Copywriters Podcast

So, I recently bought a new piece of music equipment.

It came with a lot of bells and whistles, including:

Opening – Eqs and Compressors

Supercharger GT 99

Passive EQ 149

Vari Comp 99

Enhanced EQ 149

Solid Bus Comp 99

Solid Dynamic 99

Solid EQ 99

VC 2A 99

VC 76 99

VC 160 99

Total: $991

Doesn’t include other special effects, like reverb and overdrive.

Second one, passive EQ – a Manley Massive Passive sells for just over $5K. That’s what a producer is buying something to substitute for. Reviews and expert opinions – comes really close.

Results: Charles, in private fb group / Alexa enhancement / comment

This is important because I went through a whole review of one piece of music a few episodes ago, based on the savings from the sampled instruments. So this is a totally different side of the bonus. Again, the $1199 does not seem so expensive anymore.

What did they do?

Packed in multiple strings of bonuses into the offer, to enhance value in different directions at the same time.

What are some different ways you can do the same kind of things with your offers?

We’ll cover that today, with three “alternative offer formulas” you’ve never heard of before.

First, let me offer you this reminder:

Copy is powerful. You’re responsible for how you use what you hear on this podcast. Most of the time, common sense is all you need. But if you make extreme claims… and/or if you’re writing copy for offers in highly regulated industries like health, finance, and business opportunity… you may want to get a legal review after you write and before you start using your copy. My larger clients do this all the time.

Example: Infoproduct. How to make money in the constantly changing world of Facebook.

Dress Up Your Offer: Strategy #1: Pack in valuable bonuses, even in groups of more than one kind.

Product: Making money with Chameleon Facebook

Bonus thread #1: Smart content marketing templates – for posts, memes, and even – gasp – podcasts!

Bonus thread #2: An inside secret to cut the cost of your Facebook ads by 80% or more! Plus some ad templates. And an auto-ad-creator script you can throw into photoshop.

Bonus thread #3: Facebook funnel fat remover: A 14-point investigative tool to find out where you’re spending too much for new leads in any Facebook campaign. Plus a set of tools to fix the flaws you find.

Dress Up Your Offer: Strategy #2: Rework your description to focus more on user experience and results, rather than on features and process.

No longer will you be whipsawed like a small boat in an ocean storm by Facebook’s constantly changing algorithms. Now it won’t make a bit of difference to you anymore. Because Making Money with Chameleon Facebook shows you how to make money no matter what they do with the algorithm.

Not only that. You’ll use a unique, closely-guarded strategy for bringing in boatloads of cash with Facebook groups. Algorithm changes can’t touch you there!

And, you’ll know how to test like a ninja. That will keep your cost per lead down to the bare minimum.

Dress Up Your Offer: Strategy #3: Lead with a bonus (financial newsletter strategy). Start piling on other bonuses and then just “throw in” “the main event.”

We could start with any of the bonuses in Strategy #1. Let’s choose Facebook Ads Cost Reducer. The whole sales letter focuses at first solely on that. Then, we offer everything else – including the main product – as a bonus.

Why dressing up your offer is so important

People won’t figure out the value of what you’re offering on their own. But when you carefully and skillfully create an offer that captures their imagination with its value and uniqueness, you’ll make a lot more sales.


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Show’s today about what I’m calling “Copywriter-Plus.” As things have become very competitive in the world of copy, this is a new strategy I’ve discovered that could help every copywriter who takes advantage of it.

Also - new technology, originally developed in radio -- including recorded brief comments from people mentioned during the show.

“Copywriter-Plus” is something you and I, Nathan, have been using for a long time without maybe fully realizing it. I’ll explain what it is, give some real-world, present-day examples with interviews, and tell our listeners what steps they can take to use “Copywriter-Plus” in their own business.

Copy is powerful. You’re responsible for how you use what you hear on this podcast. Most of the time, common sense is all you need. But if you make extreme claims… and/or if you’re writing copy for offers in highly regulated industries like health, finance, and business opportunity… you may want to get a legal review after you write and before you start using your copy. My larger clients do this all the time.

What Copywriter Plus Is: Copywriting plus one important different skill.

Why It’s Valuable: Convenience for clients, competitive edge for copywriter

Our examples: Nathan - Copywriter, Podcast Expert. Me - Copywriter, Coach.

Client Example #1: Mike Gianullis, Copywriter and CEO

- Started out as copywriter

- Built $25 million organization

- Recently became CEO

- Currently helping clients build online stores

- Using cold traffic to get leads

- Recently hired three full-time copywriter

- What difference does his background as a copywriter make?

