Copywriting

Amazing networking secret discovered by one-legged pick up artist

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Two days ago, John Carlton sent out an email about networking. (John is an A-list copywriter, most famous for his “Amazing Secret Discovered by One-Legged Golfer” ad.)

Anyways, John says there are at least three main networking styles you need to master.

The first style is being super polite and deferential.

The second is being hush-hush, like you’re sharing secrets you don’t want others to know.

The third is loud and boisterous, or, as the English say, taking the piss.

According to John, if you want to get good at networking, you’ll have to get good at each of these styles. And you’ll have to know how to move among them. Which brings up a warning:

If you see others bonding and networking using one of these styles, this doesn’t mean you want to go in with the same.

For example, back in the day, people kept coming up to John and Gary Halbert. John and Gary made a point of insulting each other. It was their locker-room style of networking and bonding. But when outsiders came in with the same, it was offensive and fell flat.

So here’s my added take. It’s based on what experience I’ve had establishing rapport with unfamiliar people.

And it can be summed up with a piece of meat-market advice from “pick up artist” Mystery (who has one leg, and then another). Mystery said:

“Treat a six like a ten, and a ten like a six. You won’t go wrong.”

In terms of networking, this means when I see somebody boisterous… I’m more likely to approach in a polite and deferential way.

When I see somebody polite and nice… I’m more likely to go in — not insulting them — but teasing them a bit.

And when somebody’s getting all hush-hush… well, then I figure it’s time to get all hush-hush too. But I also get on my guard. Because there’s a good chance the other person is just pumping me for information.

What good is this to you? I’m not sure. But if you ever again network outside of a Zoom meeting… then the three above styles — and Mystery’s advice — might be worth keeping in the back of your mind.

And for more pick up-inspired business advice, you might like to sign up to my email un-newsletter.

A chilling Christmas card from the FTC

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Maybe you’ve already heard about Operation Income Illusion. It’s the FTC’s latest action, and it started earlier this month — just in time for Christmas.

The FTC filed lawsuits against five different companies. Among these is Raging Bull, a big and successful player in the financial publishing space.

​​Raging Bull got a restraining order prohibiting it from doing any more marketing… and it had its assets frozen.

So what exactly did Raging Bull to draw the eye of the FTC? From the FTC site:

“The defendants claimed in their pitches that consumers don’t need a lot of time, money, or experience, and that the global coronavirus pandemic represents a great time to pay hundreds or thousands of dollars to learn their secret trading techniques, claiming in one ad that the pandemic ‘…might be the most exciting opportunity in decades!’ The defendants also made claims like ‘Learn how you could DOUBLE or TRIPLE your account in One Week!'”

Errr…

That sounds a lot like the VSL I just finished writing for a real estate investing opportunity. So I find this whole Income Illusion thing a bit chilling.

Because from what I’ve seen in the past, when the FTC goes after a direct marketing company, that company is probably doing something really shady.

But the FTC took issue with Raging Bull over pretty standard direct marketing practices. Making big claims… using the most flattering testimonials… appealing to people’s greed and sloth.

I have no idea where this will go in the future. Maybe the lawsuit will be dismissed… maybe it won’t, but Raging Bull will somehow beat it… maybe it will be a one-time action by the FTC to set an example, without broader consequences. Or maybe it’s a sign of things to come.

In any case, it’s something to keep an eye on.

Now here’s an unrelated pitch, also in time for Christmas:

I’m launching a weekly email newsletter about travel during corona (“…the most exciting opportunity in decades!'”). The first issue will go out tomorrow, right on Christmas Day. If you’re interested, you can sign up at the link below:

https://masksonaplane.com/

My first ever copywriting job

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Today I paid somebody $25 to photoshop a corona mask onto a picture of Samuel L. Jackson.

Now I’m no Jack the Photoshopper, but this doesn’t sound like a tremendous task. And $25 for it seems neither a little nor a lot.

The interesting thing is this all happened on Fiverr. That’s where I got my start in copywriting, back when Obamas still roamed the West Wing. My first job was a 7-part autoresponder sequence, Andre Chaperon-style, about an ebook on disciplining your cat.

I had no trouble getting work on Fiverr. But back then, the default was still $5 for a task. In spite of all the people hiring me, I couldn’t make that work. After 2-3 months, I moved on to Upwork.

