Copywriters Podcast

Our guest today really gets around. Richard Miller is founder of Mission Control Studios in Phoenix. Have you ever heard of David DeAngelo and a product called Double Your Dating? David’s real name is Eben Pagan, and Richard helped him with every seminar and info-product. In the copywriting space, Richard’s worked with me and helped John Carlton with all the video in version 2.0 of the Simple Writing System.

Richard has a vast array of experience in the world of seminars, video, and info-products. He even has a project he’s working on that got 1 million views the first day it was on YouTube… and this project gives new meaning to the term “killer content!”

Here are the questions he answered:

1. What is the most important thing people need to know when it comes to creating video content/infoproducts?

2. Why should you listen to your producer, especially if you know more about your content than they do?

3. What did you learn from Dean Graziosi about creating best-selling info products?

4. You have an unusual info-product you’re working on with Sammy the Bull. Tell us about it.

5. If someone wants to work with you, what can you do for them and what’s a good next step?

Richard’s email: [email protected]
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In the opening of the movie “Echo In the Canyon,” the late Tom Petty is showing Bob Dylan’s son, Jakob, a Rickenbacker 12-string electric guitar. He plays about six chords, stops, and says, “You can’t afford the rest.” And laughs.

What’s underneath the joke is: They’re making a movie, and if he went much further, under music industry rules, the movie-makers would have to pay a large royalty for whatever song Petty was playing if it went on long enough.

It’s definitely a joke because there are many full songs throughout the movie, which I thought was excellent, by the way.

But it brings to mind an important question: What’s the story about royalties, or percentage-of-sales payments, for copywriters? We hear about them all the time but for most people, they’re a huge mystery.

I have some experience with percentage deals myself, and I have a lot of clients who do as well. So I thought we could take a deep dive into this topic today.

• What they are and how they work — or how they’re supposed to work (big picture)

• The publishing industry (includes film, TV, music, as well as books and newsletter publishers)

• Everyone else

• The type of client you want to do a percentage deal with

• The type of client you really DON’T want to do a percentage deal with

• The best type of client to do a percentage deal with

Some questions:

1. If it looks like a good deal, what’s a fair percentage to charge?

2. Does taking a percentage change your fee?

3. How do you know when you’re ready to do this?


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Our guest today comes to us through the magic of the Internet from Galicia, Spain — and he knows a lot about mastermind groups.

Whether you know what a mastermind group is or not, you’ll know more about that today. And I think you’ll quickly see why they’re important for direct response copywriters and direct response business owners.

Stan is the organizer and co-host of the Platinum Mastermind Group with John Carlton, the legendary copywriter who was on this show a couple of months ago. But Stan’s done a lot of other things, out in the business world, too.

In a past life, he designed and helped bring to life cutting-edge information systems for the likes of like Wells Fargo, Exxon, Starbucks, and even the US Air Force and NATO.

Over the last 10 years, working with Carlton, Stan launched the Simple Writing System copywriting training program, and a bunch of other things including the Platinum Mastermind.

These days, Stan’s major focus in business is helping clients build and activate funnels that actually work, and bring in the bucks.

1. Stan, thanks for being here. You’ve got a lot of experience on this topic, but for our listeners who aren’t really sure, can we start at a very basic level: What is a mastermind group, and how do they work in general?

2. What’s the best thing you’ve ever seen come out of a mastermind group, in terms of a win for a member?

3. What’s the worst thing you’ve ever seen come out a mastermind group, in terms of a fail for a member?

4. You’ve attended a lot of mastermind groups, plus you’ve handled the nuts and bolts of the Platinum Mastermind for a decade. Could you talk about what you’ve seen that works, in terms of the way mastermind groups are set up and the way they’re run, and what doesn’t work?

5. This next question is for people brave enough to attempt to do what you do for every meeting: deal with hotels. Could you offer some suggestions and warnings?

6. Let’s say someone is thinking about joining, or starting, a mastermind group. What are the key questions they should ask, or maybe better, get answered, before they go ahead and pull the trigger?

7. Finally, give us the quick version of what the Platinum Mastermind is like, and how people can find out more about it?

More info about the Platinum Mastermind

You can contact Stan directly by email: [email protected]

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On the podcast Masters of Scale, LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman interviewed Brian Chesky, CEO of Airbnb. Chesky tells of advice he got 10 years ago, when the company barely had any customers at all. He got the advice from one of the wisest men in Silicon Valley, Paul Graham of Y Combinator.