- [clip]

- Also told me, when people approach him with new offers they want him to sell, he can evaluate them quickly and confidently because of his background as a copywriter

Client Example #2: Meron Bareket, Copywriter and Tech Whiz

Brings a full set of tech skills to his copywriting practice. Also has a tech team on call when he needs them.

He’s able to find, fix, diagnose tech problems for clients on a project without their having to send things to a separate tech team. And he can manage design and coding people for clients, which they often don’t like to do, or know how to do.

Recently he was working on a promotion for a client giving a business seminar. He ran into a nightmare of tech problems which he didn’t cause, because he had only been working as a copywriter. But his tech skills really came into play:

[clip]

There was one other problem. Once they stopped the emails from being scary, Meron’s investigation also found the sign-up page on the website was not mobile-friendly. He was able to get that fixed in time, and the seminar had the turnout his client originally hoped for.

He prefers copywriting to tech work. But his Copywriter-Plus skill came in VERY handy for a client just a couple weeks ago.

Client Example #3: Brad Nickel, Copywriter and Traffic Expert

Brad got started in the ad agency world, and one of the first thing he got really good at was generating traffic from ads on the Web.

He learned some tricks of the trade pretty early on:

[clip]

That was a while ago, and since then he has become successful and best known in his marketplace as a copywriter. But recently he was hired to do a project that a copywriter without traffic skills wouldn’t be able to do... SAAS project, financial industry, incongruency ads<-->web page; not closing; follow-up emails for those who signed up for the free trial but did not buy.

And he’s been able to help his conventional copy clients tune up their funnels with what he knows about traffic.

How To Take Advantage of “Copywriter-Plus” Yourself

1. Inventory your skills - anything you can add now?

2. Any skill you’d like to develop?

3. Something new you’d like to learn and become good at?
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Today we’re starting a new special feature of the Copywriters Podcast.

It’s called Reports from the Field. These are interviews with people who are not merely EXPERTS – they are also practitioners. Right now they are implementing what they are talking about. We can all learn so much from people who are in the field and taking action successfully.

Our first guest on the Copywriters Podcast Reports from the Field is Victor Urbina. I know Richard well because he is in my business owner’s mentoring program. Victor sold his first business at age 12. Think about that. SOLD his first business by age 12.

He has taken a traditional business route in life and he’s been very successful. He has an engineering degree and an MBA. He’s been a UPS store franchisee for 10 years. But in 2016, he started Optimum Life Labs, which develops and markets supplements to help boomers and seniors. We’ll talk about his product Joint Nirvana in today’s show, because he has built a business completely on copy and direct response and it is really starting to get traction. Like, making serious money on a daily basis.

Before we start, a friendly reminder:

Copy is powerful. You’re responsible for how you use what you hear on this podcast. Most of the time, common sense is all you need. But if you make extreme claims… and/or if you’re writing copy for offers in highly regulated industries like health, finance, and business opportunity… you may want to get a legal review after you write and before you start using your copy. My larger clients do this all the time.

Now… Victor, welcome to the Copywriters Podcast. I really appreciate that you took time out of your busy schedule to meet with us today.

1. How did you get into direct marketing?

2. We started working together last summer. In mid-February, you told me you’ve made more this year with the new supplement business than you made all last year. I just want to clarify that the supplement business had more sales by mid-feb this year than it did all last year, not that I personally made more income

Could you share a few key takeaways from your rapid growth and success?

3. It’s not always comfortable to talk about mistakes, but most experienced people agree you learn more from mistakes you made than from your successes.

Would you be willing to talk about an important mistake or two you made, and what you learned from it, and what are doing differently as a result?

4. Let’s focus specifically on copywriting. What would you say is the biggest surprise in what you’ve learned about copy / or, about how to write copy?

5. What are the most valuable things you’ve learned about copywriting?

6. With a business based on copywriting, what is the limit you see as to how large you could grow the business? Or is there a limit? Why?

7. I know we have a large group of business owners that listen to this podcast. What would be your advice to business owners who would like to write or understand writing copy better?

8. What are the main differences in running a business like your group of UPS stores, and Optimum Life Labs, which is 100% based on direct marketing copy?

9. What’s the most important thing you’re now able to do in business as a result of your new-found proficiency in copywriting, that you couldn’t do before?

Email Victor at [email protected]


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This week's episode is a little bit different.

