Copywriters Podcast

So, for today’s show, I’d like you to imagine you could get on the Copywriters Podcast Time Machine and travel back 31 years to 1990. Location: Key West, Florida. One of Gary Halbert’s legendary week-long seminars.

Let’s take this one step further. After you get off the time machine and onto the ground, you find out you have been selected to write copy, on the spot, under Gary’s watchful eye, for people who attended the seminar. What an opportunity!

Well, since all that is all imaginary, you’ll be happy to know we have someone who’s actually been there and done that… and is going to tell us all about. He’s our guest today — Richard Dennis.

Richard’s going to share a lot of his experiences from those exciting early days for many of us in direct marketing copywriting. And at the end of the show, he’ll tell you about an intriguing offer where you can get use of some of his copy at no charge.

Here’s the link he referred to in the show:

www.LinkedLeg.com/


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Today we’re going to look at copywriting from an unusual angle. Not so much how to do it or what are the new developments, but what specifically does advertising do that makes it increase sales.

This is part of our Old Masters Series. We’re taking from a book by the great copywriter James Webb Young, who also wrote the classic “A technique for Producing ideas,” which we’ve talked about on other shows.

The book we’re talking about today is called “How to Become an Advertising Man,” originally published in the Mad Men era, in 1963. About one-third of the book is about the five ways advertising increases sales, and that’s what we’ll talk about today.

I’d like to point out that this book was written for people who create paid advertising, including direct response copywriters. And though in some ways it is a more general advertising book, the author looked at what we do from a direct marketing perspective.

Now, you can use one or more of these five ways that advertising increases sales in any piece of copy you write. But if you’re doing content marketing, you need to use at least one of them in every piece you write.

We go into detail on each of the five ways, with a few examples and guidelines for each one.


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We’re back with the Sherlock Holmes of marketing, Meron Bareket. He’s put the recent and planned future actions of Apple through a “Marketing MRI” and all I can say at this point is, fasten your seat belts. Big curves in the road ahead!

I’ve known Meron for a few years, since he became my mentoring client. His powers of observation and analysis have always impressed me, and there have been times where I’ve had to really concentrate and think deeply just to keep up with what he’s saying… as I have told him myself.

He’s a delightful and very perceptive person — and quite an effective copywriter and marketer.

As our returning champion, Meron revealed:

- Just exactly what Apple is doing that’s having such a big effect on Facebook ads

- The difference between what you can do now and what you won’t be able to do in the future, on Facebook

- What Google’s doing that will reduce advertising options even further

- What mistakes you should avoid at all costs (as a result of the changes)

- What you CAN do to remain productive as an advertiser

Meron’s web page: SaveYourStats.com

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Today’s show is a new chapter in our Old Masters Series, with wisdom from someone who people I know knew and knew about. Brian Kurtz wrote an intro to this Old Master’s book, and Denny Hatch raved about the book in his newsletter, which was called “Who’s Mailing What.”

Now one of the great things about the kind of copywriting we cover on this podcast is that, unlike with a lot of other forms of advertising, with direct response copywriting you can measure sales results.

You can’t do that accurately with a billboard or a Superbowl ad.

As direct marketers, we determine our results through testing. And the dean of testing is not as well known as famous copywriters of his era, like Gene Schwartz and David Ogilvy – but he was just as important.

His name was Dick Benson, and we’re going to cover some of his best testing secrets.

He wrote an excellent book, Secrets of Successful Direct Mail. But lucky for you, I also had access to something I call The Private Direct Marketing Archive adjacent to Lincoln Center in New York City, also known as the PDFMAALC/NYC. Others like myself who have had the privilege to visit this valuable resource in person also know it as Don Hauptman’s extensive, custom-built filing system in the West 60s. Nice!

Don raided the archive for me in a systematic, organized way and Fedexed about 10 articles and photocopy sets, ranging from the 1996 obituary for Benson in the New York Times to a three-page spread in the broadsheet trade newspaper Direct. Special to Copywriters Podcast. Lots of information you won’t find in the book, or nearly anywhere else, but, of course, you’ll get the best of it here on the show.

From all of this research — one book, and 10 supplementary pieces — I pulled out seven tips and rules on testing, each of which can make you extra money.