The advice was simple, but powerful:

“Get to know your customers by one.”

Brian Chesky and his Airbnb co-founders followed the advice.

He remembers, “I’d just spend time with them, and I’m like, What if I did this, what if I did this — and from those questions, a handcrafted experience is born.”

He also said, “You literally start designing touchpoint by touchpoint, the creation of a peer review system, customer support, all those things came from us. We didn’t just meet our users, we lived with them. I used to joke that when you bought an iPhone, Steve Jobs didn’t come sit on your couch.”

Well, good joke, but, Steve Jobs used to walk around the Apple Store on University Avenue in Palo Alto and ask people who were trying out Macs what they liked and what they didn’t like about the Mac.

Anyway, that’s beside the point. I just wanted to give a shoutout to Steve Jobs.

Meanwhile, Airbnb is slated to go public next year with a valuation of $35 billion. Not bad for 10 years work and starting out by going over to visit your customers at their homes.

There’s a reason I told you this, and it’s not to suggest that you go live with your customers!

I’m telling you because Brian Chesky of Airbnb made one of the four choices copywriters can make for empathy that we’ll talk about today. All four are important, and we cover them in the podcast.

First though, we cover what “empathy” is. I’m using one of the best definitions I’ve ever come across, and naturally, it’s from a Hollywood screenwriting guru. I say “naturally” because screenwriters, just as much as copywriters, need to have strong empathy for the people involved in what they write, in order for it to connect with readers and viewers.

Next, we go over the four choices you have for empathy each time you start a new project. You can only make one of them, and a couple of them are weak substitutes for the real thing. We’ll go into detail about all four.

By the time you’ve finished listening to this show, you’ll have a much better idea of what empathy is; how to achieve it (and how not to); and why it’s important in the success of your copy.


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Our guest today Adam Bensman is both state-of-the-art and very old-school. Let’s start with the old-school part:

Adam started out as a door-to-door salesman. I call that “old school” because, well, first, I did that once. So did Gary Halbert. And nearly every experienced, successful copywriter I know says that the best possible training you can get for direct-response copywriting is face-to-face sales.

Adam has risen to the heights of the business world. He’s been COO of a multi-million dollar company. He’s written copy for high-end coaches, consultants, Software-as-a-Service companies and financial experts. He counts more than 10 million deliveries of emails he’s written, and says he has personally or contributed to nearly $100 million in sales in the last six years.

Whew.

Now, here’s the state-of-the-art part. Remember I said old-school and state-of-the-art?

Adam has group and personal mentoring to help copywriters start earning from $10 to $25K per month in as little as 30 days.

I know you’ll want to hear about that.

Here are the questions he answered in today’s show.

1) Adam, today you are going to generously share with us some information that has made you and a lot of other copywriters a lot of money. More than that, it has provided a level of confidence and freedom most freelancers could only dream about.

The main topics we’re going to cover are discovering your niche, and getting paid for all the work of value that you really do for a client.

Let’s start with your own story. How did you discover this or otherwise figure it out yourself?

2) So let’s talk about discovering your niche. Could you tell us about a client who made this discovery for themselves, and especially how the thinking about it was very different from the way they were thinking about it before?

3) So if one of our listeners would like to do the same thing for their own copywriting business, what are the first two or three steps they should take?

4) Now you have another game-changer for us. I guess everyone on the writing side of the game grumbles copywriters don’t get paid what they’re worth — except for the top, top ones.

You have a way around it. Could you walk us through a story about someone who made the switch from not getting paid fairly to getting paid for everything they’re contributing to their client’s business, and how they made the shift?

5) I know in the time we have remaining you can’t walk us through the whole process, but could you give us some pointers on how you help people make the shift?

6) Finally, let’s talk about your services. I have this weird feeling there might be a few listeners who would like to get some of the results you’ve been telling us about today. What do you do, and how can people find out more about you and get in touch with you?

Adam’s website: BrainHickey


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The famous investor Warren Buffett is famous for saying that when it comes to investing, he has two rules:

1) Never lose money.

2) See rule #1

To be sure, Warren Buffett hasn’t ALWAYS been able to follow these rules. Because, of course, he is an investor and some things are beyond his control. His insurance company General Re lost $2.4 billion after the attacks on 9-11.