David and Nathan do a bit of a freestyle rant on Maslow's hierarchy of needs, as it pertains to writing your sales copy.

For those of you who might be unfamiliar with the topic, here's what we'll be covering.

Physiological needs

* consumer goods

* food

* clothing

* shelter

Safety needs

* personal security

* financial security

* health and well being

Social belonging

* Fitting in

* Trends

* Identity brands

Esteem

* Status symbols

* Luxury items

Self-actualization

* Courses

* Self-Improvement materials

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As a journalist, I was trained to do “news stories” and “feature stories.”

A news story started with a quick, curiosity-provoking sentence hinting or outright telling what the story was about.

A feature story would start with an anecdote, or a startling fact, or something other than the direct subject of the story.

Same as direct / indirect leads. What we’ll talk about today. Because which one you use can have a dramatic impact, positive or negative, on your sales. You need to know which one to use, when, and that’s what we’ll cover.

Warning

Copy is powerful. You’re responsible for how you use what you hear on this podcast. Most of the time, common sense is all you need. But if you make extreme claims… and/or if you’re writing copy for offers in highly regulated industries like health, finance, and business opportunity… you may want to get a legal review after you write and before you start using your copy. My larger clients do this all the time.

Direct vs. Indirect Leads

Definition

Direct: Where you present a Big Promise or a Problem-Solution that has to do DIRECTLY with what your offer can provide your prospect.

Indirect: Where you start on a topic or subject that’s different than what your offer is really about.

Both are legitimate. The thing is, there’s a lot of confusion about which is which, and when to use each type. We’ll clear that up today and it may change some minds on how to use each type.

Before we got there, let’s look at an example of each type.

Simple Example

Say I was promoting a new course on copywriting

Direct: If writing’s too hard, takes too long, or is not getting you the results you want, here is a way to make it easier, faster, and much more profitable.

Indirect: First time I met Jim Camp…

Both are legitimate

Classic Way The Difference Is Described

From Great Leads, published in 2011

Key point: The less aware the audience is, the more indirect you want your lead to be.

The situation is not that simple today, and we’ll explore and explain that in this episode.

Take A Look at Real Life

When are we direct in a conversation with a friend?

Urgency

Problem-solving

When are we indirect in a conversation with a friend?

Delicate situation

Persuasion

“Shooting the breeze”

To get clarification in our own minds (side note: coaching)

Writing sales copy should be like talking to a friend. So maybe, just maybe, we should look at direct vs. indirect leads that way.

And, with that in mind…

2018 Version of The Difference Between Direct and Indirect Leads

Great Leads: Indirect lead focuses on clarification for the customer who doesn’t know much about your offer (or the problem it solves).

But there’s a much more important and widespread use for indirect leads these days… and that’s for persuasion.

Especially when you’re selling the kind of offer that everyone is real clear about, as well as the problem it solves… but the offer is so overpitched that a direct lead would immediately get deleted or thrown away.

So – direct lead

You already know the prospect – or, at least, they know you or your business

Especially, when they’ve bought from you before

Particularly, when you have a high-end upsell offer… either immediately after the sale, or later on down the line

And, most of all – WHEN THEY HAVE A PARTICULAR, URGENT PROBLEM that they haven’t been able to find a satisfactory solution for. And you have a unique and appealing solution that of course they haven’t seen or heard of before.

How to Do A Direct Lead

Get right to the point

Big Promise

Or, Problem-Solution

Example: conversation at a marketing conference about critiques

How to Do An Indirect Lead

Probably the best single way is to start with a story or a metaphor – or, best of all, a story that’s also a metaphor.

Example – conversation at a marketing conference. Start w

How to Transition from an Indirect Lead to Your Body Copy

“Just as... ”

“I mention that because… ”

“Suppose you were to do the same thing with… ”


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Story about recent critique client: a couple good ideas; 20.

Mandy’s question about my creativity, from her podcast interview:

Question 2: One other thing I noticed about reading your testimonials… your clients are impressed with how fast you come up with great ideas.

He also has this ridiculous talent for coming up with copy, like, effortlessly. It would take me at least 30 minutes to come up with what he comes up with in 30 seconds.

—Fran Rengel, CEO, Enrich Marketing, Inc., Austin, TX

After WEEKS of struggling to find the perfect lead for a promotion I was working on, David nailed it in only 37 seconds flat. Doberman Dan

Where did it come from?

I actually eat my own cooking.

Today I’ll share some of the recipes with you.

