Episode #86 – Matt Trainer on How To Make BIG-TIME Money If You Have Email Copywriting Chops

It’s John McIntyre here, the Autoresponder Guy.  And it’s time for episode 86 of the McMethod Email Marketing Podcast where you’ll discover how to make money every time you send your list of –  really what this is about is –  I mean it’s not just email, okay?

What I’ve realized is when anyone is doing email marketing, he’s really just doing marketing.  And they’re in the business of getting more customers.  Well that’s why they’re here.

So, that’s why your here.  It’s not just about email, it’s about getting more customers with less time, with less energy spent, with less money spent, so you could make more money, make more profit.  And do whatever you wish to do.

Now today, we’re talking to Matt Trainer.  Now Matt’s a very interesting character.  He was recommended to me by one other guy, Dan Meredith actually, which you might have seen me do the videos with him on the Titan’s conference.

And Dan knew –  Matt came.  That was a recommendation from Dan and I wasn’t really aware of who Matt was or what he did.  It turns this guy has just done a whole bunch of interesting stuff including –  he wrote copy for Frank Kern’s first launch.

OK, so he’s where I’m in.  He started –  I dunnow if that was his first job, but he did some, he’s done some crazy stuff like that.

He’s written copy for some of the biggest guys in the industry, he’s got a bunch of his own stuff going on, including an SEO, huge SEO company.

And as we jumped on the [01:07] and talked about email copywriting, which turns out, email copywriting is his passion.  And so what I got him to talk about em –  to divulge –  was some of the mistakes that people make when they’re doing their emails and some of the opportunities that are available, especially in the corporate world, to do better email marketing.

So this is a great episode for any consultants, anyone who’s sort of working with clients as a freelancer and wants to step up their game and work with bigger clients.  But it’s also a great episode for anyone who wants to just get more from their email list.

So, yeah, to get the [sound notes – 01:36] for this episode of the Email Marketing Podcast, go to themcmethod.com/86

Now this week’s McMaster’s Insight Of The Week is a very interesting –  I like this one, this is a great topic.

Here’s the thing.  Passion versus get really good at something.

Reason I mention this is couple of days ago, I had lunch with a friend here in Thailand, and he’s in this sort of tricky situation where he loves surfing.  Really, really love surfing, OK?

But he also wants to do business.  So he’s in this sort of Catch-22 and he’s like “Well, do I go on and just focus a hundred percent on business, or do I surf?  And I can’t do both -” cause he was recently living down by the beach and he said he didn’t get any work, you know?

He got a little bit of work done, but it was a bit hard, a bit difficult to focus on getting better at surfing and getting better at business.

And I tried to explain to him over lunch was that you kinda gotta get to a point where –  [wait, wait, sorry – 02:21] –  just to step back.  He went on about a lot how he wanted to do something that you love.

He couldn’t do something that he wasn’t passionate about.  And that’s a challenge.  I felt like that.  I think anyone who’s gotten into business, got into the online game, feels a bit like, yeah, they want to do something that they’re passionate about.

And that’s great, it’s a very –  definitely something to keep in mind, but there’s an interesting –  I guess a philosophical question here, or an issue that you might want to think about if this sounds a bit like you.

And this is thinking about, like, passion –  like what if you gave up the idea of needing to do something you were passionate about, and decided you would just gonna become really, really good at something, and then the passion was gonna come along after the [02:57].

Because there’s –  something interesting happens.  When you go and get really good at something, you start to enjoy it.  And I think that, I’ve found for myself that the more I was trying to seek out that “Oh, I just wanna do what I’m passionate about and I’m gonna refuse to do what I’m not passionate about.” that doesn’t actually help me move towards the life where I’m doing something that I’m passionate about, OK?

It’s sorta like, when you focus on trying to live a happy life, life’s really not that happy.  It’s kinda like life’s easy –  like life’s hard when you try to live it the easy way, life’s easy when you live it the hard way.

It’s very much like that.  If you wanna find the passion when you enjoy what you do, I think you have to really get good at something.  And the passion will come.

[03:33] my friend [03:34] I was trying to explain that “surfing, I mean, are you really gonna care that much about that in five years, ten years time?”

I’m not saying stop surfing.  I’m saying, put it to the side for a bit.  And instead of trying to become an elite level surfer, which isn’t easy –  I think he was sorta wants to get to that level.

