Seth Czerepak on The First Steps to Antifragile Entrepreneurship

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Alcohol by volume, 80 proof. So if you were to follow your prospect throughout their entire day like you were filming a documentary, think about the times during their day when they run into the problem that you're going to help them solve. And what does that experience look like? What are they saying to themselves? What's the internal dialogue?

If you've ever struggled to express how you help people and why they should buy from you, then stick around. You're just 30 minutes away from learning how to create content that converts. This is the launch your business podcast because we know starting a business is challenging, but it doesn't have to be confusing. Each week we'll give you the tactical advice and the necessary tools to scale your business without feeling burnt out. I'm Terry Rice, business development consultant and staff writer here at Entrepreneur Magazine. Let's dive in. I've written close to 100 articles for Entrepreneur Magazine and as you may know, I used to be a digital marketing expert. So naturally you might assume that I'm good at writing sales copy on websites and ads. I am horrible. Seriously, back when I worked at Facebook, that's the one thing I refused to do because I just wasn't good at it and had no desire to be good at it either. And I think it's because I'm so pragmatic and stoic. I don't intuitively put as much emotion or even psychology into my content. I'm kind of just a robot that wants to help people at times. But unfortunately, if you don't have good copy, your business will struggle even if you are able to help people. And that's why I work with a sales copywriting expert for my programs. His name is Seth Cherapack AKA the Red Neo. Seth is the head marketing coach at Moor Capital and that's a mastermind I belong to and the world's premier expert on sales funnel copywriting. His professional experience spans multiple decades and includes founding a private music studio, building and managing two sales call centers, 13 years as a freelance direct response copywriter, and over 30,000 hours of one on one business coaching. Seth has helped hundreds of entrepreneurs become six figure earners and dozens more break the seven figure a year mark. His signature copywriting framework, the Anti Fragile Sales System, has been endorsed by direct response marketing legend Dan S. Kennedy and is the topic of his upcoming book of the same name, the Anti Fragile Sales System that's coming out in January of 2024. So right now you're about to get access to Seth just like I do. And we'll discuss the fastest way you can take your business from six to seven figures. Common mistakes entrepreneurs make on their websites and how to fix them and how to make a stronger connection with your audience that leads them to make a purchase. Seth, how's it going today?

Awesome. How you doing, Terry?

Good. And I'm looking forward to this conversation because you've helped me out so much with my copywriting and my marketing and I just want to share you with the audience. So, so I'm glad that you're here today.

Very good to be here.

Well, so let's just start with the basics. What do you do? What's your background?

My background is I started writing copy before I knew what writing copy was back when I was a music teacher and just trying to get people into my music studio. And so I did that to put myself through college writing ads for my music studio and I didn't learn what copywriting Was until many years later. But I used my copywriting skills to build call centers out in the corporate world by creating scripts, appointment setting scripts, sales scripts that were set records in the companies that I was in selling high ticket products. And then after I'd been doing that for a while, I figured out that there was this thing called copywriting that people would actually hire you for. And that I'd been doing for a very long time. Just basically creating words that would cause people to buy things, which I thought was the coolest thing. It was like the closest thing to magic that there was. And so I realized that I could become a freelance copywriter. I did that in 2009, left my job in a corporate world making over $100,000 a year and did that for 13 years as a direct response copywriter. And during that time I got the opportun to troubleshoot people's entire marketing funnels from their ads all the way down to like their sales scripts. Because I had experience in helping people in their messaging in all those areas. And so I've got somewhere around 30,000 hours of one on one experience working with people, helping them to improve their everything from their business processes to their sales scripts, their messaging, their branding, their offers. Basically everything that it takes to take somebody from being a complete stranger to being someone who is a fan of your brand almost on like a cult like level.

Well, I know everyone listening wants that, so I'm glad you're here today. But let's, let's go back to the very beginning because a lot of our listeners, they're making some kind of pivot in their career and they might feel not super confident with this pivot. So on your end, you started doing copywriting before you even knew you were doing copywriting. Was there ever a moment where you're like, why do these people trust me to do this stuff? Did you ever have that imposter syndrome that plagues so many entrepreneurs?

