it. I don't need the money. Which, by the way, now that same portfolio is back up to worth like $50,000, which is not what it was before because I don't have much bitcoin, a lot of altcoins, but it's a lot better than at one point it was worth like $5,000. So I just held it. But something like GameStop or AMC is just completely irrational. And it's basically people getting in a frenzy and not wanting to miss out. And that's like the definition of a bumble or bubble of a bubble. So I just would strongly. If you're really getting into that and being distracted with that, it's not that you can't make money, but if you think that GameStop is going to go to 1000 and AMC and these different stocks, reality is going to catch up. So I just would. Personally, again, this is not investment advice. I'm just like, I'm a copywriter. Doesn't mean I know the markets, but to me, it reminds me of the crypto bubble. And you're going to see that pop and blow up, and a lot of people are going to lose a bunch of money because they're going to get greedy.

And.

Final question. How can I get a copyright industry and where to find opportunities, what to learn firsthand? You know, Nala, that's a great question, but I mean, it's tough. I mean, obviously. Join Justin and Stefan talk copy the Facebook group. Come on here the show. And yeah, I don't know. So I'm curious. Okay, real quick, James, because James said it kind of feels like a power shift. We the people can do the same thing Wall street has been doing for decades. That's the narrative from the Wall Street Journal thing too, James. But my concern is that we the people do not have the kind of sophisticated mechanisms and technology that Wall street has and. Or the amount of money. And I think that while there are some people who are smart and who are doing that there's just a lot of people who are like, you know, unemployed because of COVID and trying this out as like a side hustle. And I think those are the people who are going to get hurt. I think the idea of like a more of a democratization aspect of it is cool. I just don't. So if you run up the price of something and you get out and you do it legally, then great. I think the concern is a lot of people are going to up the price and then keep holding and knock it out. And those are the people who are going to get burned really badly. So yeah, that being said, we're finished up here. So thank you so much for spending your time with me. I know I went a little bit long. Hopefully you enjoyed this episode as always. If you are watching this on YouTube, make sure you hit the like button. Leave a comment, let me know that you have this value from this episode. Let Ed know as well. If you listen on itunes, make sure you subscribe to my podcast on itunes. Leave a review. Would be amazing if you did. Other than that, we'll be back next week. Actually I'm booked up with guests until April. This is one of the last solo ones for a long time guests through April, so we have a ton of amazing badass guests coming. I'm really excited for future episodes and yeah, I will go rest and do some stuff pretty soon here. But thanks everyone. Have a great day.