Before we get started on Monster Creativity, a reminder:

Copy is powerful. You’re responsible for how you use what you hear on this podcast. Most of the time, common sense is all you need. But if you make extreme claims… and/or if you’re writing copy for offers in highly regulated industries like health, finance, and business opportunity… you may want to get a legal review after you write and before you start using your copy. My larger clients do this all the time.

Monster Creativity

- What it is: the ability to generate consistently good ideas – and a lot of them.

- Where does it come from?

- Research and stored knowledge

- Experience: successful and unsuccessful, and reflection to be able to quickly spot what’s good and what sucks

- Flexibility and release of fear of looking stupid

- How do you develop it yourself – that’s what we’ll cover

John Cleese’s breakthrough observation

- It’s a skill

- Skill beats talent in the long run – and it’s much more reliable in the marketplace

- What are the skills and how do they fit together?

Resilience beats Perfection, every time

- What I learned from Richard Armstrong

- What resilience is, and why it’s so important

- Deliberate practice and mental representations (created by smart repetition)

- How resilience and smart repetition LEADS to perfection

Where Math Fits In

How many combinations of six elements can you make, where you use all six?

The answer comes from a branch of mathematics called combinatorics and is used in algebra, calculus and mathematical analysis.

It’s really a simple thing. It’s called “factorial”

Six factorial is: 6 times 5 times 4 times 3 times 2 times one.

Six factorial is 720. 720 different combinations.

And all you need is five or 10 good combinations for monster creativity.

The Power of Negative Thinking

Sometimes you need to do something conceptually similar to what’s called “an acid test” in accounting – that is, if all hell broke loose, how long would this business last?

With ideas, the question is different: In what situations would this claim NOT be true?

You want to then either toss or fix the idea so it’s true enough of the time to make it valid.

Summary

Recipe #1: Read widely, talk to people, take notes, learn to mindmap, put ideas or segments of ideas down on paper

Recipe #2: Let resilience overcome your perfectionism. Develop mental models of what successful practical creativity looks like.

Recipe #3: Respect the mathematical concept of factorials. Make more combinations of ideas than you need. Then sift through them to find the best ones. Then, acid-test them to see how strong your finalist ideas actually are.


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Native Instruments purchase - $1200 for a hard drive filled with music software and virtual instruments. This cost me more than a lot of my guitars!

I called my sales engineer at Sweetwater, Brian.

What he explained to me.

What I’d be able to do… what I would not have to spend… or take time learning.

Suddenly, it didn’t seem that expensive.

Think about what it would have cost to do that in real life. Rent Davies Symphony Hall. $2500 minimum – already more than twice what I paid for the software.

And that does not include

• Hiring a trumpet soloist

• Hiring a woodwind ensemble, with flutes, oboes, clarinets, bassoons, saxophones, contrabassoons and bass clarinets.

• Or hiring a string section, with cellos, violas and violins

And that’s just for starters. Add to that the cost of professionally setting up microphones and recording the instruments; then, mixing and producing the finished piece. We’re easily now between $3000 and $4000 just for 10-1/2 seconds of music.

So now you can see how suddenly $1199 was not nearly as much money.

And that’s an example of how you demonstrate perceived value.

Before we go further, this message:

Warning

Copy is powerful. You’re responsible for how you use what you hear on this podcast. Most of the time, common sense is all you need. But if you make extreme claims… and/or if you’re writing copy for offers in highly regulated industries like health, finance, and business opportunity… you may want to get a legal review after you write and before you start using your copy. My larger clients do this all the time.

Perceived Value

It seems like a lot of hocus-pocus. But it’s not. It’s the applied use of your imagination to understand and then explain why something that seems like nothing more than a pile of features, is actually worth A LOT to your prospect.

How to increase Perceived Value

- What’s their life like today?

- Compare your offer to the cost / or missed opportunity / of what their life’s like today to what it would be like if they didn’t have the problem, or took advantage of the opportunity. That is, what is it worth not to have this problem? Or, what is it worth to have this opportunity? And, why is our offer better (providing more value) than other solutions or opportunities available are?

- Compare your offer, and the results it provides, to inferior solutions that don’t provide as much value

TIP: Beware of the Curse of the Obvious. The value of your offer may be obvious to you. But it’s rarely obvious to the customer. You need to spell out, even demonstrate it. In your prospect’s life. What we’ll talk about today is a series of steps to do that.

Understanding what I just talked about is crucial to understanding how to create perceived value.