There are days when I have that before every call that I get on. But I think of imposter syndrome is really like to me it's that little kind of entrepreneurial conscience that is telling you to keep getting better and to keep getting better. As long as you're pushing yourself to get better and to get to the next level, you're always going to have this part of you that feels like you're standing on the precipice of a cliff because the unknown is in front of you whenever you're growing. So I think the way I think about imposter syndrome is that that's my entrepreneurial conscience telling me that I need to show up as 100% every time that I have the opportunity. So that's the way I think about it.

Let's hop into the nuts and bolts of it. You have this blog titled the only way to scale from six to seven figures. So what is that way?

You have to get outside of your warm network. Because a lot of people, your warm network is almost like, you know, when you put a plant in a pot and it grows, the root system grows so much that it can't grow anymore because it's literally grown to the confines of the pot, and you have to take it out of that pot and put it into a new one. That's what it's like when you go from marketing only to a warm network to expanding out to where you can reach a cold audience. So being able to convert complete strangers, a cold audience, using paid ads to your customers is the way that you break out of that small pot of marketing only to the people in your warm network and having access to almost a limitless sea of prospects. And that's, in my opinion, is the only way that you can grow to seven figures. Unless you just become a viral sensation overnight, which is a lot of time. A game of luck.

Yeah, it sounds harder. But, you know, it's interesting because a lot of entrepreneurs, when they first start out, the way they build their. Their business is through referrals, right? Their existing network. And those yeses are a lot easier because you don't have to convince people as much. But to your point, if you want to scale, you have to convert a cold audience. And on my end, I was very appreh. Run ads or try to even speak to a cold audience, which is counterintuitive because I worked at Facebook before I started my own business, right? So it's like, why am I such a hypocrite? So use me as an example, maybe. Why do you think people are maybe afraid to reach out to cold audiences?

Well, there's so much risk involved if you get it wrong. You know, you're literally sitting there watching the balance of your bank account go lower and lower and lower and nothing coming back. And that's a terrifying feeling for a lot of people. And also, some of it has to do with the fear of rejection. If I go out there and I put my ads out there, am I gonna find out that I'm really not as good as I thought I was? I think that imposter syndrome is also part of that. So it's the financial terror of watching your dollars go out and nothing come back in. And I think it's also just a human thing. Fear of rejection, too.

Yeah. And I think that's why it's so important to work with vetted experts who can help you with this stuff. And the experts I like, they actually make sure you have a good business first. They're like, hey, like, what do you do? Have you ever sold anything ever? So if the answer is no, then maybe you should start with your warm network and the cold one's not gonna fix these problems. And that transparency is appreciated. But you have another blog that you wrote called your first step to getting more high ticket clients. So we said, hey, look, we're step out of our comfort zone. We're gonna talk to a cold audience. What is our first step here to getting more high ticket content clients?

I call it relevance. And I have an article on my website about this. Relevance means that your message has to be relevant to the conversation going on in their head every day surrounding the problem that you're going to help them solve. So if you were to follow your prospect throughout their entire day, like you were filming a documentary, think about the times during their day when they run into the problem that you're going to help them solve. And what does that experience look like? What are they saying to themselves? What's the internal dialogue like? If I'm selling a product that solves like plantar fasciitis, which is pain in your heel, it's a pinching pain in your heel. If someone has that and my ad says, what is this pinching pain in your heel? It started out as a small pain, and now it's gotten so bad you can't walk unless you have crutches. How would you like to be rid of that? I would say you've tried ice, you tried stretching, you've tried all this other stuff. How would you like to be rid of that? In seven days or less, with no medications, that person's going to respond to that ad because every morning that they wake up, they feel this pinching pain in their heel. It started out as a small pain and it got to a worse pain. That's the internal dialogue going on around that symptom. They may have no idea what plantar fasciitis is, whereas a regular person would go, plantar fasciitis cure. Well, a person who's having that pain, who doesn't make the connection between that complicated problem and the symptom is going to ignore the ad. And so the empathy of being able to enter the conversation going on inside a person's head is really the key to getting a cold audience to listen to you.

Let's keep double clicking here because I know you have an article coming out through Entrepreneur, and let me get the title here, where you're talking about science, scientific split testing.

Right.