If you’re a newbie freelancer and you have no other avenues for getting your first client, Fiverr might be a more viable option. If that’s what you want to do, how do you get started?

I shared 6 tips for succeeding on Fiverr with my email subscribers. These were based on my time on the platform, and I think they are pretty unique. Unfortunately, you missed that boat. But if you like, you can still subscribe to my email newsletter, so you don’t miss out again in the future.

A warning about success from an anti-establishment Jeremiah

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Andy Warhol said, “Always leave them wanting less.”

In that spirit, today I want to share a long quote with you. It comes from Jason Leister, who is a copywriter and used to write about dealing with freelancing clients… but has now become an anti-establishment Jeremiah, all the way down to renouncing his American citizenship.

Anyways, the following quote from Jason felt like a warning to me. I want to pass on the warning to you too, in case you deal with clients or customers, or you expect to one day:

There’s the “success” that leads to more work for more money.

Then there’s the “success” that leads to less work for more money.

If your business is currently structured so that more “success” simply leads to more work, then ask yourself if that’s the right direction for you. If it’s not, figure out a way to change that sooner than later.

Does that leave you wanting less? Or more?

If more, then you might like to subscribe to my email newsletter. It arrives every day and many people find it overwhelming.

 

In the land of the warm-bathers, the November swimmer is a hero

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One morning in late November, I decided to go swimming in the sea. I got to the shore, stripped down to my swimming panties, and started to hop on the cold stones towards the water.

An old woman walking her dog stopped to watch, mouth agape.

“You’re going in?” she asked.

“I am,” I said.

“But it’s cold!”

“We will see.”

I got in the water, swam a minute or two, and got out. The old woman was still there. She was thrilled I had survived. “You are a hero!” she shouted, clapping her hands.

I shrugged it off. “It was nothing.”

It really was nothing. The water wasn’t cold at all. It was probably warmer than the Pacific Ocean in California gets in July. Only the locals in this country, who refuse to get in the sea unless the sun has brought it to a low boil, could crown me a hero for going for a swim now.

Which connects to something I read today in a Dan Kennedy sales letter. The sales letter is selling a course on how to become a more successful copywriter.

At one point of this sales letter, Dan gives the reader reasons NOT to buy his course. One reason he gives is that you really don’t have the chops to do decent work, and to deserve a decent wage. In that case, Dan says, maybe you should stick to only the smallest clients, and only the most limited projects.

Has that thought ever crossed your mind? If it has, I want to leave you with what Dan writes next:

“You should remember copywriter John Francis Tighe’s favorite admonition: in the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king. You need only know more than the client and enough to produce results he could not get on his own. You do not need to know more than every copywriter, most copywriters. If that governed, there’d never be more than one working copywriter, period.”

Check it:

If you want regular copywriting tips, which occasionally touch on the business of copy, you might like my email newsletter.

Obnoxious writing, or, the harsh mathematics of direct response

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Amazing. Free. New. Breakthrough.

Fascinating. Shocking. Secret.

Now.

I’ve started keeping a list of highly inflammatory direct response words.

You can see some of them above. There’s no sense in me sharing the rest. Everybody who is in this business has to pluck these words up for him or hoyself. And then comes the hard part:

You have to actually use them.

I say “hard part” because chances are you are a little like me.

Maybe you find typical direct response writing obnoxious.

Maybe you say, I would never read this, much less buy this “easy genius opportunity.”

Maybe you think you can be the one to talk to people modestly and simply… and convince them with your earnest speech to listen.

Maybe you can.

I certainly cannot.

After years of writing copy for money, the harsh mathematics of direct response is slowly dawning on me.

A typical sales letter goes out to thousands or hundreds of thousands or millions of people.

If only 98 out of 100 of those people look at your sales letter and say, “Ugh”… then you’ve done good, as long as the remaining 2 buy.

And if a measly 95 out of each 100 people think your writing is obnoxious and repulsive… while those remaining 5 didn’t notice, because you put them in a drooling trance… then you’ve got a ticket to ride.

Speaking of repulsive, maybe that’s what you should focus on the next time you write copy.

​​Rather than trying to appease people who are offended by ugly, hard-hitting, direct response copy… maybe you should actively aim to drive them away. Because as marketer Ben Settle reports:

“In fact, I have found the more I repel the people I don’t want, the more I automatically turn on the people I do. And the more I do this, the more my sales go up. The less I do it, the less my sales go up.”

