The McMethod Email Marketing Podcast

Kurt Elster is a recovering designer. He thought he’d quit his job and start his own ecommerce platform… until he realized the likelihood of making that happen. Instead, he started building custom websites and charging $700. He thought it was downright criminal when he was able to finally raise his fees to $2500. With clients like Hilton Hotels and Verizon… the projects and money became even greater. Like Biggie Smalls predicted though, so did the problems. So he distanced himself from wishy-washy agency work. Instead, he helped a friend with a site for his recumbent bike business. He niched down to becoming A Shopify expert and the lessons he learned along the way have all come to bear. Freelancers should be able to apply the many gems Kurt shared today. In this episode, you’ll discover: The one book that finally made it all click and started bringing in leads in droves. Positioning secrets of a “dog lawyer”. How do you express what it is you do? The simple and easy math to a 6-figure consulting business. The “onion skin” method of deep-diving to find your customers. If Kurt had a time machine, these are the two things he’d go back and tell his younger self. Mentioned: Kurt’s Website Email Templates For Freelancers (20% McMethod discount) SEan D’Souza’s ‘The Brain Audit’ David Allan’s Make Words Pay Intro and outro backing music: Forever More by CREO David Allan: Hey everybody we’re back with another edition of the podcast and I’m David Allan and we have a very special guest today which I think will be fun. Now I want to say something about this just before we start because Kurt Elster is on the show today and this guy if you want to get your sh together to come on a podcast I’m going to link this in the show. Most you go and take a look at his page he lays out all the information – possible questions, background information, head shots – almost everything I would say everything I thought in almost everything everything you need as someone who’s about to interview another person would require so that they don’t have to spend hours and hours compiling their own information and wandering through the interweb to find it. And I just want to say Kurt thanks a lot for doing that. Kurt Elster: Yeah it certainly was a selfish act because it makes it so easy for you to say yes to having me on your show. David Allan: And that’s what we want. You know you will make everyone’s job easier. And as a copywriter who does research you know on a regular basis it can be laborious. And this was so much easier you know if I had clients that had everything laid out as neatly as that specifically as you did my job would be so much easier. Kurt Elster: Most days I know it’s easier when you’re talking about yourself. Let me tell you about me. David Allan: Exactly when you get to say I look like you are really are two instead of my perspective. So let’s start. You are a conversion optimization expert. Yeah I’m a shopping expert exclusively worked on Shopify. But you know these lessons apply to all of e-commerce and usability so don’t just tune out if you’re not on trial. That’s OK with Shopify. You know the thing that I most enjoy doing is a conversion rate optimization. Just seeing those those metrics go up and being able to give people a higher or a y out of their marketing efforts is exciting. Yeah it is exciting because it turns real things on the dial it makes you know the money flow elements and it helps people in a real sense. Yeah. You know I used to consider myself a designer and design is so squishy and subjective and everyone has an opinion and like you know I want to build Facebook for poodle’s. Versus you know conversion rate optimization like I want to and you know I want to make the Web site play horse noises and know I can think of conversion bridge and go down but we can try and test it. Now I like it because it’s a data driven design it’s informed design right. That’s what feels good about it. And as you know a guy that specializes in direct response. Myself these little things you know those things about designing cars that come in contact with a lot of designers who want to find things a lot and make it look nice and usually often destroys the conservative base. So I could really appreciate people who use testing stuff too. And I’m I’m a recovering designer every day hype it occurred to. You that battle. Yeah. And like it’s it’s easy to go to feed your own ego as a designer and go subtle is sophisticated and this is beautiful and it follows the latest trends and when I screenshot this for dribble everyone’s going to be so impressed. And it’s not going to make money. Ultimately that’s what it is. I mean a web site that someone owns your like your work your design has an impact on their ultimately on their life on the people they employ on their family like it is huge far reaching effects. And so give up on your ego and start doing cool design to effective design. And that’s what’s so wonderful our conversion rate optimization or approaching things as you know data driven design. No I think that’s a beautiful thing. So let’s take let’s take us through where you came from your superhero origin story. How did you get into this. What were you doing before and sort of bringing us up to speed. Salumi in 2009 I was working as a product manager for a autoparts e-commerce store that was quite successful and I enjoyed it I work there. But you know I wasn’t my own boss. I don’t have the personality for it. And it was getting a go worktime Converse All-Stars and I just broke down in tears and I knew like items quit my job. Of course I have a family so it was easier to do then right. Like I just want to work. I gave my one week notice like I have to do. And it was it was me it was a man that was in their fault. And then I said because I didn’t know what I was getting into when I shoot for the moon and I said let’s just build my own e-commerce platform. July. Just seem like well that’s not that hard. It’s just nuts. And at the same time I had a good friend a good childhood friend who had lost his job as a talented interaction developer at a local agency back in 2009 or was getting laid off. So he had it he had unemployment so he was like no risk to him to go yeah or work on this thing with you. And after a year we quickly like we kind of you know pulled the fret on the sweater and discovered oh my gosh you can’t you know building an e-commerce platform with two guys who’ve never done such a thing. It just wasn’t realistic. Maybe two other dudes could have done it but we couldn’t. So to keep the lights on. You know we had local businesses knocking on my door going hey can they misunderstood what we do when they go I can do for website like us not us. Get out of here. Pediatric. 5 year I’m like well I’m you know Romand doesn’t taste so great anymore. I still like a custom. I did a solo website and charged like 700 bucks. I thought that’s good you know. And it was like completely custom design and development. And when my wife and I held their hand through it. And then like by the time I saw them for twenty five hundred bucks. Like oh my gosh this is criminal. It’s funny it’s funny though I don’t stop you there but it’s funny. Your perspective your perception how it changes from what I’ve gone through this myself. You change your life. OK so this is for you you know because you have a gives you a real perspective of what it actually takes to do it. And of course no perspicuous because it could be that he was special. And then you know charged 21:00 always you feel like you’re like you almost feel fraudulent and you’re like is this legal. Like a money issue. I got my recap. You’ve discovered the dark truth is like oh you just entered revision hell because someone is taking design cues from 40 people. I think we’ve gotten you know we went to our family gathering and I submitted your design to all 40 members of my family and here all of them notes half on know. You know that’s the kind of thing that happens early on. So we started we got lucky and you know we got her big break. We started doing it like we did some work for Crain’s the big business newspaper like they had a special editorial feature. And then from there we like using that as a portfolio piece we were able to start doing work for agencies you know the whole time I used direct response marketing I literally like to get my initial local clients. I wrote hand I wrote a letter and addressed it slipped under the doors and then four agencies I know they like email. I wrote a nice sales letter must I care about two things. Building great Web sites and pressing the help of your clients. You know that kind of thing. And that got me phone meetings and I found myself with like three to four agency clients and were doing work for big Web sites. You know we did suffer for NFL hit hotels the golden Hilton Hotel site we were pressed about the amount of still up hotel. Wow is this cool an NFL team in the NFL. If you remember that Verizon’s fight foam off campaign actually was a breeze. There was a website with a contest that went along with that. I did that. Oh wow. And I was even managing it too like we had just used it. We had such a short timeline we just use foofoo it like a forum builder for this huge conference that people thought passed and survived. Sounds like it’s and if you keep it keep your tools simple. Use what you’re comfortable with. And it worked with zero problems. But you know it isn’t like huge enterprise thing that people would expect. So you know we did that but we weren’t happy with it. And at the same time I had a friend like it’s just hard. It’s like these big $50000 projects. But the effective hourly rate is not amazing because it’s her work that goes into it and agencies are their boiler makers were like every time I turned around my project manager quit or got fired. You know like that and you’re working with someone else who now wants to get you out to hire their friend like that happened three times. It’s just like it’s really stressful or like a project would be going you know like we’re not going to do this so we’ll just pay you know we paid you up through a third of it. You know Cea and work never sees the light of day and night you’re scrambling you know for your next thing. It was hard. And at the same time I had a friend who owns a popular recumbent only bike shop very nerdy kind of bike there locally and we sign a Web site and I said Let’s check out Yuasa online. Yeah like there’s this thing called Shop find her. Maybe we’ll play with it. And again we’ll shoot for the moon. So our very first Shopify project having never used it ever was a completely custom theme. I designed my current business partner developed and they took notice and I said we’ve got this thing called the expert program. It’s going to be like an app store but for hiring experts and so they pitched this you can join it’s in beta. You know you made a custom theme so you’re cool. So I got in. And then I got a couple of leads from it and one day I read this amazing book on sales letters called Sean DSO’s is the brain on it. I don’t know if you know I’m actually shot was going to be on the show here in a few weeks. Oh ok we’ll tell. He doesn’t know me. But tell him I love him. I will. It’s a great book and very early like that was a watershed moment for me really. I had read a bunch of copywriting sales books. That was the one where I was like oh I get it now it clearly and it’s it’s not long it’s just slunk to the point and loved it read it in a Starbucks like I remember reading it like oh da I wrote a letter like that for Shopify for my shop I expert page and I start getting way more leads and way better leads from there. You know after a while we just said you know we were done getting beat up by the agencies like let’s just only do e-commerce and then from like within a month of that I was like wait wait let it only do Shopify and. You know it’s it’s counter-intuitive but when you niched down like within 60 days of doing that it was getting referrals from people I didn’t know to people I didn’t know going oh well you’re the shop guys time when they had like 100000 stores maybe 400000 stores. So it was you know hitching your cart to one horse like that to one platform and just make it very clear this is what I do. This is what you do it for was hugely important and it’s been you know it’s been three years since then. And I I wish I had done it sooner. Yeah. No I think this is a very important lesson for people wisdom of a lot of freelance copywriters. You know business owners is over. Listen to the show. But for the freelance copywriters out of wind that back about 30 seconds to sing again because this can happen I swear you’re getting started and got the right. This is so important. This can make it so much easier. And as you just listen to how much a change it made immediately and in the way your business got off the ground. Yeah probably like if I could go back and tell myself two things. It would be you know hate number one. Figure out a positioning statement so a positioning statement would just it tells someone in one sentence what you do you do it for and why. So I go curdles to help chump firestorm uncover hidden profits in their stores. And then if I want to add something to it. Unlike other designers she cares solely about return on investment advice. There’s a hook there see that or there something like I’m a dog lawyer or then like I’m immediately compelled to ask for help might as well. Did you do it. I’m a doctor but think about this if it takes you more than a sentence to explain what you do. No one’s going to remember it. So they’re not going to be able to for anyone to you. And you’re not going to be connected to anything in their head when they then need that pain and that’s the the amazing part about not choosing a niche choosing positioning. Originally I know early on everybody thinks this all came as to why now get more of the more profit we’ll get more leads whatever. No it doesn’t work. You’re a generalist. And no one is interested in you. Like I’m not who makes more you know a family physician who is essentially a generalist or you know a plastic surgeon who only does like mommy makeovers like some one that’s like a double vertical. Oh my gosh. You know it’s funny you mentioned that I was I was in MASH. I find this a lot when you’re getting a mommy make over it. OK I admit it. I coming clean. You got your tummy tuck. I was in Nashville here a year ago maybe and sit next to a guy in a cafe and he was a personal trainer and he was talking to a friend as we set the table and he was trying to come up the east side like are getting more clients. I just overheard the conversation and I said I don’t mean interjected what what are you doing. He like on a personal trainer do this. What would you do it for. And he couldn’t really tell me so you know blah blah. I said well he goes. But then he said I do like doing people getting right where I like brides getting ready for their wedding. And I said oh God that’s what you should do. Boom right there. Yes. How did you know. And I just it to him a little bit you know and you’re right people are afraid to ask. Like too small like the all the people of the opposite usually less or less your thing is so small that nobody there’s nobody in that. You know which is so. Which is rare you know people then you know that’s the way to go at least a start for sure that’s the way to go. I mean if you had a hundred people that means it’s probably close knit 100 people know each other and let’s say you get you know they refer you you talk to 20 people you walk sale you book $10000 project’s lifetime value with 10 of them. You are now a six figure consultant. Yeah just like that. It’s not crazy. It’s not crazy at all when you start thinking about it like that. No when you look at the math this is pretty is pretty straightforward and simple and I think people just don’t really sit down and figure out what they need what they want and what the goal was and stuff and all that sort of simple stuff and sometimes I get I get pushback on it and I’ve heard this you know I thought this too is going to well if I only do one thing I’m to get bored. So you really love learning all of your tools at the start of every project that might be a masochist. You know you look you look at it and it’s true you might be months if you look at the top look at people were up here you look at the top people who are in copywriting the sort of the what they call the A-list all stars people ready direct mail. They specialize in a couple of these shows and that’s it you know because there’s a number of reasons for that. One of the reasons as you get so good at knowing that it makes it so much easier. Yes. Right. Because you don’t have to go and then become an expert about some new. That takes a lot of takes a lot of time to do. It becomes like pulling a thread on a sweater where you use F word twice I’m and no word it’s OK we’ll say an onion where once you dive into a particular niche and you only work in one space you discover it is way more nuanced than you. New and new problems and new things and then you even break it down into further niches. Well you know you know I know who my ideal clients are in Shopify and I know who the bad fits are so I can qualify those people right away. I know who I love working with but really I mean you’re kind of it and you don’t do it based on the market do it for you know who’s my favorite client. What’s my favorite project. Can I just only work with people like that like. Or what’s my unfair advantage. Like oh I’ve got experience in MySpace and other people don’t. OK. That too that. Make it easy Don you know I’m lazy. I don’t want to do work but I have to write. So that’s you know leeching down positioning it’s scary. Don’t get me wrong it’s scary. It’s all right to be scared but it’s not forever. You can revise it. It’s just words on a Web site. Yeah I would say there’s a there’s a book that I’ve never read but I always enjoyed referencing the title which is to feel the fear and do it anyway. Oh I like that. Yeah. You’ve got to like if you’re not one of the tenants I discovered when I joined a mastermind group or challenging me to do things. And every time I did them one of two things happened. Either it made more money for me or it just didn’t like nothing happen. Never did anything bad happen right. I was afraid or stressed about trying something. And as that continues you quickly discover like oh if you’re not regularly challenging yourself you’re not doing enough to grow your business. You push them push the boundaries. That makes it exciting. Absolutely it could be thing but that’s partially because it’s exciting anyway. So that’s what you’re decided to sit down inside to find out who you’re who you want to work with. Kurt Kurt decided to find these people instead that caused her business to take off and you learned a little bit about you know what makes people buy through Sean D’Souza. Keep going. What does that lead up to. So once I’ve got you know I mean I’m getting these two shot fired experts I’m building. We’re doing only work on Shopify is like OK it’s cool. But the thing I don’t like is sales. I don’t want to be a salesman. No one likes being sold too. I just wanna have conversations with people I like who might become my friends. And like we I add value to their business and they give me little money because I don’t want to my proposals and I don’t do it. So simple system around that. Do you have CarMax in your car. I believe I don’t personally use it but I believe you probably do. So it’s it’s a used car lot. It’s a national franchise but it’s in more regions than others. There you go. Or you just go on their website you find a car you want and it’s like all kinds of cars you could buy like $100000 Mercedes if you wanted to. You won’t go on the lot and B you’re not allowed to haggle. There is zero haggling in the sales people are not allowed to try to sell you because they don’t work on commission. They just there if you want to take a test drive and that’s it. So you show up. Hey here’s the car. This is what we know about it. Buyer don’t buy it. And here’s the. You’ve got to you’ve got seven days to bring it back and the price is the price is the price. There’s nothing. After I bought I bought a Mustang I bought my a Mustang is gorgeous. Now I’ve sold the Mustang bought a Jaguar but whatever I bought I bought a Mustang. And I looked at him like it was easy. I know I’m paying a little more because I can’t haggle. But it really just made life easy. And I thought wait I could just do this in our own business. So I ended up taking like the common sense of trying to do huge projects. We took just like the simple things that people needed. So I mean for my store set my store set up a Facebook sales funnel for me set up email marketing those like simple product simple projects and I turned those into service offerings what I call I lovingly call the Chinese menu. So my agency site unicycle dot com is linked right up there says pricing. That is the most clicked on thing on that website. I circled our pricing and it’s just a menu of my current service offerings. Here’s what we offer you if you get one you can learn more. Let’s. Some copywriting action or it’s like pain dream fix. Just a fixed price so it’s fixed price fix. You can read before you ever talk to me. Here’s what Curt offers. Here’s what he could do for me. Here’s what it will cost. Are you interested in more. Well by the time they get on the phone with it you know they get to apply. But by the time they get the phone with me they know what I do I do it for what it costs et cetera. So it’s really a conversation to see like you know are we a good fit. Do these services make sense for your business. Do I like you. Do I think I can generate a positive or a wife for you. If yes then hey I will send you a link. You could pay for this 100 percent up front and it will do the work. And if I am in any way unprofessional unethical don’t deliver I will refund your money. Like if you won’t give that risk reversal guarantee. Reconsider what you’re doing. Like you’re confident enough in your services that you can promise someone you’ll be ethical and professional. Come on you’re in the wrong business. So that’s great. So that’s where basically stands now. Go to. And it’s got it’s pronounced Ethar cycles and it’s either cycle. Is this really when we’re building the e-commerce business it was supposed to be for bike shops. It was a poor man to have either that bicycle because even in 2009 like all the good domain names were taken. So making up a name I get totally made up name made it very easy like I can always register that everywhere which is nice right now that’s great. That’s great. So that’s where it stands now. We have it all laid out. You’re having some hoops people jump through by looking around your site and know exactly what they’re going to get maybe you are what the deal is. That’s creating those good clients making it into the funnel and the other ones. And the final You touched on it. The final piece that I left out and we have not discussed is how do I get those people into the funnel. Right. I’m not doing outbound marketing anymore. Right. Email people. Do grassroots efforts Kontum marketing. So I host a podcast. No official shellfire podcast. We’re going to hit a quarter million downloads it is amazing. Nice. And we’ve never really promoted it. It was just everything we do is stacking the bricks. Yeah just like show up. Be consistent if you’re going to try something just do it consistently and you’ll get better at it and you’ll get better. Like the first episode you know I’ve got a few hundred downloads which even surprised me. And then like it just grew and grew until now we’ve got sponsors and I’ve got you know we’re in as of today. Two hundred twenty five thousand downloads. It’s just wild where people tune into. That’s probably our biggest drivers. You know people share the podcast. I can if someone’s interesting. I don’t have to be like hey want to talk to you pick your brain over coffee you like. I honestly think I can give them value. Hey do you want to share your story. It’s really interesting share your story with my listeners on my show. And then I can talk to them for 30 minutes. That turns into value for them turns into value for my listeners and I get this one on one time with them so it has all these benefits. So I just freely and basically I work in public. You know Miss saying goes but interviewing people which I sucked at at first but you don’t know it. And now I’m experimenting with YouTube videos. I get like 100 views a week on a new video. Go me. But I know if I just keep at it I keep doing it. It’s going to get. You know it’s going to be a little girl subscribers. And what’s cool about all those mediums is they’re they’re intimate. Like I got to have Kurt in my ear for 22 minutes while driving to work. Why don’t you listen to the podcast. So when the time someone gets on the phone with me they’re comfortable with me. They know what I’m about. I’m the same person right now. You know maybe it’s a little bit of shtick. It’s like I’m 10 percent more mate will say. And then when they get on the phone with me they go oh you know I feel like I already know you don’t. You do because like that was me. I think that’s a very important point. It’s like are you still I still encounter this a lot when I hear people come to me saying you know I’m copying my strategy and you want to figure out what’s going on with the business. And they’re still in this sort of like professional you know maybe maybe maybe they’re a little what I would call their a little older and they’re kind of like so. So professional speaking and sounding on all their materials and stuff that it’s just so clinical and born sterile. So the word doesn’t stand out. It doesn’t sound and it doesn’t seem so bad. No not really. So they’re just every time I have when I talk about like a child yourself be comfortable. One of the hardest things for me was just putting myself out there like now you know my newsletter I’ll be like Oh here you know my Like here’s my wife you know here’s my kids like all right. When I when we were when we just we got pregnant we’ve got a three month old now. While my wife got pregnant rather I was not prepared for. It was a team effort though. I mean I feared I shared it with my list before I posted on Facebook. Just being open being personal. People can relate to you. People want to interact with people sell each to each human to human. Yeah. These mistakes all the time. So people want to get in touch with you. Kurt how do they go about that. I two things for it. Number one go to Chris dot com. Sign up for my newsletter. When you get the first one just hit reply to it. It is my actual email address. It reply you can ask me anything about this. I am as long as you send me a thoughtful question. I will send you a thoughtful answer in reply. Nice. And then most of my stuff is around e-commerce. But I did write a book that would be useful for you called email templates for freelancers. Normally $47 I will get a coupon code for 20 percent off we’ll call it. Will do. What would be a good coupon code. Call it magic. There will be magic and I will I will share that link with you. You show notes. Yeah it is amazing. To do that for our audience Kurt. That’s very generous of you. My pleasure. Awesome. It’s been great. It’s interesting Allergist’s almost fool by because you’re entertaining to talk to and so forth. And I really want to thank you for coming on the show and it made it really easy for me in my honor and pleasure for everybody else will be back next week with another exciting guest hopefully is entertaining and as informative as Kurt possible. Yeah. Well Tucker I’ve talked to everybody that The post Episode #164 – Kurt Elster On How A Reformed Designer Raised His Client Standards…And His Fees! appeared first on Drop Dead Copy.