Benson worked with many large publishers and even founded the first direct-marketing ad agency, in 1961. He was widely regarded as the authority on testing for decades.

Now, at this point, you could easily say,

“I don’t do direct mail. Postage stamps, commercial printers and mail carriers have nothing to do with my marketing.”

or, you could say,

“There’s a tremendous amount of high-value, battle-tested science accumulated from direct mail testing. I wonder what I could learn from it in 2021 that would supercharge my own online marketing.”

Yes, you could say that. And it is from that point of view that we looked at the seven brilliant discoveries of Dick Benson.

Dick Benson’s book, Secrets of Successful Direct Mail

https://www.amazon.com/Secrets-Successful-Direct-Richard-Benson/dp/0844231789

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Our guest today is Troy Steine, and what he has to say will be of interest to every copywriter!

He’s going to tell us how to close more copywriting deals.

Now Troy is a soft-spoken guy, but make no mistake — he is a sales powerhouse. He has sold and helped others to sell hundreds of millions of dollars of offers and products.

Today, Troy specializes in working consultants, coaches, copywriters and online entrepreneurs. He’s the head sales advisor at PeacefulProfits.com and works with people who are looking to launch, grow and scale their businesses.

Full disclosure: Troy is a former mentoring client of mine, and that’s one reason he understands the business of copywriting so well.

On our show today, Troy covered:

• What he has discovered speaking to dozens of copywriters and business owners over the last 12 months

• How his experience in many types of sales has led him to what he’s doing today

• This one’s especially important! The big reason people who have a conversation with prospects never end up getting that person as a client

• A framework for successfully getting sales

• How you can best position yourself to get the most business

Troy is willing to take follow-up questions from Copywriters Podcast listeners. His email is:

[email protected]


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I met Josh Rosenberg in Las Vegas a few years ago at Mark Ling’s mastermind. We had a very animated conversation at dinner, and then all of us headed over to one of the wildest and most memorable parties of my life.

It’s a fitting memory, because Josh takes a bold approach to copywriting and marketing, and he’s going to share some highlights today.

Josh got into copywriting in 2008. He had a corporate job he hated. He learned copywriting and web marketing from the ground up, and as his career took off like a rocket, he became a much happier camper. But he’s about as unconventional as you get.

For example, when he’s working on a piece of copy and he asks his friends to review it, if they tell him it’s “good,” he’ll tear it up and rewrite from scratch. He won’t actually start to use the copy until his friends stop complimenting him and start demanding to buy the product.

Josh’s work has generated over $100 million for businesses in almost 60 industries. And he prides himself on getting paid far more than most other copywriters do.

Here’s what I asked him:

1. Where do you find clients who can pay you top dollar for your work?

2. Okay, so now that you know where high paying clients what do you actually say and do in order to get their attention so they’ll agree to get on the phone with you?

3. With so much competition out there in industries like info products and eCommerce, how do you stand out from other copywriters? I’ve heard you comparing how clients pick which copywriter to hire very similarly to ordering a bottle of wine at a restaurant. Can you tell us what that means?

4. So you’ve set yourself apart from everyone else, got a potential client on the phone, what do you say when they ask about your rates?

5. I know you’re very proud of the fact you’ve figured out how to get paid upwards of $25,000 before you even get hired or are asked to do any work. I’m dying to know, how does this work?

Josh’s Facebook Group:

https://www.facebook.com/groups/copywritersclubhouse

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We recorded today’s show a few days after the Superbowl, and I’d like to talk about the most admired and most hated athlete in America, Tom Brady. People seem to run very hot or very cold on him.

Personally, I like him. He lived in my part of the country earlier in his life; he graduated from the same college I did; and he used to come back here summers to work with Tom Martinez as a personal quarterback coach. Martinez was also the football coach at the College of San Mateo, where legendary coach Bill Walsh once played.

Football royalty. So, you have every right to ask, what in the WORLD does this have to do with copywriting?

Well, I know about Tom Brady’s secret frustration. And what I know is not from any inside information, but just from a fact of life which also affects copywriters. Tom Brady’s work ethic is not the only reason for his incredible success. It’s also his patience, when he worked and worked and worked and worked and worked without seeing any progress. And then one day - shazaam - a breakthrough.

