Business Of Copy

Yes more scrubs

by

I recently learned of a successful real estate guru who partners with you, even if you’re a scrub.

That means he teaches you what to do… provides you with office support… gives you tens of thousands of dollars to fund your deal… and then splits any profits with you.

Sounds good?

It is. But here’s the monkey wrench:

He also charges you a hefty upfront fee so you can become his partner.

I mentioned yesterday the idea of “success share” in direct response businesses. So far, this real estate guru is the closest I could find to that.

I thought about what a pure “success share” direct response business would look like, without a hungry hippopotamus of a fee up front.

I imagine it wouldn’t be recognizable as a direct response business any more.

Just to be concrete, let’s take the example of a business that trains would-be copywriters. How would that work if it were based on a share of results that customers get… rather than an upfront fee?

Well, instead of being a factory for constant new offers, I imagine it would look more like the startup incubator Y Combinator, or like Goldman Sachs. It would work to attract the highest performers, the people who would succeed regardless of which system they go through. And it would ignore everybody else.

In this hypothetical “success share” world, 99% of direct response businesses would vanish.

Because most direct response businesses need scrubs, just like most strippers need tips. It’s what pays the bills.

But like in a strip joint, this doesn’t mean the average direct response customer is getting nothing for his money. Keep this in mind if you’re trying to sell something. You’re selling hope… entertainment… even companionship. Results can be valuable, but they come after those more important things.

Speaking of important things:

You can join my daily email newsletter here if you want to.

Easier, more powerful prospecting: Thinking like Jay Abraham

by

Back in 2006, Jay Abraham, aka “The 9 Billion Dollar Man,” interviewed Michael Fishman, aka “The World’s Greatest List Broker.”

I randomly came across a transcript of this interview a few days ago.

The interview was messy. Jay Abraham had to keep running to the toilet to pee. And he was talkative. For much of the interview, he riffed ad hoc while Michael, who was supposed to be the one sharing his expertise, just kept saying “um-hmmm.”

And yet, while it’s messy, this interview is pure gold.

It’s gold because of the unique insights Michael Fishman has about the psychology of direct response buyers. But the thing I want to share with you today is something Jay Abraham said, right at the end.

Because the whole purpose of this interview was to create a kind of calling card for Michael Fishman. A thing that demonstrates his knowledge and insights, that he could use to drum up new business.

So at the end, Jay Abraham, who might be world champion at spinning up lucrative business ideas, gave Michael two pieces of advice on what to do with the interview.

The second and I suspect less valuable piece of advice was to find potential clients, write to them and say, “A lot of people told me this tape opened up their eyes and made them a bunch of money, thought you might like it.”

This is good. It’s what many businesses, including many direct response businesses, are doing in essence.

But I think it pales in effectiveness to the first piece of advice that Jay gave Michael.

And that was for Michael to go to everybody he knows… ask them to make a list of people they would like to send this tape to… and then to send it, along with their letter of endorsement.

The mathematics definitely checks out. Because if you know a 100 people… and they know a 100 people… suddenly that becomes a very big space. One that you might have a hard time exploring on your own.

Just as important, the psychology checks out. Because there’s a huge wall in the human mind between “known” and “unknown.” And you want to be on the “known” side.

There’s a broader lesson here too. But I saved that for people who are subscribed to my daily email newsletter.

Do you know anybody who might like to get my newsletter? Please write them an email, telling them why, and linking them to this page. And if you yourself want to subscribe, click here.

The easy way to start making more money with copywriting

by

I recently read the plight of one newish copywriter. He is hoping to make the transition from “Hey, I write copy” to “Hey, I get XYZ results.”

That’s smart. It’s the easy way to start making more money with copywriting. But here’s the trouble:

This guy says none of his clients are sharing data with him. They seem to be using his copy. But when he follows up with them a few months down the line, they never respond about the sales his copy was responsible for.

I’ve been there and it sucks. So let me tell you what I did to deal with it:

1. Kept going. Eventually you’ll get to a client who will get value out of your work AND share the results with you.

2. Followed up with clients 3-4 weeks after I delivered the copy. “Have you had a chance to put it into production? How is it doing?” Don’t expect them to write you… and don’t wait months to write them. People forget, and they get lazy.

3. Kept learning and getting better on my own. Once clients really start getting results from your copy, it stops being “one-off.” It then becomes much easier to press them for the results of your copy.

4. Increased my rates. Better clients are more likely to share this kind of info with you.

5. Started working on my own side projects. You get all the data when you run your own small campaigns on Facebook, or send out emails to your own list.

Once upon a time, the name of the game in copywriting was “controls.” Today, there’s so much more work, and many successful copywriters are not writing for one of the big publishers. But it’s still helpful to throw out sales numbers that you can attribute to copy you wrote.