Dan Fagella was a prior guest on the McMethod (Episode #62). He’s back a couple years later giving us all an update on what he has transitioned into. Dan had a vision and a calling that he wanted to fund, so he structured the business he was in for a smooth exit. He found out a lot about Direct-Response businesses in the process and that is what he wants to share. So, if you’re a serial entrepreneur with big plans… or have a business now you may not to want to be a slave to forever… Listen to Dan’s run-down of what strategic buyers desire when they buy a business owner out. Then put into action his advice so one day… you can grab a big fat cheque and take off on your next adventure. In this episode, you’ll discover: 3 reasons you may not be able to sell your direct-response business and what to do about them. How to build a “sacrificial lamb” business so you can end clean, hand them the keys and jet off on your next escapade. Several key ways Dan “took the pulse” of his business as it grew so he could speak with authority to buyers. Dan worked part-time for the last few months leading up to his latest sale. Was he preoccupied or was it strategic? 2 qualities to look for in a broker that will make selling your company easy-peasy. Mentioned: Sports Illustrated Subscription Model Machine Learning Marketing Dan Fagella on Twitter David Allan’s Make Words Pay Intro and outro backing music: Forever More by CREO David Allan: Hey, everybody it’s another edition of The podcast. I’m David Allan and we have a guy who was on the show recently you can go back and listen to this was number sixty two. His name is Dan Fagella. I hope I’m pronouncing that correctly and that is a very interesting individual when I went back in the past podcast went try to learn about that and a little bit. He’s into some really diverse things, really interesting things. You’ll go back and listen to the martial arts business he built up but eventually sold he used email marketing a very clever way. And today we’re going to talk about primarily two things we’re going to talk about how you build up a company so that it’s saleable. Build it up with direct response. We’re going to get into some AI and sort of you know how tech in our world is sort of you know becoming overwhelmed with tech and where’s where’s that going and where marketing and tech meet and dance and you know a lot about that so we’re going to just jump right in. Dan how are you doing. Dan Fagella: Great. Glad to be here man. David Allan: Yeah it’s exciting because we don’t get to delve into some of these weirder topics and sort of you know on a daily basis so I was going to say I can mention artificial intelligence and learning is not exactly the regular par for the course but there is a lot of overlap with marketing so that will be fun. Dan Fagella: Awesome. David Allan: Well maybe start off with like where we left off because I kind of feel like it’s like a Star Wars sequel or something kind of is I guess. Dan Fagella: Was it 2014 when John had me. I think so. OK. So then that was I think by that point maybe we were doing like 40 or 60 grand a month selling kind of martial arts and Brazilian Jiu Jitsu educational programs online and a lot of know marketing. And what we ended up doing was broadening that business day out to the general kind of self-defense self-protection market which is much larger than let’s say the martial arts crowd which is kind of a singularly small niche the number of people that actively trained martial arts versus the number of folks with a general interest in self-protection right is vastly different. The martial arts folks are a lot more engaged pound for pound. But there’s just not enough of them to build a multi-million dollar company. So in order to get to I think at the end of last year was like 2.2 or 2.3 million bucks at the end of 2016 in terms of total topline revenue. In order to get there. We have to broaden out to our self-defense self-projection ended up selling a lot of physical products so on DVD sets folding knives things like that and then just sold the company in in February for a hair over a million bucks. Nice. And how many partners did you have a partner. No no nothing new with the sole the sole owner I had one full time employee one part time wake up a contractor so I definitely made sure that some of my right hand men who were there with me from the from the early days were were kind of given their fair award for sticking with you know crazy. Through all our you know three or four years of so-but. So I made it worth their while for sure because I had a great team. I was really proud of it and there were no partners. It was really just me as the owner and luckily we were able to get a deal with 90 percent cash down to facilitate kind of the Silicon Valley venture and fund that up so I can move some nice Yalof. We just had in fact that just got released this morning of this recording actually by the name of Justin Gough and it was a was a supplement on a result from the business part on a supplement business and he talked a lot about you know people can go and listen to what but he talked about how you know he could scale it up to a certain level with that sort of what you’re talking about with that certain small number of employees. And that’s why he ended up bringing out partners was to facilitate really the structure infrastructure and so forth. He was good the copy of the marketing and all the other books but it was the rest of the stuff he wasn’t good at managing people and so forth and so they ended up scaling you up from like one and a half billion to like 23 million before he sold it in like two weeks ago. That’s excellent so got the office. He’s he’s out now. He is unemployed and unemployable as you said. Fantastic work. That’s excellent. I feel the same way a lot of the time. Yeah. Do you do you. So did you sort of encounter that like once you got to a certain level. Did you feel like it would take a massive sort of shift to get to the next level or honey to help them. You know I mean I actually feel fine about managing people. And that was my second business and it was the second business I’ve sold. So I in that business. To be clear was started four years ago explicitly for the purpose of funding what I’m doing now which is market research and media and the artificial intelligence base so I build that company to be kind of a sacrificial lamb of more cash for a much larger endeavor that I was planning so I never planned on science. Still to be honest Abe I thought I would get a a million bucks top line sell it and move on. But as it turns out the SBA and the banks that are going to get these deals closed and you know send a 900 grand wire transfer your bank account as it turns out those banks they want to see three years tax returns so mad that I had to cut to spend half my time doing artificial intelligence TED talks and writing and media and all that and then the other half my time selling stuff on the Internet. But so long as I was running it I decided we might as well kind of keep doubling it. So I would have had no issues personally expanding that team and continuing to grow that if it was my life purpose. But as it turns out my life purpose is not kind of artificial intelligence policy and technology stuff. So yeah yeah. But yeah you’re right I mean you can. You can’t stay super clean for eternity. You can say Superleague for a certain amount of time and then and then you really do have to staff up. Right. So when you made this decision to build a company to be the sacrificial lamb as you put it what sort of decisions went into that like. Now obviously it turned out to me to just hang on to a little bit longer than originally thought was but it sounds like one of the things you learn along the way that sort of made it easier or harder to turn it into what you want it for sure. Well I mean you know we’re talking to a direct response crowd for this show I think Dave so I’ll speak to direct response kind of perspective here. One of the really interesting facets and I didn’t know this going in but one of the really interesting facets about direct response businesses is that generally they don’t sell. So you can sell stuff and make money but you generally can’t get a substantial exit. Now even our exit you know if you look at the multiple net it wasn’t substantial. I mean it was definitely an outlier in terms of cash down and I decided to be that way and it was an outlier in terms of you know I haven’t had to lift a finger since I sold it because the agreement was you know you don’t really need me anymore. Here’s the proof. And if you buy it then you know I’m out of here. So is an outlier in terms of hands off this cash now in terms of like a multiple It wasn’t what you get for a software company. These are things I didn’t really know. I’m going in the reasons for that date and these are really important for your market if they ever plan on cashing out. That is to say serve just fully right at the core collect your coins and just like drink on Burlet drink umbrella drinks or whatever you want to do. Right right. Like I know for me unfortunately it’s not umbrella drinks it’s paying exorbitant San Francisco rent and doing another large company. But you know if you want to drink umbrella drinks you know good. So if you do want to do that. The important considerations are that there’s a few things that keep these businesses from south and you see this over and over in direct response. One of them is is that they are personality dependent personality dependent that is to say they’re tied around a guru or a person a person. So you know Billy Stephens the fitness guru creates an Internet marketing web site doesn’t really matter if Billy Stephen gets to get to two million dollars if every e-mail comes from Billy Stevens every video involves Billy Stevens every instagram post is from Billy Steven’s cell phone. Then Woodard. How are you going to sell like if you’re if your child gets some kind of crazy disease and you need hundreds of thousands of dollars right away. There is no exit plug for those businesses right. Like you just don’t have an exit plan like you just kind of let it die. So a business that’s entirely predicated around an individual is a big problem. Now a lot of guys in the internet marketing business are square this circle is they come up with fake characters. So they come up with you know Jake O’Malley who becomes like the quote unquote guy that all the e-mails are coming from that can solve the problem a little bit. He gets into a second issue as to why these businesses often don’t sell. And the second issue is that there’s a lot of skeary stuff selling things on the Internet. And in the direct response world sleaziness is actually somewhat common. So when I say squeamishness I mean like. Kind of overly exorbitant claims smarm you know completely fabricated stories for the sake of selling something or you know small print that’s so small that no one would ever find it. If they like to build that lake ends up killing people for things they didn’t sign up for and stuff like that. So those are facets. Right in addition to the fake guy like in the selling to the self-protection world you know three quarters of the people selling that space are sending from a character you know a guy by the name of like I’m Jeff Bridges and I you know they have like a voice actor and they said look there’s nothing wrong with that. I’m not I’m not saying like you’re morally wrong I’m just saying if your audience doesn’t really know that that’s the case. Look I mean you can make money doing it. But what happens Dave is you take a business like that to market and a lot of people who look under the hood are going to be like I’m not going to run. You know what I mean like I’m I’m just not like a I’m not going to sit behind these cranks and turn them because like this makes me uncountable nobody can read that I’m not going to sell it. That’s not a real person. I’m not going to send is that guy. That’s not a real promise. I can’t do that. So in Internet marketing you can make a lot of money by making really over the top claims. But what happens is if you ever try to sell that as soon as a prospective buyer looks under the hood they realize that your dollars are based entirely predicated on Tharp’s Dave. Right. So they’re predicated on. I use those words very very deliberately so on predicate it the business model is predicated on farce. And so that’s another reason direct response businesses often don’t sell last reason I’ll give you Dave is that there really aren’t any strategic buyers or let me put it this way. It’s very rare for there to be strategic buyers. If you if you sell day for example I’m here in the San Francisco Bay Area and this is next. This is a building to be quite different from the kind of recurring revenue business that I built to fund it. But if you if you build like let’s say on an El B2B file transfer software for you like some kind of niche type of file like on a 3-D CAD type model thing and you build some proprietary way of like condensing those files for life. We need to be transfer like within a tweet company or something. I’m just coming up with a random mix that shook act like you might be making. I don’t know a hundred grand profit per year but if there’s some huge company that makes you know 200 million $400 million per year in revenue and they deal with a lot of those kind of files they may buy you for some exorbitant amount of money that doesn’t really reflect your profit because there’s that in your eyes your yield to them. Dave is not just the money you’re going to bring into them. Your yield is the financial rewards that will be the result of merging with that other entity. Right so your value is bigger than your bottom line. In direct response it’s super unusual and super unlikely for there to be strategic acquirers on the even less likely than like really boring businesses like pizza chains like even pizza chains like it can be like that’s real estate that’s you know a differentiator OK arigato so on you know you’re building something that’s not that hard to replicate. There’s no strategic buyers. A lot of it is predicated on a lot of it’s tied on personality. So basically in the process of selling what I had to do was kind of be the opposite of all those things. I guess if it’s helpful if you want I can talk about like you know a few of the Holy crap I needed to make sure to do this every day or does any of that. Got it. So. So one one of those aspects. David around the personality aspect was sort of twofold. Number one really not making myself critical to the marketing the messaging the content etc. but also doubly important. I’m not making myself critical to the operations of the business. So one of the most important things that I did early on is whenever we determined kind of a particular distinct class of responsibilities in the business a process for the business let’s say customer service let’s say. Email internal email promotion management lets say external marketing spend our outside spend whether it be Facebook or email or whatever when we determine a process we would determine that the KPI is for that process that correlate most closely to profit and to growth. So we would say okay of of this area would say its internal email promotions What are the numbers here that ultimately tie most to to profit into growth for the business if we can sort of put them in a nutshell try to come up with a handful. And what we ended up doing was distilling all the major business processes into a fistful of numbers that we could look at every single Monday. As team we would go soup to nuts read out a guy in India that would fill in all the data. Then on Monday we would go over all the numbers and the whole team would be able to kind of align their priorities calibrate their actions know what was working what was working. Take those corrective measures and sort of avoid big catastrophes of customer service big catastrophes of delivery big catastrophes of marketing because we could see it was going well or not well right away so that that got to the point where I could be gone for a week. And we can make the same amount of money as to when I was actually there. So being able to get a pulse across the business is a big part of that. Does this depend on you as a person. QUESTION The answer to that question Dave has to be No. If you want to sell. Yes. So the dashboard is kind of one aspect happy to go into whatever else you think will be helpful. No I think its a good place to start because that is what you’re saying is true. You look around at direct response companies and so that you just kind of I off I supposed to be sold because I don’t get acquired. Yeah because it’s just it’s completely different and maybe not little people have gone to lengths you have to sort of figure out how to either reverse that or or or begin to set things up. What did you make that you know a realization sort of partway into it and sort of say oh wait a second or break because you started with the idea and so you sort of made sure all along. It’s definitely definitely a combination of both. So good question I think I definitely began with the end in mind so I told myself I want to be lean I want to have high margins. I want to have consistent growth like I want to grow 100 percent plus every year I want to and I want to have recurring revenue. Right so I determined a whole bunch of things I knew I would need in order to get as good of a as good of a kind of exit as I could that I knew a lot of that going in. But there were a lot of things that I did have to learn the hard way about kind of management process systems. You know what gets a buyer excited what doesn’t get a buyer excited all those different sort of sub facets and factors. I think when you mention how internet marketing business is kind of die away I mean I’ve actually talked to a lot of guys in this space who who have outright said stuff like yeah this isn’t really something we could ever sell like them. And these are guys making tech wake tens of millions of dollars right. So take tens of millions so I’m just going to like this particular case now. Naming Names like I don’t know 30 million. When we were actually having the conversation as asked isn’t the thing we’re going to sell. And that’s because of a full blown recognition of the dependence on personality and a full blown recognition of like the grimy ness of the marketing material. Right right. Like full blown recognition like nobody’s going to touch us with a ten foot pole. We’re just going to make money while we can make it. And to me that’s that’s kind of like I get it I guess. Yeah but it’s a bit of a shame right I think it’s a reflection of kind of the short termism that often comes along with direct response. And I think if people sort of if your goal is at some point unplug and then do what you want with your family your life etc. then I think I think you start off in the early days avoiding the things that I mentioned with which kind of will make you want saleable maybe speak to some things that get the buyers excited or cool them. Obviously that’s one thing that gets buyers turned off. Yeah yeah. So we talk about a lot of things that kind of you know harsh realities of of of the online marketing direct marketing kind of world on things that I think play to your favor in this particular regard. We talked about one being kind of metrics like really owning your metrics very clean data very consistent data that the entire team understands and looks over every week so that your head of marketing your customer service guy your merchant account guy all your different people know how well they’re doing they know who they need to help. They know what’s going how well and if you have a historical record of that for years. Dave that’s way more than 90 percent of businesses that sell people just don’t have good records. Another thing that’s super important and I think in any in the online marketing world. I think this is sort of less commonly the philosophy but for me I think it was critical for us getting a substantial exit is that although you might be cool and handy with your email marketing software although you might be cool and handy with your Google Analytics Although you might be cool and handy with you know some kind of video marketing platform or something you should be coolest and handiest with quick books because at the end of the day in terms of getting a buyer excited so having a good broker helps a ton. By the way Dave I should mention that what you want if you want a broker who you you can get legit evidence that this person has sold many companies at your size potentially in a similar need share space if possible. So if you can find a broker who’s done that that’s going to help you and I did find it a great broker who had closed a lot of other seven figure deals and so he had kind of the confidence to do a deal a little bit over a million bucks and kind of get get the get everything wrapped up. But the the the fact that I think both is if when you’re talking to buyers what’s going to happen is they’re going to be looking at the balance sheets are going to be looking at a piano else and they’re going to be saying hey what’s this. What happened here. What happened during these months. What does this represent Why do you spend less on advertising. You know what happened with payroll during this period. What happened here what happened there. And if you don’t know that stuff. There’s two things that happen. Number one they get a little scared because anything that they don’t get a good answer to they start to feel is like a dark like evil element of the business that’s going to kind of lurk up and creep in and of like destroy them run. And no. Number two they realize that you don’t have a legitimate ongoing pulse of money right and they’re buying you for money and they’re buying you to consistently make money. So the ability to to really own and understand your Quick Books look at your PNL understand your patterns. One thing that we had that I had to do Dave was I had a bookkeeping firm like a remote bookkeeping firm. They would update all the data every single week they would do it every Friday. And on Tuesday on Tuesday morning we would have a conversation for like 20 minutes to 40 minutes and I would just grill him with questions about all the patterns I was seeing. And after a couple months of doing that it got to a point where I had I was not an accountant I am not an accountant but I had an accountant level kind of drain perspective on the constant ongoings of cash flow. I started getting deeper and deeper understanding of how to categorize different expenses to really tease out our opportunities for savings to tease out the difference between a profitable and unprofitable month to tease out the effects of marketing spend on other elements of the business just by consistently having those conversations and being able to speak with financial fluency to a buyer is extremely impressive because they want to know all those leverages that are going to make money. They don’t care about your marketing metrics. If the bank account is getting smaller. So financial fluency just owning it for your own sake because it helps you sleep at night. Also again clean clean financial records so few businesses have been a major barrier to selling and financial fluidity about your own business make the buyer feel like me and this kid knows his stuff. And if we take his advice we’re going to bring in the stuff. The bottom line and printing out the bucks and maybe this is a good deal. So having those skills locked in place is a very very very kind of conducive facet to a company and it’s going to actually sell. Now when you sold your company and you seem to have said previously that you predicated on the fact that you were basically like your ego. I’m done. See you later. Was that a barrier to getting little. Yes so definitely like we were not asking for a profit multiple That was you know completely out of this world. Like I forget what our total media was like 3x profit was like the sales price which is not an insane sales price. It was not asking too much. It was definitely not a low sales price but. It was also not an exorbitantly high one. So we went kind of run of the mill for the price. But the two elements of the business of the transaction that were kind of a little bit tougher was that a you know I’m I’m not keeping a salary and sticking around and doing a lot of stuff. And B you know we’re going to need 90 percent of this in cash in our bank wire. And those two things are kind of tough to stomach for a buyer. But what we did is we the broker did a really good job basically promoting the business as a high growth business with a lot of potential so we went from zero to well over 2 million bucks in about four years I think we should be on the INC 500 for 2016 numbers. And so we were able to kind of say hey look you know this is you know a little bit of a rocket ship for us for a small business year. We’ve got a lean team we’re doing really well. We’ve got great margins. We’ve got consistent growth. But you’re not even going to pay you know a sky high margin for this thing. Here’s are a regular old fashioned sales price. But here’s the terms we’re going to need to get this regular old fashioned sales price for a business it’s actually pretty exciting. So we played up all the good stuff and then said You know we’re not going to ask you to pay a lot but we are going to need terms that allow the buyer or allow a seller that’s meet Andrew Jella to move right on and do his Silicon Valley thing so we’re going to need the dough upfront. One thing that was really important there they’ve got to drive this home for the night is that for the three months before the business was sold. My work hours were under 20 hours per week consistently. So I was working of less than a part time person would work. I was there for far less than half the company meetings even even important planning meetings and metrics meetings and I of started to really seriously step away. So the buyers were under the impression hey this thing’s growing like a weed. It’s making money. And this guy is basically out in Silicon Valley interviewing you know AIG executives at Facebook while his company is over here making money we could probably step in and get this done. So kind of the context was we go a lot of good things going for us including I’m not very involved and those were the things that let the buyers say well under those terms. OK. We’ll get you the money up front. So that kind of help push him over the edge. Now was that a strategic idea or were you just busy doing what you wanted to do and that was a side benefit. Toat totally both. I mean to be honest I mean I wish I was I wish I had been working on a full time this last four years instead of sort of part time. But I like kind of had to straddle both worlds because I didn’t want to give away half my company for you know a theory or whatever. So. So I kind of had to you know do a little bit of both so I really didn’t want to be moving on and doing the other stuff and that really was consuming a lot of my time but at the same time I also knew that my broker story would be all the more better and better and better. If I’m sitting here as a part time kind of director and we’re still doing 200 something grand a month in revenue that’s going to look good for the sale so it was a little bit for both receipts. So if people want to get in touch with you and they want to keep abreast of your upcoming project and where are you taking all this we’re coming get in touch. Yeah man I think we’ll do that too. Sites are a place where I actually write about what we talked about today on the marketing side Dave is CLV boost dot.com is just basically my marketing blog I still send out an email every week blog where I actually I have one article in particular about kind of building systems to make up to make the business saleable that I think will be relevant I’ll email that to you. And then tech emergents is the market research firm in the AI space. As I mentioned before as well Dave we just finished up some pretty substantial kind of forward looking work as to where is I going to make marketing different in the next five years. How is marketing it changes the landscape. Who’s going to benefit who’s going to flop. There’s way more insight than we were able to catch up on but that’s all tech emergents dotcom and I can I can find that link for as well. Those are probably relevant starting points if people want to hit me just you know ping me on Twitter or something and say what’s up tell me you heard about me through to the mic method here and we’ll we’ll just kind of rock n roll. Oh that’s great. I think you’ve given a lot of good information today especially for people who are maybe in the throes. Like my friend I mentioned earlier of starting a business and could really you know help them down the road because I know people are going to let you know serial entrepreneurs I know he’ll get sick a lot eventually so I you want to get out. It can be a good way to set it up from somebody can you make it. Yes. It makes it so jail time. Yeah. I seriously hope that’s helpful for folks again keeping the stuff in mind earlier rather than later is a way better way to do it. Yeah absolutely especially when guards to the financial records. Yeah totally big. Well thanks for coming on the show Dad. It’s just flown by. I mean you’ve given a lot of information for everyone else. Hopefully we’ll get someone as exciting as dad in the show next week because I think there’s a big world ahead of us and maybe lots of exciting things coming down the pipeline. So we’ll see him next week. The post Episode #163 – Dan Fagella On How To Structure A Business So One Day You Can Cash Out On Your Terms. appeared first on Drop Dead Copy.