Business is gonna be a much longer term.  And you really gotta figure out –  in five years time, ten years time, twenty years time, what’s two thousand –  2040 you, what’s you in 2040 gonna think about what you’re doing today?

Is he or she gonna be thinking “Man, you should’ve worked harder.”  or is he gonna think “Well you should’ve gone surfing.”  That’s a question you have to answer for yourself.

So anyway, the reason I bring this up is because we’ve been talking about this with a few people and it’s a big issue.  It’s a big issue.  And really something you gotta resolve for yourself and I feel like I’m starting to resolve that with me.

What I realized for me, just to be a bit honest here, is that, sometimes I do find it hard to go to work.

I’m thinking “Man here I am in Thailand, and I wanna go and –  I’m working in a coffee shop” for example.  I’m like “I don’t really wanna be here.  I wanna be riding a motorcycle.” or “I wanna be traveling.”  I read that four-hour work week book and I’m “What am I doing here in this coffee shop?”

And the more I thought like that, I was even more depressed.  I wasn’t happy.  I was always in conflict.  And something I’ve realized for myself recently –  and this is just through a lot of thinking, and a lot of talking time to figure this out for myself –  was that I’d just love to get in a ring and take some swings.

I love to work, and it’s not so much about getting to a specific destination.  Though, that’s part of it.  It’s very much about –  not just getting up and doing something everyday, you know?

My passion I think in many ways, is to be growing.  And to be going somewhere, and to be just doing stuff that’s exciting.  Obviously it’s great to get somewhere, but it’s this classic cliche’ of “It’s about the journey, not the destination.”

So anyway, that’s today’s McMaster’s Insight Of The Week.  I hope this wasn’t too much rambling.  This is a topic I’m very passionate about.  Anyway, if you have questions about this –  I love to talk about this, so shoot me an email if you want.  john@themcmethod.com.

Anyway, if you wanna hear more about McMasters, Marc McMasters is a private training community I’ve got.  There is a forum where you can talk to me, talk to the other members, get advice.  It’s really about getting more customers, making more money from them.  All that stuff.  There’s training stuff in there.

More details at the mcmethod.com/mcmasters.  Now, that’s a finale.  Let’s get into this interview with Mr. Matt Trainer.

It’s John McIntyre here, the Autoresponder guy.  I’m here with Matt Trainer.  Now Matt Trainer is the Marketing Moron.  Well that’s his website: themarketingmoron.com.  Now I was introduced to Matt, well we actually met a while back, [he signed out – 05:53] to the list, and we chatted a bit, and then we recently got introduced by a friend of mine, Dan Meredith, whom you might have seen in the latest [06:00] videos, and Dan was saying “Man you gotta get this guy on the podcast.”

He is a boss, so I sent him an email and talked to him to get on the podcast and here we are.  So we’re gonna talk about some of what he’s up to, which is a lot of stuff which is [06:12].

So, Matt, how you doing man?

Matt Trainer:

I’m awesome man, how you doing?

John McIntyre:

Pretty fantastic.  Pretty good.  So, before we talk about some of the content –  we’re gonna talk about email copywriting –  you said it was your passion, it’s how you make the most money –  and that’s really what’s working for you the best.

But before we get in and talk about how you do that, what’s working, all that stuff.  But before we do that, can you give the listener sort of a bit of a background on who you are, what you do.

Matt Trainer:

Yeah.

John McIntyre:

Sell yourself, man.  This is the time to do –

Matt Trainer:

(laughs)

John McIntyre:

– now they said it’s not really your thing to [06:41], but this is the time to do it.

Matt Trainer:

Yeah, I’m not good at it.  I’ve done a lot of stuff.  I started at marketing –  [even knew – 06:50] that’s what I was doing back in ’98, ’99 and back then I was just trying to get people’s eyeballs and stuff and started doing something that later became search engine optimization, SEO.  I didn’t, I wasn’t aiming for it then.  It’s just, you know, hacking stuff, basically.

And through the years got pretty good reputation for building really high quality websites.  And then ended up being sort of a go-to person in Polywood for television, and –  all the television shows and celebrity websites.

So I built Paris Hilton’s first website.  I built drphil.com.  I built [07:28].com back in 2004.  Did World Poker Tour’s websites.  A lot of big-name people.

You know, back in the day, website development was a really big, expensive thing, you know.  I could charge hundreds of thousands of dollars for a website.