In closing:

I have an email newsletter. If you are just looking for “swipes,” then subscribing to my newsletter won’t do you any good. Save yourself the effort. However, if you are a business owner who wants to hear what’s working now, at least with the clients I work with… or if you are a copywriter who is interested in those genius secrets of the business… then you may get some value out of it. Here’s where to go to subscribe.

Burn objections out of your prospect’s mind using nothing more than a tiny success

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What’s the Spanish word for “different”?

I don’t speak Spanish. But here’s a trick:

When a word in English ends in “ent,” you can tack on an “e” at the end. More often than not, you get the right Spanish word.

So try it now.

Tack an “e” onto “different.” You get “differente.” And that’s how the Spanish and about 200 million South Americans would say it in their own tongue. Same with persistente, permanente… you get the gist.

With a few simple rules like that, an English speaker gets around 3,000 words in Spanish for free.

Not bad. Definitely enough for basics of conversation. Also more than most adult language learners ever manage to memorize.

I learned about this in a teach-yourself-Spanish course called Language Transfer. This course is available for free online. But if it wasn’t… everything I just told you would be a hell of a thing to put into a sales letter to promote and sell this course.

Because demonstration is the most powerful form of proof.

And if you can demonstrate to your prospect that he’s already on his way… then much of his skepticism and doubt will disappear.

By the way, this is not limited to language learning only.

As just one example, there’s Gene Schwartz’s famous “BURN DISEASE OUT OF YOUR BODY” ad. It ran successful for over 20 years. I’m sure that part of its success was that, under subhead three, it gives you an exercise you can try for yourself. “Sit or stand, with your hands simply extended in front of your chest…” You will feel the energy flowing, and your heart getting stronger.

One final point:

You don’t need to give away the farm. Just give your prospect a tiny success, right there on the sales page. If you can do that, you will burn objections out of his mind. What’s going to be left is an innocent and pure desire to buy your product… and find out what else it can do.

Ok, now for business:

I write an email newsletter about marketing and persuasion. If you like, click here to subscribe to it.

How to fake exciting discovery stories

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Tony Robbins once shared a stage with a knight’s suit of armor.

At one point during his talk, Tony got close to the knight. Terrible static appeared on his mic. When he walked away, the static stopped.

The next time Tony got close to the knight, terrible static shot up again. He stepped away. The static stopped.

The third time it was about to happen, people in the audience started shouting. “Don’t get close to the knight!”

It turned out later than an ambulance in the neighborhood was somehow messing with Tony’s sound equipment. Once the ambulance left, the sound problems disappeared. It wasn’t the knight at all.

The human brain needs causation like a hot dog needs mustard. “Terrible sound! What’s behind it? It must be the knight!”

This works really well much of the time.

Sometimes it goes wrong, like in the Tony Robbins story above.

And in rare cases of clever persuasion… it can be used to lead people by the nose. For example:

During a webinar last year, Parris Lampropoulos analyzed a sales letter. It was written by his most successful copy cub.

The lead starts off with a true story of a 104-year-old scientist who won the Nobel Prize for her discoveries related to brain stuff.

The gist was this old lady saying, “I feel sharper now than when I was 20!”

The sales letter goes on to talk about the woman’s discoveries… and how the supplement for sale ties into her amazing research.

Now rewind.

Did you catch that?

It’s the same trick as with the knight above, at least for my hypergullible brain.

Because when I read this sales letter, my brain concluded, “Oh, she feels sharper because of her brain stuff discoveries. And this supplement is a way for me to tap into that, and get back what little I had when I was 20.”

But the sales letter doesn’t say that anywhere. The quaint old lady could have been feeling great because of her genetics… or because of her daily regimen of drinking beet juice. We just don’t know.

What we do know is that, when you’re writing copy, it’s best to have a genuine breakthrough coupled with an exciting discovery story.

But if you don’t have that… you can cheat. Just roll your breakthrough onto the stage… and then bring out an exciting story that’s not really about this discovery. Put them next to each other. Your prospect’s brain will do the rest.

Now rewind.

Did you catch that?

This whole article was a way of eliminating people who aren’t interested in persuasion or copywriting. Since you made it to the bottom, maybe this stuff interests you. In that case, you might like to sign up for my email newsletter.