Ian once lived in an RV and made money with what he calls “sports investing”. He’s written dating books and sold satellite TV at big box stores. He majored in Netflix and procrastination. When he ran some Bing ads to make his first dollar online he did the pony dance around the room and hasn’t looked back. Focusing on a single skill he could become great at he leveraged his time… and went from 5 dollar emails to $1500 dollar emails. After immersing himself in email copy for big clients and starting his own water company… Ian’s paying it forward. Listen to the journey of a hilarious marketing renegade as he details his journey. The tools, opportunities, habits and outcomes of a real success story. What’s are you waiting for? In this episode, you’ll discover: Can you trust internet marketing email advice? The discoveries Ian made writing emails in the “real world”. The only success barometer Ian used when learning to write copy. What resources did he use to educate himself? Some thoughts on popular email writing courses – and why he created his own. The three core parts of his new water business “Fixt.” Hilarious anecdotes, green Jaguars, and a real lesson on split-testing – all in this episode. Mentioned: Ian Stanley on Facebook Ian’s FIXT Water Company Ian’s Standup Conversions David Allan’s Make Words Pay Intro and outro backing music: Forever More by CREO David Allan: Hey, everybody We’re back with another edition of the podcast. I’m David Allan. We got a very interesting guest. You have sorta heard from before. His name is Ian Stanley. He’s got to become a little bit famous for his email copywriting as his own water company now we’re sort of going to get the lowdown on all of that here in the next little while so Ian welcome to the show. Ian Stanley: Thank you sir. David Allan:It’s good to have you on here. Man I don’t know a ton about you I know little bits and pieces like we talked about off the air. So maybe first of all anybody… Ian Stanley: nobody knows the real story. It’s all shrouded in mystery and now it is in characters. David Allan: I’m guessing he’s like he’s Batman. Ian Stanley: I mean I can say I’m not that. I will say that you’ll never see Batman and me in the same room. David Allan: So maybe take us back to your Bruce Wayne days before he became Batman… Ian Stanley: Maybe this is going to let the cat out of the bag he’s bad at it. Well a lot of it gave a good idea. I mean I genuinely thought I was going to be Batman. And I know that sounds like a joke it’s probably the most serious thing I can say. I mean I had all of my plans. I had like intricate setups for how I would do it. I had researched all the ways to actually make it happen. And I was really convinced I would become Batman. So that was your plan to become like mega-wealthy and then like fight crime. Yeah well it wasn’t about. It was about skill acquisition and wealth at the same time. So what would make me the most useful vision of Batman. So there were different avenues that I thought about going and that’s and it had it had a sort of Batman on a budget as well. It was going to say I think they could see what I was going to have to aliens or you know or or Brislin that early but I figured I could develop it once I was an enemy. Sure. You know I could figure it out. But yeah that was I mean I actually had a moment so in like one of the I’m more of a Christian Bale that I’m jammed in like a comic book and I enjoy the realism of that one. But is like the intro’s Batman as a character back in the 1930s 7. There’s a moment where Bruce Wayne sitting in his in his home where is man a man and and a bat flies in and it’s you know flying around the room and he’s like oh fuck. I’ll be back in the room and that’s how he sort of has the realization. And weirdly enough when I was like 20 I had a bat fly into my room and I had this like look at my parents place and I’d just like you know we call it the hobbit hole. It was not really a guest house nor a room that was separate with no water or anything. I had the bat flying around my room and I. And it’s actually really interesting watching a bat trying to leave the room because they they’re trying to locate their way out so it just it circles for about seven minutes. And then finally got out of this. There’s like a stained glass window that had broken. And he finally figured it out and got out and so I was like come on really. This is clearly it. And so it’s meant to be. And so you know I’ll say publicly that I’ve given up that dream because if I do it you know it will be like what can be going on. I’m getting three calls from the same number in a row. I hate to do this but this is think this is the conflicts and to me this would be good to be interested in our podcast. It’s not a rail on the car fixer. Yeah. I’m coming up my my body’s coming up right now. I’m on a phone call so he’s trying to keep. It’s on the second floor it’s a green jag. Yeah it’s Pam. Gate code. Now. You. See students on the second floor. All right. What you like about the green Jack. Yes. If anybody on this stall now comes to Austin Texas you know the gate code to get into my apartment complex. It took me a few weeks to locate the building but then you’re good to go. Yeah it’s I’m sure it’s somewhere on the internet I’ve accidentally put my address out something I’d bet on. So some mistakes or it leave a couple of those digits just to get just to keep it exciting. Yeah they can get it together after all bad bad you know yeah. Come on try to steal. So maybe you have. Obviously would listen to this. You have an accent. Get off the air you told me you had to start a cruise. Yes I’m having this North American which means everything is a mystery and so out of that I grew up partially in California and in England. So my mom is from Ventura California and my dad’s from Liverpool. And so over time it’s just morphed into a basically an Australian accent my business but it is a strain as well. Sorry I was with him in New Orleans and after a couple hours with him I’m just like my it full on Coghill so I’m sure if you listen to the podcast with John you guys would probably really like by the end sound the same. So what were you doing before. Like what do you suppose you were. It was the exact address. And then what what led you to where you are at. Malik how did this start. Know when I was a sophomore I transferred there from SMU in Texas and then moved to Santa Cruz and I was living in a mobile home and the store is a live in a mobile home next to a 400 pound woman named ape who had a mullet. And I’m like a 70s and she. She got around in a wheelchair not because she couldn’t walk but just because she preferred not to. So it was as I was living that I was basically doing like in between my transfer I was taking my two classes at a community college because I’d applied so late that I wasn’t studying till the next trimester was I could go get some glasses and so it was like two hours a week though so the rest of the time I was just sitting at home and playing tennis. But I was playing with CNN. So I did that but other than that I was just in my apartment or in my mobile home just on the Internet and I clicked on ads and different shit and I bought some you know how to make money in your underwear. I got into Herbalife. I actually made money sports betting. I was investing in. I called it and I did well do that and then I but I kept basically buying clipping products I said when I did the first time I went to a quick break. I thought that the 50 percent commission was the conversions I was like OK half like half the people who see this page will buy it and if that was the case we’d all be billionaires. But so you know it wasn’t the conversion rate. But I kept on buying quick buying products and how to make money on mine basically not making any money on my own to do anything. There were a lot of them are pretty shitty products as well. I like the God which we call bullshit and it’s sort of that and then I it. JR I had gotten some coaching at the guy actually who now ironically lives in Austin and it’s kind of funny because I was a complete nobody and had made a dime. But then he told me to get orders on the madness that I did. And then I started writing and I decided to submit Jouni. I wrote a book on how to pick up women and called sexual and sexually which is potentially still out there somewhere. It’s actually very you look to me like three days I just sat down and read it and saw it and then I did it. Little bit of you know copy for other people like say like to clients I was in Brazil for a month over the summer and it made like eleven hundred dollars and I said whoa she’s crazy. But I also I think it came out to like five dollars an e-mail which now it’s 15 under G.M. So it’s like a little bit of a difference in the time commitment it took. Sure. But it was an exciting prospect. And so from there I tried to you know do what everybody else did which is build the website and create a product and run transit write copy and all that shit. And I was like no. So I wrote a pretty seltzer down bad ass and me bought some buying ads and that was how I actually made my first like dollar on my mine my senior year. And I remember I had $613 sale and I just went running through my apartment spanking my ass like he’s riding a horse just so excited and then I remember like taking a final and I came out of my final and there was a $113 in 68 cents. Again an account like this is amazing. I just got paid to take a test and then I after college should’ve majored in Netflix. Procrastination. Felt a university degree like six seven months of that I was I worked selling direct tv like a best buy. Well and I actually did quite well I got to be top salesman after a few weeks but I was like working 60 hours a week and Saturday Sundays with 10 hours and I was like this sucks. So I was coaching tennis and I was making 17 hour coaching tennis something like that makes more sense. So I just coached tennis like 10 hours a week and finally made a commitment to get good at one thing instead of doing what everybody else was doing which was trying to build the site and do the go and all that shit. I was like I’m very good at college because I think I’m decent at it. You know let’s just do that. Did that. And I would hand-copied I did copy out Derek Franzen’s product is now because he’s got mine and we would my only barometer for success of the day was you know did I hand-copied today. So I’d do it half an hour of handicapping and and then I got a job contracting job that pretty much close to full time teaching writing copy for the personal finance space land shifts and we had like a 1.2 million person list. And so I just Sektor the shit out of every now and and you know squit tested you know four to eight variations on every single email and just got crazy data. And from there I turned that into sort of a system and then I actually originally was creating this like teaching it so that whoever took over from me could write emails so. OK so you’re like a yes or that they want to start over and then turn it into a product that I sell on occasion. And in this 80:20. Yeah how I open it up everyone so I could do a ton more with it but my focus is I just never wanted to only make money teaching people how to make money. You know the coach the coach he coach coaches some coaching coaches about coaching and all that bullshit. So I waited until I’d actually made money writing books because I could’ve created a product club for them but it would have been a lie which is what most people do. So did that name. And then I worked with a company called Crisis education wrote all the copy down and we had if you had a supplement company and a water company. And then I left there about a year ago and I started my own company about seven months ago. So I still do some copy and some consulting on the side because it pays sort of have an equation that I’ve used. Not really on purpose before now I’m pretty aware of it. It is basically leveraging high dollar per hour tasks to build assets that aren’t paying high dollars per hour now. So like when I was coaching tennis I was getting 70 to 100 an hour. A lot of cash and I was writing copy for $20 an hour. And I was you know writing I was doing that work for about 30 hours a week and then coaching 10 to 15 hours a week. So that allowed me to make money and so on and sort of basically Actually all I did was just save the $20 and stuff I just saved everything and then I only spent cash and so saved up and then from there by and then so now it’s going back and I did quite well. You know I did a. I was paid quite well as a copywriter. The next job because I had a big bonus. But I mean quite well relative is a relative term. But in the six figures and then from there now basically will leverage the. So I sort of go. It’s like you know now there are tasks that a 2000 to 5000 an hour. And so you go why don’t you just do more of those. And it’s like well I could there’s no asset being built. Whereas with with the water company it’s an asset. And so I don’t pull cash out of that. And I just use the other money to fund the business and grow that as an asset. So and it’s a lot more cash than when you’re building a physical products business. There’s a lot of inventory and a lot of cash flow. It gets tied up restructuring the beginning. So it’s definitely a long game but email is still the backbone and VSL is the backbone of what I really do. And then sort of the viral video type stuff as well is something you’ve. Stepped into. Yeah. Maybe walk it’s like you got that first job with the financial person and hook you up with they come to you through the hour. How did you get that first. So I applied for a job actually through andré’s under Shepherd was listed as a job to work with. It would’ve actually been Steve Gray. So I was working with the recruiter and I got down to like the last two people and it was going to be like a six figure job and I was like why are they still talking to me. Obviously done a good job of pretending it’s not mine. They’re not hiring a guy who is like 40 and lives an hour away from them and had 10 years experience and like OK whatever that’s fine. But during that time she connected me with the guy who actually might Colella her as sort of the best media buys around. And he was going to hire that person to do like H-G mantle and some coding and also copy and all these different things and I was like Yeah all right copy. And he was like OK well or pay you and somebody else we hired two people and we were bigger that business. So it’s just through we might things always just taking every opportunity possible always saying yes until you get successful and then it’s all about saying no which is really really counterintuitive because you’re like OK I got here by saying yes all the time. Now I keep saying yes and I want to get to myself. So how do I say no. And you like where you start with that and you end up with that. Stop fucking worrying about missing out on stuff. So I just take an opportunity. Absolutely. It’s a hard habit to break. Once we work your way it would be like playing a sport and you know you get to the top by practicing for 30 minutes a day and then go at once you to something like oh no that’s actually going to hurt you now. Right now like why that doesn’t make sense this is how I got here. Like no no no. You’re going to lose if you do that. That doesn’t make sense but in this world it’s that is what happens is basically your path ends up becoming its own obstruction. So as the auto responder madness was out was I your only. Aside from that you know copying and so you mentioned was that the only course you take him aside for copy hours the only resource I think so I I sort of ended up like my thing with orders one Amandas and I honestly don’t know and I did then settle stuff as well. And like get those great copywriters in my grade. My only thing is just like once you get out of the internet marketing space it’s a completely different world. And so it’s nothing against them it’s more just like when you get into a list of a million people that you don’t you can also just say well don’t worry about spam complaints we’re going to say well that means you don’t get deliverability on a million people. You can not wear it you know you can’t just also be so a lot of these people don’t know how the Internet works. And so like I say like with the e-mail copy stuff that I write to my own email list like throughout the for my course I get 80 to 90 percent opens and 50 to 60 percent click through just through the entirety of the first month. And those are buyers and that is but the whole thing is like that people who worry about e-mail who want to write you know who will read your e-mail only if it’s to see what you’re doing with e-mail. And so it’s like to pretend like that’s normal is all extra year. And so it was a much different game so I took a look at Andre has some great stuff. I think it’s very complex. The new people and it’s very sexy though it’s the sexiest shit out there. Right. It’s. But it’s about how to implement you know taking an hour or two to write an e-mail. It’s just not my thing I wrote I wrote most I mean I was in five to 15 minutes and right so it’s just like that’s too long. So what I did is I took that as concepts of open loops nested loops and stuff and and I what I do is write the stuff and then I’ll go back and put those and so takes about 10 percent of the time. As you know writing these intricate stories and all this and then the other thing is it’s like when you’re buying a traffic scale you can’t you know you know waiting 14 days to make it to get you purchase like 90 days zero value you need Day seven do you and you can sort of avoid that right. I mean it’s selling today. Yeah. And so you know you may base it off you may take a 14 day loss but you can’t wait till the 14th. And that’s what this really does. But it’s really good stuff. I just think you also have to become quite a good writer. If you do it well it can be done very well but it takes a lot of time and effort. And then then the stuff I think there’s some really great stuff just in daily emails and the worst thing that stuff though is that because I’ve fallen into this trap sometimes it’s like me the sun daily or you don’t send it all you’re much better off sending two or three times a week consistently and sending seven in a row than zero. Then wait two weeks then send seven men right cause you get this idea of it’s not a daily it’s not worth it. It is months. So that’s the only thing where I think mindset wise to get stuck if I’m not reading daily It doesn’t matter. It’s like no you still make money. So I do send mostly daily with the water list and then with adults you know we send up to twice a day. Right. And typically the more you send the more you make. I’ve had clients and I talked clients to send it three times a day. What’s the most I could do. You know it really depends I mean also it’s like people track e-mail in a vacuum. You know it’s based on individual stats and it’s like all you really have to look at the whole picture because which is tough and is never really going to be a solution to that because you never know that maybe e-mail for a set the frame too. And for the for you know for you know six seven men in that. So I also found out my car is not going to be fixed. So it’s there for the taking. I think we got those numbers earlier. So that’s basically what you were doing your. You got the luxury I would say the it’s like how I would put it because I learned how to do e-mail originally from Matt fury. Yeah I know. Actually I have done some of that stuff and I was with I met Matt a couple months ago. Son in Florida I think he’s kind of sort of you know been kind of took a lot of his stuff and made it available which is which is good because I mean it wasn’t available so that Matt really writes in a unique way that like really pulls you through. I read that when when he sends e-mail still open it can answer. I really enjoy his writing. Yeah he uses it just like he’s done it the right way sort of like crafted this. I mean it’s who he is. So that’s you know who he’s become I guess in a way. But he’s just is an intriguing person over also makes that translates well to his e-mails where he writes this. Yeah absolutely. A big bonus. Now when it came to about You’d be lucky to work for such a big company because you got the opportunity to sort of look at you know most people the person today is only really three people. But we had this on this list and so think a list right. And so what I did is I mean I could have just sent e-mails and do whatever. But I had this spreadsheet I’d put together. And I’m like Meet me in person or hang out with me I’m like the least spreadsheet person needed to. The facts. But if I to that though I oddly why I got my emphasis in accounting in college. And so even though I’m like the last person who could ever be an accountant I might be good with numbers right. Like on race I used to for sports betting I had these intricate spreadsheets that I would use that I’d made and then with email I did the same thing so I would dissect the top and bottom subject lines and then. And so we would test anything from four to eight subject lines to two separate body copy to link text to. So I got to test all of these different factors because we had so much data and so every test was at least 20000 people so statistically significant. And that was one of the biggest things I learned there too is how much of the data people publish on line is spoken bullshit because it’s like they don’t have a picture of themselves out of 100 I have a 7 percent conversion rate and was my internal list and were crushing it and it’s like you just don’t even talk to me. And I’ve seen big companies do it like. And they just publish something like 400 visits and you don’t get to do that like an insignificant no. And so but it was really cool because I would I would do every test at least three times and then I became a principal. Awesome. And then I would. So I created like I like 70 different subject line just formulas like you just plug in at any time and they just give you ideas to write and then I had like eight to 10 different types of e-mails and my two boys made more money than the rest. And so I just dissected this deconstructionists sort of my skill in money. So I would just deconstruct and then create principles and strategies that would then dictate the tactics and techniques. And that was you know so I just got a netted out on on actually analyzing what I liked and what didn’t. And one other people when I don’t know if it’s people when doesn’t take a lot to get. Like I said because that’s why I feel like this is an opportunity to do that. And you took it. Absolutely. Every list is so different like when I manage a few different lists and like this one it’s the center of app downloads and it’s decent like a hundred some thousand in it. They respond well to like CBL offers like if we had them opt in for something else to make money but I’ll send them to one of my office and it’s a lot of people who would be interested in health and just anything over 60 you know 60 bucks they don’t seem to buy it and it’s like sometimes the list just doesn’t buy its things at a certain price and sometimes they’re not interested in that. So it’s like you got to figure out how good your copy is if they’re not buyers it’s those things that matter. So that was one of the big things I learned too is like I I would you know right it could be the best e-mail possible and it would be about tax and taxes just never with that interesting people just didn’t care whereas I could write an average e-mail about credit cards and get much better results. It’s like the actual type of stuff you’re sending is a huge part of that. So how could you this if you’re talking to. Yes. He is about snowboarding. Yeah it’s one of those things where you’ve got the opportunity to sort of find those hot buttons through trial and error. You know you said like people are really receptive to credit card stuff like they want to. That’s a big obviously a big issue in their lives like most people. So that was a hot button and they were like oh I want to hear what he has to say. Man it’s been great. If people want to get in touch with you you can go to a fixed water site. Obviously all it’s going to get. You can follow my stuff on Facebook is where I post all my comedic ideas and stuff. Justine Standley or feed the wolf with you instead. I had a page or if you want to opt in and get reminders that says stand up conversions dot com. So Terry diverted Perth. But yeah depends on what you look in to Lance conversions if you opt in and that’s where all occasionally released email Korku product coonhound. So awesome awesome and it’s been fun it’s passed by extremely fast and it’s always a good indicator. It’s good conversation going on. Awesome awesome man. Thanks for coming on the show. For everybody else of course is going to listen to this. We’ll be back again next week with another edition of the podcast and hopefully it will be as entertaining and as Batman like as you can stand. The post Episode #162 – Ian Stanley On Email Discoveries OF An Online Batman (And Water-preneur) appeared first on Drop Dead Copy.

Paul stuck his nose into SEO after seeing his employer’s proposals. He was a systems administrator, but they challenged him to do it anyway. Then someone planted the seed that changed everything… “Why are you doing this for them?” When his employer wouldn’t let him telecommute one day a week he decided… “I can’t work in this oppression anymore!” So he started freelancing. His kids were already home-schooled and though he had not yet realized it… His business was location-independent. Three years later, Paul and his family made the transition to the digital nomad lifestyle… and haven’t looked back. Listen to someone who has been where you might be this very day – and see the steps he took toward freedom. You can use these same ideas as a freelance copywriter. In this episode, you’ll discover: How Paul realized that he was already location-free. (You might already be good to go!). How his income TRIPLED when he switched to freelancing. The resource Paul accessed to end his “shameless whore” phase. Two simple steps he used to double one client’s organic traffic in six months . The “45-45-10” ratio of SEO that works. Stick with tried and true strategies most “experts” never talk about. Mentioned: Nomad Together Follow the Kortman’s On the Road Brian Dean’s Backlinko David Allan’s Make Words Pay Intro and outro backing music: Forever More by CREO David Allan: Hey everybody we’re back for another edition of the podcast. I’m David Allan. Exciting guest of course for you today. His name is Paul Kortman. He is a nomad him and his family and he’s into marketing a digital marketing agency as CEO know all that kind of good stuff. We’re going to talk to him today. Paul Kortman How are you. Paul Kortman:I am doing fantastic. Thanks so much David for having me on. David Allan: Now as a fellow digital nomad The first question I should probably ask you is where are you. Paul Kortman: Well we are stuck in a parking lot with a bunch of diesel semis around so I apologize because just as you hit record the semi next to me I Engine engine Oh I know that. But in the world we’re in Mexico we’re in a town called Zenn crystal ball. They lost causes OK it’s in the southern part of Mexico almost to the border of Guatemala. And it’s a highly indigenous city. So you have your Mexican your Spanish speakers and then you have your native Mexicans so Preece Spanish era population who. Yeah they were different clothes. They talk a different language. And so it’s a very unique situation. We’ve traveled around Mexico for the last year and a half and this is the first time we’ve been you know in a very indigenous situation. So it’s sounds very exciting actually. And we’re going to get to some of that sort of for our take over Tuesday audience later in the show but let’s start with how you got yourself wrapped up in all of this to start from like what you were doing prior to your digital excursion or nomadic lifestyle and sort of bring us all the way up to speed. So we know you know for people who don’t know much about you and sort of get a feel for who you are and where you’re not cool. Well I’m self-taught and everything that I do and I kind of stick my nose into things and figure it out once I get in there. And so I am a certified nerd a system administrator I.T. guy and that that’s where I was paying my way through college. I got a degree in a completely unrelated field and it absolutely doesn’t help me at all except to say I’ve got a bunch of B.S. And then yeah. And then well I was I was working for a traditional marketing agency as their system administrator. They had a web development team. And they were building web sites and hosting around 200 Web sites. They were building a $2000 per $150000 Web sites and I was just like. And then they were doing print and traditional media all over the place. We had about 25 staff and so that was enough to justify having an I.T. admin. I stuck my nose into one of their proposals and found out that they were proposing that they are doing SEO and I was like no you guys aren’t. And you know beyond being a nerd I’m friends with the Web developers and I’m like no you guys aren’t you don’t know what you’re talking about. They’re like oh Mr. Big Shot. You think you know what you’re talking about. I’m like yeah I do. I read like three articles about it. So I know what I’m talking about. Long story short they gave me a try on a couple of clients both as CEO and PPC. And three years later I had hired a replacement for myself so there was another nerd who took care of all the computers and hired three extra staff and built a digital marketing department within a marketing agency. And that stuff has now. I mean all the staff that are hired are still there. That staff has grown to be about 10 to 20 somewhere in that range. And I’ve lost track over the time. But anyways so I did all this and it was just like growing like gangbusters. I had you know my network was growing huge. I had everybody knew who I was. As far as our target audience and who we were trying to acquire. And so it was really a no brainer. Like I just say hey we want to do this for you and people would be like yes let’s do it. And you know a guy approached me and said kind of planted the seed of like why are you doing this for them. And then I realized that I could really be doing this for myself. And so that thread started happening and I started thinking along those lines of what would it take and what would it be like. And at the same time a co-working spot opened up in my neighborhood and I lived an hour away from the office and so I said hey Mr. Boss Man can I work you know instead of commuting I’ll still leave home at the same time. One day a week and just telecommute from this co-working location one day a week and he said absolutely not. And I was like Are you kidding me. Like what is this flexibility. Yeah yeah I was listening to the tropical M.B.A. a in I mean the four hour work week was out and this was all Lake telemarket tele. I forget why it was even called but where you would work remotely over the phone or whatever like this telecommuting was very common place thing now we call it digital nomad or remote work but telecommuting was a very common thing. I was like one day a week you won’t let me. He’s like No not at all. And so that was the nail in the coffin just like I cannot work under this oppressive situation. It was the best job I ever had. So I started my own business. It’s it’s the millennial issue. And so like my spelling is perfect made massive money in it go away. I can’t work from home. I am. This is all I can do is stop. Exactly. And we’re friends so you know and I like it. I like the guy and you know I love their business in all this. But I was just like no this doesn’t work for me. And so I stepped out on my own and we had already had some kids and had chosen to homeschool them. So here we were for a couple of years where I was working in the basement of our house had my standup desk. It was all good. And my wife was teaching our kids upstairs. And then one day we were like why do we need this house and why couldn’t we do this from anywhere because I hadn’t met over half my clients. And so that you know that turned into what we have today but it’s still the same business it’s just it was location independent. I didn’t realize it was right and so we are all into this lifestyle and decided to travel instead of having a house. But the business itself was just because I couldn’t stand working for the man under the oppressive regime. And and yeah our first month out we had 40 K in revenue in the first month and so it’s unlike any other business startup or solo entrepreneur startup like just I had employees my first month because I couldn’t do it all because because you just had such a swamp of clients you need people to actually do the work. There was a combination of things. One I didn’t leave my agents my previous employer in a lurch. I explained what I was going to do. I you know gave a date and I was a month ahead. And you know we worked on plenty of transitions and they just couldn’t find somebody to replace me. Go figure. That didn’t top my ego or anything like that. But they couldn’t find anybody to replace me. So then you know when the day after they called me up and said Listen can we hire you to work these projects that you were already working. No one else can do. And we’ll pay you instead of your normal rate we’ll pay you your freelancer rate. So overnight I made triple to quadruple what I was making the day before. I had already lined up. Yeah sure. I’ve got taxes in all this that I have to take care of myself but that first year was just fantastic because they had signed contracts that they needed help with. And that bridge the gap as I then pulled in other clients who were like yes I want to work with you but then I couldn’t you know work with them until the day I stepped out. And so that first those first three months were crazy but crazy in a good way because I had money coming in and work that needed to be done and I was trying to sell there was a backlog of people that wanted to work with me that didn’t want to pay the big agency rates of like 200000 a month and they wanted to work with me for a thousand a month and I was happy for that. So you know there was a small like switcheroo that was going on but then once we got that all settled Yeah life was pretty good. No doubt no doubt that’s a very interesting story. I like that part about the company had to turn around and hire you because I couldn’t find anyone to tell them. We are not a race of sorts. You know I’d love to you know teach a course on how to do this and how to make yourself irreplaceable. Yeah. And but I don’t think I mean it’s serendipity I think is totally it. It was in a marketplace where I was ahead of my time for that geographic area and there was just no one else that knew what I knew and could and had the management skills. So yeah but they’ve since hired people who are good at being part of the country where you’re in then I was in Michigan. So the Midwest in West Michigan. Thanks very much. All right so you’ve escaped the cubicle so to speak. Erie we’re on home and you have the money coming in including your own your old company that was hiring you. So you said at the time that you didn’t realize that you were already location independent sort of the way you understand it now. So what when did you make that transition. Well that was three years later. We it was more long and I kept going to city for meetings. So I would meet with my some special clients or I would go to networking events so that people knew who I was and so I was keeping my network in my referral marketing really warm and and that paid off in dividends I mean you know I couldn’t I couldn’t trace one non-client client to one at Peter’s actions and be able to say that because I was here or have a good process for bringing in new. Sorry about the rough internet. Problem. It happens here so it didn’t really work in your referral network and stuff. That’s great. So maybe tell us more now. Yes. The referral network was working for me but you can go ahead and up on talks to talk about the referrals or whatever. OK so referral we’re getting was working for me. But you know when I did leave home it turned out that that wasn’t going to work out for a long time because we were living in it. You know considering Southeast Asia. Yes sure Singapore has a lot of money but you know checking my time and it wasn’t like I could go to a networking event and find my ideal client there. So I had to reconfigure my whole business and my whole sales technique. So while I was technically location independent my you know considering an agency world you have churn and so you always have to be selling. And my sales process was location dependent and I didn’t find that out until I left and then went oh wait. My situation. You are at home. My competition had a gangbuster year and was hiring people left and right and I was like I figured everything and now have a. Are you back to your comeback now. Yes. Well that was an interesting discovery that you were sort of tied to your sales process and stuff and you were for a marketing sort of tied to where you were when you left to go to Salty’s surgery or do you have to reconfigure that. That’s very interesting. Maybe let’s dive into some of the because it was primarily I see what you are doing for people. Well it wasn’t. There was also another problem. I don’t know if I can say this on your show but I was a whore. I will do anything for anybody as long as the money was there because you know I had to have some sort of vague connection to digital marketing but that was very loose like I remember I had one project where I was fixing somebody’s spreadsheets and it was like really why am I doing that. You know it was because they needed it and they knew I was a really good guy. And so you know I ended up doing that and I got a business coach and I learned about systematizing things and putting things into a process and it it took me a couple of years to get it worked down to a very smooth process. But throughout the course of my entire digital marketing career back you know when I was an I.T. guy and I would say hey you guys don’t know what you’re talking about Osseo. I mean I’ve been in the world of vessels for 12 years now and so like I really know what I’m doing there and despite everything constantly changing. There are three factors that just are steadily straightforward. This is what it is. This is what it means to have an optimized website or to you know try to improve your rankings. These three things always work time and again over the last 12 years. And my business coach really honed in on that and said Why are you buying anything else. Why not just please. And so we didn’t believe that I could sell it. I didn’t believe that I could do it. Well but we’ve had over the last well the last three years I’ve been working at this getting it switched over to that. And a year ago we stopped taking on custom clients and we now have this process that is just fantastic and it combines everything my entire knowledge of the last 12 years in as CEO. It’s actually really simple like that. They call it simple beyond the complex right of where you can understand something like how to drive a car. And then when it comes to driving a race car it gets really complicated and then you get beyond that point of where you know professional race car drivers. It’s so simple they don’t even think about it. And so it’s that simple beyond the complex. And that’s. And that’s where I’m at with a CEO of just like it is really not even me explaining it doesn’t seem like rocket science you know because it’s just driving the race car right. Right. But yeah so what it comes down to because now that I have you know hinted at it from multiple multiple times now all actually tell the secret sauce. It’s not a secret. You know if you want to rank for something you have to write about it and B you have to have links coming back your site and then see the minor of it all. So those first two parts are you know if you’re to break up these in way according to or put them on a scale according to weight writing about it is 45 percent having the back links another 45 percent. And if you can do your math that leaves 10 percent for the final area which is the technical CEO of making sure you have H1 and H2 use titles and made inscriptions and all this and everybody in the world seems to focus on that third category. Technical Allessio audit’s and making sure you have all the right plug ins and everything’s configured and you’re optimizing your made descriptions for every single post. And what I found is I work at that and I worked that for years and it never moved the needle. It never made money for my clients and it was like pointless to do that. And so by reconfiguring everything we just focus on the first two. Yes we have an audit where we can do the third we can do the technical ACOR of like we just run it through a process and say here go hire a developer and make them really happy because there’s a bunch of things you need to fix. And we just bullet list it out here’s what you need. So yes we can take care of that. But that’s not going to make you money in the end of the day it’s not going to drive more traffic it’s just going to make sure that you’re ready for the traffic or that you might move up by a half a degree. Whereas with the first two writing incredible content that applies to your target audience and getting those back links reading incredible content you can hire a really good copywriter and you can get really good content. Problem is most of our clients most of the businesses out there they think about the wrong things when they write that content they’re writing about their services or how they’re special or toot their own horn or whatever and it’s like nobody cares. Nobody can so what we what we bring to the table is we actually tie the content with the backlift process and say listen let’s go find an article that’s out there. And for those of you who may be familiar with this that actually is a quaint term to describe this technique. It’s called the skyscraper technique. But what we do is we go out when we find an article that applies to your target audience that maybe. Well first of all that has a lot of back links. We usually look for 100 refereing domains or more. And so we start there and then when we say what’s wrong with that article or could we improve upon it or you know is it really out of date. And is there a way that we can write a better article that the client would be super happy with. Really proud of and by the way we get compliments on our content all the time. They’re just like oh this is so great. I never would have thought to write this but this is fantastic. And so we then we publish that on the client’s Web site and then we reach out to the people who linked to the previous article that is old or out of date or crappy or just not well-sourced is for as far as scientific material goes. And and we reach out to all those people and we say hey listen we notice that you’re pointing to this even linking to this article. We have a better article and I think it may apply to your users better if either A. You wrote a new post about her article or you just switched the link from your other content and switched it to our article and it’s amazing. So that’s our our method of link building. It’s all above the board. It’s all white hat. It’s all very understood and it’s organically organic is an overused term. It’s natural in far in so far as how it grows because it’s not like we hit a switch and suddenly you have 10 back links you post an article and over the next three to six weeks you get 10 back clicks because you know some people take longer to switch continents or switch links some people you know whatever. And it’s Arti Web sites that have talked about similar content. And so it’s all within the correct wheel house so we have found it now as slow is a slow game. Right. Like you can make some changes today and you’re not going to realize the full benefit of that for three to six months. We’ve had multiple clients with us now working this once a month for six months and we’ve doubled their organic traffic in the span of six months and their sales their sales have gone up fairly significantly. We’ve got two clients that are just like you and I don’t even have to pick up the phone and do cold calling anymore like my leads are coming to me and it’s because organic you know all the fad about social media like yes. I’m still very social and very up on social media. The thing is it doesn’t drive sales for the majority of business out there. It’s it’s a it’s a brand awareness it’s how to stay in touch and contact but it’s not going to drive sales organic search conversions and sales all the time because you’re dealing with somebody who’s searching for They’re saying they have a problem and they’re looking for your business and your ability to solve. And so you just need to get in front of them and boom you have a new client. That’s great. Those are some really good. It’s interesting because I don’t know a lot about a CEO and an end of the world. And so that’s very very interesting to hear how that’s approached Of course in other writing and it’s very interesting how those things fit together and the fact that you know that ACL does seem like the people who are involved on a daily basis with their CEO or of their own agencies or whatnot. It is like to me it always seems sort of like this. I thought of it a way that you spoke about it which was like the last 10 percent you know whereas I also I’m familiar with a bunch of franchisees tactical exactly like this like you know Larry stuff. Exactly like almost like this. Well of course and that doesn’t help that you see that stuff you do see often. Like you said or is focused on that 10 percent. And also you see a ton of stuff where people were like selling back links or or doing the love the blackout stuff I guess. Yeah and backplanes is the sketchiest place. You know like I don’t we don’t even advertise that we sell back links like because we don’t we you know we bring you warm leads by increasing your rank through battleaxe and really great content. And so it’s you know we actually talk about we sell the skyscraper know technique as a done for you process is I’ll teach that technique all day long a because I learned it from a public space from Brian Dean overpacked Langkow and like we learned it we tried it on a few clients we found out what worked and what didn’t work. And it’s amazing how many of our clients have tried some form of this process and they come back to us and they’re just like I don’t have the time or it didn’t work. What did I do wrong. And because we’ve been doing it for over a year now it’s very easy for me to pick apart a skyscraper campaign and to say listen your content was too focused on this or you know it’s just not link worthy whereas like you know and then your outreach sucked for this reason or you just didn’t do enough of it. And that’s I mean it is a lot of work. We send out at least 1000 e-mails a day. And so to give you you know some sort of context there. And that’s half of our capacity. We could be sending 2000 e-mails a day. You know based on our current staff structure size and that’s just like we need to send out that many because the conversion rate is so low. Yes we could do it differently and send out one really really really personalized e-mail you know really get to know that person and all that but it doesn’t scale. And so in our situation what we did is we took that technique and we said how can we make this scale. And and it’s hard work. I mean I can tell you what my stuff comes to me every day like I’m behind on my little cards you know and so yeah I know it’s just a lot of work to do. But we you know we get it done and it you know it’s it’s it’s gold because so many people are selling this technical Allessio stuff. And then there’s the scammers in the black hat link building and link buying stuff and it’s like no in reality anybody can acquire links. You could sit down right now and think of 10 or 15 people who own a web site or manage a Web site who you could convince in some way shape or form to link to you. You might have to write a different piece of content or a different article. It might instead of being focused on you know your drone product that you’re selling you might focus on marketing or you might focus on digital nomadism or something like that. But you know that there are ways that you can create content you can do something on your website that you could ask 10 to 15 people to link back to you know just do that every month and you have just as much success as what we’re providing. But it’s a lot of work and people don’t do it. And so people out there want to get in touch with Polydor nomad together. MDO while some show notes include a bunch of links things are pertinent for people to get involved and I just want to thank you all for coming on the show because this has been one of my favorites. Awesome. Well David it’s been a joy to talk to you and through all the internet woes because know I still do live in a developing world. It is still amazing. So if you don’t feel fine. I’ve done podcasts from a parking lot of a parking lot. And I hear you. So thanks for having me and thanks for letting me be an inspiration because you know if we can just get the word out there that you can do it whatever it is you want to do. You really can. Now is the time. Awesome. Hang on the line there for a sec Paul for everybody else of course will be back. Edition the podcast and hopefully we’ll have another world beater like Paul and his family to talk about the interesting things we did today. Until then The post Episode #161 – Paul Kortman On SEO That Works. Freelance Your Way To Freedom And The Open Road (Even With A Family!) appeared first on Drop Dead Copy.

