Tag: copy

Struggling Moments For My Leads

Struggling Moments For My Leads

Transcript

So what I have done, is something really fun. I took our prospect call transcripts, prospects to turn into clients, and I’ve worked out the the struggling moment. But then and also, you know, like, the different elements of the struggling moment. But then I want you to look at those struggling moments and pick out the functional struggle, the emotional struggle, and, you know, the social struggle.

So you will if you haven’t opened up your workbooks, I would love for you to first do that so you can kind of go through the examples because those are, you know, those are examples.

But but I want you to look at the example so you can get an idea of what we are even talking about. So when I share my Google Doc with you, I want you to be able to kind of look at it and go, okay. And this would be the functional struggle, and this would be the emotion struggle.

So open up your workbooks. I’m gonna share screen.

And what we’re going to do is we’re going to look at the workbook first, and then I’m gonna share a Google Doc with y’all where you would go ahead and do this exercise real time.

Alright. Cool.

Let’s get started.

And first up okay. Alright. Choose.

Okay. Cool. So this is what the section I want you to look at. The struggling moment is the seat for innovation.

Just scroll past this page. I want you to look at the examples here. So client comes in. You’ll get on a call.

Client says, okay. I wanna launch copy.

But then, of course, being the professionals you are, you will probe. You will ask.

And what they usually come up with would be some would be a story like this. And I’ll share our clients’ stories on probing.

And then from this, what you wanna look at is the functional struggle. So, okay, measurable decline in performance, social struggle, you know, people kind you’re like people are looking at you and all of that. And what’s the push force or what’s the you know, if there’s an emotional struggle to it, what what does that look like?

The more important thing that you need to ask yourself is why do you wanna kind of look at all of these struggles? Like, what does this help you do?

And use that to then direct the sales conversation. At least that’s what I do. It works out really, really well. And when you look at when you start to kinda pull the thread of either one of these struggles or if possible, all three and just kind of bring it together, it becomes so much easier to close clients at twenty k, thirty k, fifty k, hundred k. Right?

I have used this repeatedly just to kind of take time to really understand what the troubling moment really is. Because when a client comes and says, oh, I need website copy, it’s there’s something else going on.

You know? Why do they need website copy? And it’s fascinating because and I’m actually you know, because I can see this play out in in myself as a a buyer or as a client too. So right now, for instance, we are in the midst of speaking with, you know, designers and branding experts and all of that because we’re looking at a rebrand for our business.

So why I said it’s fascinating is because on calls with with branding strategist or with designers and things like that, the moment someone asks me oh, because we go in saying, oh, we wanna rebrand. Right?

Very straightforward.

But the caliber of a professional, like, it instantly kind of goes up in my mind when someone, like, takes the time to, like, clean forward and ask, okay. But why now? What’s happening right now that you’re looking to rebrand?

It just kind of opens up a whole thing for both Mike and me on that call. And I can only imagine that, and I hope that those strategists who are asking these questions are actually gonna use it when they kind of put our proposal together, when they send our quote together because I know it makes a difference. I always use struggling moments when I present my proposal to clients, especially for custom codes, and something like if they’ve, like, not just bought a package of the site, but they’ve taken time to fill out a form, and they met me for a call, and we have to give them a custom code.

I will use all of this in the proposal to basically present why we’re offering them what we’re offering them and what you know? And then what you’re charging them really kind of it’s not I’m not gonna say it becomes irrelevant, especially when they’re when you’re looking at fifty k, seventy five k packages.

It’s by no means irrelevant, but they can see exactly why they need it. What is the job that your service would actually be doing for their business.

So unlike my usual sessions where I have, like, a really nice slide deck and I have, like, tactical things and all, this one is very hands on. I just want you to understand what a struggling moment really is and learn to identify that in your own calls. Because if you’re not doing that right now, that is something you wanna fix right away.

So with that, do you have any questions before I yeah?

I do.

You say you use this during the sales call. Do you find this out in that triage call?

And then when you present, you know, back to your proposal, that’s when you pull this in?

Yes. Okay. So it’s in the triage call.

Okay.

And yeah.

I will basically use this definitely in the proposal, but I also kinda bring it up when we kick off. So when we kick off and I recap what’s in the project and, you know, who’s gonna be involved in the the the day c and all of that, I do mention why we’re doing what we’re doing because what I found and this is also true side note, this is also true for things like social proof. What I found, you need to like, once you’ve sold a client, you’d they you kinda need to have these, like, little mini selling points all through the process.

That works really, really well. Again, that’s just something I do. You don’t have to do it, but it just works really well. I’ve noticed.

Okay. Cool. So I’m gonna stop sharing. You should have it. Like, if you oh, wait. That’s the appointment you’re looking for. Anyways, let’s And what I’m going to do is drop a Google doc that I have created.

Fail.

So these are all clients from prospect calls that I’ve transcribed, and then let me go on the blank. Commenter.

Copy link. Okay. Cool.

Dropping the link in chat.

Oh, Lisa, good question. So you get this in the first fifteen minute call and then begin to it in the length here. One did that did Michelle’s question answer your question as well?

Oh, sorry.

So I do this a little differently, but I don’t want y’all to kind of digress from the process that, you know, y’all are going through.

In your case, I would look at the kind of try and get this get this struggle, in the fifteen minute call and then, yes, dig into it in the length of your call. That said, how I exactly do it and what Michelle calls the triage call is, again, this is my way to get, is I just do one call, and then I do proposal.

Right?

And I’ve done this for pretty much every project, but y’all also need to remember.

It’s I’ve been doing this for a while now, so there’s probably that at play. But, Katie, yes. Sometimes.

Depends.

For instance, it depends on a couple of different factors. If there are multiple people involved in the project, for instance, we just especially the corporate clients. So there’s this huge group of schools that I’ve been working with since last year.

There are multiple people involved in it. I’ve done one project with them. I’m working on a second project with them.

So in that case, always present it on a call because there are everyone wants to be involved in it.

But if it’s someone who we’ve worked with in the past, if it’s someone who has come through a referral, if it’s someone who is already sold on us, a podcast host, I mean, for that happens a lot.

I will not present it on a call.

Breaking rules? Yes. Maybe. But it just that it’s been working.

Yes, Leasel. With corporate clients, yes. Definitely. You will have to do two calls. You may even have to do more depending on the scope of the project.

For projects upwards of seventy five thousand dollars, I have done as many as in fact, with this particular client. Okay. We’ve done okay.

Three three calls, with different stakeholders.

So because there have been changes to, oh, we wanna include this. Now we wanna you know? So yeah.

Corporate times are a whole different thing. I I really love the size of the project.

It just takes me too much time.

Okay. Cool.

You should have the Google Doc in the chat. Open it up. And what I want you to kind of look at and put down is go through the struggling moment and leave your comments or just make your own comments as like, unmute yourself and tell me what you think is the functional struggle, what do you think is the emotional struggle, what do you think is the social struggle. So this is gonna be a very different call here.

Usually, yes. Three calls seems hard.

But this is for the second project. So they’ve already worked with me once. And, yeah, perfect times are whole different days.

Y’all should have commenting access, so feel free to leave comments if you want to.

Alright. Anyone wants to volunteer for the first one?

Well, I guess since nobody else go ahead.

Go ahead.

And it’s early in the morning, so I don’t know.

So functional struggle will probably be Clients who were interested were weren’t, signing up?

Yeah. Okay. Because?

Oh, because timing was too short.

Perfect. Yeah. K. Absolutely. Absolutely. Okay. Cool. K. Emotional struggle? I guess it was about from the yeah.

Go ahead.

Headspace and timing to they weren’t in the right headspace, and there was too short of time for them to spend that nine ninety seven.

Yeah. Yeah. And when you’re reading this, you also wanna think about this from the client point of view. Right?

Like, how is the client feeling emotionally about this this struggle that they’re coming up against? Because that’s what you wanna kind of lean into and talk about it. Oh, so you’re feeling this because our students or our, you know, our prospects aren’t getting enough time to convert. Is that right?

You know? So Okay. Yeah. But you’re really, really, you know, dialed in into this. This is really good, Michelle.

Yeah. Okay.

The social struggle, that’s where I’m kinda lost.

Yeah. And that is where for social struggle, you will see that you will need to start reading between the lines.

Okay.

You will need to start kinda looking at, okay.

What are they worried about? Like, what’s the perception here that they’re worried about? Is it is it that they don’t want to they they feel like, oh, we are being we are being pushy versus being intentional? Is it more that, oh, you know, people are going to maybe see me differently or won’t respect me if I do this or if I don’t do this.

So you gotta kinda read between the lines. That is where that is where your skills as someone who is, like, tuned into how people think, come into play Okay. And where doing a little bit of probing will help. So that’s not very the the, the social struggle is not usually straightforward.

Forward.

But, for instance, in the second second, client’s case, I worked on their website probably earlier this year, and her her social struggle was a little more straightforward. So take a look at that and see if you can kind of pick the social struggle there. Okay.

Anyone else wants to kinda weigh in with the first one?

I had for the social struggle and sorry sorry I was late, so I will catch the replay to catch myself up if I missed something. But I put, whose job is it to notice this?

Like, because potential on the part of the speaker, there was confusion around, like, it was brought up by a team member.

They didn’t even know about it. So then if I’m on that call as a copywriter, I would be noticing, like, oh, they don’t.

Like, there was a role missing in the strategy behind the trial and, like, who’s gonna fix this problem.

Absolutely. Which is exactly what happened in this case as well, Katie, is one, there was no one looking at the fact that customer support is getting all these requests about, hey. Can I get more time?

Right? Like, it just came up during their they have, like, a stand up meeting or a catch up meeting, what they call it, and and really random. Not even like, oh, you know, here’s something. So which is what then led us to work on what we did for them were, like, behavior based sequences that, a, not only we give them, like, an extended trial, but then we had, like, oh, if they went ahead and logged in, then we have, like, a different sequence kicking in versus people who weren’t logging in, versus people who, you know, were logging in and watching an x number of lessons.

So it the social struggle was no one was really watching what was going on with this trial that they were thinking for all purposes as kind of doing well, because and and what was happening was they were leaving a lot of people, in terms of, like, oh, who could who could just just needed a few more days to be able to convert. So, like I said, you need to kind of read between the lines there and do a little more probing.

But what they came in saying was, oh, we wanna increase conversions. But the point is and what they initially thought was they had a lead flow problem. Like, oh, we need more people coming into the funnel so we can increase conversions. But what they actually had was a current conversion problem. Like, people were coming in but were not converting because of the lack of time. And, like, you know, Michelle said the feeling of being they were interested, but they didn’t have the headspace and the timing.

Thing was really felt too short for them.

Alright. Who wants to take number two?

These are yes. We weren’t giving them time or room to build, breathe, or build belief. That’s like so they didn’t really need a seven day trial. They needed what we went with was actually a fourteen day trial, and more emails.

So because if I just sold them a seven day trial, it would have worked.

The result of the of increasing the, trial period or the result of presenting them with a fourteen day file package? Conversion to paid upgrades. Oh, yeah. Okay. So it’s been ninety so then these are all fairly recent projects that have wrapped up. So this it’s gonna it we completed ninety days of the funnel, say, thirty first of March. So, they in ninety days, they’ve been able to almost, I would say, two point five x their conversions, but, again which is great.

However, what we are now testing out is if we shorten it to about nine days instead of fourteen days, would that create more of an urgency and increase conversion? So that’s what we gotta do in the optimization phase of it. My reasoning for this is I noticed that a lot of people wait till the very last day to convert. So I’m just kinda curious to see if you, like, go from seven from we went from seven to fourteen. So if you go from fourteen to nine or even ten, does that, you know, shorten the cycle while basically either increasing or keeping the conversions the same.

They are they’re they’re pretty happy, so they’re open to testing, which is a good thing.

Because we can always go back to fourteen if, say, the nine, ten day experiment does not work out.

Alright.

Functional struggle can’t explain too easily and in a way that shows value. Bit of imposter syndrome in the self as a creator. Yes. Then yes.

In fact, you’re it’s so cool that you brought up the imposter syndrome thing because the thing is she’s not a SaaS marketer. So this client, is really cool. She’s a really, really big affiliate marketer. She’s got, like, millions and millions of followers, on Instagram and TikTok. And, she created this tool, like I’m sorry. Her husband basically created this tool because she was really frustrated with the link in bio options available to her. So so that imposter syndrome in her is pretty real because she doesn’t think of herself as a SaaS founder.

She still thinks of herself as, an affiliate marketer who’s playing, a SaaS founder. So it’s so cool that you, kind of picked on that.

Potential loss of authority from lack of credit. Exactly. You know?

She felt like, oh, she because she’s concerned, you know, like an expert and she like, loads of an affiliate marketers look up to her. She felt like, oh, I would be they would be seeing me as less than or as per you know? So that was really, really yeah. It is. But it’s very hard, I think, when you are a creator or founder, and I guess most of you would kind of relate to it is because, like, people were approaching her about it, and she had a successful beta run and all of that, but it just kind of, you know, feel like, I don’t really know. And she came in saying, okay. I need copy for this website.

It’s interesting. I’ll tell you what we kind of sold her once we’ve kind of gone through this. But okay. Cool.

Anyone else wants to weigh in? Johnson, potential loss of authority. Yeah. Perfect. That is exactly like, that is the social, struggle here for sure.

Cool. Anyone have anything else to add?

Nope? Okay. So this is a classic case. The client comes in saying, you know, oh, I need better copy for my affiliate link in bio website so people understand what this tool does.

But the thing is she did not have any messaging created for this. Like, she just created the tool, got, like, a very, very basic one page kind of a sign up, and she felt like, okay. Let’s just change words on the website to, you know, make it clearer. But what we had to start with was and all of you know this, we had to start with going back and looking at, okay, what is it that you were saying?

How are people talking? So we had to start with all the research. We had to put together her complete message brand messaging guide, and then the website copy. But then we because of the imposter syndrome emotional struggle and, you know, wanting to explain the tool easily and that potential.

All of these struggles kinda came together because we did not want that experience to end when people signed up for the tool.

So I was able to show her that she also needed the staff onboarding emails. She needed, you know, nurture emails so that people would go ahead and use the tool and then, of course, win back emails for people who churn because it’s a subscription.

So it went from being, oh, I need copy from my home page to describe what people you know, describe what this tool does to being a huge project, because we kinda took the time to really understand what was going on, which is the whole purpose of this call is for you to start doing a little more digging to understand what is the struggle, what is the job that a prospect is actually hiring your service to do for them.

Where did they receive that? Nope.

So she was putting in all her money. Like, she’d made she’s yeah. So not VC backed, but her husband and she were both, and, Abby, it’s so funny because, you had a post in, in the Slack community that I saw later, so I didn’t get a chance to comment on it. But where you mentioned about having a call with a founder, and then the husband was on the second call and, you know, having to kind of do the I mean, it’s it’s exactly the same here.

So, she came to us through a referral, someone I’ve worked with in the past, and then she was like, yeah. Completely sold. I want all of it and then some. And then, you know, her husband, because he’s the one who created it and is also partly funding it, wanted to get on another call, and it was, you know, like, again, do the whole same thing, walking them through it again.

So, yeah, was it hard to expand the scope by that degree with the client? No. Simply because I knew the problem that she was wanting to solve was not just I needed to be clearer.

The problem was I need to look like the expert I really am. I wanna keep my standing as this really, really top affiliate marketer.

I want my app to present me the way the like, the affiliate marketing world sees me as.

So nope.

It wasn’t.

Yeah. Image is huge. Exactly. Exactly. Yeah.

Absolutely, Johnson. So because I spent the and this is the whole purpose of this call is, essentially, I want you to take the time to really dig into what is the struggle that your audience is looking to solve, your prospect is looking to solve, so it becomes easier for you to to sell them your standardized offers.

In my case, it’s more custom. So, I don’t have, like, a standardized offer other than fully loaded launch, which in any case is now going to get overhauled and retired. But, I’ve started catching this stuff on the fly, little because I’ve been doing this for a while now.

The more you’ll do it oh, one thing that I will recommend is we all use AI note takers.

I still make notes by hand. I do use an AI notetaker to kind of go over things that I may have forgotten, especially if I wanna, you know, in big package cases and things like that where we need to kind of sit down and hash out what, quote unquote, the deliverables are gonna look like. But I’ve started, like, kind of, like I make notes and then I draw lines to kind of talk about, okay, this is what the struggle really is or this is what they’re trying to solve. So, highly recommend doing that too. It just kind of trains your brain to to start picking these things.

Yes, Ali. Fully loaded launch is getting replaced with something even better.

But, yeah, I will share that soon.

It is iconic. I know.

But, yeah, it’s been a while now. So, it’s run its course, and we’ve been customizing it way, way more often, which means that we need to kind of, yep, expand the the package and change it up and all of that. So that was what happened. It is a federal party.

Yeah. Yeah. That’s a really good idea. Probably should do that.

Give it a going the way it probably served us well.

Awesome. Cool. Alright. Let’s look at number three. This is someone that we recently recently closed, like, as recent as, like, the contract’s just gone out to them. So yeah.

Oh, by the fun fact, because I did this session last month I I think I did the session last month.

This is someone whose podcast I appeared on.

And after the part like, she’s the she’s the podcast host, so that will come out later. So after the podcast, she ended up, like, wanting to know more, and then she filled out a form. And this is what we kind of know, basically.

We’ll be working together. So, again, for those of you who’ve not seen that session and who are wanting to turn podcasts into client opportunities, would highly recommend listen to that one. But for now, look at this and tell me mhmm. Functional struggle. Okay. And our data value of the offer.

Cannot sustain effort across every business area. Yep. Yep.

Yeah.

Okay.

Feel free to unmute yourself if you got things to add if you don’t wanna kind of okay. Jenny, are there specific questions you ask clients so they go beyond sharing the surface level problem?

This isn’t converting, for example, to help them share with you what the shrugging moment really is.

I generally start by asking, well, so okay. What’s on your mind? You know?

You filled out I recap what they filled out the form for. So you mentioned you’ve got a launch that’s not being well. But, really, tell me what’s on your mind.

Opens up a whole lot of conversation. It’s not my question, though. I would highly recommend if you’ve not read the coaching habit by Michael Banda Stanier. I have been using this what’s in your mind question, thanks to him, for years.

It’s worked really, really well. So, I think it was Pat Flynn who sent me that book, but anyways, years ago. But it’s a really good book. It’s called The Coach and Habit. If you don’t have it, get it, read it, use it.

Yes, Abby. Love that book. Yeah. Same thing. Yeah.

That’s okay. Liesl, you are participating.

Alright.

Couldn’t articulate value of the offer.

Hired people in the past that didn’t work out. Nailed it. Cannot sustain effort across every business area. This is a really big one. Yeah.

She just felt like, oh, I’m struggling to kind of, you know, delegate these critical marketing tasks and all that fearful of letting someone else do it. That is definitely the emotional struggle.

She felt really trapped in the founder operator stage where she knew she should be giving it up, but when she would, it won’t work out. And here’s the interesting thing. In the past, when someone would say, I’ve worked with copywriters before, and it’s never worked out. So it’d be like a huge red flag for me.

Right? Like, I know people say like, oh, red flag. And I would because I’d heard that, I would be like, oh, yeah. I’m not gonna be working with them.

Never gonna work out.

But sometimes I’ve found not sometimes right now. Most of the times. In fact, I have quite a few client, stories and testimonials talking about how in the past they’ve hired and it’s not worked out, mainly because people don’t follow process. So I I’m just sharing this from the point of view that if a client comes to you and says that, don’t let that scare you off.

Do your digging to find out, okay, what happened?

What did they do? Like, what was their process like and all of that? In this landscape, they had lots of data that, as copywriters, had not even touched. So this is like someone who runs a systems business, who teaches other fractional CMOs how to, set up systems and processes and also they’ve got loads of data. Right? They’ve not done anything with it.

And the people that you’d hired in the past didn’t touch it.

So they might as well just been guessing at the copy they were writing, which is why it wasn’t converting, which is why I knew that we could do so much with it. Point being, like, that’s, like, a side story to tell you. Sometimes when you sometimes something becomes like an industry thing. Oh, if someone says they’ve worked with someone and not like the experience, you should not work with them.

Do your own due diligence.

Yeah. Okay. Rizal, yeah, you were about to ask that. So I hope that answers your question about project boundaries.

Social struggle. If they’re a podcast host, they’re in front of a lot of people. Yes. And they’ve got she’s got, like, I think, close to thirteen million subscribers on YouTube or something like that.

So, yes, that is definitely a social struggle. It’s like, okay.

What kind of life it would be exactly that, you know, this is what I’m gonna be doing, which is something that she did, you know, say it’s not in this in the summary here is, like, I cannot see myself doing this all the time because they’re you know, she’s got other programs. She’s obviously doing the delivery as well along with the rest of her team, but she couldn’t be stuck in the cycle of writing that copy.

The other interesting thing in all of these cases I would like you and why I picked recent ones is because AI. Right? Like, all these smart in tune with the market founders all know about AI, all know about Checkatrade, all know about cloud.

None of them want to take the time to sit down and be the, you know, the prompter or the feeder of, like, hand holder for for LLMs. They do not have the time or the patience.

That is the audience you wanna look at.

Because, one thing I’m always queue again, this is something that I hear a lot in the industry, so that’s why, again, I’m bringing this up is, like, oh, no one’s hiring copywriters.

I don’t know.

So but kind of looking at what is it that people really need solved, and she could, for all purposes, use AI to write her emails for her.

But, yeah, she knows that she does not have the time or the patience. It just feels faster for her to do it herself or repurpose some of her past launch emails even though she knows they probably won’t do as well. But, yeah, that’s the alternative.

Okay. Cool. Anyone wants to weigh in on functional struggle, emotional struggle, social struggle?

Yeah. What kind of life this will be? That’s so true, Donaldson. Like, that is exactly, like and I think you probably even said this on the call. It’s like, I cannot imagine doing this, all of this year and next year. This is not sustainable.

Bernadette, would you say that loss of face is, like, the overarching theme of the social struggle, like, that that most of the time, it’s some kind of worry about loss of perceived status or authority?

Yeah. I would say that. Yeah. You know, fear of losing reputation as an expert, fear of feeling, that people won’t see you in that light that you you want them to see. That is definitely an overarching theme.

Other things that have come up in social struggle has been, you know, their their position as the founder.

They feel like again, it’s because it’s social, it’s kind of like, oh, you know, I’m not it’s been I’ve been doing this for, like, a few years. It just feels like I’m bringing it, and I want that to change.

So but, yeah, mainly, it’s a lot to do with their internal, you know, thoughts and feelings about how others would perceive it, which is the whole social element. Yeah.

Anything else? Any other questions?

Any other insights on any of these?

Okay. Cool.

Alright.

So those of you who are new, something that I tend to do in my calls is give you homework.

So I want you to pull a transcript of one of your prospect calls and put it together into a similar Google Doc like this and share what you think would be the functional, emotional, social struggle or the you know, what would what are you in your in your opinion there? And then share it with me, of course, the rest of the, you know, CSP crew. In fact, please tag me. I tend sometimes tend to miss notifications otherwise.

But, yeah, I would love for you all to do that.

Just kind of start building those muscles trying to pick what clients are really struggling with so you don’t again, this is a step closer to what’s going from being an order taker to someone who starts looking at, okay, what is it that they really need and, yeah, how can I help them? Okay. In this particular client’s case, because I realized I didn’t talk about this, So in her case, for instance, she came in saying that I need help writing evergreen emails. Right?

So easy for me to say, okay. Yeah. Excitingly evergreen would be perfect for you. But because I know she has a lot of data, because I knew that she also wants, you know, to get consistent sales, Instead of just selling her a package, what we’ve done is, of course, you’ll be doing all of her evergreen sequence, but then I’m also doing a quarterly retainer with her where I’m doing her flash sales and I’m doing her, I’m doing newsletters for, people who are not, you know, who went through the webinar but did not buy and flash sales for the larger audience.

So that’s a quarterly retailer. So instead of just being a one off package now, I have a ongoing thing with her for her to help her sell consistently beyond the Evergreen funnel as well.

So in every case in all these three cases, and this yeah. This is pretty much what we’ve seen over the last few years is understanding what an aspect is really, really struggling with helps you sell, be it, and close bigger packages.

Makes it easier for your in in your case, in all your cases because you are creating your standardized offers, and I want you to kinda focus on that.

You wanna start looking at, okay, how does our standardized how does my standardized offer help this client so that and once you start pulling at the struggle, you’ll find that it becomes that much easier for you to close that time because you’re not just saying, oh, I’m gonna be giving you a webinar funnel, or I’m gonna I’m gonna be giving you a website copy, or I’m gonna be giving you an evergreen funnel. No. You’re solving a much bigger problem than that.

Cool.

Alright. Yeah.

Katie, go ahead.

Okay. So I had I had this question before, but what you just said dovetail nicely into it. On on expanding the scope, So I did a preliminary like, of my standardized offer of the three back end funnels, I, sold the initial strategy as a stand like, basically, as a downsell on the sales call.

They said we’re not the whole thing.

I said, okay. Let’s just do the strategy.

While doing that road map, I identified that when it came to the back end offer, like, there was a lot of potential like, they didn’t have the core messaging dialed in for that back end offer enough to want to do the back end for that as well. So in the initial sales call, I had pitched the post sale profit system for both offers.

Mhmm. On the road map presentation call, I pitched post step profit system for the signature offer and then message optimization for the Mhmm. Back end offer.

Mhmm. But that felt like it because that hadn’t come up in the conversation before, it opened a can of worms that they weren’t expecting.

And so it was a muddier conversation because where I probably could have had a very clean clothes on, you know, just doing the back end sales, then we were also talking about an offer that they hadn’t considered that they needed. So it was something that I had spotted as a deeper need, but they weren’t thinking about that yet.

So I guess similar to the affiliate marketer Mhmm. Like, when you’re introducing when you see the deeper need, do you what is your sequencing, I guess, around, like, when you would bring something up like that? Or do you have any tips on how to bring that into the conversation without kind of throwing people, from what they expected?

I tied into the overall goal. Right? So what is again, going back to what was she trying to accomplish? She wanted that it people who bought her LinkedIn bio tool would feel confident and also, you know, continue to see her as the expert that she is when it comes to affiliate marketing.

And not having a proper onboarding nurture term sequence or win back sequence would mean that once they buy, there’s post purchase experience isn’t going to be great because they’re gonna be only getting either ordinary templated emails or maybe no email. Worse, you know, no emails at all. So in my proposal, essentially and I because I did not have another call with her. This was just a single call, close.

So in my proposal, I presented the custom package, and I explained my reasoning for including all of these emails as a you know, along with the exact kind of the same explanation that I just gave you is that since our goal is to a, b, and c, I recommend we have these emails in place.

And, oh, no. This is the affiliate marketer. And that is when her husband wanted to kind of get on a call and say ask, okay.

What would we be doing? What would be the purpose and all that?

So yeah. So I did do two calls with them.

One with her and then one with her and her husband.

So I would present it in the proposal. In your case, I feel I again, I don’t know, Mike, but, did you explain your reasoning?

Or Yes.

Yeah. And then and then because my presentation had, like, a very clear segue into and, like and then then this is where you sign, and then the call was, like, forty five minutes longer than I expected while we discussed my reasoning. So, that’s that’s kind of where I was like, oh, this could have gone better. Or maybe I should’ve, like, maybe I should’ve held off until the proposal, and then Mhmm. They’ll only introduce that offer once they had said yes to the initial offer. I could have introduced it Yeah.

As well add on or Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Again, I mean, there’s so much here, like, that we don’t really know about, like, the the time there. You know, what was said that they’re trying to solve and things like that. But, yeah, we’re kind of testing out to see whether you present your findings, but then based on your findings, you present your offer to them when you present your proposal.

Mhmm.

So if someone comes for you for something and you identify through your initial research that the deeper need is that they need something else, and that something else will allow you to deliver better what they said they needed, would that be a would that be a deal breaker for you?

If they were to say no Mhmm. Would that be a deal deal breaker for me?

There was a time when it would probably have been like, oh, hey. I know.

But the the level of business owners that I’m kinda working with right now, honestly, I let them know that, okay. Hey. This is what I can see happening if we are to do this, this, and this. At the same time, I understand that a business has other goals, marketing asset allocations, etcetera, etcetera. So if you want, we can push this for later. If you wanna do it on your own later, that’s also cool. But yeah.

Right now, it’s not.

In most cases, they’re willing to kind of park it as a project as a second project.

And if not I mean, again, I did my job of letting them know that this is what would make more of a difference to you. At the end of the day, it’s their business.

So I’m not yeah.

I’m not gonna kind of let myself get walk away from, say, a five figure project because of something that my goal is is, like, don’t let your ego play the game. Just keep focus on and focus on the data. Focus on what you’re investing to do. So yeah.

Because there’s a time where I play it. Yeah. No. I’m the expert here. I know what I’m saying.

I know this would make more of a difference. It would be a whole thing and, like, reach that level of maturity where I’m like, cool. I’ve set my peace, your business, your decision.

I thank you. I aspire to that level of maturity. Working on it.

Yeah. I had the same approach with hiding for my copy as well, but there was a time when I would say, nope.

Nope. Nope. No. No making any changes to my copy. It’s like every single line was based on research and stuff and stuff. Now, again, I explained my reasoning.

I let them know. But if they like, for instance, this affiliate marketer, she would have, like she had very specific things around certain words. Right? So I explained why, but she would be like, no.

Okay. But I feel like my ideal client would put it in. Like, okay. It’s again.

It’s your business.

Alright. Cool. Any other questions? That was those were really good questions, Katie.

Nope?

Okay. Cool.

Alright.

I I know there are ask you a quick question if there’s time.

Sure.

Sure. Yeah. I mean, I’m trying to think how to phrase it as a question. So because, basically, I’m just I’m having hiring pains at the moment.

Okay.

And it’s just making me feel really bad because, like, I didn’t like, the people I’m hiring, they’re just making me look bad to to the client because they keep making mistakes. And then when I’m trying to, like and then I’m having to quality control, and then it’s just taking longer. And I’ve just I feel like I’ve made quite a few bad hires. And I was just wondering if you’ve, like, experienced that or if it you know? Because I’m like, is it me, or is this just part of the learning curve?

It’s part of the learning curve, Abby. I’m sorry to hear that it’s happening. We’ve had our fair share of bad hires.

You know, we worked with, a lot. We we work with a lot of different contractors, which is right now, once we find a really good contractor, I, yeah, I hold on to them for dear life.

But, but it is part of the learning curve.

You may wanna take a look at things like, okay, your onboarding, your processes, and everything. But once you’ve done your own thing, there is which is exactly what I was talking about. You know, like, when people say, oh, we worked with a copywriter, and it wasn’t a great experience. Sometimes it really isn’t the client.

It is the copywriter. I’m sorry, but it’s it’s true. Right? So similarly, in your case, sometimes it’s not you.

It is the contractor. Right? So you need to kind of take a dispassionate look or have someone take a dispassionate look at your processes, your onboarding, your, you know, communication, and if there are no gaps, then it’s probably that person and you need to cut them loose.

So Yeah.

This is very popular, and I am obviously not the one who’s come up with it. But I believe in this for me. It’s like hire slow and fire fast. Fast. I would not Mhmm.

Hold on to someone who’s making us look bad in front of a client that is so, not them. Yeah.

Yeah.

I’ve just had I’ve had a bit of a streak of bad luck, and I don’t know if it’s first.

I think it’s just, like, the lack of care. Like, it really, like, baffles me how little some people care. Like, as I’d like the mistakes I make, and it’s like, how, you know, how what makes you think that’s okay? Like and I I just hate it because I’m, like, selling a, like, a a premium service. And then when the mistake it just makes me feel awful. Like, there’s so much stress, but and I’m struggling to see, like, the light at the end of the tunnel because it has been, like, four people in a row now.

But yeah, I for the same role?

Different roles, like the designer, web developer, and automation, email automation expert. It’s just every time, it’s just been the lack of care and attention to detail.

Yeah. Yeah. I totally relate.

And, again, like I said, really sorry. It is part of the learning curve.

It is hard. Are you hiring based on referrals?

I’m hiring from within the Copiacus community, and then people I’ve worked with before. So kind yeah. Like, I haven’t I haven’t received, like, a really good referral yet.

Someone that, like like, if if if it was someone that, like, someone I trusted vouch for, I think I’d have a better experience. But, yeah, that person just hasn’t kind of come up yet.

So Yeah.

That’s really unfortunate.

It is, things that I’ve worked in the past for us have been basically I’ve always hired on referral. I’ve always as much as possible.

Always hired and run with a couple of test projects and with very little margin for error, basically.

Mhmm.

And so test projects are really important. If you’re not doing test projects, that is something you may wanna add in.

We pay them for the project, but, yeah, kind of gives you an idea of how they, communicate and things like that.

And like like I said, the other thing is it’s kind of evaluating and seeing whether, whether our own processes have a gap somewhere and need need fine tuning.

But but also making it very clear when we hire them, like, things like, okay. Time lines are key, and we just don’t have any wiggle room around that. Like, things like okay. Anything that’s gonna be directly impacting the client.

Because at the end of the day, the buck stops with you. Right? Yeah. I mean, it’s your name.

It’s your brand. Your client does not care whether you’re working with someone else for research. If your editor is sick, that is not your client’s problem.

So those are things that like, making sure that everyone that we hire has the same value system as that when it comes to so having those conversations early on has really, really helped. Like, in the initial conversations, whether it’s been with our editor, whether it’s been with a person who worked for research.

Full disclosure, we’ve had a designer in the past we preferred who’s dropped the ball for our clients. Like, never again would I ever send another person their way. Like, I don’t care what happened.

But yeah. So point being, these are certain things that have worked well for us, but it is unfortunate there are like, it’s it’s hard to find good talent.

Yeah. Yeah. It’s just the the emotional problems I think of, like, when you’re letting go of that control for the first time, which is really scary anyway.

And then Yeah.

Yeah.

And then And then people drop the ball.

Yeah. What?

And then what you fear happens happens, and it’s just Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. I know. I know. Which is why when, like, the first few times we worked with people who went above and beyond, I was like, oh, yeah. This is amazing.

Mhmm.

Never gonna work with anyone else again.

But, yeah, Punez, I would say ask people for referrals, like, instead of, like, hiring like, when you say when you’re hiring from within the community, is it, like, do you say, okay.

I have an opening for this, or do you say, okay. I’m looking for this person. Do you have any referrals? And when people refer, do you ask, have they worked with them? What was their experience like?

Like, what’s that process look like?

Yeah. I mean, it was more just people, like because I was a coach in freelance school for a while, so I had a, like, contact with people on, like, Friday socials and stuff. So I’d spent quite a lot of time with this person, who I’m thinking of. So I felt good hiring them.

And then yeah. I don’t know. I think it’s just like, what I find with freelancers, I think, is they’re watching their profitability so much that it means they, like, don’t spend as long as they should on quality control.

Is Pardon Frozen? Is it just me? Yeah. Okay.

Well, it doesn’t look like she’s gonna unfreeze.

Yeah. I mean, I think we’re at time anyway.

Yeah. I gotta go.

I might wait. I’ll wait for her to come back. Bye, Michelle.

Bye.

Anyways, let’s just kind of wrap this up.

Abby, feel free to, like, if some like, let let us know if there’s, like, a specific role you’re looking to hire for or whatever. If, you know, anyone comes to mind, I will definitely share referrals.

But all of this to say, yeah, this is par for the course, unfortunate, but, yeah, you Everyone’s gone through this. It’s a rite of passage.

It’s all No. I think I needed to hear that. Thank you, Prana.

Yeah.

You’re welcome. Alright. Thank you so much, everybody. I hope you all had fun. I want to see some struggling moments, from your transcripts in Slack next week.

So please tag me, and I will set up scheduled reminders to check-in with you all otherwise. Alright. Thank you, everyone. Bye.

Worksheet

Take Action: Funnels & Goals (pp. 24 – 27) 

Worksheet

Take Action: Funnels & Goals (pp. 24 – 27) 

 

Transcript

So what I have done, is something really fun. I took our prospect call transcripts, prospects to turn into clients, and I’ve worked out the the struggling moment. But then and also, you know, like, the different elements of the struggling moment. But then I want you to look at those struggling moments and pick out the functional struggle, the emotional struggle, and, you know, the social struggle.

So you will if you haven’t opened up your workbooks, I would love for you to first do that so you can kind of go through the examples because those are, you know, those are examples.

But but I want you to look at the example so you can get an idea of what we are even talking about. So when I share my Google Doc with you, I want you to be able to kind of look at it and go, okay. And this would be the functional struggle, and this would be the emotion struggle.

So open up your workbooks. I’m gonna share screen.

And what we’re going to do is we’re going to look at the workbook first, and then I’m gonna share a Google Doc with y’all where you would go ahead and do this exercise real time.

Alright. Cool.

Let’s get started.

And first up okay. Alright. Choose.

Okay. Cool. So this is what the section I want you to look at. The struggling moment is the seat for innovation.

Just scroll past this page. I want you to look at the examples here. So client comes in. You’ll get on a call.

Client says, okay. I wanna launch copy.

But then, of course, being the professionals you are, you will probe. You will ask.

And what they usually come up with would be some would be a story like this. And I’ll share our clients’ stories on probing.

And then from this, what you wanna look at is the functional struggle. So, okay, measurable decline in performance, social struggle, you know, people kind you’re like people are looking at you and all of that. And what’s the push force or what’s the you know, if there’s an emotional struggle to it, what what does that look like?

The more important thing that you need to ask yourself is why do you wanna kind of look at all of these struggles? Like, what does this help you do?

And use that to then direct the sales conversation. At least that’s what I do. It works out really, really well. And when you look at when you start to kinda pull the thread of either one of these struggles or if possible, all three and just kind of bring it together, it becomes so much easier to close clients at twenty k, thirty k, fifty k, hundred k. Right?

I have used this repeatedly just to kind of take time to really understand what the troubling moment really is. Because when a client comes and says, oh, I need website copy, it’s there’s something else going on.

You know? Why do they need website copy? And it’s fascinating because and I’m actually you know, because I can see this play out in in myself as a a buyer or as a client too. So right now, for instance, we are in the midst of speaking with, you know, designers and branding experts and all of that because we’re looking at a rebrand for our business.

So why I said it’s fascinating is because on calls with with branding strategist or with designers and things like that, the moment someone asks me oh, because we go in saying, oh, we wanna rebrand. Right?

Very straightforward.

But the caliber of a professional, like, it instantly kind of goes up in my mind when someone, like, takes the time to, like, clean forward and ask, okay. But why now? What’s happening right now that you’re looking to rebrand?

It just kind of opens up a whole thing for both Mike and me on that call. And I can only imagine that, and I hope that those strategists who are asking these questions are actually gonna use it when they kind of put our proposal together, when they send our quote together because I know it makes a difference. I always use struggling moments when I present my proposal to clients, especially for custom codes, and something like if they’ve, like, not just bought a package of the site, but they’ve taken time to fill out a form, and they met me for a call, and we have to give them a custom code.

I will use all of this in the proposal to basically present why we’re offering them what we’re offering them and what you know? And then what you’re charging them really kind of it’s not I’m not gonna say it becomes irrelevant, especially when they’re when you’re looking at fifty k, seventy five k packages.

It’s by no means irrelevant, but they can see exactly why they need it. What is the job that your service would actually be doing for their business.

So unlike my usual sessions where I have, like, a really nice slide deck and I have, like, tactical things and all, this one is very hands on. I just want you to understand what a struggling moment really is and learn to identify that in your own calls. Because if you’re not doing that right now, that is something you wanna fix right away.

So with that, do you have any questions before I yeah?

I do.

You say you use this during the sales call. Do you find this out in that triage call?

And then when you present, you know, back to your proposal, that’s when you pull this in?

Yes. Okay. So it’s in the triage call.

Okay.

And yeah.

I will basically use this definitely in the proposal, but I also kinda bring it up when we kick off. So when we kick off and I recap what’s in the project and, you know, who’s gonna be involved in the the the day c and all of that, I do mention why we’re doing what we’re doing because what I found and this is also true side note, this is also true for things like social proof. What I found, you need to like, once you’ve sold a client, you’d they you kinda need to have these, like, little mini selling points all through the process.

That works really, really well. Again, that’s just something I do. You don’t have to do it, but it just works really well. I’ve noticed.

Okay. Cool. So I’m gonna stop sharing. You should have it. Like, if you oh, wait. That’s the appointment you’re looking for. Anyways, let’s And what I’m going to do is drop a Google doc that I have created.

Fail.

So these are all clients from prospect calls that I’ve transcribed, and then let me go on the blank. Commenter.

Copy link. Okay. Cool.

Dropping the link in chat.

Oh, Lisa, good question. So you get this in the first fifteen minute call and then begin to it in the length here. One did that did Michelle’s question answer your question as well?

Oh, sorry.

So I do this a little differently, but I don’t want y’all to kind of digress from the process that, you know, y’all are going through.

In your case, I would look at the kind of try and get this get this struggle, in the fifteen minute call and then, yes, dig into it in the length of your call. That said, how I exactly do it and what Michelle calls the triage call is, again, this is my way to get, is I just do one call, and then I do proposal.

Right?

And I’ve done this for pretty much every project, but y’all also need to remember.

It’s I’ve been doing this for a while now, so there’s probably that at play. But, Katie, yes. Sometimes.

Depends.

For instance, it depends on a couple of different factors. If there are multiple people involved in the project, for instance, we just especially the corporate clients. So there’s this huge group of schools that I’ve been working with since last year.

There are multiple people involved in it. I’ve done one project with them. I’m working on a second project with them.

So in that case, always present it on a call because there are everyone wants to be involved in it.

But if it’s someone who we’ve worked with in the past, if it’s someone who has come through a referral, if it’s someone who is already sold on us, a podcast host, I mean, for that happens a lot.

I will not present it on a call.

Breaking rules? Yes. Maybe. But it just that it’s been working.

Yes, Leasel. With corporate clients, yes. Definitely. You will have to do two calls. You may even have to do more depending on the scope of the project.

For projects upwards of seventy five thousand dollars, I have done as many as in fact, with this particular client. Okay. We’ve done okay.

Three three calls, with different stakeholders.

So because there have been changes to, oh, we wanna include this. Now we wanna you know? So yeah.

Corporate times are a whole different thing. I I really love the size of the project.

It just takes me too much time.

Okay. Cool.

You should have the Google Doc in the chat. Open it up. And what I want you to kind of look at and put down is go through the struggling moment and leave your comments or just make your own comments as like, unmute yourself and tell me what you think is the functional struggle, what do you think is the emotional struggle, what do you think is the social struggle. So this is gonna be a very different call here.

Usually, yes. Three calls seems hard.

But this is for the second project. So they’ve already worked with me once. And, yeah, perfect times are whole different days.

Y’all should have commenting access, so feel free to leave comments if you want to.

Alright. Anyone wants to volunteer for the first one?

Well, I guess since nobody else go ahead.

Go ahead.

And it’s early in the morning, so I don’t know.

So functional struggle will probably be Clients who were interested were weren’t, signing up?

Yeah. Okay. Because?

Oh, because timing was too short.

Perfect. Yeah. K. Absolutely. Absolutely. Okay. Cool. K. Emotional struggle? I guess it was about from the yeah.

Go ahead.

Headspace and timing to they weren’t in the right headspace, and there was too short of time for them to spend that nine ninety seven.

Yeah. Yeah. And when you’re reading this, you also wanna think about this from the client point of view. Right?

Like, how is the client feeling emotionally about this this struggle that they’re coming up against? Because that’s what you wanna kind of lean into and talk about it. Oh, so you’re feeling this because our students or our, you know, our prospects aren’t getting enough time to convert. Is that right?

You know? So Okay. Yeah. But you’re really, really, you know, dialed in into this. This is really good, Michelle.

Yeah. Okay.

The social struggle, that’s where I’m kinda lost.

Yeah. And that is where for social struggle, you will see that you will need to start reading between the lines.

Okay.

You will need to start kinda looking at, okay.

What are they worried about? Like, what’s the perception here that they’re worried about? Is it is it that they don’t want to they they feel like, oh, we are being we are being pushy versus being intentional? Is it more that, oh, you know, people are going to maybe see me differently or won’t respect me if I do this or if I don’t do this.

So you gotta kinda read between the lines. That is where that is where your skills as someone who is, like, tuned into how people think, come into play Okay. And where doing a little bit of probing will help. So that’s not very the the, the social struggle is not usually straightforward.

Forward.

But, for instance, in the second second, client’s case, I worked on their website probably earlier this year, and her her social struggle was a little more straightforward. So take a look at that and see if you can kind of pick the social struggle there. Okay.

Anyone else wants to kinda weigh in with the first one?

I had for the social struggle and sorry sorry I was late, so I will catch the replay to catch myself up if I missed something. But I put, whose job is it to notice this?

Like, because potential on the part of the speaker, there was confusion around, like, it was brought up by a team member.

They didn’t even know about it. So then if I’m on that call as a copywriter, I would be noticing, like, oh, they don’t.

Like, there was a role missing in the strategy behind the trial and, like, who’s gonna fix this problem.

Absolutely. Which is exactly what happened in this case as well, Katie, is one, there was no one looking at the fact that customer support is getting all these requests about, hey. Can I get more time?

Right? Like, it just came up during their they have, like, a stand up meeting or a catch up meeting, what they call it, and and really random. Not even like, oh, you know, here’s something. So which is what then led us to work on what we did for them were, like, behavior based sequences that, a, not only we give them, like, an extended trial, but then we had, like, oh, if they went ahead and logged in, then we have, like, a different sequence kicking in versus people who weren’t logging in, versus people who, you know, were logging in and watching an x number of lessons.

So it the social struggle was no one was really watching what was going on with this trial that they were thinking for all purposes as kind of doing well, because and and what was happening was they were leaving a lot of people, in terms of, like, oh, who could who could just just needed a few more days to be able to convert. So, like I said, you need to kind of read between the lines there and do a little more probing.

But what they came in saying was, oh, we wanna increase conversions. But the point is and what they initially thought was they had a lead flow problem. Like, oh, we need more people coming into the funnel so we can increase conversions. But what they actually had was a current conversion problem. Like, people were coming in but were not converting because of the lack of time. And, like, you know, Michelle said the feeling of being they were interested, but they didn’t have the headspace and the timing.

Thing was really felt too short for them.

Alright. Who wants to take number two?

These are yes. We weren’t giving them time or room to build, breathe, or build belief. That’s like so they didn’t really need a seven day trial. They needed what we went with was actually a fourteen day trial, and more emails.

So because if I just sold them a seven day trial, it would have worked.

The result of the of increasing the, trial period or the result of presenting them with a fourteen day file package? Conversion to paid upgrades. Oh, yeah. Okay. So it’s been ninety so then these are all fairly recent projects that have wrapped up. So this it’s gonna it we completed ninety days of the funnel, say, thirty first of March. So, they in ninety days, they’ve been able to almost, I would say, two point five x their conversions, but, again which is great.

However, what we are now testing out is if we shorten it to about nine days instead of fourteen days, would that create more of an urgency and increase conversion? So that’s what we gotta do in the optimization phase of it. My reasoning for this is I noticed that a lot of people wait till the very last day to convert. So I’m just kinda curious to see if you, like, go from seven from we went from seven to fourteen. So if you go from fourteen to nine or even ten, does that, you know, shorten the cycle while basically either increasing or keeping the conversions the same.

They are they’re they’re pretty happy, so they’re open to testing, which is a good thing.

Because we can always go back to fourteen if, say, the nine, ten day experiment does not work out.

Alright.

Functional struggle can’t explain too easily and in a way that shows value. Bit of imposter syndrome in the self as a creator. Yes. Then yes.