Even so, his overall company reported a profit for 2001, though much smaller than the profit from the year before.

Now copywriting has rules, too. We’re going to focus on three of them. They’re not quite as clear-cut as Warren Buffett’s rules, but they’re just as important.

And unlike Warren Buffett’s rules for investing, the three copywriting rules are all tempting to break.

Everyone should know what these rules are and how to avoid temptation.

Even more important than the rules themselves are the sneaky ways temptation tries to get you to break them. In your mind, each one seems perfectly reasonable and logical.

On today’s show, we spend a little time on each rule and why it’s so important… and most of our time on the nine temptations that can lead you astray… hurt your sales… damage your customer relations… and even put your business at risk.


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Direct response copywriter Matt Rizvi has worked with famous people known for being strong independent thinkers who focus on the power of the individual. People like Dr. Ron Paul, the congressman from Texas; best-selling author and financial guru Pamela Yellen; and investment analyst Porter Stansberry.

Matt’s sold millions with his copy. He’s the founder of DailyCopywriter.com and the DailyCopywriter podcast. Where I was a guest myself.

While I was getting ready to be his show, I noticed on his website he mentioned he uses “a unique type of ethical copywriting.” That really intrigued me, because I’ve always believed in ethical copywriting but I think we don’t spend nearly enough time talking about it, whether it’s on this podcast or in the copywriting world at large.

So I invited Matt to come on the Copywriters Podcast to talk about it, and here he is. It seemed like such a natural fit to me.

We covered these questions:

1. Matt, what is your definition of ethical copywriting, and why is it important?

2. What events or experiences led you to focus on ethical copywriting?

3. A lot of copywriters might be less than ethical in the way they write. Just for our listeners who aren’t up to speed on this issue, what does less-than-ethical copywriting look like?

4. Could you walk us through a promo you did and share two or three decisions you made to stay on the right side of being ethical?

5. You have cubs you mentor. What are two or three tips or guidelines you share with them to stay ethical? An example of one of these ideas in action would be great.

6. In the short run, UNethical copy can bring in windfalls. But long-term, there are consequence. I recently heard about a guy who was a household name in direct marketing 20 years ago — got hit for a huge fine for his marketing — and has all but disappeared.

What would you say about the short-term profitability vs. the long-term profitability of ethical copy, and the relative ease and/or difficulty of writing each kind of copy?

Matt’s websites: DailyCopywriter, MattRizvi

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Legendary copywriter and teacher John Carlton returns from last week.

Thousands of copywriters and entrepreneurs have learned from Carlton. He still gets royalty checks every month for ads he wrote decades ago. And if you pull him away from writing copy, he plays a mean electric guitar.

Carlton agreed to come back because he had more to tell us than we could fit into one show. I’m proud to call him my friend and to have partnered with him on more things than we have time to mention in these show notes.

But let’s summarize what you’ll get from listening to John Carlton on this show:

He shares some key but little-understood insights from advertising greats of the past, Claude Hopkins and Rosser Reeves. Insights that, once understood, will help you dominate your market, even if your products are 99% the same as most of their competitors.

Also, one of Carlton’s most valuable concepts — being a "sales detective" — gets elucidation and clarity I’ve never heard before, and I’ve spent a lot of time talking with and listening to Carlton in years past.

You’ll also hear the key insight he got from Napoleon Hill. Once you hear it, ask yourself this question: So maybe I already knew it. But do I actually DO it?

It’s a key question. And taking action on the answer makes all the difference in the world.

Finally, Carlton’s unique and can’t-miss method for getting clients and their customers to open up and "give you the goods" that you need to write winning ads.
There’s a fundamentally different way of interacting with people that most writers simply don’t know how to do, and John spells it out.

It’s not that difficult and certainly not impossible to learn. You’ll want to hear what he has to say and decide for yourself if this is something you want to start doing.

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Our guest today is John Carlton. In case you don’t know who he is, maybe you haven’t been paying attention. But you definitely should.

John has been a force of nature in copywriting and copywriting education for decades. He was Gary Halbert’s business partner. He worked in Jay Abraham’s office. He’s one of the few people allowed to speak on Dan Kennedy’s stage.

I met Carlton at the Gary Halbert Hurricane Andrew Seminar in the early 90s. About 15 years later we did our first seminar together, and we’ve been friends and partners in crime ever since.