Mike laid in his bed with a horrible stomach flu surfing the ‘net. His passion for hoops and NBA dreams found him pouring over basketball products. Several years later he sent in a glowing testimonial. At 16 years old he never thought that would set him on a career path. The owner of that product company like Mike’s passion and needed people to champion his brand. text Mike’s success in customer service led to the owner writing him a game-changing email… “Want to make more money?” Mike wrote content and then sales and upsell pages and then whole funnels as time went by. The owner turning him onto some classic texts in direct-response. Along with on-the-job trial and error, Mike learned the game. Now after 6 years he’s left that first fruitful gig and is on to other pastures. If you’re new (or even an old hand at this stuff) then there’s a lot from Mike’s journey you can take and apply to your own. His skill-set are what modern DR companies look for. Start now! In this episode, you’ll discover: One mistake copywriters make that leaves them deadly short on what clients look for. The advice an A-list copywriter gave Mike that sums up why most copy doesn’t resonate. How to avoid the horrible “tiptoe” mistake most businesses make with their weak copy. Stick to these and you can’t go wrong when building up your complimentary copy skills. The “can’t lose” method most businesses leave completely out. (This is where all the money is!). Mentioned: Mike’s website Dan Kennedy’s Books Joe Sugarman’s Adweek Copywriting Handbook David Allan’s Make Words Pay Intro and outro backing music: Forever More by CREO David Allan: Hey, everybody we’re back with another edition of the podcast. I’m David Allan and we got a really interesting guest here today that was recommended to me by another guest Justin Goff we had on the show – by the time this is live you’ll have heard Justin’s episode. His name is Mike Abramov and I hope I pronounced that correctly and he is a digital marketer copywriter – in direct response. We’re going to find out everything about him in the next little while here as he starts by detailing his sort of superhero origin story. Mike welcome to the show. Mike Ambramov: I appreciate you having me on. David Allan: It’s awesome to have you on. And you were recommended Like I said by Justin and Justin’s a good guy. So he knows what’s what. So maybe start because I know very little about you other than what Justin told me on and off the air. So maybe give me sort of the rundown of where you were who you were and how you ascended to where you’re at now. Yes I mean growing up I was obsessed with basketball. I thought I going to the NBA as every tall athlete thinks they are. I myself included actually. So I actually came across a sales page surf the web one night looking at basketball training and drills and tips and that kind of stuff like that and I ended up buying it. I sent over a testimonial a couple of years later to the actions of the owner and he was really impressed. Testimonials like you know what I need great dedicated guys like you. Would you mind helping me out with customer service and you pay me and all that. I was like I was 16 at the time. So I was like Yeah let’s let’s do it. Which is a risky thing for him to do but I’m glad he did. So over the next 12 months I kind of answered e-mails or whatever I needed to do and he kept on giving me more and more responsibility to the point where when I was 18 he asked me he said mean enough. He literally just said do you want to make more money questionmark. I’m 18 at time. The answer is yes. All cash or exclamation points. And Rainer he asked if I could write some content emails about basketball OK I did just that. From there the relationship kind of flourished. I started doing a lot a lot more stuff in terms of actual copywriting I mean I edited some upswell page Aspern itself pages and then writing all those out. And that’s how kind of I came to be where I am today. So that’s basically you know you lucked into in a way this guy who happened to be pretty but it sounds like a pretty advanced marketer on his own accord. Yes. OK. So I was pretty lucky. Are you excited by that product. Oh 100 percent I it’s actually really interesting because the only reason why I saw the product was because I had the stomach flu so. Oh wow. So the only thing I did that days instead of going to school I google stuff about basketball. So if I hadn’t had the stomach flu I would have never got into this. It’s weird how it works like that. It’s crazy. We were talking off the air and people have heard this story probably 10 times on this podcast and so I want to go into it but you know that’s sort of how I learned about Gary Holbert and getting into it with a product similarly. And that’s it’s just weird how one little thing you know you may order something or buy something it just leads down this rabbit hole. Yeah and it’s I’m just I’m thankful for that. It’s definitely an awesome lifestyle. So once you started you know this guy started upping your responsibility and your pay what sort of things did he have specific things that he wanted you to read to go through courses you recommended books. I mean he he tried to educate you internally or did you we’re looking outside for things it little bit of both. I was very fortunate because he was a fairly decent guy at the time so he gets it down at me and say hey go line by line say hey I don’t like this I like this change this. This could be better. And this is why. But the majority of education which is through trial and error I did read. I mean like you have John staples right. I read everything Dan Kennedy book out there. I read breakthrough advertising a bunch of ugly stuff. Robert Collier all of them even help stuff. But the majority of my education was through trial and error. Just kind of writing something sending to him sending it to him and then he would send it back all marked up which is great for me. And that’s how I got to start it. So he was like a copy chief basically nails all of the time. That’s awesome. How long did you stay with that company. Six years. OK. From 18 to 24 and how old are you now. No I was from 16 16 to 20 to 16 to 20. I’m 22 now. OK. So you just basically just recently left. Yeah. OK. OK. That probably goes right into what Justin had to say about you finding another job with somebody else. Yeah. I reached out to Justin and he connected me with a couple of people that he knew and all sorts initialisms said you know this guy knows what he’s doing and that’s how we kind of got connected and I’ve been working for a couple of people since that. Ok cool. It’s good to have a connection. I don’t think we can overstate that on the show whether it’s going to live events or reaching out to your network and like you do with justin. That’s a those are powerful things. Get reading in front of proper clients deafening I got an every single one of my clients or sort of gigs through referrals. Of course every single one. So when you left this company did. I mean what was the owner was he sad or did he like to go get it. You know what was there. We had a little bit of a falling out in terms of it was happening to me in terms of our agreement we couldn’t just see eye to eye on certain things and it was time to part ways. There’s no bad blood on either end so it didn’t. It wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be. Right now at that point were you like confident that you could take the skills that you learned and parlay that into something new. Or was there some trepidation because that was your first job. I was a little bit hesitant at first. I took it in kind of a week to kind of grief about it but it just sort of understand what had happened in my office and all of that. And I reached out to Justin. He was really helpful in terms of calming me down and letting me know that these things do happen and I am I’m very grateful for that because I think it really skyrocketed everything else. And when did you first meet Justin. I met Justin actually he was a good friend of the past owner. Very interesting. It’s funny how things work out sometimes when somebody looks super good friends with another guy you’re having a little acrimony with I referred you to somebody else. So yeah definitely. So maybe for people that are are young like you are maybe take us through you know maybe some of the important ways maybe you wish you’d educated yourself you know aside from what you actually did and maybe some of the lessons you learned along the way of being you know quite a young person that would say to get sort of get into things and get moving so fast. Yeah I mean I think the biggest thing that’s set me apart in Justin’s eyes was I think most copywriters just focus on the actual writing of copy which is extremely important but I think that kind of puts you in a box and what I mean by that is it’s important to learn about Vanos and customer acquisition and everything because when you can approach a company or a client with that full package and that’s full understanding of not only can I write copy but I also can take the customer from where are you from where he is taking to where you want him to be. That’s super important. So that’s what I wish I learned a little bit earlier. So it sort serve the big picture from start to finish. Yeah. Because I mean there are plenty of copywriters that you can just give them a product and say hey here’s the market right. Sales page and a ton of them can do it. If you ask them for specific ups sells down sells things that work in terms of pitching them on something else in the future continuation promise continuity. A lot of them are stuff right. And that’s what I think sets apart a lot of copperheads. Yeah I’m just Justin and Justin’s episode. He talked a lot about that he talked about having that complete package as a copywriter to sell yourself because he said that a lot of direct response companies are looking for people and sort of that you know that middle range I guess they had low end copywriters who charge a couple of grand for things they can’t afford yet perhaps the people that are seen. So they’re looking for those people that sweet spots are in the middle sort of over $10000 dollars. You know how those extra skills you know to bring to the table and maybe take charge of the marketing departments. Direct Response companies. Yeah I mean I think a lot of people can charge you know 10 k for a full fundable when you have everything in place to make sure that you’re not just creating a one time purchase but you increase the LTV. You can easily spike your prices and it’s warranted. People are OK with that because they know that they’ll make more money on the back end. Now for people who didn’t have the you know the luck if you will of stumbling into a job with somebody who was already advanced at marketing what would you recommend for people to try to learn some of these extra things. I know some of the things I’ve sort of done to get up to speed on different response you know products and so forth I’ve purchased but maybe from your point of view you know what things could you recommend to people who are looking to add those extra skills to maybe their copy. Yeah I mean I think it boils down to reading as much as you can and I say that with with the caveat I get a lot of people tend to just buy 30 different books and really go through each one and then they don’t really learn anything at the end of the day. I would choose three to four books and reread them over and over and over again which sounds really daunting and annoying but I think it’s really a point to really cement some of the concepts inside and that’s what I did. I mean I read everything that Dan Kennedy has ever put out multiple times. And I think that’s what kind of helped me because I could learn it and then I could implement it in actual business. Right. And he sort of covers all those things from the customer acquisition all the way through and back and that’s everything. Even like time management stuff which I think is important. Is there other. Is there any particular books of bands that you find particularly helpful that spring to mind. Yeah I mean the ultimate marketing plan the ultimate sales letter and then all its entire Noby catalog of books was really good. I really also enjoyed all of Joe Sugarmann stuff especially the ad copywriting handbook that was good and I think what else and I really enjoyed Schwab’s how to write a good advertising write better shrub. Those are those are kind of I find myself going back to those books more and more just kind of set the refresh. Now when you were part of this original company sort of worked for had he given you those books or had you just gone out into the interweb webs and search those out. He basically told me read X Y and Z. When you’re done let me know and then I’ll give you more books to read. OK. So he was very proactive in educating him very very which is which was great for me. And again I can’t stress how lucky I was. I have doubt that. It’s different nowadays I guess because even six years ago it was a different world. Yeah. I mean I was like but I remember I remember my first day on the Internet you know I played at a bookstore get on the internet for the first time like a dollar an hour or two hours. And that was not long ago. You know so as it’s interesting now that I mean there’s a lot of stuff at people’s fingertips now but there’s also something a lot of overwhelm and some of the questions I get from people who are getting into copywriting or who are sort of in that first couple of years they want to know aside from you know maybe some of the more modern things too that people are put out in the last five or eight years or so that are more because funnel became such a buzzword and so forth. You know what sort of things you recommend on that front. Is there products you’ve indulged in that have helped you. I have it. One thing that I’ve tried my best to do is kind of go back to some of the contemporary stuff. I never really got into that in the newer stuff because I feel like there are certain principles that will never go away and direct marketing right. I think it’s it’s as soon as we start deviating from that and we want the new new thing things start to kind of crumble. Right. So I’ve tried my best to stick to the proven guys who have done this in the 50s 60s and even before that. Right. Not so good. That’s good advice I think because it’s easy to get caught up in that sort of shiny object. Yeah. I mean it’s so easy to just read a blog and just go like oh ok cool I know what I’m going to do to make a million next week. We want to get well you may want to give me the address that I blog. Yeah I will. I wish that’s how it works and unfortunately there’s a lot of testing that goes into these things and at least for me I think that’s that’s one of the biggest problems that I see when other people approach me is send me their stuff and I take a look and say OK what are the what does the data say and they go data and I’m like well let’s let’s work on that first. Yeah. I mean it’s been my experience. And then you can speak to your experience is that they’re just testing it seems to be a very time honored direct response you know thing. Part of the direct response world. It doesn’t seem like a lot of people that I’ve come across are really unless you’re a super high end marketer or you know small like a Gora’s I’m like You’re not people aren’t testing anywhere near what you think they would be. Yeah and I think it stems from a I don’t want to say a lack of understanding how to test really I think we all know the level that we can split test things. I think they just don’t know how they could. And I think that’s the biggest problem there are plenty of softwares out there like I mean VW so will I use foot testing for fairly cheap price. I know certain email service providers depending on what you’re using you can send out different subject lines right things that way. I think if more people did that they’d see much bigger not only responsive mortars. Yeah because could really I mean and this is probably you know for people listening this taking the time to listen to something like this that we may be beating a dead horse but I think it bears repeating. You know often enough is that you’re leaving a lot of money on the table if you don’t continue to try to beat what’s going on right now. I mean that’s the biggest companies like you know are gorra and Rodale Philips in the past and so they were like constantly trying to beat themselves. Yeah. And then one of my biggest clients I mean I’ve rewritten their sales page maybe four times and it’s not because I didn’t do well. I beat their control it’s just once I get data back. Right. It’s always weird for me to go back in and continue kind of fine tuning thing. So what sort of things have you seen figure to give an example for somebody you know maybe they’re not involved that or they don’t work for somebody you don’t have any clients that are that are that aggressive. How should they broach that subject and what sort of avenue should they go down in terms of what they do wrong with their finals or what they do wrong and then maybe how should you like let’s say you know there’s been people I’ve worked for where I didn’t have control the thing. You know I just wrote sales played or I wrote up in a squeeze page where I wrote certain aspects but I didn’t have any control of the funnel like from start to finish. And that obviously makes it harder because is like a congruity so often and I always try to pitch people more make them all one thing. But for you you know how would you approach people that maybe you know the client to explain to them some of the stuff about how this all needs to be sort of one message and also the mistakes that people are making in their finals that are like either easily correctable or just blatant. But I think if you have a proven track record it’s very easy to show them and say hey let me do this. If you don’t for a lot people are starting out I think doing that one up there with that one sales page without grants. If the funnel is important to show them that you have the skills right and then once you do that first project on the second and third project desk and you can approach them and say hey I could easily do this but I want the company to swing for the fences right. I want to take care of this entire funnel from start to finish. And once you have that trust built in it’s very easy to kind of let them have let let them give you the freedom to do that. Yeah. As far as what people do wrong with their finals. Some of the big stuff is probably just a lot of times I see people being scared to sell and I don’t know if that’s a problem with they feel manipulative or they don’t like the way it feels which is completely fine. But to be specific I mean certain people don’t have even follow up sequences WESH which is nuts to me. And when they do they don’t ask for the sale. They like kind of tiptoe around it. Right. A general audience if they’re not specific they’re not granular they’re not talking to one person. They’re not saying hey I could get this right. And one of the most and I mean one of the most revolutionary things that I’ve learned which seems super kind of simple is David Deutsch. He and I spoke for a while and he basically said you know it’s supposed to be like bar talk. Right. You wouldn’t approach this person at a bar and say the exact same thing that you’re saying why would you write it. Tranq and that’s something that blew my mind. And it seems so simple but I haven’t I wasn’t writing in such a conversational tone. So I think it starts with them being scared to sell. And then when they do sell they sell like a used car salesman. So I think it’s finding that medium is kind of that sweet spot is that what. Other stuff is like. There’s no list segmentation in a lot of clients that I work with some reason which is huge because if you’re selling the same thing to people who who might not want it here a lot of money on the table. And then again just the testing stuff I think that’s super important and I know it sounds like a beating a dead horse but it’s something that’s really really important. So when you go let’s say you get a new I know you do have a couple clients now you’re working for but let’s say you get a new client when you’re providing the package whatever they get you to do. Are you providing a number of headlines and stuff to test or you or what sort of things would you give them for maybe people that are new to copy. They’re not sure what you know how much to give to people or how much you know they should be giving for their flyers fees or whatever. You know just so like when I write little packages for clients I definitely try to give them two or three subject lines to test out if they have that capability. A lot of times before I even start writing I ask for their old stuff to kind of look at and see what’s working and what’s not for what they have. And then from there I craft something that I think with would do well for them. So I’m I’m always trying to give them things to test whether it be a subject line or a headline moving things around etc. and that goes for the same for sales pages and squeeze pages and stuff like that. Very nice print. Are there any things that perhaps you know in your relatively short career I guess are the things that struck you as counterintuitive where you thought. Well I didn’t think it worked that way or I would have never figured that out. Someone told me or whatever it was like just it. I’ll give you an example just in. And this seems probably because a lot of people too. But it bears repeating I think as he said that you know the easiest thing to sell somebody once they’ve bought something is more of the same. Yeah I’m going to say actually. And that’s it seems counterintuitive because you think they just but let’s say you just bought a copywriting course let’s say. Why would you want another copyrighted chords and Nancy’s great coverage because you like to think I’ve got that handle I just bought one but it doesn’t work that way. Yeah and I think that kind of kind of connects with the previous question you asked me to as well as the what they do wrong with their final is once you have a customer or continue giving them more stuff their customer for a reason. Right so I think that’s the number one thing is getting the back and this has been a really great conversation by a lot of fun to talk to and you’ve got a lot of knowledge for being so it’s meaning. But I mean you obviously even got into this at the right time in your life for early you know and seems like you’re making the most of it. I mean I appreciate you having me on. Seriously it’s been it’s been awesome. If people are looking to get in touch with you personally where can they find you and how do we get in touch. Sure there’s a couple of ways. Feel free to add me on Facebook. And look let’s chat. It’s under Mike Abramoff and my web site Mike Abhimaan dot com super original. I know those are really the best places to contact me then there should be a contact form on my web site as well as your mother what can you hit me up on Facebook. Awesome awesome. It’s been a real pleasure. I want to thank you for taking the time to come on the show and help educate our audience because it’s been and it’s been a lot of fun you for everybody else will be back again with another exciting guest hopefully half as funny and insightful as make it Marv The post Episode #160 – Mike Abramov On What The Best Clients Need. Become A Full-Service Copywriter And Write Your Own Ticket. appeared first on Drop Dead Copy.