Claude Hopkins, one of the first people who got really rich as a copywriter, started out as a bookkeeper. He had the following insight to share about it. It still holds true — for both bookkeepers and copywriters:

“A bookkeeper is an expense. In every business expenses are kept down. I could never be worth more than any other man who could do the work I did. The big salaries were paid to salesmen, to the men who brought in orders, or to the men in the factory who reduced the costs. They showed profits, and they could command a reasonable share of those profits. I saw the difference between the profit-earning and the expense side of a business, and I resolved to graduate from the debit class.”

Maybe that’s gonna help you out. And here’s something else that might:

I write a daily email newsletter about copywriting and marketing. In case you want to subscribe, click here and fill the form out.

Suggestion: “Play rabbit” in your copy and one-on-one dealings

by

Rabbits can pretend to be healthy even when sick. They can mask it so well that they go from looking perfectly normal in one second to dead on the floor the next.

In other words, rabbits can cover up their neediness.

​​Neediness is when you feel threatened, and you enter survival mode. All of God’s little creatures, including you and me, experience neediness now and again, whether real or imagined.

The next time you feel needy, I’d like to suggest that you “play rabbit.”

​​In other words, suck it up and cover it up. Because being seen as needy makes you also look weak, vulnerable, and desperate. That’s not the profile of someone that people want to shake hands with, in business or in private.

I was reviewing a Frank Kern VSL today. It was for a big launch he did a few years ago for his Inner Circle coaching program.

​​I don’t know whether Frank was desperate for this launch to succeed. The VSL certainly doesn’t make it seem so.

Except for some fake urgency (a timer above the VSL), there’s not much pressure to buy. No “You need this NOW.” No “You’re at a fork in the road.” Instead, there’s just a voluptuous, sleepy-eyed seductress of an offer, lazily smiling at you and showing off her many attractions.

I’ve written already about my 3-sentence method for applying for copywriting jobs. It involves no friendly banter, no big life story, and certainly no explaining or apologizing.

Back when I applied for copywriting jobs, this method worked great. And one big reason is that I didn’t look needy, regardless of how I felt. (By the way, if you want more on this, I wrote up this article about it.)

My point is that, in your copy and in your one-on-one dealings, don’t telegraph your neediness and vulnerability. If anything, do the opposite. Play rabbit. Don’t let anyone know what’s going on inside your beating little chest.

But perhaps the above examples didn’t convince you. So let me leave you with the words of the godfather and midwife of modern advertising, Claude Hopkins.

For his first advertising job, Hopkins had to sell 250,000 carpet sweepers. I don’t know what a carpet sweeper is, but apparently it was an important but unsexy household product.

So Hopkins wrote a straightforward letter to dealers. It outlined why his product is unique. It listed conditions in case the dealers wanted to sell it.

Take it or leave it.

So what was the result? From Hopkins himself:

“I offered a privilege, not an inducement. I appeared as a benefactor, not as a salesman. So dealers responded in a way that sold our stock of 250,000 sweepers in three weeks.”

One last point:

I have an email newsletter. Sign up for it now. Or don’t. It’s up to you. Here’s the optin.

The secret psychology of giving up

by

This is a brontosaurus:

Hello I am Brontosaurus

But let me give you the back story:

Yesterday I saw a question from a struggling copywriter. He says he’s put in the time and effort. But he’s not getting the reward.

He’s not swamped with client work… he’s disappointed by the money he’s making… and he’s not even hearing a kind word or two about a job well done.

This brought to mind a presentation I saw once by billion-dollar copywriter Mike Palmer.

Mike works at Stansberry Research, an Agora imprint. He wrote The End of America VSL, which brought in many millions of simoleons for Stansberry.

So Mike gave this presentation called The Secret Psychology of Becoming a Great Copywriter. The upshot is, there will be times when you feel you suck.

Mike drew a graph to illustrate the natural changes in skill/suck levels. It’s pretty much the brontosaurus up top:

Hello I am Annotated Brontosaurus

Point A is when you get started, full of optimism.

Point B is when you realize it will be harder than you thought.

Point C is the moment of crisis and despair. At this point many people give up.

(I just want to say I am all for giving up. There’s no shame in it if you ask me, and I suspect most people who champion blind perseverance haven’t tried to do much in life. I’ve given up often, and with very few exceptions, I’ve never looked back.)

But if for some reason you don’t give up, then you eventually move to point D. That’s where you improve and rise above your previous level.

This is not a one-time thing, by the way.

It’s happened to me over and over since I started writing copy for money.

For example, last year around this time, I thought I was pretty good at this whole thing. I then joined Dan Ferrari’s coaching group. After getting some feedback from Dan, I realized I still had big things to work on.

A month or two later, deep into a project, the feedback kept pouring in and getting more significant. I thought “Jesus, why do I need this? I’m obviously not meant to write sales copy.”