1. Make money

2. Save money

3. Save time

4. Reduce effort

5. Improve health

6. Reduce pain

7. Increase pleasure

Plus one: Increase prestige

What you do is you look at the benefits of your offer. All the things it does for the prospect. Then you look for which of these benefits (or performances) fit into one or more of the eight categories we just discussed.

Like, with my Native Instruments software – how much money would it have cost me to set up, pay people, record, and produce that piece of music. (save money)

It can take a few hours to actually go through this process step by step, and we don’t have that kind of time right now, so what we’ll do today is look at three examples of the perceived value concepts developed on products based on the eight categories.

Let’s say you came up with a program that could show you exactly which Facebook ads and landing pages in your niche were working, and gave you an exact algorithm for getting the right distribution for that ad.

The increased perceived value: Our program multiplies every ad dollar into more revenue because of precision targeting.

What if you came up with an exercise machine that allowed you to get the same cardio and strength benefits of existing machines, with only half the effort on your part? For people who can’t do a rigorous gym workout–whether they’re weak, or disabled, or just plain lazy-that would be worth a lot.

The increased perceived value: Get more of the positive results of exercise with less exertion.

Suppose you had a diet and supplement plan that could solve the same problem conventional medical care attempts to solve, without the dangerous side effects. I don’t even want to speculate on what that would be, what specific

The increased perceived value: Get healthier in a safer way, and save enormous medical costs.

- Look at your offer from your customer’s point of view

- Develop benefits

- Categorize those benefits into the seven reasons people buy plus one

- Pick the best examples that demonstrate value, based on what we talked about on today’s podcast.

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I got this small rubber ball to squeeze to strengthen the muscles in my left hand, when I started playing guitar again a couple years ago after a 40-year “break.”

You want your copy to be as strong as possible, too. Remember that good copy has a job to do… to move qualified prospects to take action. That takes muscle! Today’s episode tells you how to make your copy more muscular.

Copy is powerful. You’re responsible for how you use what you hear on this podcast. Most of the time, common sense is all you need. But if you make extreme claims… and/or if you’re writing copy for offers in highly regulated industries like health, finance, and business opportunity… you may want to get a legal review after you write and before you start using your copy. My larger clients do this all the time.

These are seven easy-to-use tips. You might want to cut and paste the show notes from our home site, copywriterspodcast.com, and make yourself a little checklist. Use the checklist to go over your copy after you’ve written it, to make it more muscular.

I’ll give you two tips, and then five more from three great books… we’ll include the titles and amazon links in show notes.

The books are: The Art of Plain Talk, by Rudolph Flesch; Writing Tools, by Roy Peter Clark; and The Magic Power of Emotional Appeal, by Roy Garn.

TIP 1. Your first tip for making your writing more muscular comes directly from me. In fact, I used my recently strengthened left hand to type this up for the show notes:

Use active verbs / active sentences / and write about things the reader or listener can easily visualize.

Example:

The Copywriting Podcast is listened to by thousands of people. // weak, passive

Thousands of people listen to the Copywriting Podcast. // strong, active

TIP 2. From me: Short words / short sentences / short paragraphs — but do mix it up.

If every word, sentence and paragraph is short, your copy quickly becomes boring and ineffective. But do what you can to keep your writing clear and understandable by using simple words, sentences and paragraphs more often than not. Complexity creates confusion in the prospect’s mind – and the confused mind does not buy.

TIP 3. In Rudolph Flesch’s The Art of Plain Talk, slavishly follow these rules from the Chapter “Gadgets of Language,” where Flesch is quoting another author, H.W. Fowler, in his book “The King’s English”:

These five rules:

⁃ Prefer the familiar word to the far-fetched.

⁃ Prefer the concrete word to the abstract.

⁃ Prefer the single word to the circumlocution.

⁃ Prefer the short word to the long.

⁃ Prefer the Saxon word to the Romance.

Let’s look at a couple of these.

Prefer the concrete word to the abstract:

For weight loss. Abstract: You can see impressive results in less than a month.

Concrete: You can drop three dress sizes in less than a month.

For Facebook advertising, Romance word:

On Facebook, you’ll experience more transactions with the same ad spend.

For Facebook advertising, Saxon word:

On Facebook, you’ll kill it more often with the same ad spend.

Note: To get you started on this, there’s a Wikipedia page on words with Anglo-Saxon origin. Link in the show notes.

TIP 4. From Rudolph Flesch again, Chapter 4, “The Grammar of Gossip” Always put people in your writing, as often as possible. It makes the writing more interesting and keeps the reader engaged.