BIG Jason Henderson (He’s a 7 footer) was a professional basketball player down-under. Sensing the limits of that career he hit the internet. From his early days at what would become About.com and learning about email “conversation” … To being “Halbertized” into the fold by Bond Halbert… Since ’96 he’s been writing and testing profit-pulling email copy. His involvement with MECLABS has been invaluable and… He’s out to punch some holes into email dogma (especially from the IM niche). Recently, his close friend (and renown copywriter) Scott “Mongo” Haines passed away. Scott had created a famous copy course that many people had urged him to update for the last five years. Gary Halbert himself had said… “If you could only afford to purchase and study one product, it would NOT be anything I, personally, had produced… I would recommend, above everything else, a course called ‘Shortcut Copywriting Secrets’ which was created by my friend, Scott ‘Mongo’ Haines.” So Big Jason has picked up the torch and will be securing Scott’s legacy by keeping his work alive. You’re going to love this week’s episode. In this episode, you’ll discover: The sordid truth about daily emails. Past the rhetoric and propoganda, Jason gives everyone the low-down on best practices. How testing a different approach boosted EVERYTHING in the funnel! (Starting with a 27% boost from the Facebook ads) What Scott’s longest running client had to say about 3 of Scott’s amazing sales letters. How Scott handled the knock-down, drag-out, jump-off-a-cliff battles with several “clients who suck”. (The outcomes may surprise you). Where Jason got the hook-up when getting his career in copy started. This secret rears it’s ugly head again and again – but bears repeating! Mentioned: Scott’s Shortcut Copywriting Secrets course Big Jason’s Email Response Warrior course Shortcut Copywriting Facebook group David Allan’s Make Words Pay Intro and outro backing music: Forever More by CREO David Allan: Hey everybody. Welcome to another edition of the podcast. I’m David Allan and we’ve got another great guest. I’ve really been looking forward to speaking with today. He is a lord of e-mail. He has over 20 years of experience e-mail marketing and he sent over 1 billion e-mails much of which has been tested. Jason Henderson Welcome to the show. Big Jason: Hey David thanks for having me. David Allan: So tell us about that a little bit. You’ve been at this since 1996 in regards to e-mail. How did you get into marketing maybe give us that superhero origin story lead us down the garden path of why you’re in marketing. Big Jason: Sure. So I was playing professional basketball Down Under in Australia and I just had this six sense that it was going to last forever so I don’t really you know been online and looking at stuff never really did anything and there was a local college there which is high school in Australia and they had a you know computer lab and they said hey you know anytime there’s a free seat feel free. So I started jumping on and the first big thing I did was I was the about dot.com guy to exercise back then they’re known as the mining company. OK. So basically brought in all kinds of experts to teach us about list building you know stuff like that. And as far as e-mail all I said was like hey guys it’s simple you just want people back and it’s you just have a one on one conversation. Oh I can do that. I started from there and I started working with local businesses. I stopped after a while if I only knew how big you know marketing for local businesses would become I would stuck with it. Right. That’s that’s interesting. So you were and back then. How would you approach these people one on one or how would you go about it. Oh yeah just people that I would meet you know normally is they had their cousin or their freind bastard nephew doing their stuff and I was like oh really. Well you know it just gave you I totally you know X Y Z. BI crap are there you know if you put a nephews out of work since the 1990s. OK I you go from there into getting into. I was reading a bit of your bio there on the campaign page or something I think and it was talking about how you attended all their marketing Sherpa McLeod’s conferences and stuff like that sort of the route of education you chose in terms of the marketing. Definitely. The first one was in 2006 in Chicago and I’ve been to every single one I just got done last week on my 12th straight sum and I’ve spoken there and I’ve taken all their certifications and email messaging optimization value proposition 12 Atlantic bridge optimization and especially the online testing part. So yeah before 2006 you know I was studying Dan Kennedy and that had been introduced to Armand Morin and Alex then dozin and they kept on referencing marketing Sherpa. So that’s how I found out about them and I found they had the email summit. So I started going. Cool cool. That’s interesting and 12 years straight that’s a long that’s a long stretch. Yeah I get something out of it every single year. Now what do you when you went from taking me like you know putting nephews out of business and you got into doing more e-mail or you know for internet marketers and so forth was that through those conferences those are more and more and connections and so forth. Yes definitely going to events was crucial in developing relationships so yeah meeting those people and you know them get to know me helped a lot. Yeah. That seemed to be a common thing that we hear on the show when you interview copywriters and various designations is that live events have been a big boon for them getting started and for continuing to find new clients. You know as they say a lot of work is done in the bar. So that brings us to today. Most of your business now is still doing email for people. Yes. You know product launch is anything you do with email strategy email copywriting. Yeah. Affiliate promotions all the good stuff and you have a couple several courses of your own that sells well. Correct yeah. Of course not improving the response to any email you send about in-basket Series product launches cost them. Now what we’d like to talk about sort of first today aside from your sort of career trajectory is you’re involved in something right now that is very special to you from a friend of yours. You know basically based on a friend of yours someone actually had the pleasure of talking with on the phone one time and that is had to do with Scott Haines what another would you talk to Scott about I wanted to buy his shortcut copywriting secrets course. So that was the way back then years ago this would have been but few for sure. And that’s going to be the only way to sort it out. I’d heard about it. I see people talk about it on the Warrior Forum or wherever but it seems to be the only direct way to sort of get a hold of it was to get to Scott. So you got something very special because Scott has since passed away and you’ve sort of been very instrumental in helping him and his family and you are sort of there throughout that thing and and you’ve kind of taken the reins of Scott’s legacy. In terms of his marketing and copywriting legacy. Let’s talk about some of the things you have going on in regards to that. Yeah. Bond Howard introduced me to Scott. Scott Scott had heard about me from other halber protege protegees throughout the years from Bon and said Markowitz who had done some work for him. So we met up in Vegas. And so for the last four years we’ve been hanging out. And then when I moved to Austin he moved as well shortly thereafter. And yeah he tragically passed away recently and his family asked me to. You know they gave me all this stuff and said hey can you please you know take the lead on this and you know make his course available so I’ve been doing is I put up a waiting list and I’ve been doing ad break downs and some of his best ads in his original course he has a bonus called his hottest sales letters volume one. And people have been asking him to update us course or at least update is hottest sales letters for you know over five years. And he just never got around to it and so going through all his stuff I just found a winner after winner after win and is just not finding sales letters and assuming that winners like finding actual notes and details about the millions of dollars these sales lawyers have generated and so killable doubt another Howard protege. He came up that it’s you add breakdowns of this how to sales letters to add to the second version of this course. And so that’s all I’ve been doing Guys like John Carlton David Deutsche Mark Jostein David Garfinkel Brian Kurtz. Gilbert Dowds Jimmy mark with Bon halber Kim Rogers $9 Mike Morgan and a lot others. So they’re going to get you know how to sales letters line to you know update of this course based on his notes that he left that I found. Right. And yes so it’s going to be killer. Wow that’s awesome. Now having known Scott free for years like you did. What is it about Scott Haines that people should know if they’re not familiar with Scott and give a rundown of why he was such a close friend of yours why are you taking the lead on this. Sure. Yeah he was known as the copywriter. After Gary Howard’s own heart he he wrote most like Gary. Gary called him his best student. Gary actually told people that you know before he even said anything that I’ve written about Kuyper anything new to study scores and which It’s interesting. We hit it off immediately and we have a love of copywriting UFC Ultimate Fighting Championship segment. Right. And and we always did that and then also we had we really connected on Gary halberds famous line you know our clients. So we are always sharing war stories about. That’s good. If you can share that with our audience because we’ve talked about that quite a bit and what sort of a low you know brief backstory that’s sort of how I got involved in that. All this is true seeing Gary Hurlburt reading Gary Albert’s letter and so forth and that’s one of the first things that I sort of made aware of is that phrase all clients suck. And so maybe a few of those stories if you can. I’ll try to share a few without revealing I know certain details but on game one arrested hit today. Yeah. No the kid has had quite a few. Where there is he had everything in writing. Everything was agreed upon you know X front x on the back and certain royalties and he just had a lot of clients who would just come up with the craziest excuses of why they didn’t need to pay him. One guy one guy or one client I should say said you know you know your copy was great and everything but most of these sales were were closed foam and he’s just like how did you get him on the phone. Is I would yeah your copy but you know myself. And so just take crap crap like that. But the crazy thing and this is when I went to Tulsa to be with Scott for the few weeks he was fighting and meeting his family in his hometown friends. It really resonated with me is just how much people loved him as a person. It was funny that there was three or more like knock down drag out just piss off you know. You know jump off a cliff encounters you had with clients he. Was still great friends with them. He oh yeah. Was he always even when he told people off he always what extra mile to to make it seem. Or you know actually you make it seem it is actually the truth is just like look it’s just not working out you know business wise by well I really want to leave this personally as friends. You know I I like you as a friend I love hanging out with you. I love hanging out with you again. But as business wise it’s just not working together and I’d rather and things now versus you know never speaking again. And the crazy thing is the three worst blow ups he’s had with clients he still remained great friends and they still say great things about him today. Wow. That’s that’s testament to the person Scott was obviously that he was able to separate those things and maintain those relationships outside of the business aspect which is hard to do sometimes. One of the people this is really interesting. So I reached out. I was able to take control of his list and his customer list and other things so I was reaching out to them saying hey you know I just want to let you know that Scott passed away and I’m trying to continue his legacy and all that. And one person actually got a hold of me was his longest running client. And he just raved and raved about Sky’s a person about how you know how fond memories of hanging out with him and everything and he told me the craziest thing because like I said I’d found some really good sales letters and some amazing stats of what they had done. He had told me that he started working with Scott in about 2000 2001. Upon the recommendation of Gary because Gary didn’t have time and he said that he had taken at least three possibly more of Scott sales letters and put them on line. And this was after doing millions initially with Scott and he put them online. And there’s he can’t find he get paid copywriters enough today like literally today they’re online he can’t find anyone to beat Scott’s controls. Wow. At least three of them. So I was like I can believe what I know. That’s awesome. That is a great if I remember correctly Scott wrote at least a version or perhaps the final version. Of the Trump University. Yes sales letter right which is controversial. Yeah actually now that’s very interesting. It sounds like I have heard of a lot of people sort of talk you know in different videos different products you know about how good of a guy he was and it seems to bear out not only just in copyright in school and also in his personal life. So what should people know about you know if they’re going to get involved with shortcut copywriting secrets and you know get on the list and we’ll give all those links and stuff from the show notes. We’ll get that information. What are things that they should know about the way Scott wrote copy and what you’ve learned perhaps Jason yourself from being friends with Scott just conversational one to one copy. You know Bon’s says that Scott wrote more like his dad than anybody else. And it’s true. It’s been amazing doing these ad breakdowns and everybody agrees that yeah it’s very personal one to one very simple language. And that’s the big problem I see today with copying especially e-mail copies everybody’s is looking for the you know the latest persuasion trigger and all the fancy you know persuasion tactic to increase copy. And I just found out you know simple you know fourth grade reading level is the way to go. Yes it’s like you’re talking to everybody. Yep exactly. That’s what Scott was all about so I learned a lot about that. I still studied his letters every day. Wow. Awesome. So that’s going to be a whole new package you’re putting together that people should be able to get their hands on. Yep. So maybe tell us a bit more about your about you and about your e-mailing history. I know you have this long history and all these tested emails and this a B tests but you’ve run for people you know that are out there that either are getting into email marketing. We have a lot of freelancers or they’re in our Chua’s I established in their freelance career and they want to improve their email. What are some of the you know top ways that people seem to go wrong. Obviously the conversational thing is as massive. What are some of the other ways. Sure. So the marketing super mech Labs was huge for me because what I found was that in the eye and circle there was a lot of email dogma. And I was fortunate enough that I had gotten started with really no one teaching me about email other than you know about dot com formerly the mining company saying you know hey you know it’s like having a one on one conversation. Right. So I didn’t have to go through you know starting with the Course saying you know don’t use images or don’t do this and don’t do that you can’t do this and go to the marketing Sherpa email summit and studying wigwag labs really emphasized that that you know by a lot of the I am circle has a lot of dogma that’s just not true. So I would caution people about listening to what they hear you know online about you know can’t do this can’t do that and stick the one on one conversation. It’s been huge for me. And part of that is having a personality which of course can include images. Right. And as far as the testing goes this is a I’ve probably spoken to over 40 people who don’t believe that you can scientifically or accurately splits us to email which is total B.S. by the way. But I think they’re missing the point because if you really study splitters you realize that when you split test the main goal is not to get aleft or see what works better. It’s to learn about your customer. And that’s been huge because you know there’s the whole curve versus stick you know what’s going to work better. Telling them you know how amazing their life’s going to be blah blah blah or telling them you know what your product or service is going to save them from and a good example of that is probably about a year ago a company came to me and they managed PPC for small two small businesses pay per click ads. Facebook called all that stuff and they had automated wegen are Funland. OK look you know we have a conversion group that you know test and optimize our clients campaigns blank pages and emails and all that. But for our own stuff we can’t seem to get a lift. And we know you’re on the Macleods now thinks we want to see what you can do. OK. So I went and I analyzed everything. And the first thing that came to me was that it was all about you know make X amount of money more with us. You know you’re going to make a lot more money with us. I was like I’m like zero and just based on my research of their potential client and the existing customers was that is that really what’s going to push them over the edge or is it you know what are they missing out on or what’s what’s fear or frustration is happening without you know this. My clients services voice. So I sit up on the Facebook add to tests you know what I came up with is how much do you think your average client that you get has been wasting how much they’ve been losing by not using you. They gave me the figure an accurate figure or you know best guests. And so we tested that and there was nothing about making you know X more it was all about you’re losing X per month. And right away 27 percent increase from the Facebook ads. And I said you’re going to I want you to apply that now to the landing page to the e-mails. I want to actually change the Web and our So then change everything and everything increased across the board. Wow big big difference. And another key thing was just another awesome benefit of my classes. Again you you peel away a lot of dogma is on testing is I gave them on their Facebook that I give them a new headline new copy new call to action and when they’re ready to start testing like OK we’re going to test the headline now. Wait wait what do you mean you test the headline and just the headline the cottonseed I honor no where just gets us the headline because we want to make sure what changes what I said no. First of all that makes no sense you’re going to change a new headline it’s going to be incongruent with the copy and the CTA too. Who cares what works. You guys can’t get a lift. So if we test everything and it increases you know your bottom line by 27 percent who cares. You can go back and test again if you want to test little things. But when you really need a lift Who cares what actually does that’s what McCloud’s calls a radical redesign. Right. So you don’t have a completely different direction kind of thing. Yeah. So you don’t have to. I will mention a name but a huge company. They’re revered around the world for their marketing prowess. And I’ve worked with them same thing on the landing pages. Oh no we can’t. We can only test the headline and there had been testing already by themselves for a year and they’re testing little things here and there you know point five percent increase 1 percent increase 2 percent increase. And I’m just I was just like blown away that they’re stuck in dogma that they can’t test more than one thing at a time. Yeah I think that’s what you know. That’s what people seem to be. And you’re dead right on this. Is this sort of they’ve taken what’s been said and maybe some of those older copyrighting books or people coming up you know about testing or going way back to like Claude Hopkins and so forth. And they seem to be very very narrowly applying it in a sort of like like you said a dogmatic fashion where it’s like it’s only can be done this way. And when you’re looking for a bigger homerun and bigger left going in completely direction new direction you can’t just do that with the headline per se. So that’s a very important point I think for people understand is you’re talking about trying something completely new with a whole new premise kind of thing. So maybe you know when it comes to you know I learned to e-mail primarily from Mac fury and I started reading e-mails. You know he was a guy who was teaching at the time I started to learn some of the stuff. You know he’s got a very distinctive style and you know he was big on sending he you know saying he would send as many e-mails as humanly possible for up to him. He wasn’t lazy you know and so forth. Let me speak to some of the frequency issues as he encountered these discussions with people all the time and I’ve sort of have my own opinions of course but as someone who’s been in the game as long as you have let me talk about some of the frequency related issues to e-mails and what really matters clicks open sales with you know what the deal is. Sure. Yeah. Coincidentally Scott wrote a couple of solos for Matt that did really well. Now one of them was his e-mail caught writing workshop with a h know products of that got me. That’s going to be included in the volume two of his Hustler’s. Cool awesome awesome. Yeah so fitting deal has been around forever. The first person that I’ve actually seen evidence was a former I think is that a Navy pilot is actually through Scott because one of the sells letters in like early 2000 2001 was for internet marketing seminar recordings for Gary halber. And there is a guy there that was big on daily. So I’ve actually had to help clients that have followed sending daily systems like step by step find how to do daily emails and it’s destroyed their business. So a lot of it depends on your market. Who you are your own authority. I see a lot of people teaching stuff that applies to them because they have a built in authority like me personally. It’s not that I don’t teach anything that I do but most of it is what I do for my clients because I know that people get on my list specifically because oh yeah you got to get on Jason’s list he’s the Lord of email marketing blah blah blah. So I could pretty much say all kinds of crap. You know one word e-mails and people would buy or respond or whatever. Right. So you have to take that into consideration. And the thing you don’t hear when people say Oh I say I changed daily I made more money it is you really don’t cheer in the set up of OK. So I was e-mailing X and I did a test. It was just I switched to daily. So it perfectly all cases. Were there any sort of details. It’s not that they started sending Galey is that it’s that they said send more frequently. Right. So in my opinion in the majority not all cases but majority cases. It’s not that they started saying daily that they start sending more Fraknoi. So I think that’s a pretty good bet that most people don’t send emails frequently enough. Now maybe if people are interested in getting in volved with Scott Haines project and continuing Scott’s legacy and updating his course when people get a whole lot of information they can just go to a short. Copywriting secrets dot com. OK. Awesome. And I actually get introduced to bonce. I believe it was 2009. I was doing a project with Tony Flores a make peace Progeria also forgot to mention clean make pieces and break down the sky in a nice way. Tony invited me to the operating system teachers mastermind our get together in San Francisco with John Carleton and bond and Kevin halber were guests there. And the first topic of the day was email and so John Carlson spurred Ascanius So I talked about for a half an hour to start off the mastermind. Awesome. Yeah that’s how I got to this DUBON and he really loved the fact that I was more evidence based on what works best. And so yeah he started introduce me to Samarth with Caleb and then Scott and I became known as the go to you know source for Howard protegees which is a good group to be associated with. So people want to get in touch with you directly because I know you have mentioned before you have products and stuff like that can help with peoples email. How do they get in touch with you personal. They can go to email response Warrier dot com and thats your email response product. Yes. How do I Creusa respond to any email you sent regardless of whether its daily or every other day or on a responder. Also Man Well thanks for coming on the show. Its been a real pleasure having you on youve given some great knowledge semantics for having me. Everybody else of course will be back next week with another exciting guest hopefully half as entertaining and knowledgeable as Jason The post Episode #159 – Big Jason Henderson On Shortcut Copywriting Secrets Rides Again! The Legacy Of Scott Haines (Plus Email Dogma Holding You Back) appeared first on Drop Dead Copy.

He started selling websites to settle a $1000 gambling debt. Then he became a “just-skating-by” freelance copywriter. The real turning point was what he termed “3 Days Of Hell”. His freelance consulting client fired him – erasing 90% of his income… He girlfriend of 3 years dumped him… And finally – the coup de gras – Lebron James announced he was leaving Cleveland behind for Miami. So he picked himself up and started to whittle away by starting an online business. In three months taking his ads from break-even to $100/day – then $500/day and beyond… He’d made himself a cool $100,000. He parlayed that money and experience into his next venture. Supplements. A few days before this recording, he sold off his interest in what had become a $20+ Million company. So whether it was being a freelance copywriter, or in a position to hire some of the best… He has some immediate advice for you and other business owners. In this episode, you’ll discover: The single biggest difference maker in his copy career. (This crucial advice is NOT for the faint of wallet) An easy, “almost-magic” way to set yourself a part from a sea of copywriters business owners loathe. One secret “Mr. Moneyfingers” divulged which changed everything about Justin’s upselling. Do you have these 6 talents? The skillset growing business owners want from their copywriter today. Discover secrets of growing a company from zero to over 20 million. (Without this one indispensible factor it’s IMPOSSIBLE!) Mentioned: Justin Goff on Facebook David Deutsch Dan Kennedy’s JV/Backend Seminar David Allan’s Make Words Pay Intro and outro backing music: Forever More by CREO David Allan: Hey, everybody We’re back with another edition of the podcast. I’m David Allan and we got a really special guest on the show for you today from what I know he’s just sold his controlling interest in a big supplement company. Justin Goff Welcome to the show. I saw that post this morning I think so I don’t know how recent that is but he sounds like you sold your interest in more than 20 million dollar company. Justin Goff: Yeah I did. Twenty three million in 2016. My partners just worked out a deal last Friday. So. David Allan: Wow,congratulations. Justin Goff: I’m officially unemployed David Allan: And unemployable too I’m sure. So maybe for people who don’t know much about you let’s sort of start with your super hero origin story where did you come from and how did you get to the point where you were selling your interest in such a big company? Justin Goff: Yes. Lots of twists and turns along the way. I started making web sites online in college mostly because I had a thousand dollar gambling debt and it needs to make back and a bunch of money. I got the first taste of making money making sales online which was great. Kind of a big turning point was 2010 now. I basically was doing some client work I was doing freelance copywriting more just skating by than anything I had been sitting on this project. I was working on for a while which was a health offer kind was focused on my paleo diet and I was kind of before paleo got as big as it is now. And I had everything ready had to side up I had to copy written and VSL and I was really good. I was really just sitting on procrastinating and that around this time I basically had what I call three days from hell. Over the span of three days my biggest consulting client that made up about 90 percent of my income fired me actually didn’t fire me but here’s moving on to a different business than I need for me anymore. So as I let go I suppose my income there my girlfriend that I’d been dating for three years at the time and I was wondering when I came home from work on nights that you were breaking up with me. And wow that same night. So I drove like Rainier right near Cleveland. I’m a huge Cleveland sports fan and this was the same night that LeBron James went on TV and said he was like three for three. I got my heart broken toys and one night and I lost all my energy. So amazing that three days from now on a good note it did spur me into into action. So I said I was sitting on this project basically I was depressed and sitting in this apartment by myself and my dogs for two months after that and doing nothing but trying to make this offer work. I literally had maybe a month maybe two months worth of money left. Right. I was seriously contemplating moving back in with my parents for a good amount of time until I got back on my feet. I was thinking about going get a real job. I was I had a really bad Spargo I was really doubting whether or not I actually had to do this. Wow. And that’s kind of why I started playing around with Facebook ads. I served on some traffic to our offer get a bunch of testing. We’re seeing slow improvements which is really cool. And then finally for a while I get to the point where it was breaking even and when it was breaking even I was like well it can’t be that much harder to get this to like make like $100 a day. And that kind of happened over probably about I don’t know two or three weeks or I went from breaking even to making a hundred bucks a day. And then once I make it 100 that I start to realize I’m like well that’s really not that much more work if I get it to $500 a day. And really that’s all it was. It was improving the ads was improving the click the rate it was improving the cells copying the cells. And before I knew it I was spending $5000 a day on Facebook. I had basically from the moment when everything kind of fell apart to kind of turn this all around. I love making about 100 grand profit in about three months. And I kind of gave me the kind of gave me the confidence gave me the reassurance that this was the right thing I knew what I was doing and also gave me the money to kind of go through what I really want to drink. Now at that point where you were you know you suffered this three days of hell which sounds terrible. To be honest you know you said you were procrastinating on putting this offer up that was were those things at the time that were sort of plaguing your life in general like you were you didn’t you didn’t finish things you know you were putting it off as a very much the typical like QuickStart are not good with follow through type thing right. Yeah I would definitely just kind of settle into a pattern and be like Gunton just get comfortable with what I was doing. That was a big problem for me back then. But I mean like I said it kind of motivation to turn things around and then a business wound up running for about a year. My partner and it wanted to go out and do something else on his own so that business kind of fell apart. But like I said I had enough money that I started the supplement company with that supplement company. So with myself and then I had one other partner at that time and then he left about a year after that. And then my current partners came aboard and we scaled that supplement company for $1.5 million in sales in the first year to about 6.5 in the second and about 23 million in the third while we of those 23 million what we did in 2016. And I just sold my interest in that company on Friday. So right. I’m here talking about an it is so that 1.5 million in the first year. So I took off pretty fast anyways. Like when you started this one company. Yeah I mean what I was always good at and I know Im very good at is making sales and getting a front end offer that brings in customers. I’m very good at that. The one reason I partnered with my partners that I helped scale it was they were very good at the infrastructure side. OK. It took me a while to realize that I had no interest in building out infrastructure and hiring employees all the stuff that really matters for scaling and maybe even take these companies pretty small and go to like a million two million three million with very very few employees very few infrastructure. If you got to do it right but you’re never built by a 10 20 30 million dollar company with like an assist and a customer service person that’s really where the structure and infrastructure and everything and operations wise comes in. So my focus has always been on acquiring customers the cell phone calls writing my copy and creating new products that I think our customers are like that kind of stuff. Right. Thats awesome. So you went from a single yourself being the single employee quote unquote. And when you sold your control sold your interest on Friday how many employees did you guys have. So we were sharing employees between this company and then another company that they own in the survival space. I couldn’t tell you exactly but it was somewhere around 70. OK. Wow. So it’s a decent size company possible. So now here you are here. Now you said you started basically as a freelance copywriter before you got this Paleo thing off the ground and then this supplement business you were taking on clients and stuff I presumed. What was that like back then. I mean theres ups and downs to client work when you dont have clients or when you’re like stuck in a regular job. The thought of having the freedom of being able to pick and choose clients who you want to work with and working on your own time is like the greatest thing ever cried. And I totally understand that. And then you talked to a copywriter who’s been doing it for 10 years and they absolutely fucking hate their clients. Working with clients and they’re so sick of chasing clients and getting them to implement stuff. I totally see both ways of it because I’ve done both. And then like I said we’re on the other side for a year as well where I was writing notes on copy and then we’re also hiring very good writers. So I mean I see it from both ways there’s a lot of upside and a lot of downsides too. To work on science Yeah it seems to be the case like when I got into copywriting So the forced first stuff I was exposed to was like the Gary how John Carlton stuff. And that seemed to be like the recurring theme because of course they’ve been doing it for decades. Was that they you know the hated the clients or all clients shock and now being it should be a dick if you’re going to be a consultant on that kind of stuff. And I you know having done it myself now I can see why they would say that I’ve not been anywhere near a successful or as the longevity of them but I’ve certainly encountered enough ridiculous situations where I’ve just I’m like oh I see why they talk about that. But I can also see that you know I’ve never had to hire a copywriter. But having interviewed many of your readers now and having any friends or copywriters I can certainly see the sort of constant stuff you hear about copywriters. You talk to you know other copywriters and about the industry you sort of share these things that recur about you know people missing deadlines and sort of bad things that copywriters do to clients that pissed them off and you can speak to both of those things. I mean you were a copywriter what I mean you’re hard and fast on deadlines you are you are no good at then end of things are you just as famous people. Yeah I mean I was just as faulty as everyone else when I was governor. And he’s more of a freelance writer. When I was writing my own stuff actually you know what I was writing my own stuff about I was still probably a month behind a lot of stuff. I can tell you from the standpoint of the person hiring the copywriters meeting deadlines is a huge one. It’s amazing how quick you will set yourself apart from everyone else by simply meeting deadlines and some of the things. So we talked a little a little bit in the Facebook post that I posted. A lot of copywriters. It’s amazing for how good copy writers are persuasion. They tend to be really terrible at trying to get clients. It is an interesting curiosity isn’t it. Yeah I mean. Yeah a lot of them. I think most carburettors go about it the wrong way. A lot of them are doing like very shotgun approach types of e-mail cold email and people and I mean really like I see this all the time or masterminds like the smart guy I know will kind of do anything they can do to get into a mastermind. And then there and I asked him I would send people that are able to hire them. And those 10 people in the mastermind are all like you is a very smart direct marketers like