And then as that business became commoditized and dried up the really big money, I had met Frank Kern down in Orlando at an event –  at the bar, of all places.  And I really had no idea who he was, but we got to talk about stuff and he heard about all the celebrity websites done and liked my work, and he really dragged me into the Internet marketing world.

And I just happen to live not too far down the road from him and he convinced me to move to La Jolla, California and I lived there as his next-door neighbor for about six years, I guess.

And so through that I –

John McIntyre:

Ah, what’s it like having Frank Kern as your neighbor?

(both laugh)

This is crazy.

Matt Trainer:

He’s an interesting dude man.  I mean, I owe a lot to him cause he really put me into the whole Internet marketing world in a big way.  Yeah, it was quite interesting seeing all the people that come and go, you know, and then I helped him with all of his, you know, back in the with Mass Control launch, Mass Control 1, Mass Control 2, and then List Control, and and all that stuff, you know.

I was the one that did a lot of the website management, and all that kind of stuff.  Helped him with the back-end systems, and that sort of put me on the map and from there, I mean, shoot, I’ve done it all.

I have a very large PPC management company for a while, had a media-buying company for a while.  Just got sick of the client business.  Grew my SEO company up to a very large company that does very, very big numbers for Fortune 100 companies, doing lead gen for them.  That’s a cool business and everything, but it’s boring as shit, (John chuckles) so I really enjoy email.

And through the years, I’ve watched Frank while he wrote email copy and –  Frank got a hold of a book that I wrote {a while} back and he said “Man you should write email copy” cause he said I was a good story teller.

So, he taught me a little bit about how to shorten up my copy and over the years I just got really good at it.  It made sense to me.  So, I enjoy email writing more than anything even though I have several successful businesses.

I just like it.  It’s my creative outlet, basically. So –

John McIntyre:

Nice man.

Matt Trainer:

Yeah.  Got a lot of stuff going on here and then, you know, kind of –  I hate to be like the jack-of-all trades but that’s me.  So –

John McIntyre:

Well what they say, I mean, you wanna be like a successful guy in business, you really gotta be the generalist –

Matt Trainer:

Yeah.

John McIntyre:
– not the technician, you know.  Hire all those people who are good at one thing, but then be the jack-of-all- trades, you can tell them what to do.

Matt Trainer:

Yeah, so I can tell them how much they all suck and how much they gotta fix it.

(both laugh)

John McIntyre:

Exactly man, exactly.  So let’s talk about email.  You mentioned that email is making you the most money.  That’s what’s really working for you.  So tell me about that.  What’s the –  how are you using email to make money to and why is it working so well?

Matt Trainer:

It works well for me just because I’m really, really, raw.  I tell some really gut-wrenching stories that are a hundred percent true, you know?  And I mostly dive in to my failures, more than anything and people just love it.  And I just have a knack for telling stories.  And I just like being able to be open and honest and, you know, very, very raw (laughs).

Sometimes I piss a lot of people off.  Sometimes, you know, people love it.  But, you know, no matter what, people read my emails.  And I get very, very high open rates compared to most in the industry.

And I’ll write emails, and then not write any to my list for a while, and I’ll get, you know, several people emailing me saying “Hey when are you gonna email your list again.  I haven’t heard anything for a while.”

And to me, that just tells me I’m doing it the right way because I don’t know if anybody else gets that, but I think it’s a pretty rare thing that you actually get emails from people requesting more email from you.

John McIntyre:

(laughs)

And they know you’re just emailing the list.  That’s the funny part.

Matt Trainer:

Yeah.  You’re the Autoresponder Guy, and I’ve not been, I’ve not been very good with Autoresponders.  It just doesn’t suit my styles, so pretty much every email I do –  well every email I do is a broadcast now.  Just a one-of broadcast.

And just because my stuff is –  I see something on the news, or something on TV, or something current.  Or something in my own life that I just screwed up on really badly.  And so I try to make a lesson out of it, you know, and it’s all very current, so.

I’ve not found a solid way to do that with Autoresponders yet.  I’m sure it’s possible, but I just haven’t done it, so.

John McIntyre:

One challenge that I’ve had with is cause I go –  the whole reason I didn’t do the broadcast thing that you’re doing –  a lot of people are doing –  is that I just want to be a able to like take-off for two months and have emails keep going out.

And I thought, why would I, why write emails and just send them once, when I can just keep sending them over again.  But then the downside of that is now, if I have a broadcast –  cause I have like a –  I’ll have a cool idea or something that I want to email everyone about –  and I don’t just want to email the people who finished the autoresponder because then I’d miss all bunch of people who are in the middle of it.