But I stuck around, finished the project, became better at the craft, and eventually got my rewards.

Like I said, this has happened to me over and over. I expect it will happen again.

Perhaps if you know this, it will make it easier to progress to point D once you hit that hollow, right at the bottom of the brontosaurus’s neck.

Or perhaps not. Perhaps you’ll look up, squint… well, let me stop there.

When I wrote this article and sent it out to my email newsletter subscribers, I ended on a personal note, about giving up. But I limit those things on this public blog. In case you want to get on my email newsletter, where I don’t hold anything back, click here to subscribe.

Specializing on the cheap for new copywriters

by

A few days ago I saw the following question on a copywriting forum:

“Just starting out. How niche is too niche? I know that the more niche you are, the more high-paying clients you’ll get. But if you’re too niche, then wouldn’t it be hard finding target clients?”

When I was starting out, I had the same question. Largely because I had heard the same advice — you gotta niche down if you want to be successful.

Here’s my attitude about this topic, now that I’ve emerged on the other side of the newbie-to-successful-copywriter underwater passage:

If you’re just starting out, then you should be in the exact niche that the job you are applying to is in.

For example, when applying for a job to write case studies for a medical clinic, you say, “I specialize in writing case studies for the healthcare market. Here are two relevant samples.” (If you don’t have the samples, write them then and there.)

The point is you don’t have to mention that you also specialize in finance, tech, and pet food… and that you will also write emails, sales letters, and supplement packaging copy.

The time to genuinely specialize — meaning you would actually turn away work because it’s not something you want to do — comes later, when you have some experience… when you know what the market wants… and when you have an idea of which way you want to develop. Or as Mark Ford wrote in Ready, Fire, Aim:

“It’s almost always better to get into a new industry on the cheap by figuring out how to test the waters without committing yourself to an unproven idea.”

Not what you were hoping to hear? Then you probably won’t be interested in joining my daily email newsletter.

The George Costanza method of client seduction

by

There’s an episode of Seinfeld where George Costanza, the fat short bald loser who is always making up exciting careers for himself to impress women, realizes that everything he has done in life has lead to failure.

Desperate, George takes another tack.

He goes bizarro. He does the opposite of whatever he would normally do.

George starts by ordering the opposite lunch from what he normally gets. He then notices an attractive woman looking at him from across the restaurant.

Bizarro George decided to get up and go talk to her — because normal George never would.

“Excuse me,” George says to the woman, “I couldn’t help but notice you were looking in my direction.”

“Oh yes I was,” the woman explains. “You just ordered the exact same lunch as me.”

George takes a deep breath.

“My name is George. I’m unemployed and I live with my parents.”

The woman turns to face him fully, her eyes sparkling and a smile spreading across her face. “I’m Victoria. Hiii…”

Chris Haddad said in a recent interview that if you are a freelance copywriter, then you should be constantly going on Facebook, bragging about how great you are, and sharing all of your successes and testimonials.

That’s one approach. It can definitely work.

But there’s another approach. It’s when you seek to not impress. Instead, you give clients reasons why you are not a good match for them. You refuse to talk about your experience and successes, or at least you put it off as long as possible.

This is nothing more than a page out of Jim Camp’s negotiation system. You’re looking for a no. More importantly, you are eliminating any neediness that’s typical when freelancers talk to clients.

Very likely, this approach is not right for you.

But if you find that the typical advice of confidence and bragging has lead you to failure over and over… then this bizarro George approach is worth a shot. Because it can work, and not on just on TV.

Here’s another thing that is very likely not right for you:

My daily email newsletter. Very few people subscribe to it. Even fewer read it.

All that clients really want

by

During a bus ride today between two Balkan superpowers, I was surprised to see the bus driver roll down his window, take out a pack of Marlboro’s, and light one. He smoked his cigarette and then tossed the butt out the window.

When a car on the road wasn’t driving fast enough, the bus driver started tailgating. He cursed and talked to himself at full volume. Once he could pass, he honked at the other car for five seconds to show his disgust.

But neither of those made me nervous. What did make me nervous was when the driver took out his phone and started texting at 60 mph. Every so often, he looked up to course correct as the bus listed on the highway to the left or the right.

And yet, nothing bad happened. No crash. No run-over animals or people. We even made it pretty much on time, after you factor in the extra half hour at the border for everyone to get corona throat-swabbed.

If I ever have to make the same trip again… I guess I might go with the same company. After all, they got me to my destination, and they got me there on time.

Maybe you see where this is going.

A couple days ago, I saw a question online about the “ideal copywriter.” If copywriting clients could create their ideal copywriting provider… how would that look?