In fact, you’re it’s so cool that you brought up the imposter syndrome thing because the thing is she’s not a SaaS marketer. So this client, is really cool. She’s a really, really big affiliate marketer. She’s got, like, millions and millions of followers, on Instagram and TikTok. And, she created this tool, like I’m sorry. Her husband basically created this tool because she was really frustrated with the link in bio options available to her. So so that imposter syndrome in her is pretty real because she doesn’t think of herself as a SaaS founder.

She still thinks of herself as, an affiliate marketer who’s playing, a SaaS founder. So it’s so cool that you, kind of picked on that.

Potential loss of authority from lack of credit. Exactly. You know?

She felt like, oh, she because she’s concerned, you know, like an expert and she like, loads of an affiliate marketers look up to her. She felt like, oh, I would be they would be seeing me as less than or as per you know? So that was really, really yeah. It is. But it’s very hard, I think, when you are a creator or founder, and I guess most of you would kind of relate to it is because, like, people were approaching her about it, and she had a successful beta run and all of that, but it just kind of, you know, feel like, I don’t really know. And she came in saying, okay. I need copy for this website.

It’s interesting. I’ll tell you what we kind of sold her once we’ve kind of gone through this. But okay. Cool.

Anyone else wants to weigh in? Johnson, potential loss of authority. Yeah. Perfect. That is exactly like, that is the social, struggle here for sure.

Cool. Anyone have anything else to add?

Nope? Okay. So this is a classic case. The client comes in saying, you know, oh, I need better copy for my affiliate link in bio website so people understand what this tool does.

But the thing is she did not have any messaging created for this. Like, she just created the tool, got, like, a very, very basic one page kind of a sign up, and she felt like, okay. Let’s just change words on the website to, you know, make it clearer. But what we had to start with was and all of you know this, we had to start with going back and looking at, okay, what is it that you were saying?

How are people talking? So we had to start with all the research. We had to put together her complete message brand messaging guide, and then the website copy. But then we because of the imposter syndrome emotional struggle and, you know, wanting to explain the tool easily and that potential.

All of these struggles kinda came together because we did not want that experience to end when people signed up for the tool.

So I was able to show her that she also needed the staff onboarding emails. She needed, you know, nurture emails so that people would go ahead and use the tool and then, of course, win back emails for people who churn because it’s a subscription.

So it went from being, oh, I need copy from my home page to describe what people you know, describe what this tool does to being a huge project, because we kinda took the time to really understand what was going on, which is the whole purpose of this call is for you to start doing a little more digging to understand what is the struggle, what is the job that a prospect is actually hiring your service to do for them.

Where did they receive that? Nope.

So she was putting in all her money. Like, she’d made she’s yeah. So not VC backed, but her husband and she were both, and, Abby, it’s so funny because, you had a post in, in the Slack community that I saw later, so I didn’t get a chance to comment on it. But where you mentioned about having a call with a founder, and then the husband was on the second call and, you know, having to kind of do the I mean, it’s it’s exactly the same here.

So, she came to us through a referral, someone I’ve worked with in the past, and then she was like, yeah. Completely sold. I want all of it and then some. And then, you know, her husband, because he’s the one who created it and is also partly funding it, wanted to get on another call, and it was, you know, like, again, do the whole same thing, walking them through it again.

So, yeah, was it hard to expand the scope by that degree with the client? No. Simply because I knew the problem that she was wanting to solve was not just I needed to be clearer.

The problem was I need to look like the expert I really am. I wanna keep my standing as this really, really top affiliate marketer.

I want my app to present me the way the like, the affiliate marketing world sees me as.

So nope.

It wasn’t.

Yeah. Image is huge. Exactly. Exactly. Yeah.

Absolutely, Johnson. So because I spent the and this is the whole purpose of this call is, essentially, I want you to take the time to really dig into what is the struggle that your audience is looking to solve, your prospect is looking to solve, so it becomes easier for you to to sell them your standardized offers.

In my case, it’s more custom. So, I don’t have, like, a standardized offer other than fully loaded launch, which in any case is now going to get overhauled and retired. But, I’ve started catching this stuff on the fly, little because I’ve been doing this for a while now.

The more you’ll do it oh, one thing that I will recommend is we all use AI note takers.

I still make notes by hand. I do use an AI notetaker to kind of go over things that I may have forgotten, especially if I wanna, you know, in big package cases and things like that where we need to kind of sit down and hash out what, quote unquote, the deliverables are gonna look like. But I’ve started, like, kind of, like I make notes and then I draw lines to kind of talk about, okay, this is what the struggle really is or this is what they’re trying to solve. So, highly recommend doing that too. It just kind of trains your brain to to start picking these things.

Yes, Ali. Fully loaded launch is getting replaced with something even better.

But, yeah, I will share that soon.

It is iconic. I know.

But, yeah, it’s been a while now. So, it’s run its course, and we’ve been customizing it way, way more often, which means that we need to kind of, yep, expand the the package and change it up and all of that. So that was what happened. It is a federal party.

Yeah. Yeah. That’s a really good idea. Probably should do that.

Give it a going the way it probably served us well.

Awesome. Cool. Alright. Let’s look at number three. This is someone that we recently recently closed, like, as recent as, like, the contract’s just gone out to them. So yeah.

Oh, by the fun fact, because I did this session last month I I think I did the session last month.

This is someone whose podcast I appeared on.

And after the part like, she’s the she’s the podcast host, so that will come out later. So after the podcast, she ended up, like, wanting to know more, and then she filled out a form. And this is what we kind of know, basically.

We’ll be working together. So, again, for those of you who’ve not seen that session and who are wanting to turn podcasts into client opportunities, would highly recommend listen to that one. But for now, look at this and tell me mhmm. Functional struggle. Okay. And our data value of the offer.

Cannot sustain effort across every business area. Yep. Yep.

Yeah.

Okay.

Feel free to unmute yourself if you got things to add if you don’t wanna kind of okay. Jenny, are there specific questions you ask clients so they go beyond sharing the surface level problem?

This isn’t converting, for example, to help them share with you what the shrugging moment really is.

I generally start by asking, well, so okay. What’s on your mind? You know?

You filled out I recap what they filled out the form for. So you mentioned you’ve got a launch that’s not being well. But, really, tell me what’s on your mind.

Opens up a whole lot of conversation. It’s not my question, though. I would highly recommend if you’ve not read the coaching habit by Michael Banda Stanier. I have been using this what’s in your mind question, thanks to him, for years.

It’s worked really, really well. So, I think it was Pat Flynn who sent me that book, but anyways, years ago. But it’s a really good book. It’s called The Coach and Habit. If you don’t have it, get it, read it, use it.

Yes, Abby. Love that book. Yeah. Same thing. Yeah.

That’s okay. Liesl, you are participating.

Alright.

Couldn’t articulate value of the offer.

Hired people in the past that didn’t work out. Nailed it. Cannot sustain effort across every business area. This is a really big one. Yeah.

She just felt like, oh, I’m struggling to kind of, you know, delegate these critical marketing tasks and all that fearful of letting someone else do it. That is definitely the emotional struggle.

She felt really trapped in the founder operator stage where she knew she should be giving it up, but when she would, it won’t work out. And here’s the interesting thing. In the past, when someone would say, I’ve worked with copywriters before, and it’s never worked out. So it’d be like a huge red flag for me.

Right? Like, I know people say like, oh, red flag. And I would because I’d heard that, I would be like, oh, yeah. I’m not gonna be working with them.

Never gonna work out.

But sometimes I’ve found not sometimes right now. Most of the times. In fact, I have quite a few client, stories and testimonials talking about how in the past they’ve hired and it’s not worked out, mainly because people don’t follow process. So I I’m just sharing this from the point of view that if a client comes to you and says that, don’t let that scare you off.

Do your digging to find out, okay, what happened?

What did they do? Like, what was their process like and all of that? In this landscape, they had lots of data that, as copywriters, had not even touched. So this is like someone who runs a systems business, who teaches other fractional CMOs how to, set up systems and processes and also they’ve got loads of data. Right? They’ve not done anything with it.

And the people that you’d hired in the past didn’t touch it.

So they might as well just been guessing at the copy they were writing, which is why it wasn’t converting, which is why I knew that we could do so much with it. Point being, like, that’s, like, a side story to tell you. Sometimes when you sometimes something becomes like an industry thing. Oh, if someone says they’ve worked with someone and not like the experience, you should not work with them.

Do your own due diligence.

Yeah. Okay. Rizal, yeah, you were about to ask that. So I hope that answers your question about project boundaries.

Social struggle. If they’re a podcast host, they’re in front of a lot of people. Yes. And they’ve got she’s got, like, I think, close to thirteen million subscribers on YouTube or something like that.

So, yes, that is definitely a social struggle. It’s like, okay.

What kind of life it would be exactly that, you know, this is what I’m gonna be doing, which is something that she did, you know, say it’s not in this in the summary here is, like, I cannot see myself doing this all the time because they’re you know, she’s got other programs. She’s obviously doing the delivery as well along with the rest of her team, but she couldn’t be stuck in the cycle of writing that copy.

The other interesting thing in all of these cases I would like you and why I picked recent ones is because AI. Right? Like, all these smart in tune with the market founders all know about AI, all know about Checkatrade, all know about cloud.

None of them want to take the time to sit down and be the, you know, the prompter or the feeder of, like, hand holder for for LLMs. They do not have the time or the patience.

That is the audience you wanna look at.

Because, one thing I’m always queue again, this is something that I hear a lot in the industry, so that’s why, again, I’m bringing this up is, like, oh, no one’s hiring copywriters.

I don’t know.

So but kind of looking at what is it that people really need solved, and she could, for all purposes, use AI to write her emails for her.

But, yeah, she knows that she does not have the time or the patience. It just feels faster for her to do it herself or repurpose some of her past launch emails even though she knows they probably won’t do as well. But, yeah, that’s the alternative.

Okay. Cool. Anyone wants to weigh in on functional struggle, emotional struggle, social struggle?

Yeah. What kind of life this will be? That’s so true, Donaldson. Like, that is exactly, like and I think you probably even said this on the call. It’s like, I cannot imagine doing this, all of this year and next year. This is not sustainable.

Bernadette, would you say that loss of face is, like, the overarching theme of the social struggle, like, that that most of the time, it’s some kind of worry about loss of perceived status or authority?

Yeah. I would say that. Yeah. You know, fear of losing reputation as an expert, fear of feeling, that people won’t see you in that light that you you want them to see. That is definitely an overarching theme.

Other things that have come up in social struggle has been, you know, their their position as the founder.

They feel like again, it’s because it’s social, it’s kind of like, oh, you know, I’m not it’s been I’ve been doing this for, like, a few years. It just feels like I’m bringing it, and I want that to change.

So but, yeah, mainly, it’s a lot to do with their internal, you know, thoughts and feelings about how others would perceive it, which is the whole social element. Yeah.

Anything else? Any other questions?

Any other insights on any of these?

Okay. Cool.

Alright.

So those of you who are new, something that I tend to do in my calls is give you homework.

So I want you to pull a transcript of one of your prospect calls and put it together into a similar Google Doc like this and share what you think would be the functional, emotional, social struggle or the you know, what would what are you in your in your opinion there? And then share it with me, of course, the rest of the, you know, CSP crew. In fact, please tag me. I tend sometimes tend to miss notifications otherwise.

But, yeah, I would love for you all to do that.

Just kind of start building those muscles trying to pick what clients are really struggling with so you don’t again, this is a step closer to what’s going from being an order taker to someone who starts looking at, okay, what is it that they really need and, yeah, how can I help them? Okay. In this particular client’s case, because I realized I didn’t talk about this, So in her case, for instance, she came in saying that I need help writing evergreen emails. Right?

So easy for me to say, okay. Yeah. Excitingly evergreen would be perfect for you. But because I know she has a lot of data, because I knew that she also wants, you know, to get consistent sales, Instead of just selling her a package, what we’ve done is, of course, you’ll be doing all of her evergreen sequence, but then I’m also doing a quarterly retainer with her where I’m doing her flash sales and I’m doing her, I’m doing newsletters for, people who are not, you know, who went through the webinar but did not buy and flash sales for the larger audience.

So that’s a quarterly retailer. So instead of just being a one off package now, I have a ongoing thing with her for her to help her sell consistently beyond the Evergreen funnel as well.

So in every case in all these three cases, and this yeah. This is pretty much what we’ve seen over the last few years is understanding what an aspect is really, really struggling with helps you sell, be it, and close bigger packages.

Makes it easier for your in in your case, in all your cases because you are creating your standardized offers, and I want you to kinda focus on that.

You wanna start looking at, okay, how does our standardized how does my standardized offer help this client so that and once you start pulling at the struggle, you’ll find that it becomes that much easier for you to close that time because you’re not just saying, oh, I’m gonna be giving you a webinar funnel, or I’m gonna I’m gonna be giving you a website copy, or I’m gonna be giving you an evergreen funnel. No. You’re solving a much bigger problem than that.

Cool.

Alright. Yeah.

Katie, go ahead.

Okay. So I had I had this question before, but what you just said dovetail nicely into it. On on expanding the scope, So I did a preliminary like, of my standardized offer of the three back end funnels, I, sold the initial strategy as a stand like, basically, as a downsell on the sales call.

They said we’re not the whole thing.

I said, okay. Let’s just do the strategy.

While doing that road map, I identified that when it came to the back end offer, like, there was a lot of potential like, they didn’t have the core messaging dialed in for that back end offer enough to want to do the back end for that as well. So in the initial sales call, I had pitched the post sale profit system for both offers.

Mhmm. On the road map presentation call, I pitched post step profit system for the signature offer and then message optimization for the Mhmm. Back end offer.

Mhmm. But that felt like it because that hadn’t come up in the conversation before, it opened a can of worms that they weren’t expecting.

And so it was a muddier conversation because where I probably could have had a very clean clothes on, you know, just doing the back end sales, then we were also talking about an offer that they hadn’t considered that they needed. So it was something that I had spotted as a deeper need, but they weren’t thinking about that yet.

So I guess similar to the affiliate marketer Mhmm. Like, when you’re introducing when you see the deeper need, do you what is your sequencing, I guess, around, like, when you would bring something up like that? Or do you have any tips on how to bring that into the conversation without kind of throwing people, from what they expected?

I tied into the overall goal. Right? So what is again, going back to what was she trying to accomplish? She wanted that it people who bought her LinkedIn bio tool would feel confident and also, you know, continue to see her as the expert that she is when it comes to affiliate marketing.

And not having a proper onboarding nurture term sequence or win back sequence would mean that once they buy, there’s post purchase experience isn’t going to be great because they’re gonna be only getting either ordinary templated emails or maybe no email. Worse, you know, no emails at all. So in my proposal, essentially and I because I did not have another call with her. This was just a single call, close.

So in my proposal, I presented the custom package, and I explained my reasoning for including all of these emails as a you know, along with the exact kind of the same explanation that I just gave you is that since our goal is to a, b, and c, I recommend we have these emails in place.

And, oh, no. This is the affiliate marketer. And that is when her husband wanted to kind of get on a call and say ask, okay.

What would we be doing? What would be the purpose and all that?

So yeah. So I did do two calls with them.

One with her and then one with her and her husband.

So I would present it in the proposal. In your case, I feel I again, I don’t know, Mike, but, did you explain your reasoning?

Or Yes.

Yeah. And then and then because my presentation had, like, a very clear segue into and, like and then then this is where you sign, and then the call was, like, forty five minutes longer than I expected while we discussed my reasoning. So, that’s that’s kind of where I was like, oh, this could have gone better. Or maybe I should’ve, like, maybe I should’ve held off until the proposal, and then Mhmm. They’ll only introduce that offer once they had said yes to the initial offer. I could have introduced it Yeah.

As well add on or Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Again, I mean, there’s so much here, like, that we don’t really know about, like, the the time there. You know, what was said that they’re trying to solve and things like that. But, yeah, we’re kind of testing out to see whether you present your findings, but then based on your findings, you present your offer to them when you present your proposal.

Mhmm.

So if someone comes for you for something and you identify through your initial research that the deeper need is that they need something else, and that something else will allow you to deliver better what they said they needed, would that be a would that be a deal breaker for you?

If they were to say no Mhmm. Would that be a deal deal breaker for me?

There was a time when it would probably have been like, oh, hey. I know.

But the the level of business owners that I’m kinda working with right now, honestly, I let them know that, okay. Hey. This is what I can see happening if we are to do this, this, and this. At the same time, I understand that a business has other goals, marketing asset allocations, etcetera, etcetera. So if you want, we can push this for later. If you wanna do it on your own later, that’s also cool. But yeah.

Right now, it’s not.

In most cases, they’re willing to kind of park it as a project as a second project.

And if not I mean, again, I did my job of letting them know that this is what would make more of a difference to you. At the end of the day, it’s their business.

So I’m not yeah.

I’m not gonna kind of let myself get walk away from, say, a five figure project because of something that my goal is is, like, don’t let your ego play the game. Just keep focus on and focus on the data. Focus on what you’re investing to do. So yeah.

Because there’s a time where I play it. Yeah. No. I’m the expert here. I know what I’m saying.

I know this would make more of a difference. It would be a whole thing and, like, reach that level of maturity where I’m like, cool. I’ve set my peace, your business, your decision.

I thank you. I aspire to that level of maturity. Working on it.

Yeah. I had the same approach with hiding for my copy as well, but there was a time when I would say, nope.

Nope. Nope. No. No making any changes to my copy. It’s like every single line was based on research and stuff and stuff. Now, again, I explained my reasoning.

I let them know. But if they like, for instance, this affiliate marketer, she would have, like she had very specific things around certain words. Right? So I explained why, but she would be like, no.

Okay. But I feel like my ideal client would put it in. Like, okay. It’s again.

It’s your business.

Alright. Cool. Any other questions? That was those were really good questions, Katie.

Nope?

Okay. Cool.

Alright.

I I know there are ask you a quick question if there’s time.

Sure.

Sure. Yeah. I mean, I’m trying to think how to phrase it as a question. So because, basically, I’m just I’m having hiring pains at the moment.

Okay.

And it’s just making me feel really bad because, like, I didn’t like, the people I’m hiring, they’re just making me look bad to to the client because they keep making mistakes. And then when I’m trying to, like and then I’m having to quality control, and then it’s just taking longer. And I’ve just I feel like I’ve made quite a few bad hires. And I was just wondering if you’ve, like, experienced that or if it you know? Because I’m like, is it me, or is this just part of the learning curve?

It’s part of the learning curve, Abby. I’m sorry to hear that it’s happening. We’ve had our fair share of bad hires.

You know, we worked with, a lot. We we work with a lot of different contractors, which is right now, once we find a really good contractor, I, yeah, I hold on to them for dear life.

But, but it is part of the learning curve.

You may wanna take a look at things like, okay, your onboarding, your processes, and everything. But once you’ve done your own thing, there is which is exactly what I was talking about. You know, like, when people say, oh, we worked with a copywriter, and it wasn’t a great experience. Sometimes it really isn’t the client.

It is the copywriter. I’m sorry, but it’s it’s true. Right? So similarly, in your case, sometimes it’s not you.

It is the contractor. Right? So you need to kind of take a dispassionate look or have someone take a dispassionate look at your processes, your onboarding, your, you know, communication, and if there are no gaps, then it’s probably that person and you need to cut them loose.

So Yeah.

This is very popular, and I am obviously not the one who’s come up with it. But I believe in this for me. It’s like hire slow and fire fast. Fast. I would not Mhmm.

Hold on to someone who’s making us look bad in front of a client that is so, not them. Yeah.

Yeah.

I’ve just had I’ve had a bit of a streak of bad luck, and I don’t know if it’s first.

I think it’s just, like, the lack of care. Like, it really, like, baffles me how little some people care. Like, as I’d like the mistakes I make, and it’s like, how, you know, how what makes you think that’s okay? Like and I I just hate it because I’m, like, selling a, like, a a premium service. And then when the mistake it just makes me feel awful. Like, there’s so much stress, but and I’m struggling to see, like, the light at the end of the tunnel because it has been, like, four people in a row now.

But yeah, I for the same role?

Different roles, like the designer, web developer, and automation, email automation expert. It’s just every time, it’s just been the lack of care and attention to detail.

Yeah. Yeah. I totally relate.

And, again, like I said, really sorry. It is part of the learning curve.

It is hard. Are you hiring based on referrals?

I’m hiring from within the Copiacus community, and then people I’ve worked with before. So kind yeah. Like, I haven’t I haven’t received, like, a really good referral yet.

Someone that, like like, if if if it was someone that, like, someone I trusted vouch for, I think I’d have a better experience. But, yeah, that person just hasn’t kind of come up yet.

So Yeah.

That’s really unfortunate.

It is, things that I’ve worked in the past for us have been basically I’ve always hired on referral. I’ve always as much as possible.

Always hired and run with a couple of test projects and with very little margin for error, basically.

Mhmm.

And so test projects are really important. If you’re not doing test projects, that is something you may wanna add in.

We pay them for the project, but, yeah, kind of gives you an idea of how they, communicate and things like that.

And like like I said, the other thing is it’s kind of evaluating and seeing whether, whether our own processes have a gap somewhere and need need fine tuning.

But but also making it very clear when we hire them, like, things like, okay. Time lines are key, and we just don’t have any wiggle room around that. Like, things like okay. Anything that’s gonna be directly impacting the client.

Because at the end of the day, the buck stops with you. Right? Yeah. I mean, it’s your name.

It’s your brand. Your client does not care whether you’re working with someone else for research. If your editor is sick, that is not your client’s problem.

So those are things that like, making sure that everyone that we hire has the same value system as that when it comes to so having those conversations early on has really, really helped. Like, in the initial conversations, whether it’s been with our editor, whether it’s been with a person who worked for research.

Full disclosure, we’ve had a designer in the past we preferred who’s dropped the ball for our clients. Like, never again would I ever send another person their way. Like, I don’t care what happened.

But yeah. So point being, these are certain things that have worked well for us, but it is unfortunate there are like, it’s it’s hard to find good talent.

Yeah. Yeah. It’s just the the emotional problems I think of, like, when you’re letting go of that control for the first time, which is really scary anyway.

And then Yeah.

Yeah.

And then And then people drop the ball.

Yeah. What?

And then what you fear happens happens, and it’s just Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. I know. I know. Which is why when, like, the first few times we worked with people who went above and beyond, I was like, oh, yeah. This is amazing.

Mhmm.

Never gonna work with anyone else again.

But, yeah, Punez, I would say ask people for referrals, like, instead of, like, hiring like, when you say when you’re hiring from within the community, is it, like, do you say, okay.

I have an opening for this, or do you say, okay. I’m looking for this person. Do you have any referrals? And when people refer, do you ask, have they worked with them? What was their experience like?

Like, what’s that process look like?

Yeah. I mean, it was more just people, like because I was a coach in freelance school for a while, so I had a, like, contact with people on, like, Friday socials and stuff. So I’d spent quite a lot of time with this person, who I’m thinking of. So I felt good hiring them.

And then yeah. I don’t know. I think it’s just like, what I find with freelancers, I think, is they’re watching their profitability so much that it means they, like, don’t spend as long as they should on quality control.

Is Pardon Frozen? Is it just me? Yeah. Okay.

Well, it doesn’t look like she’s gonna unfreeze.

Yeah. I mean, I think we’re at time anyway.

Yeah. I gotta go.

I might wait. I’ll wait for her to come back. Bye, Michelle.

Bye.

Anyways, let’s just kind of wrap this up.

Abby, feel free to, like, if some like, let let us know if there’s, like, a specific role you’re looking to hire for or whatever. If, you know, anyone comes to mind, I will definitely share referrals.

But all of this to say, yeah, this is par for the course, unfortunate, but, yeah, you Everyone’s gone through this. It’s a rite of passage.

It’s all No. I think I needed to hear that. Thank you, Prana.

Yeah.

You’re welcome. Alright. Thank you so much, everybody. I hope you all had fun. I want to see some struggling moments, from your transcripts in Slack next week.

So please tag me, and I will set up scheduled reminders to check-in with you all otherwise. Alright. Thank you, everyone. Bye.

Make Your Product a No-Brainer for Your ICP

Direct Comparisons: Make Your Product a No-Brainer for Your ICP

Transcript

Anyway, here we are with plan b. What’s going to happen here is I will be, sharing all the hows, the what’s, the whys, all the theories, some examples of how to leverage direct comparisons in your copy.

And if you have any questions on anything I share here today, if you want some help or a second set of eyes on how you’ve applied this to some copy you’re working on at the moment, or if you wanted to even talk about how we could take this practice from the world of copywriting and apply it to, for example, your sales calls, please just tag me in Slack and let me know. I would absolutely love to work through this kind of stuff with you. So don’t be shy in reaching out if you would like some help or some support. That’s exactly what I’m here for. Okay. On that note, let’s dive into the meat, of the workshop. Let me share my screen with you.

So as you know, today’s session is all about how to leverage direct comparisons to make your offer a really easy yes for your ideal prospect.

So very much building on this month’s theme of straight line copywriting.

Now the best place to start with this stuff is to really highlight the fact that when it comes to decision making, our brains absolutely love comparisons.

Why? Well, quite simply it’s because they allow us to assign value to the options that are in front of us and therefore make a really informed decision.

They help appease the rational part of our brain. If you’ve ever read Thinking Fast and Thinking Slow, you’ll know that, we typically make decisions, relating to all sorts of things, including what to purchase based on the rational part and the emotional part of our brain. So there are two different systems at play. Comparisons really appeal to that rational part of your prospect’s brain. Because what they allow us to do very easily is have a justification for why we’ve made the purchasing decision. And importantly, it’s one that your prospect can really easily share with others in their life.

So if the offer that you’re writing copy for is something where your prospect will need to justify their decision to perhaps their boss or their team, maybe their spouse, maybe their friends, maybe their peers, This tactic and this approach of leveraging direct comparisons is actually incredibly beneficial because it gives people the data which they can easily use for that purpose. Right? They feel really confident in sharing why they chose this offer above, other options on the market or why they think this will actually work when perhaps previous purchases in the same realm have not delivered the outcome that they were after. So keep that in mind, as we move forward from here.

Now, of course, we’ll be talking about how direct comparisons apply to the kind of offers that you’re writing copy for. But I think just to get you in the headspace of getting a feel for or realising how these things come into play in everyday life.

We want you here for a minute to think about the bread aisle at your local supermarket.

Now, depending on where you are in the world and how big your city or your town is, your supermarket bread section may not look like this.

The one up the road from me here in Sydney absolutely does. I would say it’s probably even larger than this. There must be close to a hundred different options at least, of bread. Now if you are to leave this recording and go and ask your housemate, your partner, your kid if they’re old enough, hey like what what kind of bread do you choose when you go to the supermarket and can you tell me why?

I guarantee you they are going to have a list of factors in there that are comparative. So that are comparing their bread of choice to other options that are there on the shelf. So for example, and it’s quite sad that I know this much detail about my husband, but I know that whenever he goes to the supermarket, the loaf that he chooses is always just the generic supermarket brand wholemeal bread. And I know that he chooses that because he likes it.

It has more fiber than white bread, right? He’s healthier moves things along, I guess.

And also he likes it because it has less, of those, like, seedy or grainy bits compared to, the whole grain bread. Also, I know that he likes it because of the size of the slices and the way that they fit into our oldest kids lunchbox.

So as I’m talking through this, I mean, yes, those are no pedantic things to be thinking about, but that’s how he justifies his decision. That’s how he has watched the place of knowing that that is his top choice of life. Now, of course, the reasons that you have or the reasons that the people in your life might have for their particular choice of bread are going to be different because different things matter to different people.

The point is that if you drill down enough into someone’s choice of bread, you will get to a point where they are able to articulate why they choose it in relation to other options. So how they think their choice of loaf is different and better than other things that they could have chosen instead.

So the point that I’m trying to make here is that value is relative, right? So it only exists in relation to other options and it’s also subjective. So what matters to me is going to be different to what matters to you in most cases.

So this means that we’re better able to illustrate the value of an offer when we actively compare it to options instead of talking about it in isolation, honing in on the aspects that actually matter to our ideal prospect, right, rather than trying to prove some sort of global superiority.

So two really important points here. Right? We need to compare options to other available alternatives, right, in order to help someone understand in a really concrete, aidable way why something is a different and better option for them given what they value in the thing that we’re talking about.

Now it’s really important that when you are leveraging direct comparisons in your copy, you are really focused on what actually matters for your ideal prospect. If you try and take this a step above and go sort of a step higher and you try to prove some sort of global superiority, like, well, this is simply just the best offer on the market for anyone, you’re going to get tripped up. Because of course, the thing that makes your offer the best fit for your ideal prospect is going to make it not the best fit for the people who aren’t your ideal prospect. Right?

And that’s good. That’s why niches exist. That’s why specificity sells. Right? I also think there is a mindset hurdle that you would also come up against if you were to try and prove that your offer is just absolutely the best flat out regardless of who it’s serving.

So really stick to what the data tells you about your ideal prospect, what they care about, and how your offer responds to that, or how your offer serves those things, those points of difference.

So on that note, if you are not already asking this question in your voice of customer research, start.

How does insert your offer compared to other insert the category of your offer things you’ve tried or thought about trying before? So for example, how does CopySchool Professional compare to other copywriting masterminds you’ve tried or thought about trying before?

How does ConvertKit or KIP I think they are now calling it compare to other email marketing platforms you’ve tried or thought about trying before?

Asking this question alone will get you such rich data and will get you all the information you need to actually go ahead and make really effective comparisons in your copy. It will unearth who your competitors are and also how your offer is different and better in the ways that matter who your ideal prospect. So this question unearth some absolute gold. So if you’re not already asking it, again, please start folding it into your research process.

If you’re looking at this and you’re thinking, oh, that doesn’t quite fit with the project I’m working on, because I know that my ideal prospect hasn’t actually invested in a solution, for this problem or this challenge or to work towards this outcome before, this question may serve you better. What stopped you from getting help with this kind of thing before? So what this will do is help you pinpoint and uncover objections or perceived faults or flaws with available offers that ideally your offer can speak to. Right? You can say, oh, well, actually, you know, you might be worried about x. Here’s what our offer does in that respect that is different and better. So what you’re doing here is making a really clear case for your offer in a great fit in all the ways that matter.

Now I wanna show you a real world example of what this looks like, so you can see how easy and how powerful it is in copy.

So what you’re looking at here, is a spreadsheet I’ve just exported from one of my type forms, a bunch of responses to this question, which is one that has existed historically in my feedback form for a copywriting course that I’ve recently retired.

So don’t worry. I’m not trying to sell you on this. It’s just, it’s just a really good example of direct comparisons. And I think because we are mostly copywriters in here, it might be helpful because you probably know some of these competitors. Right? And certainly you will know copy school.

So as you can see here, the question I ask in the survey is how did it compare to other copywriting courses you’ve taken. Right? So I’m asking about how this offer compared to other offers in the same category.

So you can probably already see that even where there are no competitors mentioned or where there are no direct comparisons drawn, There’s some really juicy, voice of customer here that I can obviously leverage to help someone offer through testimonials. So even the second response here, like brain camp is the only copywriting course you need. That’s a very powerful headline to be able to leverage somewhere. It’s a very powerful point of social proof. And often, you know, down here, you know, Braincamp is where I’m with the best copywriting course I’ve ever taken.

I did something strange there. There we go. Sorry.

So just also to highlight that as well as giving you all the data you need to make the comparisons really actively in your copy between your offer and other available alternatives, this question can also yield just some super powerful social proof that will really help position and sell your offer in a really effective way.

Now what I’ve done here, as you can probably see, every time someone has mentioned a competitor or a competing offer, I have put that in orange.

You know, you can see Sarah Turner’s Right Away to Freedom, copy school comes up a few times. Kate Toon, copy hackers.

I think there’s also some reference to the copywriter think sorry. The copywriter club think tank, yeah, Accelerator. I think Tarzan gets mentioned somewhere in here as well.

So, you know, a lot of big names, but also a lot of clarity for me on who or what else my ideal prospect is considering or has tried before when it comes to investing money towards this goal or towards solving the problem or not feeling like they are a really confident effective copywriter.

So that information is incredibly useful because it gives me those direct comparison points that I can leverage.

The pieces of, these feedback, snippets that are in green, the ways in which these prospects or these customers have identified Braincamp as being a better, more appealing option for them. Now again, I’m not focused here on trying to prove that Braincamp is the best copywriting course ever. I’m really using this question to understand what matters to my ideal prospect and how Braincamp is a best fit option for them. Because I know without a doubt that there are many, many, many people for whom Braincamp would not be the best fit.

And that’s great. I don’t want to attract them to the offer. I actually want to weed them out by highlighting these points so I can draw the right people in We’ll let the other people off the book. Right?

If it’s not the best fit for them, it doesn’t serve either of us for them to actually come in and join the program.

So as you can perhaps see, a lot of the pieces in green make the same points. So more holistic human centric understanding of copywriting, more focused on sales psychology, much more human centered.

There is also a lot of reference to the fact, that, for example, the Slack chat in workshops was so intimate and every question I had got answered.

The intimacy and attention afforded by the small group nature of this course blew away every other copywriting course I’ve taken. So a lot of the points are really similar, which is great, right? When you start seeing those patterns in your voice of customer data, you know you are hitting on something.

So I won’t spend much more time going through this raw data here. What I really want you to take away from having a quick squeeze at this spreadsheet, I mean, look at so many responses here, is that, this simple question gives you all the information you need. Right? It’s then so easy to take this and put it into copy and put it in a format that is incredibly easy for your prospects mind to grab a hold of and pull into their decision making process. So if you’re wondering, okay, what does that look like?

My favorite way to illustrate how an offer is different and better is by writing copy into a comparison table.

Very simple, very effective.

So I’ll have a I’ll do a quick, little scroll of this section of Brain Camp sales page.

I know there are a lot of other copywriting courses out there on the interwebs. Your time is precious and money doesn’t grow on trees. So chances are you’re wondering why you should invest in this one. This handy little table is here to help. Now as you can see, even with this headline, I’m being very direct and very upfront about the fact that, yeah, I’m sure you’re looking at other options or maybe you’ve bought other copywriting courses before and you’ve been underwhelmed by, you know, what’s been waiting for you inside or the kind of results they’ve helped you achieve. I’m addressing the elephant in the room head on, because if I don’t, I can’t effectively talk to or demonstrate how this offer is different and better for the ideal prospect. So don’t be afraid to be really direct.

It’s a much more powerful tactic if you are able to just be really matter of fact and straight to the point.

Now as you can see here, one column here is devoted to other courses, and these points are all pulled from that data in terms of what people found disappointing or lacking about some of the other courses they had tried before.

This column on the right here is all the ways in which Braincamp is different and better on those points. So I put in here all the bits that matter based on that voice of customer research, and they’re all here as direct points of comparison. So for example, you would have seen, in that spreadsheet that I showed you a minute ago that there was quite a bit of, feedback on the fact that the intimate nature of the course was really valuable. So of course, there’s a point in here about that. So other courses have ginormous cohorts, little opportunity for one to one attention.

Brain camp has just twenty five spots up for grabs. By the end of week, we’ll know each other’s names and niches. By the end of week twelve, we’ll probably have matching hats. If you want to need one to one attention, all you need to do is hit me up in Slack, send me a copy for critique, or ask me a question during one of our live workshops.

Of course, I could read all of these out to you. Let me just pick another one just for reference. So, I think one of the other points I called out when I was going through those responses, in the Google Sheet were that people liked the deeper psychological approach, the human centered approach. So other courses teach basic psychological concepts like loss aversion and anchoring.

These are great, by the way, but they can only get you so far. Braincamp takes a deeper applied approach to psychology to give you a genuine edge on your competition.

So this table is really just regurgitating all that voice of customer in a really organized way so that my prospect can read this and have a really direct component of comparison for each hesitation they may have based on their prior experience of this kind or this category of offer. So as you can see, it makes the mental processing incredibly easy, right? Everything is here for this person. This column on the right is basically the justification that they can pass on to anyone else in their lives who they feel needs to hear it.

It also, of course, as I mentioned, helps, really appease the rational part of their decision making process.

Now importantly, whenever you do make these comparisons in your copy, you need to prove them right away. If you don’t, you’re simply seeing your prospect to trust what you say. If you’re able to prove the points as you make them, you’re closing that tap. Right. There’s no question then in your prospect’s mind about whether this is actually a legitimate claim.

They can see that these claims are being backed up by real life human beings.

In this case, because I have all that beautiful data from asking that question in my feedback form after the course is complete.

I’ve gone with testimonials. Right? And the testimonials that I’ve chosen to feature here speak directly to the points that I’m making above, and speak directly to those comparisons. Right? So people can see that there are other people who’ve been through this course, who ideally they know. Right? I’m also strategic here about who I’m featuring.

You can also do that too. So, for Braincamp in particular, given the most, commonly referenced competitor was Coffee School, I have picked people here who are possibly well known in that Coffee School realm. So we’ve got Kenny Williamson, we’ve got Nick Moors, we’ve got Christine Noriano, and also Amisha. So, you can also be strategic with that. Right? Because with your social proof, if your ideal prospect knows off or already knows likes and trust to some extent or maybe looks up to the person whose proof you’re featuring, that helps that proof land even more powerfully.

Anyway, that’s a bit of a side note. I could talk about social proof all day long.

But just remember that whenever you’re making these claims about how your offer is different and better for your ideal prospect, you are able to back them up with some sort of proof.

Now, of course, all that delicious data about how Braincamp is different and better for the right prospect, deserved more airtime than simply being on one portion of the sales page. So I had an email. This is from my twenty twenty launch of the offer. If you’d like to see, the full email, just let me know. As you can see it, it lives in my Google Drive so I can very easily share the link with you.

Bold subject line, something I would never say about my own offer, but something that, the voice of customer data says for me. So from a mindset perspective, it makes it so much easier for me to lead with this information. And again, it’s not that I think Braincamp is or was, you know, the top tier copywriting course in the whole world. It’s just that for a certain type of prospect, it was the best fit offer.

So that is what this email is all about. I won’t read it all, but I’ll read the first little bit just so you get the gist. One of the questions I ask people when they finish Braincamp is how did it compare to other copywriting courses you’ve taken? Which is a great question to ask when your office is in a crowded market because competition breeds comparison and being able to address it directly frees people up to say, okay.

Yep. This is what I need or, ah, okay. This isn’t the right option.

So with that in mind, here are twelve different answers to that question quite literally copy pasted in all their unedited glory. I really wanted to screenshot them to make them even more legitimate, but the text got really teeny tiny so I’m rolling with plan b. This first one is from copywriter Amy Williamson.

So I know I’m like a total fan girl and all, but this is at the very least equal with copy school. Probably it’s better to be honest. Don’t tell Queen Weid. Kirsty, if you haven’t heard of copy school, don’t worry. I hadn’t either until a couple of years ago. It’s pretty much the gold standard of copywriting courses. Which means my imposter syndrome and I had a real fun time with that one.

Here’s another one from email copywriter Megan Baird. Well, the testimonial from the beta round of better than copy school was living over my head the whole time. Can’t say that she was wrong. It’s also completely different from any other copywriting course. I’ve taken a lot of them. I think the biggest difference was that it was neither skill only like copy school or biz only like accelerator. It was also like an added bonus that all of the site copywriting skill you taught could also be applied to my own business.

Brain camp was also a lot less copy paste in a good way. I admit that I’ve watched other courses at one point two five times speed and then relied on the templates or swipe.

That so did not work at Braincamp. I’ve already rewatched all the videos just to absorb more info. Probably because on the first round of watching, it just kept sparking ideas to my own business. So second watch was more how to apply this to my work.

Oh, and it felt more like a mastermind than a course. The size of the group plus the quality of the ladies. Well, that sounds bad. Plus how flexible you were with helping us out.

Never been in a course like that before. Just the fact that the same group of us kept showing up to every zone call that really says something.

Now I won’t keep reading, but as you can see, what I’ve done here is literally copy pasted people’s responses to that question, and I have highlighted, the competing offers so that if someone is in the position of deciding between copy school and Braincamp or between the copywriter club accelerator and Braincamp or between one of Tarzan’s courses and Braincamp, they can go to the piece that feels relevant and they can hear from someone just like them. Right? That is where your social proof is most powerful.

Now, I’ve also included lots of answers to this question, because, again, when it comes to social proof, the more you have, the more powerfully you can actually make the point. Right? There’s there just becomes such a small amount of room for any doubt that what you’re saying is true.

So a couple of side notes there on social proof. But again, the thing that I’m really doing here is really directly comparing the offer to other available options and highlighting all the ways it’s different and better for my ideal prospect. Right? I’m doing the hard work for them of having to think through and compare.

Oh, what about this option? What about that option? Would this actually be better for me? Here’s some hard data from people who’ve already done the course, who have maybe also done the other things that you’ve invested in or thought about investing in, and here’s what they have to say.

So just wanted to show you that as another way to illustrate how powerful this can be.

This email absolutely triggered a waterfall of sales, for Braincamp when I sent it. It was incredibly powerful stuff.

I wanted to also show you another example, of some copy I wrote for a client. It’d be good few years ago now.

But what you’re looking at here is, the client sales page. This was Amber McHugh, who if you work with coaches, you know, you’re familiar with.

This was for her mastermind, called Freshly Implemented.

This was what her sales page looked like before I worked with her.

Also a hot tip if you’re not already screenshotting or recording copy assets that you’re about to work on before you actually optimize them, start doing it. It’s so powerful to have the fors and afters. Quick side note. Over. Okay. So as you can see here, her previous copywriter had, realized that it was important to talk about how this offer is different and better than others that her ideal prospect might have tried before.

The way that they’ve done it isn’t as powerful as it could be. So this is why I wanna show you how you can optimize this information. Right? So this section here, what makes Freshly Implemented so different?

I know that you’ve done a lot of classes and courses in the past and you are dubious to add on another one. There is one thing you need to know. This isn’t a class. I’m not here to give you a bunch of advice you don’t need or add to your to do list.

You’ve been buying get it done mugs and filling up notebooks full of ideas and action steps for years. Now is the time to bring those business ideas and dreams to life. Let me show you how to get it done with these four areas of focus. Time plus strategy plus accountability plus implementation.

Now I won’t read the details, in here, but as you can see, there’s a little call out box for each one of those points of difference.

And for the record, like, these things, the time, the strategy, the accountability, and the implementation were definitely things that came through in the voice of customer data in terms of how freshly implemented was different and better, in terms of other courses or masterminds they tried for their businesses previously.

But as you can see, the the way that this these points are presented is it’s not actually done in direct comparison.

Right? They’re talking about features in a way that is not anchored against anything else. So what they’re really doing here is leaving a lot of space for the prospect to have to do their own mental arithmetic. Right? To join the dots between how this compares to other things they’ve tried or thought about trying before.

Even the formatting of this copy is not optimized. Right? We think about the comparison table I showed you for the Braincamp sales page, that really just takes a mental load off your prospect. Right? You present present it to them in a really easily digestible format.

All they need to do is repeat across the bullet points. This does not do that. Right? So the comparison here is weaker even though copywriter here has actually been able to really identify the pieces of the puzzle that matter. The way they’re talking about them and communicating them isn’t as effective as it could be.

For comparison, here is the point of the bit of the sales page, after I rewrote it that tackles that same piece of the puzzle.

What makes Freshly Implemented different and better than all the other masterminds out there? Girl, I’m so glad you asked. Other online programs, the alternative.

Give you a bunch of ideas and frameworks focusing on the what rather than the how. Freshly implemented for smart CEOs like you focuses strongly on implementation, helping you find the best approach for your current challenge and supporting you as you put it into action, sticking firmly by your side until you get it right.

Other online programs keep the face of the program locked up behind closed doors, only granting you access through pre recorded trainings and the occasional Facebook live.

Freshly Implemented offers one to one on the fly access to me and my amazing fresh mentors So you get true coaching and consulting. This comes to you through back pocket TLCs, open studio hours, speed masterminding and a text me when you need me policy.

Seriously, I give you my phone number right from the get go. Now I won’t keep reading, but hopefully, you can already see how much more powerful this information is when the comparisons are made directly. Right? When they’re called out as they are, honing in on still the same things that matter. Right? But just making the information, a lot more easily digestible for the prospect reading through this page.

Again, scrolling all the way down. I mean, there’s lots of points here. And, again, these were all, given to me through asking that same simple question, in, the voice of customer surveys. And also I got some other richer data through doing, the voice of customer interviews.

But it’s so easy to get a handle on this stuff. The copy pretty much writes itself.

It’s just knowing what to do with it and not being shy about getting quite bold with it. Right? Really spelling out how your offer is different and better for the right person.

Again, there’s proof, to back these points up right underneath the comparison table so that all great information above is not there on a trust basis. Like trust these claims because I’m making them, these claims are then immediately after being proven through testimonials.

So, for example, this first one here before Fresh, I just invested twenty thousand in a membership in a mentorship program that completely disappointed me.

This then goes on to talk about, the results she got out of being inside of freshly implemented.

So that you can see, you know, this person has actually invested in some of these other options before and not got results, but with Fresh that that story was different.

There are a few more testimonials there that I won’t go into, but just want you to see that I’m improving these points as I’m making them so that those comparisons aren’t just hearsay for your prospect. They’re real. Right? They’re being proven.

That tab is being closed. There’s no room for doubts and hesitations. And again, you’re moving closely in that straight line towards your prospect saying yes to your offer.

Okay.

The final little side note that I wanted to leave you with was that comparisons also help us make sense of the world, which is a handy fact to keep in mind if your prospect is new to your kind or category of offer or if your offer is a brand new concept.

So again, as a really everyday example, I won’t talk about, the bread aisle again, but, a few weeks ago, I think it was now my oldest who’s three, he asked me what a donkey was. What’s a donkey?

He’s never seen a donkey before. I think maybe it was in a book that we were reading or a puzzle we were doing. I can’t remember. Anyway, the way I answered his question was taking something he already knew and talking about comparison points.

So he knows what a horse is. He’s seen a horse before. He’s been reading about horses in all sorts of books for many years. So I said, oh, donkeys are a bit like a horse, but they’re smaller, and they’ve got much bigger ears.

Now I’m sure there’s probably a better explanation out there about what a donkey is, but that was good enough for him. And it allowed him to really understand what a donkey was in some concrete terms because it took what he already knew and built on that knowledge using really simple comparisons.

So I mean, you’re probably not going to be using comparisons to explain what a donkey is in your copy. But of course, there may be a case where you are selling a mastermind to an audience of people who, for whatever reason, have never come across the term mastermind before. They don’t know what it is, but maybe they know what an online course is. If that’s the case, you can use comparisons to help build out their understanding to the point where they feel confident about the shape and the value of the offer they’re opting into.

It may also be for example that you’re dealing with an audience who doesn’t know what a custom GPT is, right? I’m sure that’s probably a much more probable scenario than someone who doesn’t know what a mastermind is. So again, taking what someone already knows and expanding that knowledge with the magic of comparisons.

So to put it another way, probably more succinctly because I wrote this rather than said it, the best approach here is to scaffold between what your prospect already understands and what they need to know to understand the value of the offer. So it’s just a really effective way to give someone a concrete understanding that again, they can share with other people if they need to. If they feel the need to justify their purchasing decision. If they want someone else to buy into the fact that they’re excited about buying this offer from you or from your client.

So just a really good thing to keep in mind.

Okay. The last thing that I want to just quickly touch on, before I end this workshop is the worksheet.

So you should already have access to this. If you don’t, I guess, let me know.

But what I have here are just some prompts for you. You may not need these, but just in case this helps you organize your data and organize your thoughts, lean into this. So four questions here for you. What other relevant or related offers has your ideal prospect tried or thought about trying before? Again, you can get this information from asking that one simple question in your voice of customer research.