So then, what ends up happening is I end up emailing –  some people get two emails in a day, sometimes three if I go a little bit crazy.  So they’ll get the broadcast, which is, you know, some timely that’s just happening, you know, with the Autoresponder email.

And I’ve never had anyone really complain about it so much as just say “Does this actually work for you?”

(both laugh)

Because are surprised.  They don’t –  like, they used the daily emails, so then they assume “Oh John sends a lot of emails.”  and when I sent two, instead of complaining. they’re just a bit like “Well if you’re doing daily and it works, maybe I should send two emails a day” so –

(both laugh)

I think it just pissed some people of.

Matt Trainer:

Yeah, I get it.  It’s just, I dunnow.  For some reason, I just, I’d rather be little bit more mysterious for some reason.  Maybe it’s an ego thing, something.  I’ve been trying to put together at Autoresponders.

John McIntyre:

Yeah.  Is this just for you main sites or someone goes to marketingmoron.com, reads your blog, or the different content you’ve got on there and signs up to that list, or you using this in different sales files that you’ve built?

Matt Trainer:

Yeah I’m referring just to my main marketing list from the marketing [line – 13:21].  On my other businesses, you know I have a health supplement company too that we do really well, and we do have autoresponders in that.  It’s just there.  You know they’re way less personal and way less story than what I’m talking about.  So, it’s funny cause in my regular, “regular businesses”, I do use autoresponders because I don’t really like those businesses.  I don’t wanna babysit that, so.  But for marketing, I’m really passionate about it and for some reason, just autoresponders in that just doesn’t feel passionate to me, you know.

I treat it as an art form more than anything which might sound weird, but –

John McIntyre:

[13:57] and there are times –  and I go through stages, personally. Like, I’ll have a day when, you know a couple days when –  well it’s really like maybe a stage [14:03] a few weeks or a month where I just love writing emails and I’m, you know.

Like, I look forward –  it’s one of the highlights of the day.  Waking up in the morning and having like a –  I guess a creative think about what crazy thing could I write about today and make it into an email.

But then other times it’s just going through the motions.  And it’s not a passion, it’s not that exciting, but it’s just like, “Well I know this is good for the business and I know this is part of [14:23] the list so I’ll do it” but –

Matt Trainer:

Yeah.

John McIntyre:

So do you find you use a different strategy if you’re, like it sounds what you do.  With the supplement company, you’re gonna use autoresponders but with your personal brands, you’re just using you.  That’s where the artform comes in.

Matt Trainer:

Yeah exactly.  Yup.

John McIntyre:

So what would you suggest?  I mean, I have the emails out that you’ve said you’ve seen –  you follow people who are good at email, but you said there’s a lot of people who aren’t.  Like, there’s a lot of basically shitty emails [14:26].  You know, bad email marketers out there.  So what do you think that they’re doing wrong what someone listening to this could sort of learn from and use to improve their own emails?

Matt Trainer:

Well the best explanation I’ve ever heard of that is by Ben Settle.  He said, people treat their –  was it him that said it?  Maybe it was me that said it.

(both laugh)

John McIntyre:

[Quoting/Courting – 15:09] yourself.

Matt Trainer:

Maybe it was.  I can’t remember.  I don’t want it to come off as my original idea if I heard it somewhere.  So just in case it was somebody’s idea, I think I might have heard if from Ben Settle, but now I think about it, it might have been my idea.

But I’ve been teaching for a while that in general, Internet marketers treat their email list like an infomercial.  And it’s just hype, hype, hype, buy, buy, buy ,buy, buy, you know, and I don’t recall anybody wanting to stay up at night to catch the next infomercial, you know.

So there’s no engagement there.  And it obviously works, but man, there is a much deeper way to do it.  So, that model of just hype, hype, hype, you know, here’s the next video check out this new video.  If I ever see another email –  that’s when I get off somebody’s list.

If I see a subject line that says “Check out this video” I immediately unsubscribe because that’s just lame.  So for me, it’s all about, really more about engagement and be an interesting –  I pride myself having very, very interesting subject lines.  That no matter what, you’re gonna open it.

You may not like what you read, but you’re sure shit gonna open it.

So, I just think everybody is lazy and not very creative.