And you mentioned the different product benefits that you can mention. So it could be fast, easy, powerful, safe, durable, enjoyable, stylish. And do you mind just sharing? You don't have to go through the whole thing, obviously, because I want everyone to read the article. But do you mind sharing why knowing these specific benefits is so important in shaping your copy?

Yeah, because some people may be most interested in your product because it's easy to use. That might be like the biggest selling point of your product. And if you're writing ads that talk about how durable the product is or how safe it is, you may get some people to convert. But if the majority of people, when they're actually looking for a product like yours, are looking for something that's fast and it's easy, and you rewrite your ads to have the words fast and easy and think like metaphors and different phrases that communicate to them that it's fast and easy, you're going to get better responses. And what I have people do is split test between these different selling points. So I might have a headline, an opening copy that focuses on how fast a product is, and I might have another headline in opening copy that focuses on how safe it is and see which one of those outperforms the other. And if the safe one outperforms the other, I haven't just learned which ads won. I've now learned something very important about how my target market evaluates my product. And I know that I'm going to lean on safety not just in that ad, but in every single ad that I create, including my emails, my cold traffic ads, sales pages, so on and so forth.

I find that interesting because I used to ride the subway a lot here in New York City and I would see these ads for plastic surgery and they would talk about how cheap it was, only $500 for this, only $1,000 for that. And I'm like, dude, I'm not trying to save money on this. Like, this is not like, you know, where's the coupon for plastic surgery? I'd want to hear, you know, safe, reliable, how I'll feel afterwards, so and so forth. So that's obviously a mistake in my opinion, in their marketing. But what are some other Common mistakes that people make, let's say, on their sales page for their further website.

Well, the most common mistake I see people make is a, they'll try to. A lot of the time people's best lead or their best headline is usually about 3/4 of the way down or 1/4 of the way down the page. So what I look for is what I call buried leads. A lot of time there's too much throat clearing, too much preparation before they actually get to the point. And a lot of times you can chop off the top of a sales page, find the buried lead, move that up to the headline and increase your conversions right away. The other thing I think people do is they don't really get into the conversation going on in the person's head soon enough. And when they do, they may not understand whether the person is the type of person who moves towards a positive benefit or who's moving away from pain. Some products, when you sell them, you want to think about really leaning on the pain because people are buying it to get out of pain. Some products and some audiences, entrepreneurs are a good example. They're so enthusiastic and so optimistic that if you talk about the pain too much, they're going to get bored with it. And so you really need to talk about like the pleasure point. And so those are mistakes I see people make in their openings and headlines a lot.

One thing I've noticed, and this is kind of basic, is people who put services at the top of their services page. It's like, okay, we get that. Why are we spending real estate on this? So I think you get a better response to what I would normally say.

Well, that's a good one too though.

Well, thanks, thanks for the confirmation there. But let's go deeper here because I know you're a pro at creating overall sales funnels too. So I was talking to this one person the other day and they wanted to get more, more clients for their consulting company and someone told them to write a book. Like you gotta write a book. It's gonna be the best way for you to grow your brand, get on stages and get more clients. And she did, she took their advice. She did it for like six months, you know, wrote the book, it came out, it was a bestseller. I'm using air quotes cuz it was free on Amazon, but she got nothing from it, like not even a lot of website traffic. So that's clearly bad advice in regards to building a sales funnel. But what other issues do you see come up when people are building their sales or marketing funnel?

I call this hammer and nail marketing. And it's modeled after Abraham Maslow's saying where he says that if a person has a hammer, they treat everything as a nail. So you get some people who they get hooked on webinar funnels. And so every time that they talk to somebody, they're like, you need a webinar funnel. Or some people are really hooked on a low ticket tripwire funnel. So they tell everybody you need a low ticket tripwire funnel, because a low ticket tripwire funnel worked over here. So matching the type of funnel to the type of business, the type of offer, and the type of audience is a common mistake that I see people make. And this is something I'm writing about in my upcoming book that actually teaches you, like, gets you to think about a funnel as a psychological algorithm, which is what it is. You're taking a person through a series of micro commitments in order to earn their trust in five different dimensions, which I talk about in my book. And in order to do that, you really have to understand which steps the person needs to go through. Sometimes you need a webinar funnel, but some offers, a webinar funnel is going to do terrible, and you need a low ticket tripwire funnel. And I see a lot of even advanced marketers who have been doing it for a long time make the mistake where they give the person the wrong marketing funnel. Because it worked over here doesn't mean it's going to work in this person's business.