There’s a brick wall he kept running into. A brick wall we ALL run into, if we really want to get really good at something. Then one day, the door seems to magically open, and you break on through to the next level.

We talked about the brick wall today and I laid out the formula for getting through it. What you need to know to get to the next level of copywriting.

The brick wall I was referring to before has a technical name, among those of us who study it and those of us who coach people for performance improvement. It’s called the plateau.

When you’re climbing a mountain, there are stretches of the path where you are moving upward. And there are stretches of land on your path that are flat. You have to move across these flat areas to get to the next part where the path continues upward. In geography, the flat area is known as a plateau, and that’s where the term comes from.

We talked about George Leonard’s book Mastery a few shows ago. He has a chapter in the book titled “Loving the Plateau.” In that chapter, he writes

“The achievement of goals is important… We are taught in countless ways to value the product, the prize, the climactic moment.

“But even after we’ve just caught the winning pass in the Superbowl, there’s always tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow. If our life is a good one, a life of mastery, most of it will be spent on the plateau. If not, a large part of it may well be spent in restless, distracted, ultimately self-destructive attempts to escape the plateau.

“The question remains: Where in our upbringing, our schooling, our career are we explicitly taught to value, to enjoy, even to love the plateau, the long stretch of diligent effort with no seeming progress?”

It’s a good question, the one that George Leonard asks. I’ll hazard a guess. Most people aren’t taught to value or even love the plateau. And when it comes to copywriting, that may be the number one reason people give up on trying to get really good about it.

Yet you’ve got to. Put in the darkest terms, I’ll quote Winston Churchill: “When you’re going through hell, keep going.”

It’s amusing, and it’s easy to focus on the word “hell.” But I’m here to tell you today to focus on four other words instead: “going through” and “keep going.”

Now, to get a little clearer on the concept: A plateau is not writer’s block or burning out. No, a plateau is where you keep working on what you’re doing, and it seems like you’re making no progress.

We talked about what that looks like… what you need to know about plateaus that will help you keep going and realize all is not lost but, to coin a phrase -- and that’s really what we copywriters do, you know, coin a phrase -- the best is yet to come.

Books referred to in this show:

Mastery, by George Leonard

https://www.amazon.com/Mastery-Keys-Success-Long-Term-Fulfillment-ebook/dp/B01ND0X91Y

Peak, by K. Anders Ericsson and Robert Pool

https://www.amazon.com/Peak-Secrets-New-Science-Expertise-ebook/dp/B011H56MKS

Atomic Habits, by James Clear

https://www.amazon.com/Atomic-Habits-Proven-Build-Break-ebook/dp/B07D23CFGR

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Today we’re back at it in the Old Masters Series. We’re going to talk about how to make a fortune during a recession. Now a lot of people think now is the worst time to make a lot of money, but it all depends on your perspective.

People who are good at spotting opportunities learn how to adjust the way they look at things depending upon the environment. When the storm clouds of recession and depression show up, they use it to their advantage. Not to take advantage of helpless people, but to recognize the opportunities in the changed circumstances.

Bill Benton was such a man. He was 30 years old when the Great Depression hit in 1929, but he didn’t let that get in his way of becoming a millionaire by age 35. He saved companies with his unique ad strategies. And he even bought one for peanuts that later was earning him $2 million a year.

Now let’s talk about you.

Times are tough and you have to make a choice — do you want to go along with the doom and gloom thinking of the naysayers, or see this as a legitimate opportunity?

Now, to be sure, things aren’t easy and right now a lot of people are in such bad shape that they can’t take advantage of opportunities, or create new ones.

If that’s you, I understand. But if you even see a glimmer of possibility for building business during hard times, today we’re going to look at someone who did it and see what lessons we can draw from his amazing story — and use today.

That person is Bill Benton. He founded his own ad agency just before the great crash of 1929, and emerged very wealthy and powerful, right in the middle of the Great Depression.

In an interview Studs Terkel’s great book “Hard Times,” Benton refers to what his friend the economist Beardley Ruml said:

“In all catastrophes, there is the potential of benefit.”