John McIntyre:

Yeah.  I mean, there’s an element here where there’s a launch going off right now.  I think it’s Ryan Deiss.  It should be over by the time this podcast goes live.  But there’s –  yeah there’s a launch and everyone’s mailing for this product.  And what’s funny is a couple of years ago before I sort of gotten into this, I would’ve looked at those emails and saw –  why are these emails get –  really try to deconstruct them.

And now I’ve had, you know I got some experience and spoken to a few guys who’ve got a lot more experience than I have.  And looking at a lot of those emails, and they’re really pretty average.  Like, they’re not bad emails.  But most of them are pretty damn average.  They’re not copywriters.  And it looks like they just sort of jumped into [16:56] and just sort of bank something out really quickly.

It’s made me realize that a lot of these guys, a lot of these products depend on JVs.  They don’t depend on good copy.

So you’ve really got to be careful –  you know a lot of people may get into that thinking where they think “I can just do what the gurus do and I’ll make money.”  but no, it’s not as simple as that.  If you don’t have those JV relationships, when you can’t do that, you’re gonna have to start to differentiate by having good copy.

Matt Trainer:

That’s a good point.  Yeah.  Cause [17:22] a lot of those guys count on their JVs being good copywriters.  And, you know, they’re “white copy”.  They send is usually crap.  I mean, you never see a good copy from any of these launches.  It’s worth shit.  It’s always that same hype, hype, hype stuff, you know.

John McIntyre:

Exactly.  It’s like they’re just trying to –  even like –  you get a sales load that’s halfway decent but you give it to, like you know, you got five JV partners who have, you know, they’ve got incredible relationships with their list.  It doesn’t matter what their sale’s letter is like.  It could be a crappy sales letter because the guy who’s emailing his list has great rapport with that list, they’re just gonna buy it because you told them to buy it.

Matt Trainer:

Right.  Exactly.  Yup.

John McIntyre:

So it’s kinda like, there’s a lot of this like “HOORAH” in the Internet marketing world where its sort of hard to see –  until you get behind the scenes, it’s very hard to see how behind the scenes actually works.

Matt Trainer:

Yep.  (laughs)  That’s why I’ve been lucky, cause I’ve been behind the scenes at a lot of big businesses, including big corporate America’s top two.  And, man you wanna talk about incompetence, jeez.  I mean, Internet marketers are one thing, but at least Internet marketers are trying to learn direct response.

Man, corporate America, you know, corporate around the world, they’re just terrible with what they do.

John McIntyre:

Yeah, yeah.

Matt Trainer:

I’ve head some –  yeah I do a lot of corporate consulting and I charge a hell of a lot of money for corporate consulting, but 90% of the time plus, I craft one email and have them mail it to some list and they’ll make like ten times back what my consulting fee was.  Just because they suck so bad.

John McIntyre:

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Matt Trainer:

And then of course they don’t ever fall in love and do what I told them to do so (laughs).  Crazy.

John McIntyre:

It’s kinda funny man.  Like, it’s –  when you go out like –  alright back when I had a job, they teach you to kinda look at the guys who are in these companies.  Various corporates to small-time entrepreneurs, that sort of thing.  And at times you think they’ve got it all figured out.  The business is just perfect.  It’s a perfectly oiled machine.  Everything just works.  And then you kinda get into it and you realize that they’re just as bad as everyone.  Like there’s so much stuff that doesn’t happen that should happen.

Matt Trainer:

(laughs)

John McIntyre:

It’s really messy.  There’s, aaww.

Matt Trainer:

(chuckles)  This is my favorite story to tell about my corporate consulting.

So I went in and looked at this company.  It’s exactly what your saying and their website is super slick, you know, it’s all Ajax, [RAN – 19:29] and like the big cool stuff whenever you signed up and registered.  So I thought I was gonna come in to a very sophisticated company because they obviously had worked on their funnel, you know.  But then I got in there and I found out that their entire list, which is like 3 million people or something, was all in a spreadsheet.  And they never mailed the list ever.  Not once.  So I asked them why they never emailed their list.  And they –  because they were collecting {information} from it, they [19:58] homepage.  And they said “Well, if they came to our site and put in their email and then looked at what we had and didn’t buy it, then they don’t want it, right?”

John McIntyre:

(laughs)

Matt Trainer:

So what they’re saying is they sent the –  so they had them opt in and email them a coupon code or whatever to buy their product and that was it.  And if they didn’t buy right then, they figured the customer wasn’t interested.