If that for whatever reason is not available to you, some internet sleuthing would also allow you to do the same job.

Reddit is a great place where you might find, depending on what your offer is, some threads about it or its category of offer. So you can see what people are talking about and what things they have considered or tried before and how those stack up.

How did they miss the mark either in practice or in how they were perceived by your prospect? Again, that magic question in your voice of customer research will give you this data. This is just being able to organize it right into something that you can then very easily turn into copy.

How is your or your clients offer different and ideally better in relation to those points? Make each comparison as direct and specific as you can. So again, don’t be afraid to be really ballsy with this and lean on that voice of customer data, right? It is so much easier, to be able to share something someone else has said then and also also, we see more effective, than just to try and sift through your own brain and come up with the justifications and reasons and answers to this question here.

Finally, how can you prove some or all of those points of wealth? In the examples I’ve shared with you today, in both cases, that was via testimonials.

But, of course, there are other ways. So for example, let’s say you are selling a client’s online course and they have some sort of platform where, you can, you know, post questions and get support. And something that comes through in your research or in your feedback about that program is that that space is far more engaged and supportive, than other similar spaces they’ve been in before. So a way to prove that, in lieu of or in addition to testimonials would be, if you have permission from the people in the screenshot to take a screenshot of people asking for questions or asking for support within that space and getting really good, really quick, really valuable responses, right, from either other people in that space or from the person who actually heads up the program. That’s a really good way to prove that point.

If you are trying to prove how much the UX of your app, for example, or your client’s app, is better than the other available apps that do a similar thing, it might be that, you have a demo or a video that walks someone through all those different things so they can see exactly how easy it is, to click through and, you know, achieve a certain thing, create a task, whatever that might look like. So there are different ways that you can prove points. The important thing is that you do it so that you are not asking your prospect to trust you as you say all the ways your offer is different and better for them. But you are demonstrating that the points that you are making are true and that they’ve come from the people who are in the know.

Okay.

That is it. Like I mentioned at the start, if you have any questions or if you want a second set of eyes on maybe a comparison table that you’re going to now go and write into your sales pages or an email that you’re going to send, whatever that might look like, please just reach out, tag me in Slack, and I would absolutely love to help you.

It’s such an easy and effective technique to leverage in your copy.

So yeah, I just hope you go forth and start using it ASAP. I would love to hear how it goes. I would love to hear about the results you get. Okay.

That’s it for me.

I will see you in Slack. Bye.

Worksheet

Leveraging Direct Comparisons

Worksheet

Leveraging direct comparisons

Transcript

Hey, everyone. Very quickly before I dive into the content of the workshop, I just wanted to apologize for having to cancel last week’s workshop at such short notice.
Unfortunately, we had a very poorly timed stomach bug come through our families. So it was just, not a situation in which I could have fronted up for an hour on Zoom. Anyway, here we are with plan b. What’s going to happen here is I will be, sharing all the hows, the what’s, the whys, all the theories, some examples of how to leverage direct comparisons in your copy.
And if you have any questions on anything I share here today, if you want some help or a second set of eyes on how you’ve applied this to some copy you’re working on at the moment, or if you wanted to even talk about how we could take this practice from the world of copywriting and apply it to, for example, your sales calls, please just tag me in Slack and let me know. I would absolutely love to work through this kind of stuff with you. So don’t be shy in reaching out if you would like some help or some support. That’s exactly what I’m here for. Okay. On that note, let’s dive into the meat, of the workshop. Let me share my screen with you.
So as you know, today’s session is all about how to leverage direct comparisons to make your offer a really easy yes for your ideal prospect.
So very much building on this month’s theme of straight line copywriting.
Now the best place to start with this stuff is to really highlight the fact that when it comes to decision making, our brains absolutely love comparisons.
Why? Well, quite simply it’s because they allow us to assign value to the options that are in front of us and therefore make a really informed decision.
They help appease the rational part of our brain. If you’ve ever read Thinking Fast and Thinking Slow, you’ll know that, we typically make decisions, relating to all sorts of things, including what to purchase based on the rational part and the emotional part of our brain. So there are two different systems at play. Comparisons really appeal to that rational part of your prospect’s brain. Because what they allow us to do very easily is have a justification for why we’ve made the purchasing decision. And importantly, it’s one that your prospect can really easily share with others in their life.
So if the offer that you’re writing copy for is something where your prospect will need to justify their decision to perhaps their boss or their team, maybe their spouse, maybe their friends, maybe their peers, This tactic and this approach of leveraging direct comparisons is actually incredibly beneficial because it gives people the data which they can easily use for that purpose. Right? They feel really confident in sharing why they chose this offer above, other options on the market or why they think this will actually work when perhaps previous purchases in the same realm have not delivered the outcome that they were after. So keep that in mind, as we move forward from here.
Now, of course, we’ll be talking about how direct comparisons apply to the kind of offers that you’re writing copy for. But I think just to get you in the headspace of getting a feel for or realising how these things come into play in everyday life.
We want you here for a minute to think about the bread aisle at your local supermarket.
Now, depending on where you are in the world and how big your city or your town is, your supermarket bread section may not look like this.
The one up the road from me here in Sydney absolutely does. I would say it’s probably even larger than this. There must be close to a hundred different options at least, of bread. Now if you are to leave this recording and go and ask your housemate, your partner, your kid if they’re old enough, hey like what what kind of bread do you choose when you go to the supermarket and can you tell me why?
I guarantee you they are going to have a list of factors in there that are comparative. So that are comparing their bread of choice to other options that are there on the shelf. So for example, and it’s quite sad that I know this much detail about my husband, but I know that whenever he goes to the supermarket, the loaf that he chooses is always just the generic supermarket brand wholemeal bread. And I know that he chooses that because he likes it.
It has more fiber than white bread, right? He’s healthier moves things along, I guess.
And also he likes it because it has less, of those, like, seedy or grainy bits compared to, the whole grain bread. Also, I know that he likes it because of the size of the slices and the way that they fit into our oldest kids lunchbox.
So as I’m talking through this, I mean, yes, those are no pedantic things to be thinking about, but that’s how he justifies his decision. That’s how he has watched the place of knowing that that is his top choice of life. Now, of course, the reasons that you have or the reasons that the people in your life might have for their particular choice of bread are going to be different because different things matter to different people.
The point is that if you drill down enough into someone’s choice of bread, you will get to a point where they are able to articulate why they choose it in relation to other options. So how they think their choice of loaf is different and better than other things that they could have chosen instead.
So the point that I’m trying to make here is that value is relative, right? So it only exists in relation to other options and it’s also subjective. So what matters to me is going to be different to what matters to you in most cases.
So this means that we’re better able to illustrate the value of an offer when we actively compare it to options instead of talking about it in isolation, honing in on the aspects that actually matter to our ideal prospect, right, rather than trying to prove some sort of global superiority.
So two really important points here. Right? We need to compare options to other available alternatives, right, in order to help someone understand in a really concrete, aidable way why something is a different and better option for them given what they value in the thing that we’re talking about.
Now it’s really important that when you are leveraging direct comparisons in your copy, you are really focused on what actually matters for your ideal prospect. If you try and take this a step above and go sort of a step higher and you try to prove some sort of global superiority, like, well, this is simply just the best offer on the market for anyone, you’re going to get tripped up. Because of course, the thing that makes your offer the best fit for your ideal prospect is going to make it not the best fit for the people who aren’t your ideal prospect. Right?
And that’s good. That’s why niches exist. That’s why specificity sells. Right? I also think there is a mindset hurdle that you would also come up against if you were to try and prove that your offer is just absolutely the best flat out regardless of who it’s serving.
So really stick to what the data tells you about your ideal prospect, what they care about, and how your offer responds to that, or how your offer serves those things, those points of difference.
So on that note, if you are not already asking this question in your voice of customer research, start.
How does insert your offer compared to other insert the category of your offer things you’ve tried or thought about trying before? So for example, how does CopySchool Professional compare to other copywriting masterminds you’ve tried or thought about trying before?
How does ConvertKit or KIP I think they are now calling it compare to other email marketing platforms you’ve tried or thought about trying before?
Asking this question alone will get you such rich data and will get you all the information you need to actually go ahead and make really effective comparisons in your copy. It will unearth who your competitors are and also how your offer is different and better in the ways that matter who your ideal prospect. So this question unearth some absolute gold. So if you’re not already asking it, again, please start folding it into your research process.
If you’re looking at this and you’re thinking, oh, that doesn’t quite fit with the project I’m working on, because I know that my ideal prospect hasn’t actually invested in a solution, for this problem or this challenge or to work towards this outcome before, this question may serve you better. What stopped you from getting help with this kind of thing before? So what this will do is help you pinpoint and uncover objections or perceived faults or flaws with available offers that ideally your offer can speak to. Right? You can say, oh, well, actually, you know, you might be worried about x. Here’s what our offer does in that respect that is different and better. So what you’re doing here is making a really clear case for your offer in a great fit in all the ways that matter.
Now I wanna show you a real world example of what this looks like, so you can see how easy and how powerful it is in copy.
So what you’re looking at here, is a spreadsheet I’ve just exported from one of my type forms, a bunch of responses to this question, which is one that has existed historically in my feedback form for a copywriting course that I’ve recently retired.
So don’t worry. I’m not trying to sell you on this. It’s just, it’s just a really good example of direct comparisons. And I think because we are mostly copywriters in here, it might be helpful because you probably know some of these competitors. Right? And certainly you will know copy school.
So as you can see here, the question I ask in the survey is how did it compare to other copywriting courses you’ve taken. Right? So I’m asking about how this offer compared to other offers in the same category.
So you can probably already see that even where there are no competitors mentioned or where there are no direct comparisons drawn, There’s some really juicy, voice of customer here that I can obviously leverage to help someone offer through testimonials. So even the second response here, like brain camp is the only copywriting course you need. That’s a very powerful headline to be able to leverage somewhere. It’s a very powerful point of social proof. And often, you know, down here, you know, Braincamp is where I’m with the best copywriting course I’ve ever taken.
I did something strange there. There we go. Sorry.
So just also to highlight that as well as giving you all the data you need to make the comparisons really actively in your copy between your offer and other available alternatives, this question can also yield just some super powerful social proof that will really help position and sell your offer in a really effective way.
Now what I’ve done here, as you can probably see, every time someone has mentioned a competitor or a competing offer, I have put that in orange.
You know, you can see Sarah Turner’s Right Away to Freedom, copy school comes up a few times. Kate Toon, copy hackers.
I think there’s also some reference to the copywriter think sorry. The copywriter club think tank, yeah, Accelerator. I think Tarzan gets mentioned somewhere in here as well.
So, you know, a lot of big names, but also a lot of clarity for me on who or what else my ideal prospect is considering or has tried before when it comes to investing money towards this goal or towards solving the problem or not feeling like they are a really confident effective copywriter.
So that information is incredibly useful because it gives me those direct comparison points that I can leverage.
The pieces of, these feedback, snippets that are in green, the ways in which these prospects or these customers have identified Braincamp as being a better, more appealing option for them. Now again, I’m not focused here on trying to prove that Braincamp is the best copywriting course ever. I’m really using this question to understand what matters to my ideal prospect and how Braincamp is a best fit option for them. Because I know without a doubt that there are many, many, many people for whom Braincamp would not be the best fit.
And that’s great. I don’t want to attract them to the offer. I actually want to weed them out by highlighting these points so I can draw the right people in We’ll let the other people off the book. Right?
If it’s not the best fit for them, it doesn’t serve either of us for them to actually come in and join the program.
So as you can perhaps see, a lot of the pieces in green make the same points. So more holistic human centric understanding of copywriting, more focused on sales psychology, much more human centered.
There is also a lot of reference to the fact, that, for example, the Slack chat in workshops was so intimate and every question I had got answered.
The intimacy and attention afforded by the small group nature of this course blew away every other copywriting course I’ve taken. So a lot of the points are really similar, which is great, right? When you start seeing those patterns in your voice of customer data, you know you are hitting on something.
So I won’t spend much more time going through this raw data here. What I really want you to take away from having a quick squeeze at this spreadsheet, I mean, look at so many responses here, is that, this simple question gives you all the information you need. Right? It’s then so easy to take this and put it into copy and put it in a format that is incredibly easy for your prospects mind to grab a hold of and pull into their decision making process. So if you’re wondering, okay, what does that look like?
My favorite way to illustrate how an offer is different and better is by writing copy into a comparison table.
Very simple, very effective.
So I’ll have a I’ll do a quick, little scroll of this section of Brain Camp sales page.
I know there are a lot of other copywriting courses out there on the interwebs. Your time is precious and money doesn’t grow on trees. So chances are you’re wondering why you should invest in this one. This handy little table is here to help. Now as you can see, even with this headline, I’m being very direct and very upfront about the fact that, yeah, I’m sure you’re looking at other options or maybe you’ve bought other copywriting courses before and you’ve been underwhelmed by, you know, what’s been waiting for you inside or the kind of results they’ve helped you achieve. I’m addressing the elephant in the room head on, because if I don’t, I can’t effectively talk to or demonstrate how this offer is different and better for the ideal prospect. So don’t be afraid to be really direct.
It’s a much more powerful tactic if you are able to just be really matter of fact and straight to the point.
Now as you can see here, one column here is devoted to other courses, and these points are all pulled from that data in terms of what people found disappointing or lacking about some of the other courses they had tried before.
This column on the right here is all the ways in which Braincamp is different and better on those points. So I put in here all the bits that matter based on that voice of customer research, and they’re all here as direct points of comparison. So for example, you would have seen, in that spreadsheet that I showed you a minute ago that there was quite a bit of, feedback on the fact that the intimate nature of the course was really valuable. So of course, there’s a point in here about that. So other courses have ginormous cohorts, little opportunity for one to one attention.
Brain camp has just twenty five spots up for grabs. By the end of week, we’ll know each other’s names and niches. By the end of week twelve, we’ll probably have matching hats. If you want to need one to one attention, all you need to do is hit me up in Slack, send me a copy for critique, or ask me a question during one of our live workshops.
Of course, I could read all of these out to you. Let me just pick another one just for reference. So, I think one of the other points I called out when I was going through those responses, in the Google Sheet were that people liked the deeper psychological approach, the human centered approach. So other courses teach basic psychological concepts like loss aversion and anchoring.
These are great, by the way, but they can only get you so far. Braincamp takes a deeper applied approach to psychology to give you a genuine edge on your competition.
So this table is really just regurgitating all that voice of customer in a really organized way so that my prospect can read this and have a really direct component of comparison for each hesitation they may have based on their prior experience of this kind or this category of offer. So as you can see, it makes the mental processing incredibly easy, right? Everything is here for this person. This column on the right is basically the justification that they can pass on to anyone else in their lives who they feel needs to hear it.
It also, of course, as I mentioned, helps, really appease the rational part of their decision making process.
Now importantly, whenever you do make these comparisons in your copy, you need to prove them right away. If you don’t, you’re simply seeing your prospect to trust what you say. If you’re able to prove the points as you make them, you’re closing that tap. Right. There’s no question then in your prospect’s mind about whether this is actually a legitimate claim.
They can see that these claims are being backed up by real life human beings.
In this case, because I have all that beautiful data from asking that question in my feedback form after the course is complete.
I’ve gone with testimonials. Right? And the testimonials that I’ve chosen to feature here speak directly to the points that I’m making above, and speak directly to those comparisons. Right? So people can see that there are other people who’ve been through this course, who ideally they know. Right? I’m also strategic here about who I’m featuring.
You can also do that too. So, for Braincamp in particular, given the most, commonly referenced competitor was Coffee School, I have picked people here who are possibly well known in that Coffee School realm. So we’ve got Kenny Williamson, we’ve got Nick Moors, we’ve got Christine Noriano, and also Amisha. So, you can also be strategic with that. Right? Because with your social proof, if your ideal prospect knows off or already knows likes and trust to some extent or maybe looks up to the person whose proof you’re featuring, that helps that proof land even more powerfully.
Anyway, that’s a bit of a side note. I could talk about social proof all day long.
But just remember that whenever you’re making these claims about how your offer is different and better for your ideal prospect, you are able to back them up with some sort of proof.
Now, of course, all that delicious data about how Braincamp is different and better for the right prospect, deserved more airtime than simply being on one portion of the sales page. So I had an email. This is from my twenty twenty launch of the offer. If you’d like to see, the full email, just let me know. As you can see it, it lives in my Google Drive so I can very easily share the link with you.
Bold subject line, something I would never say about my own offer, but something that, the voice of customer data says for me. So from a mindset perspective, it makes it so much easier for me to lead with this information. And again, it’s not that I think Braincamp is or was, you know, the top tier copywriting course in the whole world. It’s just that for a certain type of prospect, it was the best fit offer.
So that is what this email is all about. I won’t read it all, but I’ll read the first little bit just so you get the gist. One of the questions I ask people when they finish Braincamp is how did it compare to other copywriting courses you’ve taken? Which is a great question to ask when your office is in a crowded market because competition breeds comparison and being able to address it directly frees people up to say, okay.
Yep. This is what I need or, ah, okay. This isn’t the right option.
So with that in mind, here are twelve different answers to that question quite literally copy pasted in all their unedited glory. I really wanted to screenshot them to make them even more legitimate, but the text got really teeny tiny so I’m rolling with plan b. This first one is from copywriter Amy Williamson.
So I know I’m like a total fan girl and all, but this is at the very least equal with copy school. Probably it’s better to be honest. Don’t tell Queen Weid. Kirsty, if you haven’t heard of copy school, don’t worry. I hadn’t either until a couple of years ago. It’s pretty much the gold standard of copywriting courses. Which means my imposter syndrome and I had a real fun time with that one.
Here’s another one from email copywriter Megan Baird. Well, the testimonial from the beta round of better than copy school was living over my head the whole time. Can’t say that she was wrong. It’s also completely different from any other copywriting course. I’ve taken a lot of them. I think the biggest difference was that it was neither skill only like copy school or biz only like accelerator. It was also like an added bonus that all of the site copywriting skill you taught could also be applied to my own business.
Brain camp was also a lot less copy paste in a good way. I admit that I’ve watched other courses at one point two five times speed and then relied on the templates or swipe.
That so did not work at Braincamp. I’ve already rewatched all the videos just to absorb more info. Probably because on the first round of watching, it just kept sparking ideas to my own business. So second watch was more how to apply this to my work.
Oh, and it felt more like a mastermind than a course. The size of the group plus the quality of the ladies. Well, that sounds bad. Plus how flexible you were with helping us out.
Never been in a course like that before. Just the fact that the same group of us kept showing up to every zone call that really says something.
Now I won’t keep reading, but as you can see, what I’ve done here is literally copy pasted people’s responses to that question, and I have highlighted, the competing offers so that if someone is in the position of deciding between copy school and Braincamp or between the copywriter club accelerator and Braincamp or between one of Tarzan’s courses and Braincamp, they can go to the piece that feels relevant and they can hear from someone just like them. Right? That is where your social proof is most powerful.
Now, I’ve also included lots of answers to this question, because, again, when it comes to social proof, the more you have, the more powerfully you can actually make the point. Right? There’s there just becomes such a small amount of room for any doubt that what you’re saying is true.
So a couple of side notes there on social proof. But again, the thing that I’m really doing here is really directly comparing the offer to other available options and highlighting all the ways it’s different and better for my ideal prospect. Right? I’m doing the hard work for them of having to think through and compare.
Oh, what about this option? What about that option? Would this actually be better for me? Here’s some hard data from people who’ve already done the course, who have maybe also done the other things that you’ve invested in or thought about investing in, and here’s what they have to say.
So just wanted to show you that as another way to illustrate how powerful this can be.
This email absolutely triggered a waterfall of sales, for Braincamp when I sent it. It was incredibly powerful stuff.
I wanted to also show you another example, of some copy I wrote for a client. It’d be good few years ago now.
But what you’re looking at here is, the client sales page. This was Amber McHugh, who if you work with coaches, you know, you’re familiar with.
This was for her mastermind, called Freshly Implemented.
This was what her sales page looked like before I worked with her.
Also a hot tip if you’re not already screenshotting or recording copy assets that you’re about to work on before you actually optimize them, start doing it. It’s so powerful to have the fors and afters. Quick side note. Over. Okay. So as you can see here, her previous copywriter had, realized that it was important to talk about how this offer is different and better than others that her ideal prospect might have tried before.
The way that they’ve done it isn’t as powerful as it could be. So this is why I wanna show you how you can optimize this information. Right? So this section here, what makes Freshly Implemented so different?
I know that you’ve done a lot of classes and courses in the past and you are dubious to add on another one. There is one thing you need to know. This isn’t a class. I’m not here to give you a bunch of advice you don’t need or add to your to do list.
You’ve been buying get it done mugs and filling up notebooks full of ideas and action steps for years. Now is the time to bring those business ideas and dreams to life. Let me show you how to get it done with these four areas of focus. Time plus strategy plus accountability plus implementation.
Now I won’t read the details, in here, but as you can see, there’s a little call out box for each one of those points of difference.
And for the record, like, these things, the time, the strategy, the accountability, and the implementation were definitely things that came through in the voice of customer data in terms of how freshly implemented was different and better, in terms of other courses or masterminds they tried for their businesses previously.
But as you can see, the the way that this these points are presented is it’s not actually done in direct comparison.
Right? They’re talking about features in a way that is not anchored against anything else. So what they’re really doing here is leaving a lot of space for the prospect to have to do their own mental arithmetic. Right? To join the dots between how this compares to other things they’ve tried or thought about trying before.
Even the formatting of this copy is not optimized. Right? We think about the comparison table I showed you for the Braincamp sales page, that really just takes a mental load off your prospect. Right? You present present it to them in a really easily digestible format.
All they need to do is repeat across the bullet points. This does not do that. Right? So the comparison here is weaker even though copywriter here has actually been able to really identify the pieces of the puzzle that matter. The way they’re talking about them and communicating them isn’t as effective as it could be.
For comparison, here is the point of the bit of the sales page, after I rewrote it that tackles that same piece of the puzzle.
What makes Freshly Implemented different and better than all the other masterminds out there? Girl, I’m so glad you asked. Other online programs, the alternative.
Give you a bunch of ideas and frameworks focusing on the what rather than the how. Freshly implemented for smart CEOs like you focuses strongly on implementation, helping you find the best approach for your current challenge and supporting you as you put it into action, sticking firmly by your side until you get it right.
Other online programs keep the face of the program locked up behind closed doors, only granting you access through pre recorded trainings and the occasional Facebook live.
Freshly Implemented offers one to one on the fly access to me and my amazing fresh mentors So you get true coaching and consulting. This comes to you through back pocket TLCs, open studio hours, speed masterminding and a text me when you need me policy.
Seriously, I give you my phone number right from the get go. Now I won’t keep reading, but hopefully, you can already see how much more powerful this information is when the comparisons are made directly. Right? When they’re called out as they are, honing in on still the same things that matter. Right? But just making the information, a lot more easily digestible for the prospect reading through this page.
Again, scrolling all the way down. I mean, there’s lots of points here. And, again, these were all, given to me through asking that same simple question, in, the voice of customer surveys. And also I got some other richer data through doing, the voice of customer interviews.
But it’s so easy to get a handle on this stuff. The copy pretty much writes itself.
It’s just knowing what to do with it and not being shy about getting quite bold with it. Right? Really spelling out how your offer is different and better for the right person.
Again, there’s proof, to back these points up right underneath the comparison table so that all great information above is not there on a trust basis. Like trust these claims because I’m making them, these claims are then immediately after being proven through testimonials.
So, for example, this first one here before Fresh, I just invested twenty thousand in a membership in a mentorship program that completely disappointed me.
This then goes on to talk about, the results she got out of being inside of freshly implemented.
So that you can see, you know, this person has actually invested in some of these other options before and not got results, but with Fresh that that story was different.
There are a few more testimonials there that I won’t go into, but just want you to see that I’m improving these points as I’m making them so that those comparisons aren’t just hearsay for your prospect. They’re real. Right? They’re being proven.
That tab is being closed. There’s no room for doubts and hesitations. And again, you’re moving closely in that straight line towards your prospect saying yes to your offer.
Okay.
The final little side note that I wanted to leave you with was that comparisons also help us make sense of the world, which is a handy fact to keep in mind if your prospect is new to your kind or category of offer or if your offer is a brand new concept.
So again, as a really everyday example, I won’t talk about, the bread aisle again, but, a few weeks ago, I think it was now my oldest who’s three, he asked me what a donkey was. What’s a donkey?
He’s never seen a donkey before. I think maybe it was in a book that we were reading or a puzzle we were doing. I can’t remember. Anyway, the way I answered his question was taking something he already knew and talking about comparison points.
So he knows what a horse is. He’s seen a horse before. He’s been reading about horses in all sorts of books for many years. So I said, oh, donkeys are a bit like a horse, but they’re smaller, and they’ve got much bigger ears.
Now I’m sure there’s probably a better explanation out there about what a donkey is, but that was good enough for him. And it allowed him to really understand what a donkey was in some concrete terms because it took what he already knew and built on that knowledge using really simple comparisons.
So I mean, you’re probably not going to be using comparisons to explain what a donkey is in your copy. But of course, there may be a case where you are selling a mastermind to an audience of people who, for whatever reason, have never come across the term mastermind before. They don’t know what it is, but maybe they know what an online course is. If that’s the case, you can use comparisons to help build out their understanding to the point where they feel confident about the shape and the value of the offer they’re opting into.
It may also be for example that you’re dealing with an audience who doesn’t know what a custom GPT is, right? I’m sure that’s probably a much more probable scenario than someone who doesn’t know what a mastermind is. So again, taking what someone already knows and expanding that knowledge with the magic of comparisons.
So to put it another way, probably more succinctly because I wrote this rather than said it, the best approach here is to scaffold between what your prospect already understands and what they need to know to understand the value of the offer. So it’s just a really effective way to give someone a concrete understanding that again, they can share with other people if they need to. If they feel the need to justify their purchasing decision. If they want someone else to buy into the fact that they’re excited about buying this offer from you or from your client.
So just a really good thing to keep in mind.
Okay. The last thing that I want to just quickly touch on, before I end this workshop is the worksheet.
So you should already have access to this. If you don’t, I guess, let me know.
But what I have here are just some prompts for you. You may not need these, but just in case this helps you organize your data and organize your thoughts, lean into this. So four questions here for you. What other relevant or related offers has your ideal prospect tried or thought about trying before? Again, you can get this information from asking that one simple question in your voice of customer research.
If that for whatever reason is not available to you, some internet sleuthing would also allow you to do the same job.
Reddit is a great place where you might find, depending on what your offer is, some threads about it or its category of offer. So you can see what people are talking about and what things they have considered or tried before and how those stack up.
How did they miss the mark either in practice or in how they were perceived by your prospect? Again, that magic question in your voice of customer research will give you this data. This is just being able to organize it right into something that you can then very easily turn into copy.
How is your or your clients offer different and ideally better in relation to those points? Make each comparison as direct and specific as you can. So again, don’t be afraid to be really ballsy with this and lean on that voice of customer data, right? It is so much easier, to be able to share something someone else has said then and also also, we see more effective, than just to try and sift through your own brain and come up with the justifications and reasons and answers to this question here.
Finally, how can you prove some or all of those points of wealth? In the examples I’ve shared with you today, in both cases, that was via testimonials.
But, of course, there are other ways. So for example, let’s say you are selling a client’s online course and they have some sort of platform where, you can, you know, post questions and get support. And something that comes through in your research or in your feedback about that program is that that space is far more engaged and supportive, than other similar spaces they’ve been in before. So a way to prove that, in lieu of or in addition to testimonials would be, if you have permission from the people in the screenshot to take a screenshot of people asking for questions or asking for support within that space and getting really good, really quick, really valuable responses, right, from either other people in that space or from the person who actually heads up the program. That’s a really good way to prove that point.
If you are trying to prove how much the UX of your app, for example, or your client’s app, is better than the other available apps that do a similar thing, it might be that, you have a demo or a video that walks someone through all those different things so they can see exactly how easy it is, to click through and, you know, achieve a certain thing, create a task, whatever that might look like. So there are different ways that you can prove points. The important thing is that you do it so that you are not asking your prospect to trust you as you say all the ways your offer is different and better for them. But you are demonstrating that the points that you are making are true and that they’ve come from the people who are in the know.
Okay.
That is it. Like I mentioned at the start, if you have any questions or if you want a second set of eyes on maybe a comparison table that you’re going to now go and write into your sales pages or an email that you’re going to send, whatever that might look like, please just reach out, tag me in Slack, and I would absolutely love to help you.
It’s such an easy and effective technique to leverage in your copy.
So yeah, I just hope you go forth and start using it ASAP. I would love to hear how it goes. I would love to hear about the results you get. Okay.
That’s it for me.
I will see you in Slack. Bye.

Breaking the 4th Wall to Build Authority and Foster Trust

Breaking the 4th Wall to Build Authority & Foster Trust

Transcript

Alright. Well, it’s, two past. So let me dive, into what I’ve got for all of you here today.

A few people may still join the room. Hey, Michelle. And you can hear us.

So obviously, I mean, you’re halfway through the current month now, so you are well and truly aware of the fact that the theme for this month is advanced emails.

The technique that I’m going to walk you through today is breaking the fourth wall, as a technique that really helps you, build authority and foster trust, in a really resonant way with the people who are reading your emails. So your prospects, your subscribers, etcetera.

Now, I suspect everyone in this room probably knows the phrase breaking the fourth wall. But just in case you don’t, or just in case it’s one of those things that you think you know, but you’re not quite sure, it comes from the world of theatre, and is based on the idea of the stage itself having three physical walls, like the back and then the two wings. And then there being the fourth imaginary wall that sits between the actors and the audience.

Now, obviously, therefore, breaking the fourth wall is when someone on stage, I guess, breaks out of the story itself or breaks out of character to interact directly with the audience themselves. And I was trying to think yesterday of some sort of more pop culture references for this because obviously it’s a technique that’s also used in movies and TV shows. And some that came to mind, which you may or may not have seen are Fleabag.

A great show, by the way, if you haven’t watched it. But she will often or sometimes, you know, make the face or not contact directly with the camera, so directly with the viewer that communicates a certain feeling, about the event she’s in. It’s usually done for comedic effect in that case.

House of Cards, Frank Underwood would often have those long monologues to camera, that revealed a bit more of himself and his character and his thought process for some of those episodes.

Martin Scorsese also uses it quite a bit in his movies.

Wolf of Wall Street, for example, if you’ve seen it, fits in my mind because of the book that’s, that Joe set for next month. There’s a part where he’s walking through the office and I think he’s explaining what an IPO is, and he’s doing that to camera. So he’s breaking the fourth wall. So I think the key thing to remember here as we begin talking about how to take this technique and apply it to email is that it’s something that is always done strategically and always done quite sparingly. If it’s something that you end up doing too often, it becomes gimmicky really quickly. So you really need a good rationale for doing it in your emails.

Now let me share my screen, so that I can it’ll take you through, a bit of what I’ve got on this worksheet, but also some examples here that I have, ready and waiting for you.

Sorry. And I’m always very bad at getting my screen set up. There we go. Okay.

So, when it comes to emails, I think we can agree that usually your prospect gets the end product of your strategy, right? You do all the research, you do all the thoughts, you write all the copy and they really see the outcome of all that work.

They get the fully cake, baked cake, so to speak. So this technique is all about inviting them in to show them the recipe as a way to establish authority and build trust.

So I’ve got, three examples of when I have used this for myself and my clients, and it’s worked really well. And happily, they seem to fit into three pretty constant or consistent scenarios.

I have, of course, tried to use this technique in more, but I haven’t necessarily seen a measurable impact, of leveraging it, leveraging it in this way. So, I mean, let’s stick with what I know works.

So the first scenario where breaking the fourth wall in your emails is usually very effective is if or when you’ve gathered proof in response to a direct question or objection. So it could be if you, you or your client is in launch, or it could just be, you know, if generally someone has approached you or your client and is interested in finding out more about something.

Now, the reason that this works so well is because it not only allows you to prove the point that you’re making, you know, thanks to the proof that you’re presenting, But it also helps position you as really responsive and genuine, which is especially powerful in this era where transparency is super sexy and compelling. Long may it rain. So I’ll, just take you now to an example of what this can look like in practice so you can see what I’m on about.

And by the way, I’m very happy to share all these emails with you as well.

So if you would like, to look at these, because as you can see, some of them are quite long. If you would like to look at the entirety of them, in your own time, please feel free to ask.

But for context, this is an email that I sent out, as an FAQ email through one of my own launches, back in twenty twenty for my copywriting, program called Brain Camp. So there’s lots of copy here that is not relevant to what we’re talking about. The piece I want to draw your attention to is here. This is one of the questions or statements, I guess, that came through during launch. I had phone my last time, so I’m really keen to get involved this time. If I can make it work financially, we’ll have to have a ponder.

I do have some copy here that speaks to the more emotional side, of that question or that objection.

And then I get into the logical stuff. And this is where I break the fourth wall in this email.

So emotions aside, I also wanted to make sure I could answer this question for you in more tangible terms. So I reached out to last one of last rounds campus at a light for Chrissy Chiodo with this question. And And as you can see, this is me breaking the fourth wall. This is me really letting someone into the process of how this email is built.

And of course it’s done strategically because what I’ve done here is I have screenshotted the literal DM and question that I sent her. Oh, hello. Currently, Radne, I’ll take your email for tomorrow and there are a lot of queues around finances. Just curious.

Any idea how long it took for you to see financial returns from Braincamp last year? And then also, of course, sharing a screenshot of her response.

Now typically, right, the conventional rule for email and using social proof like this, just as the conventional rule for theater where you don’t break that fourth wall, is that you may just include a screenshot of, say, this part of her response, or you may even take sentences or phrases from this and put it into, you know, a testimonial of sorts with her name attached. But what I’m doing here is actually showing, I guess, the whole, chain of this interaction, not only to help prove the point that there is ROI for this offer, but also to show that, hey, I’m really responsive to questions, which in this case is important, right?

Because I’m towards the end of my launch and I really want to make sure that anyone who has a question on their mind is going to reach out and ask it. And also to be really transparent and show that I have nothing to hide. Like I’m not any of this proof here. This is literally what’s come through to me, as you can see.

Ina does go on to include more traditional, methods and means of social proof, so just the screenshots themselves. But can you see the difference here between just including things like this is just like an answer to the question and actually inviting your prospect to come on the journey with you of how you’re going to get this piece of the puzzle?

Is that making sense?

Yep. Okay. Cool. And of course, if it’s not, ask me questions.

But I will keep going in lieu of questions now. Thumbs up. Amazing. Thanks, Marina.

Sorry. I’m very bad. There we go. Okay. So the second scenario where breaking the fourth wall is usually very effective is when you’re positioning yourself or your client as an expert strategist and therefore want to show off your thought process.

So when the magic is not only in what you’re doing, but in how you made the decision to get there. Now, of course, for the most part, emails are, because they should be, like I mentioned earlier, a result of you doing all the things you need to do to get your prospect to take the action you want them to take without them necessarily understanding the mechanics of what’s at play. But in this scenario, where it’s actually really valuable for them to see what an expert you are at something that you do, it can be very, strategic to actually break that fourth wall. So here’s an example of what, that one looks like.

Oh, you know what I’ve done?

I closed one of my tabs. Hold on a sec. Let me stop share so I can dig back through my inbox. Sorry, guys. That’s my uncle. Zoom thing is at work.

It’s alright. I know what the email is called, so it will not be long to find.

Right. Sorry about that, guys.

K. Let me share my screen again.

There we go. Pull it again. Okay. So here we are. This email strategy strategy strategy, is one that I sent out actually just a few months ago. I was part of Brenna McGowan’s behind the launch, which you may have heard of. I actually think Ry was part of it a few years ago.

But basically it is where she has boxer conversations with different people in the launch space and ask them what worked really well on your last launch, and then sells those conversations as a resource for other business owners.

So anyway, I obviously had to promote this thing that I was part of, which is part of the deal in which is great.

I start this email, which is important with this sentence. I said yes to a bunch of glorious opportunities when I was still on maternity leave. I then go on to promote behind the launch. And I won’t read through that because it’s not the point of what I’m trying to show you. Then we get to the PS. What I didn’t consider when I heck yes ed my way through a bunch of invites like Prenders to events on Deep In My Bones Chuck to be part of was how the timing of them and associated promotion would align with my own promotion for various offers, including the last ever round of Braincamp.

Cause as you might’ve heard, it’s tricky to promote two things at once.

To be clear, the tricky part isn’t the bit where you reach a fresh audience and bring in new leads. That’s a hugely valuable asset leading up to launch. Even if timeframes are a bit squishy, just make sure you’ve considered how your choice of lead magnet can accelerate the process of know, like, and trust, as well as prime people for the offer they’re about to see. And remember to include opt out links so people can exercise informed consent.

The tricky part is all about legends like you, who are smack bang in the middle of a conversation designed to prime me for my own offer and working through how in this case, I can leverage my conversation with Brenna to help further your decision about whether or not you want to check out or jump into BrandCamp on open enrollments next week, rather than letting it be a distraction from that decision because, oh, look, I already joined a thing and am learning.

Real talk. But you know what? My chat with Brenna and how I promote it provides an opportunity for me to demonstrate some of the key outcomes Braincamp offers, Like not never having to rely on a template to write copy, the grounding kind of confidence that allows you to craft strategy and write copy in real time because you know what to say when and no longer fit it by the blank page. And the trust you have in your ability to work things out because you understand the mechanics of what works and why. And then it goes on to have a CTA again to join the Grandcamp wait list, which really was my key goal for this email because of the timing of the promotion.

So, of course, I could have left all this PS out, right, and just let it be a promotion for behind the launch and hoped and trusted that if anyone did actually take brand up on that offer, my conversation sort of led them back to my wait list.

But what I have done here is really unpacked the strategy of what is happening in this email. And again, I’m breaking the fourth wall in this way and inviting my prospect in on the journey that’s happening inside my mind.

Now, why I decided to do this for this email is because my ideal prospect for Braincamp is someone who wants to learn more about copy and specifically about how and why things work. So being able to step them through the strategy, at least in this scenario really helps position me as someone who is qualified to teach that course, I’m also able to bring it back to some of the key outcomes of Braincamp, which is obviously beneficial as well. But I’m really inviting people into the how and why of what I’m doing rather than just writing a different form of this email that didn’t have, I guess, that didn’t lift the lid on the mechanics. It didn’t show them what was going on under the hood.

Does that make sense?

Yep.

K. Cool. And, again, I’m very happy to share these emails with you later if you would like to see them as as holes.

Okay. The third scenario where breaking the fourth wall is usually very effective is a much simpler one. It can be done with a single sentence, which may make some of you happy.

It’s when you want to normalize a thought, feeling, or action to reduce friction around it and or position yourself or your client as relatable.

So for this one, a super quick, simple, easy example.

It’s kind of like a damaging ignition, but as you can see, it’s a bit more tightly linked to, the email itself.

One of the items on my to do list last Friday was write primary email for next month’s Reflective Practise Club. I didn’t do it, which makes now feel like the perfect time to mention the theme for next month’s club is tackling procrastination.

So again, it is just inviting people into your decision making process in what you’re actually putting in that email rather than delivering them the end product of all of that without inviting them in to see the process of how you get there. So again, you’re breaking that convention of email deliberately, strategically in situations where you where you’re confident that it’s actually gonna be beneficial for your strategy.

Now, as you can see, some different ways you can actually enact this technique is via screenshots. Obviously that’s particularly relevant if you are enacting this technique in relation to social proof.

Also commentary on or side notes about or explanations of your approach.

And of course just figuratively inviting your prospect into the room with you as you’re right. So what’s going through your head? What are you noticing? What are you feeling or responding to? And of course that can be a really great way with the right prospect and the right offhand, the right audience to actually, demonstrate some of that strategic know how. So in the scenario where the magic is not only in what you’re doing, but how you’re making a decision to actually do it.

So I’m sure there’ll be lots of questions because as you can tell, this technique does rely a lot on context, but just to reference this in case you will find it useful later. And you may not. Right? You may not need this.

So feel free to use or ignore this at will. But it’s a quick table that you can use just to help identify where in a certain sequence it may be valuable or strategically appropriate to actually break the fourth wall. So in the examples I’ve got here, I’m just assuming that there is, a nurture sequence on the back of lead magnet that is designed to teach the subscriber how to increase their email engagement. So the first email in that sequence is the lead magnet delivery.

The strategic intent of that email is that the subscriber engages with the lead magnet. Would it be appropriate and available to break the fourth wall here? No. Probably not.

It’s a simple email. We don’t need to get too tricky with it. The second email in the sequence is a lead magnet reminder that would go out to those who haven’t engaged with that lead magnet in forty eight hours. The strategic intent of that email is to unact is that unactivated subscribers engage with that lead magnet.

Now in this case, since the lead magnet itself is all about increasing email engagement, there may actually be a case for breaking the fourth wall here because you’re sending this email out to people who haven’t engaged with that lead magnet because you know that that increases engagement, not just with the lead magnet, but with also your list and your emails as a result. So you could actually break the fourth wall here and let people into the strategic intent and the strategic decisions that you’re making about when to send that email and why to send that email. So in that case, this could actually be, a really beneficial use of the technique.

Okay. I feel like I’ve talked long enough, and my voice is quite creaky this morning too. Sorry about that. I don’t know if it’s because it’s early or because I’m getting sick. So let me stop sharing my screen, and let me just open up for questions. And, of course, if there are no questions on this technique, we can talk about anything else related to emails.

For reference, my niche is launches. So most of my emails are launch emails or launch sequences.

But also happy to talk about anything that you may be currently working through in your business as well. We’ve got forty minutes, so we have plenty of time.

Yes. Hello. Hi.

I wanted to ask in terms of, like, when to use this, because you you had a really great example afterwards, which is basically, like, win back.

Right? So you’re winning someone’s attention back by saying, like, hey. Look. I’m a human tier. Here’s trust.

And I’m building that with you. Is so I work in b to b SaaS.

I’m just wondering if you think that there’s a specific, I guess, example of a fourth wall that you’ve seen before that would be really helpful, to win someone’s attention back. Because most people sign up for a thing and then, like, drop off, get busy, ignore it.

Yeah. So have you seen anything that sort of stood out to you in terms of that?

Very good question. So obviously, b to b SaaS is not my not my niche, but let’s talk about it. So you’re saying one of the key problems there is that people, drop off what movie got? Sorry. I could just move because you’re I went down.

So one of the key problems there is that you people don’t engage with what they’ve signed up for. Is that right?

Is that the Yeah.

Like, I’ll give you a real life example. I signed up for a new video making tool called Clipping, I think. And, almost immediately, like, hit a snag. I needed to put a video of my phone into the computer.

I was busy. Something happened. I walked away. And then I came back, and I was busy with other stuff, and it just dropped off.

And then, eventually, I got an email. I didn’t even open it. I just looked at the email subject line and went, oh, yeah. I signed up for that thing, And then went back into the tool.

Right?

But I imagine there’s a scenario in which I do open that email, and I do need to be reengaged and reminded of the initial belief I had in that in that product that I signed up for.

So in that scenario, would it be like would I be writing a founder’s letter essentially? Like, oh, I spent all this time and energy developing this thing. That feels kind of twenty nineteen.

Yeah.

So I guess what’s the twenty twenty four version of that? Like, trust me. I put a lot of effort into this.

Yes. No. Great question. Thank you so much for the context because that makes it so much easier for me to talk to.

So depending on the brand and their tone of voice, etcetera, there could even be a scenario there where if someone in that business has, like, started to use that video software to, like, record themselves and then, like, mid recording, they leave because they’re like, oh, someone’s at the door. Like, whatever happens. If it’s like a b roll of that, that could be a great way of breaking the fourth wall because it’s demonstrating it’s normalizing the fact that, like, hey. You know, even with the best intentions, even when you sit down to use this thing, shit can still happen.

You know, come back in. Here’s why we should really be using it. Here’s here’s all the things that offers you, you know, what you’re looking for right now. So that could be quite an extreme version of breaking the fourth wall.

And, again, may not be appropriate depending on the brand and the brand voice and the brand values, etcetera.

But it is sort of like offering a deeper peek into the reality of someone’s experience that goes farther beyond just a founder’s letter. Right? If you see and I don’t know what the video is. If it is like something where you record yourself, maybe if it’s not that, then that might not be so relevant.

But does that spark any ideas?

Oh, yeah. That that totally does. I I think, I think the real underlying question that I’m trying to ask is how do you talk about you without making it about you? But I think you answered that by saying it’s kinda like, Ryan Reynolds’ humor. It’s global. Right? Like, it applies to everyone.

Yes.

That sort of is how it feels, I guess. Like, that whole I got busy and distracted thing could apply to anyone. You know? That’s a very human thing to to do.

Yes.

Yeah. Great. Sorry. Thank you. It’s late here, by the way.

So if that was a weird and it’s early here, so don’t worry.

It was a world sandwich. So I think when you’re talking about like, you know, when we’re talking about that question, I think it’s really important that you’re not going into an email thinking, how can I use this technique? You’re going into the email still being incredibly focused on the strategic intent of this individual email. It’s then a question of, is there space to use this? Is there something I have here that I could leverage in this way?

So I suspect it may be easier to consider that when you’re not leading with that question of, oh, how can I break the fourth wall? It’s something that you almost have in the Filofax in your mind of like, oh, this could be a great place to use this thing that I have.

In terms of making sure that when you do this, it’s not just making it all about you. I mean, having a strategic intent of email in mind is key, but also thinking like, okay, does what I’m sharing here actually add some sort of value for the person reading, and I and in a way that is not me taking the spotlight. So in the example we just talked about where you could have, like, a b roll of, like, you know, you’re recording yourself and then answering the doorbell, for example. The idea of that would be to normalize the fact that even with the best intentions, you know, you can still not follow through.

So if it’s normalizing an experience that your prospect is currently having, they are still centered in that conversation. Right? It almost frees them up to like, oh, okay. Yeah.

Cool. So I’m not a bad person for not, you know, already having created thirty seven videos by now. Like, that’s okay. It sort of lowers the bar for them, which makes it easy for them to opt in.

I’m trying to think of other examples.

When you are, like, peeling back the curtain to demonstrate the thought behind what they’re seeing in the email, for example, while, yes, you’re talking about yourself, the idea there is that you are giving the person reading the email something that they’re really hungry for. They’re hungry for those insights. They’re hungry to see an expert at work. So, again, even though you’re using yourself in that scenario, and talking through your own thoughts and decisions, it’s not just so that it’s like the Kirsty show. Right? It’s always gotta be with the prospect in mind and what’s in it for them. So I think if you just start thinking about the strategic intent of the email and then consider whether you can actually include this technique afterwards.

You won’t get so tripped up. Does that help?

Cool.

Marina. Sorry. I can see you. Fully timed cough.

I know. I was like, clear the throat before I get on.

So following up with Claire’s question, which, Claire, yes, your question made sense. Good question. I was like, you beat me to it, but with Nuance, a little bit.

So, again, b two b SaaS, thinking with SaaS, you don’t have the reams and reams of copy that you do in launch, and it’s a little less emotive than launch copy.

But then I was thinking, what about in a webinar or workshop show up sequence or post workshop? Well, primarily thinking pre workshop emails. So you have the host, and you wanna make that connection with you want the readers to connect with the host so they show up to the workshop.

Yes.

So is that a place where you could strategically, even in a p s, one line that just is something a little personal related to the topic, but would tweak some interest and go, oh, this person gets me.

And then even in the in the webinar follow-up or workshop follow-up email post workshop, then would you break the fourth wall and reference, I was gonna say, a joke that happened during like, something that happened during the workshop that was sort of that connecting moment in the workshop.