This brought to mind something I heard A-list copywriter Parris Lampropoulos say. According to Parris, clients only want three things from a copywriter:

1. He should get results
2. He should deliver copy on time
3. He should be pleasant to work with

If you have all three of these, you’re golden. But two of the three is good enough, says Parris. You just gotta be “damn strong” in those other two.

“Sure,” your client might say, “he did come into our office cursing and smoking. He did insult the secretary and put out his cigarette on our carpet. But he also actually got us the copy in time… and it made us good money. I guess we will hire him again.”

Now if you don’t deliver your copy on time, I’m afraid I can’t help you.

But if all you’re missing is knowledge of how to get results with your copy, then my daily email newsletter might be what you need. It’s all about lessons in copywriting and persuasion, coming from legendary pros like Parris, filtered through my own experience. If you’d like to try it out, click here to sign up.

Beware “win-win-win”

by

The hair stands up on the back of my neck whenever I hear the phrase “win-win-win.” And I’ve hearing it more and more often.

“It’s a real win-win-win situation…”​​

I guess that’s how markets evolve. First we had “win-win,” as in, “win-win negotiation.” Once that became old hat, marketers had to crank it up — hence the rise of “win-win-win.”

The reason I am wary of this phrase is because I’ve read Jim Camp’s negotiation book Start with No. And one of Camp’s big enemies is win-win. That’s just a clever name, Camp says, for fear- and compromise-based negotiation.

According to Camp, win-win negotiation is not principled… it’s not in your best interest… and if somebody is pushing it on you, you’re about to get flayed alive.

But maybe you think this is crazy. Maybe you think that “win-win” is great, and that “win-win-win” is even better. So here’s a quote by one very famous and successful copywriter, John Carlton:

Nearly every biz transaction is an inherently hostile situation.

Behind the smiles and back-slapping and promises of “working for the common good” between, say, a freelancer (or consultant) and a client…

… the freelancer actually wants to do as little work as possible for the maximum possible money…

… while the client wants to bleed every ounce of productivity from the writer for the least outlay of cash.

John uses the terms “veiled teeth-baring” and “primal snarling dance” to describe the reality of business interactions.

That’s certainly one way to do it. But I don’t think it’s the only way.

And if you want to know how to handle business situations in a way that’s neither snarling nor based in fear, then Camp’s book is worth a read. Or two. Or three.

Or you can just subscribe to my daily email newsletter. I’m no Jim Camp. But I’ve read his stuff, and it’s near to my heart. And while my newsletter is mainly about marketing and persuasions, sometimes I also write about the business of copy.

Maybe that doesn’t appeal to you. But in the odd case that it does, you can subscribe to get my emails by clicking here.

You’ve been lied to

by

You’ve been lied to — by every movie and every copywriting guru who ever caught your attention.

Let me explain.

Today I watched a Guy Ritchie movie about King Arthur. I was surprised to find I liked this movie… but I want to warn you about it nonetheless.

At the start of the movie there’s a montage as Arthur, orphaned, goes from a boy getting beaten up, living in a brothel… to a slightly older boy, still getting beaten up, still living in a brothel… to a young man, still living in a brothel but no longer getting beaten up… and finally to a full-grown man, muscular and handsome, who runs a criminal gang in medieval Londinium, while still living at a brothel.

The entire sequence takes maybe 45 seconds.

And that’s what I want to warn you about.

It’s not just this one movie. All movies, TV shows, documentaries, anything you see on a screen… they collapse our sense of time. And along with it, they collapse our expectations of the boredom, frustration, pain, and doubt we will experience during that time.

I bring this up because the past six months have been pretty wild for me and my copywriting career.

I’ve broken through long-standing earnings plateaus, and I’m finally earning the money that copywriting gurus promise is possible.

Potential clients now contact me each week — without my pitching them at all.

Even my daily emails are getting traction. A number of people wrote me over the past month to say they like and appreciate what I write… and some have even bought the little offers I put out.

But maybe you’re curious what happened six months ago to make my life so brag-worthy today.

The answer is nothing. At least as far as I can tell.

For years, I’ve been trying to do a good job each day, and to get better through practice and study. I guess my internal and external assets finally built up to some critical level, and results followed.

And if it’s starting to feel a little stuffy in this church…

Let me say I’m not trying to give you a sermon about hard work.

All I want to point out is that you’ve been lied to, by people who meant to lie to you, and by those who just wanted to entertain you.

Real life isn’t a montage. ​​There’s nothing wrong with you if you experience boredom, frustration, pain, and doubt on the way to accomplishing any goal.

Success requires time, effort, and patience. But that’s something nobody in the copywriting (or entertainment) world is selling.

So watch King Arthur. It’s a fun and inventive movie. But don’t believe it for a second — or 45.

Speaking of entertainment and lies:

If you are worried that you’ve reached the end of this post, you might like my daily email newsletter. To give it a try, click here.