John McIntyre:

(laughs)  So what did you do then?  What had to happen to fix his problem?

Matt Trainer:

(laughs)  Unbelievable.  Alright, so I decided I got [to send them the right contact to count with them – 20:26], imported their list, mailed it, and they made like 300 grand in one email.

John McIntyre:

Nice man.  So what happens?  Like in that situation, you know, they say that they’ve got a coupon code and they’re like “well people probably just aren’t interested in this” and when you approached that problem, you think “well I gotta write an email for them that’s gonna get them better results” how do you approach that?  What sort of email do you write for them?

Matt Trainer:

That one was real simple.  I just wrote –  told a little story about –  well this site –  the company is working with this –  there’s an online tutoring company and their main push –  so they do everything from Math tutoring to guitar lessons and that kind of thing, so , I just sent them an email that said “Hey we haven’t heard from you in a while and wanted to see if you wanted to check out our services again.”  something really, really basic and just told a little bit of a story about how one of our students –  one of the students had done well with his guitar lessons, you know, and had impressed his teachers at school, basically.

It was really, really short.  It was only like, you know, two, three really really short paragraphs and just killed it.

Like, eighty-some percent open rate.  Yeah.  (laughs)

John McIntyre:

Eighty percent?

Matt Trainer:

Yeah this is wild.  I think it was well over eighty percent.  Maybe an eighty five percent.

John McIntyre:

Yeah, yeah, yeah.  Just cause [21:41] would never heard from you guys.

Matt Trainer:

Yeah, they never opened –  they never emailed em.  Except –  well they email them one time after they opted in but that was it.

John McIntyre:

That’s crazy man.  That’s crazy.  Makes you wonder how much of this stuff is out there.  Your have companies that have these lists, that have these massively underutilized assets.  They’re just not doing anything with it.

Matt Trainer:

Oh, it’s huge.  Anybody that’s good at email copy could definitely be trying to get corporate consulting gigs because from all of my experience, I’ve worked with a lot of really big companies and they all have the exact same problem.  They have zero clue how to email their lists.

They typically think that their supposed to send out these goofy HTML newsletters, you know, and they’re supposed to be all fancy design and all that.  But the email and the content sucks and, you know, they’re using some crappy articles that they’ve put in them and it’s terrible.  That’s what they think its supposed to be, you know, and I’ve never come across a gig, in the corporate consulting world that they knew what they were doing with this stuff.

So it’s a massive opportunity for business for sure.

John McIntyre:

I mean, so if there’s someone listening to this, I reckon what they’re gonna want to know is number one, how much can you charge with consulting client like that.  And number two, how do we even find or get a consulting client like that.  Cause it’s almost like you, maybe you can, but my first thought is that it’s a bit hard.  You can’t just email the CEO and be like “Hey man, can I write an email for you?”

Matt Trainer:

What I do, I mean, I have a lot of contacts obviously so I get people seeking out me.  But if I was gonna start over, I’d nothing else, no contacts or anything, I’d just go on Linkedin and start writing really creative emails to people.  That’s all you gotta do.

Tell a cool story in the email and get them to actually take action on email you sent them.  And that’s, that’ll be be enough right there.  And dude, you can charge a hell of a lot of money.  I usually charge ten grand up front plus a percentage of whatever the revenue that comes in from it, so.

John McIntyre:

If they, if they decide to engage you and you say –  so you’re saying they like, alright you send em an email and you get them interested, like, ‘alright let’s do this, give us an email’ and you’re like ‘alright, it’s ten grand plus five percent of the gross profit’ or something like that.

Matt Trainer:

Yep.  Yep.  I used to get between ten and fifteen percent gross.

John McIntyre:

Ten or fifteen perfect of the gross profit, right?  That’s before the –

Matt Trainer:

Yeah.  Gross.  Gross revenue.

John McIntyre:

Gross revenue?

Matt Trainer:

Because, you don’t want to go by profit, cause you don’t have any idea what’s their profit [markness/margins – 23:50], and you gotta dig into their books and see what really profit [23:23].  So it doesn’t –  it makes it really complicated to figure that out.

John McIntyre:

Right, right.  One thing I’m always curious about in this situation is you go like you’d say you’re fifteen percent of his gross revenue and they’re like ‘alright we need three-‘, I mean, obviously you –  let’s say they did three hundred grand sales,you’re like well in that case, for example, you wanna say ‘alright, well that’s a forty five thousand dollar, you know, commission.