they’re the type of clients you want the people to actually implement and who understand exactly what you’re doing. But they don’t do it themselves so like they’ll give you free rein to do everything right. I mean the worst kind of client is someone who does not understand our kind of marketing and you’ve got to sit there and try to convince them that one copy is better than the short copy and is at a high pressure sales type sales. They just don’t do. I mean that’s just a nightmare. You want to be working with people who already understand exactly what you’re going to do and understand the value of what you’re going to do because I mean companies that really understand that like we would pay a high and copywriters a lot of money. I mean anybody that’s going to work with the top a lot copywriters they have no problem shelling out a bunch of money because they know if they had a home run or were going to make millions and millions of dollars from it. So I mean kind of I mean that’s really one of the first things that a find in the clients that actually understand what you bring to the table. Now I saw on your Facebook posts where you talked about being traffic and conversions because you guys had some sort of mastermind there. And you’re talking to you know other business owners other product owners and they were lamenting of what you’re just saying which is like maybe they don’t have the wherewithal to work with the David Deutsch’s of the world. But they’re sort of looking for that. I hate to use the term you know middle grade I would refer to myself probably as middle grade and my dad is my ego getting in the way just right you know but looking for sort of that does the stumble of the absolute zenith let’s say for copywriters you know and sort of you know $10000 whatever you want to say you know and you are sort of saying that people were looking for that because they sort of dealt with the dregs that haven’t they haven’t got any response they’re looking for those helpers person but they’re also looking for people who can handle a lot of the other aspects of copy not just the right in the copy but maybe going to more about that. What are they looking for. Yes. I mean it’s kind of two separate issues but to me right now I really believe that the biggest opportunity for copywriters is learning how to do everything else around and offer and not just copy. So structuring the cells and writing up cells obviously a huge part of that doing kind of back and stuff like almost all of these businesses now run daily emails it’s knowing how to do the daily emails and building like a personality and a following around the customers that type of stuff and pretty much everything with coming up with new products and like pricing and how to position the offer. I mean you’d be amazed at how many just from that Facebook post how many high level copywriters actually reached out to me and like many others hit me over the head like a ton of bricks like i realize i’m really good at writing copy but I don’t know shit about the others. That it’s you know it’s true because if you’re not if you’re really not like you’re your client is actually I mean because you out of business you’re on yourself. You sort of had to take apart all those different procedures so for you it was like on the job learning but for most people who aren’t involved in an actual business or just a freelancer be came as a big surprise. Yeah and I mean that’s a really what a lot of people are looking for so it’s one thing I would suggest to to to kind of if you don’t want to keep looking for new clients out there. So one of my friends actually has a pretty good up and coming copywriter. He’s honestly just kind of learned in the last I would say two years or so. He knows how to do the who knows how to funnel stuff. He understands all the back and marketing type stuff and he has left the current company he was with and he was kind of worried that he didn’t know what he’s going to do next. And I’m just like dude you have so many skills. Anybody who would hire you for. Like every company that’s kind of growing and has like five to 10 employees is like really like for people that know exactly what you want to do and actually try and conversion that person and another person I know who is doing similar stuff who has a really good copywriter. I play both of them and showed both of them into a role with basically being the marketing person for one company where they’re going to get a really good payment plus performance bonuses plus they still keep all their freedom. So I mean that’s another option for a lot of people. You’re not hunting for clients. I know lot just like me for a lot of copywriters it’s keeping the freedom is such a huge part of it. So if you could work from home keep the freedom get paid a pretty high six figure salary and then get performance bonuses on top of it. I mean that’s a pretty good gig for a lot of people. Absolutely. Absolutely. And that you could afford that coaching now. Now when it comes to up sales because you bring all the copy for your you know most lot of it it’s for yourself and the company for your paleo company before that. Any talk about selling because this is something that I get annoyed when I go into places even like restaurants or you know any kind of store really I don’t get. Something a copyright I guess it’s very hard to be a copywriter I guess it kind of annoys me because I think that myself I am honored to be doing this. But let me talk about that because you’ve obviously had to structure a lot of your own offers in your own Opsahl funnels and so forth Saluki get into that a bit so we can educate people a bit about what that’s about. So if you’re going to make an offer whether or not for an end especially to get new customers the sellers are absolutely crucial. That’s pretty much where all the money is made for most offers end up sells. There they are kind of a different beast. There’s a lot that goes into them and forms so like formatting so whether you do just text or you do text and video or you can do just that. So all that matters. The offer for ourselves is one thing that pretty much the problem with ourselves is very hard to test unless you have a lot of traffic. So most people don’t ever really do any testing and hence they leave tons and tons of money on the table. So I mean if you could really just get like here first for I always recommend just focusing entirely on the first up so that’s pretty much we’re about 80 percent of the money is made of cells. That’s a good 80:20 little principle there. Yep. So I mean the best the best rule of thumb for the first up cell is of a huge important point Chris Dodd taught this to me about two years ago and it was kind of a breakthrough moment for me. Your first up cell. The best thing to sell is more of what you just sold them. Right. So that on the surface it seems kind of like now right. Because all that. But that wasn’t all. Right. But it’s precisely because they bought that that is. Exactly. So like my friend Mike Geary has a paleo cookbook that’s doing really really well right now. He gives the first cookbook away as a free shipping offer for like five bucks. And then the first upswell is for more paleo cookbooks. Like I said like a lot would dictate we’ll sell them something else like a workout program that’s kind of like related or something like a diet guide or something. But the fact that you have a cookbook buyer the idea is to sell more cookbooks. That’s what they buy it sounds stupid to even say it doesn’t but it’s really. Yeah. I mean honestly it took me so long to realize that. And then I went for a set. I was like oh shit. I mean I make so much sense to them and you think about like direct mail of yourself on a weight loss product. The best buyers for weight loss products are somebody who bought weight loss product. Every day. It’s crazy but it’s so true. Yeah and people people really tend to forget that. And I mean so people put tons and tons of time into selling us into what they are and put up sell which products we use that is without a doubt the easiest thing is to sell them something that is literally almost the exact same as what they just bought. So if you did lay a course on like a dating thing like how to pick up one in the first up so it could be something like Volume 2 of it or an expanded edition of it was videos and audios and more stuff. So I mean really it’s selling them exactly what you just saw. It’s almost like the McDonald’s Supersize Me kind of idea. Right. Which is they are selling you more of what you want. Now when it comes to the pricing of things them a Garci upselling. What have you found in terms of I know you tests. You’re a good person to speak with when it comes to these things in terms of like you know how much when Uppsala isn’t a big jump in prices and so forth. Yeah. So we’ve seen between stuff I worked on in-between stuff I’ve consulted with other people and I think most people tend to probably price their selves too low. You can really jump pretty high. I mean I’ve seen a lot of free shipping offers where you’re giving away some for free and then you can easily solved something thats over $100 on the first upswell. Right. Get 15 to 20 percent of the people to take it. And so I mean and one other thing kind of pricing is a lot of people make this mistake is that they’ll kind of look at just the conversion rate on the up cells and I mean really what you want is what’s up so actually as the most Munnings your average order value. So if something is priced at I don’t know a hundred bucks and 10 percent are taken then you’ve got some price that 20 bucks and 25 percent are taking it right. So you want to do the higher priced line because it’s adding more value. But I mean a lot of people even smart people will get this wrong and just use the one that’s given the hives take rate. So I mean pricing. I would always kind of push the boundaries a little on pricing and probably you don’t want to be a higher price than what you first offered them whatever the original product was doubling higher price than that. So yeah I would say Put you can push the boundaries more than than you really think. That’s good that’s good advice. It’s interesting I always find that I think you’re right. I think some people trying to sell it some time. I have seen people waste time trying to stairstep like these small increments can make bigger jumps and I know some other marketers are testing some interesting things in that regard. But when it comes to you know for you own sort of the goal the entire funnel sequence that you guys had going. You know you had that up so what sort of unended you cross sell people on stuff as well. How did it work. Yes. Oh we mainly focused on to ourselves. And then we did a lot of thank you paid offers as well. I’ve consulted with a couple clients and helped them on the page. This is kind of we’ll take a page Alvar’s it was like hidden areas breaking you could find some really good money. So you can add five one time offers on the Thank-You page and you’ll be amazed at how many people will add stuff to their cart on the thank you page. Even if you’ve already offered it up so. Right. So it’s like a redundant offering offer almost. But don’t take it on the thank you page whereas before they did. I mean you can do that with like a one click up cell type thing. And if you want to do this super lazy man edition promote put a couple of banners down the bottom of your thinking page for affiliate offers. I mean that kind of stuff you’d be shocked at how much money I can add especially if you’re bringing a lot of customers. That’s that’s great advice good advice. I know we had Terry Dean on the show awhile ago and he talked a lot about the thank you page offering something right after people opted in. Even our e-mail lists for just you know custom no info collection. So for copywriters out there now when you were a freelance copywriter did you endeavor to ever get into selling your own copywriting products writing books about coffee or taking any of those things or you just got caught up in your own business. Yeah. No I never got into any of that. I was mostly writing my own copy. I did a little bit of consulting but it was pretty much all focused on getting clients writing copy for clients. Oh great. Now for people who are endeavoring to learn more about you know the stuff that they don’t know if you’re going to advise me or whoever it is that’s out there that maybe doesn’t know all the different aspects. You know what sort of resources would you recommend for people looking to learn more about this peripheral stuff which is actually more important in many cases than the copy. I’ve actually had a lot of people reach out to me and ask this. I keep trying to figure out like where a source would be from. I haven’t come up with one specifically to write but I would say a studying actual funnels of offers that are working. So go into a health match going the financial match those type offers are all over you’ll find them all over like Boola little ads that are at the bottom of a lot of like news websites. Right. Those type of things you’ll find those products. And the simplest way to figure it out is spend 39 bucks by the supplement and go through the whole funnel and write everything down that they’re doing just process wise. But like one of the copies of a video or a long form sales page are they how are they pitching up so all that kind of stuff that I mean that’s your best education. If you really want to do that go find five products and do that strike spend to our bikes find buy products and figure out exactly what they’re doing on their absolves you know you’ll see a bunch of similarities. Is there anything that’s a similarity means it’s working for all of them. So right. You’ll probably see a few differences but there will be a lot of stuff that’s similar. One course that really kind of helped me with a lot of this was Dan Kennedy as is really I think it’s pretty old. It’s called the back and J.B. course write the one with Jeff. Yeah I think Jeff was back right. Just a really really good in depth I mean is it a high level advance advance direct marketing type stuff. But I mean everything he just kind of talks about in there with back and and up sells just throws that idea after idea for I don’t know nine CDs or right. But if you’re really kind of want to get an idea as to how back and then everything after the initial sales made how it works it’s a great course for. Well I think you’ve given us a lot to think about. You certainly an interesting to hear your story in sort of the different things you’ve gone through in your in your career so far it looks like you’re headed in a new direction. So not really sure what’s next. I’m going to take a couple of weeks. I’m forcing myself to go for it. Going to do some wakeboarding or something I’m sure. Yeah. I was the entrepreneur our personality were like three days without working. I was like itching just or doing something right like putting restraints on myself and not doing anything for at least two or three weeks. That’s probably good it sounds like you’re in need of a vacation. You know we’ll sell it last. So people want to get in get in touch with you Justin. What’s the best way to do it right now would be just Facebook Facebook dot com slash Justin Goff get a price start post a lot more business copywriting stuff there. So yeah you want one all day. Check it out. Awesome. I really want to thank you for coming on the show. I know. Your life has been acting I’m sure with this business and everything and I’m happy you made time for our audience because I think you get a lot of great ideas here today. Awesome. Thank you for having it. Yeah great. And for everybody else listening you have gotten do it just in sense because those were some of the best ideas we’ve divulged on this. Yes. So go take action. Obviously listening is good but actually better. So we’ll be back again with another edition of the pod cast next week and hopefully they’ll be as half as entertaining and insightful as Justin The post Episode #158 – Justin Goff On What The Best Copywriting Clients Want. Lessons From A Former Freelancer Turned 20 Million Dollar Business Owner. appeared first on Drop Dead Copy.

Ryan Stewman, AKA. the “Hardcore Closer” was one of the first guests on my (David Allan’s) Takeover Tuesday Podcast. He’s had a sordid career path full of obstacles (a lot self-inflicted) that he managed to overcome. He’s turned his passion and skills into a multi-million dollar empire of businesses. What’s funny is that he recently hired my former co-hos and recent guest of this podcast. Carlos Redlich. So what you’ll get a bird’s eye view of is the way one entrepreneur found and hired himself a copywriter. As a bonus, Ryan talks a little about success and making sure you don’t start to blow-up or implode on your way to getting what you want. Both angles are very important lessons and an insider’s view on how everything works in the real world. For those paying real close attention… Ryan demonstrates and embodies what it takes to find “your people”. Which is another bonus only the crafty will take away. Buckle that seatbelt, this one is a helluva ride. In this episode, you’ll discover: Why 99% of all copywriters miss the boat when they approach new clients. (Ryan lays bare the reason this didn’t work with him at all!) How Ryan thrives with the odds stacked against him while others wallow in misery. The exact reasons Ryan noticed the copywriters he’s hired and how they lured him into their web. How one copywriter approached Ryan early in his career… and didn’t land him as a client – Ryan’s shocking confession! The hip-hop “remix” method of securing copy clients that could have snared Ryan. Mentioned: HardcoreCloser.com Elevator To The Top Book Ryan Stewman On Takeover Tuesday David Allan’s Make Words Pay Intro and outro backing music: Forever More by CREO David Allan: Hey, everybody, I’m David Allan We’re back with another edition of the podcast and today I have a very special guest someone I’ve had on my previous podcast Takeover Tuesday. He’s one of my favorite entrepreneurs and he’s the “Hardcore Closer”, Ryan Stewman How are you? Ryan Stewman: I am awesome. I am. I’m glad to be back. I didn’t realize that this was a different podcast than the one that we were on together before – YouTube deal though right. Like it was maybe on YouTube you’re promoting it. David Allan: That’s right. That’s right. So previously it was myself and Carlos Redlich who were doing it and we had you on…. Ryan Stewman: I’m sorry to interrupt. No it’s really crazy. I did not realize that that was where I met Carlos. I actually just hired Carlos a couple of weeks ago. So that’s that’s hilarious. I had no idea that this was where he came from. I remember that obviously because we spoke like he I guess he didn’t really talk that much. Well that’s, Carlos – listen get to workspn, so I can get my copy. David Allan: Now you’ve been busy in a year that’s intervened. You continue to build your empire. You have a new book out. I have not read this latest book. It’s called “Fuck Your Excuses”. And I just wanted to touch on I was reading sort of a couple of the reviews. Since I haven’t read the actual book and this review sort of jumped out at me and it said…” this book reminds me of a quote that kept me going while I was pledging my frat an undergrad. Excuses are tools of incompetence used to build monuments of nothingness. And those who shall use them shall not amount to anything”… which is a great review for your book. Ryan Stewman: No great. I had better be as and let me see just the difference between the difference between a college education to me and I’m like fuck your excuses for thinking less energy. Like others it’s like straight out of the movies or something. David Allan: So we talk a bit about your latest I know you’re fresh off a GKIC event that you just told me off the air and you have this new book that just came out last month. Maybe talk about what that’s about. Ryan Stewman: Yeah well so the book it’s I haven’t even promoted it that hard yet that’s how busy I’ve been. That said I had like more stuff going out than I can keep up with sometimes. And that’s a good thing because I finished things a lot of entrepreneurs I think they don’t finish things they get three quarters of the way through and they get like a 100 things going and they can never really launch one of them and I’m kind of the opposite. You don’t get 100 things and then I’ve got to figure out where the hell I’m going to launch all of that again. So I like the book and one of them that just kind of can honestly and I did a it all started the the way the book came about was I did a program two years ago and it was it was called the killer mentality right. It was just this whole mindset training and you know just how to make it through the bullshit doesn’t have anything to do with sales which is usually my forte it really doesn’t have anything to do with business either has to do with relationships and and sometimes cutting ties and just the things that most people would give up on IN THE BOOKS. Pretty heavy shit managed to be the longest book that I’ve ever written and in the course it was. I mean if there was hundreds of people that took the course that the book is based on and those people still in most of them had bought multiple programs for me they still swear it’s the best course I’ve ever done. But we don’t even sell it to the public it was like a one time I wanted to record this stuff and not turn it into a book type of thing. It was kind of let them listen in as we basically wrote the book you know what I mean. Yeah. And and so anyway it’s it’s something different. So like if you think you’re going through a bad life right now and you know your audience being copywriter shell might read this book and go holy Trashmen this guy needs serious help but hey dude it’s just it’s like the pope from the heart you know. And the thing is that you know I’ve gone through a lot of experiences a lot of downsides in my life a lot of rough times. And I have every really every use of the book about why I should fold over just right now in the last 24 hours. I’m you know I found that I’ve been audited by the Texas Workforce Commission which is just part of doing business right. Right. Got a little I got tax in the city to where I got a record a few extra things on a on a permit that I got a lot of my flip houses. I got some legal issues that I’m trying to take care of with the with some stuff and it’s like one thing after another that’s going on you know what if I hadn’t gone through all the stuff that up gone through in the past the things that I’m facing today would cause me to fold. And so that book is like you know basically like it says Fuck your excuses have pretty much overcome anything and especially upper limits because you know those of us that come from the bottom. Every time we get to the top it’s uncomfortable for us and we really feel like we belong at the bottom. This is way too late. First through that stay up there. That’s a great point. I think you know this is often brought up in these kind of situations certainly to be smaller more money more problems kind of thing. And is that one of the things you’ve seen from working with other entrepreneurs it holds them back. They start to fold under the pressure of the success of their. Yeah it’s like I say like I’m from the south maybe got rednecks down here right. We’re going to get a hold of the 64 Camaro. He’ll put a Harley carbonyl put some Crigger wheels on it. So exhausted put a 454 drop an aftermarket transition transmission a hearse shifter a different steering wheel in there air switch out the A C for like and just do all these things put race in seats and everything else. Gets to a point where they’ve tinkered with this car so much that it’s so fast that when they step on the gas it twists the back of the chassis off the damn car is useless anyway and a bunch of. They tend to do that with their business instead of getting it to a point where it’s fast as hell it’s sort of an 11 second quarter miles that’s all you ever need and just let it keep your staying. They keep thinking well how can we get it to do eight. Well if you you know what I mean is that person to that that next level. But they pushed to a point they tinker with it to where it breaks it. And then what happens is that’s oftentimes when entrepreneurs get excited because they’re like oh I’ve got something to start messing with again. You know what I mean in the next scene of the rednecks out there with the damned flame thrower and a blow torch trying to weld the chassis back on a car at 3:00 in the morning all of his buddies looking at the back of the garage kind of talk about who’s going to look out for the cops the next hour. What the whole damn biker gangs taking over your neighborhood you got from NASCAR in your front yard. She put it up to this early guys. So you’re advocating once you get to a certain level what seems to be what you do looking on from afar is that you seem to drive up a certain income stream up to a certain level kind of put it on autopilot and you great another one. Yes. Well what I damn sure don’t do is is what I do is I’d double down on what we already have going once I get something up and going instead of tweaking it I’ll just scale it. All right. So like hey if we know we’re going to convert it to 70 percent instead of me tweaking it and being like what if we get 9 percent and then the damn thing break in. I can’t even get back to 7 percent. That’s where we’re at. No we just put more ad money and we double down on the business and so you know last year I thought well you know this year the raise taxes were four times the amount of income that I earned from the previous year. Why is 400 percent increase. And so because of that I’ve been able to double down in my business I’ve been able to scale it without breaking it. You know we’ve had to make. We’ve had to make some moves we had to break some of it in November because we were on a single product deals like we write a product we launch it. We sell the product. We make money from it. The next month we’ve got Sarno and so now we’re we’re focused more on the residual side of things because we create so much content it just makes more sense for everybody anyway. So we had to we had to switch over but now we’re to a point where we got a few hundred people on our membership site at you know 300 bucks a month which is which is nice and then we’ve got a good size of personal coaching thing and then now we’re slowly bringing back one off products. But just like basically lead magnets like or lead magnets versus income streams right. Yeah I remember reading your first book when we did the last interview the I don’t know if the second book was even out yet the first one that I read was kick ass take names e-mails and phone numbers and I believe you give that book away now free on your on your Web site. But that book I tell you for people listening this is should go get a book immediately and opt in for science because that book alone is actually is extremely powerful because it sort of lays out exactly how you started just talking other people you know on social media. Yeah. You know it was actually my very first vote me and kick ass. We still sell a bunch of liver it with a name like that how can you resist. Exactly. Got that. That’s a copywriter That’s probably my favorite just because it’s got that panache name to it. Now for people out here who I mean we primarily have for you know business owners and a bunch of freelance copywriters. And one of the things a consummate counter of course are closing deals with people. And of course that has a lot of mind set angles to it as well as what we’re talking about right now. So maybe talk a bit about that. But when it comes to closing deals because sales is like your forte the sort of way we get it we get in our own way when we’re trying to close these deals. Well you know I was just if the day can be copywriting or super conference which is full of a bunch copywriters and I think one of the things that you know. Well let me ask you this first. What are you saying that more pertaining to copywriting as selling the product or copywriting as selling your services as a company selling your services as a copywriter was what I was referring to. Got it. Well so you know one of the things that I’ll tell you how I came about hiring Carlos I mean that would make sense right. Yeah. That whole process. One of the main things that this saw that he did the the some of the copy for Chris record when he did the tech Dimmick stuff and I know that that went off really well and Chris is obviously a more likable character than I am. So a lot friendlier and everything else so that that plays into it. But I noticed that he did that and I would read his Facebook posts on a regular is I can tell that when he would when he would pitches product I could tell that he had some sort of a seamless of a writing skill behind him. And the thing that that over the years I’ve hired a lot of copywriters and from guys like Ben Central has written a letter for me and then now Carlos which I haven’t seen his wife yet. So we’re we’ve been going over last couple of weeks a few things but I’ve hired some real big guys to do copywriting. And it’s always been based on their actual the way that they post on Facebook or I’ve been settles case the way that he sent me e-mails. That was the reason why I hired them because they practice what they preach. You know there’s when you can get your haircut you ever go get your hair cut. The person that cuts your hair their hair looks like shit and it’s kind of uncomfortable right. But if you especially like the ladies like when they see another chick and her hair is like really good and her hair looks exactly like how they would want their hair they’re like hey you know what. That’s who I’m going to hit up to be my hairdresser. And I think as a copywriter oftentimes you’re that person with shitty hair that’s cutting hair and even though you might be the best hair color in the world you’re not really cutting your own hair. Just kind of let it be all dirty and everything else and so people just assume that’s what’s your work’s going to be like too. Well that’s not true. And you know I think that you know copywriters really do need to have their their email auto responder set up like their Facebook post you know things that they can do that not necessarily like a sales pace but so that we can see their style and everything because that plays a big role in it too. I believe it’s like Jurf is Carlos. That’s it is you going to be able to match my voice. But I mean like some of these people they write copy they there’s no way they can match my voice. They just don’t talk like me or they’re not Alfas so it takes different voices. And so that’s important is when people see the things that you’re writing and not just your portfolio sales pages but your posts and your emails and everything else because usually that’s what comes along with it. Right you write a sales page and a few emails and some other snaps usually like a package deal. Like I said also my best my best thing would be like hey demonstrate the results of events showing people how bad ass you are just it right. Period. Right. So that’s good. And now I know and personally because I’m friends with Carlos that is one of his strategies and he’s actually today this morning. His episode of this email marketing podcast meant live. So if people are listening to this which will be several weeks ago when this goes live they go back to Carlos’s episode where he talks about exactly what Ryan sort of fell into which reading is reading his posts. Ain’t that some shit. That’s hilarious. Mansi and like we haven’t discussed this I mean Carlos and I are obviously we get along we’re friends and stuff but we haven’t discussed any of that. So I had nucleus on here and I had no clue that if he was doing that intentionally but it worked. There you have it ladies. Yeah. So we go back and was not episode and steal some secrets now when it comes to the face to face to face discussion I go through this a lot. And I’m a bit of a I sort of went to the john Carlton school a little bit when it comes to negotiation. I guess I’m a little bit of a big guy. I just kind of I know what I want. I know what I’m worth I sort of just go for it. I know you’re like that too Ryan from reading your books and talking here. So maybe the people out there who aren’t as confident because they’re new you know they there are many great ad copy about they’re just not good at selling themselves to people either face to face over Skype or wherever it ends up being. What are some of the ways that people should be you know looking to close deals like when if they had never sold face to face you know which I would highly recommend someone being a copywriter of course. But you know what are some of the skills and tactics perhaps I people love those for how they get these deals closed. Well the key we have now and maybe a preacher or your mother or your sister or some money that’s been a mentor in your life. Totally got two ears and one mouth and a and they might ask to talk less. But if you’re going to talk less than a silly word that means you have to get somebody else to talk fill of that dead air because we hate that air it makes us uncomfortable. It’s like blank spaces on a page it makes you know a writer and culture. And so the key is to ask questions and so you know one of the most powerful questions is what made you decide to reach out. And most copywriters are like hey what’s your budget and everything else. Like we can get to that later. First we’ve got to extract what they want from this copy. Are they using it to attract customers to convert leads. Are they using it to make sales or are they using it to build bonding and trust are they going to put it attached to it. SL What is the. Who is the person they’re going to do it for. Like we have to answer all the ask all these questions so that when the time comes right in the copywriter asked for the business the person is like hey you know what. They understand this. And you know what. I agree that they’re charging the right amount of money because this person actually gets it even if it’s more than usual. You know I’ve been subtle rushed rewriter cheaper than that guy out there. And the fact was he understood exactly what was coming from was able to capture my voice and asked me despite my patience a million questions. When I first saw to him so and I think that’s key and you know I’ve got a friend Dexter Abrahams is his name on Facebook. And you know same thing with him. We’ve gone through copyright stuff. His whole thing it’s like it’s four hours of interview that you have to go through with somebody that’s very important because I can attest this is like a mountain of questions I like to ask people to. Because you really got to get into the heart of why people would want whatever it is you’re selling. And perhaps for people with established businesses of a very important thing is like who’s already who are already your customers. Who are these people. I know you have you have big leagues membership sites and so forth and you have a ton of products now that you’ve developed over the years. When you first got into doing the products did you do your own copywriting or did you go out and find somebody who’d been the only person that I’ve hired for a sales letter ever until Carlos now. Right. I got on the same product. By the way it just needed to be a little little updated because it was a few years ago I don’t think you can hire pinned any. I don’t think you can hire me when I hire them. I just did an event with them or something I think right. Yeah I did. I had to do that and exchange that was part of it. But so I have hired a few guys over the years to write e-mail follow ups sequences and stuff but for the most part all this time I’ve written it myself and all the content you see all the blog posts everything else that’s all. You know it’s races came up that’s all me. But recently as I’ve learned but I’ve always been a control freak and I felt like I wanted to master the ship before I passed it on. And and so now fill in my and I don’t mean mastery is like I’m a master copywriter but I like I get it. Done well with it. I’ve made millions of dollars with this. I could pass on a on without my ego getting in the way. I hope. Now I think I think I think I heard Dan Kennedy say this one time that actually his best customers for his copywriting services were Pete were copywriters were people who were capable of writing it but just either you know chose to delegate for the reasons you’re outlining here or because they thought Dan could do it maybe even just a little bit better but faster perhaps. You know for reasons he’s trusted not to reach like hey this guy can write as good as I can he’s hired you know. That’s right. So that’s a that’s a very important thing to sort of have in the front of mind. Now when you see people selling cars and just in general not necessarily cop when you face to face selling I know you were in the mortgage industry previously and so forth and people you run a massive Facebook group of sales professionals. What are some things you see with people making mistakes just what their sales approach. You know there’s a couple of things there’s the people that you know there’s always like the buy my shit guy. And by that I mean there’s always like that one dude like send you a link or is like since you’re an example I remember that there was a dude that forever would come in hit me up and he would be like hey I was on your sales page and you know I know that if you did this