TCC Podcast #176.5 The Copy Contest at TCCIRL with Rob Braddock and Conor Lynch

We don't often have two guests join us in the studio, but this week is one of those exceptions. For this special "un-numbered' episode, we've invited Rob Braddock and Conor Lynch to share how they become copywriters, what they're doing differently in the financial niche, and how you can earn the opportunity for a paid gig ($7,500 plus royalties) to write a promo for WealthPress. You'll want to listen to get the details. We also talked about: •  how Rob Braddock accomplished his meteoric rise from prisoner to successful copywriter •  the resources he used to learn direct response copywriter •  Rob’s daily meditation practice •  how easy it is to get your foot in the door wherever you want to work •  how Conor Lynch got his first taste of copywriting at age 13 •  the boring narrative arc in the biz-op niche that drove him to finance •  how WealthPress became the fastest growing Financial publisher •  the writing and approval process that helped Conor get promotions done faster •  the importance of spectacle when it comes to getting attention •  the process of building a hot list (and how WealthPress does it differently) •  whether spectacle and video promotions will work in niches beside finance •  why WealthPress is sponsoring the cocktail party at TCCIRL •  how you can “win” an opportunity for a paid promotion with WealthPress Don't skip this one, especially if you've ever dreamed of writing in the financial niche. Click the play button below, or scroll down for a full transcript. Or better yet, subscribe on iTunes or Stitcher so you never miss an episode.   The people and stuff we mentioned on the show: WealthPress The Gary Halbert Letters Jake Hoffberg Joe Schriefer Evaldo Albuequeque Dan Kennedy Yanik Silver Russell Brunson Raging Bull Angel Publishing Trade Winds Bencivenga’s Marketing Bullets Joel Klettke Macallan M Contest Entries Go Here Kira’s website Rob’s website The Copywriter Club Facebook Group The Copywriter Underground   Full Transcript: Rob M:         This is a different kind of interview than we usually do. We usually only talk to one person at a time. Today we have both Rob Braddock and Conor Lynch as our guests today. For a couple different reasons we're doing this a little bit differently. One, because we've got a contest that we're going to talk about here in just a minute. Two, you guys worked together to create some pretty interesting financial promotions, and you do it in a different way. Before we get into all of that, maybe Rob Braddock, we can start with your story. Then maybe we can hear a little bit from Conor about his story and how he got into this business. Rob B:         Right. Well, yeah. I guess it is a pretty crazy thing to think. You could probably go back not too far just two years or so ago and find the first post I made in The Copywriter Club. I didn't know anything about copywriting two years ago really, but I'd just discovered it. So, before I got into copywriting, I was in political fundraising. Got in a little bit of trouble. Bribery this, bribery that, yada, yada, yada, blah, blah, blah. Three years in federal prison. That essentially ended that career and all of the contacts I had built up over time. It's not something I could get back into. So, I had to start over again. After I stumbled around and bumbled around trying to figure out what I was going to do, I knew it was going to be something in the internet space or maybe I would SEO, sales or something. I wasn't really sure. I stumbled across copywriting, direct response copywriting and then financial direct response copywriting. Once I saw what it was, what it is and how much money can be made with it, I was like, ‘All right, I'm doing this, man. I'm going all in.’ So, I started studying and studying and studying relentlessly. It was essentially my primary focus of my life for six months at least. Then one thing led to another, and I was lucky enough to get a shot to work for Agora and went to Agora. Had a couple of hits at Agora. Then decided to leave to join up with WealthPress and see if we could make some big moves. So, that's where I am. That's the quick story. Kira:  That is a quick story, but we want to dig into that a little bit more. From your time in prison, is there a question that people ask you repeatedly about that time in your life that just you're tired of it because everyone asks you the same question? Rob B:         No. Everyone just says, ‘What was it like?’ Not really a lot of specifics. The hardest part of prison is the separation and being totally disconnected from the rest of the world, and the world's moving by and you don't know what's happening. You're sort of stuck in this one place. It's literal and metaphorical at the same time. You're stuck in one spot while everything else is moving by. A lot of guys decide to stay stuck in that place, again, physically or metaphorically even when they get out. The hardest part for me was when I had to do some time in the SHU, the special housing unit, commonly referred to as the hole or whatever. I was in there for four months one time. Kira:  Oh, wow. Rob B:         I did three weeks in the hole once and then four months in the hole another time. It's very mentally difficult. It was in that time that I ... I mean, you're on lockdown for 23 hours a day in the room and 24 hours on the weekends. When you're let out for an hour it's at six o'clock in the morning in February when it's freezing cold and you're in a dog cage essentially. It's not like you're actually going outside. So, you're essentially completely locked down for 24 hours a day for four months. It's very mentally taxing. It was in that space that I sort of ... I started meditating a lot and repeating positive mantras to myself in my head for hours at a time. So, I was trying to prevent myself from going crazy, I guess. That's the same thing I used when I got out of prison. I kept doing that, like a ritual of meditation and positive thought reinforcement so that I'd be able to achieve what I wanted to achieve. You have to think like ... I set a goal of working at Agora. That's considered the, holy shit, if you can get a job as a copywriter working at Agora, oh my god. I didn't even know what it was. I didn't even know what copywriting was. So, I decided I'm going to go from not knowing what copywriting is to having Agora make me an offer. So, I went super hardcore with studying and meditating and positive mental affirmations, and it happened within six months. In six months I went from literally not have ever even seen a long form financial copy to working at Agora, and two months after that had my first hit with Agora. So, as terrible as prison was, being in that situation forced me to develop the things that I used to better my life once I got out, if that makes any sense. Rob M:         Yeah, it makes total sense. It's an amazing transformation. I'm guessing that a lot of people who are listening are probably going to thinking to themselves, ‘Okay, in order to make a jump from zero to one of the best, being among the best writing of financial promos,’ you talked about how you were relentless in your study. What were you studying? What were you doing through those six months that helped you make that kind of a leap? Rob B:         Hey, all the stuff is out there. Everything is out there. You don't have to invent some new copy thing or some new sales tactic that's never been thought of before. People have been doing it for a couple hundred years now. What I say is like, the first guy ever to think, ‘Hey, I'm going to put an ad in the newspaper with a call-to-action and try to sell this thing that I'm selling,’ he put it in a newspaper 200 years ago. That guy was a genius. He had to think to do that. Fast forward 200 years, what did I do? I read The Gary Halbert Letters online for free, which you can do. Bond Halbert and his brother, they have it up there for free. They could be selling that thing for thousands of dollars, but- Rob M:         That's an amazing resource. Rob B:         Right. I think I've read every letter that's on The Gary Halbert Letters website. I did that. I signed up for every financial newsletter to read every promotion, and I would read every ad. I would think to myself, ‘Oh wow, that's really interesting. What are they doing here?’ Then I'd think, ‘You know what? I could do that better. That ad kind of sucks. I would do it like this.’ I did that for hours, literal hours every day. Then at one point, I took a class. Jake Hoffberg was offering a class on how to write short form financial copy, which is emails. We call them lift letters, which are editorial emails. They're like the salesy emails. So, those emails and the little short ads you might see, I took that course on how to do that. That was essentially it. So, just several hours a day of reading either general direct response information, and then specifically to my niche, just sort of consuming every bit of content I could. Kira:  This is getting into the weeds a little bit, but you mentioned meditation and affirmations. Can you just share, what did that actually look like at the time when you were building that into your practice when you were prison? I mean, beyond when you left. Maybe you're still doing it today. Is that something that you do in the morning? Could you give an example of what that looks like? Rob B:         Yeah, I do it for 20 minutes each morning. It's the first thing I do. I wake up. I have positive affirmations that I've had recorded. So, I put on my headphones and usually I just lay there in bed for 20 minutes. I press play and just listen to it. I have some cool music in the background. Yeah, I don't know. That's it. It's 20 minutes a day. It's like forward looking goal setting statements but also some statements that would never change, things like just being ...