So then, again, it would give people maybe that dopamine hit of, like, oh, yeah. I’m connected to this person who’s at this big company, and they recognize, like, I’m part of this kind of private joke thing. Like, is that kind of the strategic use of that?

Yeah. Definitely. So as you say, if you work in industry where the person behind the thing is often hard to access or or not necessarily humanized, then this can absolutely be a really great technique to use to do that, right. To take someone from sort of some unknown entity into someone who is very real and relatable.

So even that last example I said, shared with that line about, you know, my to do list had to write today’s email.

I didn’t do it. And hey, you know, ironically, the thing was all about procrastination. So even like something like that, that’s really simple, but again, does create an opportunity to really foster some sort of relationship that can be a really valuable use, of this technique. And I guess too, keeping in mind this technique, well, I mean, it can often look and feel like a lot of other similar techniques that you may have seen before. Right? It’s it’s I guess in some scenarios, it’s not so cut and dry, because you could use, for example, like, I could say that, you know, some of the examples we’ve just spoken about, like Claire, that might actually just be a use of normalizing in your copy. You’re normalizing the fact that, you know, we all sign up for things with good intentions and then we forget to, for whatever reason, or we don’t get to engage with them as we’d intended.

But I think when you take it a step further and you think about how you’re doing that normalising, that’s when this technique can come into play. So again, in the example with Claire, like, you know, actually sharing that video, for example, is inviting them like a step further in. So with what you’re talking about Marina, yeah, definitely. Maybe it could even be if there is some moment that happens in that workshop or webinar that you wanna reference back, you could even, you know, talk about, like, what was happening for the person presenting at that time, for example. Like, you could give them some sort of deeper insight to that moment as well as having a little flashback for them, but, again, only if it’s valuable.

So I don’t know if that helps, but it’s sort of like going a level deeper, and being more more theatrical, I guess, with it. Right? Which is sort of where this technique comes from. Does that help?

Yes. When you said, you know, you’re sharing that moment, and then it’s like, well, what was the speaker thinking about during like, as the host, you’re like, oh, shoot.

Yeah. How do I I’m supposed to know the answers and I don’t or whatever. Right? Like, something that because they’ve probably found themselves in that similar situation. So it’s kind of one level deeper than normalizing is what I’m hearing from you.

Yes. Absolutely. Yes. Good summary. Thank you.

Any other questions?

Yes. You can absolutely ask Mindshare sorry. Mindshare. Mindset questions, Andrew. Go nuts.

Cool.

Yeah.

I always like to when when you’re doing the coaching call, I always like to use this as an opportunity to exercise my mental demons a little bit.

So I kind of wrote down I wrote this down, but, I’ve just been noticing recently that I’ve been walking around, like, even outs probably more so outside of work than actually when I’m sitting at my computer. But, just walking around with, like, a lot of kind of head trash, I guess, we could call it, related to kind of, like, it it all kind of comes around a theme a little bit of, like, not not good enough, not being good enough, not doing so I just I wrote down a few of these, categories that it kind of comes into, and it’s like, I think a little bit of it is kind of like a a healthy drive to, like, keep getting better and and keep growing and stuff like that, but it definitely feels like it it doesn’t, like, it doesn’t shut off.

And it’s like it’s the kind of thing it’s like sort of, like, kinda keep me up at night kinda kind of thing or just, like, walking around with this kind of feeling of, like, I haven’t like, why haven’t I figured out kind of the the ideal way to do everything and, you know, a lot of unrealistic stuff. So the the four things I wrote down is, like, the first one is kind of just, like, generally not enough. I’m not good enough at what I do. I should be better.

A lot of comparison. This person is so good at that. Why am I not as good as that person? I’m not as good as as they are.

A lot of perfectionism is the third category. Like, oh, there’s gotta, like, there’s gotta be a better way to do what I’m doing, or maybe I’m doing the wrong thing altogether, and I should actually be doing this other thing and focusing my time there. And the last thing is, like, value. Like, oh, the thing like, what I do for my clients isn’t valuable enough. I wanna, you know, I wanna make more money. I wanna charge more, but I you know, it’s not what I’m doing is it doesn’t have enough value.

And, you know, I know I know all of those things are, you know, not true, and I’ve, you know, done plenty of, like, cognitive behavioral therapy, and I can, you know, sort of see the distortions in in all of that. But I guess I’m just wondering if you have any advice particularly, for the problem of just the like, I I have a hard time just kind of, like, putting that part of my mind away for, you know, say, okay. It’s, you know, it’s six PM. I’m gonna take the rest of the day and okay.

Mental like, whatever part of me that’s, like, you know, get better better. Not enough. Like, okay. I’ll, you know, put you in the drawer for until tomorrow, and then tomorrow, we can talk about ways to improve my business.

And so I guess I’m just wondering if you have any advice for and I’m I’m I hope I’m sure I can’t see people’s faces that well, but, like, hopefully, I’m not the only one who’s walking around with a lot of that.

Like, it’s it’s a very I think what we do, lends itself to a lot of this, for a lot of reasons. Like, one, that we’re kind of a lot of times we’re isolated. We also are in these, like, growth focused communities where we see all these people who are very smart and driven. So we’re comparing ourselves to, you know, oh, that person knows how to do this better, and so why should I even bother and all that stuff.

But, yeah, I don’t know. Do you have, a silver bullet to no. Just kidding. But do you have any advice on on that?

So yes. I wish I had a silver bullet. But first of all, I just want to confirm that as you were speaking, everyone was nodding along. And I think you’ve hit on really four key things that we all feel every single one of us, you know, at various times, sometimes at the same time. And I’m sorry that you’re in the space where they’re all hitting you at once because it’s kind of like the four horsemen of the apocalypse when you’re dealing with all four at once.

Because it sounds like you have maybe been to therapy or seen a therapist previously, has anyone ever awesome. Has anyone ever suggested the paradoxical intervention to you at any point in time? Is that ringing any bells?

So the term paradoxical in that context, it makes me think of, like, I’ve heard it in the context of, like, if you think that I don’t know. Like, you think that you’re you’re, like, panicking and you think your anxiety is, like, gonna kill you, that you kind of, like, lean into that a little bit of, like, okay. I’m gonna see if I can I’m gonna see if my anxiety like, my panic can kill me or something like is it kind of like that where you kind of go you, you kind of go the opposite way that you would expect?

Like instead of fighting it, you tell me what you’re telling me.

I think what I would suggest in this scenario, because it sounds like, you know, the real problem here is that you can’t contain these thoughts. I mean, yes, ideally you wouldn’t be having them, but I think it’s unrealistic of me to say, no, there’s a place you’ll get to where you’ll never worry about any of these things.

You will. It’s just that the worry and the concern won’t stop you from taking action. Right? That’s the goal. So let’s set the bar there.

I think because you’re struggling to contain these thoughts and feelings and concerns, I would actually love to see you, like, give them space on your calendar and just try it for a week. Like maybe you have an hour of worry time.

And the idea there is that when you actually create space to do the thing that you’re, I guess, subconsciously trying to avoid because I think we can all you know, relate to the fact that when you get into those thought spirals, there’s a bit of you that’s like scared that the fact that you’re in there means that you are all the things that you’re worried about. So I think it’s something we’re always trying to push out, you know, and push to later. But if you actually create dedicated space and time to it and sit down with all of those mindset gremlins, like actively like, you know, talk to them, let them come forward.

Ideally what will happen is that over the course of a few days or a couple of weeks, you’ll find that there’s quiet in your brain at other times because you’re giving them space to flourish.

So that’s what I would recommend. It’s actually, it’s what I used to do a lot when I was a therapist with various things, particularly things like insomnia.

When people couldn’t sleep, I’d say, all right, well, if you can’t sleep, like, let’s use the time. Like when you’re up at two am, I want you to clean your house.

They would typically like start sleeping well again.

So are you are you down to try that? Whatever time frame. It might just be half an hour every second day or something like that. But can you, like, give space, dedicated space to sitting with and worrying about these things?

Yeah. I think I could do that. And so, I guess so the idea is that during that time, I kinda I lean into it. I let it go. Okay.

I am gonna use this time and compare myself to someone else and Yes.

They’re better and think about how might I think. And then I guess when I feel so then when I feel that bubbling up, let’s say at night or as soon as I end this call, the because this is bubbling up, I guess, do I kinda say to myself of, like, oh, yeah. I have, like, time oh, yeah. Like, noon tomorrow. That’s when I’ll take care of that because I that’s when I’m supposed to think about that. Is that kind of the idea?

Yeah. So rather than having those thoughts come up and being like, oh, no. Like, not now. Like, oh, I don’t wanna have to deal with you. It’s like, oh, great. Let’s talk about that tomorrow at ten AM. I’m here for you then.

So if you’re keen, I would really suggest doing that.

And I and I know it sounds weird. That’s why it’s called Doxical Intervention.

Yeah. I’m not again, I’ve done enough therapy. I know that what, yeah, what what I don’t have any, concerns about something sounding silly or being weird. Like, if you told me to, I don’t know, like, put a put a crystal on my head and, like, you know, dance in in the rain or something, I’d be like, alright. I’ll try it. You know, whatever.

Okay. No. I appreciate that. Thank you very much, Chris. It helps.

Love it. And can I check-in with you over the next week and just see how that’s going? Is that okay?

Yes. You can. I’m gonna put it on my calendar right now so that I do it. I’m gonna put it’s gonna look like the Grinch’s schedule. I’m gonna put I think I might do it daily. I may I might do fifteen minutes a day or something like that.

So Perfect.

Love it. Okay. I’m gonna check-in with you early next week and see how it’s going.

Thank you.

My pleasure. Kim.

Okay. So, I have a question.

So yesterday, Joanna actually posted something on LinkedIn that was about one of my clients. And it is about, enterprises and how should you use buzzwords or jargon if you are approaching enterprise clients?

And, of course, no is the answer.

So this is an issue I have with this client. I actually work on long form content for them, not copywriting. So I’m doing ebooks and guides and that kind of thing. But it’s something I would like to approach with them, but I’m not sure how to approach it with my client.

You know, I don’t wanna show her Joe’s post to kinda put them on blast. And I also feel like it might like, I could tell my client really likes these this terminology. I don’t think she’s in charge of this specific messaging. It’s basically their messaging.

It’s it’s a large sales tech company. And I do know salespeople love buzzwords, so there there’s one aspect of that. But at the same time, there’s definitely some jargon cleanup that could happen. And I’m just wondering if you, Kirsty, or anyone on the call has any thoughts about how I might broach that subject with this client.

Yeah. So I have some thoughts, and then I would love to hear from everyone else.

I wonder when you get presented perhaps with, you know, a particularly problematic buzzword, could you just pretend to be really curious and say something like, I’m just curious. Like, what do you think if if if we said this to whoever the ideal prospect is, like, would they know what we’re talking about?

Could it be as simple as that? Could it be as simple as getting them to, like, get to the conclusion that you want them to make where it’s like, oh, well, I mean, probably not. They might have to read x, y, and zed. And it’s like, oh, well, is this actually the point of what we’re doing here? Is the point to connect with and be understood immediately as opposed to have to really invest mental time and energy to get to the point where we’re speaking the same language.

I’ve done that before with a couple of coaching clients who really wanted to use not jargon, but just like very, airy fairy terms that at the end of the day were quite meaningless and were definitely terms that they themselves use selves used and not their clients or prospects. So I have found that taking that really curious standpoint and just asking a question, can often be the inroad into the conversation where they realize the thing that you’re trying to teach them. And of course, if they have the realization, they’re much more likely to be on board with making the changes because they’re not feeling pushed into doing something. They feel like it’s kind of their own idea and they get to own it.

So that would be my suggestion. But what else have people in the room used, or what else can people identify as something that may be worth a crack?

It may be a lost cause because this this these words, which are essentially what you see in tech a lot, they’re just overly complex words for something that would be much better explained with very simple language.

And that’s what I do in the guides, and then my client will go back in there and be like, literally yesterday when I saw Joe’s post, my client had just that day yesterday replaced something that I had written with that buzzword. So it was kinda funny.

But, yeah. And, anyway, that’s baked into their key narrative for right now for this time. So but, yeah, I still wanna hear ideas. Yeah. Please, Andrew.

Yeah. So I I have some thoughts on this. I have a customer who’s kind of like this as well. And so, you know, I think that and and by the way, do you know Josh Garofalo? Do you know who he is?

He on LinkedIn, he, shared Joanna’s post and then added some some interesting information on on top of that. That might be worth kind of reading that’s, like, kind of about, like, how it gets that way. And I do think that there’s a little bit of, like, with larger companies, with larger tech companies, it is a little bit of a losing battle, not in every situation, but, like, you know, Joanna showed the screenshot of the homepage hero.

And when a company get the tech company gets to a certain size, that homepage hero section is, in my experience, going to be impossible because you have, like, ten stakeholders who are these, like, highly paid people who are thinking about, you know, what do we do and how do we they take all of this information and they bring it together, and then they come up with this, like, very abstract sounding term that’s, like, maybe an accurate way to reflect what they do. But, of course, nobody knows what a, you know, revenue orchestration platform is. And so what what I’ve found is that there are certain places where you can fight the the battle and it’s worth it, and there are certain places where you can’t. And so the homepage hero, like, when I work I worked on a homepage with a company that kind of acts like this too where it’s a lot of buzzwords and stuff. And I what what I did is for that home page, because I knew it was gonna be like that, it was gonna be stakeholder hell.

First of all, I set up the the project in such a way where it was like, we’re gonna do a couple rounds of revisions, and then I’m handing it back to you, and your team does what your team does with it be just because I know I’ve been in that situation a million times before. But I find that they are a lot more and I still let them know. I still tell them that. But they’re a lot more receptive to that in other places.

And so I think that, like, in your you know, if you’re doing long form content, that might be a place where you have, like, a bit more ability to kinda push back and to say things like, okay. Like, as as Chrissy said, like and I’ve used almost that exact technique before of being like, you know, okay. And is that a term that, like, people who your cuss your prospects who are encountering this for the first time, is that something that they’re, like, they’re familiar with, or or or is that gonna be a new term for them? Right?

I know the answer. I know that’s a new term. They have no idea. And and I find that that often does like, there usually are people who will go to bat for that as well.

But, again, it’s like, I find it’s all about picking where you’re gonna fight that battle because on the whole like, the again, the homepage hero section, like, I don’t have any good advice for that.

I’ve never been at those larger organizations.

It’s just it’s just impossible. But, yeah, I don’t know if that was helpful at all, but, like, that this is such a such a common thing, and it’s because you have eight eight highly paid people who don’t know the first thing about writing copy who are writing the copy, essentially. So I don’t know if that’s helpful at all, but at least at least, I know that game. I know that game. Let’s just say that.

Yeah. Thanks for sharing. I guess I part part of what I was curious about is, would you ever would any would you ever share Joe’s post, like, with the client? I don’t think I should because it’s might be sort of a shoot the messenger type thing.

Yeah. And it’s like, who would get because you could get blamed, but also if someone gets the credit, it’s not you either. But that’s my like, it’s like either Johanna gets the claim gets the credit or you get the blame. I don’t know. That’s just my take, but I’ll pass it back to everyone else.

Actually seeing the post yet, Kim, but, my take in the difference of client you have a relationship with, you could feel a bit passive aggressive to sort of try and prove your point via someone else.

Totally. Yeah.

Yeah. So I think that that would be probably where I would land.

But so frustrating for you that, like, literally the same day this is happening, Joe puts up with me.

Funny.

I have a really good relationship with the client, actually. But yeah. So, anyway, I just wanted to bring it up and see what everyone had to say.

I guess, well, maybe a better question for you is how like, are you comfortable with the ways you’ve tried to communicate the fact that jargon is not best approach for the client? Like, is there more that you could do there, or do you feel like, look.

I’ve got one more I can do.

I I don’t think I, actually, I think the first few guides no. There’s there’s definitely more I can do. But at the same time, I don’t know I don’t think there’s gonna be a lot of give there because they’ve got things pretty set. And I know how they work, and and I know how I mean, I’ve worked at enterprise tech companies, and I’ve worked at, you know, enough of these places where I I know, Andrew, how it works.

Like, it’s once that messaging set until it changes again, it’s not gonna change. So yeah. But I still thought I’d see if anyone had any genius advice where I could you know? Someone might have some great ideas that would let me somehow bring it up and make some change.

So I just wanted to bring it up.

Yeah. I mean, I think the only reason I asked that last question is because, you know, like, sometimes in whatever copy you’re writing, you know, you can feel and know something so strongly, but no matter what you say, the client is still gonna change that thing at the end of the day. So I think for me, what’s important is have I articulated my reasoning to the point where I’m really confident that I’ve done all I can to get the most effective solution for this client? If I have, then I’ve done my part. Whereas if I feel like for whatever reason, if I’ve been nervous about stating my expertise or if I’ve been a bit worried about how the client might take it and I’ve reserved that part of me, then I feel like I haven’t done my job.

So I think it’s sort of about knowing where your control and your say ends and just making sure you’re doing a really good job of that part of the of the relationship, if that helps.

Yeah. Okay. Fair enough. Thanks.

I have one more thing I can add if if you wanna hear it. Yeah. Absolutely.

I I always try to instead of making it my opinion versus their opinion thing, I I have this thing that I that I try to say early on with any client, which is, you know, my opinion doesn’t matter and your opinion doesn’t matter. The only thing that matters is what the audience thinks.

And that way, it doesn’t it takes it out of being a power struggle between, you know, I’m the expert, you know, at copywriting, and I know better. And it it sort of just diffuses it. And then you can state your case as let’s test and see what results we get and then make an informed decision because all I really care about is your success.

So that’s just a different way of of reframing it.

That’s great.

That’s epic. Thanks, Stacy. Such good framing. Setting of expectations early on is often really key.

I have a few bits to add to it.

So sorry. I just suddenly lost my train of thought.

Okay. So for the whole jargon thing, I also read a post recently, which was, Mark just bashing, you know, all the words, right, that that usually come up, like supercharge and, unlock and level up kinda thing. And I actually made, like, a cute little GPT tool that does, like, a clarity, specificity, and, like, buzzword sweep on copy.

But that’s not my point. My point is that salespeople actually do kind of lean towards the jargon more than marketers. So I think as marketers, we might hate it more and as writers hate it even more, but perhaps salespeople don’t hate it quite as much or have even come to expect it because it’s so common among enterprises.

That was the one thing that I was, I was thinking as as I was going. And, then just wanted to plus one that technique of saying, look, it doesn’t matter whose opinion. Like, your opinion doesn’t matter. My opinion doesn’t matter. It’s definitely the audience’s opinion. That’s worked so well for me in the past.

And then also just saying when I deliver work, you know, let’s focus on tone, let’s focus on accuracy.

We’ve done all the research, all the hard work’s done.

We’re really just doing, like, a check to make sure that everything is on brand and accurate.

And that gets me some nice, easy, like, straightforward feedback.

So yeah.

Okay. I have a a follow-up question from that, which is socials. So I’ve recent someone told me, that I don’t seem like a corporate person, which is fair because I don’t think I do. And they were like, get off LinkedIn, get onto Twitter.

So I started posting on Twitter, and I’ve realized that I really really struggled to write social posts.

Like, if I have a template to follow, great. But Twitter is so short form, and it’s such like a consistent blast of information.

I just don’t know how to say stuff. Like, the whole adding value thing. I mean, I can regurgitate my knowledge, but it doesn’t feel like I’m adding value.

So I just wanted to ask psychologically, I suppose, what are your opinions on how to best allow yourself to be authentic on social media without saying, I went for a walk this morning and I saw a bunch of dogs and it was really nice. And, you know, like, what’s the balance?

Yeah.

So I mean, one thing that I think is good about platform like Twitter or is it still called x? I’m not on there, but I feel like it’s still called is it still called x these days? Who knows? Everyone says Twitch.

I know. I know. Elon Musk is so cranky that his rebrand never took off.

But and I think one of the good things about it from a mindset perspective is that it moves so fast. So something you put on there today, you know, unless it goes viral or gets a lot of traction, it’s probably not gonna really be seen again by tomorrow. Right?

Which if you think about it from an approach of what if I just use this as a testing ground and I just like top of mind thoughts, anything that I’m like, okay, that’s kind of interesting. Well, that’s kind of relevant. Pop it on there and see what resonates.

I think social media like that can be a really great place to test, to see what gets traction. And then you can dive deeper into those pieces that are really hitting the right note or resonating and even take them from that platform into other places to create bigger bits of content.

So I feel like just loosen the expectations a little bit on the fact that whatever you put on there has to be like incredibly thought through and incredibly polished.

Lean into the fact that it is quite a fast paced or fast moving space.

Because yeah, there’s some freedom, I think, in the fact that knowing that, you know, if you write something and it’s not great, you know, probably no one’s really gonna see it and that’s okay.

So that’s maybe a backwards tip for how I would approach things, but what what’s right for other people? Does anyone else sort of feel a bit hamstrung when it comes to what to share on on a platform like Twitter or X?

I find with those kind of platforms, like you were saying, it’s really helpful for me to remember that, like, it’s gonna pass so fast, so don’t put a lot of, like, stake into it.

And for me, I I have, like, the best results when I’m just when I’m not posting about business stuff, which makes me then comfortable to post about business stuff.

So if I’m like if I take the pressure off and I just, like, post about something random and then I start to see, oh, people are, like, engaging and people are responding, I’m like, oh, this is actually fun. Cool. And then the next time I go on, I’m more likely to actually post about something business related.

And so that’s something that’s kind of, like, helped me get more into the flow, but also, not always having to be the one who’s, like, making the main post, but engaging under other people’s stuff and responding and liking and and doing that kind of stuff and not always feeling like, okay. I have to post something about business, and I have to be the one who’s posting it, especially on days where I’m like, I feel like my brain’s not even here today. That’s the kinda way I approach it. Okay.

That makes total sense.

I think I need to follow some better people because, like, when I’m scrolling, I’m just really struggling. I’m like, yeah.

Like, build in public.

Just yeah.

I think I’m getting a lot of big messages.

It’s tiring.

Yeah. Claire, one thing to remember on social media, you kinda wanna use the eighty twenty rule. Eighty percent personal, twenty percent business or, like, ninety ten.

Most people wanna see about you. That’s what social media is, especially on Facebook and Instagram.

But one really important point that just came up is share and comment on other people’s posts, especially ones that relate to your business, to what you’re doing.

Got it.

Okay. So wait. Hold on. Does that mean that I should be posting the selfie I took of my walk this morning?

Like, is that I I stay off of x.

When it switched from Twitter, it’s like, I’m done. I have a thing with Elon Musk too.

Who doesn’t? Yeah.

But so I think x is a little different, especially since Musk got on, took it over. It’s a lot of you can see a lot of conspiracy theory stuff on there, a lot of weird stuff.

But if you find like minded business, somebody to follow, then like, post, and share or like, comment, and share on their posts. And then maybe, you know, get an idea for a post that you can put out there. It doesn’t have to be, you know, the dog walking. That’s usually face Instagram.

X is kinda geared more towards business.

Actually, I think it’s a little weirder than that, but it’s my personal opinion.

But, yeah, I think if you’re doing business posts, keep it to LinkedIn.

Okay. Cool.

That’s I’m on LinkedIn.

Just my opinion.

Pardon? Sorry.

On LinkedIn, same strategy, like, eighty percent personal stuff?

Link LinkedIn is strictly business, so I would make that all about your business.

Okay.

Yeah. That’s that’s what that platform is for. X Twitter x, Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, you know, all those other social posts or social media platforms.

You know, that’s that eighty twenty rule. Make it about yourself.

Nobody likes to see post of dinners anymore, but something interesting.

A nice peaceful walk in the woods, show some trees swaying or something. I don’t know. But, yeah, eighty twenty. Throw your business in there, but most people just wanna see about your life and what you’re doing.

K. Yeah. Cool.

Thank you so much.

Mhmm.

Just for Claire, does anyone know of anyone on x or Twitter that is, like, doing a really good job of, like, nailing that balance? Jess, I mean, it sounds like you might be do you guys follow each other? I I just wonder if it could be helpful for you, Claire, to sort of have an example of, you know, what it can look like on there that might free you up a little bit, and get you in the rhythm of that platform a little bit more.

I’m actually not on Twitter, but I’m on threads, which I love.

Yes.

I know who used to do a lot of Twitter.

She’s probably still there. Rachel Pilcher? Pilcher?

Yes. She did used to be quite active on there.

Or she she was in the intensive freelancer.

You know, there are there are business, accounts and professionals who do mostly business stuff on x and on Instagram, but it’s just that that’s the way that they’ve positioned their accounts from the beginning. You know, it’s not their personal account. It’s it’s an account for business. I I know several colleagues who have business focused Instagram and x accounts, and that is just you know, it’s part of their strategy. So it just depends on how you choose to use it. I personally would never use x because the shelf life of a tweet is fifteen minutes, and that’s just, you know, not my thing. And and I don’t like the platform since, since Elon took it over either.

Yes. Show of hands. How many don’t like Elon Musk? Alright. Majority.

That’s funny because he’s actually South African, and I’m South African. So Oh, it’s we produced him. Sorry.

So good.

But, yeah, I mean, Stacy’s right. I mean, you can do business. If you’ve got a business account, definitely, that’s how you where you post your business at.

Yeah. I have something to say. So I use Facebook sometimes, and I’ve had it for a long time. But what I find works for me a lot is, like, if I see a post that I have a different opinion about, then I can use that, like, a spin off of that and, give my opinion about that.

And I think that works really well because it if you notice that the post the original post is doing well, and then you’re like, okay. Well, that’s doing good. Maybe I could do the opposing side of that. That might do good as well, and that, I find, is pretty good.

So that’s always an option too.

That’s good too. It’s often easier when you’re not trying to generate the original thought. If you have something to spring off or a conversation to join, it can just really help raise the wheels.

And I think as well consider how social media really helps build a three-dimensional version of your business and your presence because I suspect that the platforms add a different element to your online profile, if that makes sense.

So you’re not necessarily showing up exactly the same way in your emails. I mean, LinkedIn as you are on Instagram. There’s something there that can help build a really nice rounded picture of you, who you are, what you do.

Probably a lot of stuff to sit with, Claire. So but so many good points here. So thank you everyone for sharing your wisdom and your insights.

We’re at the top of the hour. I’ve gotta go get my kids off to daycare, so I better get going. But lovely to see you all. If you have any questions, or anything you wanna chat about, please ping me in Slack. I’m always around.

Otherwise, I will see you all next week.

Bye.

Worksheet

How to Strategically Break the Fourth Wall

Worksheet

How to strategically break the fourth wall

Transcript

Alright. Well, it’s, two past. So let me dive, into what I’ve got for all of you here today.

A few people may still join the room. Hey, Michelle. And you can hear us.

So obviously, I mean, you’re halfway through the current month now, so you are well and truly aware of the fact that the theme for this month is advanced emails.

The technique that I’m going to walk you through today is breaking the fourth wall, as a technique that really helps you, build authority and foster trust, in a really resonant way with the people who are reading your emails. So your prospects, your subscribers, etcetera.

Now, I suspect everyone in this room probably knows the phrase breaking the fourth wall. But just in case you don’t, or just in case it’s one of those things that you think you know, but you’re not quite sure, it comes from the world of theatre, and is based on the idea of the stage itself having three physical walls, like the back and then the two wings. And then there being the fourth imaginary wall that sits between the actors and the audience.

Now, obviously, therefore, breaking the fourth wall is when someone on stage, I guess, breaks out of the story itself or breaks out of character to interact directly with the audience themselves. And I was trying to think yesterday of some sort of more pop culture references for this because obviously it’s a technique that’s also used in movies and TV shows. And some that came to mind, which you may or may not have seen are Fleabag.

A great show, by the way, if you haven’t watched it. But she will often or sometimes, you know, make the face or not contact directly with the camera, so directly with the viewer that communicates a certain feeling, about the event she’s in. It’s usually done for comedic effect in that case.

House of Cards, Frank Underwood would often have those long monologues to camera, that revealed a bit more of himself and his character and his thought process for some of those episodes.

Martin Scorsese also uses it quite a bit in his movies.

Wolf of Wall Street, for example, if you’ve seen it, fits in my mind because of the book that’s, that Joe set for next month. There’s a part where he’s walking through the office and I think he’s explaining what an IPO is, and he’s doing that to camera. So he’s breaking the fourth wall. So I think the key thing to remember here as we begin talking about how to take this technique and apply it to email is that it’s something that is always done strategically and always done quite sparingly. If it’s something that you end up doing too often, it becomes gimmicky really quickly. So you really need a good rationale for doing it in your emails.

Now let me share my screen, so that I can it’ll take you through, a bit of what I’ve got on this worksheet, but also some examples here that I have, ready and waiting for you.

Sorry. And I’m always very bad at getting my screen set up. There we go. Okay.

So, when it comes to emails, I think we can agree that usually your prospect gets the end product of your strategy, right? You do all the research, you do all the thoughts, you write all the copy and they really see the outcome of all that work.

They get the fully cake, baked cake, so to speak. So this technique is all about inviting them in to show them the recipe as a way to establish authority and build trust.

So I’ve got, three examples of when I have used this for myself and my clients, and it’s worked really well. And happily, they seem to fit into three pretty constant or consistent scenarios.

I have, of course, tried to use this technique in more, but I haven’t necessarily seen a measurable impact, of leveraging it, leveraging it in this way. So, I mean, let’s stick with what I know works.

So the first scenario where breaking the fourth wall in your emails is usually very effective is if or when you’ve gathered proof in response to a direct question or objection. So it could be if you, you or your client is in launch, or it could just be, you know, if generally someone has approached you or your client and is interested in finding out more about something.

Now, the reason that this works so well is because it not only allows you to prove the point that you’re making, you know, thanks to the proof that you’re presenting, But it also helps position you as really responsive and genuine, which is especially powerful in this era where transparency is super sexy and compelling. Long may it rain. So I’ll, just take you now to an example of what this can look like in practice so you can see what I’m on about.

And by the way, I’m very happy to share all these emails with you as well.

So if you would like, to look at these, because as you can see, some of them are quite long. If you would like to look at the entirety of them, in your own time, please feel free to ask.

But for context, this is an email that I sent out, as an FAQ email through one of my own launches, back in twenty twenty for my copywriting, program called Brain Camp. So there’s lots of copy here that is not relevant to what we’re talking about. The piece I want to draw your attention to is here. This is one of the questions or statements, I guess, that came through during launch. I had phone my last time, so I’m really keen to get involved this time. If I can make it work financially, we’ll have to have a ponder.

I do have some copy here that speaks to the more emotional side, of that question or that objection.

And then I get into the logical stuff. And this is where I break the fourth wall in this email.

So emotions aside, I also wanted to make sure I could answer this question for you in more tangible terms. So I reached out to last one of last rounds campus at a light for Chrissy Chiodo with this question. And And as you can see, this is me breaking the fourth wall. This is me really letting someone into the process of how this email is built.

And of course it’s done strategically because what I’ve done here is I have screenshotted the literal DM and question that I sent her. Oh, hello. Currently, Radne, I’ll take your email for tomorrow and there are a lot of queues around finances. Just curious.

Any idea how long it took for you to see financial returns from Braincamp last year? And then also, of course, sharing a screenshot of her response.

Now typically, right, the conventional rule for email and using social proof like this, just as the conventional rule for theater where you don’t break that fourth wall, is that you may just include a screenshot of, say, this part of her response, or you may even take sentences or phrases from this and put it into, you know, a testimonial of sorts with her name attached. But what I’m doing here is actually showing, I guess, the whole, chain of this interaction, not only to help prove the point that there is ROI for this offer, but also to show that, hey, I’m really responsive to questions, which in this case is important, right?

Because I’m towards the end of my launch and I really want to make sure that anyone who has a question on their mind is going to reach out and ask it. And also to be really transparent and show that I have nothing to hide. Like I’m not any of this proof here. This is literally what’s come through to me, as you can see.

Ina does go on to include more traditional, methods and means of social proof, so just the screenshots themselves. But can you see the difference here between just including things like this is just like an answer to the question and actually inviting your prospect to come on the journey with you of how you’re going to get this piece of the puzzle?

Is that making sense?

Yep. Okay. Cool. And of course, if it’s not, ask me questions.

But I will keep going in lieu of questions now. Thumbs up. Amazing. Thanks, Marina.

Sorry. I’m very bad. There we go. Okay. So the second scenario where breaking the fourth wall is usually very effective is when you’re positioning yourself or your client as an expert strategist and therefore want to show off your thought process.

So when the magic is not only in what you’re doing, but in how you made the decision to get there. Now, of course, for the most part, emails are, because they should be, like I mentioned earlier, a result of you doing all the things you need to do to get your prospect to take the action you want them to take without them necessarily understanding the mechanics of what’s at play. But in this scenario, where it’s actually really valuable for them to see what an expert you are at something that you do, it can be very, strategic to actually break that fourth wall. So here’s an example of what, that one looks like.

Oh, you know what I’ve done?

I closed one of my tabs. Hold on a sec. Let me stop share so I can dig back through my inbox. Sorry, guys. That’s my uncle. Zoom thing is at work.

It’s alright. I know what the email is called, so it will not be long to find.

Right. Sorry about that, guys.

K. Let me share my screen again.

There we go. Pull it again. Okay. So here we are. This email strategy strategy strategy, is one that I sent out actually just a few months ago. I was part of Brenna McGowan’s behind the launch, which you may have heard of. I actually think Ry was part of it a few years ago.

But basically it is where she has boxer conversations with different people in the launch space and ask them what worked really well on your last launch, and then sells those conversations as a resource for other business owners.

So anyway, I obviously had to promote this thing that I was part of, which is part of the deal in which is great.

I start this email, which is important with this sentence. I said yes to a bunch of glorious opportunities when I was still on maternity leave. I then go on to promote behind the launch. And I won’t read through that because it’s not the point of what I’m trying to show you. Then we get to the PS. What I didn’t consider when I heck yes ed my way through a bunch of invites like Prenders to events on Deep In My Bones Chuck to be part of was how the timing of them and associated promotion would align with my own promotion for various offers, including the last ever round of Braincamp.

Cause as you might’ve heard, it’s tricky to promote two things at once.

To be clear, the tricky part isn’t the bit where you reach a fresh audience and bring in new leads. That’s a hugely valuable asset leading up to launch. Even if timeframes are a bit squishy, just make sure you’ve considered how your choice of lead magnet can accelerate the process of know, like, and trust, as well as prime people for the offer they’re about to see. And remember to include opt out links so people can exercise informed consent.

The tricky part is all about legends like you, who are smack bang in the middle of a conversation designed to prime me for my own offer and working through how in this case, I can leverage my conversation with Brenna to help further your decision about whether or not you want to check out or jump into BrandCamp on open enrollments next week, rather than letting it be a distraction from that decision because, oh, look, I already joined a thing and am learning.

Real talk. But you know what? My chat with Brenna and how I promote it provides an opportunity for me to demonstrate some of the key outcomes Braincamp offers, Like not never having to rely on a template to write copy, the grounding kind of confidence that allows you to craft strategy and write copy in real time because you know what to say when and no longer fit it by the blank page. And the trust you have in your ability to work things out because you understand the mechanics of what works and why. And then it goes on to have a CTA again to join the Grandcamp wait list, which really was my key goal for this email because of the timing of the promotion.

So, of course, I could have left all this PS out, right, and just let it be a promotion for behind the launch and hoped and trusted that if anyone did actually take brand up on that offer, my conversation sort of led them back to my wait list.

But what I have done here is really unpacked the strategy of what is happening in this email. And again, I’m breaking the fourth wall in this way and inviting my prospect in on the journey that’s happening inside my mind.

Now, why I decided to do this for this email is because my ideal prospect for Braincamp is someone who wants to learn more about copy and specifically about how and why things work. So being able to step them through the strategy, at least in this scenario really helps position me as someone who is qualified to teach that course, I’m also able to bring it back to some of the key outcomes of Braincamp, which is obviously beneficial as well. But I’m really inviting people into the how and why of what I’m doing rather than just writing a different form of this email that didn’t have, I guess, that didn’t lift the lid on the mechanics. It didn’t show them what was going on under the hood.

Does that make sense?

Yep.

K. Cool. And, again, I’m very happy to share these emails with you later if you would like to see them as as holes.

Okay. The third scenario where breaking the fourth wall is usually very effective is a much simpler one. It can be done with a single sentence, which may make some of you happy.

It’s when you want to normalize a thought, feeling, or action to reduce friction around it and or position yourself or your client as relatable.

So for this one, a super quick, simple, easy example.

It’s kind of like a damaging ignition, but as you can see, it’s a bit more tightly linked to, the email itself.

One of the items on my to do list last Friday was write primary email for next month’s Reflective Practise Club. I didn’t do it, which makes now feel like the perfect time to mention the theme for next month’s club is tackling procrastination.

So again, it is just inviting people into your decision making process in what you’re actually putting in that email rather than delivering them the end product of all of that without inviting them in to see the process of how you get there. So again, you’re breaking that convention of email deliberately, strategically in situations where you where you’re confident that it’s actually gonna be beneficial for your strategy.

Now, as you can see, some different ways you can actually enact this technique is via screenshots. Obviously that’s particularly relevant if you are enacting this technique in relation to social proof.

Also commentary on or side notes about or explanations of your approach.

And of course just figuratively inviting your prospect into the room with you as you’re right. So what’s going through your head? What are you noticing? What are you feeling or responding to? And of course that can be a really great way with the right prospect and the right offhand, the right audience to actually, demonstrate some of that strategic know how. So in the scenario where the magic is not only in what you’re doing, but how you’re making a decision to actually do it.

So I’m sure there’ll be lots of questions because as you can tell, this technique does rely a lot on context, but just to reference this in case you will find it useful later. And you may not. Right? You may not need this.

So feel free to use or ignore this at will. But it’s a quick table that you can use just to help identify where in a certain sequence it may be valuable or strategically appropriate to actually break the fourth wall. So in the examples I’ve got here, I’m just assuming that there is, a nurture sequence on the back of lead magnet that is designed to teach the subscriber how to increase their email engagement. So the first email in that sequence is the lead magnet delivery.

The strategic intent of that email is that the subscriber engages with the lead magnet. Would it be appropriate and available to break the fourth wall here? No. Probably not.

It’s a simple email. We don’t need to get too tricky with it. The second email in the sequence is a lead magnet reminder that would go out to those who haven’t engaged with that lead magnet in forty eight hours. The strategic intent of that email is to unact is that unactivated subscribers engage with that lead magnet.

Now in this case, since the lead magnet itself is all about increasing email engagement, there may actually be a case for breaking the fourth wall here because you’re sending this email out to people who haven’t engaged with that lead magnet because you know that that increases engagement, not just with the lead magnet, but with also your list and your emails as a result. So you could actually break the fourth wall here and let people into the strategic intent and the strategic decisions that you’re making about when to send that email and why to send that email. So in that case, this could actually be, a really beneficial use of the technique.

Okay. I feel like I’ve talked long enough, and my voice is quite creaky this morning too. Sorry about that. I don’t know if it’s because it’s early or because I’m getting sick. So let me stop sharing my screen, and let me just open up for questions. And, of course, if there are no questions on this technique, we can talk about anything else related to emails.

For reference, my niche is launches. So most of my emails are launch emails or launch sequences.

But also happy to talk about anything that you may be currently working through in your business as well. We’ve got forty minutes, so we have plenty of time.

Yes. Hello. Hi.

I wanted to ask in terms of, like, when to use this, because you you had a really great example afterwards, which is basically, like, win back.

Right? So you’re winning someone’s attention back by saying, like, hey. Look. I’m a human tier. Here’s trust.

And I’m building that with you. Is so I work in b to b SaaS.

I’m just wondering if you think that there’s a specific, I guess, example of a fourth wall that you’ve seen before that would be really helpful, to win someone’s attention back. Because most people sign up for a thing and then, like, drop off, get busy, ignore it.

Yeah. So have you seen anything that sort of stood out to you in terms of that?

Very good question. So obviously, b to b SaaS is not my not my niche, but let’s talk about it. So you’re saying one of the key problems there is that people, drop off what movie got? Sorry. I could just move because you’re I went down.

So one of the key problems there is that you people don’t engage with what they’ve signed up for. Is that right?

Is that the Yeah.

Like, I’ll give you a real life example. I signed up for a new video making tool called Clipping, I think. And, almost immediately, like, hit a snag. I needed to put a video of my phone into the computer.

I was busy. Something happened. I walked away. And then I came back, and I was busy with other stuff, and it just dropped off.

And then, eventually, I got an email. I didn’t even open it. I just looked at the email subject line and went, oh, yeah. I signed up for that thing, And then went back into the tool.

Right?

But I imagine there’s a scenario in which I do open that email, and I do need to be reengaged and reminded of the initial belief I had in that in that product that I signed up for.

So in that scenario, would it be like would I be writing a founder’s letter essentially? Like, oh, I spent all this time and energy developing this thing. That feels kind of twenty nineteen.

Yeah.

So I guess what’s the twenty twenty four version of that? Like, trust me. I put a lot of effort into this.

Yes. No. Great question. Thank you so much for the context because that makes it so much easier for me to talk to.

So depending on the brand and their tone of voice, etcetera, there could even be a scenario there where if someone in that business has, like, started to use that video software to, like, record themselves and then, like, mid recording, they leave because they’re like, oh, someone’s at the door. Like, whatever happens. If it’s like a b roll of that, that could be a great way of breaking the fourth wall because it’s demonstrating it’s normalizing the fact that, like, hey. You know, even with the best intentions, even when you sit down to use this thing, shit can still happen.

You know, come back in. Here’s why we should really be using it. Here’s here’s all the things that offers you, you know, what you’re looking for right now. So that could be quite an extreme version of breaking the fourth wall.

And, again, may not be appropriate depending on the brand and the brand voice and the brand values, etcetera.

But it is sort of like offering a deeper peek into the reality of someone’s experience that goes farther beyond just a founder’s letter. Right? If you see and I don’t know what the video is. If it is like something where you record yourself, maybe if it’s not that, then that might not be so relevant.

But does that spark any ideas?

Oh, yeah. That that totally does. I I think, I think the real underlying question that I’m trying to ask is how do you talk about you without making it about you? But I think you answered that by saying it’s kinda like, Ryan Reynolds’ humor. It’s global. Right? Like, it applies to everyone.

Yes.

That sort of is how it feels, I guess. Like, that whole I got busy and distracted thing could apply to anyone. You know? That’s a very human thing to to do.

Yes.

Yeah. Great. Sorry. Thank you. It’s late here, by the way.

So if that was a weird and it’s early here, so don’t worry.

It was a world sandwich. So I think when you’re talking about like, you know, when we’re talking about that question, I think it’s really important that you’re not going into an email thinking, how can I use this technique? You’re going into the email still being incredibly focused on the strategic intent of this individual email. It’s then a question of, is there space to use this? Is there something I have here that I could leverage in this way?

So I suspect it may be easier to consider that when you’re not leading with that question of, oh, how can I break the fourth wall? It’s something that you almost have in the Filofax in your mind of like, oh, this could be a great place to use this thing that I have.

In terms of making sure that when you do this, it’s not just making it all about you. I mean, having a strategic intent of email in mind is key, but also thinking like, okay, does what I’m sharing here actually add some sort of value for the person reading, and I and in a way that is not me taking the spotlight. So in the example we just talked about where you could have, like, a b roll of, like, you know, you’re recording yourself and then answering the doorbell, for example. The idea of that would be to normalize the fact that even with the best intentions, you know, you can still not follow through.

So if it’s normalizing an experience that your prospect is currently having, they are still centered in that conversation. Right? It almost frees them up to like, oh, okay. Yeah.

Cool. So I’m not a bad person for not, you know, already having created thirty seven videos by now. Like, that’s okay. It sort of lowers the bar for them, which makes it easy for them to opt in.

I’m trying to think of other examples.

When you are, like, peeling back the curtain to demonstrate the thought behind what they’re seeing in the email, for example, while, yes, you’re talking about yourself, the idea there is that you are giving the person reading the email something that they’re really hungry for. They’re hungry for those insights. They’re hungry to see an expert at work. So, again, even though you’re using yourself in that scenario, and talking through your own thoughts and decisions, it’s not just so that it’s like the Kirsty show. Right? It’s always gotta be with the prospect in mind and what’s in it for them. So I think if you just start thinking about the strategic intent of the email and then consider whether you can actually include this technique afterwards.

You won’t get so tripped up. Does that help?

Cool.

Marina. Sorry. I can see you. Fully timed cough.

I know. I was like, clear the throat before I get on.

So following up with Claire’s question, which, Claire, yes, your question made sense. Good question. I was like, you beat me to it, but with Nuance, a little bit.

So, again, b two b SaaS, thinking with SaaS, you don’t have the reams and reams of copy that you do in launch, and it’s a little less emotive than launch copy.

But then I was thinking, what about in a webinar or workshop show up sequence or post workshop? Well, primarily thinking pre workshop emails. So you have the host, and you wanna make that connection with you want the readers to connect with the host so they show up to the workshop.

Yes.

So is that a place where you could strategically, even in a p s, one line that just is something a little personal related to the topic, but would tweak some interest and go, oh, this person gets me.

And then even in the in the webinar follow-up or workshop follow-up email post workshop, then would you break the fourth wall and reference, I was gonna say, a joke that happened during like, something that happened during the workshop that was sort of that connecting moment in the workshop.

So then, again, it would give people maybe that dopamine hit of, like, oh, yeah. I’m connected to this person who’s at this big company, and they recognize, like, I’m part of this kind of private joke thing. Like, is that kind of the strategic use of that?

Yeah. Definitely. So as you say, if you work in industry where the person behind the thing is often hard to access or or not necessarily humanized, then this can absolutely be a really great technique to use to do that, right. To take someone from sort of some unknown entity into someone who is very real and relatable.

So even that last example I said, shared with that line about, you know, my to do list had to write today’s email.

I didn’t do it. And hey, you know, ironically, the thing was all about procrastination. So even like something like that, that’s really simple, but again, does create an opportunity to really foster some sort of relationship that can be a really valuable use, of this technique. And I guess too, keeping in mind this technique, well, I mean, it can often look and feel like a lot of other similar techniques that you may have seen before. Right? It’s it’s I guess in some scenarios, it’s not so cut and dry, because you could use, for example, like, I could say that, you know, some of the examples we’ve just spoken about, like Claire, that might actually just be a use of normalizing in your copy. You’re normalizing the fact that, you know, we all sign up for things with good intentions and then we forget to, for whatever reason, or we don’t get to engage with them as we’d intended.

But I think when you take it a step further and you think about how you’re doing that normalising, that’s when this technique can come into play. So again, in the example with Claire, like, you know, actually sharing that video, for example, is inviting them like a step further in. So with what you’re talking about Marina, yeah, definitely. Maybe it could even be if there is some moment that happens in that workshop or webinar that you wanna reference back, you could even, you know, talk about, like, what was happening for the person presenting at that time, for example. Like, you could give them some sort of deeper insight to that moment as well as having a little flashback for them, but, again, only if it’s valuable.

So I don’t know if that helps, but it’s sort of like going a level deeper, and being more more theatrical, I guess, with it. Right? Which is sort of where this technique comes from. Does that help?

Yes. When you said, you know, you’re sharing that moment, and then it’s like, well, what was the speaker thinking about during like, as the host, you’re like, oh, shoot.

Yeah. How do I I’m supposed to know the answers and I don’t or whatever. Right? Like, something that because they’ve probably found themselves in that similar situation. So it’s kind of one level deeper than normalizing is what I’m hearing from you.

Yes. Absolutely. Yes. Good summary. Thank you.

Any other questions?