you probably increase your conversions like do like my ego’s in the way that shit like you went to my sales over here telling me my shit ain’t right man that’s unacceptable right there could have been totally I think a lot of copywriters do that and this dude could have been way better than me. But there’s a way about approaching it. You know because a lot of especially us were content creators whether you’re a copywriter or someone like me that’s really more of a blogger than anything else in a video person man that’s like shit that’s our art. That’s like telling Jay-Z that his song sucks. You know what it means to you when I say hey dude if we can did a remix this song would be live like that would be a better way of positioning that. You know what I mean. And so a lot of copywriters let that get in the way. The other thing is giving too much. Now I can’t remember the fellow’s name Lawton Chiles Right right. And in the copyright business writ stream the nice guy. And when I first got in this business line offered to help me do a lot of the Hey man I really like your stuff. And I wasn’t used to that yet so I blew him off because he was offered way too much free stuff and like this guy’s going to want my first born kid boy. And I ended up and I still don’t know the guy that well but I end up like you know like disconnected from on Facebook and stuff at the time. This was years ago but I’d still remember this because I thought man this dude cutes rewrite my pages and given that to me I can’t use them because he’s going to want something he’s going to hit me like that’s 10 percent of your gross for the commercial. I did not realize he was you know now that I think about he’s probably just a really nice guy but at the time he was overly nice. He’s like do this is to sick people don’t do this shit kind of shit. You know what I mean. So the kind of walk that fine line it that’s why I think that the Mets and I was talking about you say Carlos does is really good because you’re just demonstrating in front of everybody you’re not giving away your copy you’re not rewriting people’s stuff. You’re not judging their stuff. You’re just proving that you’re on your game about your own business. Yeah I think that’s one of the most powerful ways because then also and you’re good at this as well because of your content. You do the same thing your content goes out you have a podcast you blog constantly You’ve got Facebook posts and so forth and that draws people to you. They know just what like what happened with you and Carlos. You read his posts essays on his game and then you contact them instead of having to go out and prospect and or you know lots of people are so afraid of having to go out and they’re afraid of the positioning angles. That puts him in for having to knock on doors or you know virtual doors even. And so just creating that content and to demonstrate it is such a powerful thing because it’s just people towards you. You write in my business somebody can read a blog post and they can make a decision like hey man this guy knows the stuff I want to see what else he’s up to or you know whatever. It’s all right. I already knew this right. That’s like the decision that they’re going to make and I’m demonstrating what I’m talking about upfront. It’s not like they show up and I’m like I think this dude might be able to help me make funnels and sales and stuff like that but I’m not sure they know that when they show up in my stuff up front they know I got skills. Now when you first started you created your first product whatever that was I’m sure you told me in a second but it’s this is another thing that Carlos when he you know his episode he talks about this how he’s built a GQ no business model Facebook group you know by working in that business that has helped him with his clients to for the copywriting because people see him demonstrating because he’s running his own business. That’s another powerful way to go about it. Now for you when you first you know were to get a transition from actually doing sales to the online world product creator and so forth what was that like. Well you know like most Internet marketers to go on that journey and figure out what the hell I wanted to do and I didn’t have a lot of money so it’s easier for me to buy a digital program or a book and read it and do the stuff myself than it was to you know hire somebody else. I didn’t have that money when I got started. Right the excess money to hire somebody like Carlos or Ben so that that came up later on down the road for me. So you know but I do believe that you know practicing the stuff in your own business is huge. Like he said he has a side business you can that he needs built up and you know in my business I have side business. I have an alarm business. And I have several other businesses on side as well that I operate like hopefully being in real estate business and stuff like that that people can see that I get to flex my skills skills and every day so that you know again there’s they see that we run the same thing across our sales training programs as we do our loan program and everything else real estate at all. It all works concurrently. I think that makes things Schroen too because there’s a lot of people out there that just say that if your mindset coach or personal development coach this I’m not about to talk to you or there’s like a lot of good money coaches out there you know like you know so many like business consultants marketing consultants that they take they have no credentials and they just like they’re out there telling people to do all this and haven’t done it themselves and I think that the people that stand out the most are the people that do things and that’s why I have five books and eight hundred blog posts and all this other stuff is free even if I had never done nothing in my entire life at this point with five books and eight hundred blog posts I’ve done something I completed a bunch of stuff right. Well right. You know you’ve given you’ve given a lot of content just on his very short podcast you’re awesome as usually are funny and very informative and very inspiring. There are a lot of people I know that inspire if people want to connect with you and avail themselves of your books and your courses and so forth. What’s the best way that people can connect to things sign up at hardcore Kloser dot com. That’s my blog man. I blog three to five times a week on there we put our podcast we put out notes like everything on that list. That’s the place to go and like you said you get a copy of kick ass take names and email address and phone number you get that book in in PTF form. If but just for signing up there on the blog if you if you’re into reading right if you look at books you want to read about sales you can go to elevator to the top dot com and you can get my my book that’s a free shipping offer it’s a seven if I have to buy the book mail it send it out the little gift in a package you can just sign up their elevator to the top dot com will actually send you out a paperback copy of my book on sales. When I talked about where I arranged all the blog posts and everything else. But definitely not looking for sales book definitely get signed up in hardcore Kloser dot com because that’s my main list. That’s where I send all the emails out all the latest stuff. And we did a lot of cool stuff and giveaways like that so people love it. So he called me critique and shit damn a good speech writer. That’s great. That’s great. I want to really thank you for coming on and making time for our audience. Ryan you always deliver. Yeah I’m I’m glad to be back. So I appreciate that you know there’s only a few podcasts that are host or whatever and it’s a different format but there’s only a few that I’ve done the second time I really enjoyed the last I’m so glad this worked out again. Awesome brother you take care. And for everybody listening of course we’ll be back with another episode of the pod cast next week with somebody hopefully half as hilarious. And for most of us Ryan The post Episode #157 – Ryan Stewman On No More Excuses! Take An Elevator To The Penthouse By Demonstrating Your Skills appeared first on Drop Dead Copy.

He’s the mentor to some of the most prolific and celebrated copywriters alive. Devouring every book… Attending every seminar he could find… And testing everything he was learning… Gave him the knowledge and skill he would try to pass on later as a coach. From humble Halbert beginnings to writing a letter which pulled in $40 million for a client, he wanted it more than anything else he had ever tried in his life. So he created simple systems he could use to focus…and gave creativity and big ideas the space to breed. Now he’s passing along a small chunk of his wisdom. What he shares here will make you a better copywriter almost overnight. In this episode, you’ll discover: The letter and FREE seminar that completely changed his life. Why he’d flush 90% of his masters in education down the drain except for these two radical insights. The “Dilbert” way of getting into the flow state. (Forget goal-setting for now and focus on this simple idea). Poor copywriters usually screw THIS up – How world-class writers use it to create millions. Have you ever wondered what a world-class copy coach sings like? Your wait is over! Mentioned: David’s Copy Mentoring Scott Adams’ “How To Fail At Almost Everything And Still Win Big: Kind Of The Story Of My Life Chris Voss’ Never Split The Difference: Negotiating As If Your Life Depended On It David’s “Copywriters Podcast” David Allan’s Make Words Pay Intro and outro backing music: Forever More by CREO David Allan: Hey, everybody it’s David Allan. I’m back with another edition of the podcast. We have a very special guest on with us today. He’s a copywriter. He’s a mentor. He’s an author. He’s many things but he is someone who’s going to immediately help you fix your copy make it better and make the money and or the conversions just roll right in now. David Garfinkel you are a mentor to a bunch of superstar copywriters. Talk a little bit about how you got into being a mentor. David Garfinkel: Sure. Well I was originally a hotshot journalist who hated the Hot Shot part. It just wasn’t fun. I kept doing better and better I was San Francisco bureau chief for McGraw-Hill World News. Now that might mean nothing to most people as it should. But inside McGraw-Hill that was like – that was like the brass ring in the corporate world where I really didn’t belong but somehow found my way in there I got this job that someone else had fought off all comers to for 40 years she held this job woman. Wow. Which is a big deal at the time because this was 1984. So she’d been there since 1944 or whatever. And she was good but bursitis and Silicon Valley conspired to make it no longer a viable proposition. She couldn’t understand computers. And I did. I got it. It was lucky. I’m I’m not a coder I’m not a nerd but I’ve always liked new better ways to do things and so computers came out in 1981. I mean I I rushed up to this place in the north end of Chicago where I lived and bought a Kaypro too. I don’t know anyone on this. If I’d had any idea what that is. I definitely did not get a sewing machine right. I mean I love the fact that you didn’t have to retype something every time you wrote and you could use a modem and you didn’t have to use Western Union or telex any anywhere. Anyway I was able to write about these things. I was excited about them. I came out here. Long story short I laughed a friggin hated it. When I come to San Francisco than working for this old gray Fortune 500 corporation basically run by old school engineers. Everything’s going to change magically And you know what it didn’t. I mean Jane digs up out the picture in the window out there. I laughed and it was really hard to make a living as a freelance. X San Francisco bureau chief. Anyway fast forward about. I left in 85 in about six or eight years. I ran into the Gary Halbert newsletter. You know Gary had the newsletter and someone sent my business partner a gift subscription and the first time I looked at it I see I didn’t know what kind of copy that’s so commonplace today it wasn’t. And it was really oh. First of all we still are the black sheep of the advertising world right on Madison Avenue or wherever the Big 8 is are located now. You know they actually have coupons and ask people to order out Koepp gauche now. How did they do anything about a guy’s style is standing right next to him while he’s buying marshmallows. So I wasn’t concerned about cool I was more concerned about paying Duret you know. And I read this Gary Holbert newsletter and you know as a writer. Writers like to read and they like to read good stuff and when they read something that’s good and they don’t know what the hell’s going on. It really messes them up. Please me. I mean it might not be true for any other writer but I think it’s true for a lot of people when they first come across really compelling direct response copier and Gary wasn’t even selling anything except you know his that month’s version of Doom and kinda of himself. Yeah it’s scary. Anyway I started reading this. I read it 20 times I said I don’t know if this guy is doing that. This is interesting and Gary there was a kind side to Gary. Most people don’t realize a very very caring almost bond and Kevin are going to get mad when I say this where charitable side to him. And so there was a hurricane in Florida called Hurricane Andrew which wiped out thousands of people’s homes in Gary through a seminar with every superstar known in a direct response entrepreneurial copywriting world to attend except possibly to thank God he wasn’t there but just about everyone else was was free is free but you had to write a check at the end to the Red Cross based on the value of God so I said that sounds pretty good to me. I went there I met on Karlan who’s now a business partner a friend coconspirator a real thorn in my side every time I talked to him. I love the guy. I met David Deutsch chairman Carl Galati. I met Dan Kennedy I met Gary of course. I probably met on than Kevin but I think they were too young for any of us to remember it. NICHOLAS I just met lots and lots of people and from there I said OK I’m going to do this well I did it. I think within that same year I think within that same year I wrote a sales letter that ended up making 40 million dollars which by the way I know I’m good. Do that every day you know. But but it gave me an idea that there could be something different here. And you gave it every time I would talk to people. Not every time but a lot of times people would come up to me and said Would you teach this to me or I met you know that famous guerrilla marketing guy Jay Conrad Levinson and then about three minutes of meeting me he said would you like to write gorilla direct mail with me and this didn’t. This wasn’t isolated it’s happened over and over. And so I realized yeah not only can I do this but people are asking you to teach or asking me to coach and I had learned since I had left McGraw-Hill that I like to do that but I’ve never found a profitable way to do that where there would be any demand until until the late 90s. And so I started and you know how it goes when you start doing this. You’re like a dog searching through garbage. He can get in. Eventually the four star restaurants start inviting you in and serving you. I mean I got some really excellent clients. People like Chris Dodd Mike Morgan and rice in mind Telo and a bunch of people who are entrepreneurs that most most people assume is broadcast. Most people in the world have never heard of. People were just growing their businesses millions and I found I was uniquely able to teach it because I didn’t say give me 20 copies of the sales letter you know magnet. And when you’re done with the old you know I would customize the approach. And I got better at this over years. I actually went back to school. I don’t know. Ten nine eight years ago and got a master’s degree in education and took a deep level coaching course. 90 percent of that stuff I could I could figure out how to flush it down the toilet. I would but there was about 10 percent of it which is really valuable. So that was about about like how others learn and so forth. Well yeah it was about how an individual learning styles. It was about how people learn to develop skills as opposed to people amass knowledge and then become walking encyclopedias and annoy everyone in their presence but never really make a lot of money or get much done. It was a lot of things it was about communication and number of clients who taught at Gnosis I had to go through their courses. So I learned a lot about communicating with the unconscious mind both as a teacher and mentor and as a writer all kinds of you know the main thing was listening to people really under rate listening and listening. It is it’s a very active skill. It requires both being relaxed and being very focused and you know completely shuddering shutting off shuttering your mind shutting off all the noise and you know lots and lots of stuff like that I heard all kinds of psychology. You know there is one psychologist Carl Rogers. Now maybe I’ll remember this maybe I won’t there’s somebody I never oh yeah I know. I don’t know who who goes from the top former top FBI hostage negotiator Chris Voss wrote a wonderful book called Never split the difference and we’ve heard a lot of Carl Rogers in my coaching class and Carl Rogers has this concept called unconditional positive regard which means no matter what someone’s saying or doing you you look at it admiringly and without judgment. And you know that really you know you’re in Monterey. I’m in San Francisco that really does sound like something out of Elaan or some kind of northern California or WOO-HOO guy who got hostages held at gunpoint released right like successfully and talked and talked the ransom down from a million dollars to $5000. And he said this is a key part of it. And I was trained in that for a year and I do see how it works. It doesn’t mean never criticized. It means what someone says unless they’re really trying to be. And most people aren’t there. You who do you know there are some professional sociopaths and psychopaths they can reach all levels of our society but most people are telling you stuff that would sound bat shit crazy if you didn’t understand. That’s how they see it. They’re not lying to you they’re not trying to trick you. And once they feel understood and accepted that that’s when we can start to make progress. No I think that that’s a very good point. I mean countering something of that in my own personal life as we speak. So I definitely can relate to what you’re saying right there. It is important to see people’s viewpoints to be able to understand that that is their actual viewpoint not that there may be right or wrong but that that’s how they see the world and it’s very real to them. It’s funny you mentioned that your personal life and I want to get into yours or mine too much but when I was taking the coaching I was going through a very difficult family crisis. My mother had been a very very cerebral person sort of one of these early pioneers not quite like Maggie the woman I replaced. Or maybe just like Maggie when they said Sandra Hill. She she had some form of dementia. We don’t know if it is Alzheimer’s or or what it was. And so as you can imagine in a family where things work all the time. I didn’t grow up and leave it to Beaver family to begin with you know real happy charming family but we had good communication good relationships such as it was everything went to hell in a handbasket. And so with a second host I was learning in the coaching training and coaching program real handy with family because you know when someone’s dying and when someone is really proud of her mind starts to lose her memory and start repeating something five or six seconds. You really need to listen and not smirk. You know what you mean. I mean that’s great. No. So now let’s take a step back for a second. You know read the Gary Hulbert letter he became ensconced in the world of direct response to that when you endeavor to learn copywriting. What process did you use. Oh man that’s it. That’s a great question. I’m I’m of course the shoemaker’s children. I didn’t have I had one mentor but it was much later on it was sort of do it yourself. And you know keeps jumping from the fire into the frying pan. And I realize those are hot. I am I simply studied everything I could did everything I could and took every seminary could read everything I could and tried everything I worked with clients and over 100 industries. And you know after a while I started to see patterns. And then when people started and people asked me to teach and I started to teach and create products and started to coach. I had to systematize it so I wouldn’t say I’m self-taught. I’d say I have a lot of teachers but it was basically a lot of study. I think I worked harder at learning this both as a subject matter area and as a skill than anything else I’ve done in my life. I really wanted it and I needed it and I enjoyed it. You know I enjoyed the people I met really quirky interesting people quite McGraw-Hill is Southwest than copywriting would be NE’s. I mean is that a different and you can imagine. Yeah. I mean Gary was definitely my biggest influence. Bob bli I loved his stuff. Bob Serling I remember there was a breakthrough that Bob came up with. He probably doesn’t publish it anymore but it was 14 steps to write copy. And suddenly something clicked yesterday Ted. I certainly went back and read scientific advertising by Claude Hopkins over and over and over again. I think I read it 15 or 16 times you know and all of the classic looks like that. Gene Swartz’s breakthrough advertising and Rosler Reeves’s reality in advertising and many many other end Victor Schwab’s. And a good advertisement right a good advertisement. Fantastic book. You know so. Yeah I guess the short answer is anything and everything and sort of sort it out later. You know I think that’s that’s the way I learned. I mean I sort of got into it through Gary by learning that Jerry had sold me his words and told me something and then said he was this scary guy and that sort of led me down the rabbit hole. Now you’ve mentored a bunch of people who’ve gone on to become superstar copywriters people that are known of course like Chris adad had him on or on my take over Tuesday’s show a while ago and he said that you and your critiques your copy critiques and I’ll quote him here. He said they’re freaking gold by the way and he said he’s on the very short list of folks I look at my copy when I’m working on it and he always comes up with things I simply would have never thought of. Now when you’re developing sort of your ability you know your mentoring ability and ability to teaching sounds like you know all the courses you took and stuff are really elucidating as to how people go about them when you started you know noticing these patterns and copying stuff that you systematize how you approached critiquing people’s copy. Oh yeah I did. I tend to systematize everything. And on a really good day when the stars are aligned I actually follow my own system. Let’s get back on the rails a little bit and let’s go into this checklist one year because that’s one of the things you do now. The two things you do primarily are to mentor people and to critique. Yeah. And in the mentoring. You know that’s that’s a serious commitment to your long program. I only have a handful of clients at a time but the critiques I do all the time. Chris Dodd sent me something yesterday I’ll keep confidentiality. Want to say what it was but it was a VSL in my gosh you know he doesn’t need any help but he does we all do we all need it. I want to look at our stuff and I saw one opportunity to put one slide with three words in it and they were not I love you or go after yourself. They were very conversational words. And it blew his mind. And it’s because I could. It’s like a song I could feel the rhythm of this thing and it needed to be a bridge between this side and that side it would have dropped too much. You know so. So anyway at these things it depends. I could spend you know 90 percent of my time on one of these 11 points because like with Chris it it’s sort of fell into the first point and that totally changed the letter and you know very hard to find anything and resist anything anything. But anyway without further ado I have the first point is Gnab ability of your copy. That’s a word I think I made up as a hyphen between grab and ability but the definition of that is as your copy grab the readers or viewers the tension from the start. And that does it. Hold on tight to the close that’s so important if you don’t do that. You know everything else is you know academic trivial and non-important And you know it could be the headline with a dollar bill letter. OK. You know the famous Gary Howard dollar bill later I have a client who is a very very bright man and he’s a good marketer but he still learning copy. He wanted to save space so he put some stuff to the left of the dollar bill. That’s a bad idea. You want well you understand this as a magician as well as a copyright Do you want to have all the focus on that dollar bill until they get down to see their name on a line below the dollar bill. Simple thing because I’ve never seen anyone do it before I couldn’t point to a rule book. But you know I knew. I’m so I’m always looking for positive improvements and I’m always looking for where is this going to go wrong whereas Where is the reader going to fall off the page. Right. OK. The probability of your copy is number one. Number two is your claims claims or promises and you need to make one make a promise at the beginning. You may make other claims in the best of all possible worlds. The other claims will fit into the big claim and support it. Expand it deepen and make it more attractive more more sizzling more areas testable so that the first thing is just by themselves here Clamer claims. How unique and believable are your claims. Let’s say you were selling water and let’s say this water quenches your thirst. Well so does every other water. No. Flint Michigan water which might kill you but there’s any claim you don’t want to make. Exactly. But you know like OK so I got sold on this water filtration system that and that makes the water more alkaline. And so there are some claim that they made to me about the I don’t know alkaline water improves your immune system or gets you stoned legally or helps you live on a three minute mile. I don’t remember what they told me. I know that not only unique but believable so it probably would have to be more like immune system than you just don’t legally. But to your claims how you and believable believe your claim. Right under that is proof of claims. Number three how convincing is your proof. This is probably the area where most copywriters screw up in the area where the best copywriters are masterful because most people will look at proof as sort of a fill in the blank paint by numbers kind of exercise like well if I have you know for testimonials and I tell my origin story. Well. Maybe. I mean it all depends on how it flows in the reading how a reader will respond how organic it is how much it seems like a real conversation you know. And on Tuesday big Jason Henderson I don’t know if you’re familiar with Scott Haines or so he’s Jason’s doing a special project where he’s finding some of Scott’s multimillion dollar letters and he’s asking people like me and Carlton and David Deutsch and Mike Morgan others to to break the letters down for you know sort of a commemorative product that he’s doing. And I was looking at the letter Scott wrote in 2009. It was a letter for a solar powered generator which with which I had a sealed lead acid battery. So it would kind goddy days it work indoors after you’ve stored energy. And what he had done with proof was it was like you know it was like a short symphony. I mean it just took you through the motions and just to the point of a crescendo he says oh by the way yet remember here’s the product that takes care of all that protects you from all of these horrible things that I just told you about. Now I’m not saying all proof needs to be like that how you know everything’s unique but the proof that proof was totally convincing and I was only half of the proof. The other half with all of this detail about how many home Blender’s and TOSed stories you could around on this are how many computers you could run on this or you know I mean you know this long table and it would seem absolutely ridiculous to someone who is not part of the market or are interested in most of the letters sold millions. It was absolutely crucial proof information for the target prospect for the avatar you know. Absolutely. That’s great. So Nexxus testimonials which is sort of a subcategory of proof. And the question is how well can your target market relate to the people giving testimonials. A lot of marketers will go for the biggest names they can get the top celebrities and experts in their market. And that’s a good kind of testimonial. But if that’s all you got then what’s the reader’s going to conclude. Oh well since I’m not a top expert or authority or guru in the market I guess this really isn’t for me at all happens at an unconscious level and it will. All right. So you need to have people like your customer or maybe just a notch above your customer someone who used to be like your customer that solves the problem and is now in a place where your customer would like to be you know there. Again I don’t know how many parameters or systems you can have for figuring all these things out and I create systems like that. But you know at least I need to learn a general principle I mean one way a person can learn this for themselves is to you know take notes make a list of all these 11 points and then go look for examples and copy in and try to figure it out. But it’s much smarter to hire me. So next I’m glad you got that back that the next one is the directions. How well do you interest payments answer objections. This is this is a thing people take personally on. They have a product and a kit and imagine anyone would object to it because they’ve already done the work they’ve tested it. Oh yeah there are many ways to handle direction. It would take a whole call just to do that. I’d be glad to if you wanted to sometime but you know the shortest cut wide that can tell you now is through an FAA cue where you say you know here’s some questions actions and objections even an objection can be turned into question stead of what you know does cost too much. No. Why is the price so high. You know then to say well actually it’s not when you show them so you can you can list objections in F-8. Q That’s a good way to do it. Next next. Number six we talked about this a lot. Flo factor. Right. But rather than the copywriter in a state of flow flow factor here refers to how well do you develop and refreshed curiosity how effect your subheads to keep the reader engaged. How smooth Are your transitions. How well do you keep building anticipation right up to the close. And by the way when I’m doing critique I’m not sitting there with you know a checklist and a little meter. Now anticipation is risen to that there are people who do copy that way. You know God bless them but I’ve sort of got this this internal God thing. Oh yeah. This is this is awkward. You might. You might not lose them but you might confuse them or you might bring them back into their critical mind which you don’t want to do. You know that it has. As a magician as a performer as well as a copywriter right. So you know I need to smooth out there so yeah. But this does sort of reverse engineered from my more organic process I think. Number seven consistency are their logical and or emotional inconsistencies that need to be fixed. I mean this is a sort of sad when people do cut and paste stuff and the the person writing the letter is named George at the beginning and at the end. His name is. And he said to me Jane why did I you know. Oh no. So he named George at the end. There are. Oh wait he went to Sweden in the spirit of Kris Jenner now. OK. So number eight and this is what you were talking about and I am sure you have thought about it a lot and are very good. I know you’re very good at it. And that is rapport and empathy. And my gosh that that’s that’s a complex skill set and it’s developed developable anyone can learn it. And it may take some time and some work and some attempts that aren’t quite there yet. But the main question I’m looking for and the main question every person reviewing their own copy or someone else’s is to the writer how well do you make your prospect feel comfortable with the languaging and the tone of your message. Number nine stories how effective and intriguing are your stories. Everybody knows how to tell a story. Most people who tell fairly decent stories when they’re speaking in a little stilted and awkward when they try and write stories down so you need to edit the stories down to the nub they need to seem conversational. But Dave if you’ve ever listened to someone in Starbucks tell a story you’re going to repeat themselves a lot. You go off on tangents. Focus in on details that are totally boring and leave out details that would have made the story makes sense. So you don’t want to be conversational in that way you want it to be conversational language and logical flow and a very informal easy to read easy to understand way with a story. Number 10 is what you are talking about with the first copy you read from Gary Howard before you even knew it was Gary’s copy and that’s bullet points was the master of that. And and. And I think he’ll really appreciate the question I came up with because this is what made you buy it. The issue is how much sales power does each bullet point have. Right. That is a good bullet point will do exactly what you described your experience as which is sometimes you know once you’ve set the stage once you set the frame made the claim given them the big idea and made the big promise. One bullet point you can close a sale by itself. And so and you know some some great copywriters will rewrite their bullet points three or four times and spend half a day on one of them and it makes all the difference when you’re mailing to millions or you know running millions of clicks through Facebook or Google or some other online ad. And then finally your close how strong and appealing is your clothes. To paraphrase Zig Ziglar timid copywriters have skinny kids like a gorilla. So you know clothes with gusto and enthusiasm. You know a lot of people say well I don’t want to sell to the wrong person and I don’t either. I think you can make a lot more money always striving to discourage and dissuade the wrong person to buy. But by the same token you should give it everything you’ve got to the right person. You should give them every reason to buy. Especially if you have a guarantee and especially if you believe it’s a good product you’re a good service and that’s awesome. So yes for sure. I’ve heard people often talk about you know being almost phrasing it like it’s your duty if you have a product that will solve that problem. It’s your duty to try to get enough people in you. I think that’s true especially since a lot of products that are generally available are sort of bland as far as whether or not they can sell products. Some of the best products are are sold through direct marketing and there’s also some stuff that’s not so good but some of the best things available are sold through direct marketing. So you have to push a little harder maybe that may be your only shot to convince them. But yeah if you have to and it’s going to solve a problem for somebody they need to have solved. Should I do that. Absolutely. Absolutely. Absolutely. Well that is a comprehensive checklist. That’s great. I’ll be stealing that. Please do. That’s why I said it. Exactly. Now for people because you’ve given a lot of knowledge over this last hour it’s gone by like a flash. You know if people want to get a hold you want to drink the Kool-Aid on on their copy. And how do they go about finding out. OK that’s easy. It’s Garfinkle coaching dot.com G.A.R.. F I N K E L coaching dot com and I’m sure everyone will remember that except for the people who forget it. And the way they can. My knee is thankful that I’ve counted all redirector Garfinkle coaching. OK now you have your own podcast coming out as well. By the time this is released it should be live and where is where do we find that. That is a copy writer’s podcast. It’s just like it sounds S.O.P y w r i t r s d d c s t dot com. Excellent. Excellent. Well I really want to thank you for coming on the show Dave about this is this has been excellent and I was really looking forward to it. It really delivered. Thank you it was my pleasure. You are fun to talk to and that is a very high compliment coming from me and I’ll just leave it at that. Maybe you can figure out why. Well we will do it again soon because I think a lot of coverage covering the objections and stuff. I think that’s a good topic as well. And I think we have to meet somewhere between Salinas and San Jose Offi. Maybe we could find a better place. It was somewhere near Salinas let him have a cup of coffee. All right. I think you’re right. Everyone listen to this but guys of course. Be back with another only I can only hope they’re half as entertaining as David is on the next issue that The post Episode #156 – David Garfinkel On The 11-Step System Which Generates 40 Million Dollar Home Run Sales Copy appeared first on Drop Dead Copy.