That's an example of when your expertise can actually be a disadvantage because you're going backwards to what happened to what worked before instead of being creative and seeing it might work with somebody else. But two things. First of all, like, what's the name of your upcoming book?

It's the Antifragile Sales System.

Love it. All right. Another thing I want to bring up is this, and I won't mention any names, but you talked about micro commitments, so I want to go deeper on that. And I'll give you an example of a micro commitment that someone tried to get me to take. They were trying to sell me on their services. Doesn't really matter what it was. And this person, who I didn't know too well, sends me a text saying, hey, if I make a video explaining how I can help you, will you commit to watching it by Friday? And I was like, bro, I don't even know you, first of all. And second of all, I don't even talk to my kids like that. So there's no way I'm Gonna watch this video. And I just didn't reply. So can you give us an example of what a good micro commitment is and even like a definition of it for those people who might not know what that is?

Well, first of all, that micro commitment may have worked if I had said, if I make a video that's going to teach you one simple hack, copywriting hack that's going to double your business by next week, would you be interested in watching the video? Right. There's two things I did.

I'd go for that.

There's two things I did. First of all, I appealed to your self interest. That's the first thing I did. The second thing, when you make a micro commitment, you have to not ask for too much. That person asked for you to watch it by a certain deadline. Right? I mean, I would just ask, are you interested in taking a look? So all I'm asking you to do is to commit to possibly putting your eyeballs on it. That's a micro commitment. And then I can start imposing deadlines on you. But I'm not going to do that with the first commitment. That's like sitting down on the first date and saying, hey, if you like me by the end of this date, will you marry me in three months? You know, it's too much.

A little bit, yeah. Yeah. And I'm, and I'm, and I, I'm glad that you showed how you can do this properly and still get the same results. But yeah, that guy just turned me off completely and I never, never replied. So good to, good to know there. Is your business growing even faster than you expected for all those growing pains? Comcast business has what you need. Their network helps run today's fastest growing companies like yours. More orders coming in. You got this. More meetings and emails happening all at once. With a network like this, it's no problem. And with gig speed WI fi, you can power all your connected devices company wide. Plus, Comcast Business delivers 99.9% network reliability. Perfect for a business like yours that's growing and wants to leave nothing to chance. Like security, Comcast's business will help keep you protected with advanced solutions that stop cyber threats. And if that wasn't enough, all their products and services can grow as you grow. So if you need to add more employees, it's easy time to open a new location. Go for it. Comcast business has your back. No wonder they power more businesses than any other provider. All on the next generation 10G network. So is it possible to grow quickly and stay ahead of it? With the advanced connectivity, reliability and security of Comcast Business, it's not just possible, it's happening. Comcast Business powering possibilities. I think one issue that might plague some people writing copy is first of all, they don't have a deep understanding of their audience. And as a result, they're treating symptoms with their service as opposed to the root cause of the problem. And as a result of that, they're giving people what they think they want. But it's like end of the day it's like, eh, that ain't gonna work. Because to your point, they're just, they're just like, oh, here's what I want. Great, here you go. It's like you have to probe a bit deeper, like, and what else and why? Like, you know, the five whys. I'm sure you've heard that exercise before. But I think that's the issue that we can almost like eliminate by just being more curious and empathetic about our audience and how we can serve them.

Yeah, I agree. And I think curiosity is the key there because I think that's the highest intellectual virtue is curiosity. It's more important than skepticism or optimism or any, any of that, because you keep digging and digging and digging until you find the answer. If you're curious, if you're just skeptical, or if you're just trying to prove yourself right, you're only going to dig until you find something that validates what you already know.

That's. That's a good point. And the thing is, if you're not curious about your audience and their issues and like, what's going through their head, that tells me that you're not mission driven, like, you're not that, I don't say, passionate about your business, but you don't care that much if you won't put that effort into learning more about your audience so you can communicate with them more effectively and create better solutions to their problems as well. So it's kind of a gut check. Like if you're doing that and you're like, oh man, this blows. Maybe you shouldn't be doing this in general because that's part of the business, being in service.

Yep.