Yes. You can absolutely ask Mindshare sorry. Mindshare. Mindset questions, Andrew. Go nuts.

Cool.

Yeah.

I always like to when when you’re doing the coaching call, I always like to use this as an opportunity to exercise my mental demons a little bit.

So I kind of wrote down I wrote this down, but, I’ve just been noticing recently that I’ve been walking around, like, even outs probably more so outside of work than actually when I’m sitting at my computer. But, just walking around with, like, a lot of kind of head trash, I guess, we could call it, related to kind of, like, it it all kind of comes around a theme a little bit of, like, not not good enough, not being good enough, not doing so I just I wrote down a few of these, categories that it kind of comes into, and it’s like, I think a little bit of it is kind of like a a healthy drive to, like, keep getting better and and keep growing and stuff like that, but it definitely feels like it it doesn’t, like, it doesn’t shut off.

And it’s like it’s the kind of thing it’s like sort of, like, kinda keep me up at night kinda kind of thing or just, like, walking around with this kind of feeling of, like, I haven’t like, why haven’t I figured out kind of the the ideal way to do everything and, you know, a lot of unrealistic stuff. So the the four things I wrote down is, like, the first one is kind of just, like, generally not enough. I’m not good enough at what I do. I should be better.

A lot of comparison. This person is so good at that. Why am I not as good as that person? I’m not as good as as they are.

A lot of perfectionism is the third category. Like, oh, there’s gotta, like, there’s gotta be a better way to do what I’m doing, or maybe I’m doing the wrong thing altogether, and I should actually be doing this other thing and focusing my time there. And the last thing is, like, value. Like, oh, the thing like, what I do for my clients isn’t valuable enough. I wanna, you know, I wanna make more money. I wanna charge more, but I you know, it’s not what I’m doing is it doesn’t have enough value.

And, you know, I know I know all of those things are, you know, not true, and I’ve, you know, done plenty of, like, cognitive behavioral therapy, and I can, you know, sort of see the distortions in in all of that. But I guess I’m just wondering if you have any advice particularly, for the problem of just the like, I I have a hard time just kind of, like, putting that part of my mind away for, you know, say, okay. It’s, you know, it’s six PM. I’m gonna take the rest of the day and okay.

Mental like, whatever part of me that’s, like, you know, get better better. Not enough. Like, okay. I’ll, you know, put you in the drawer for until tomorrow, and then tomorrow, we can talk about ways to improve my business.

And so I guess I’m just wondering if you have any advice for and I’m I’m I hope I’m sure I can’t see people’s faces that well, but, like, hopefully, I’m not the only one who’s walking around with a lot of that.

Like, it’s it’s a very I think what we do, lends itself to a lot of this, for a lot of reasons. Like, one, that we’re kind of a lot of times we’re isolated. We also are in these, like, growth focused communities where we see all these people who are very smart and driven. So we’re comparing ourselves to, you know, oh, that person knows how to do this better, and so why should I even bother and all that stuff.

But, yeah, I don’t know. Do you have, a silver bullet to no. Just kidding. But do you have any advice on on that?

So yes. I wish I had a silver bullet. But first of all, I just want to confirm that as you were speaking, everyone was nodding along. And I think you’ve hit on really four key things that we all feel every single one of us, you know, at various times, sometimes at the same time. And I’m sorry that you’re in the space where they’re all hitting you at once because it’s kind of like the four horsemen of the apocalypse when you’re dealing with all four at once.

Because it sounds like you have maybe been to therapy or seen a therapist previously, has anyone ever awesome. Has anyone ever suggested the paradoxical intervention to you at any point in time? Is that ringing any bells?

So the term paradoxical in that context, it makes me think of, like, I’ve heard it in the context of, like, if you think that I don’t know. Like, you think that you’re you’re, like, panicking and you think your anxiety is, like, gonna kill you, that you kind of, like, lean into that a little bit of, like, okay. I’m gonna see if I can I’m gonna see if my anxiety like, my panic can kill me or something like is it kind of like that where you kind of go you, you kind of go the opposite way that you would expect?

Like instead of fighting it, you tell me what you’re telling me.

I think what I would suggest in this scenario, because it sounds like, you know, the real problem here is that you can’t contain these thoughts. I mean, yes, ideally you wouldn’t be having them, but I think it’s unrealistic of me to say, no, there’s a place you’ll get to where you’ll never worry about any of these things.

You will. It’s just that the worry and the concern won’t stop you from taking action. Right? That’s the goal. So let’s set the bar there.

I think because you’re struggling to contain these thoughts and feelings and concerns, I would actually love to see you, like, give them space on your calendar and just try it for a week. Like maybe you have an hour of worry time.

And the idea there is that when you actually create space to do the thing that you’re, I guess, subconsciously trying to avoid because I think we can all you know, relate to the fact that when you get into those thought spirals, there’s a bit of you that’s like scared that the fact that you’re in there means that you are all the things that you’re worried about. So I think it’s something we’re always trying to push out, you know, and push to later. But if you actually create dedicated space and time to it and sit down with all of those mindset gremlins, like actively like, you know, talk to them, let them come forward.

Ideally what will happen is that over the course of a few days or a couple of weeks, you’ll find that there’s quiet in your brain at other times because you’re giving them space to flourish.

So that’s what I would recommend. It’s actually, it’s what I used to do a lot when I was a therapist with various things, particularly things like insomnia.

When people couldn’t sleep, I’d say, all right, well, if you can’t sleep, like, let’s use the time. Like when you’re up at two am, I want you to clean your house.

They would typically like start sleeping well again.

So are you are you down to try that? Whatever time frame. It might just be half an hour every second day or something like that. But can you, like, give space, dedicated space to sitting with and worrying about these things?

Yeah. I think I could do that. And so, I guess so the idea is that during that time, I kinda I lean into it. I let it go. Okay.

I am gonna use this time and compare myself to someone else and Yes.

They’re better and think about how might I think. And then I guess when I feel so then when I feel that bubbling up, let’s say at night or as soon as I end this call, the because this is bubbling up, I guess, do I kinda say to myself of, like, oh, yeah. I have, like, time oh, yeah. Like, noon tomorrow. That’s when I’ll take care of that because I that’s when I’m supposed to think about that. Is that kind of the idea?

Yeah. So rather than having those thoughts come up and being like, oh, no. Like, not now. Like, oh, I don’t wanna have to deal with you. It’s like, oh, great. Let’s talk about that tomorrow at ten AM. I’m here for you then.

So if you’re keen, I would really suggest doing that.

And I and I know it sounds weird. That’s why it’s called Doxical Intervention.

Yeah. I’m not again, I’ve done enough therapy. I know that what, yeah, what what I don’t have any, concerns about something sounding silly or being weird. Like, if you told me to, I don’t know, like, put a put a crystal on my head and, like, you know, dance in in the rain or something, I’d be like, alright. I’ll try it. You know, whatever.

Okay. No. I appreciate that. Thank you very much, Chris. It helps.

Love it. And can I check-in with you over the next week and just see how that’s going? Is that okay?

Yes. You can. I’m gonna put it on my calendar right now so that I do it. I’m gonna put it’s gonna look like the Grinch’s schedule. I’m gonna put I think I might do it daily. I may I might do fifteen minutes a day or something like that.

So Perfect.

Love it. Okay. I’m gonna check-in with you early next week and see how it’s going.

Thank you.

My pleasure. Kim.

Okay. So, I have a question.

So yesterday, Joanna actually posted something on LinkedIn that was about one of my clients. And it is about, enterprises and how should you use buzzwords or jargon if you are approaching enterprise clients?

And, of course, no is the answer.

So this is an issue I have with this client. I actually work on long form content for them, not copywriting. So I’m doing ebooks and guides and that kind of thing. But it’s something I would like to approach with them, but I’m not sure how to approach it with my client.

You know, I don’t wanna show her Joe’s post to kinda put them on blast. And I also feel like it might like, I could tell my client really likes these this terminology. I don’t think she’s in charge of this specific messaging. It’s basically their messaging.

It’s it’s a large sales tech company. And I do know salespeople love buzzwords, so there there’s one aspect of that. But at the same time, there’s definitely some jargon cleanup that could happen. And I’m just wondering if you, Kirsty, or anyone on the call has any thoughts about how I might broach that subject with this client.

Yeah. So I have some thoughts, and then I would love to hear from everyone else.

I wonder when you get presented perhaps with, you know, a particularly problematic buzzword, could you just pretend to be really curious and say something like, I’m just curious. Like, what do you think if if if we said this to whoever the ideal prospect is, like, would they know what we’re talking about?

Could it be as simple as that? Could it be as simple as getting them to, like, get to the conclusion that you want them to make where it’s like, oh, well, I mean, probably not. They might have to read x, y, and zed. And it’s like, oh, well, is this actually the point of what we’re doing here? Is the point to connect with and be understood immediately as opposed to have to really invest mental time and energy to get to the point where we’re speaking the same language.

I’ve done that before with a couple of coaching clients who really wanted to use not jargon, but just like very, airy fairy terms that at the end of the day were quite meaningless and were definitely terms that they themselves use selves used and not their clients or prospects. So I have found that taking that really curious standpoint and just asking a question, can often be the inroad into the conversation where they realize the thing that you’re trying to teach them. And of course, if they have the realization, they’re much more likely to be on board with making the changes because they’re not feeling pushed into doing something. They feel like it’s kind of their own idea and they get to own it.

So that would be my suggestion. But what else have people in the room used, or what else can people identify as something that may be worth a crack?

It may be a lost cause because this this these words, which are essentially what you see in tech a lot, they’re just overly complex words for something that would be much better explained with very simple language.

And that’s what I do in the guides, and then my client will go back in there and be like, literally yesterday when I saw Joe’s post, my client had just that day yesterday replaced something that I had written with that buzzword. So it was kinda funny.

But, yeah. And, anyway, that’s baked into their key narrative for right now for this time. So but, yeah, I still wanna hear ideas. Yeah. Please, Andrew.

Yeah. So I I have some thoughts on this. I have a customer who’s kind of like this as well. And so, you know, I think that and and by the way, do you know Josh Garofalo? Do you know who he is?

He on LinkedIn, he, shared Joanna’s post and then added some some interesting information on on top of that. That might be worth kind of reading that’s, like, kind of about, like, how it gets that way. And I do think that there’s a little bit of, like, with larger companies, with larger tech companies, it is a little bit of a losing battle, not in every situation, but, like, you know, Joanna showed the screenshot of the homepage hero.

And when a company get the tech company gets to a certain size, that homepage hero section is, in my experience, going to be impossible because you have, like, ten stakeholders who are these, like, highly paid people who are thinking about, you know, what do we do and how do we they take all of this information and they bring it together, and then they come up with this, like, very abstract sounding term that’s, like, maybe an accurate way to reflect what they do. But, of course, nobody knows what a, you know, revenue orchestration platform is. And so what what I’ve found is that there are certain places where you can fight the the battle and it’s worth it, and there are certain places where you can’t. And so the homepage hero, like, when I work I worked on a homepage with a company that kind of acts like this too where it’s a lot of buzzwords and stuff. And I what what I did is for that home page, because I knew it was gonna be like that, it was gonna be stakeholder hell.

First of all, I set up the the project in such a way where it was like, we’re gonna do a couple rounds of revisions, and then I’m handing it back to you, and your team does what your team does with it be just because I know I’ve been in that situation a million times before. But I find that they are a lot more and I still let them know. I still tell them that. But they’re a lot more receptive to that in other places.

And so I think that, like, in your you know, if you’re doing long form content, that might be a place where you have, like, a bit more ability to kinda push back and to say things like, okay. Like, as as Chrissy said, like and I’ve used almost that exact technique before of being like, you know, okay. And is that a term that, like, people who your cuss your prospects who are encountering this for the first time, is that something that they’re, like, they’re familiar with, or or or is that gonna be a new term for them? Right?

I know the answer. I know that’s a new term. They have no idea. And and I find that that often does like, there usually are people who will go to bat for that as well.

But, again, it’s like, I find it’s all about picking where you’re gonna fight that battle because on the whole like, the again, the homepage hero section, like, I don’t have any good advice for that.

I’ve never been at those larger organizations.

It’s just it’s just impossible. But, yeah, I don’t know if that was helpful at all, but, like, that this is such a such a common thing, and it’s because you have eight eight highly paid people who don’t know the first thing about writing copy who are writing the copy, essentially. So I don’t know if that’s helpful at all, but at least at least, I know that game. I know that game. Let’s just say that.

Yeah. Thanks for sharing. I guess I part part of what I was curious about is, would you ever would any would you ever share Joe’s post, like, with the client? I don’t think I should because it’s might be sort of a shoot the messenger type thing.

Yeah. And it’s like, who would get because you could get blamed, but also if someone gets the credit, it’s not you either. But that’s my like, it’s like either Johanna gets the claim gets the credit or you get the blame. I don’t know. That’s just my take, but I’ll pass it back to everyone else.

Actually seeing the post yet, Kim, but, my take in the difference of client you have a relationship with, you could feel a bit passive aggressive to sort of try and prove your point via someone else.

Totally. Yeah.

Yeah. So I think that that would be probably where I would land.

But so frustrating for you that, like, literally the same day this is happening, Joe puts up with me.

Funny.

I have a really good relationship with the client, actually. But yeah. So, anyway, I just wanted to bring it up and see what everyone had to say.

I guess, well, maybe a better question for you is how like, are you comfortable with the ways you’ve tried to communicate the fact that jargon is not best approach for the client? Like, is there more that you could do there, or do you feel like, look.

I’ve got one more I can do.

I I don’t think I, actually, I think the first few guides no. There’s there’s definitely more I can do. But at the same time, I don’t know I don’t think there’s gonna be a lot of give there because they’ve got things pretty set. And I know how they work, and and I know how I mean, I’ve worked at enterprise tech companies, and I’ve worked at, you know, enough of these places where I I know, Andrew, how it works.

Like, it’s once that messaging set until it changes again, it’s not gonna change. So yeah. But I still thought I’d see if anyone had any genius advice where I could you know? Someone might have some great ideas that would let me somehow bring it up and make some change.

So I just wanted to bring it up.

Yeah. I mean, I think the only reason I asked that last question is because, you know, like, sometimes in whatever copy you’re writing, you know, you can feel and know something so strongly, but no matter what you say, the client is still gonna change that thing at the end of the day. So I think for me, what’s important is have I articulated my reasoning to the point where I’m really confident that I’ve done all I can to get the most effective solution for this client? If I have, then I’ve done my part. Whereas if I feel like for whatever reason, if I’ve been nervous about stating my expertise or if I’ve been a bit worried about how the client might take it and I’ve reserved that part of me, then I feel like I haven’t done my job.

So I think it’s sort of about knowing where your control and your say ends and just making sure you’re doing a really good job of that part of the of the relationship, if that helps.

Yeah. Okay. Fair enough. Thanks.

I have one more thing I can add if if you wanna hear it. Yeah. Absolutely.

I I always try to instead of making it my opinion versus their opinion thing, I I have this thing that I that I try to say early on with any client, which is, you know, my opinion doesn’t matter and your opinion doesn’t matter. The only thing that matters is what the audience thinks.

And that way, it doesn’t it takes it out of being a power struggle between, you know, I’m the expert, you know, at copywriting, and I know better. And it it sort of just diffuses it. And then you can state your case as let’s test and see what results we get and then make an informed decision because all I really care about is your success.

So that’s just a different way of of reframing it.

That’s great.

That’s epic. Thanks, Stacy. Such good framing. Setting of expectations early on is often really key.

I have a few bits to add to it.

So sorry. I just suddenly lost my train of thought.

Okay. So for the whole jargon thing, I also read a post recently, which was, Mark just bashing, you know, all the words, right, that that usually come up, like supercharge and, unlock and level up kinda thing. And I actually made, like, a cute little GPT tool that does, like, a clarity, specificity, and, like, buzzword sweep on copy.

But that’s not my point. My point is that salespeople actually do kind of lean towards the jargon more than marketers. So I think as marketers, we might hate it more and as writers hate it even more, but perhaps salespeople don’t hate it quite as much or have even come to expect it because it’s so common among enterprises.

That was the one thing that I was, I was thinking as as I was going. And, then just wanted to plus one that technique of saying, look, it doesn’t matter whose opinion. Like, your opinion doesn’t matter. My opinion doesn’t matter. It’s definitely the audience’s opinion. That’s worked so well for me in the past.

And then also just saying when I deliver work, you know, let’s focus on tone, let’s focus on accuracy.

We’ve done all the research, all the hard work’s done.

We’re really just doing, like, a check to make sure that everything is on brand and accurate.

And that gets me some nice, easy, like, straightforward feedback.

So yeah.

Okay. I have a a follow-up question from that, which is socials. So I’ve recent someone told me, that I don’t seem like a corporate person, which is fair because I don’t think I do. And they were like, get off LinkedIn, get onto Twitter.

So I started posting on Twitter, and I’ve realized that I really really struggled to write social posts.

Like, if I have a template to follow, great. But Twitter is so short form, and it’s such like a consistent blast of information.

I just don’t know how to say stuff. Like, the whole adding value thing. I mean, I can regurgitate my knowledge, but it doesn’t feel like I’m adding value.

So I just wanted to ask psychologically, I suppose, what are your opinions on how to best allow yourself to be authentic on social media without saying, I went for a walk this morning and I saw a bunch of dogs and it was really nice. And, you know, like, what’s the balance?

Yeah.

So I mean, one thing that I think is good about platform like Twitter or is it still called x? I’m not on there, but I feel like it’s still called is it still called x these days? Who knows? Everyone says Twitch.

I know. I know. Elon Musk is so cranky that his rebrand never took off.

But and I think one of the good things about it from a mindset perspective is that it moves so fast. So something you put on there today, you know, unless it goes viral or gets a lot of traction, it’s probably not gonna really be seen again by tomorrow. Right?

Which if you think about it from an approach of what if I just use this as a testing ground and I just like top of mind thoughts, anything that I’m like, okay, that’s kind of interesting. Well, that’s kind of relevant. Pop it on there and see what resonates.

I think social media like that can be a really great place to test, to see what gets traction. And then you can dive deeper into those pieces that are really hitting the right note or resonating and even take them from that platform into other places to create bigger bits of content.

So I feel like just loosen the expectations a little bit on the fact that whatever you put on there has to be like incredibly thought through and incredibly polished.

Lean into the fact that it is quite a fast paced or fast moving space.

Because yeah, there’s some freedom, I think, in the fact that knowing that, you know, if you write something and it’s not great, you know, probably no one’s really gonna see it and that’s okay.

So that’s maybe a backwards tip for how I would approach things, but what what’s right for other people? Does anyone else sort of feel a bit hamstrung when it comes to what to share on on a platform like Twitter or X?

I find with those kind of platforms, like you were saying, it’s really helpful for me to remember that, like, it’s gonna pass so fast, so don’t put a lot of, like, stake into it.

And for me, I I have, like, the best results when I’m just when I’m not posting about business stuff, which makes me then comfortable to post about business stuff.

So if I’m like if I take the pressure off and I just, like, post about something random and then I start to see, oh, people are, like, engaging and people are responding, I’m like, oh, this is actually fun. Cool. And then the next time I go on, I’m more likely to actually post about something business related.

And so that’s something that’s kind of, like, helped me get more into the flow, but also, not always having to be the one who’s, like, making the main post, but engaging under other people’s stuff and responding and liking and and doing that kind of stuff and not always feeling like, okay. I have to post something about business, and I have to be the one who’s posting it, especially on days where I’m like, I feel like my brain’s not even here today. That’s the kinda way I approach it. Okay.

That makes total sense.

I think I need to follow some better people because, like, when I’m scrolling, I’m just really struggling. I’m like, yeah.

Like, build in public.

Just yeah.

I think I’m getting a lot of big messages.

It’s tiring.

Yeah. Claire, one thing to remember on social media, you kinda wanna use the eighty twenty rule. Eighty percent personal, twenty percent business or, like, ninety ten.

Most people wanna see about you. That’s what social media is, especially on Facebook and Instagram.

But one really important point that just came up is share and comment on other people’s posts, especially ones that relate to your business, to what you’re doing.

Got it.

Okay. So wait. Hold on. Does that mean that I should be posting the selfie I took of my walk this morning?

Like, is that I I stay off of x.

When it switched from Twitter, it’s like, I’m done. I have a thing with Elon Musk too.

Who doesn’t? Yeah.

But so I think x is a little different, especially since Musk got on, took it over. It’s a lot of you can see a lot of conspiracy theory stuff on there, a lot of weird stuff.

But if you find like minded business, somebody to follow, then like, post, and share or like, comment, and share on their posts. And then maybe, you know, get an idea for a post that you can put out there. It doesn’t have to be, you know, the dog walking. That’s usually face Instagram.

X is kinda geared more towards business.

Actually, I think it’s a little weirder than that, but it’s my personal opinion.

But, yeah, I think if you’re doing business posts, keep it to LinkedIn.

Okay. Cool.

That’s I’m on LinkedIn.

Just my opinion.

Pardon? Sorry.

On LinkedIn, same strategy, like, eighty percent personal stuff?

Link LinkedIn is strictly business, so I would make that all about your business.

Okay.

Yeah. That’s that’s what that platform is for. X Twitter x, Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, you know, all those other social posts or social media platforms.

You know, that’s that eighty twenty rule. Make it about yourself.

Nobody likes to see post of dinners anymore, but something interesting.

A nice peaceful walk in the woods, show some trees swaying or something. I don’t know. But, yeah, eighty twenty. Throw your business in there, but most people just wanna see about your life and what you’re doing.

K. Yeah. Cool.

Thank you so much.

Mhmm.

Just for Claire, does anyone know of anyone on x or Twitter that is, like, doing a really good job of, like, nailing that balance? Jess, I mean, it sounds like you might be do you guys follow each other? I I just wonder if it could be helpful for you, Claire, to sort of have an example of, you know, what it can look like on there that might free you up a little bit, and get you in the rhythm of that platform a little bit more.

I’m actually not on Twitter, but I’m on threads, which I love.

Yes.

I know who used to do a lot of Twitter.

She’s probably still there. Rachel Pilcher? Pilcher?

Yes. She did used to be quite active on there.

Or she she was in the intensive freelancer.

You know, there are there are business, accounts and professionals who do mostly business stuff on x and on Instagram, but it’s just that that’s the way that they’ve positioned their accounts from the beginning. You know, it’s not their personal account. It’s it’s an account for business. I I know several colleagues who have business focused Instagram and x accounts, and that is just you know, it’s part of their strategy. So it just depends on how you choose to use it. I personally would never use x because the shelf life of a tweet is fifteen minutes, and that’s just, you know, not my thing. And and I don’t like the platform since, since Elon took it over either.

Yes. Show of hands. How many don’t like Elon Musk? Alright. Majority.

That’s funny because he’s actually South African, and I’m South African. So Oh, it’s we produced him. Sorry.

So good.

But, yeah, I mean, Stacy’s right. I mean, you can do business. If you’ve got a business account, definitely, that’s how you where you post your business at.

Yeah. I have something to say. So I use Facebook sometimes, and I’ve had it for a long time. But what I find works for me a lot is, like, if I see a post that I have a different opinion about, then I can use that, like, a spin off of that and, give my opinion about that.

And I think that works really well because it if you notice that the post the original post is doing well, and then you’re like, okay. Well, that’s doing good. Maybe I could do the opposing side of that. That might do good as well, and that, I find, is pretty good.

So that’s always an option too.

That’s good too. It’s often easier when you’re not trying to generate the original thought. If you have something to spring off or a conversation to join, it can just really help raise the wheels.

And I think as well consider how social media really helps build a three-dimensional version of your business and your presence because I suspect that the platforms add a different element to your online profile, if that makes sense.

So you’re not necessarily showing up exactly the same way in your emails. I mean, LinkedIn as you are on Instagram. There’s something there that can help build a really nice rounded picture of you, who you are, what you do.

Probably a lot of stuff to sit with, Claire. So but so many good points here. So thank you everyone for sharing your wisdom and your insights.

We’re at the top of the hour. I’ve gotta go get my kids off to daycare, so I better get going. But lovely to see you all. If you have any questions, or anything you wanna chat about, please ping me in Slack. I’m always around.

Otherwise, I will see you all next week.

Bye.

The High-Class Problem Sell

The High-Class Problem Sell

Transcript

Today is, copywriting lesson, and then that’s followed an AMA that will go until we’re just done talking.

There’s a small group of us today, so no need to, maybe it’s just like a good time if you have, like, something you’re going through that you maybe didn’t want to share with more people or something, which I know happens.

It could be a good time to talk through that today too. So, as usual, be ready to bring any questions that you got any wins to preface them, and that can be any kind of win, just celebrating those good things that happen. This is being recorded. The worksheet for today’s session already went out that went out on Friday. It is the high class problem sell, which I’m really excited about. We’ve used it a couple times. And then I’ll show you the one example for a new page in progress that we’re working on, and how we use it there.

But as usual, yeah, just kind of be with me here, set your intention, just be present, closing down other distractions. If you can, I know life is real and all around us, but, whatever you can do to just kind of ignore your phone for a bit and other, you know, notifications that come in?

Yeah, everybody’s feeling cool. I’m I’m feeling really good today. Awesome. Okay. So open up that work If you haven’t already, got it open.

I will only share my screen if you don’t know what worksheet I’m talking about. Because what I’m going to do today is, a little different format that we’re trying for our training now which so far I quite like, but I’ve never done it live. And I have never done it one live, two unsupported by somebody on my team who can, like, talk and fill in the gaps while I’m like, oh, no. The text’s broken. So we’re just gonna try it here today, and see what happens.

But yeah. So the context for this is, you’ve got. I mean, we have so many ways to try to get into stories, into the argument that we wanna make when we’re writing copy.

Lots of different things that you can do but sometimes when it comes down to it and you’re actually writing the page or writing the email, I find that things can feel boring and repetitive pretty fast, not for your right not for your reader necessarily, but for you as a copywriter, I mean, we do data driven things and use better practices and frameworks, etcetera, but it can be tedious sometimes when it’s like a rule of three. So you’re always hitting three points in a row and it’s just like, kinda wanna break out of it. So that’s how I feel about it. The longer you write copy, the more likely you are to feel that way too.

If if this isn’t resonating, stick around. It’s going to eventually. So I like finding and identifying, and I’m sure you do too, identifying little new ways to attack parts of pages in particular. So what I’m gonna show you today is from a long form sales page, I first saw it on someone else’s long form sales page.

I wanna say a bazillion years ago, but it could have been last year. It all blends into one now. And I was really I was really interested it. So I kinda broke it apart and tried to reverse engineer what they were doing.

Tried it in a sales email for our freelancing school, promotion over the Black Friday weekend.

And, yeah, I’m feeling kinda cool about how it could be an unlock for you when you’re stuck. So, I’m going to share Just half a second while I choose the right one.

Okay.

Cool. So you should be seeing my iPad now.

Oh, are you?

Yeah.

Fancy.

I’ve just never shared my iPad before. So, but this is where we’re going to be working today. So This is an example of the opening of that that sales page that we’re working on for copy school pro. So you set up a big promise, like big.

The bigger, the better, and it doesn’t have to be a promise necessarily as in we promise you’ll get this. But something that’s really going to grab their tension. So really thinking about your audience and what they’re trying, what they most want. And that’s where on the worksheet, we have the, what’s really good about this is I can use three monitors now, which is cool.

We’ve got good outcome and then a high class problem. So we often talk about the good outcomes that people have. And these are good outcomes. These here are good outcomes that you might be looking for.

Right? It’s not a promise because it’s in the first person in quotation marks, which, of course, as anybody who has taken any of my training knows, unless I feel like I’m saying it all the time, but maybe I’m not, first person headlines in quotation marks are my favorite across the board. So how I, big thing, big thing, big thing, ending with the big thing, and then and then overcoming an objection right here.

But don’t you need a lot of money that, etcetera. So with the fifty thousand dollar ad budget, which is basically nothing. Okay. So we’re capturing their attention.

I’m not this doesn’t mean it’s ADA. I know as soon as I hear its attention, doesn’t mean it’s ADA. It might be though. But we’re gonna break it really fast.

So don’t try to look too hard for a framework here yet. Okay. Then we get into kind of something a little bit old school. So that is this.

Step one is opening up this idea that there will be something that follows later, a step two. So a small, not curiosity gap, but like an open loop. Right? There’s more to come.

This is just the first step, even if you forget that later. The point is not that you’re waiting around for step two, but it’s an interesting way to start, opening up that attention into something more kind of like a little more intrigue.

Re time, really old school. You don’t have to do any of this stuff for the framework that I’m teaching you or the cell that I’m teaching you today to work. I’m just walking you through kind of the decisions that were made here.

From the desk of, again, old school. I do like old school, founder of copy hackers, grader of copy school, inventor of conversion copywriting, and this is an important thing, mother of kittens, just because what we’re about to get into, we need to set a tone. So far, the tone is kind of bro y. Right? Like, look at all the, you know, money you can make and crap like that. And that can feel a little bit weird.

The tone can be a little bit. We have to make what I’m trying to do here is set it up so that we can have a little bit of fun going forward because this framework, as I’ve used it, has been about tapping into, like, a little bit of fun. The high class problem cell is, like, we’re going to talk about some high class problems And if you make it sound like a problem, that’s not gonna work. Right? Like, that’s the bad thing we don’t want to do.

Okay. So I’m just gonna pop over to the next one. So then we get into the next part of the page.

So we set set up this big cool thing that you can do. Oh, Sorry here. Let me just go back to this. So it opens with so I’m guessing this isn’t the first time you’ve landed on this isn’t the first page you’ve landed on with big promises and enticing numbers.

And I’ll get to that in a second, but let me ask you a question. Do you actually want to? And this really means you could have put almost anything before this part. So I’ll get to that in a second is like, again, you could have done anything before that.

Accept what follows here in these bullets that are about to follow down here is we’re basically building on that cool outcome. So let’s say your cool outcome that you’re trying to hook somebody with is you’re gonna land a thousand customers in a month. You’re gonna land a thousand thousand dollar customers in a month. Really big, really desirable thing that they want that would, attract their attention.

And then from there, we’re going to find that less desirable outcome of that thing, the high class problem. So again, it could be anything to open.

But we want the bullets that follow the good outcomes and then the high class problems, to speak to that thing that just hooked them. So we have, and I’ll get to that in a second, but let me ask you a question. Do you actually want to? Then we have good outcome, Deliver World class copy.

Number one thing. It’s gonna be short in, like, actual length because we’re trying to pull them in. So a short bullet most of the sentences are short at this point. As you can see, they all end here.

Make lots of money for your clients or team and also for yourself good outcome. Cool. And now we start getting into the high class problems associated with those good outcomes, and we spend more time on them because we’re having more fun with it. We’re just kind of like enjoying our time talking to our prospect about the things they want being frankly as we’re about to see similar to the things that, we want.

So do you actually want to have super smart people ping you late at night when they’ve needed, when they need to crack a conversion problem when you become their go to copywriter? That’s a high class problem. You just got a ping in the middle of the night, but it’s pretty solid because someone cool is asking you for help and they trust you a lot. Do you really want to?

Do you actually want to go through life with a sense of guilt that everything is falling into your lap and you haven’t had to toil in the coal mine or perform open heart surgery after building years of schooling to get it? Wanna get so good at selling products that jealous people begin whispering about you and you have to start hanging out with a whole new crew of high achieving nerds? These are high class problems. And the reality is your prospect should want them.

Right? So then we say great. Then you and I want the same things, and then you continue on telling the rest of the story and still building on the stuff that you did. Although I can’t help you with another high class problem, which is the anxiety that overachievement brings or an outcome of a high class problem recommend a marriage counselor for when you spend half your summer texting with a network of smart people who’ve sought you and your genius out.

I can do these things, and then you get into what those things are, and that’s what we’re really here to talk about. But you’re capturing their tension with this like unexpected outcome.

And it’s not just the usual good news, good news, good news, life is always gonna get better as you get better and the levels are higher. Life is like way better. There’s real problems that are gonna come with it, but we’re not positioning them as problem problems. Just as a high class problem. Does this make sense?

Can you imagine how you might use this in your work?

Potentially? Okay. Cool.

So I’ll stop sharing that part and then just quickly walk through the worksheet.

So that you’ve got it. Okay. So the high class problems sell, as always, the worksheet and lesson will help you find a new way into writing about comes so that new way in particularly if you’re bored, but also if you just wanna try something else. Write sales emails or sales pages with that What you wanna do is list out your good outcomes and then the high class problem that comes with it. And this is the framework effectively, bit of a template for you to use. Cool.

Have what you need to use it. Alright. I’m not gonna make you. We can go through and do an exercise if you’d like to try it out. Otherwise, we can just kind of hop into question time or talking time.

Good talking time. Does anybody have any questions they wanna bring to the table today?

Everyone’s quiet.

Do you wanna do this as an exercise?

Go right for something? Okay. I think that’s a good use of time. So what I would love for you to do if you have a productized service, if you have a package of some kind, anything that you already have pre written copy for. So ideally not for a new campaign or something.

Anything that you might have on your site today or that you wish you had on your site today?

I would like you to take the next ten minutes to come up with the good outcomes and the high class problems and then try to fill this part in.

Doable?

Okay. Cool. I’m gonna stop sharing.

And then be sure to come off mute if you have any questions as going through it, and we’ll be back in ten minutes.

Joe, can I ask a quick question?

Love it. Yes.

I’m really I really struggle with ten saying. Right? It’s just my thing.

Like, am I am I writing it, like, in the future terms as or, like, am I writing it as if it’s happening or so it’s do you actually want to in the future?

Yes. So do you actually want to but it’s still written in the present tense. Deliver, not will deliver. So deliver world class copy. Do you actually want to And then it’ll just follow in, I guess, the imperative, really, because it’s just two. Does that make sense?

Yeah. It’s just my noob thing. Like, this is why I can’t write fiction because I struggle with Ted’s sake. That no.

That’s like Latin. Did you take Latin in school?

No.

Oh, okay. That messed me up for some things. So when I when people struggle with these things, I’m like, oh, you probably took Latin. So yeah, this is just like, do you actually want to, and then these are all just present tense. Do you want to have a call that sort of thing. Right? Just happening right now.

Yeah. Okay. Thanks, Jay. Sure.

Alright. Should we talk about that’s how to go?

Any luck?

Did it suck? Was it awesome? Is it hard? Did you get anywhere?

That was fun. I liked it.

Okay. What’d you work on, Abby?

I did for my day one evergreen package.

And, yeah, what I like about it is because, I find myself, like, using the same kind of messaging it with different clients like this kind of like, you can make more money. You can make six figures, and it’s starting to feel, like, quite stale. So I like the the high problem approach is a farmer around that, and I feel like it really boosts credibility because you’re not just saying, like, this is how awesome, like, life is. It’s like. Yeah. Yeah, take them out. So, yeah, I really enjoyed it.

Okay. Cool. That’s wicked. That’s how I feel about it too. Like, it’s just a more interesting way to position of good outcome?

Yeah. Yeah. Cool. Everybody else needs them any anything that didn’t feel that good or, like, you’re not it’s not clicking.

It wouldn’t work for you maybe.

I like that it’s very fresh, but it feels a little bit it feels a little bit exaggerated to me.

It feels a little bit Oh, yeah.

It’s on the sales. Page.

It’s gonna be a little. I hear you there. So what would you what how would you modify it?

Any idea?

Well, I mean, the the goals that I have are are more immediate goals. But the tone feels a little bit of still feels a little bit much even though the actual things I’m writing about are realistic.

Okay. Can you read yours and just share so we can hear what that sounds like?

Yeah. So I am looking at the, the service page I have for, PVC.

So Google Landing Pages and, social ads. So I wrote do you actually want to watch your pipeline fill up with qualified leads effortlessly?

Capture all of the great top of funnel demand your social media. Is generating, become so efficient at attracting new leads that AEs are so overwhelmed with demos that they tell you to slow down the campaign so they can focus on the lead they have and attract so many good opportunities that you actually cringe when influencers cry about pmax ridiculously broad, broad campaigns, and Google’s ever changing algorithm on LinkedIn over and over again.

But the tone, the tone still feels off to me even though those are like very realistic. Things.

Okay. What feels off to you? I guess I wonder as, like, for me, I I heard it and I was like, cool. That sounds dope. That sounds like Yeah. Who wouldn’t react well to that?

Some won’t. Some won’t. But usually, those are the people who are just like I I won’t I won’t think about those ones as much as the people who are like, yeah, I’d like to have that problem, you know, and you’re like really getting there, but how did everybody else feel when you were hearing it?

Any notes for Naomi?

I thought it was really cool. I liked it. Yeah. I didn’t feel like the tone was off. I mean, obviously, I don’t know what you’re going for, like, generally with your tone, but, yeah, I thought it was cool.

Okay. Yeah.

I didn’t feel like the tone pull up either, but yeah, again, same as Abby, but the tone didn’t seem like off to me for off footing.

And I know it can feel like a certain audience, your audience, Naomi, wouldn’t respond well to that, and you may absolutely be right. I would just be curious to test it out, give it a shot, see if they do.

Yeah.

Cool. Awesome. Anyone else wanna share?

Yeah. I’ll share mine. I’ll be. I’ll be able to get feedback on it. Okay. Cool.

It’s a bit it’s obviously a bad fish drop. Okay.

But let me ask you a question. Do you actually want to wake up to sales every day, automate your entire sales process? Miss out on the I mean, Rausch, you usually get when you get a sales notification because it happens so darn frequently that the sensible thing to do is to turn stripe notifications off altogether.

Stop having those indulgent. Ugh, it’s just so stressful conversations with fellow course creators because you’ve hopped off the live launch roller coaster and are now making launch size revenue while on vacation.

Having awkward tail between your legs conversation with your SSO when they ask why you spent twenty k on ads this month and you have to loan that you turned that twenty k into two hundred and twenty k, and now you’d like to buy a vacation rental five minutes down the road from the end loss.

It’s fun. That’s fun. Those are some high class problems to have to have that awkward conversation anyway.

I just can’t relate to the last point about moving close to your in laws. But other than that, it was so infuriating that you’re that good at writing copy that quickly, which I always tell you that.

That’s awesome. Yeah. It really does it was what I liked was. It was so great about qualifying who she’s speaking to. It’s ridiculous.

I mean, if you can’t relate to that, you’re gone and Yeah.

It’s a good side effect. Right? Like, all of these other outcomes of that. That’s really a really good point.

Yeah. Thanks, Jessica.

And you can tell you had fun writing it. It doesn’t sound like it was a slog or you, like, it gets I think it’s exciting. Yeah.

Yeah.

I think that it’s, like, it’s a fun framework to use. It’s, like, nice to to deviate from, like, the usual, like, I just always use PAS.

So Yes. Same. Yeah. Cool. Anyone else wanna share? Jessica?

Yeah. Let me follow Abby.

Jessica.

No. I honestly I mean, I could It was for my seasonal sale thing, which I think you know I’m fleshing out to turn from a what used to be a productized service like thing to a signature.

So I and actually I get I don’t know if this is I think where I struggle is the whole dream state because I feel like I haven’t confirmed this desire for a e commerce client yet. That they really see the connection between. No. No. You can really double your, you can increase your sales for your seasonal sale. But at the same time, you can be creating these long term relationships.

And so it kind of I think that’s where I struggle. So, I mean, I can read you parts of it, but it you know, it’s nowhere near what Abby’s is and it’s partial as per usual with me. Jessica.

Read the whole m thing.

We wanna hear get to that.

Do you actually want to double your next seasonal sale revenue? See a massive increase in LTV over the next? Whatever months, clear out your inventory and have to work quickly with your team to figure shit out. Provide on-site therapy because your team dressing out and worried they can’t get orders out on time, which will inevitably lead to unhappy customers.

And that’s as far as I got.

Cool.

Took a little extra negative on the last one there. It wouldn’t pull back on that one a bit, but no. It was good.

It’s yeah. Just make sure it stays a high class problem. Like Okay. Well, yeah. Like, my diamond shoes are too tight. That’s gotta be the effect. Right?

So yeah.

Okay.

Cool. Cool. Love it. Jessica, you did that so fast. Really?

Oh, thank you. I’m always asking I’m begging Abby for tutorials on how to be fast. That’s what I wanna know.

You just did it.

Nice.

Nice. Cool. Anyone else?

I won’t put you on the spot by calling on you, but I’m probably looking at you.

No one.

Alright. Alright, Katie. Welcome to the crew. You just missed the the tutorial there, but you’ll get the replay after. So I think it I think we had fun with it.

So yeah. Now, if anybody has any questions or wants to talk shop, what are you going through right now? What should you be working on that you’re not that we can help, like, unlock? Jillian.

Okay. I have well, I’ll start with a win. It’s not a money win. I guess I shared that in Slack recently, but my current win is that, I’ve been severely low in iron for like my whole life and didn’t know it.

So I was like this year I’ve been like fainting and like feeling really dizzy and I’m finally back a normal iron level. So it means I can exercise again, which is life changing. So I wasn’t really able to exercise this past year. But it really helps with, like, energy and productivity.

And it’s really Yes. Exciting. So I was going to use it in Doing a lot of stuff.

Congrats. That’s amazing. Yes.

So that’s why I win.

Coming with a little more energy.

Huge. Energy is everything. Yes.

Everything. Yeah.

So on that note, my question is maybe a bit unwieldy, but as I mentioned, I’m like I was going through your training again from a couple weeks ago.

Started watching Shane’s training.

And I’m thinking about, like, the brand also reading PenX is easier than two x, and so I just feel like I have a lot of ideas. Swirling and kinda wanted to like throw them out there and just like get some thoughts.

So I’m focusing on pricing pages, which is a new, you know, I haven’t worked in SaaS that much. I worked with a lot of different companies on websites, a little bit of SaaS that like kind of across the board. So I’m trying to figure out how to balance, like, my current client, and so I do websites with who are not SaaS primarily, and still have, like, my website is geared towards that. I kinda wanna put up a different website so that I can still serve my current customers in the meantime and not be like out money and just, you know, diving into this new thing. Yeah. So the idea that I have is, like, I know you said the brand really starts with, like, your opinion and your viewpoint, which I feel like I’m still developing, but I have, like, a general idea since no one’s really talking about pricing pages yet, which is that like everyone’s kinda missing the point. Of the pricing page, like, they’re all doing it wrong, basically.

And that’s, like, very general. There’s more that goes into it, but the the name that I have or the idea for, like, a book and a podcast and maybe, like, my site, I’m wondering if they can all be the same, is, like, the pricing point. I’m talking about how I don’t know if that’s, like, even a good title or not, but that’s the idea that I’ve been working with. Okay.

Just like, yeah, talking about how everyone’s missing the point, and like they’re all treating it like, you know, they’re putting so much time into their other pages and optimizing, and then they get to the pricing point and it’s just like they get to the pricing page and everything just deflates. Like, that’s the point of the sale, and it’s like, you know, very matter of fact. Here’s the even big brands, like even huge companies they look at are doing this. I think they’re all kinda dropping the ball at that point.

When it should be like the height of excitement value and, like, it’s the most critical point. Yeah. Absolutely. I know it’s a big I’m like rambling now, but, like, I’m just wondering if, like, Should I go in this direction? Because I’m, like, wanting to start doing this stuff, but I just, like, wanna know if that makes sense if it’s, like, on the right track to start with.

Okay.

I’ll jump in first and anybody who would like to add anything.

I’m so happy that you’re doing this, Jillian. Like, I know I’ve expressed that to you, but men, there’s nothing but room out there for this. And it’s it’s like, that’s it’s the money page. Right? Like, it seems like such an easy sell once you start raising awareness for the problem.

Sounds like you understand what your point of view is. I know you said it’s developing, but it’s like y’all are doing it wrong. Like, that’s a good place to start. Right?

Especially since it’s, like such a blue ocean still. There’s not that much competition out there. So I think it’s safe to go with something big like you’re doing it all wrong. Like, full stop.

That’s it. Like, you’re I’m you’re gonna need a lot of help, and I can help you with that. It leaves a lot of room for you to have thought leadership, and to say contrary in things or to, like, make them aware of things that they hadn’t had any clue about, which is always good for, you know, likes on so and comments and things like that. So the pricing point, how did you get to that name?

I don’t know. How do we get to anything?

There. I think it like came to me first. I also thought the URL was available. Also it kind of like ties into this whole thing of like like maybe I can say what the point is. Like, everyone’s missing the point. Like, they think the point is this, but the point is really this.

And also, like, Yeah. I don’t know. That was kind of the the main. And it seemed like kinda short and Yes. It’s not gonna be a subhead.

Like, if it was a book, there’d be like a subhead of I don’t know what that is yet, but Yep.

Totally agree. Yeah.

Yeah.

I think great. And it does, like Jessica chatted out.

Leaves a lot of room for expansion.

Yeah, and you can speak to value, like, what the actual point of pricing is. Right? And those are bigger conversations that are really intriguing. Yeah.

Everyone loves it.

Yeah.

Who else wants to share thoughts with Jillian?

Can I can I offer a, perspective? Sure.

When it comes to SAS, you should keep in mind that there are a lot of very complicated SaaS products that don’t have a pricing page because a lot of that happens in sales negotiation.

Because a lot of times they have to customize the software to fit the solution.

And it doesn’t necessarily have to be like a fifty thousand dollar software product. It happens at lower pricing points too, and a lot of companies choose not to put pricing anywhere on the website because either they’ve tested it or they believe that adding the pricing will increase the, or will reduce conversion rate, regardless of whether that’s true or not. That’s what a lot of companies think. And it may be true on desktop versus mobile or the reverse.

So I would make I think that it would be worth while to expand the conversation, they use because they they usually have a plans page that just doesn’t have pricing on it and it goes through like what you would get with the enterprise suite versus the mid tier versus the small, mini business tier. So I would make sure to not leave them out of the conversation.

Because there are a lot of companies that fit into that category, and your point can still be relevant. It would just have to be adapted to a much more business mindset.

Well, and I think that that’s a fair point. I think it does speak to the need to just identify who that audience is.

I think the SaaS that you’re talking about, Jillian, are people who have Who have.

Have a debt that says pricing in the nav of which there are bajillion so versus people who have sales teams. So we’re talking more people who are product led growth and are likely to have pricing pages at some point that they, and usually, visitor facing ones, and then behind the scenes.

Post use post activation ones. Yeah. Is that accurate, Jillian?

Yeah. That makes that makes sense. But, yeah, it’s a great point, Naomi.

Thanks for thanks for Yeah.

There’s a huge market. SaaS is enormous, obviously.

So it’s just really identifying. Okay. These are although it can be useful to get the enterprises that don’t have pricing pages, it’s just like anybody who doesn’t have copy. It’s really I can’t do much for you.

Like, you’re gonna need to believe in copy or else. It’s like, I can’t sell you copy school, and you can’t sell a person without a pricing page. Pricing page insights. So cool.

Yeah. Awesome. Okay. Anybody else wanna share?

With Jillian or feedback on what Jillian’s working on.

Nope. Awesome.

Jillian, you feeling good?

Yeah. I love that.

It’s like a book cover.

Yeah. And it gives it fine to have, like, you know, a, like, a book, like, if it was a book and a podcast, and, like, even the site, like, just have it all have the same name, like, even where I’m selling my services, keep the same name for everything.

That’s I mean, g n Claire did that with forget the funnel. Yeah. Everything is forget the funnel.

And I mean, juries out. It’s they’re doing, like, a bad ass business. So I would say it’s probably, like, a good Studiesing that story brand, same thing.

Mhmm.

Yeah. So probably okay. A thing to overthink at least.

Okay. I well, I got the URL for it, so I think it’ll just, like, start and I can keep my current site, like, with my current customers.

