Yesterday, I went on Twitter in search of my own name.
What I found was a photo somebody had posted of a densely scribbled page, containing the text of one of my emails.
I squinted and leaned in so far my nose almost touched the screen. It was true.
People are actually copying out my emails by hand as a way to learn email copywriting.
It was a bizarre moment. It reminded me of the first time I printed a black-and-white photograph in my high school’s darkroom.
Take a normal-looking piece of paper, expose it to light for a second, then dump it into a bit of clear, water-like liquid. A picture emerges of something you had photographed days or weeks ago.
It feels like magic, because the ingredients seem so ordinary — paper, light, a bit of water-like liquid.
I’ve been writing this daily email newsletter for 5+ years. At first, I was writing mostly just to practice and then sending my emails out into the void.
After a while, I created an offer. I sent out an email just like the ones I had been sending out. Except this time, money came back at me.
It felt like magic, because it was still the same ordinary ingredients — a bare-bones text editor, ActiveCampaign, the blue “send” button.
Since then, I’ve continued sending the same text-only emails, just words in a text editor. And that’s been good enough to give me status and authority in this field. I got into copywriting some ten years ago by hand-copying issues of Gary Halbert’s newsletter. Today people are copying my newsletter issues by hand.
A few days ago, I announced I’m looking for five beta testers for a 3-month group coaching program.
The goal for this group coaching program is to implement the techniques and ideas I talked about on the “How I do it” call I held on Monday. Write interesting emails… build a list… grow your status… make money.
I announced this group coaching program to the people who were there for the live “How I do it” call, and to the people who signed up for the recording.
And in spite of the fact I once again managed to muck up the tech, so that some people never got the link to join the live call, and others never got the recording, I’ve so far filled three of those five spots. I also have a few people who’ve expressed interest in the remaining two.
But I want to get this sign-up process wrapped up now, so I can kick the group coaching off.
So if you’re interested, hit reply and let me know a bit about who you are and what you do.
I will send you a doc with the full info on this 3-month program, and you can decide if it’s for you or not.
If not, no problem. But if yes, then you can join us, and we will start next week.