We’ll look at how you can do that in today’s show.

I’ve boiled down what I’ve learned to five principles of how Bill Benton did so well during the Great Depression, and we take a deep dip into each one:

They are:

1) Ignore the doom and gloom

2) Feet on the ground, eyes on the future

3) Use the power of great content to multiply the results from advertising

4) Make direct response advertising your foundation, not your skyscape

5) Imagination really is more powerful than knowledge — but first you gotta have the knowledge.

Books referenced in the show:

The Lives of William Benton, by Sidney Hyman

https://www.amazon.com/Lives-William-Benton-Sidney-1970-04-20/dp/B01FELATKU

Hard Times, by Studs Terkel

https://www.amazon.com/Hard-Times-History-Great-Depression/dp/1565846567


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Rocky is an entrepreneur, coach, consultant, and the creator of a program called Platinum Path, where he helps people reinvent their expertise and shift into a high-priced, lifestyle-friendly business model.

Over the last 20 years Rocky has helped his clients bring over 100 million dollars in training and info products to the market. He's consulted on over 3000 projects for clients ranging from billion-dollar brands like Pearson, Wiley, and Macmillan, to experts, authors, and entrepreneurs in 7 countries and over a hundred different markets.

But he’s accessible. You can hang out with him every day in his free Facebook group, called The Power Persona Project.

Rocky talked about how and when personal branding is a plus for a copywriter, and some inside secrets you can use for yourself or your clients.

Effective branding requires inner and outer work, Rocky says. He gave some great tips and benchmarks to give you a fuller working understanding about personal branding.

Rocky’s Facebook Group:

https://www.facebook.com/groups/powerpersona

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We are back with another show in the Old Masters series. Today it’s How I Learned The Secrets of Success in Advertising, by G. Lynn Sumner.

Guy Sumner originally published the book in 1952, and it was recently reissued. You can get it on Amazon now. We’ll put a link in the show notes.

I only heard about this book from friend of the podcast Don Hauptman. The author Sumner was really an Old Master -- here’s an article about him from the New York Times of May 15, 1940, announcing he was re-elected as president of the Advertising Club of New York. That was 81 years ago!

There’s one secret that’s particularly important, as important today as it was when the book was written. It has to do with the one thing that separates ordinary copy from blockbuster copy, and that’s imagination. Sumner has some great ideas about how to develop it, and that’s what we’ll talk about today.

A lot of people believe that imagination in advertising is just coming up with some wild and crazy idea… throwing it up against the wall… and then hoping and praying it will stick.

The problem is, sometimes it does, but almost all the time, it doesn’t.

Let’s talk about how to vastly increase your odds by using your imagination to increase sales.

We’ll start with an important question:

What is creative thinking?

Some creative people truly believe creative thinking is a magic thing you can’t describe, learn or teach. And for them, that may be true.

A lot of people who haven’t learned how to think creatively yet think the same thing.

So what follows from this is the idea: “Creativity — either you get it, or you don’t.”

Guy Sumner doesn’t see it that way, and neither do I. Sumner says, “It is taking known facts, known elements, known functions and arranging them in new patterns.”

He admits this is not easy, because it requires focused thinking to do this rearrangement.

Now, what about creativity and copy?

That’s where Sumner talks about another important quality, imagination.

If creativity is the lab where new stuff gets designed, imagination is the art department where it gets put together in the most appealing way.

Stated another way, imagination is what you use to make your creativity add value to your copy.

Sumner talks about watching his mother make a cake. The flour, sugar and eggs would just sit there in the pan. The flour, sugar and eggs were the creativity.

Then, his mom would in that magic ingredient, baking powder. Then, when you put it in the oven, the ingredients would rise and form a delicious cake!

Sumner goes on to say that imagination is the “baking powder” of copy.

We go on to detail the four steps of feeding the imagination that leads to blockbuster copy ideas. I know from personal experience, and the experiences of my clients, that these are as good today as they were in the 1940s and 1950s, when Sumner was writing about them.

Here’s the link to Sumner’s book:

How I Learned The Secrets of Success In Advertising:

https://www.amazon.com/How-Learned-Secrets-Success-Advertising/dp/0981643213

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