And kind of start doing the new thing at the new place.

Yeah. Totally. Totally. Cool.

Oh, thanks everyone.

Thanks. Thanks for sharing a nice win.

Excellent. Life changing.

I mean, energy for real though. Like, I have a new energy going with some life changes that I’ve made too, and it’s like energy. It’s a good thing. It changes everything. So that’s cool.

Anybody else wanna share what they’re working on or going through or struggles? Esther Grace.

Hey. Can everyone hear me?

Yep.

Okay. Awesome. So a win. I shared this in channel already, but copy hack is closed. Still excited about that.

Well done.

Thank you. And okay. So I need help with lead generation.

So I’ve nailed down my ideal clients, my customer avatar, all of that.

My offer, even a bit of the delivery system, But right now, I really just want to get on more sales calls.

So I realized last week that I love sales calls. So I did resales calls in the past two weeks. And just those three made me feel so energized about my business. I’m like, this is awesome.

Like, I love talking to these people and selling them on what I on what I do. So where I am right now is I’m also, like, couple of us here. I’m also reading ten x is easier than two x. So I’m not creating any plans to just gradually increase revenue from year to year.

Like, this was one of the thing, Joe, I think you talked about during the CSP info session. About want to be a copywriter who’s gradually increasing revenue from year to year and then in five, ten years before you hit, like, five hundred k. You want to be the one that just ten x is essentially. So that’s kind of where my mindset is now.

It’s more of how do I get this new offer, this new system that I’m building to generate one m in revenue in the next twelve months. And I actually ran the numbers, and I realized it’s actually very possible.

Okay.

It would just take, like, two clients with a high retainer fee and a performance based assistance.

It’s email marketing, so I can do performance basis as well and track everything. So it would literally say two clients if I was going to work on it solo. But if I was building a small team, then I can take on even more. So just running those numbers made me realize how possible it is for me. And so now it’s just like, okay. How do I get on those sales calls to book those two major clients that are going to bring in the revenue.

So what are you doing for lead gen right now? What’s top on your list?

So right now, I’ve been doing a lot of warm outreach. So just people I know asking for referrals, The the that has been my most active lead gen method. So it’s like being in groups, responding to messages, networking, pretty much.

Thought about cold outreach because I’m also still doing my authority building, like, systems. I’m still doing all of that, but I’m like, okay. I still want to get those leads, like, in the next one thirty days, thirty, sixty days. So I’m trying to do some more active, outreach methods as well. So that’s pretty much where I am.

Okay. So how many people are you reaching out to? A day for the warm leads. Let’s pause cold. We’ll ask that next, but warm leads, how many a day?

About two a day. K.

Do you think that’s enough?

About ten people.

Yeah.

Yeah. And so it’s a numbers game. Right? Like, There’s the two. There’s several ways you can go about this. One part is authority building stuff with content that you put out there all the time and then bigger content, and that can feel like a long game. It doesn’t have to be, but it also is a long game too.

Then we’re talking warm leads and cold outreach. So outreach to warm and outreach to cold. It’s good to do both.

But the more you have to do a lot of Right? Like, this is you’re reaching out to people, and you have to hit them right and at the right moment. So It’s a numbers game. So if you’re just doing two a day, what’s stopping you from doing twenty a day?

Oh, so the warm outreach, I just don’t know that many people.

That’s what you think. You don’t know that many people. But I would say really, like, think through everybody that you know and that they know. And I know that can feel like, oh, aren’t I getting in people’s way? I mean, you’re an entrepreneur and this is part of the job. If if your goal is get more leads in because you wanna get to a million dollars a year.

You have got to earn what you want, and that’s how you earn it. It’s hard. It’s hard, but you pick up the phone or you send the email, and but you have to do a lot of it, like, a lot a lot.

Like, an uncomfortable amount. And this is where some people, when they have, like, partners, and they’re both invested in it. That can, like, you spread the job out across two people, which is why a lot of people end up building companies together because it’s a lot of quantity, quantity, quantity, and then there’s the cold outreach. And it’s a doable thing.

People do it all the time. Don’t do it. That’s because I didn’t have to do it. But if I had to do it, it would be a matter of, like, go a hundred a day.

And this is like figure out, you’ve said you’ve you’ve run the numbers. So if What’s your close rate right now? Do you happen to know what it is when you get someone on a call? How many people close out of ten?

So I haven’t had that many sales calls.

That’s the problem with Okay.

Yeah. That was right. Yeah.

So getting in leads, so you wanna make sure that you’re getting these leads into a sales process that isn’t just going to, like, burn up all of these people that you spoke with. But you’re energized about them when you actually get to talk to them and have that sales call.

Make sure you’re running that right. So we have that Huka, sales call training this Wednesday, attend it. Take notes. It’s smart.

And it’s an hour to fucking nail this stuff. So attend that.

And then it’s if you’re gonna do leads, cold outreach and warm, the numbers game, get up every morning, put it in your calendar, do it when you have energy, do the hard thing, personalize the cold stuff, obvious we’ve got that training in copy school dot copy hackers dot com.

But it’s it’s an because it’s a numbers game, if you get one and one hundred people to hop on a call with you.

You gotta, like, that’s why you have to do. A hundred of them a day. You can’t do two a day. It’s not gonna lead to anything except for frustration.

And you’re like, nothing works. No. It it can work, but it’s you have to do Does that make sense? So what I would like you to do is put together, like, a list of warm outreach and cold that you can do, like, give yourself a a to do list of every single day.

I’m going to reach out to five people I know and fifty people I don’t know every morning without fail. And if you can get in that habit, which you have to get. This is your job. You have to get in that habit.

Then you can start to see the needle move, and then you’ll be more inspired to go like, okay. Well, if I’m doing fifty cold outreach, cold attempts a day, And it’s bringing in four people.

If I double it to a hundred, now I’ve got eight, and that’s a lot better to deal with, and you’re gonna get so much better at cold outreach that you can outsource it to a VA because you’ll have it nailed down what to say, how to say it, how to get people onto that call, how to get them to show up, Like, all these reps, all this practice work is the stuff that’ll get you there. But two reps, and you expect you’re gonna, like, build muscle, I lifted the weight twice.

It’s gonna take a little more than that. But you’re doing it. Just do more of it.

Yeah.

And would you see those are the, like, two main, like, lead gen strategies? Or is there anything I’m missing besides those two of an authority?

Oh, yeah.

No. There’s more. It depends if you have money to spend. If you’ve got money to spend, there’s lots of other things you can do. And it doesn’t have to be a lot, but you have to have, like, fifty bucks a day to spend boost things to hire people to do the work for you, stuff like that. I would say start there. Start getting traction.

There. Your immediate network is the place to go first. The people you know that you’re just not thinking of how to really go after them, and then it’s follow-up. As well without saying the word follow-up.

Like, it’s it’s, hey, I talked to my cousin who has a skin care who works at a skin care company. I talked to her one time about it. Okay. Well, now you have to go back and talk to her again.

And again, and wear her down. She’s your cousin. She’s gotta give you work, and that’s just the way it is.

But really it’s like quantity.

More and more and more if you’re still trying to build up leads. If you had and I sit and still do all your authority building stuff as to grace, you’re, like, all of these things work together. Have you read hundred million dollar leads by Hormoza?

That’s next on my list. Yeah.

I was planning to read It’s really practical, like super practical.

And it comes with a bit of a course as well. So check that out, but it really will come down to quantity. Yeah. Cool. Anybody got any notes? For Esther Grace based on what you have done to get leads.

In person networking, going to things. But, like, every single thing you do, you need to do intentionally. Like, I know people who have gone to networking events and they kinda just stand at a table.

It’s like, no. No. No. No. No. You have to work it. You gotta, like, get in there and say hi.

And like, have a pitch ready to go, like, be able to open. So there’s opening and then there’s closing. Right? And so a lot of people suck at the open part.

Maybe you’re okay with closing, but all we’re talking about to get leads is like constantly opening.

So being able to go to a networking event event that’s possible and and do the open. Be ready to start asking questions about their business and Sounds like you’re working on x, y, or z. I do that too. Do you think would it make sense for us to have a talk about this?

Like, should we book a call? Like, be ready to to get moving on something, not just like, oh, cool. And, like, falling into the friend zone, which can happen a lot. So just, like, everything you do, be intentional about what you’re gonna do with it.

Katie also said the five day five k challenge. Totally. It’s, it’s still available.

Yes. So take that too, but don’t just do it once a month. Do it every five days. Yeah. Cool.

Jessica, do you wanna say that out loud?

I was just gonna say Abby wrote a blog post and did a tutorial on utilizing Facebook groups And I know she, of course, has had huge success with it, but I know other people have too applying what she taught. So I don’t know if where your audience is, but can’t hurt.

Mhmm. Yeah. Absolutely.

Love it.

I think I’ve read the post op yet.

I think I told you about it.

Yeah. Yeah. There’s the her tutorial is, pinned to the top of our YouTube channel right now over on. On YouTube. So check it out.

It’s great. Perfect. Okay. Good luck, Esther Grace. Set a goal too. How many warm, how many cold, you’re gonna do a day, and how many you need to get in booked calls every week.

And then post, follow-up in slack when you get those wins, just let people know, like, and my goal was four bookings this week, and I got five. And, like, make that happen. You can. Cool.

Anybody else have anything else? Thanks, Esther Grace. Any questions or anything you wanna share with others?

Hi. One question. Yeah.

Well, I have lots of questions, but, I will start with the most relevant one. So I was approached by a, sorry, I spoke in an event, about a few weeks ago. And so afterwards I was approached by a marketing agency, and it seemed I really feel like marketing agencies are an ideal source, an ideal client because They’re focused specifically on demand gen. They don’t have to answer to a CMO or to upper leadership quite in the same way that somebody who works in house would.

And they’re very data driven. And they tend not to be creatives. So they tend not to provide as much pushback, as somebody who works in house. So anyway, I had a call with the, with a guy again today, and we agreed on a to start with, like, a social ad, for more top of funnel work.

And what I ended up doing this time around, which is different than what I did last time around, last time around, I sold a company just like a bank of ours. And this time, I gave him a pricing page and I said, okay, a set of ads is this much, and a landing page is this much, And then so I’m gonna send him a proposal. We’ll sign the proposal, and then he can just add whatever he needs as he goes, and then at the end of the month, I’ll send the invoice to HR to accounts receivable, and then I’ll be able to bill them. But I’m wondering there’s anything I because I feel like this is such an ideal client, if there’s something I’m missing out on that I could be doing to make it easier for them or to increase the amount that they would get from me from the beginning and that initial conversation.

Whether that’s like, should I expect them to say, oh, well, you should get at least this amount, to increase the amount that they would get from me, or would that be a little bit too aggressive because they sort of get projects rolling in as they come? I’m not sure exactly.

What they’re working on, it could be a little bit too demanding for them right at the outset. So I’m wondering if there’s something I’m missing out on that I should have done and could do hopefully next time.

Yeah. Cool. Who’s working with agencies? Who has been through what Naomi’s going through? Nobody subcontracts?

I used to, but I’ve just always do it on a day. Right? So I can’t I don’t really know how to haven’t got anything to give. I’m afraid.

So what did you do? Why did you choose to do a day rate or why did they like a day rate? What was the reasoning there?

Well, actually, now that I think about it, I don’t think I told them it was a date. Right? I think I just priced it in my mind. It was, like, lead gen like, I’ve done a few. I did for a lead gen funnel.

Oh, like a lead gen agency, like, a few emails and stuff for a, SaaS company. So I’d yeah. I was like, oh, I’ll just it was always gonna be, like, fifteen hundred or whatever, for the emails. But in my head, I was like, okay. I’m booking myself for VIP to do those. And then I did the same thing with, like, course agency as well.

But, yeah, that’s I mean, that’s just because at the time, I really liked the IP days.

Yeah. Okay. That’s fair. But they responded well to it as a day rate. Did you did they ever know it was a day rate? Did you tell them that?

I don’t even think so. I just, like, they just didn’t really seem to care. They were just like, okay, like, we need you to do this. What does it cost? And that was kind of it.

Yeah. Okay.

But, like, every time they need like, did you work with them multiple times? And every time they needed you, they booked a day rate.

No. They just said, can you do these, emails or whatever? And I was like, yeah, sure. And then booked myself in as, like, a day and build them the same.

So I was just kinda like, if I I would always say yes. I was just at a time in my life where if I was, I would be happy to give up a Sunday for, like, the extra money. So I’ll just be like, sure. Yeah.

I’ll do it.

Yeah. Okay. Yeah. I’m wondering about I’ll go ahead, Naomi.

The difference in these kind of agencies are specifically working on Google and social. They’re demand gen agencies, or or it’s usually either Google, or Google and social or LinkedIn.

So it could be like the ads aren’t working. It’s time to refresh the or we want to start a new campaign for this specific persona, or we have a new ABM approach that we want to do, and so we need copy but they don’t necessarily know when they’re gonna need those ads or when they’re gonna want to improve the landing page because it depends on how the campaign performs. And so there’s a level of unpredictability, and which is good to have work rolling in. Like a lot for most of my clients, I’ll have work coming in on a rolling basis.

And I think that having something that’s not connected to ours is definitely more efficient, but I I don’t think that possible to be efficient to the point where I can say like, okay, I can do this within a day.

Yeah. No. I mean, I know, like, some summer, she used to do, like, credits. I think, like, someone was talking about this in Slack today, but, so she would have, like, kind of a menu of what each credit can buy, and then the credits roll over if they weren’t used in, like, the month. So it was kind of like a retainer y type thing.

So she’d get paid, like, every month they’d buy, like, two credits or whatever.

So they would have to commit to a certain number of credits?

Yeah. Yeah. But then they could rush. She would let them roll over So if they only used one, she’d be like, okay, that’s fine. We can use it next month. If next month, you have, like, more clients. So that kept the client happy, but also had that kind of security of a retainer for her.

Yeah. I mean, to me, it’s kind of tricky because every time you work for an agency and they have multiple clients, you have to learn new things about each client in order to write for them. Right? So it’s like you’re taking on a new client every time. Even if you redo and you work for the same client effectively a month later, whatever.

But it’s still it’s a lot of, like, learning time.

Have you experienced that Naomi?

That it is.

I’m, like, Yeah. This is the first agency that I’ve Oh, okay.

Okay. Cool. So and that’s where it’s tricky with credits. We had our credit based agency years ago called Snap that Leanna and James now have.

And it was it was good in some ways, but you do have to spend time thus spend a credit on, like, learning a thing. Like, what’s the what is this product?

And so that has to be baked in, and that’s where I really like the VIP day.

Because it’s like I can do all sorts of things. In that time. I can, like, and if it’s really important to them, I guess I’m just worried, Naomi when you say you, like, you would sell them a landing page.

It’s fine. It’s doable.

It’s, how are the margins though? Like, the reason that I rarely recommend sub tracing to an agency is you just don’t make as much money because they’re charging what you would charge, and now they have to make a profit on you. Yeah.

No. They’re they’re giving me work. They’re the client.

Yeah. But they’re an agency, a demand gen agency that pays that gets paid by their clients.

Yeah.

They’re an agency. Yes.

But I’m not doing the subcontracting contracting.

There’s subcontracting to them. They’re they’re so the client has the contract with them, and they have a contract with you.

Right. So I’m the subcontractor.

Yeah. So you’re the subcontractor. Exactly. Okay. And so every new contract down is, like, losing money losing money losing money lose.

So if you have a subcontract you’re gonna pay them half of what you would charge, and the agency is gonna pay half of what they’re gonna charge at best on a good day. Because they also have overhead and all sorts of other expenses. So if they’re charging it’s probably if it’s demand gen, their performance base, they’re on retainer with the client, it possibly getting a percentage of how things perform depending on who the client is. Okay?

So if they’re making, let’s say, they’re making, they’re billing their client ten thousand dollars a month for services.

They, as a business, need to make a profit to continue to exist.

So they’re trying to get three thousand dollars off that. That leaves them with seven thousand dollars a month to spend on resources for that client. They have their own people that they’re paying and all of the expenses that go along with shipping something out, taking someone to lunch, whatever that other crap is too. And then comes money for the subcontractor.

That’s you. So that’s where I hear subcontracting, or work for an agency as a subcontractor. And, I don’t love it because you have to really optimize your time because you’re not gonna be able to make that much. As much money as you could if you were direct to the client. If you were like, I can do that for you instead and here’s what I charge.

And so that’s it. So how can you if you’ve got three thousand dollars that you might make off them in a month for that one client, let’s say, what can you do to ensure that you are maximizing the amount of money you get for the time you put in. Obviously, it’s all it’s always our game.

And that’s where a VIP day sounds like really good. You could charge two thousand dollars. They can budget that in easily for their differing clients. And as they’re planning on what to do next month with their clients and new clients they take on, they’re like, okay.

Well, Naomi can write a landing page in a day. If you can. Naomi can do, analysis in a day. So we always have to book for every client every month.

We need Naomi two days for each client. So we’re going to budget in four thousand dollars when we’re estimating something with clients. Right now, you have to figure out what they’re estimating with clients right now because of their thinking and have you it sounds like you haven’t talked to them about what you’re what you cost or have you?

Yeah. Give them a pricing sheet.

Okay. So you what what does your pricing sheet? What do you have on it, Naomi? What does it say?

I have an add landing page web copy.

I think I added research can bring it up.

Yeah. It’s like a it’s like a menu.

Yeah.

I made it very simple because, I I figured selling hours was just not going to be sustainable so I Yeah.

Figured this would be a good solution, but I didn’t over complicate it.

Yeah. It’s good not over comp of course. That’s great. And a rate sheet can be a good thing to share.

But if the objective is to make good money off them, on an ongoing basis.

So what’s wrong do you think is broken with giving them the rate sheet right now? What’s not working there?

It’s I I would say it’s more that I would like a more long term commitment, where if it’s just going to be, if it’s going to be like five to ten thousand chat, three to five thousand dollars a month.

Like, that would be good to have it, like, rolling in to have them on retainer.

If it’s gonna be just like a few like a thousand dollars here, maybe a few hundred dollars there, then it’s not going to be efficient. Yeah. But if they’re a marketing agency, then they’re gonna do this on a long term basis. And because tech is in such a bad place right now, more and more and more companies are choosing to outsource a lot of their marketing. So it’s also just practical because they’re trying to cut down on people in house.

Yeah. Yeah. There’s that. So okay. So all you’re really looking to do is set up a retainer with your this agency and then make sure that you aren’t working non got for them. Like, you’re having good boundaries around your retainer. Is that right?

Yeah.

So make sure that the effort that I put in to learning about each company pays off in the long run by not having to acquire new clients.

That meaning that is a long term relationship that is worthwhile because it’s not just like a couple hundred dollars here and there.

Yeah. Totally it. So what’s stopping you from having a conversation with them or have you had that conversation? I think if you gave them a rate sheet, you probably haven’t had the conversation then about, here’s what I would love to get out of this relationship.

Here’s the problem that I’ll solve for you. All of them but here’s the only way that that could work and here’s how great it’ll be when it does work. So the here’s the only way that will work part is I have to learn about all of your clients. Like, that’s that’s real work.

It’s if you had a salesperson, they would have to learn about all of those clients too. So understanding that. And by the way, I’m your scalable online sales person. So I need to learn everything about them.

I need this these engagements to go on. And you also need these engagements to go on. You need, you know, all of the reasons that they don’t wanna just, like, swap in and out crappy freelancers and just, like, have somebody that they love etcetera, etcetera. So the whole conversation, and then you tell them that you want a need and they need.

You position it as what is the best solution for them, a retainer minimum of six months for each client. Is that what you think it is for each client?

So each client that they have, if they have five clients, you have five different retainers with them, or you have one big retainer that covers everything.

See, I think, yeah, I think it would be too aggressive to say that I have five retainers with each of your clients. That’s fair.

Yeah. So it’s like one pool that they get to draw from. For their various clients.

Mhmm. That’s what you want. Is that right? Like a like a bucket. You’re the bucket every week. Yeah.

Because when I went into they were like sort of sold on me. They were like, how do we start? And I thought what I was gonna do was like I’ll just have you pay via credit card for the first project, and then we’ll open up a proposal. But then he was like, oh, well, actually we’d rather just be paid by invoice because that’s how we just manage everything. And so now I was like, oh, well I’ll send you a proposal. And then I thought, like, oh, well, I should have had the conversation that I was expecting to have afterwards, because I thought that they were just gonna pay via credit card who were like, oh, we just want one ad.

But I wasn’t because I thought that that would be a good way in and then afterwards, I’d be like, oh, I’d love to build a more long term relationship with you, because I can’t say like, well, we just wanna have a long term relationship on the star. That’s a little bit.

A little bit much.

So Is it?

I guess I wonder why would it be? If they’re pre sold on you, Why would it be too much to say, like, cool y’all.

Here’s how I work. And then say it’s like, you’re an agency and really, like, help them understand why the best thing to do is put you on retainer.

Know you mentioned the word aggressive a couple times, but to me, it’s only aggressive if you’re, like, if your tone is aggressive about it. Otherwise, it’s just They have a problem to solve. And you know demand gen agencies have it’s constant, test everything, and they need they need you to come up with hundred add variations in a day. So there’s going to be just lots and lots and lots and lots and lots and lots.

There’s a big numbers game too. Right? So So if you know the demand for what you have is real, then you can solve that. Who else are they gonna hire who can do as good a job as you can. Yeah.

No. Like, they they they got that. They were they were convinced that I was their that I was their person. But also for my sake, like how do I price that?

How do I price in testing and landing pages and ads on a rolling basis with all of these other things and potentially add variations, and then maybe nothing because the campaign is working, Yeah. That’s why I didn’t push it right away. Like Yeah. We could figure that we should have a, like a trial almost.

Yeah. I’m I I I to me, it sounds like I don’t think that the trial is a necessary thing, but I wasn’t in the conversations you’re in, obviously.

To me, it sounds like, okay. You just need to protect your time, but give them a lot of things that they need. Typically, I have not seen and I don’t know if your experience is different. Naomi, but when a campaign is going well, nobody sits back.

Like, now we’re, like, it’s just more. Like, oh, it’s going great. We can do even more. Or let’s shift you over to new client now where the campaign isn’t going as well and where we need your resources over there.

So for me, I hear this If they’re a big enough agency that you think they actually have money to spend on you, if they have a real need for copywriting services, conversion copywriting in particular, if that’s what’s going on and they already like you, but you don’t want to sell your life to them. Of course not, but you wanna be able give them a menu of services without them having to go through and pick and choose one and, like, call you up for one ad at a time. You know, because that’s not how this works. Why not sell them?

Can you sell them?

I don’t know if it has to be a specific day or whatever whatever that looks like. But to me, why not charge x amount for a retainer? This is what it costs to hire you. Say this is what it costs to hire me. And that’s it. And if they’re, like, that’s too expensive, well, then one that you you probably should have, like, spent more time in the sales process to make it so that they understand the value you can bring or two, they might not have ever been a good fit to begin with.

But I wouldn’t worry that it’s too aggressive to say it’s five thousand bucks a month for a retainer to retain me. You’ll get x many hours with that or better for you to have, like, outputs that gives you either a package of a hundred ads for one cloud, whatever. Like, you figured that out because you had the conversation with them. But you say this is the amount five thousand, ten thousand, whatever it might be. And it’s a minimum of six months.

I I don’t know. Is is there you would be wrong with that?

You wouldn’t you would skip the trial entirely and say these are my for all agencies.

I don’t know what the trial solves.

Well, I mean, it also might be budgeting constraints on their side. Like, he may love me, but he had to get the green light from their CFO because the CFO needs to green light everything these days.

For sure.

So other ways until proven yourself.

And I I think like proving yourself is something that I wouldn’t say you should ever even let in the conversation.

Nobody nobody who has proven themselves ever again says I have to prove myself. So to me, it sounds like, oh, I need to prove myself, is the thing that you say when you know that that’s not that common to be able to prove yourself. So it’s kind of a signal. Don’t say. Robin from your vocab.

Prove me fine. He needs to accrue my value.

And I get it, like, to see the level to the rest of the team because he’s not in charge of the the bank account.

There are a totally. And there are other ways to get the CFO to sign off on things. Right? It’s not necessarily going to be a trial.

It could be hey, if once you lock in six months, you automatically get ten percent off for the entire six month thing, which I don’t love discounting, but CFOs love discounting. So if you’re trying to say, get that CFO picturing this person who’s just trying to make sure that profits are great. What’s the solution for them? A trial Could be it. Don’t get me wrong, Naomi. It could be a trial thing. I just don’t know that that’s that’s a chance for them to go.

Was she perfect?

And it’s like, well, no. Nobody would be.

Rather, hey, I’m badass. You already like work that I do, you already need the job done.

What’s, like, the only thing that’s really gotta move you forward is getting the CFO happy So here’s what we do. And if if you sign on for six months, you get ten percent. If you sign on for twelve months, you get fifteen percent off. And now the CFO has something to work with. And everybody knows you can cancel any time, and the the lawyers will cover the contract with, like, after thirty thirty days notice to to cancel the contract, etcetera.

Yeah, I don’t I considering I already agreed to a trial for this specific agency, it would make more sense to say like Okay, like, send time a, send time a proposal with just like the price list that I have, and then say, okay, work with that, and then like, see how that goes, and then say, look, I have a limited availability if you want to get me on the books, then you can either then hear the packages I have for agencies.

Otherwise I Can I see the guarantee availability?

Yeah.

Or should I, like, call them up tomorrow and be like, oh, actually I wanna change everything and No.

If you’re already down the path. What I just don’t wanna do is have you become a commodity for this agency. That’s all. It’s just I want everybody in this room to go into every call in a power position. That’s that’s it. Like, that’s where we I don’t.

I don’t think I’m a commodity.

I I Oh, no.

I just a menu list is a commodity. That’s the thing. So it requires that you have a good, context for it. That’s all. So Naomi, if you’re already down that path, Cool.

Really the is the question then if you’re doing this trial, how do you lock them into something that’s profitable for you? After the trial ends. Is that what we’re looking for?

Yes. For this one specifically.

Yeah.

And I I guess for all of them because, like, I I also would not wanna commit to a tend to a huge retainer without having any sense of what to expect from somebody who’s relatively new at running a business.

Yeah. Justin. Definitely. Yeah.

Is that okay? Go for it.

Yeah. So I’ve been, speaking with Adri Yedlyn, he’s been, like, sharing a bit of, like, Blair. Is pricing strategy, and I it’s just so curious to me. And I wonder if it could work here.

So basically, offering pricing tiers, but doing it by the likelihood of success. So you’ve got the so the first one is basically your, like, champagne popping kind of retainer. Like, it’s like ten hair month you’d be, like, over the moon if you got it, and they get, like, x, y, and zed in it. And then your middle one is the one that you’re happy that’s the one you’re going for, like, the five k and it includes, like, this amount of deliverables it’s capped here.

And then your like lowest likelihood of success, which is one that’s meant to be like the best value for your time. So like a VIP day or something that you can and I wonder if you could do something like that presented in them like that. And then for the trial, do, like, a month under the kind of care that they want. So rather than doing, like, a trial is, like, an or something, be like, okay.

You wanna go for this option. Let’s try it, see how it goes, see if we need to, like, increase scope or decreased scope. And then, yeah, it was just a a thought.

No. I think it’s I think it’s a great idea I would love, in theory, I love it, but measuring success.

Well, it’s not like to increase the likelihood of success.

You’re gonna do, like, way more voice of customer research.

You’re is gonna include a lot more of that stuff.

Whereas when I’m working for agencies, don’t do any of that. Like, I don’t do that great job, to be honest, because they don’t, you know, they’re not paying me, like, the amount to go and interview their customers. So I’m like, okay, I’ll do your sales agent like, I’ll do it in a day. Like, and I don’t think of it as, like, good sustainable income. I treat it like a cash injection, like, just those, you know, when it’s opportunity to get a bit a bit of extra cash. If you wanted to yeah.

What was that about Revshare?

No.

I I thought that you were saying, like, like, if they Oh, like, no.

No. No. No.

No. It then performs well then.

Yeah. Yeah. No. It’s just like this is what I’ll do too. If you want the maximum chance of success, we’re gonna go for the, like, all in option if you Yeah.

Not etcetera.

Yeah. That could be a good way to go. Have you read Naomi pricing creativity?

Blaren’s.

No. It’s it’s got he’s got a bunch of books. But that’s it’s good. It’s very helpful, for something like this.

Yeah. So you’ve got the trial.

It’s really hard to say how to come up with, but I love Abby your ideas there with, like, you I can give you the full service everything every month for every client, or I can you could buy the VIP day, one a month or something, but at least a VIP day can keep you locked in contained and people don’t expect that they can reach out to you anytime, whereas a block of hours, I could reach out to you for one hour hypothetically on a Thursday and expect you to get back to me. The problem with trials, just as a side note, trials are good for systems. If this was a system that you were selling to them, then the trial would prove out the system or not, but the work we do is so custom.

It’s so specific to what’s going on in the market with the audience with the product. The offer with medium, all of it. That it’s very difficult for a trial to perform because the work we do often doesn’t perform until you’ve had a few takes at it. And you were able to go like, oh, that hypothesis was wrong, but look where it led us.

And then you can go along and get better and better and better. And that where, like, the payoff is with a really good copyright. That’s why agencies that’s why the agency you’re talking to doesn’t sign up for month to month. Because that would that does it doesn’t work.

It doesn’t work until you’ve committed to doing something, and trying a whole bunch of different things. I know for certain that demand gen agencies don’t do month to month.

So any any good ones at least don’t. So That’s my only pause for you going forward with trials. If it’s a system, it’s easy not to trial out. If it’s a human engagement, it’s very hard to trial.

And maybe go for a VIP day.

As like the easiest way in and then from there, they can start to look in to bring you in on projects and other things.

Yeah.

That’s my take.

I’ve done a bunch of VIP days with, a couple agencies too, and I feel like it’s a good, like like what Joe said, you don’t want them to be like, oh, we did an hour here and there or two hours for this. It’s like, it’s a contained main time. And I’ve had an easy time, like, selling those.

Sorry.

My biggest concern with the IP days is really the creative component because so much of what in in more performance based mediums the design is such a big part of it that I really have to work very, very closely with the designer to make sure that they follow, like, conversion CRO principles and UX principles, the way that I would like them to.

So I’d be worried that the VIP day, like, oh, oops, the designer isn’t available. You have come back on Monday and finish up for us. So that’s that’s really my biggest concern with VIP Day. Do you have that issue?

I haven’t had that issue because I’m working and like working on different kinds of things, but it sounds like if if that is a thing, even if it’s not a VIP day, is that still going to be annoying schedule if they’re like, oh, hey, the designer’s not available today. Like, is it still gonna be like they’re kinda calling the shots and they’re like, oh, actually, let’s You know, does that make sense? Or does it have the IP plan out? Sure. But even if it’s not a VIP day, they stop the plan ahead and be like, this is when the designer’s available. Right? So whether it’s a VIP day or not, you have to to expect for your schedule.

Right?

Yeah. Like, you don’t pay for that premium, like, then they’re not paying, like, that’s the fact that you work, like, on UX for the designer, like, that’s that’s more value really than a VIP days for, I would think. So that’s where, like, if you were to offer the different options. It’s like the more expensive option is the one where, like, you’re gonna collaborate a bit more with their team and they’re gonna pay, like, the premium for that.

Yeah.

And it’s two VIP days maybe, right, where you get in a flow of VIP day one is you doing the work VIP day too is you doing the checks over how it’s been implemented and then making any changes accordingly.

If that’s a real if that’s a real problem or the other side is, it’s an agency. It’s a subcontract.

Sometimes you just have to be okay with stepping back. You hand over the copy doc. You give all the best direction you can do. The designer is going to do do what the designer is going to do, though. And so, unless you work directly with them very often, and can establish a relationship there. It can be tough to get a designer to do what the subcontracted copywriter wants them to do.

Yeah. Doesn’t mean it’s impossible. It’s just like, do you pick your battles here and just like, is If if working with agencies was your full business model and that’s what you were doing going forward, then we could come up with different things here. But my hope and prayer is that it is not so that we can get you, like, scoring big ass projects and competing with that very agency, not necessarily demand gen. But, depending on what you what you want to do, of course, that’s the goal is not to keep. I is that is that in line, or do you want to keep working with agencies in the long term?

Well, I want to work with demand gen professionals because that’s really my area of expertise. So if they are in an agency, maybe that would work. If they’re in house, great. But Yeah. If they’re in house, maybe they already have a team of copywriters that they they they work with, or they have very strict brand principles, and they don’t wanna outsource anything.

So, like, is there a sweet spot?

Yeah. Working with in host demand gen.

Twenty twenty one.

I have worked with in host demand gen, and they are the best. They get excited about everything that you do because they don’t have a lot of fresh ideas coming in. So That’s where if you love DemandGen, cool, you know, do some stuff with the agencies, whatever, have it be that cash that you need, have it be some, like, experience that you get more and more and more with them so you can try different stuff. But then if you like DemandGen, go work as a freelancer for demand gen that’s in house at, like, almost any e commerce company, and it’s it’s fun and ego boosting, which never hurts. And you make good money. Yeah.

Right. So that’s what I’ve been that’s what I did in house for many years.

Nice. Love it.

That was what I did over and over and over and over again.

So I know that they that they like me.

The the trick is figuring out, do they have the budget to hire me, hire somebody out out of house.

And do they are they even thinking that way?

Yeah. And it’s true that a lot of tech companies have laid off people.

Not necessarily because they have to these days, because it looks good on the books to do it. But hiring agencies can be have its own downfalls. It can be expensive too. So it’s not that they’re only looking at agencies. They’re also looking at freelancers, to fill in those gaps. So I would just keep that in mind too. Yeah.

Okay. Cool.

That was fun.

I didn’t mean to think up so much time.

No. That was a lot of working through a big thing. Hopefully, we got, you know, kind of nodding things a bit, which takes work.

Good. Let us know what what happens with this conversation. Naomi over in Slack too. Cool. Well Yeah. I know we’ve got three minutes technically left, even though we’re over sort of by thirty. Does anybody have any last thoughts or question or, like, a rapid something where we good to go.

Yeah. Quick question.

When is the the free month trial, like, officially and, like, for CSP. Do you know the day?

That’s a Sarah. I think February. I think this is the free month for you.

Yeah.

Yeah. I just wondered if there was, like, a I think the date.

I think the next payment is on February twenty eight, I think.

Okay. Yeah.

What I think? Check with Sarah.

Okay. Yeah. Sarah knows all that stuff. Yeah. Okay. Thanks, Abby. Anybody else?

Alright. Have a good week. We will see you in Slack. And, this Thursday is Percy’s mindset session on rethinking failure.

So make sure you check that out if you struggle with things like the word failure.

Cool. Okay. Thanks, everybody.

Have a good day.

Thanks, Joe. Bye.

Worksheet

High Class Problems

Transcript

Today is, copywriting lesson, and then that’s followed an AMA that will go until we’re just done talking.

There’s a small group of us today, so no need to, maybe it’s just like a good time if you have, like, something you’re going through that you maybe didn’t want to share with more people or something, which I know happens.

It could be a good time to talk through that today too. So, as usual, be ready to bring any questions that you got any wins to preface them, and that can be any kind of win, just celebrating those good things that happen. This is being recorded. The worksheet for today’s session already went out that went out on Friday. It is the high class problem sell, which I’m really excited about. We’ve used it a couple times. And then I’ll show you the one example for a new page in progress that we’re working on, and how we use it there.

But as usual, yeah, just kind of be with me here, set your intention, just be present, closing down other distractions. If you can, I know life is real and all around us, but, whatever you can do to just kind of ignore your phone for a bit and other, you know, notifications that come in?

Yeah, everybody’s feeling cool. I’m I’m feeling really good today. Awesome. Okay. So open up that work If you haven’t already, got it open.

I will only share my screen if you don’t know what worksheet I’m talking about. Because what I’m going to do today is, a little different format that we’re trying for our training now which so far I quite like, but I’ve never done it live. And I have never done it one live, two unsupported by somebody on my team who can, like, talk and fill in the gaps while I’m like, oh, no. The text’s broken. So we’re just gonna try it here today, and see what happens.

But yeah. So the context for this is, you’ve got. I mean, we have so many ways to try to get into stories, into the argument that we wanna make when we’re writing copy.

Lots of different things that you can do but sometimes when it comes down to it and you’re actually writing the page or writing the email, I find that things can feel boring and repetitive pretty fast, not for your right not for your reader necessarily, but for you as a copywriter, I mean, we do data driven things and use better practices and frameworks, etcetera, but it can be tedious sometimes when it’s like a rule of three. So you’re always hitting three points in a row and it’s just like, kinda wanna break out of it. So that’s how I feel about it. The longer you write copy, the more likely you are to feel that way too.

If if this isn’t resonating, stick around. It’s going to eventually. So I like finding and identifying, and I’m sure you do too, identifying little new ways to attack parts of pages in particular. So what I’m gonna show you today is from a long form sales page, I first saw it on someone else’s long form sales page.

I wanna say a bazillion years ago, but it could have been last year. It all blends into one now. And I was really I was really interested it. So I kinda broke it apart and tried to reverse engineer what they were doing.

Tried it in a sales email for our freelancing school, promotion over the Black Friday weekend.

And, yeah, I’m feeling kinda cool about how it could be an unlock for you when you’re stuck. So, I’m going to share Just half a second while I choose the right one.

Okay.

Cool. So you should be seeing my iPad now.

Oh, are you?

Yeah.

Fancy.

I’ve just never shared my iPad before. So, but this is where we’re going to be working today. So This is an example of the opening of that that sales page that we’re working on for copy school pro. So you set up a big promise, like big.

The bigger, the better, and it doesn’t have to be a promise necessarily as in we promise you’ll get this. But something that’s really going to grab their tension. So really thinking about your audience and what they’re trying, what they most want. And that’s where on the worksheet, we have the, what’s really good about this is I can use three monitors now, which is cool.

We’ve got good outcome and then a high class problem. So we often talk about the good outcomes that people have. And these are good outcomes. These here are good outcomes that you might be looking for.

Right? It’s not a promise because it’s in the first person in quotation marks, which, of course, as anybody who has taken any of my training knows, unless I feel like I’m saying it all the time, but maybe I’m not, first person headlines in quotation marks are my favorite across the board. So how I, big thing, big thing, big thing, ending with the big thing, and then and then overcoming an objection right here.

But don’t you need a lot of money that, etcetera. So with the fifty thousand dollar ad budget, which is basically nothing. Okay. So we’re capturing their attention.

I’m not this doesn’t mean it’s ADA. I know as soon as I hear its attention, doesn’t mean it’s ADA. It might be though. But we’re gonna break it really fast.

So don’t try to look too hard for a framework here yet. Okay. Then we get into kind of something a little bit old school. So that is this.

Step one is opening up this idea that there will be something that follows later, a step two. So a small, not curiosity gap, but like an open loop. Right? There’s more to come.

This is just the first step, even if you forget that later. The point is not that you’re waiting around for step two, but it’s an interesting way to start, opening up that attention into something more kind of like a little more intrigue.

Re time, really old school. You don’t have to do any of this stuff for the framework that I’m teaching you or the cell that I’m teaching you today to work. I’m just walking you through kind of the decisions that were made here.

From the desk of, again, old school. I do like old school, founder of copy hackers, grader of copy school, inventor of conversion copywriting, and this is an important thing, mother of kittens, just because what we’re about to get into, we need to set a tone. So far, the tone is kind of bro y. Right? Like, look at all the, you know, money you can make and crap like that. And that can feel a little bit weird.

The tone can be a little bit. We have to make what I’m trying to do here is set it up so that we can have a little bit of fun going forward because this framework, as I’ve used it, has been about tapping into, like, a little bit of fun. The high class problem cell is, like, we’re going to talk about some high class problems And if you make it sound like a problem, that’s not gonna work. Right? Like, that’s the bad thing we don’t want to do.

Okay. So I’m just gonna pop over to the next one. So then we get into the next part of the page.

So we set set up this big cool thing that you can do. Oh, Sorry here. Let me just go back to this. So it opens with so I’m guessing this isn’t the first time you’ve landed on this isn’t the first page you’ve landed on with big promises and enticing numbers.

And I’ll get to that in a second, but let me ask you a question. Do you actually want to? And this really means you could have put almost anything before this part. So I’ll get to that in a second is like, again, you could have done anything before that.

Accept what follows here in these bullets that are about to follow down here is we’re basically building on that cool outcome. So let’s say your cool outcome that you’re trying to hook somebody with is you’re gonna land a thousand customers in a month. You’re gonna land a thousand thousand dollar customers in a month. Really big, really desirable thing that they want that would, attract their attention.

And then from there, we’re going to find that less desirable outcome of that thing, the high class problem. So again, it could be anything to open.

But we want the bullets that follow the good outcomes and then the high class problems, to speak to that thing that just hooked them. So we have, and I’ll get to that in a second, but let me ask you a question. Do you actually want to? Then we have good outcome, Deliver World class copy.

Number one thing. It’s gonna be short in, like, actual length because we’re trying to pull them in. So a short bullet most of the sentences are short at this point. As you can see, they all end here.

Make lots of money for your clients or team and also for yourself good outcome. Cool. And now we start getting into the high class problems associated with those good outcomes, and we spend more time on them because we’re having more fun with it. We’re just kind of like enjoying our time talking to our prospect about the things they want being frankly as we’re about to see similar to the things that, we want.

So do you actually want to have super smart people ping you late at night when they’ve needed, when they need to crack a conversion problem when you become their go to copywriter? That’s a high class problem. You just got a ping in the middle of the night, but it’s pretty solid because someone cool is asking you for help and they trust you a lot. Do you really want to?

Do you actually want to go through life with a sense of guilt that everything is falling into your lap and you haven’t had to toil in the coal mine or perform open heart surgery after building years of schooling to get it? Wanna get so good at selling products that jealous people begin whispering about you and you have to start hanging out with a whole new crew of high achieving nerds? These are high class problems. And the reality is your prospect should want them.

Right? So then we say great. Then you and I want the same things, and then you continue on telling the rest of the story and still building on the stuff that you did. Although I can’t help you with another high class problem, which is the anxiety that overachievement brings or an outcome of a high class problem recommend a marriage counselor for when you spend half your summer texting with a network of smart people who’ve sought you and your genius out.

I can do these things, and then you get into what those things are, and that’s what we’re really here to talk about. But you’re capturing their tension with this like unexpected outcome.

And it’s not just the usual good news, good news, good news, life is always gonna get better as you get better and the levels are higher. Life is like way better. There’s real problems that are gonna come with it, but we’re not positioning them as problem problems. Just as a high class problem. Does this make sense?

Can you imagine how you might use this in your work?

Potentially? Okay. Cool.

So I’ll stop sharing that part and then just quickly walk through the worksheet.

So that you’ve got it. Okay. So the high class problems sell, as always, the worksheet and lesson will help you find a new way into writing about comes so that new way in particularly if you’re bored, but also if you just wanna try something else. Write sales emails or sales pages with that What you wanna do is list out your good outcomes and then the high class problem that comes with it. And this is the framework effectively, bit of a template for you to use. Cool.

Have what you need to use it. Alright. I’m not gonna make you. We can go through and do an exercise if you’d like to try it out. Otherwise, we can just kind of hop into question time or talking time.

Good talking time. Does anybody have any questions they wanna bring to the table today?

Everyone’s quiet.

Do you wanna do this as an exercise?

Go right for something? Okay. I think that’s a good use of time. So what I would love for you to do if you have a productized service, if you have a package of some kind, anything that you already have pre written copy for. So ideally not for a new campaign or something.

Anything that you might have on your site today or that you wish you had on your site today?

I would like you to take the next ten minutes to come up with the good outcomes and the high class problems and then try to fill this part in.

Doable?

Okay. Cool. I’m gonna stop sharing.

And then be sure to come off mute if you have any questions as going through it, and we’ll be back in ten minutes.

Joe, can I ask a quick question?

Love it. Yes.

I’m really I really struggle with ten saying. Right? It’s just my thing.

Like, am I am I writing it, like, in the future terms as or, like, am I writing it as if it’s happening or so it’s do you actually want to in the future?

Yes. So do you actually want to but it’s still written in the present tense. Deliver, not will deliver. So deliver world class copy. Do you actually want to And then it’ll just follow in, I guess, the imperative, really, because it’s just two. Does that make sense?

Yeah. It’s just my noob thing. Like, this is why I can’t write fiction because I struggle with Ted’s sake. That no.

That’s like Latin. Did you take Latin in school?

No.

Oh, okay. That messed me up for some things. So when I when people struggle with these things, I’m like, oh, you probably took Latin. So yeah, this is just like, do you actually want to, and then these are all just present tense. Do you want to have a call that sort of thing. Right? Just happening right now.

Yeah. Okay. Thanks, Jay. Sure.

Alright. Should we talk about that’s how to go?

Any luck?

Did it suck? Was it awesome? Is it hard? Did you get anywhere?

That was fun. I liked it.

Okay. What’d you work on, Abby?

I did for my day one evergreen package.

And, yeah, what I like about it is because, I find myself, like, using the same kind of messaging it with different clients like this kind of like, you can make more money. You can make six figures, and it’s starting to feel, like, quite stale. So I like the the high problem approach is a farmer around that, and I feel like it really boosts credibility because you’re not just saying, like, this is how awesome, like, life is. It’s like. Yeah. Yeah, take them out. So, yeah, I really enjoyed it.

Okay. Cool. That’s wicked. That’s how I feel about it too. Like, it’s just a more interesting way to position of good outcome?

Yeah. Yeah. Cool. Everybody else needs them any anything that didn’t feel that good or, like, you’re not it’s not clicking.

It wouldn’t work for you maybe.

I like that it’s very fresh, but it feels a little bit it feels a little bit exaggerated to me.

It feels a little bit Oh, yeah.

It’s on the sales. Page.

It’s gonna be a little. I hear you there. So what would you what how would you modify it?

Any idea?

Well, I mean, the the goals that I have are are more immediate goals. But the tone feels a little bit of still feels a little bit much even though the actual things I’m writing about are realistic.

Okay. Can you read yours and just share so we can hear what that sounds like?

Yeah. So I am looking at the, the service page I have for, PVC.

So Google Landing Pages and, social ads. So I wrote do you actually want to watch your pipeline fill up with qualified leads effortlessly?

Capture all of the great top of funnel demand your social media. Is generating, become so efficient at attracting new leads that AEs are so overwhelmed with demos that they tell you to slow down the campaign so they can focus on the lead they have and attract so many good opportunities that you actually cringe when influencers cry about pmax ridiculously broad, broad campaigns, and Google’s ever changing algorithm on LinkedIn over and over again.

But the tone, the tone still feels off to me even though those are like very realistic. Things.

Okay. What feels off to you? I guess I wonder as, like, for me, I I heard it and I was like, cool. That sounds dope. That sounds like Yeah. Who wouldn’t react well to that?

Some won’t. Some won’t. But usually, those are the people who are just like I I won’t I won’t think about those ones as much as the people who are like, yeah, I’d like to have that problem, you know, and you’re like really getting there, but how did everybody else feel when you were hearing it?

Any notes for Naomi?

I thought it was really cool. I liked it. Yeah. I didn’t feel like the tone was off. I mean, obviously, I don’t know what you’re going for, like, generally with your tone, but, yeah, I thought it was cool.

Okay. Yeah.

I didn’t feel like the tone pull up either, but yeah, again, same as Abby, but the tone didn’t seem like off to me for off footing.

And I know it can feel like a certain audience, your audience, Naomi, wouldn’t respond well to that, and you may absolutely be right. I would just be curious to test it out, give it a shot, see if they do.

Yeah.

Cool. Awesome. Anyone else wanna share?

