TCC Podcast #104: Writing seductive copy with Colin Theriot

Copywriter Colin Theriot joins Rob and Kira for the 104th episode of The Copywriter Club Podcast. Colin is well known as the leader of the Cult of Copy (as well as four or five other related Facebook groups). He often jumps into the club to answer questions or comment on something, and we thought it was about time to talk shop with him. In our discussion, we covered: •  how Colin became a copywriter •  why he started The Cult of Copy •  the short cut to getting people to know who you are •  how beginning copywriters can create a copy learning experience •  the most important thing for beginners to learn (this skill is portable) •  his philosophy for running more than one Facebook group •  why he offers a “jobs” group and why you probably shouldn’t use it •  the five Vs of the Viking Velociraptor Formula <-- this is gold •  the “artist vs. cabinet maker” mistake copywriters tend to make •  the scalability secret for earning more by doing less •  why you need to treat your business like a business •  why he tells copywriters to read books that aren’t copywriting books Click the play button below, or scroll down for a full transcript. The people and stuff we mentioned on the show: The Cult of Copy Understanding Comics by Scott McLoud Books by Elmore Leonard Kira’s website Rob’s website The Copywriter Club Facebook Group Intro: Content (for now) Outro: Gravity Full Transcript: The Copywriter Club Podcast is sponsored by Airstory, the writing platform for professional writers who want to get more done in half the time. Learn more at Airstory.co/club. Kira:   What if you could hang out with seriously talented copywriters and other experts, ask them about their successes and failures, their work processes and their habits, then steal an idea or two to inspire your own work? That's what Rob and I do every week at The Copywriter Club Podcast. Rob:   You're invited to join the club for episode 104, as we chat with Copywriter and cult leader Colin Theriot about starting a cult and running a Facebook group with nearly 25,000 members. The 5 Vs of the Viking Velociraptor Formula, what most copywriters are doing wrong today and why, when asked about his favorite books about copywriting, he doesn't recommend books about copywriting. Kira:   Welcome Colin. Rob:   Hey Colin. Colin:  Hi guys. Thanks for having me. Kira:   Yeah, great to have you here. Colin:  Sweet. Kira:   So Colin, let's kick this off with your story. How did you end up as a copywriter? Colin:  I was working at an internet marketing company. It was an eCommerce company. I was working there as a graphic designer/SEO analyst/content writer. One of the owners of that eCommerce site and his other marketing partner in other ventures, they decided to launch this thing called StomperNet and I was working there making their web pages at the time, so I helped them, stayed up on launch night, making some HTML for that. And they launched it and it was a big record breaking launch. I think was like $24 million at the time. And so I got called over from the eCommerce site to go work on that. And then while we were wiring, my boss at the time, Andy Jenkins, his house for Wi-Fi so we could work there legally, while I was doing that, the writer we had on staff at the time, I can't remember to this day if she was sick or if we were just busy and had too much stuff going on, but it was sort of like a voluntary basis, ‘Hey, we need this sales letter rewritten, because we're about to relaunch with all these new features we've added.’ So I took a shot at it and Andy was like, ‘This is pretty good. Do you like doing it?’ And I'm like, ‘Yeah. It's easier than wiring your house for Wi-Fi.’ And he's like, ‘Well cool, because you're the chief marketing copywriter, so get good at it.’ Over the next, I think it was a little under two years, I worked with all the high end marketing faculty they had there that were all copywriters in their own right and written things and sold their own products for years. And I got to write all the emails for their list of 100,000 subscribers that they had left over from the launch. I got to write all their blog posts, all the affiliate promos, all the slides. I wrote a draft, at least, of everything we've ever launched. They had a lot of chefs in that kitchen, as it were. So, I didn't necessarily write the final draft of everything, but I had input and I didn't realize it at the time, but it was basically like hard core Copywriting University, because before I started doing the job, I had no idea you could even be a copywriter. I just kind of presumed advertising was written by somebody that worked at the company, in there as a side project. I didn't realize it was a highly paid specialist field or anything. But I picked it up, I learned on the job. And then I went freelance when that company changed hands, the bosses had what I refer to as a business divorce, and they went their separate ways, so I went freelance at the time. I worked freelance for a few years while starting a little community for other copywriters who were doing the same thing I was. Started on Skype originally and then I moved it to Facebook, because I was goofing off on Facebook more and I wanted to justify it, so I'm like, ‘If I'm going to be spending all this time on Facebook, I may as well be trying to build something valuable for myself.’ And that group was The Cult of Copy. And here we are five years later. End of 2012 is when I started the Facebook group. Rob:   That's a great road to success, I think. I'm curious, when you went from that switch from being the in-house writer, where you're having this fantastic experience learning all of the copy to doing your own thing, how did you make that transition? How did you find your next clients from that experience. Colin:  It worked out really good. Again, I've got to give credit to Andy Jenkins, basically he launched Video Boss for himself not long after he left StomperNet. And he just hired me to work on that with him. And then he was getting his own client work to do marketing. And since I had been the guy who actually wrote the copy everyone thought he wrote. I want to point out he was super open, he told everyone I was the house copywriter, but still, on the public facing side, all those sales letters were from Andy Jenkins even though I helped write them. So he hired me to do work with him. And then when people would ask him who he recommended, he would refer to them to me. And generous guy that he was, he did me a solid to where I didn't even tell him what I charged, he just told them what he thought I should charge, so that was a nice surprise starting out when you just get a huge check before you've even discussed what the payment is, because Andy told them what I charged already. Basically, you can tell from my story that I didn't want to be a writer of any kind necessarily, like I've been good at it, but I don't have a novel in my brain that I've been kicking around. I wasn't looking to be a writer. It’s a skill that was easy for me to pick up on, but when I went freelance, it was never my goal to have a 30 year long career in copywriting. I didn't want to be an A-lister. I don't necessarily, wasn't looking to be famous as a copywriter in any kind of way. What I really wanted to do was, since I had done the work for the guys at StomperNet writing all of their material, the way they made their money was basically by being a recognized authority, a recognized expert in marketing and conversion, and from that position, from that perceived precision in the marketplace, they could sell anything very easily. And I know it was easy, because I was the one doing all the writing. So, I knew that I knew how to do the work part to make the money. I just didn't have a reputation yet. So the idea was to as quickly as possible, instead of trying to write a bunch of copy and build a reputation that way, I wanted to get on stage and talk at events as fast as possible, because I knew that was the shortcut to having everybody know who you are and what you do. And then once you're in that position, then it becomes a lot easier to market yourself, because people have heard of you. And really the goal was to transition out of doing client work as a copywriter as fast as possible to get into doing what I do now, which is training and consulting and critiques and all that stuff, where you use the same knowledge that you had used as a copywriter, except I don't have deadlines, I don't have launch stress, I don't have people nitpicking my work and me having to take my name off of it. So it's like, for me anyway, all the fun parts of being a copywriter with none of the bad parts that sometimes clients can bring to the table. Kira:   Right. So it sounds like you were clear from the beginning about what you wanted and what you didn't want? Colin:  I think a lot of people look at my career as a copywriter and it seems like the decisions I made were strange, but they're only strange if you think I wanted to be a copywriter for a very long time. When really, it was just, copywriting was the most valuable thing I knew how to do to be able to build an authority position on the knowledge that I have as a copywriter continues to be what actually makes me my money, I just don't deliver it as a service where I write your sales letter for you for hire anymore. Kira:   Right. You got it early on, hey this authority building thing works. This is how I can build my business. You mentioned speaking on stage helped. What can other copywriters do to build their authority when they're relatively new and no one knows who they are? Colin:  In addition to being able to speak on stage, that's a huge one, just because, first of all, there's a little competition as a copywriter, if you want to try and speak at events. Because typically, copywriters are introverts,