Do you, do you email then hire another guy, you know?

A friend of mine who does similar stuff to this, and his thing is he calls em up after a month or two after the email’s gone out, says “alright how many sales you make?”

And they tell me and it’s all right, cool, let’s you know –  forty five thousand dollars.  I’ll send you an invoice.  You know, cool.

Is that how you?  I mean, how do you make someone, make sure someone pays you the, whatever the commission?

Matt Trainer:

I usually setup –  I have a little, like one-page contract that I do with them.  It’s really short and simple.  It’s just an MOU, which is a memorandum of understanding.  It’s not any sort of detailed contract or anything, but it lays out those stipulations really short and quick.  And they sign up and send me money and if they don’t sign it, then I just don’t do the work, so.

I’ve never had an issue.  When you’re working with corporate America, you know, they take, sometimes it takes some time to get paid, cause they’re not exactly fast.

But I’ve never not been [paid – 25:00], big companies.

John McIntyre:

Interesting man.  And you saying you can do this for, so, one email you sent.  You write one email for them and they’ll ten grand plus the commission for em?

Matt Trainer:

Well that was a unique case.  I mean, I ended up doing the whole lot of consulting for them after that.  And I still work with that company quite a bit with their SEO and all kinds of things.

But that was just the one gig.  But you know, I sent them through my own email training and now they have a staff that does email marketing –  they still kinda suck, but they’re doing much better than they used to be.

John McIntyre:

I can imagine man.  That’s cool.  That’s cool.

What are –  there any other war stories man?  Any other cool stuff that you’ve done like that along those lines of emails and corporate emails and gurus or.

Matt Trainer:

Oh man, I have a ton of stuff.  I’ve got a bunch of dad stories you know.

(both laugh)

John McIntyre:

Gimme one of these bad ones man.  It;s probably a cautionary tale, at the very least.

Matt Trainer:

Yeah, I mean, the one thing that I’ve learned over the years is –  especially when you’re getting ready to do a broadcast.  Or even when your setting up an autoresponder, an individual email in your sequence, always send the preview email from the system that’s gonna be mailing it.  Because, man I’ve seen so many times when it goes out funky, you know?  Or you accidentally put some HTML in there when what you’re trying to do is just plain text.

And it can cause some serious, serious issues.  One really, really horrible example to happen –  it’s been a long time ago and Infusionsoft has since fixed their system.  But we sent out a broadcast email to out list one time through Infusionsoft, and there was one little character –  hidden character that was some goofy HTML code that we couldn’t see.

Plain –  It’s supposed to be plain text email.  What happened was –  of course we didn’t send a preview to see what it was cause we figured “oh, it’s just plain text it’s gonna be fine”.  So we mail the entire list of about, I don’t know, seven, eight hundred thousand people, and all that was sent in the list was completely blank email, with nothing but an unsubscribe link.

John McIntyre:

Hahahahah.

Matt Trainer:

So.  Yeah.  Horrible.

John McIntyre:

Horrible.  Horrible.

Matt Trainer:

So, you know, everybody love to [click – 27:00] on stuff on emails, so –  massive unsubscribes on the list.  Really, really bad.

Always send a preview email.  Check what it’s gonna look like.

John McIntyre:

Yeah.  Yeah.  Yeah.

I’ve had that problem before.  I mean, nothing that bad, but sometimes you think the email looks fine, the links are gonna work, that sort of thing.  But if you send a test out, sometimes the links are 404 errors because you got an extra character in there so it’s not even gonna work.  Stuff like that.  Little stuff that’s worth checking.  But after you’ve done it for a couple of emails, it’s the sort of thing –  I know me anyway, I’m just like ‘alright whatever’ just send it out instead of –  it’s difficult to really be that guy who goes sends a test, checks it, clicks on the links, and really reviews it.

Especially when you’re like a fast –  like an entrepreneur or someone who’s really trying to hustle, they’re usually the sort of person who just wants to get stuff done and throw stuff at the wall and see what sticks.  And that’s not the sort of person who’s gonna check the email before it goes out.

Matt Trainer:

Yeah.  And I’m typically that guy too, believe me.  But man, I’ve just been burned so many with that now, so I’m super paranoid.  (laughs)

John McIntyre:

Yep.  Yep.  Yep.

What else man?  We have plenty of time for one more –  what’s another big mistake that people have made.