Yeah. I’ll share mine. I’ll be. I’ll be able to get feedback on it. Okay. Cool.

It’s a bit it’s obviously a bad fish drop. Okay.

But let me ask you a question. Do you actually want to wake up to sales every day, automate your entire sales process? Miss out on the I mean, Rausch, you usually get when you get a sales notification because it happens so darn frequently that the sensible thing to do is to turn stripe notifications off altogether.

Stop having those indulgent. Ugh, it’s just so stressful conversations with fellow course creators because you’ve hopped off the live launch roller coaster and are now making launch size revenue while on vacation.

Having awkward tail between your legs conversation with your SSO when they ask why you spent twenty k on ads this month and you have to loan that you turned that twenty k into two hundred and twenty k, and now you’d like to buy a vacation rental five minutes down the road from the end loss.

It’s fun. That’s fun. Those are some high class problems to have to have that awkward conversation anyway.

I just can’t relate to the last point about moving close to your in laws. But other than that, it was so infuriating that you’re that good at writing copy that quickly, which I always tell you that.

That’s awesome. Yeah. It really does it was what I liked was. It was so great about qualifying who she’s speaking to. It’s ridiculous.

I mean, if you can’t relate to that, you’re gone and Yeah.

It’s a good side effect. Right? Like, all of these other outcomes of that. That’s really a really good point.

Yeah. Thanks, Jessica.

And you can tell you had fun writing it. It doesn’t sound like it was a slog or you, like, it gets I think it’s exciting. Yeah.

Yeah.

I think that it’s, like, it’s a fun framework to use. It’s, like, nice to to deviate from, like, the usual, like, I just always use PAS.

So Yes. Same. Yeah. Cool. Anyone else wanna share? Jessica?

Yeah. Let me follow Abby.

Jessica.

No. I honestly I mean, I could It was for my seasonal sale thing, which I think you know I’m fleshing out to turn from a what used to be a productized service like thing to a signature.

So I and actually I get I don’t know if this is I think where I struggle is the whole dream state because I feel like I haven’t confirmed this desire for a e commerce client yet. That they really see the connection between. No. No. You can really double your, you can increase your sales for your seasonal sale. But at the same time, you can be creating these long term relationships.

And so it kind of I think that’s where I struggle. So, I mean, I can read you parts of it, but it you know, it’s nowhere near what Abby’s is and it’s partial as per usual with me. Jessica.

Read the whole m thing.

We wanna hear get to that.

Do you actually want to double your next seasonal sale revenue? See a massive increase in LTV over the next? Whatever months, clear out your inventory and have to work quickly with your team to figure shit out. Provide on-site therapy because your team dressing out and worried they can’t get orders out on time, which will inevitably lead to unhappy customers.

And that’s as far as I got.

Cool.

Took a little extra negative on the last one there. It wouldn’t pull back on that one a bit, but no. It was good.

It’s yeah. Just make sure it stays a high class problem. Like Okay. Well, yeah. Like, my diamond shoes are too tight. That’s gotta be the effect. Right?

So yeah.

Okay.

Cool. Cool. Love it. Jessica, you did that so fast. Really?

Oh, thank you. I’m always asking I’m begging Abby for tutorials on how to be fast. That’s what I wanna know.

You just did it.

Nice.

Nice. Cool. Anyone else?

I won’t put you on the spot by calling on you, but I’m probably looking at you.

No one.

Alright. Alright, Katie. Welcome to the crew. You just missed the the tutorial there, but you’ll get the replay after. So I think it I think we had fun with it.

So yeah. Now, if anybody has any questions or wants to talk shop, what are you going through right now? What should you be working on that you’re not that we can help, like, unlock? Jillian.

Okay. I have well, I’ll start with a win. It’s not a money win. I guess I shared that in Slack recently, but my current win is that, I’ve been severely low in iron for like my whole life and didn’t know it.

So I was like this year I’ve been like fainting and like feeling really dizzy and I’m finally back a normal iron level. So it means I can exercise again, which is life changing. So I wasn’t really able to exercise this past year. But it really helps with, like, energy and productivity.

And it’s really Yes. Exciting. So I was going to use it in Doing a lot of stuff.

Congrats. That’s amazing. Yes.

So that’s why I win.

Coming with a little more energy.

Huge. Energy is everything. Yes.

Everything. Yeah.

So on that note, my question is maybe a bit unwieldy, but as I mentioned, I’m like I was going through your training again from a couple weeks ago.

Started watching Shane’s training.

And I’m thinking about, like, the brand also reading PenX is easier than two x, and so I just feel like I have a lot of ideas. Swirling and kinda wanted to like throw them out there and just like get some thoughts.

So I’m focusing on pricing pages, which is a new, you know, I haven’t worked in SaaS that much. I worked with a lot of different companies on websites, a little bit of SaaS that like kind of across the board. So I’m trying to figure out how to balance, like, my current client, and so I do websites with who are not SaaS primarily, and still have, like, my website is geared towards that. I kinda wanna put up a different website so that I can still serve my current customers in the meantime and not be like out money and just, you know, diving into this new thing. Yeah. So the idea that I have is, like, I know you said the brand really starts with, like, your opinion and your viewpoint, which I feel like I’m still developing, but I have, like, a general idea since no one’s really talking about pricing pages yet, which is that like everyone’s kinda missing the point. Of the pricing page, like, they’re all doing it wrong, basically.

And that’s, like, very general. There’s more that goes into it, but the the name that I have or the idea for, like, a book and a podcast and maybe, like, my site, I’m wondering if they can all be the same, is, like, the pricing point. I’m talking about how I don’t know if that’s, like, even a good title or not, but that’s the idea that I’ve been working with. Okay.

Just like, yeah, talking about how everyone’s missing the point, and like they’re all treating it like, you know, they’re putting so much time into their other pages and optimizing, and then they get to the pricing point and it’s just like they get to the pricing page and everything just deflates. Like, that’s the point of the sale, and it’s like, you know, very matter of fact. Here’s the even big brands, like even huge companies they look at are doing this. I think they’re all kinda dropping the ball at that point.

When it should be like the height of excitement value and, like, it’s the most critical point. Yeah. Absolutely. I know it’s a big I’m like rambling now, but, like, I’m just wondering if, like, Should I go in this direction? Because I’m, like, wanting to start doing this stuff, but I just, like, wanna know if that makes sense if it’s, like, on the right track to start with.

Okay.

I’ll jump in first and anybody who would like to add anything.

I’m so happy that you’re doing this, Jillian. Like, I know I’ve expressed that to you, but men, there’s nothing but room out there for this. And it’s it’s like, that’s it’s the money page. Right? Like, it seems like such an easy sell once you start raising awareness for the problem.

Sounds like you understand what your point of view is. I know you said it’s developing, but it’s like y’all are doing it wrong. Like, that’s a good place to start. Right?

Especially since it’s, like such a blue ocean still. There’s not that much competition out there. So I think it’s safe to go with something big like you’re doing it all wrong. Like, full stop.

That’s it. Like, you’re I’m you’re gonna need a lot of help, and I can help you with that. It leaves a lot of room for you to have thought leadership, and to say contrary in things or to, like, make them aware of things that they hadn’t had any clue about, which is always good for, you know, likes on so and comments and things like that. So the pricing point, how did you get to that name?

I don’t know. How do we get to anything?

There. I think it like came to me first. I also thought the URL was available. Also it kind of like ties into this whole thing of like like maybe I can say what the point is. Like, everyone’s missing the point. Like, they think the point is this, but the point is really this.

And also, like, Yeah. I don’t know. That was kind of the the main. And it seemed like kinda short and Yes. It’s not gonna be a subhead.

Like, if it was a book, there’d be like a subhead of I don’t know what that is yet, but Yep.

Totally agree. Yeah.

Yeah.

I think great. And it does, like Jessica chatted out.

Leaves a lot of room for expansion.

Yeah, and you can speak to value, like, what the actual point of pricing is. Right? And those are bigger conversations that are really intriguing. Yeah.

Everyone loves it.

Yeah.

Who else wants to share thoughts with Jillian?

Can I can I offer a, perspective? Sure.

When it comes to SAS, you should keep in mind that there are a lot of very complicated SaaS products that don’t have a pricing page because a lot of that happens in sales negotiation.

Because a lot of times they have to customize the software to fit the solution.

And it doesn’t necessarily have to be like a fifty thousand dollar software product. It happens at lower pricing points too, and a lot of companies choose not to put pricing anywhere on the website because either they’ve tested it or they believe that adding the pricing will increase the, or will reduce conversion rate, regardless of whether that’s true or not. That’s what a lot of companies think. And it may be true on desktop versus mobile or the reverse.

So I would make I think that it would be worth while to expand the conversation, they use because they they usually have a plans page that just doesn’t have pricing on it and it goes through like what you would get with the enterprise suite versus the mid tier versus the small, mini business tier. So I would make sure to not leave them out of the conversation.

Because there are a lot of companies that fit into that category, and your point can still be relevant. It would just have to be adapted to a much more business mindset.

Well, and I think that that’s a fair point. I think it does speak to the need to just identify who that audience is.

I think the SaaS that you’re talking about, Jillian, are people who have Who have.

Have a debt that says pricing in the nav of which there are bajillion so versus people who have sales teams. So we’re talking more people who are product led growth and are likely to have pricing pages at some point that they, and usually, visitor facing ones, and then behind the scenes.

Post use post activation ones. Yeah. Is that accurate, Jillian?

Yeah. That makes that makes sense. But, yeah, it’s a great point, Naomi.

Thanks for thanks for Yeah.

There’s a huge market. SaaS is enormous, obviously.

So it’s just really identifying. Okay. These are although it can be useful to get the enterprises that don’t have pricing pages, it’s just like anybody who doesn’t have copy. It’s really I can’t do much for you.

Like, you’re gonna need to believe in copy or else. It’s like, I can’t sell you copy school, and you can’t sell a person without a pricing page. Pricing page insights. So cool.

Yeah. Awesome. Okay. Anybody else wanna share?

With Jillian or feedback on what Jillian’s working on.

Nope. Awesome.

Jillian, you feeling good?

Yeah. I love that.

It’s like a book cover.

Yeah. And it gives it fine to have, like, you know, a, like, a book, like, if it was a book and a podcast, and, like, even the site, like, just have it all have the same name, like, even where I’m selling my services, keep the same name for everything.

That’s I mean, g n Claire did that with forget the funnel. Yeah. Everything is forget the funnel.

And I mean, juries out. It’s they’re doing, like, a bad ass business. So I would say it’s probably, like, a good Studiesing that story brand, same thing.

Mhmm.

Yeah. So probably okay. A thing to overthink at least.

Okay. I well, I got the URL for it, so I think it’ll just, like, start and I can keep my current site, like, with my current customers.

And kind of start doing the new thing at the new place.

Yeah. Totally. Totally. Cool.

Oh, thanks everyone.

Thanks. Thanks for sharing a nice win.

Excellent. Life changing.

I mean, energy for real though. Like, I have a new energy going with some life changes that I’ve made too, and it’s like energy. It’s a good thing. It changes everything. So that’s cool.

Anybody else wanna share what they’re working on or going through or struggles? Esther Grace.

Hey. Can everyone hear me?

Yep.

Okay. Awesome. So a win. I shared this in channel already, but copy hack is closed. Still excited about that.

Well done.

Thank you. And okay. So I need help with lead generation.

So I’ve nailed down my ideal clients, my customer avatar, all of that.

My offer, even a bit of the delivery system, But right now, I really just want to get on more sales calls.

So I realized last week that I love sales calls. So I did resales calls in the past two weeks. And just those three made me feel so energized about my business. I’m like, this is awesome.

Like, I love talking to these people and selling them on what I on what I do. So where I am right now is I’m also, like, couple of us here. I’m also reading ten x is easier than two x. So I’m not creating any plans to just gradually increase revenue from year to year.

Like, this was one of the thing, Joe, I think you talked about during the CSP info session. About want to be a copywriter who’s gradually increasing revenue from year to year and then in five, ten years before you hit, like, five hundred k. You want to be the one that just ten x is essentially. So that’s kind of where my mindset is now.

It’s more of how do I get this new offer, this new system that I’m building to generate one m in revenue in the next twelve months. And I actually ran the numbers, and I realized it’s actually very possible.

Okay.

It would just take, like, two clients with a high retainer fee and a performance based assistance.

It’s email marketing, so I can do performance basis as well and track everything. So it would literally say two clients if I was going to work on it solo. But if I was building a small team, then I can take on even more. So just running those numbers made me realize how possible it is for me. And so now it’s just like, okay. How do I get on those sales calls to book those two major clients that are going to bring in the revenue.

So what are you doing for lead gen right now? What’s top on your list?

So right now, I’ve been doing a lot of warm outreach. So just people I know asking for referrals, The the that has been my most active lead gen method. So it’s like being in groups, responding to messages, networking, pretty much.

Thought about cold outreach because I’m also still doing my authority building, like, systems. I’m still doing all of that, but I’m like, okay. I still want to get those leads, like, in the next one thirty days, thirty, sixty days. So I’m trying to do some more active, outreach methods as well. So that’s pretty much where I am.

Okay. So how many people are you reaching out to? A day for the warm leads. Let’s pause cold. We’ll ask that next, but warm leads, how many a day?

About two a day. K.

Do you think that’s enough?

About ten people.

Yeah.

Yeah. And so it’s a numbers game. Right? Like, There’s the two. There’s several ways you can go about this. One part is authority building stuff with content that you put out there all the time and then bigger content, and that can feel like a long game. It doesn’t have to be, but it also is a long game too.

Then we’re talking warm leads and cold outreach. So outreach to warm and outreach to cold. It’s good to do both.

But the more you have to do a lot of Right? Like, this is you’re reaching out to people, and you have to hit them right and at the right moment. So It’s a numbers game. So if you’re just doing two a day, what’s stopping you from doing twenty a day?

Oh, so the warm outreach, I just don’t know that many people.

That’s what you think. You don’t know that many people. But I would say really, like, think through everybody that you know and that they know. And I know that can feel like, oh, aren’t I getting in people’s way? I mean, you’re an entrepreneur and this is part of the job. If if your goal is get more leads in because you wanna get to a million dollars a year.

You have got to earn what you want, and that’s how you earn it. It’s hard. It’s hard, but you pick up the phone or you send the email, and but you have to do a lot of it, like, a lot a lot.

Like, an uncomfortable amount. And this is where some people, when they have, like, partners, and they’re both invested in it. That can, like, you spread the job out across two people, which is why a lot of people end up building companies together because it’s a lot of quantity, quantity, quantity, and then there’s the cold outreach. And it’s a doable thing.

People do it all the time. Don’t do it. That’s because I didn’t have to do it. But if I had to do it, it would be a matter of, like, go a hundred a day.

And this is like figure out, you’ve said you’ve you’ve run the numbers. So if What’s your close rate right now? Do you happen to know what it is when you get someone on a call? How many people close out of ten?

So I haven’t had that many sales calls.

That’s the problem with Okay.

Yeah. That was right. Yeah.

So getting in leads, so you wanna make sure that you’re getting these leads into a sales process that isn’t just going to, like, burn up all of these people that you spoke with. But you’re energized about them when you actually get to talk to them and have that sales call.

Make sure you’re running that right. So we have that Huka, sales call training this Wednesday, attend it. Take notes. It’s smart.

And it’s an hour to fucking nail this stuff. So attend that.

And then it’s if you’re gonna do leads, cold outreach and warm, the numbers game, get up every morning, put it in your calendar, do it when you have energy, do the hard thing, personalize the cold stuff, obvious we’ve got that training in copy school dot copy hackers dot com.

But it’s it’s an because it’s a numbers game, if you get one and one hundred people to hop on a call with you.

You gotta, like, that’s why you have to do. A hundred of them a day. You can’t do two a day. It’s not gonna lead to anything except for frustration.

And you’re like, nothing works. No. It it can work, but it’s you have to do Does that make sense? So what I would like you to do is put together, like, a list of warm outreach and cold that you can do, like, give yourself a a to do list of every single day.

I’m going to reach out to five people I know and fifty people I don’t know every morning without fail. And if you can get in that habit, which you have to get. This is your job. You have to get in that habit.

Then you can start to see the needle move, and then you’ll be more inspired to go like, okay. Well, if I’m doing fifty cold outreach, cold attempts a day, And it’s bringing in four people.

If I double it to a hundred, now I’ve got eight, and that’s a lot better to deal with, and you’re gonna get so much better at cold outreach that you can outsource it to a VA because you’ll have it nailed down what to say, how to say it, how to get people onto that call, how to get them to show up, Like, all these reps, all this practice work is the stuff that’ll get you there. But two reps, and you expect you’re gonna, like, build muscle, I lifted the weight twice.

It’s gonna take a little more than that. But you’re doing it. Just do more of it.

Yeah.

And would you see those are the, like, two main, like, lead gen strategies? Or is there anything I’m missing besides those two of an authority?

Oh, yeah.

No. There’s more. It depends if you have money to spend. If you’ve got money to spend, there’s lots of other things you can do. And it doesn’t have to be a lot, but you have to have, like, fifty bucks a day to spend boost things to hire people to do the work for you, stuff like that. I would say start there. Start getting traction.

There. Your immediate network is the place to go first. The people you know that you’re just not thinking of how to really go after them, and then it’s follow-up. As well without saying the word follow-up.

Like, it’s it’s, hey, I talked to my cousin who has a skin care who works at a skin care company. I talked to her one time about it. Okay. Well, now you have to go back and talk to her again.

And again, and wear her down. She’s your cousin. She’s gotta give you work, and that’s just the way it is.

But really it’s like quantity.

More and more and more if you’re still trying to build up leads. If you had and I sit and still do all your authority building stuff as to grace, you’re, like, all of these things work together. Have you read hundred million dollar leads by Hormoza?

That’s next on my list. Yeah.

I was planning to read It’s really practical, like super practical.

And it comes with a bit of a course as well. So check that out, but it really will come down to quantity. Yeah. Cool. Anybody got any notes? For Esther Grace based on what you have done to get leads.

In person networking, going to things. But, like, every single thing you do, you need to do intentionally. Like, I know people who have gone to networking events and they kinda just stand at a table.

It’s like, no. No. No. No. No. You have to work it. You gotta, like, get in there and say hi.

And like, have a pitch ready to go, like, be able to open. So there’s opening and then there’s closing. Right? And so a lot of people suck at the open part.

Maybe you’re okay with closing, but all we’re talking about to get leads is like constantly opening.

So being able to go to a networking event event that’s possible and and do the open. Be ready to start asking questions about their business and Sounds like you’re working on x, y, or z. I do that too. Do you think would it make sense for us to have a talk about this?

Like, should we book a call? Like, be ready to to get moving on something, not just like, oh, cool. And, like, falling into the friend zone, which can happen a lot. So just, like, everything you do, be intentional about what you’re gonna do with it.

Katie also said the five day five k challenge. Totally. It’s, it’s still available.

Yes. So take that too, but don’t just do it once a month. Do it every five days. Yeah. Cool.

Jessica, do you wanna say that out loud?

I was just gonna say Abby wrote a blog post and did a tutorial on utilizing Facebook groups And I know she, of course, has had huge success with it, but I know other people have too applying what she taught. So I don’t know if where your audience is, but can’t hurt.

Mhmm. Yeah. Absolutely.

Love it.

I think I’ve read the post op yet.

I think I told you about it.

Yeah. Yeah. There’s the her tutorial is, pinned to the top of our YouTube channel right now over on. On YouTube. So check it out.

It’s great. Perfect. Okay. Good luck, Esther Grace. Set a goal too. How many warm, how many cold, you’re gonna do a day, and how many you need to get in booked calls every week.

And then post, follow-up in slack when you get those wins, just let people know, like, and my goal was four bookings this week, and I got five. And, like, make that happen. You can. Cool.

Anybody else have anything else? Thanks, Esther Grace. Any questions or anything you wanna share with others?

Hi. One question. Yeah.

Well, I have lots of questions, but, I will start with the most relevant one. So I was approached by a, sorry, I spoke in an event, about a few weeks ago. And so afterwards I was approached by a marketing agency, and it seemed I really feel like marketing agencies are an ideal source, an ideal client because They’re focused specifically on demand gen. They don’t have to answer to a CMO or to upper leadership quite in the same way that somebody who works in house would.

And they’re very data driven. And they tend not to be creatives. So they tend not to provide as much pushback, as somebody who works in house. So anyway, I had a call with the, with a guy again today, and we agreed on a to start with, like, a social ad, for more top of funnel work.

And what I ended up doing this time around, which is different than what I did last time around, last time around, I sold a company just like a bank of ours. And this time, I gave him a pricing page and I said, okay, a set of ads is this much, and a landing page is this much, And then so I’m gonna send him a proposal. We’ll sign the proposal, and then he can just add whatever he needs as he goes, and then at the end of the month, I’ll send the invoice to HR to accounts receivable, and then I’ll be able to bill them. But I’m wondering there’s anything I because I feel like this is such an ideal client, if there’s something I’m missing out on that I could be doing to make it easier for them or to increase the amount that they would get from me from the beginning and that initial conversation.

Whether that’s like, should I expect them to say, oh, well, you should get at least this amount, to increase the amount that they would get from me, or would that be a little bit too aggressive because they sort of get projects rolling in as they come? I’m not sure exactly.

What they’re working on, it could be a little bit too demanding for them right at the outset. So I’m wondering if there’s something I’m missing out on that I should have done and could do hopefully next time.

Yeah. Cool. Who’s working with agencies? Who has been through what Naomi’s going through? Nobody subcontracts?

I used to, but I’ve just always do it on a day. Right? So I can’t I don’t really know how to haven’t got anything to give. I’m afraid.

So what did you do? Why did you choose to do a day rate or why did they like a day rate? What was the reasoning there?

Well, actually, now that I think about it, I don’t think I told them it was a date. Right? I think I just priced it in my mind. It was, like, lead gen like, I’ve done a few. I did for a lead gen funnel.

Oh, like a lead gen agency, like, a few emails and stuff for a, SaaS company. So I’d yeah. I was like, oh, I’ll just it was always gonna be, like, fifteen hundred or whatever, for the emails. But in my head, I was like, okay. I’m booking myself for VIP to do those. And then I did the same thing with, like, course agency as well.

But, yeah, that’s I mean, that’s just because at the time, I really liked the IP days.

Yeah. Okay. That’s fair. But they responded well to it as a day rate. Did you did they ever know it was a day rate? Did you tell them that?

I don’t even think so. I just, like, they just didn’t really seem to care. They were just like, okay, like, we need you to do this. What does it cost? And that was kind of it.

Yeah. Okay.

But, like, every time they need like, did you work with them multiple times? And every time they needed you, they booked a day rate.

No. They just said, can you do these, emails or whatever? And I was like, yeah, sure. And then booked myself in as, like, a day and build them the same.

So I was just kinda like, if I I would always say yes. I was just at a time in my life where if I was, I would be happy to give up a Sunday for, like, the extra money. So I’ll just be like, sure. Yeah.

I’ll do it.

Yeah. Okay. Yeah. I’m wondering about I’ll go ahead, Naomi.

The difference in these kind of agencies are specifically working on Google and social. They’re demand gen agencies, or or it’s usually either Google, or Google and social or LinkedIn.

So it could be like the ads aren’t working. It’s time to refresh the or we want to start a new campaign for this specific persona, or we have a new ABM approach that we want to do, and so we need copy but they don’t necessarily know when they’re gonna need those ads or when they’re gonna want to improve the landing page because it depends on how the campaign performs. And so there’s a level of unpredictability, and which is good to have work rolling in. Like a lot for most of my clients, I’ll have work coming in on a rolling basis.

And I think that having something that’s not connected to ours is definitely more efficient, but I I don’t think that possible to be efficient to the point where I can say like, okay, I can do this within a day.

Yeah. No. I mean, I know, like, some summer, she used to do, like, credits. I think, like, someone was talking about this in Slack today, but, so she would have, like, kind of a menu of what each credit can buy, and then the credits roll over if they weren’t used in, like, the month. So it was kind of like a retainer y type thing.

So she’d get paid, like, every month they’d buy, like, two credits or whatever.

So they would have to commit to a certain number of credits?

Yeah. Yeah. But then they could rush. She would let them roll over So if they only used one, she’d be like, okay, that’s fine. We can use it next month. If next month, you have, like, more clients. So that kept the client happy, but also had that kind of security of a retainer for her.

Yeah. I mean, to me, it’s kind of tricky because every time you work for an agency and they have multiple clients, you have to learn new things about each client in order to write for them. Right? So it’s like you’re taking on a new client every time. Even if you redo and you work for the same client effectively a month later, whatever.

But it’s still it’s a lot of, like, learning time.

Have you experienced that Naomi?

That it is.

I’m, like, Yeah. This is the first agency that I’ve Oh, okay.

Okay. Cool. So and that’s where it’s tricky with credits. We had our credit based agency years ago called Snap that Leanna and James now have.

And it was it was good in some ways, but you do have to spend time thus spend a credit on, like, learning a thing. Like, what’s the what is this product?

And so that has to be baked in, and that’s where I really like the VIP day.

Because it’s like I can do all sorts of things. In that time. I can, like, and if it’s really important to them, I guess I’m just worried, Naomi when you say you, like, you would sell them a landing page.

It’s fine. It’s doable.

It’s, how are the margins though? Like, the reason that I rarely recommend sub tracing to an agency is you just don’t make as much money because they’re charging what you would charge, and now they have to make a profit on you. Yeah.

No. They’re they’re giving me work. They’re the client.

Yeah. But they’re an agency, a demand gen agency that pays that gets paid by their clients.

Yeah.

They’re an agency. Yes.

But I’m not doing the subcontracting contracting.

There’s subcontracting to them. They’re they’re so the client has the contract with them, and they have a contract with you.

Right. So I’m the subcontractor.

Yeah. So you’re the subcontractor. Exactly. Okay. And so every new contract down is, like, losing money losing money losing money lose.

So if you have a subcontract you’re gonna pay them half of what you would charge, and the agency is gonna pay half of what they’re gonna charge at best on a good day. Because they also have overhead and all sorts of other expenses. So if they’re charging it’s probably if it’s demand gen, their performance base, they’re on retainer with the client, it possibly getting a percentage of how things perform depending on who the client is. Okay?

So if they’re making, let’s say, they’re making, they’re billing their client ten thousand dollars a month for services.

They, as a business, need to make a profit to continue to exist.

So they’re trying to get three thousand dollars off that. That leaves them with seven thousand dollars a month to spend on resources for that client. They have their own people that they’re paying and all of the expenses that go along with shipping something out, taking someone to lunch, whatever that other crap is too. And then comes money for the subcontractor.

That’s you. So that’s where I hear subcontracting, or work for an agency as a subcontractor. And, I don’t love it because you have to really optimize your time because you’re not gonna be able to make that much. As much money as you could if you were direct to the client. If you were like, I can do that for you instead and here’s what I charge.

And so that’s it. So how can you if you’ve got three thousand dollars that you might make off them in a month for that one client, let’s say, what can you do to ensure that you are maximizing the amount of money you get for the time you put in. Obviously, it’s all it’s always our game.

And that’s where a VIP day sounds like really good. You could charge two thousand dollars. They can budget that in easily for their differing clients. And as they’re planning on what to do next month with their clients and new clients they take on, they’re like, okay.

Well, Naomi can write a landing page in a day. If you can. Naomi can do, analysis in a day. So we always have to book for every client every month.

We need Naomi two days for each client. So we’re going to budget in four thousand dollars when we’re estimating something with clients. Right now, you have to figure out what they’re estimating with clients right now because of their thinking and have you it sounds like you haven’t talked to them about what you’re what you cost or have you?

Yeah. Give them a pricing sheet.

Okay. So you what what does your pricing sheet? What do you have on it, Naomi? What does it say?

I have an add landing page web copy.

I think I added research can bring it up.

Yeah. It’s like a it’s like a menu.

Yeah.

I made it very simple because, I I figured selling hours was just not going to be sustainable so I Yeah.

Figured this would be a good solution, but I didn’t over complicate it.

Yeah. It’s good not over comp of course. That’s great. And a rate sheet can be a good thing to share.

But if the objective is to make good money off them, on an ongoing basis.

So what’s wrong do you think is broken with giving them the rate sheet right now? What’s not working there?

It’s I I would say it’s more that I would like a more long term commitment, where if it’s just going to be, if it’s going to be like five to ten thousand chat, three to five thousand dollars a month.

Like, that would be good to have it, like, rolling in to have them on retainer.

If it’s gonna be just like a few like a thousand dollars here, maybe a few hundred dollars there, then it’s not going to be efficient. Yeah. But if they’re a marketing agency, then they’re gonna do this on a long term basis. And because tech is in such a bad place right now, more and more and more companies are choosing to outsource a lot of their marketing. So it’s also just practical because they’re trying to cut down on people in house.

Yeah. Yeah. There’s that. So okay. So all you’re really looking to do is set up a retainer with your this agency and then make sure that you aren’t working non got for them. Like, you’re having good boundaries around your retainer. Is that right?

Yeah.

So make sure that the effort that I put in to learning about each company pays off in the long run by not having to acquire new clients.

That meaning that is a long term relationship that is worthwhile because it’s not just like a couple hundred dollars here and there.

Yeah. Totally it. So what’s stopping you from having a conversation with them or have you had that conversation? I think if you gave them a rate sheet, you probably haven’t had the conversation then about, here’s what I would love to get out of this relationship.

Here’s the problem that I’ll solve for you. All of them but here’s the only way that that could work and here’s how great it’ll be when it does work. So the here’s the only way that will work part is I have to learn about all of your clients. Like, that’s that’s real work.

It’s if you had a salesperson, they would have to learn about all of those clients too. So understanding that. And by the way, I’m your scalable online sales person. So I need to learn everything about them.

I need this these engagements to go on. And you also need these engagements to go on. You need, you know, all of the reasons that they don’t wanna just, like, swap in and out crappy freelancers and just, like, have somebody that they love etcetera, etcetera. So the whole conversation, and then you tell them that you want a need and they need.

You position it as what is the best solution for them, a retainer minimum of six months for each client. Is that what you think it is for each client?

So each client that they have, if they have five clients, you have five different retainers with them, or you have one big retainer that covers everything.

See, I think, yeah, I think it would be too aggressive to say that I have five retainers with each of your clients. That’s fair.

Yeah. So it’s like one pool that they get to draw from. For their various clients.

Mhmm. That’s what you want. Is that right? Like a like a bucket. You’re the bucket every week. Yeah.

Because when I went into they were like sort of sold on me. They were like, how do we start? And I thought what I was gonna do was like I’ll just have you pay via credit card for the first project, and then we’ll open up a proposal. But then he was like, oh, well, actually we’d rather just be paid by invoice because that’s how we just manage everything. And so now I was like, oh, well I’ll send you a proposal. And then I thought, like, oh, well, I should have had the conversation that I was expecting to have afterwards, because I thought that they were just gonna pay via credit card who were like, oh, we just want one ad.

But I wasn’t because I thought that that would be a good way in and then afterwards, I’d be like, oh, I’d love to build a more long term relationship with you, because I can’t say like, well, we just wanna have a long term relationship on the star. That’s a little bit.

A little bit much.

So Is it?

I guess I wonder why would it be? If they’re pre sold on you, Why would it be too much to say, like, cool y’all.

Here’s how I work. And then say it’s like, you’re an agency and really, like, help them understand why the best thing to do is put you on retainer.

Know you mentioned the word aggressive a couple times, but to me, it’s only aggressive if you’re, like, if your tone is aggressive about it. Otherwise, it’s just They have a problem to solve. And you know demand gen agencies have it’s constant, test everything, and they need they need you to come up with hundred add variations in a day. So there’s going to be just lots and lots and lots and lots and lots and lots.

There’s a big numbers game too. Right? So So if you know the demand for what you have is real, then you can solve that. Who else are they gonna hire who can do as good a job as you can. Yeah.

No. Like, they they they got that. They were they were convinced that I was their that I was their person. But also for my sake, like how do I price that?

How do I price in testing and landing pages and ads on a rolling basis with all of these other things and potentially add variations, and then maybe nothing because the campaign is working, Yeah. That’s why I didn’t push it right away. Like Yeah. We could figure that we should have a, like a trial almost.

Yeah. I’m I I I to me, it sounds like I don’t think that the trial is a necessary thing, but I wasn’t in the conversations you’re in, obviously.

To me, it sounds like, okay. You just need to protect your time, but give them a lot of things that they need. Typically, I have not seen and I don’t know if your experience is different. Naomi, but when a campaign is going well, nobody sits back.

Like, now we’re, like, it’s just more. Like, oh, it’s going great. We can do even more. Or let’s shift you over to new client now where the campaign isn’t going as well and where we need your resources over there.

So for me, I hear this If they’re a big enough agency that you think they actually have money to spend on you, if they have a real need for copywriting services, conversion copywriting in particular, if that’s what’s going on and they already like you, but you don’t want to sell your life to them. Of course not, but you wanna be able give them a menu of services without them having to go through and pick and choose one and, like, call you up for one ad at a time. You know, because that’s not how this works. Why not sell them?

Can you sell them?

I don’t know if it has to be a specific day or whatever whatever that looks like. But to me, why not charge x amount for a retainer? This is what it costs to hire you. Say this is what it costs to hire me. And that’s it. And if they’re, like, that’s too expensive, well, then one that you you probably should have, like, spent more time in the sales process to make it so that they understand the value you can bring or two, they might not have ever been a good fit to begin with.

But I wouldn’t worry that it’s too aggressive to say it’s five thousand bucks a month for a retainer to retain me. You’ll get x many hours with that or better for you to have, like, outputs that gives you either a package of a hundred ads for one cloud, whatever. Like, you figured that out because you had the conversation with them. But you say this is the amount five thousand, ten thousand, whatever it might be. And it’s a minimum of six months.

I I don’t know. Is is there you would be wrong with that?

You wouldn’t you would skip the trial entirely and say these are my for all agencies.

I don’t know what the trial solves.

Well, I mean, it also might be budgeting constraints on their side. Like, he may love me, but he had to get the green light from their CFO because the CFO needs to green light everything these days.

For sure.

So other ways until proven yourself.

And I I think like proving yourself is something that I wouldn’t say you should ever even let in the conversation.

Nobody nobody who has proven themselves ever again says I have to prove myself. So to me, it sounds like, oh, I need to prove myself, is the thing that you say when you know that that’s not that common to be able to prove yourself. So it’s kind of a signal. Don’t say. Robin from your vocab.

Prove me fine. He needs to accrue my value.

And I get it, like, to see the level to the rest of the team because he’s not in charge of the the bank account.

There are a totally. And there are other ways to get the CFO to sign off on things. Right? It’s not necessarily going to be a trial.

It could be hey, if once you lock in six months, you automatically get ten percent off for the entire six month thing, which I don’t love discounting, but CFOs love discounting. So if you’re trying to say, get that CFO picturing this person who’s just trying to make sure that profits are great. What’s the solution for them? A trial Could be it. Don’t get me wrong, Naomi. It could be a trial thing. I just don’t know that that’s that’s a chance for them to go.

Was she perfect?

And it’s like, well, no. Nobody would be.

Rather, hey, I’m badass. You already like work that I do, you already need the job done.

What’s, like, the only thing that’s really gotta move you forward is getting the CFO happy So here’s what we do. And if if you sign on for six months, you get ten percent. If you sign on for twelve months, you get fifteen percent off. And now the CFO has something to work with. And everybody knows you can cancel any time, and the the lawyers will cover the contract with, like, after thirty thirty days notice to to cancel the contract, etcetera.

Yeah, I don’t I considering I already agreed to a trial for this specific agency, it would make more sense to say like Okay, like, send time a, send time a proposal with just like the price list that I have, and then say, okay, work with that, and then like, see how that goes, and then say, look, I have a limited availability if you want to get me on the books, then you can either then hear the packages I have for agencies.

Otherwise I Can I see the guarantee availability?

Yeah.

Or should I, like, call them up tomorrow and be like, oh, actually I wanna change everything and No.

If you’re already down the path. What I just don’t wanna do is have you become a commodity for this agency. That’s all. It’s just I want everybody in this room to go into every call in a power position. That’s that’s it. Like, that’s where we I don’t.

I don’t think I’m a commodity.

I I Oh, no.

I just a menu list is a commodity. That’s the thing. So it requires that you have a good, context for it. That’s all. So Naomi, if you’re already down that path, Cool.

Really the is the question then if you’re doing this trial, how do you lock them into something that’s profitable for you? After the trial ends. Is that what we’re looking for?

Yes. For this one specifically.

Yeah.

And I I guess for all of them because, like, I I also would not wanna commit to a tend to a huge retainer without having any sense of what to expect from somebody who’s relatively new at running a business.

Yeah. Justin. Definitely. Yeah.

Is that okay? Go for it.

Yeah. So I’ve been, speaking with Adri Yedlyn, he’s been, like, sharing a bit of, like, Blair. Is pricing strategy, and I it’s just so curious to me. And I wonder if it could work here.

So basically, offering pricing tiers, but doing it by the likelihood of success. So you’ve got the so the first one is basically your, like, champagne popping kind of retainer. Like, it’s like ten hair month you’d be, like, over the moon if you got it, and they get, like, x, y, and zed in it. And then your middle one is the one that you’re happy that’s the one you’re going for, like, the five k and it includes, like, this amount of deliverables it’s capped here.

And then your like lowest likelihood of success, which is one that’s meant to be like the best value for your time. So like a VIP day or something that you can and I wonder if you could do something like that presented in them like that. And then for the trial, do, like, a month under the kind of care that they want. So rather than doing, like, a trial is, like, an or something, be like, okay.

You wanna go for this option. Let’s try it, see how it goes, see if we need to, like, increase scope or decreased scope. And then, yeah, it was just a a thought.

No. I think it’s I think it’s a great idea I would love, in theory, I love it, but measuring success.

Well, it’s not like to increase the likelihood of success.

You’re gonna do, like, way more voice of customer research.

You’re is gonna include a lot more of that stuff.

Whereas when I’m working for agencies, don’t do any of that. Like, I don’t do that great job, to be honest, because they don’t, you know, they’re not paying me, like, the amount to go and interview their customers. So I’m like, okay, I’ll do your sales agent like, I’ll do it in a day. Like, and I don’t think of it as, like, good sustainable income. I treat it like a cash injection, like, just those, you know, when it’s opportunity to get a bit a bit of extra cash. If you wanted to yeah.

What was that about Revshare?

No.

I I thought that you were saying, like, like, if they Oh, like, no.

No. No. No.

No. It then performs well then.

Yeah. Yeah. No. It’s just like this is what I’ll do too. If you want the maximum chance of success, we’re gonna go for the, like, all in option if you Yeah.

Not etcetera.

Yeah. That could be a good way to go. Have you read Naomi pricing creativity?

Blaren’s.

No. It’s it’s got he’s got a bunch of books. But that’s it’s good. It’s very helpful, for something like this.

Yeah. So you’ve got the trial.

It’s really hard to say how to come up with, but I love Abby your ideas there with, like, you I can give you the full service everything every month for every client, or I can you could buy the VIP day, one a month or something, but at least a VIP day can keep you locked in contained and people don’t expect that they can reach out to you anytime, whereas a block of hours, I could reach out to you for one hour hypothetically on a Thursday and expect you to get back to me. The problem with trials, just as a side note, trials are good for systems. If this was a system that you were selling to them, then the trial would prove out the system or not, but the work we do is so custom.

It’s so specific to what’s going on in the market with the audience with the product. The offer with medium, all of it. That it’s very difficult for a trial to perform because the work we do often doesn’t perform until you’ve had a few takes at it. And you were able to go like, oh, that hypothesis was wrong, but look where it led us.

And then you can go along and get better and better and better. And that where, like, the payoff is with a really good copyright. That’s why agencies that’s why the agency you’re talking to doesn’t sign up for month to month. Because that would that does it doesn’t work.

It doesn’t work until you’ve committed to doing something, and trying a whole bunch of different things. I know for certain that demand gen agencies don’t do month to month.

So any any good ones at least don’t. So That’s my only pause for you going forward with trials. If it’s a system, it’s easy not to trial out. If it’s a human engagement, it’s very hard to trial.

And maybe go for a VIP day.

As like the easiest way in and then from there, they can start to look in to bring you in on projects and other things.

Yeah.

That’s my take.

I’ve done a bunch of VIP days with, a couple agencies too, and I feel like it’s a good, like like what Joe said, you don’t want them to be like, oh, we did an hour here and there or two hours for this. It’s like, it’s a contained main time. And I’ve had an easy time, like, selling those.

Sorry.

My biggest concern with the IP days is really the creative component because so much of what in in more performance based mediums the design is such a big part of it that I really have to work very, very closely with the designer to make sure that they follow, like, conversion CRO principles and UX principles, the way that I would like them to.

So I’d be worried that the VIP day, like, oh, oops, the designer isn’t available. You have come back on Monday and finish up for us. So that’s that’s really my biggest concern with VIP Day. Do you have that issue?

I haven’t had that issue because I’m working and like working on different kinds of things, but it sounds like if if that is a thing, even if it’s not a VIP day, is that still going to be annoying schedule if they’re like, oh, hey, the designer’s not available today. Like, is it still gonna be like they’re kinda calling the shots and they’re like, oh, actually, let’s You know, does that make sense? Or does it have the IP plan out? Sure. But even if it’s not a VIP day, they stop the plan ahead and be like, this is when the designer’s available. Right? So whether it’s a VIP day or not, you have to to expect for your schedule.

Right?

Yeah. Like, you don’t pay for that premium, like, then they’re not paying, like, that’s the fact that you work, like, on UX for the designer, like, that’s that’s more value really than a VIP days for, I would think. So that’s where, like, if you were to offer the different options. It’s like the more expensive option is the one where, like, you’re gonna collaborate a bit more with their team and they’re gonna pay, like, the premium for that.

Yeah.

And it’s two VIP days maybe, right, where you get in a flow of VIP day one is you doing the work VIP day too is you doing the checks over how it’s been implemented and then making any changes accordingly.

If that’s a real if that’s a real problem or the other side is, it’s an agency. It’s a subcontract.

Sometimes you just have to be okay with stepping back. You hand over the copy doc. You give all the best direction you can do. The designer is going to do do what the designer is going to do, though. And so, unless you work directly with them very often, and can establish a relationship there. It can be tough to get a designer to do what the subcontracted copywriter wants them to do.

Yeah. Doesn’t mean it’s impossible. It’s just like, do you pick your battles here and just like, is If if working with agencies was your full business model and that’s what you were doing going forward, then we could come up with different things here. But my hope and prayer is that it is not so that we can get you, like, scoring big ass projects and competing with that very agency, not necessarily demand gen. But, depending on what you what you want to do, of course, that’s the goal is not to keep. I is that is that in line, or do you want to keep working with agencies in the long term?

Well, I want to work with demand gen professionals because that’s really my area of expertise. So if they are in an agency, maybe that would work. If they’re in house, great. But Yeah. If they’re in house, maybe they already have a team of copywriters that they they they work with, or they have very strict brand principles, and they don’t wanna outsource anything.

So, like, is there a sweet spot?

Yeah. Working with in host demand gen.

Twenty twenty one.

I have worked with in host demand gen, and they are the best. They get excited about everything that you do because they don’t have a lot of fresh ideas coming in. So That’s where if you love DemandGen, cool, you know, do some stuff with the agencies, whatever, have it be that cash that you need, have it be some, like, experience that you get more and more and more with them so you can try different stuff. But then if you like DemandGen, go work as a freelancer for demand gen that’s in house at, like, almost any e commerce company, and it’s it’s fun and ego boosting, which never hurts. And you make good money. Yeah.

Right. So that’s what I’ve been that’s what I did in house for many years.

Nice. Love it.

That was what I did over and over and over and over again.

So I know that they that they like me.

The the trick is figuring out, do they have the budget to hire me, hire somebody out out of house.

And do they are they even thinking that way?

Yeah. And it’s true that a lot of tech companies have laid off people.

Not necessarily because they have to these days, because it looks good on the books to do it. But hiring agencies can be have its own downfalls. It can be expensive too. So it’s not that they’re only looking at agencies. They’re also looking at freelancers, to fill in those gaps. So I would just keep that in mind too. Yeah.

Okay. Cool.

That was fun.

I didn’t mean to think up so much time.

No. That was a lot of working through a big thing. Hopefully, we got, you know, kind of nodding things a bit, which takes work.

Good. Let us know what what happens with this conversation. Naomi over in Slack too. Cool. Well Yeah. I know we’ve got three minutes technically left, even though we’re over sort of by thirty. Does anybody have any last thoughts or question or, like, a rapid something where we good to go.

Yeah. Quick question.

When is the the free month trial, like, officially and, like, for CSP. Do you know the day?

That’s a Sarah. I think February. I think this is the free month for you.

Yeah.

Yeah. I just wondered if there was, like, a I think the date.

I think the next payment is on February twenty eight, I think.

Okay. Yeah.

What I think? Check with Sarah.

Okay. Yeah. Sarah knows all that stuff. Yeah. Okay. Thanks, Abby. Anybody else?

Alright. Have a good week. We will see you in Slack. And, this Thursday is Percy’s mindset session on rethinking failure.

So make sure you check that out if you struggle with things like the word failure.

Cool. Okay. Thanks, everybody.

Have a good day.

Thanks, Joe. Bye.

Worksheet

High Class Problems

Selling Service Packages on Autopilot via Email

Selling Service Packages on Autopilot via Email

Transcript

So today is all about it’s kinda building off on what I talked about the last time, what on that last time, which was basically creating your packages and product side services.

What I wanted to, you know, get into now and start preparing y’all, even if you feel like, oh, I don’t have an email list right now, or maybe my email is just tiny or, you know, the If you don’t have an email list, this is something you definitely wanna start thinking about right now because this is something that future you will need. So If you don’t have an email list, I would highly encourage you to sign up for an ESP after this call and start thinking about your automated sales sequence for your productized services. And if you do have an email list, then your action item will be to write that, email sequence and put it into your ESP.

So yeah, I know I’m, like, kind of, jumping the downhill literally, but I definitely want us to want to encourage you to not wait till you have a big list or, you know, like, a big list or whatever. Like, this is definitely something you wanna start doing right now way too many service providers and, literally losing out on valuable reads and clients because, you know, we haven’t really thought about this ahead of time. So Let’s go. So stack themselves, you it’s essentially an effortless email framework for filling your packages on autopilot.

For those of you who don’t know this, like, literally our business, our entire copywriting service business is built on the foundational packages. That is what, you know, like, last year, four hundred k was copy packages.

It’s what has helped us scale.

And they I would say almost but not proof. We are like, you know, we do have periods when I get, like, tired, but we know when kinda watch for and just kind of step away a little bit, but it’s it’s beautiful. And this is an email sequence. I have tested multiple multiple times and have used it even when I did not have a huge list or used it on social for that matter.

So The reason most packages do not sell via email is because they’re missing a welcome or sales sequence to start with. Like, you know, if you’re if you have a package, even if it’s like an audit, and you aren’t talking about a new welcome sequence, you’re missing out on sales there. You’re missing CDA’s to sign up for your packages. A lot of people just talk about the package, but they don’t tell prospects or leads.

That this is what you need to do to get it. It’s amazing how many emails I have critiqued where clear CDS and other, and Clarity is key. All of you know that. Keeping sales emails in your in your newsletter strategy.

Okay. Hang on. Yeah. I found it over twenty five years ago. I’m trying to meet you.

Okay.

Alright. I no. I can’t mute people apparently. You have to mute yourself.

So The third reason is if you’re sending out emails, you aren’t including any sales emails. As part of that newsletter strategy.