And like all great copywriters, John’s letters and ads have sold millions upon millions of dollars worth of stuff.

In this episode, John reveals the ONE BOOK he read eleven times that got him a job in Jay Abraham’s office (a book you can easily get on Amazon for a few dollars). He also provides some very pragmatic and little-known information about how a copywriter should read a book, which is completely upside-down from how you were taught to read a book in school.

Carlton used this approach to become one of the top direct-response copywriters in the world. Definitely worth checking out.

Many people approach copywriting mostly as an intellectual activity. Big mistake, says Carlton. It’s all about wisdom-inspired action and very little about deep, wide-ranging intellectual knowledge.

“I’d rather take a streetwise salesman and turn him into a copywriter, than take a guy with a PhD in English lit and try to turn him into a salesman,” John says.

What’s the difference between someone telling you, “I like your product” and “I WANT your product?”

All the difference in the world, John says. He explains how copywriters look at this and what they do to move from getting the reaction, “I like it” to “I want it.”

The copywriter’s perspective is paramount to success. You’ll hear some things that are disturbing, some things that are enlightening, but all them are enriching and will stay with you as you move ahead in your copywriting and entrepreneurial career.

Links for this show:

John Carlton’s website: john-carlton.com

John Carlton’s Simple Writing System: CarltonSystem.com


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When I was but a wee lad, not even 40 years old yet, I worked in the Chicago News Bureau of McGraw-Hill as a correspondent for a number of niche business magazines. One of my most important clients was Engineering News Record, or ENR for short.

Now this was an interesting challenge, since I had trouble screwing a nut on a bolt. And I’d never taken an engineering course in my life.

I had to get up to speed super quickly on a whole range of things, to write about concrete, rebar, sheer forces, cantilevers, and all kinds of technical construction stuff that was a complete mystery to me.

I did it, and it really paid off. I became ENR’s golden boy in the field, and when the San Francisco bureau chief job opened up, they lobbied to get me in it. And, for the first time in 40 years, San Francisco’s McGraw-Hill World News office had a new bureau chief: me.

Now, the reason I’m bragging about this is to put some focus on a skill I developed that helped me get through many trials by fire. (That would be, each article I had to write for ENR.) The skill was, becoming a subject matter expert in a hurry.

I’ve used this in copywriting, too. It’s one reason I’ve done work in more than 100 different industries.

Today I’d like to share with you my step-by-step method for becoming an expert in a hurry. I’m going to share all my show notes on this episode with you on copywriterspodcast.com . So you can print them out and use them when it would be useful.

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Now I will say that my ENR experience came in handy 30 years later. That was when Kim Phelan, who was with GKIC at the time, asked me if I would do copy critiques for for some of their members. It turned out that Kim had worked for the Association of General Contractors and they all read ENR. So we had something from our backgrounds in common.

But just as important was the way I was able to transfer the skill of becoming a subject matter expert in a hurry to any niche. I’ve been doing this on autopilot for years, but I decided to lay all the steps on the table and share them with you today.

This is important because it gives you a comfort level in a new niche, and provides a kind of road map on where to go as you do the rest of your research.

There are five things you need to become familiar with. I’m calling them “bricks” because together they form a little structure you can operate from. I guess I did learn something at ENR after all!

Brick 1. Mindset

Description/definition: The mindset is the way this market looks at things. When you’re writing for a niche or for a specific product, the first thing you need to accept is that they may not look at things the way you do, or the way a lot of other people do. Your job is to find out how they look at it.

Example (keto):

The keto mindset is: You can lose weight eating this way: By balancing healthy fats and proteins with a small amount of good carbs. With the right information and consistent action, you will succeed. With the wrong foods or the right foods in the wrong ratios, you won’t succeed. It’s possible to do, but you have to understand exactly how to do it, and then do it exactly that way.

Questions to ask to build this brick:

• What are they trying to accomplish?

• What supports them in accomplishing that?

• What keeps them from accomplishing that?

Answering these questions helps you rapidly draw a rough outline of their world.

Brick 2. Bias

Description/definition: Possibly the only source of unbiased information in the U.S. is The Weather Channel, which boasts that it is the most trusted news channel on TV. But that’s only because there’s no constituency for bad weather.

In other words, when it comes to weather, nearly everyone has the same bias. So, they pretend they’re not biased.