“The thing to do in such a situation is to go through the text sentence by sentence and to look for the logical-not the grammatical-subject. After a while you will discover that the logical subject is always a person and that every sentence can be written so that this person is mentioned.”

Non-people: The critique was so effective that when the ideas were put into effect, the conversion rate on the VSL more than doubled.

A person: Brett took the ideas from my critique and put them to work. The ideas were so effective that Brett doubled his conversion rate on the VSL.

TIP 5. From Roy Peter Clark:

Put your strongest words at the start and end of each sentence.

(example - before and after)

TIP 6. From Roy Peter Clark:

Use internal cliffhangers. Keeps ‘em reading!

TIP 7. From Roy Garn:

Use the most powerful Emotional Appeals as often as you can, logically and plausibly. The four most powerful Emotional Appeals are:

- Self-preservation

- Money

- Romance

- Recognition

This is practically a full copywriting course in itself. Self-preservation can mean survival, or immortality, or even keeping your job. Money… well, as Danny DeVito said in the movie The Hiest, “That’s why they call it money!” Romance is of course love and sex, but it’s also taking an ordinary idea and making it special, like the experience of driving a new car and making it romantic. Recognition can include prestige, appealing a person’s sense of identity, and personalizing a message by using a person’s name.

So that wraps up Writing with Muscle. Learn to use these tips and with practice, they’ll become habits.

Next time: Increasing Perceived Value

Books and links

The Art of Plain Talk, by Rudolph Flesch http://a.co/3xPclwa

The Art of Plain Talk, by Rudolph Flesch

Writing Tools, by Roy Peter Clark

The Magic Power of Emotional Appeal, by Roy Garn

Wikipedia page on words of Anglo-Saxon Origin


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On June 23, 1965, a group out of Detroit called The Contours released a record which became a big hit. The tune was written by written by Smokey Robinson and Bobby Rogers, and it was called “First, I Look At The Purse.” Many other groups covered this song afterwards, including the Jay Geils Band.

It’s a very interesting song… but, when it comes to critiquing copy, I have my own version. Actually, I don’t have a whole song, just a title at this point. Maybe someday I’ll write the song and then release it first on this podcast, Nathan. We could even do it as a duet. But for now, just the title. It’s…

“First I Look For The Hook!”

In any piece of copy, your hook’s so important. We’ll get into what it is in a minute, and how you can find your best hook for any copy you’re writing. This will be a revelation to a lot of people.

But before we do, first an important announcement from your conscience:

Copy is powerful. You’re responsible for how you use what you hear on this podcast. Most of the time, common sense is all you need. But if you make extreme claims… and/or if you’re writing copy for offers in highly regulated industries like health, finance, and business opportunity… you may want to get a legal review after you write and before you start using your copy. My larger clients do this all the time.

What is a hook? How is it different than the headline?

1. My own story: Let your clients do your selling.

2. Ted Nicholas story: The only way left for the little guy to get rich.

3. Stuart Lichtman story: How to get lots of money for anything fast.

What do these all have in common? (besides money)

All came from paying attention

First two cases, just looking and listening

In the third case, research — digging, asking questions, seeing if you could look at it a different way

Here’s one that’s not about money — it’s about another one of life’s necessities, beer

Claude Hopkins - Schlitz

First one to tell

There was resistance — but they finally agreed to use it, and it worked

There is a technique to create a hook quickly, which we’ve talked about twice before (most recently in “The USP Shortcut,” episode 38)

STEP 1: Make a list of what people hate about competitors

STEP 2: Find the one thing highest on the list that you can do the opposite of

STEP 3: Use that as your hook, your USP

Example - BMW, about 10 years ago

Even though there’s that technique and it can work, the best hooks usually come from observation or research

Here’s a short list of things to look for:

What have you or your client overlooked that’s simple and emotionally compelling?

What’s a memorable way to say it?

What “lights up the boards?” (Gets a lot of response.) (Ted Nicholas example.)


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Copywriting is a lot like magic.

With good sales copy, you can hold a reader captive. You can take them on a journey and open them up a world of opportunities. You can spell out some words and cast a spell on your readers.

David Allan is both a copywriter and a magician. He joins the podcast this week to share some of his knowledge with our listeners.

We talk about the overlap between his two worlds, including the skills he's been able to bring over from one to the other. David reveals some of the secrets of human nature that makes magic work. Then he explains how those same aspects of our nature apply to persuasive sales copy.

This one is a "must listen" episode.


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