Nick got his start in the design and usability world. Now he works with Ecommerce and software companies on their conversion. He delves into the real info you need to dig up so you can make informed decisions. The questions… The body language… The ever-present smile… He wants answers whether you can handle them or not. When you’re not testing there’s money left on the table. Nick helps people find that money. So watch as he gives real-world answers on how to dig out that money from every nook and cranny. Over 4x industry average. In this episode, you’ll discover: How to get real answer out of prospects and customers so you can mine real conversion gold. What big ecommerce retailers are failing at over and over. Learn this and double your bottom line or more. The one thing nobody online gets right the first time and the simple fix you can do today. Does your business serve the entire human race? Your answer may explain why your conversion sucks. Is your business “Tone Deaf”? How to “get real” today and find your people. Mentioned: Nick DiSabato’s Draft HotJar User Testing David Allan’s Make Words Pay Intro and outro backing music: Forever More by CREO David Allan: Hey, everybody We’re back with another edition of the podcast. I’m David Allan of course and we have an exciting guest on today. I will actually get his name right since I just asked him a few seconds ago how to pronounce it. And Nick DiSabato How are you? Nick: DiSabato: I’m doing great. And that was perfect. David Allan: I had practice for a second and a half so I’m good and good this time nice. Now Nick we’re going to start with like we do with most guests and sort of delving into your career trajectory or superhero origin story if you will on that journey from where you were. You know you had a regular job are you in school or whatever started and sort of take us up where you’re at now. You can it can be short it can be long and be whatever you want to divulge and surging up and some more of what you’re doing nowadays. Nick DiSabato: Sounds great. So I am an interaction designer by trade. I did computer interaction in graduate school and got out and became a frontline developer and that turned out to be a horrible idea. So I started doing more like usability and UXO type stuff of various agencies for five or six years and then I quit my job and started my own consultancy and started to treat it like it was an actual business. I hate to make more money than you spend. And then I saw I did a bunch of like random wireframe type projects and projects for a couple of years and decided to come up with a retainer for my my work and decided that AP testing wouldn’t make for a really good retainer because you’re still doing design here practicing at Asadi but you’re also measuring the economic impact of it and doing it in a way that solves a really big expensive problem for organizations of certain size and scale. So I did that about three and a half years ago and it blew up and did really well and I had to go in hard on that side of things since. Awesome awesome. It’s very interesting. Was there something about you know where it’s where you’re at now is sort of the A B testing in the research into that and how know construct the design that leads to more conversions or whatever. And the end result is was that something that you’d sort of always had in the back your mind that you were interested in where you interest in them you know like copyrighting and stuff like you know the natural sort of addition to that. Yeah it always identified as a writer in some capacity and figuring out good copy is you know a big factor of how a site can persuade and how can factor into the design. But I started out with more of like a usability background and put it together AB testing as an offering that was an extension of that. So the answer is kind of no. Like I said and it’s on point and I eventually learned. OK well there’s this whole practice around a call conversion rate optimization and a very large part of it is the copywriting So then there’s all these people doing the copywriting like Joana we can. And pop a lot of these other people that are much smarter than me. And so you know it was it felt like a new frontier and a lot of ways. And I still get to like work the back side of my brain and I think coming at it from that angle helps me converse with my clients and create something that works a little bit more better. That’s right. Well actually it works in a way that actually people want to be using. Right. I try to create technology that is not horrible and that’s a very broad statement. Right. But it’s it’s still it’s the core of the thing that I’m doing and copy factors into that. Right. It makes it clear more effective at communicating. Now of course I think we’ve all had that sort of common experience of trying to use something and not knowing where to go what what section you know because you’re looking for something in particular usually when you’re looking you know you go someplace the Internet and you’re going on the Web and we’ve all had that experience of trying to find exactly what path that thing we want to know how to go down. So that’s right up your alley. That’s what you’re looking for is to make it more clear and more usable so that it makes the process look a lot more direct not exactly right. So let me start talking about you know some of the basis for how you go about determining some of these things like some of the research like I’m being a copywriter myself. Course we take in all sorts of information up front from from people from the client. Usually if you’re freelancing or are from your own products or whatever your Hocker and you know it sort of evolves over time as you sort of assemble the different pieces almost. But what sort of stuff do you do when you’re sort of you know delving into trying to make this a more usable situation whether it’s a Web site or a product or an app or whatever. Yes I think a lot of it comes from having that design background actually and rendering out because one of the underpinnings of user experience design is talking to the customer and understanding the motivations. As far as the actual things I’m doing. Concerned there’s the obvious kind of quantitative ones like Google Analytics diving in there. I don’t like using Google Analytics. I don’t know anyone who does but there’s a lot of evil stuff in there. And understanding how people are converting at various rates so oh we find out that mobile is dismal. Well why is that. Or I find out that a specific browser specific platform or specific device is not working well or specific page is taking too long to load. So I’m doing those kinds of things. I’m doing heat maps scroll maps all those sorts of things. And those are things you can do for free or very cheap and none of them are qualitative parts of my research practice are actually recruiting people and getting them on the phone and trying to not ask them leading questions. Figuring out what their motivations are for purchasing this product what objections they had as they went through vetting competitors who they vetted as competitors what their background is and what their motivations are and how they hope to be using product. All of those things eventually affect the pitch which I’m going to be testing. And so have quite a bit of relevance to copywriting that you can do it in a little bit more passive of a way by surveying people but often you just get two words in a text box so I tend to use lots of data and like more like Net Promoter Score or ranking things on you know strong disagree to strongly agree or something like that. Those sorts of things tend to work a little bit better on the survey side of things. And then lastly the biggest UXO thing that ends up affecting the pitch often is usability testing. So I have people like user testing dotcom they’re a good resource for this. You basically have people complete a task on your site. Usually it’s like buy something with a credit card or something. Right. And vocalize your inner monologue as you are going through the process of doing that. And so you get a lot of insight into well this doesn’t work for me or this is working well for me. But you also get like I don’t understand what this is for or I don’t understand why they’re they had this headline here like what does this even mean. And then there’s questions if there’s questions about me and your definitions then you probably messed up your copyright and on the home page or somewhere further down the home page. Yeah. I mean I see that a lot and generally from my experience it’s just that people tend to who aren’t doing copies you know on a daily sort of thing is that they’re just so vague. You know it’s trying to it’s trying to be all encompassing and in many ways and yet it’s true. And you can see because you do it long enough you can sort of see what they’re trying to get at but it’s just so vague that it’s like what it does is often accompanied by jargon which just further complicates matters for your. So you’re using a lot of online tools to accomplish a lot of the stuff you mentioned. User testing but common software some other tools maybe could well be interested in sites Google Analytics Google Analytics Mixpanel is another one that if you know javascript and know how to fire events back to mix panel can be insanely powerful and understanding customer behavior especially around software products. I use jar. Oh T.J. are. And that one is for heat maps scrolled maps Hevia recordings that sort of stuff. He’s at Nio. And I oh for recruitment through usability testing and customer interviews especially so that basically at and exit intent and there are pop up or whatever and asks you a bunch of questions that are eventually meant to qualify you in or out as a lead in and then I follow up with link and hope that you schedule it and give you an Amazon gift card for your time or money. So I do that and other tools that I use Visual Web site optimizer for AB testing so I go to VW Vodacom for that. And then the usual suspects it’s like Skype FaceTime audio hijack microphone or other either any sort of questions you stumble across. You know when you’re conducting these surveys are these you know interrogations if you will I feel like I’m all ears and people when I’m trying to get to the real motivations because often I find as a copywriter when you’re talking to people as to why they’re interested in a product or or the client themselves or what they think about it or why they want to do certain things it’s often like a very surface level thing which is almost like they want to tell you what you want to hear or what they think they should be telling you. And then there’s like the real reason. Yeah yeah. So first went on just to head that off a bit when there is when it when there is definitely a temptation on the customer interviewee’s perspective to tell me what I want to hear. Right. But I’m not there to be told what I want to hear. And also as consultant I’m usually not there and I don’t have a whole lot of skin in the game right. I’m not there as part of the customer’s team or the client’s team or whatever happy that actually I set up some expectations and ground rules at the very beginning I’m like I have no idea what you’re going to say and I want the most like unvarnished and honest opinions. I’m not part of the client’s team at all and they’re not going to go blame you or criticize you or do anything there’s no ramifications for this. I’m deadly serious. I’ve got scars that I’m eating with people. I promise to anonymize all of this. And so then when I go to the client they get you know participant number one and they get very broad demographic and purveying like mid 30s who lives in Atlanta like OK great not helpful at all. But you want to make sure that you are also kind of flagging as somebody who’s relatable. So there’s a lot of body language that goes into it. I’m on video call I smile a lot. If I’m on an audio call I still try to do that so that I sound as stick and convivial because I don’t want to be. I’ve had a bad day. I need to act like I haven’t had a bad day and that I can go in and be relatable on that front. To answer your question about the actual questions that I’m asking a lot of it are like well tell me how you came upon this product. Who told you about it then. Ah OK. Well what were you thinking as you were kind of going through and evaluating it for years. Were there any objections that you had as you went into it. What was the last thing that held you back from purchasing this. That’s another big one. Okkar what other competitors did you consider before purchasing that. What did you like or dislike about those competitors. A lot of the is I mean that can fill 45 minutes of a 60 minute interview to be entirely honest because most of the time I’m sitting there I’m saying pausing really long so that you end up giving me more information and then doing the classic tell me more about that. Tell me more about this thing. Elaborate on. I’m doing as much as I can to actively listen reflect back to the participant and ask them more probing questions about these things. And I’m always through this is I’m thinking about the next question to be asking. So you asked me about specific questions and I’m kind of giving more of a process but I think that’s the way. It’s not the same kind of conversation that you usually have between two people. It’s not even the same kind of conversation that I have on a podcast with you know Brian you or anybody else. And it’s it’s a specific way you carry yourself and comport yourself and repair the next question to be asked takes a lot of you. I like the way you set it up in advance to try to assuage those fears I guess that people have to be brutally honest because those are really there. Yeah those are really the best conversations whether I’m talking to somebody on a podcast or talking to somebody about why they chose the product or why they want to know who they think they’re selling to or whatever. And it’s those conversations I really give you the meat. You know a book needs to get done so I find it interesting now. Have you found. Are you dealing personally mostly with online products digital products and stuff. Yeah so it’s kind of a 60:40 split between e-commerce retailers and software company and so a lot of it isn’t like Stass businesses like my first big client was dnt simple and they were like a DNS provider it’s wonky. I’ve done work for Keith Smart shop plus client don’t work for Bell Roy. They make wallet’s on work for a tech blog called The wire cutter back when they were independent. They got hired by The New York Times fairly recently. So yeah it really runs the gamut. It’s they each have their own sets of specific issues and I’ve kind of geek out on both of those and figured out how a testing strategy works and those are paying more and more towards e-commerce these days but that’s more just because the clients I’m happenings to get and there are problems in that space are a little bit more interesting to me right now. Now do you find when you conduct these surveys in these interviews of people that there are surprising things about the way people are looking for stuff nowadays like how the process that they’re going through you know where they try to search things out. I think that the process of vetting competitors has gotten a little bit stronger and people are a little bit more wary of converting. So the consequence for that if you’re writing a marketing page is due to more objection busting. Do a little bit more auditing about what the perspective objections are going to be and try and get ahead of those as firmly as you possibly can and you can do that at every step of the process. That also involves including things like social proof or customer reviews or product comparisons. The thing I’m seeing with e-commerce in particular there are a lot of Prada other a lot of businesses I’ve worked with that have like big accessory lines or they do a historically bad job of promoting what accessories are compatible with what products. So that’s one thing that I find not just on a copywriting standpoint but also on the usability standpoint if I can get ahead of that problem I ended up increasing average order value significantly. And that makes my clients happier and me happier. So is that just a matter of they’re not upselling people by trying to package these kits together or just think that they just don’t think about that kind of stuff. Yeah they’re not thinking about it are they. They use the like stock ways that their e-commerce software does. Right. So on Shopify there’s always like related products at the bottom but it’s like they find a random selection of related products and they don’t say for this model this this and this and they pick like the three top sellers because that is programmatically more difficult to pull off her hands. People think that they have a good enough solution around that from lay out behavior but also from copyright you can get to the person at the right time and do something that really meets their needs a little bit more effectively. Right. So when you’re doing a lot with e-commerce as of late for people out there and other people listen to a show that do have e-commerce stores we have you know a lot of printers. Listen to the show structure and so forth. One of the things you’re seeing which is sort of the most you know the top hit list of things that people are either forgetting doing wrong or leaving out you know sort of the big ones you see because for copywriting you know often when I look at people’s copy I see the same things over and over again same sort of problems. Sure. Probably much to year. Yeah yeah I feel that there’s definitely a I mean there’s the classic like features not benefits thing. There’s a lot of software companies and a lot of e-commerce they don’t pucca about the pain enough. They don’t talk about the problems we talk about the product. And my friend Amy Hoye has a article that she basically rewrote her whole marketing page for her home page and framed it such that it goes from pain to dream to fix. So you have this problem. If you have this. So that’s those are some pretty common strategies. Another one and this is another kind of half design half copies side of things but he gets a button text right. Can’t tell you how many creation forms or check out forms I’ve seen that are called submit. OK. Next step coaling to insert name of step here. You will do much better. I know it’s small and simple but that’s of very very important one setting our expectations around account creation and password law is super super helpful. Yeah. All of those are really really valuable. I have to say I’ve worked on people’s websites and so for their coffee in them and often like you’re saying it is or this you know and people I’m sure because people have told me this is that they’re just using what you know they saw somewhere else. You know it’s kind of like him of like matchy matchy and sort of thing. They’re almost resistant and I wonder if you encounter this more because you’re working with maybe more of the corporate side of things you encounter this almost like oh this is like maybe anti-septic professionalism or something where people are afraid to use or don’t want to infuse their own personality into some of these aspects. No. Yeah. My favorite Web sites have great button text and stuff that says there’s no congruity what I’m buying from the company and or the person. Yeah so there is I think that one of the biggest pitfalls that people have is to go to your point is that they don’t inject enough personality or character into their copy. And I tell them to do it and then they just write more words. It’s not what I mean or they may. Lately I’ve gotten a few situations where they’ve just ripped off the ones that flag as bad ass enough. Like I get a lot of dollar shave club people right now. It’s not it’s leg dollar shave club chic right. Like you like this a very cavalier kind of video weird absurdist things smart dude with the beard. OK. Or another one is against humanity chic. Right right. I don’t just mean to poop jokes that are on the cards that everybody focuses on. But if you know them as a business you know that their copy writing is world class right. That’s what it’s meant to hammer at a specific demographic that have a specific set of expectations and you can’t fake that. Right. No kidding. I think to your point getting people to actually get out of their skin and do something that is a little bit risky. Even even in a more or like unconventional conventional but still like relatively safe way like you want to hate this or something like that there’s a little bit of sarcasm in it that it’s still safe. Who says that unless they’re is a cocktail party or something like that. Right. Right now that’s something I always stress to and stressed upon you when you learn about copywriting and stuff too is that it should be a casual conversation. There’s too much of this which was sort of hinting at before I guess is that a lot of stuff has this very what people consider professionalism. For some reason which is this anti-septic sort of like starer I’ll business speak going deaf. Exactly. Exactly that’s a good way of putting and resonate with anybody. I mean wow I shouldn’t say that I guess because there’s other people out there who do seem to ascribe to that who you know I don’t trust. So you know I’ve always been more trusting of people who are just swear and carry on normally like normal people people like boring people exist out there but I don’t put myself in front of terribly many of them so I I’m with the hate. And so this goes into kind of the AB testing side of it right. Like if you’re afraid of this what’s this comes down to is people rich treats to that kind of institutional corporate tone deaf language because they’re afraid of seeing someone off or having too many opinions and and causing people to know how out of a conversation and they think are wrong about this they think that they will be able to get more customers by being boring. Right. And that works for like Google and Facebook and not your business. Right. It works for businesses that are meant to work for literally the entire human race. But there are very few of those and you probably if you’re listening to this podcast don’t work for any of them. Right. Towards that and if they’re afraid you can say OK well two things. I interviewed a bunch of people and they have these demographic traits and these attributes. So we have some research that actually bears out a change here some sort. And now we can run an AB test on that change. And that allows us as impartially as possible measure the economic impact of making our voice and tone change on the home page or on wherever. And that de-risked the thing because then you’re trying it and seeing how it works. Try it with a smaller subset of the customers. And if it doesn’t work then you can retreat back to the boring thing and I tell you I’ve run very few AB tests like that. I come back with research that are liable to fail at the worst case nothing happens and you wonder what you were afraid of. That’s right. Now it’s true. Well you know if people want to find you and Nick what’s the best way to go about that if they’re looking to get some testing done or looking for some insights because they’ve you know they don’t want to get their hands dirty on the testing aspect go is complicated or they just don’t have the time. So you can get a draft. And you add as my business is Web site if you’re curious to learn more about AB testing and especially research driven AB testing you to a free AB testing course dot com and we’ll have I think those will be in the show notes. You can take a look there and get a sense of my work right now and I would love to hear from you. Awesome. Well that’s true awesome Also we’ve talked about a lot of important things out there today. It’s great information’s been a real pleasure having you on the show and it’s a total honor. Thank you so much. No no problem. And I’m sure we’ll do it again in the future at some point for everyone else listen to this. It’s another episode of the podcast. We’ll be back with another exciting guests weeks from today. We’ll talk to you then. The post Episode #155 – Nick DiSabato On Research And Testing No Online Store Should Be Without appeared first on Drop Dead Copy.