Let's talk about just creating content in general, because on my end, like, I'm most creative between 4:30am and 11:00am and that's. I know it's weird, but. And in between that, I have kids who have to get dressed, go off to school, get fed and all that stuff. So I can't just work straight through. And I often have to Try to get in the zone later on in the afternoon to get in that creative or critical thinking zone to create good content. So I'm wondering, do you have any tactics or techniques for how you just get in your zone that you can share with us in order to execute and be more creative and empathetic?

Well, this may not work for a lot of people, but I put headphones on and listen to heavy metal or gangster rap when I am writing copy. One of my favorite albums to write copy to is Megadeth's Rest in Peace, which is like one of the hardest heavy metal albums ever. But what that does is it shuts out everything on the outside. And really, I'm in my own world when I'm doing that. I think also working only during times when your creativity is at peak, which for me is about four or five o' clock in the morning. The most transformative thing I did as a copywriter was I spent an entire year getting up every morning at five o'. Clock. And between five and six, all I would do is just write headlines. Just write headlines and write headlines. And the reason I wrote headlines is because it got me into this meditative state that you can only get into when you're doing a repetitious task instead of having to do all this task switching. Because task switching is what shuts down the creative brain because it engages the left brain. And so I would just take one thing that you focused on during an hour or two in your most peak creative time and just exhaust yourself on that one thing and do it every single day for a year. And you. I think people be astonished at how good they'll get at something if they focus only on one thing during their peak creative time and do something that cancels out all the outside noise.

I was not expecting to hear heavy metal and gangster rap juxtaposed, but that's like my workout mix. But yeah, you know, I. I dig that. The thought that, hey, you have to get in the zone. And for me, it's repetitive music as well. I'll listen to the same song actually over and over again. Because sometimes the task switching is, do I like this song? And if, yeah, no, then you're shuffling along. So I. I don't take up too much of your time, but I want to have you back just to talk more about personal development and human achievement and mindfulness, because you just have so much cool stuff to talk about. And that's why one of my favorite subjects.

Yeah.

All right, so that sounds like a verbal yes to me. That you're right. But for now, where can people learn more about you and your work and in your books?

Yeah. So I announce everything that I do on my social media channels. I mainly use Facebook. So my first and last name, which I guess you'll probably share with a guest somewhere in writing, but my last name is C Z E R E P A k. So it's sethcherapack. You can find me at sethcherapack.com you can look me up on, on Instagram@seth.cherapac.com on LinkedIn and on Facebook and, and everything that I announce in terms of my books that are coming out, where you can pre order them, where you can buy them, where you can subscribe to the newsletter that I don't have yet or where you can find my blogs is all going to be announced on social media. So connect with me on one or all those places. The best thing to do right now.

Awesome. So I'm going to ask you one more question. It's going to be very open ended.

Okay.

What is one life lesson that you wish you learned sooner?

Gosh, there's so many. I think being in a hurry to get a result a lot of the time is the longest way to go about something. I think if I could go back, if I could talk to my younger self, I'd tell him many things. But if I could only tell him one thing, I would say take your time with things because a lot of the time being in a hurry, if I look back on my life being in a hurry with things and I finally did get this under control several years ago. But being in a hurry has really prolonged my success in many, many, many areas. So that would be the one thing.

All right, Seth, thanks again for that. I mean, as expected, that was a valuable gem. So thank you for that and I look forward to chatting with you again.

Same here. Thank you, Terry.

And that's our show for today. You can learn more from Seth by visiting his website. I'll spell it for you. S E T H C Z E R E P A k dot com and be sure to check out his podcast the Antifragile Entrepreneur where you'll learn how to build a business that generates bulletproof profits and develop the character traits of a resilient and self reliant entrepreneur. Thanks again for listening and I'll catch up with you next time. Time apply what you've learned on today's show. You'll find the show notes and more resources at TerryRice Co podcast. Again, that's Terryrice Co podcast, and the best way to support this podcast is by subscribing, telling a friend and leaving a review. Also, you can get more tips by following me on Instagram terryrice or follow me on LinkedIn. This episode was produced by Josh Wilcox of Brooklyn Podcasting Studio and edited by Dan Lardy. Special thanks to my wife Dominique for keeping our kids relatively quiet as I recorded. Thanks again for listening. I'll see you next time.