But the fact is, everyone is biased. It’s just human nature. It’s not necessarily a bad thing, but it is a bad thing when a copywriter doesn’t understand the bias of the market they’re writing for. Understanding it is an important part of becoming an expert in a hurry.

Example (keto): Keto is biased against traditional “food pyramid” advice as well as a lot of diet approaches that do not emphasize fats and minimize carbs. It’s not a world where “all diets are created equal, but this one might work for you.” It’s more a world where, the information you’ve been getting is wrong and could be dangerous to your health. But keto is a proven, effective path to weight loss and overall health.

Questions to ask to build this brick

• What do they focus on as true and important?

• What do they see as misleading or unimportant?

• Which people or groups do they see for them, and who do they see as against them?

Example: Construction engineers see facts, data and physics as important.

Professional motivational speakers, who I’ve worked for, see feelings and experience as important.

Both are examples of bias. Both make perfect sense for each group. Both would be ridiculous as the primary values of the other group. Engineers building skyscrapers would be nuts to focus mainly on feelings as their basis for building decision.

Motivational speakers talking to civilian audiences would be out of their mind to talk mainly about facts and data, when their job is to inspire hope. But both groups are entirely legitimate with their own biases, in the greater scheme of things.

Brick 3. Jargon

Description/definition: Jargon is the special language of a niche, market or community. People use it for at least two major reasons: To indicate they are insiders instead of outsiders, and as shorthand, to save time.

A lot of people trying to become experts in a hurry start here. It’s better than not starting anywhere at all, but you’ll be so much better off if you have a working knowledge of the mindset and the bias before you dive into the jargon. Because, for one thing, you’ll sound more like you know what you’re talking about when you use the jargon.

Example (keto): Keto has special terms of its own. The one that stands out in my mind is “the keto flu,” which is not a real flu, as best I can tell, but the body’s reaction to going into ketosis, which is part of the process of the keto diet. It feels like the flu.

“Low-carb” is a big term they use.

Also, some biochemistry terms, like MCTs (medium-chain-tricglycerides) and ketones.

That’s just a few of them.

Questions to ask to build this brick:

• What are the “official words” people in this space use?

• What are the “slang words” people in this space use?

• Are there sayings and phrases that mean one thing everywhere else, but might mean something entirely different in this space (like “keto flu”)?

Brick 4. Thought Process

Description/definition: Every market has an overriding thought process. This becomes easier to understand after you’ve become an expert in a hurry in a few different markets. Golf’s thought process is about improving the game by making each component more efficient. Copywriting’s thought process is about improving numbers through better targeting of customers, messages, and offers. Financial informations thought process is about unique, credible techniques to improve cashflow from investments. The more you can get a sense of your niche’s thought process, the better you’ll be able to write for them.

Example (keto): Keto’s thought process is basically, everything else is wrong, and keto is the way to go with your diet. It doesn’t work exactly the same for everyone, so you may need to make some adjustments. It’s based on solid science and proven to work

Questions to ask to build this brick:

• Are they more like a detective (following clues and eliminating possibilities to get to conclusions)?

• Or are they more like an inventor (trying out new ideas to find out which one works)?

• Do they have inclusive (everyone welcome) or exclusive (only the best can do this) mentality?

Brick 5. Enemies

Description/definition: Many people would like peace, love and harmony in the world, but even those people have enemies, though they’d rather not admit it. The enemies of peace, love and harmony are war, hatred, and discord. The reality of life on this planet is that everyone perceives enemies of some sort, real or imagined. Your job, as a copywriter, is to figure out who your market sees as their enemies. This can come in handy at time when you’re actually writing the copy, and it certainly will help you understand some of the things you learn along the way as you do further research.

Example (keto): Keto has many enemies. Processed food. Traditional ways of eating. Big Agriculture (because of all of the grains and other carbohydrate-rich foods they produce). Nutritionists who give advice contrary to keto. Fast food. The candy industry.

As just a few examples.

Questions to ask to build this brick:

• Who or what makes it easier for people in this world/on this path, to succeed?

• Who or what makes it harder for people in this world/on this path, to succeed?

• Who or what do people in this world think is an enemy — even if you don’t?

Okay, so that wraps up our little crash course in how to become a subject matter expert in a hurry. As a quick review, the five “bricks” are:

1. Mindset

2. Bias

3. Jargon

4. Thought process

5. Enemies


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