Zoolander-safe direct response levers

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Maybe you know the graveyard scene from the absurd comedy Zoolander:

Derek Zoolander, a really really good-looking male model played by Ben Stiller, meets former hand model JP Prewett, played by David Duchovny.

They’re meeting in a graveyard at night. Because Duchovny has a dangerous secret to reveal… male models committed all the biggest assassinations in history! And Derek is next in line.

“But why male models?” Derek asks.

“Because they are perfect,” Duchovny says. Male models are in peak physical condition… they get access to the most exclusive locations… and they don’t think for themselves.

Derek ponders on this for a minute. And then he scrunches up his forehead, pouts out his lips, and asks,

“But why male models?”

Don’t judge.
​​
Because for years, I was asking one question in the same stupid way. And then earlier this week, I heard a marketing talk by Dan Kennedy.

The subject was segmentation. It’s not a complicated concept:

You have your audience or your space of prospects. But instead of marketing to everybody… you market to only a segment of the whole.

“But why segmentation?”

Lean in Derek. I’ll tell you the explanations I’d heard for years.

Segmentation is the only way to make expensive direct mail work. You only pay to mail to people who are most likely to buy your offer.

“Ok, go on…”​​

Segmentation is also a smart way to avoid pissing off your email subscribers. Don’t send them stuff they don’t care about, and they won’t unsubscribe.

“I see…”

But I didn’t really. I kept pondering on this many times over the years.

And like Derek Zoolander, each time I scrunched up my forehead, pouted out my lips, and asked once again,

“But why segmentation?”

Well, it finally clicked. Or rather, I heard Dan Kennedy explain it, and it pierced my thick male-model skull.

The real reason you segment is to increase response.

Because when you segment your list, you know something extra about the people you are writing to. You can take that extra info and stuff it into your message.

For example:​
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R​ather than mailing out a sales letter with the headline, “How to increase your IQ by 30 points in the next 90 days”…

Your headline can read, “How beautiful but dimwitted male models can get equally beautiful brains before Milan Fashion Week 2021.”

When you segment, your message becomes more targeted. Your copy becomes more specific. And your response becomes more up.

This is just one of the many simple direct response levers that even Zoolander could pull to make an unprofitable campaign profitable… or to make a worthless business worthwhile.

Which brings me to my offer of partnership and investment opportunity from yesterday. In case you didn’t read it, you can read the archived version here.

Creating your own luck as a copywriter

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Two days ago, it was snowing heavily in the town where I’ve been for the past few weeks.

That’s unusual. The place is at the seaside, and the weather is usually sunny and mild, even in winter.

But the last few days, no. It’s been gray, cold, and ugly.

That’s why this morning, I had trouble getting out the door for my usual “wake me up” walk.

“Look at it,” I told myself. “The wind is blowing the shutters down. Dark clouds are gathering above. I’m sure it will be freezing.”

Somehow, I didn’t listen to this reasoning. I went out.

The first thing I noticed was how warm it was. From last night — around 3 degrees Celsius — the temperature had jumped to about 15. (From high 30s to around 60F, if you only do American.)

There was a strong wind blowing from the south. I guess it brought in the warmth.

But the wind did something else also. I saw it when I got down to the seashore.

The normally calm sea, which never makes waves bigger than a foot or so, was crashing against the shore in big swells. The streets nearest the sea were flooded with water.

And each time a new wave broke against the stone rampart that separates the sea from the town, a 3-4 meter geyser of sea water gushed up into the air, and then collapsed on the other side, onto the road.

I, a person who is rarely impressed or enthused, thought it looked spectacular.

The few other people who were out at 7am on a Saturday seemed to think the same. They were standing spellbound, staring at the water show.

As I was walking home from this, I remembered something I read in William Zinsser’s On Writing Well.

“The nonfiction writer has to create his own luck,” Zinsser wrote. He was talking about traveling to unusual places and following the story wherever it leads you.

I don’t consider myself a writer. But Zinsser’s advice applies even if you do marketing or write sales copy for a living.

Because inspiration for a breakthrough hook (or just a daily email) can come from anywhere. But it’s unlikely to come from the same places everybody else has already milked — the same articles, blogs, and YouPorn comment threads.

So go and create your own luck. Read things other people aren’t reading. Go to places other people aren’t going. Or at the very least, get out the door, even if looks ugly outside.

If you’d like to read something few other people read, you can subscribe to my daily email newsletter.