Matt Trainer:

Another big mistake I see all the time is not putting something in an email to click on.  You gotta –  I mean I understand some people like to do story-based emails and especially with Andre’s training, you know, lot of people doing serialized emails.  And most people do it badly but, at least they’re trying.  The biggest thing I see a lot, people trying to say something like “Hey I got this thing coming, wait for tomorrow.”  and that’s it.  You know.  That’s great and all, you can do open loops and build some curiosity but people wanna click on stuff.

Give em something to click on.  So, I’ve learned that over the years is, man always try to monetize on something.  Even if it’s just in the PS and it’s complete –  you take a hard right turn on a completely different subject in a PS and give em something to click on.

Even if it’s a cool music video or some crazy cat video.  Something, you know.

Just so you can get them used to clicking on your emails.

John McIntyre:

Absolutely.  And its also –  I’ve found with mine –  I remember speaking to, I think it was Zach –  I think his name was Zack.  One of the guys from [29:08] the postmaster.  It’s just like a fancy name for the guy who does the deliverability.  And he was saying if you can get through you [29:15] or email, you’re pretty much straight into the inbox.

In stuff like –  so if you can get someone to click a link, all these little engagement triggers as well, so you also –  I mean in that person’s brain, if they click a link one day, they’re more likely to click one the next day.

But also to Google and Yahoo, and the email providers –  people are clicking links in your emails, they’ll think “Well this email must be pretty important.  We better make sure that this person keeps getting it and it doesn’t go to spam.

Matt Training:

Right.  Yeah I figured that out a while ago.  Since I built this automated bot that just went and opened up all my emails and clicked on em.

John McIntyre:

(laughs)  Really?

Matt Trainer:

So my delivery will always be good.  Yeah well they found out about that and they didn’t like it so.

John McIntyre:

Who’s they?  That’s Google.

Matt Trainer:

Google and Yahoo.  Yeah cause we were doing it in mass, mass volume.  I used to be a very large bulk emailer.  And I don’t recommend that.

It was cool for a little bit.  But they didn’t like it.

John McIntyre:

Interesting man.  That’s good.  That’s smart.  But they didn’t like it huh?  That’s negative.

Alright we’re right on time.  But before we go, if the listener wants to find out more about you, maybe send you an email, maybe buy one of your products, or maybe just join your list, I know you’re a –  you sign them on the [NASA – 30:17] subscribing saves kittens –  long story, I’ll explain later.

Matt Trainer:

Yeah, the great thing about that is I never, ever explain later.  (laughs)

John McIntyre:

I remember this conversation for –  they do open loops, and I’ve –  cause I’ve done this in sales letters or emails.  Before you open a loop, you just never close it.  So it just –  it’s just –  I dunnow if that’s –  I don’t know if that’s unethical.  It’s a bit.  It’s a bit.  It’s a bit annoying.  It’s a bit exasperating.  Cause you’re just playing with someone’s brain psychology.  But, yeah.

(both laughs)

Cause people forget about it, you can mention something like classic [30:51] is like, this is a fish and in the next few minutes, I’m gonna show you how this fish will get you laid on anything else – 

Matt Trainer:

I hate it.  I hate it.  Yeah.  I hate –

John McIntyre:

But even like –  you can say something like that and there might be no explanations for the fish later on in the video and the person who’s watching the video probably won’t even know, won’t even remember that there was even a fish.

Matt Trainer:

Right.  Exactly.  Yup.

John McIntyre:

So anyway.  So people who do wanna learn more about you man it’s the marketingmoron.com right?

Matt Trainer:

Yep, themarketingmoron.com.  Make sure you put the ‘the’ at the beginning.  themarketingmoron

John McIntyre:

Cause some moron

Matt Trainer:

Some guy.  Yeah.  Some other moron is squatting is marketingmoron.com and won’t sell it to me no matter what.  I’ve been trying to buy it for ten years.

JohnMcIntyre:

I got mine.  I think I’ve got themcmethod.  It’s the same problem.  I’m like “man, the mcmethod.” Someone’s like “oh, mcmethod?”  No, I’m like “the mcmeth” –  “duh mcmethod”.

I’ve got a back border in mcmethod.com as well now.  So, same kind of deal man.  Someone else is sitting on it, and they’re not selling it.  So.

Matt Trainer:

Yup.

John McIntyre:

Anyway man.  Alright Matt thanks for coming on and having a nice casual chat about email marketing.

Matt Trainer:

Yeah.  No problem man.  It’s fun.