And that is, again, something that you wanna start thinking about intentionally. So if you’re sending out a weekly email to your list, You wanna think about, okay, if I’m sending up four emails a week, do I have a sales email in the mix?

Over not showing your leads in prospects, where which is like, oh, I wanna give value. I wanna give value. And I’ve been on that end of the spectrum where, you know, I really wanna give value, but pointed there is something like too much value. So you need to remember that you’re all business owners, and yes, we want to nurture all these. We wanna give code on code value, but we also wanna sell.

And then selling without context or nuance, this is something that I have seen.

A lot of creative entrepreneurs make where We, in our heads, know what the package is for and what it does, but we forget that for a prospect This is just one of many things that’s been, you know, that’s coming at them, and they need to, and then to help to have to then add context to it or, like, okay, where is this gonna fit into my marketing system? Or how is this gonna help me accomplish those goals? We don’t want them to have to do the heavy lifting of kind of figuring out how will this help them. We wanna give them the context. We wanna give them those new answers of how is our package going to help them, or how is a productized service going to help them?

So these are things you wanna kind of avoid in any of the emails that you write for when it comes to selling your packages for sending TLS.

Okay.

So one thing all of you need to remember is emails are the engine that can clear demand and fuel sales for your serve services and packages, but only when you use them with intention and purpose, which is exactly what we’re gonna talk about today.

And again, emails are a authority pillar that you should be building, and I cannot stress enough the importance of doing that. Even even if you’re, I would say, even if you’re in and building of, you know, even if you’re just in house, like, you know, Randall is, like, I would still say start building your email list, you know, or and especially if you’re in house and freelancing start building your email list. It goes this holds good in all cases and all scenarios. So With that, let’s talk about my go to framework for sales viewing automated emails for packages. I say automated because that’s pretty much how I tend to use them, but you could use them as broadcast.

Last year, and this year, I have mainly used them as broadcast mainly because we’ve been kind of book solid, but, I have used them as automated emails. Hold on a lot. So specific, timely, unteachable, engage, motivate to act. That’s my framework. I’m a huge fan of frameworks just to kind of simplify things for myself. So this is what I keep in mind when I’m writing emails for my services and packages.

Alright. Well, let me see. Before we look at it, the two. Okay. Hada has a question.

Do you actively sell and include include those links in the welcome sequence, or do you leave it for the end of the sequence?

I would actively sell and include those links in the welcome sequence. So, in fact, I’m going to talk about that too at the end, as well. Like, you can you can actually just have a one email sale sequence as well. So we’ll talk with you about that, towards the end. Cool. Let me move forward.

So this is an email that I sent out to our list. This was for our Tysmal, which was for, you know, it’s a VIP package, VIP day kind of package that I was selling way back in the day. I’m still selling it.

And this was one of the emails I used when we were launching it. So the reason I’ve shared this here is because it like literally lays out everything. It starts with specificity, and you’ll see context.

So how much copy do you need for an upgrade launch? Okay. Simply use what I use from a live launch when I turn this. What’s the difference between live launch?

Copy. So very specific about the problems that it would be solving for them. And these are three of the most popular questions to adapt, and then this is what led to my framework, my process. Now this is like a really long email.

This does not, by any standards means that all of you need to write long emails, please, this is just to kind of give you an idea of how, like, kind of all the different elements that come in. These could be, like, shorter or faster paced emails as well.

It’s timely. So why I developed this teachable to your other six copy barrels, and this is again content Bistro. We have a lot of foodie references going. So I talk about, you know, what everything that they need here I include a lot of specificity also in terms of things like, you know, these actors clip bars and, you know, so it’s engaging. There’s more, you know, there’s a little bit of personality there.

And then, of course, motivations, like, why do they need this? So you need to connect with your audience’s pain. You need to strongly, you know, you have to tap empathy. You wanna You need both strategy and copy assets, all of that. So this was an email that was a blended set, like this value pass series of the precursor to Artezno, your VIP already, we had people on the wait list. So this went out to them.

Fairly, fairly simple and relatively standard.

So specificity, how do you wanna craft that? You wanna use we’ve had you worded subject lines that increase your open rates. You wanna keep that up within your email. Examples, use specificity to add that context, use specificity to highlight why would they need it, use specificity to, you know, even talk about their motivations so you can use them interchangeably.

Specific results, specific steps, specific outcomes, specific deliverables. Be very, very clear about what it is and why they need this. So this was like a presale email. If you’re sending it directly for a set for a package, tell if you wanna be very clear about what are the deliverables in there, what, and, you know, how do they lead to the certain outcomes?

And then, of course, experiment test optimizes goes without saying.

Rule of one, applies everywhere, one email, one package. Acceptions are, you have two tiers to a package, like fully loaded launch for a very long time, had two tiers. Artasional, I think has half a day and full day, I think, right now. Point is, if you have two tiers, that’s fine.

That does not mean that you’re talking about two different packages, you know, But what email one package? New packages that lead to a similar outcome? Yes. You could, you know, maybe talk about it because you’re you’re then you’re using one email, one come as the guiding goal.

But do not try and talk about an audit or a website copy package and a launch copy package in one email. Unless, of course, it’s like, say, you’re doing, like, a catalog style email or something like that. But for these automated sales emails, you wanna keep it to one email one package.

Soup specificity super powers emote relevant emojis that are very specific to your brand numbers, dollar figures, key adjectives, you know, like, click bars for us is very on brand or just term benefits, you know, and use all of this again for your subject lines or for your body copy.

Use words and phrases that involve visual images that, you know, like, literally for, like, for our audience, again, Harry Potter was a big part of our brand for the longest time ever until Jacob Allen ruined it for everybody. But, so things like, you know, hybrid sized mountains of unfolded laundry instead of a laundry pile.

As copywriters, y’all have the gift of leaning into specificity, lean into it, and music.

But with specificity like makeup, less is more that don’t go overboard, know when to dial it down. And when you do your sweeps, that is when you need to look at and think about, like, okay. Am I just overdoing it here?

Or is this real needed to make a point?

Then we have timely unteachable.

So, again, timeliness and copy can usually be created with strategic calls to action. So Why do they need to act now? What’s the urgency there? Along with that, you can be timely with content. That’s actually timely. So seasonal specific emails or seasonal specific packages, for example.

If you’ve got, like, screenshots and case studies that have just come in, that may be a good point to include in your cell sequence. References to current world situations. Now if you’re automating this and if you’re setting this up for your work for your welcome sequence or for a and always on wakeless sales sequence, this references to current world events may not be a good idea, but you can obviously be timely in other aspects.

And then teaching. Now, t this is where you need to be extra, extra careful because we tent we can tend to go to the side of teaching too much.

And We don’t wanna do that, not because we wanna withhold information, we wanna keep, but because we do not want to cause more confusion.

For our prospective clients. We do not want them to start feeling like, oh my gosh. This is way too overwhelming or Oh my gosh. This is easy and I can do it only to realize that this is not easy and they will struggle to do it.

So you know, which ways we wanna be very careful about what we teach. So five things that I’d like tested out is process. You saw an example of that, like, I talked about, you know, cures. Well, it’s included in this.

And here’s what you need, you know, when it comes to every launch copy cures, everything that you need in it. You can also talk about mistakes your clients made before they hired you. You can talk about the importance of the key elements in your package kind of ties in with the process as well. You can talk about amplifying results your packages, and you can also talk about what comes after and what should they be preparing for?

Once they worked with you. So that’s like future pacing with a twist. You will lean on your case studies and customer success stories here to talk about it. Okay.

My client had to hire a customer service executive just to kind of deal support all the new clients that they got after our, you know, she worked with me on a fast sale package. So that’s just something you may wanna start thinking about right now. That kind of a team. Help them see themselves two steps ahead or even ten steps ahead of where they are right now after they work with you.

Now the goal here for teaching is you wanna, you know, pick the curiosity, but you also wanna give great value. You wanna, you know, help them see that you know your stuff. So that’s why it’s like a fine balance and a good idea whenever in doubt, again, take the time to give it a suite, take the time to get it critique if possible, you know, just so that you feel very confident about it. But the point is don’t hesitate from teaching. Just be careful that you don’t just go way overboard here.

Engaging personality, humor, pop culture, trivia, books, TV, and music, values. We are huge, like, personally, you know, I bring up the fact about our about financial stewardship. I bring up the fact about integrating life with work. I, you know, it’s super these are like values that are key to us.

So, We talk about that all the time, and we, you know, and we use them to create a point of differentiation as well. So Think about, you know, if you feel like, oh, I I’m not into pop culture or I don’t listen to a lot of music or I don’t read a lot of buzzer. I have not interesting happening in my life, which honestly trust me you will be. But don’t hesitate from talking about your don’t have different talking about words and phrases that you, you know, use all the time or you made up.

I’ll give you an example. I just reasonably, like, I started using the word truth biscuit instead of truth bomb because, again, on brand for us. So don’t hesitate from adding in personality to make your emails more engaging.

And of course, what makes you you, what makes you data from everybody else and maybe doing the same thing. So personality types, like, literally everyone on our list knows that our Maya script types. Those are Integram types because they’re big on those. But if you’re not, like, think about it, maybe you have a habit, maybe you have a pet peeve, all of the research that you would do for your clients and their audiences, you need to do for yourself as well. So you need to be kind of clear on what makes you you, and then use that in your emails.

Don’t be afraid to listen humor.

This is something I personally had to learn, because humor does not come. I’m not one of those that it comes naturally too. So I did do some learning here. And humor seriously is a book I really I really enjoyed it in getting some really good, you know, strategic tips.

And then, of course, I don’t know if he’s still running it. Justin Blackman had a course called write more personality, which I took. And absolutely loved and have used, used it extensively. So, yeah, but if it comes naturally to you, you’re one of the, you know, lucky ones.

Please go ahead and definitely use humor.

Formadding basic rules of copywriting out everybody just be sure, like, when you’re reading your emails, make sure you preview them both for mobile and for desktops format your content with bold and italics, bullet at a number of layers, short type paragraphs.

You’ve got, you know, the gist.

Jiff it up.

Very, very easy to add, you know, engagement and personality with GIFs.

Don’t be afraid to use them. But again, you don’t wanna kind of overdo them mainly because we’ve seen, at least, I’ve seen it in fact deliberately in certain cases.

Also don’t hold back on your opinions. You know? So they do make for a lot of engaging reading. You’ve got hot takes, on things. So, you know, like Abby mentioned her her hot take or her, you know, contributing point of view was, you can go evergreen from day one. Something that, you know, you should be definitely talking about. And if you, you know, if you’re when you put together emails for your evergreen package.

And then finally, we have motivations. Now motivations is what basically answering the question. Why should they care?

Why should they care about your package? So your package or productized service was created with the intent to help, solve, heal, undo, redo, improved, increased, decreased something in your prospects lot.

You need to talk about that, lean on it, shine a spotlight on it. Does not mean you poke the pain or, you know, do all of the things that we don’t wanna do. You want it, but you do want to highlight why they need it. Again, this is what adds context and nuance to your emails.

Okay. Before we get into the tactical side, questions. Okay. Oh, if you asked, how are people entering this funnel?

Your welcome sequence feedback for application funnel? It depends. You could use it as it depends on what packages you wanna sell. Like, we’ve reached the stage where we’ve got so many packages, so we don’t, you know, we don’t have them in a welcome sequence.

Excuse me.

But what we do, we did earlier was we had a vacress. We used to build a vacress, and then we used to have a sequence here. But if you have, like, say, one big package right now, which is what I would hope all of you do have, I would use the welcome sequence for that. You could simultaneously also below wait list for it.

So for people who don’t wanna sign up to say a welcome sequence, your wait list could be would be actually a really good idea because those would be active warm leads saying, Hey, I wanna hear more about your packages. So I would actually do both they could enter the funnel, through an automated sales. See oh, they could also enter the following something that we tested out with a client of ours is a noted for sales newsletter sequence. Those are automated newsletters that go out every week and sell her coaching activist.

So, we wrote up I wrote up email newsletters for six months for her. So And every email followed the same same format. She she offers she’s an executive career coach, office career coaching services. Point is you could use them in multiple different ways.

Alright.

So how many emails to send?

My favorite answer, it depends. It depends on your package cost. It depends on how warm your list is, how the list temperature essentially, and audience fairness? Like, does your audience know that they are they pain aware?

Are they solution aware? Are they brand aware? Like, where exactly are they is somewhere in the middle there. So if you would know more about that, that would be great.

It would depend on all of these factors.

Having said that, three to five is usually a solid number to start with.

Now you could take each element in stem and turn that into a sequence. So you could have an email that’s super specific about the pain that you’re solving. And, you know, what what your offer is. You could have an email that’s timely and teachable.

So it walks them through your process or gives them a behind the scenes, and, you know, it’s exactly what to expect from every deliverable. It could be just engaging in storytelling, you know, so you could have, like, just four email and then motivation have, like, two emails because that would be, like, the last two emails that they would get. So you could turn stem into its own sequence or you can send three emails with all of the elements in it. I tend to lean towards sending three to five emails that include all the elements in it. You saw that example earlier, But, you could, you know, totally turn them into an automated sales sequence by itself as well.

So when this is, you know, I’ll leave you kind of answering your question as well. You could send it as a welcome sequence. You can sell it at when you launch a new package as an automated sales sequence to everybody who’s clicked on the link in your emails before that to show interest or been on your wait list, you could send an automated wait list sequence, digit results, email newsletters, and then also for pre selling and getting looked up for package, which is what we kind of did with with artisanal when we launched it initially as we presold it.

And then clients were booked in for, like, say, thirty days later or sixty days later. It was a while ago. But, you could use it in you could send these emails in so many different points, the easiest would be the welcome sequence or the note to fulfill email newsletters. Like, if You know that you have a certain audience segment on your list, but not yet for sales email newsletter sequence would be great. For them because then you can just batchrate these emails, send them out every week, they’re curing from you, and you’re selling your packages as well.

Should you sell in every email?

Yes?

And no? Yes. You do need to talk about the package in every email. No. You don’t need to create false scarcity.

You don’t need to make it appear that this is this is never going to be offered again or or that, you know, you’ll be increasing your prices unless, of course, you will be increasing your prices. So, Sally, every email, don’t sell in a way that doesn’t make you feel good. And if it doesn’t make you feel good, it would definitely not make a few of your clients feel good. That’s, you know, because Yeah.

That’s kind of what I’ve come to realize. So, yeah, don’t hesitate from from Sally.

The one email sales sequence.

If you decide to send only one email to your list, to talk about your package. I hope you said more than that, but if you say, like, okay, but I’m not gonna say, hey, thank you. I don’t I don’t wanna send the sales sequence, etcetera, etcetera. I would highly recommend you use the confirmation email to sell your package or, you know, to talk about, like, write a stem email.

And why? Because not only does this email have the highest open rates because people are taking to to confirm you, or they’ve just gotten on your list. They’re like, They they know and remember who you are, but it’s also a great opportunity for you personally to build a connection with a prospect, maybe very new to your brand. Right?

And, if you’re running, say, Facebook ads, or even, like, from social, or if you’re using affiliates or, you know, like partners or JV partners and things like that, or muted newsletter swaps, point is, again, it does not have to feel pushy or safety when done. Right? So what you wanna do is you wanna share your story in it, give some backstory about how you started. We are, you know, what it is that, you know, you’re known for, what can they expect, from the freebie that they’ve signed up for.

And why should they, you know, go ahead and actually watch it, download it, use it whatever your freebie is. If you have a freebie there, you wanna validate and empathize with their struggle. You wanna celebrate their action taking spirit.

Educate them. We talked about what you can teach them.

But the opportunity here is for you to share your credibility markers. So things like, I’ve been doing this for x number of years. Here are some mistakes that I’ve seen, you know, or here’s what a client said after, you know, we finished implementing their, their funnel or their website copy or, etcetera. So you wanna use the education part to teach about your process, but also share credibility markers. And then you wanna just set it seating and soft selling. So you wanna give them a sneak peek of what’s included in your package, what can they expect, and buy them to check it out and come back to if they have questions or book a call with you, to get more details.

But, yeah, So, yes, you can definitely just sell with one email.

I would hope you would use more than that. But if you have to, then, yeah, this the confirmation email do not overlook it.

Alright.

Soft selling your package for maximum sales. This is something you wanna kind of keep in mind for your emails, whether you’re using it in your confirmation email or even in your sales email and you’re like, you know, okay, I feel like this is getting me too salty.

So You can share a time lapse video if you’re working on a package deliverable. You can share case studies, testimonials, screenshots from clients, like, you know, that they leave in Google Docs.

You can drop a personal video these days. There’s so many tools that make it so much easy. So that make it so easy for you to kind of be at these personalized videos at scale and share why you created the package in the first place. I think I did that I did I did that one time when we launched, a package version of, of my program, ready to sell.

It did really, really well. So You could for social, you could create a carousel, explain why, you know, what’s in that package, why do they need it, and then embed that carousel in your email. So you again, the idea here is for you to get that package in front of your audience in as many ways as possible and not hesitate from the idea of selling, in a way that feels good to you. Eglopedia.

We have we have one. We use one regularly for our packages. So we need people to download to see examples, case studies, and your and the process that we use as well. Key elements, invite them to get on a zero pressure call with you. Make it really, really easy for people to know what offer and to buy from you via emails.

Next steps, identify the package you wanna sell. But those of you who have created packages since our last call, amazing. Happy to give you feedback on those.

Write up one to three emails or she’ll do five emails using STEM, upload them into your email system and send. And then, yeah, just keep testing and optimizing a simple log. Cool. We have plenty of time for questions.

Okay.

Chris asked, would you recommend having subscribers sign up for a sales sequence from one of the weekly newsletters if so how Yes. Great idea. I absolutely recommend it. So let’s say you’re setting up weekly newsletters and you want to get people to sign up for a sales sequence for one of your packages.

Is that correct? That’s what you wanna okay. Good. So there are a couple of ways you could do this.

You could do this, but if since they’re already on your email list, you could, you know, skip the step of having them subscribe again for their details in again. You could just say, if you’re interested in my ABC package that would help you do x y z tap this link and I’ll send you more details. So when they tap the link, an automation kicks in, that would put them into the sales sequence.

Most ESPs make it really simple to do that. So that’s all you would need to do. So when you do that, the system would the automation would kick in, and you would tag them as ABC interest list, for example.

Does that help?

Yeah.

I was wondering, also, like, considering I haven’t sold anything to my list, for example. Right? So I guess the less aware or less or the lower the intent is probably the longer the sequence will will have to be to kind of educate them. Right?

Not really. The you’ve had your list for a while. You have been emailing them regularly. Right?

Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. So honestly, you would all you would need to do is just let them know that this is something that you’ve, you know, fit in your working on and he if they’re interested in working on it with you or if they’d like to hire you for it, here’s, you know, to tap here and you’d send them more details. And when it happens, they know that they’re going to get details about a package. So your first email itself could be a pitch email.

You know, it could be a case.

The the the click is the qualification. So, yeah.

Exactly. Exactly. That is the qualification. Yeah.

Okay. Thank you.

You’re welcome.

I’ll ask how you all manage the tech side of all these phones, do you outsource it at DFI? So the the welcome sequence and, nurture hotel users. These are, like, fairly, like so here’s the thing. I would I’ve been with ConvertKit for seven years now.

So for me, it’s really easy to go in and set these up. I know. I also like to know a tool inside out, even though, like, right now, we be hired someone who’s working on setting up the whole evergreen side of things for us. But, for for a program, that that is something I would not want to do, at all.

But something like a welcome sequence and all, I would do it myself.

But yeah, I would be keen to share what the group has to say, like, do y’all do your, DIY or automations?

Or hire it out, but they’ll let like techy is who can easily help you do that as well.

Abby, Jessica Johnson.

I do.

I do. I think ConvertKit is pretty it’s pretty easy. The screening tags.

Mhmm. Mhmm. Mhmm.

And and the automation are visual.

So it’s pretty easy.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So most of us set it up ourselves. I would for your business, and this is just a piece of side you know, like, from someone who’s been there and done that.

Oil business, I would say it I would highly recommend knowing the tools your business uses in setup. You can definitely hire out the setup later on, like, like I gave you the example of the open funnel setup. Or for example, design, you know, like website design. I don’t do it, but I can go in and make quick changes. I can go in and the reason being it just makes it a lot easier and less stressful, and also because I’m kind of anal about control, so there’s that too. But I would highly recommend, like, knowing your ESP and knowing what it can do. So you don’t have to, like, be you know, just kind of wait for someone else to do it for you.

Cool. Just Yeah. Jessica has another good point, but I’m offering emails for I have to copy many clients ask so many questions about set up in their ESP because it’s an easy upsell for me. Amazing.

I love that. Yeah. Wait. Wait.

Okay. Cool. What other questions do you have about packages or selling your packages?

Abby, can I ask that?

Yeah, I’m looking to, like, increase the profitability of my package. I’ve been selling it for a while. I just felt like you’re the perfect person to ask because you’re all about profitability.

So I’d love to, like, do two.

So I, yeah, I guess my option, like, the the obvious thing to hire.

I have like I’m also curious, like, how much you template, like, the the copy deliverable. So I’m doing an open funnel photo. So it’s kind of similar to your, like, fully loaded launch.

Do you I do have templates for all the bits, but I always feel guilty using them. So I’m like curious if you if you template it out. And, Yeah. With the hiring up for research, like, I have a block there.

I don’t know what it is. I think it’s probably just because I’ve I’m not really hired out for stuff like that. So That was a real question. We’re just like some thoughts.

I might be waiting, like, how we sort out.

Okay. Cool. So let me just kind of clarify so that I know I have it right, and I’m I can give you information that would help you. So, you wanna know how to increase the profitability of your packages, by either hiring it out or by speeding up the process. Correct?

Yeah.

Okay. Great. Alright. So, yeah, hiring it out highly highly recommend research take took a lot of time on and also for me because I’m in India.

Time zones, and our clients are all in the US and, you know, North America, essentially. So time zones were Royal pain.

So that was my big motivation of hiring it out because I I used to be up for calls, and then, you know, I would not be my best. Yeah. So, hi, workman, hiring out research, if you can, and you factor the pricing into your package. Basically.

So to give you, I think I mentioned this somewhere in the group earlier, like, research I’ve hired out in the, you know, our research assistant takes, you know, twenty five hundred or upwards depending on the depth and breadth of research. For instance, if you have clients who have, like, so we’ve had clients who’ve had big server responses that have over thousand responses. We obviously are not gonna come to thousand responses, but we still would have, like, there’s a few hundred responses that we would, like, kind of pull from. Right?

So that’s more data there. It kind of depends on data, but essentially, like I would say, twenty five hundred is a decent package price kind of keep in mind if you’re hiring a research, but you also for the other thing you wanna look at is opportunity cost. Right? So When I calculated the amount of time, actually, my uncle calculated the amount of time, I was spending on the research phase of product.

It just made more sense for us to hire it out so that I could take on another package line. Right? And that kind of then You know, that is what helped us to really do more work without burning out. I mean, like I said, like last year, just the one the one hundred k package that I did was, like, twelve different sales pages and don’t know how many hundreds of emails.

It was, like, I could have easily said, like, okay. Yeah. After this, I’m not gonna do another project.

But I just wasn’t stressed out at all. And large part of that would be, research, but the other is going to answer the other part your question, which is process package delivery is all about your processes. And this is for everybody, whether you do, you know, like launch copywriting, your email rating or any kind of copywriting point is for your packages, you need to look at what can you systematize and In my case, I do not have used templates for copy.

I have a huge thing against templates for cockney.

It’s on my pet peeves. But I do have what I call recipes and frameworks. So I’m a huge, huge I would like if I write a sales page for the first time at it conversely well, you can be one hundred percent sure it’s going to become recipe. And when I say recipe, it’s essentially I would write down, okay, like, so here’s step one.

Like, literally, write it out like a recipe. So I would say, okay, here are the ingredients that I use for this. Here’s step one. You’re step two.

You’re step three. You’re step four. You’re step five. And then when I’m sitting down to write, all I do is I open up a recipe.

I copy that into a Google doc, so I’m not starting with a blank page. And then I just Follow the steps, put my copy in the relevant sections. And when needed, because again, audience is wary. So it may be the same recipe, but I can move steps around and gives me flexibility.

So that is another way that I’ve been able to really speed up my process. That’s made a huge, huge difference.

Going back to hiring, yes, research is one thing, but you also need to know that our very first hire was an editor. Because editing was my least favorite thing to do. We did not hire VA. I know that Joe encourages us to hire via, like, you know, first thing.

But went against the grain there, hired an editor because editing was my most time consuming job, and an editor was our first full time hire and has continued to be part of our team sense. So, that saves me a ton of time because I know the copy that I get I’m like, I’m not worried that I’m sending off copy that hasn’t been seen by another pair of professional copywriting, copy editing files. So our editor right now is someone who’s also trained in BrandVoice. So that means really, really you know, it’s really helpful for me to know where I’m going off voice sometimes for a brand, you know, especially because I do multiple projects for the same brand.

So she’s she can recognize, like, hey, you know, this should you be using these many exclamation marks and, you know, things like that because it’s not on them. So that really helps save time for me. I’m not spending time editing. Anything that helps us save time is a hire that we would we would consider.

I don’t do my own wireframes either.

We hire that out too. So I save a ton of time on just focusing on doing my writing.

That is that is basically what what’s really really helped.

Okay. Cool. Yeah. Because I don’t I don’t wireframe. I didn’t realize you did that.

But I yeah. I think like So a project will take me fifty hours, and I don’t really see room to, like, speed up. So I do use frameworks and stuff, but I think with the hiring out the research, like, because that’s such a key part of where, like, the ideas happen, like, when I’m finding it all, like, that’s usually when I get, like, the big idea. So I think I just, worry that if I hired that out, like, I mean, what do you think of, like, if I have, like, a kind of a framework for a master guide and I tell them what race I should do and, like, to put it in there, and then reviewing that. Is that kind of?

Yeah. Exactly. You can absolutely do that. So I have a framework for my messaging and recommendations guide as well, and I would let my researchers just know that, hey, you know, this is how I needed it.

So and, yeah. I mean, we worked with three different research specialists over the years and all through, like, because we had so many projects, so we would, you know, like, and they would have that limited So we would hire out different projects to all of them. All three of them have same standard instructions, same briefs, everything. So it yeah.

And I completely agree with this. This was, like, one of my big too. It’s like, you know, okay. How would we get sticky messaging?

How would I know about, you know, things like, okay. Again, the big idea here, all of those things, but Yeah. I mean, hiring research, Abby has made zero, I would say.

Difference tune. In fact, if anything, I’m more creative. Like, I find that because I’m approaching the messaging and the research data with those fresh eyes. So I would say it’s it’s been a huge huge help.

Oh, sorry. One more question. I’m really sorry to be like a hog, but, how how do you hire someone? How where do you find these people? To do.

Yeah. Yeah.

I I actually so sorry. I I want to add to this. I also wanted to ask, like, I’m curious For the research part, do you hire someone who already knows how to do copy research, or are they like generalist researchers or what?

Copy research. They they specifically work with copywriters, to research for their client. Projects. So, I’ll tell you how we found.

So here’s, so one of the first researchers we worked with was in our programs, for creating packages, and created a research package, and we ended up hiring her. So that was easy. The second researcher was, Melissa Harstein, I found it to another copywriter, and the third researcher was essentially she started as our content support, and the community concierge, assistant, and then she we realized, like, you know, she she had the potential. And so we started asking, like, would you like to do research?

And she did, like, a bunch of projects where it went really well. And now she specializes only in research. So, but how would you find these is by asking people in your network. Like, this is the group you would wanna ask.

I’m happy to recommend who we work with for research. Should you decide to hire, and you could ask on social. Like, generally, And that’s how we found our editor as well. A copywriter who was in my program was working a second editor.

Our first editor, we found through an ad. You can also do job ads But, but I I feel like you make way, way better hires through, you know, like asking people who they work with and getting referrals. So very happy to recommend both our editor and our research people. To you, one of them has gone in house and is no longer doing research, and the other one This also is on a short hiatus from work, but the third one, I’m very happy to make an introduction to any of you needed.

Thank you.

That’d be great.

Hi, buddy. Hi, everyone. How are you?

Hey, honey.

Hi. Sorry. I I didn’t realize it was so early this morning. I had the kids walking them to school. So apologies.

This has been so helpful, and I’m right with Abby and Chris about Christopher about, you know, trying to outsource as much as possible.

And I know Abby, you are looking at a VA. So I think it’s I would love to really dive into this outsourcing because I think what I was hearing a little bit muddled was, you know, it’s like relinquishing control and what parameters because I think When I’ve heard of people who they start to outsource, they spend early days a lot of time trying to figure out a process. And that can be a really valuable time spent, but it’s also with the who you do that work with.

I’ve been cautioned about, you know, there’s a lot lost in translation that can happen when you’re when you’re partnering. So I know that, you know, the turning over some of this really important work that you mentioned is really my next step. And so I’d love to hear from the group or from anyone about the work of relinquishing control, I guess, as the mindset.

Yeah. I feel like that. And I I’d love for the groups to weigh in as well, but I feel like, that I I’m as I type a overachiever who, like I said, I’m anal about control, is what I realized is that I actually have more control more creative freedom when I’m not stressing over things that, you know, someone else can do and do well. I will say, though, and again, this is something for for future you that you wanna start thinking about is even before you hire, answer your question about processes, processes and systems, is you wanna start documenting your process. Right? This was really helpful.

For us when we hired is, like, just have well documented processes to share with whoever came on board. So they knew exactly what do and when, and that makes it really easy because it, you know, it’s a shorter runway.

Also for certain jobs, like, when you hire them out and you hire, like, say, research, for example, you’re hiring someone who is a research specialist, the runway is way shorter because they’ve already done so many projects. They work with so many different copywriters. They know different styles, and they’re really easy to work with. So that makes it that makes it much, much simpler too, which is why I’m a huge fan of asking your network peripherals, about people that they really enjoy working with.

That’s great. I think, I’d love to know, who those trusted people are within our network and, you know, building out maybe a directory of those people that we could turn to.

And then I think the last thing is out outside of the network is upwork or any of those places, reasonable places to go to from your experience.

Yeah.

Early days off of business, you hired a lot of people off of fiber. It was really great, especially with things like video editing or, like, quick graphic design jobs and illustrations and all of that. I’ve never personally heard from Upwork, but I’ve heard of some great people out of work as well. Like, people have had some great experience, there.

So Also, there’s a site called hire my mom, hire my mom dot com. That’s a that’s another really quick like, I her first hand from peers who’ve had great success, finding excellent people there as well. So, yeah, I would definitely say that. And Again, for, when you’re looking to hire, it would be great when you if you could, like, ask in the group and, you know, like, hey, I’m looking hire a VA or looking to hire an editor, does anyone have references, or referrals to, you know, kind of send my way.

So, yeah, we could obviously absolutely do that.

So just in terms of a source for for hiring, I’ve been in the ten x freelance copywriter group for, like, years. And anytime I’ve posted about, like, subcontracting opportunities there, I’ve gotten a ton of responses So, again, it, like, when I’m saying, like, there’s people who are already trained in, like, the copy hacker has approached to research.

You know, so you’re not, like, fully educating somebody who’s never heard of VOC or or something like that.

Exactly. Great idea, Katie.

I have, like, two questions up on this call.

Sorry.

Sure. Sure. No. Alika, give me just a minute. I wanted to answer Hannah’s question also, and then I’ll come to you.

So Hannah asked in the chat, I feel like an order for this kind of model to sell really well. You need right for tier clients on the list. Currently, my smallest list is a mix of people in my target audience and copywriters slash service providers. I wouldn’t engage my service for this.

So, for this, you mean, the package you currently have Hannah? It’s Hannah here. Yeah.

Hello?

Okay. I don’t know whether it had us here or not like Sorry, Elythea. I was about to ask, like, just get more clarity from from Hannah about her question because I saw that come up a short while ago. We let Hannah come back to us. I wanna get some more context around that.

Why did you go ahead?

Oh, no worries. So I have two questions and one is I’ve been, like, Two months ago, my dream was just a contract for operators because I wasn’t called with one of the leading operators right now. She’s a co she’s a coach of Galaxy. And then she told me her story about subcontracting subcontracting for another operator.

So the the thing that you’re all talking about research I wanna share the other side of the story that what Abby just said that the the research was all done for me, and I’ve really struggled with that. When I sat with the writing part. Like, because I I did not I had not done the research. Like, I had not gone and done the interviews.

I struggle a lot with, like, reading through all those heaps and heaps of transcripts.

Then, And although it was like an airtable and very organized, but I struggle with coming up with big ideas and specific VOC, which So how how do you overcome that when you’re writing and when the research is done? Like, do you read it again and again or especially when the the product or offer is not very familiar to them.

Okay.

So here’s the thing. So my research process essentially includes the VLC, which is your you know, survey data and your interview transcripts and your kickoff call transcript and all of that. Right?

But then the second part of my research is offer optimization where I go into their offer, and that is something I still do. It’s like I go through their I work with course creators, right, and coaches. So I essentially experience their course or service firsthand to get, a direct look at how a student will experience it.

So I am familiar with the offer of what with the research document as well. Like, here’s the thing, if you get them the way you would want it to be presented the way you kind of use your, like, how do you package your research so you present it to the client? And, you know, or how do you package your research so you use it?

Either which ways If you let your research, you know, assistant know that this is how you would want it, you would be starting with a done feed document. Would you have to read it Yes. But you don’t have to read all of the transcripts. I’ve I don’t read the transcript unless, of course, I wanna kind of double check something that, you know, or I wanna kind of get some more insight on a, you know, a particular, messaging area.

But or you don’t have to go through the surveys. You’d yeah. And the kickoff call is with you in any case. How our researchers can is done is I do a fairly in-depth kickoff call.

The client fills out an in-depth questionnaire, and then our research assistant takes over, does the interviews, survey responses, forum mining, coming through, like, competitor analysis, all that the research assistant does. And then they presented in a format that I wanted them to present it in because that is how I’ve been, you know, approaching my research. Like, after I’ve done all of this, I put it into, like, a fairly hefty document divided into, like, the usual sections, you know, your pains, wants, etcetera, etcetera. And then if it just yeah.

So they basically shortcut all of that for me. But it’s not like I don’t know the product because I do know it because I’ve gone through it. Sub contracting is different because you may not have contact with the client themselves. So I because I don’t subcontract, I can’t really speak to that experience.

And I have another question. And that is, like, I’ve been about hiring from day one. Like, even if it’s only been a year, I’ve hired multiple multiple things and also so what I do is, and I felt a little bit of resistance here. So when I hired for the first for three or four times. It was a higher class, bio class thing. And then I realized that I, I needed to add test like, so I added, like, a test project and or just just to see, like, if they’re fit for this job.

And there, I feel like some, like, beginners opt in for that, and then they don’t qualify.

But then the people who are actually doing great, they don’t opt in for that because they think that that, like, you know, I’m that other spammy because they’ve opted for other test projects and been, like, they’ve they’ve been born out for that. So how how do you deal with that? Like, how do you How would you approach that?

Because when I’ve hired someone with a test project, it has been, like, if someone is really qualified, it has been really beneficial for me through, like, clicking out the perfect person instantly.

But how do I encourage someone to do that? With all enthusiastic.

You you cannot.

It depends on the person who’s applying for the job. Right? Like, you cannot do the job of generating enthusiasm for applying for something for them. You can make it simpler and easier by laying out everything that they would have, what they would what you would expect, having clear expectations, also highlighting why they should wanna work with you and what what’s it for them, that kind of a thing. But beyond that, like, whether they decide to do a test project or not do a test project, essentially, up to them. Right?

I mean You recommend, like, doing a mini sales pages thing that that also walks them through, like, what’s in it for them?

No. I just do like a regular job ad. Like a well written job ad would be fine and as long as, you know, it just kind of you don’t need to sell them on sound working with you and for you to pay them. You need to sell them on, you know, the here’s why we need a test project here’s how it’s gonna help me understand and, you know, the the skill level you have and the expertise you have.

And, you know, the, you know, whether we’d be a good fit working together. So, so yeah, I would go with that. Again, full disclosure for us test projects have been for when we hired from Safe Fiber, and that test project has or up we are not work, but I would say if you have, I believe, wanna start with a single project, like a small project to see how it goes, look at turnaround times and all of that In other cases, how we’ve worked with it. It’s been with social media managers or VA’s or content support assistants or graphic designers or research assistants or, you know, editors, it’s always been we start with one project.

So we just do, like, one project, like a full project and see how that goes. Worst case scenario. It may help go really well, but then that’s just one project. Right?

And you’d never work with the contractor again.

Touch with. We’ve been very lucky. We’ve had a couple of, like, instances where we’ve not, you know, like, we’ve had, like, I think, literally say a couple of instances. But where, you know, contractors haven’t have dropped the ball have, like, literally ghosted us after, you know, saying yes and taking payments.

So, yes, it happens. But we’ve been very, very lucky with our team of contractors that we work with. So, yeah, very grateful for that. It’s been I know because it’s it’s hard hiring.

I completely agree. Thank you. That’s very helpful.

You’re welcome. Kaye said I color code everything by team. I think it’s a matter of figuring out the presentation in a way that works for your brain. Exactly.

Like, do you approach your research? Like, I always would categorize it into different categories. I needed it in, like, a Google Doc format. It’s presented to the client and like a very beautiful PDF, but I needed it like that.

And that is exactly how I get it, which makes it so much easier. So you need to figure out, like, when you are working on a copy project, how do you approach your research? Do you start by, like, going through everything and but do you document everything? Like, where does where does that documentation happen?

And that is what you need someone to do for you when they’ve done all of the other parts of the research.

Okay, Hannah, I had a couple of questions around context for your, you know, what you said about, I feel like in order for this kind of file to sell really well. You need to, like, right fit target audience clients on the list. So when you said your, your current list is a mix of people in your target audience and copywriters who that wouldn’t get your service with this, but you can still sell to people in their target audience. Right?

And then you say they’re assuming your package. Correct?

So I’m just I’m just saying that, like, I haven’t done much of this kind of setting because I feel like my list is so It’s not such a big list, but it’s like mixed of I have some of the right fit lines in there and some not. So I would have to do you segment when you send out when you have Yes.

Yes. I would feel like when I’m going to send out this kind of, to do such a fun, I would have it first focus on growing. Like you said at the beginning, going to list with the right fit to help people on the list. Yeah. I would say that too, and I would also say that segment you’ll list right away. Like, if you’d know you have a mix of charter audience clients. I would, again, do not wait for when it reaches a decent number, segment them right now.

And let them know that, hey, you know, I if you are a whoever your target audience is, if you’re this, you know, and would like to know more about what I have coming up in twenty twenty four, like, right now. So, you know, just click here and my email automation would do the rest. That kind of thing, and then you just tag them. So you have that signal building away.

Then you can set up your sales sequence to go to that segment. Right.

Cool.

Katie had a question.

Sure. We’re a little over time, but if everyone’s cool with it, we can stick around and answer Katie’s question about creating a package. Go ahead.

Okay. So I think, like, this may be beyond the scope of this call. So feel free to, I’m like, I’ve got today to to work on this kind of thing, but, my current audience is like coaches, experts, course creators, and Through conversations with Joe about my Red thread, we had talked about, like, what I currently do being profitable signature offers, so a lot of for optimization, like core messaging and sales pages and and funnels, but wanting to create some IP that’s applicable to a broader audience potentially into ecomm I can like see all of the big picture of that, but just when I think about like a q one sales plan, I’m totally lost on what to sell to my existing audience now that also allows me to be like ticking the boxes on our you know, our, like, towards celebrity status, spreadsheet because it feels like I would have to be creating content for the business I have now and creating content for the future business, which I just don’t have capacity to do.

So I guess my question is like, do you have any tips on the packages to bridge that gap or like finding kind of the overlap in the Venn diagram between where we are now and where we’re, like, hoping to go in the in the context of this program.

Oh, oh, I think you’re muted.

You wanna you are sorry. You wanna start working with e commerce businesses on their the entire profitable offer suite. So their offers and then their sales copy on their emails. Is that right? And right now you’re working with coaches and course creators on a similar thing.

Yes.

So there’s your overlap. It’s the outcome. Right?

Like, it’s the Well, I guess it’s not my question.

I guess I’m like, do I because you work with course creators. Do you Like, if I want to go as big as this, like, if I wanna go as big as possible, is there space to do that in the coach’s course creators realm, or do you think that it’s easier to have a, like, bigger outcome from the bigger pie that is e commerce.

You are asking the wrong person because, like, I believe, yes, there is a lot of scope in the coaching and course creation industry.

It honestly, we could we should have this conversation in Slack as well, but the point is, like, I feel like there’s a lot of the coaching and course create create an industry. You don’t wanna just look at your marketing coaches. Right? You wanna look at beyond that like this. So much learning happening. There are courses for for equine business owners. There are courses for, you know, like, in all the finishes.

That’s one of the reasons why I, you know, never need to down per se to something like a specific as I write for female marketing coaches, you know, So Yeah.

So, yes, there is. Oh, is e commerce a more profitable, Leech?

Maybe, maybe not. Like, define profitable. Right? Right? Is it profitable for you? Is it profitable for, in terms of, like, the people who are hiring?

Like, what is yeah. I mean, like, for me, I feel like it’s very profitable.

Okay. And also from, Katie, the other deciding factor for personally for me is also the the stress level when working on a project. I find because I’ve worked with with EdTech, where you have, like, multiple state stakeholders. I have also worked with e commerce as well. So I I work a lot of e commerce intact.

Before I focused, kind of focused on the coaching industry.

I find that stress levels in this industry way less because they’re very fewer stakeholders in the project. Right? It’s usually the person behind the brand and maybe they’re OBM and maybe someone, you know, like, a CTO or a marketing person, but Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Probably it’s moved much faster.

Okay. Thank you. That’s all really good food for thought.

So I’ll be I’ll do in Slack on this as well. Yes.

Please. Please. I, you know, yeah.

Tag me and post it in Slack, and I’m, like, I love coming up with packet ideas. So, yeah, happy to help.

Christopher’s last question for the day, SLP, do you pay them? Have you ever yes. Yes.

Have created them myself and lately have had, like, our community concierge. I totally is transitioning into full time research right now. So she created all one of the SOPs for the person who will be coming into the community conflict role because she’s been doing all of it. Right?

Like, so, it just made sense for her to document everything. And she’s also documented. She used to do our comment content, support thing as well, like the blog post uploading and, you know, sending out the email you said, all of that. So she’s documented SOPs for for all of all of that.

So but the initial SOPs that I gave her were created by me. So when you do bring in someone, you could you can definitely have that conversation with them that, hey, I would love for you to document your workflow and your, you know, the whole process as you go along so that it becomes easier for us to know how things are going, and if there are any gaps, then we need to fill them. But, yes, you can do it both ways.

Both. Thank you.

Awesome. Everybody, great call. Great seeing y’all, and I will catch you inside.

Worksheet

 

Self-Identifier Sections

Self-Identifier Sections

Transcript

Alright. Cool. So today, I have a training lined up for talking about self identifier sections. These are so I’ve used them pretty much anywhere from sales pages to emails to social content and even blog posts.

Mhmm.

But, yeah, I’m gonna share a few examples from sales pages itself. So Excellent. Oh, Jessica’s here. We can get started.

Hey, Jessica.

Hello. How are you both?

Good. Good. Good. How are you?

Doing good.

Awesome. Cool. So we’re gonna just kick things off, and this may be a I’m gonna do my best to stick to the fifteen minutes, but I’m pretty sure we’ll probably go a little over time. So let’s get going.

We’ve been having a little bit of a few power cuts lately. So just in case I lose power, I’ll be gone for about a minute or so, and then I’ll be back. Alright. Self identified sections.

Like, I was just telling the call a little while ago, this I’ve used these sections on sales pages, on emails, and social content, on blog posts, pretty much everywhere, for clients. They’ve, sales pages have shown consistently across niches that these sections get, like, even though they’re, like, further down the page, yeah, heat maps show them getting a lot of eyeballs, a lot of engagement. People clicking on the CDN buttons right below those as well. The clicks, map there is, yeah, pretty wild for, you know, again, different issues.

Emails written using these sections tend to do really, really well. Like, you could just turn a whole section into an email itself. So you may also know these as this is for you sections or yep. You know, who is this for?

Perfect for you. That kind of thing. I like to call them self identify and acquire sections and, you know, yep. That’s what we’re gonna kind of because they help people identify, themselves with whoever we’re talking about.

So what we’re gonna look at today is what are these, why do you need them, mistakes to avoid, and then, of course, the three kinds that I’ve tested extensively.

I’ve used a lot of these, but these are like, let’s just focus on the three for today. So quick introduction for those of you who may not know what these sections excited, informed decision about either joining you or not joining you for your program. Like, either which way, it’s a decision. They and they make that decision by self identifying.

They make that decision by reading those statements that that work with them, that work on them on a very tangible, emotional, visceral level almost. Why would you wanna use them? Quite simply because they work really, really well, but also because they they showcase that you understand your audience’s language. All of that voice of customer research that we’re doing, it works beautifully for these sections.

And it also shows them that you have empathy for their pain or an awareness at least, you know, for their pain, for their struggle. It helps you build trust and credibility while also being very entertaining and engaging. These are really great sections to show to help your audience see themselves as they are right now, and And then it to help your audience see themselves as they are right now and then as their future self. So they work wonderfully to kind of give a lot of information in a very condensed format.

The number one goal again of this section as is the goal for several sections on your sales page is connection. We wanna connect with our reader. The conversion always happens when we clear that connection. That is the goal of this section.

Some of the mistakes that I see, a lot of sales pages, and as someone who audits a lot of copy as well, you know, I see a lot of pages including that this is for you, perfect for you, self identify sections, but we missed the mark. And this is something that I used to do, like, way back in the day as well. So I know that this is something that happens. We know we’re supposed to do this action, but what happens is we end up making it either too weak.

You should join us if you’re interested in upleveling. I mean, like, what does that even mean? Or generic. This is for you if you’re an entrepreneur.

Okay?

But or focusing only on the pain. And here’s the deal. I know there’s a lot of conversation in sales copywriting and email copywriting niches around not focusing on the pain points of our audience. But the goal here is not to, like, kind of poke the pain.

The goal is to acknowledge the pain. We cannot just say that, oh, yeah. You know, everything’s correct. We wanna acknowledge the pain, but we don’t wanna you know, I heard this phrase somewhere.

It just kind of stuck with me because it’s just so icky. It’s like you don’t wanna poke the wound. Like, that’s not what you’re gonna do. It’s like that so you wanna acknowledge the pain, but you also wanna show empathy and awareness.

So when you’re writing these sections, the one thing you wanna look at is you don’t wanna be vague. You don’t wanna be generic, and you don’t wanna just be all pain focused here. Like, your life is just all doom and gloom. No.

That’s not the goal here. And the big mistake is not including a self identify intersection. I very, very, very rarely would say that, oh, this is something you absolutely must do because we all know that there are, you know, ten different ways to, you know, write a sales page or to write an email sequence or whatever. But But because I have such huge amounts of data for this, like, over the years, I would, yeah, I would say it would be a big mistake to not include a self adored perception.

So that will be, like, a huge mistake. As far as possible, you you wanna include it. If you’re not putting it on your sales page, at least include it in your emails, include it in your prelaunch content, include it in your social media, but please do do include it. Okay.

So let’s talk about the three kinds of self identifier sections that you could choose from. You could mix and match these to make up your own, but these are, you know, some of the ones that I’ve written for over the years. So linear paths to learnings kind of a section. Now this shares specific strategies that your audience may have tried in the past and failed at. So here we wanna kind of acknowledge that less yes. You’ve tried to learn this in the past and you failed at it or you struggled with it or you felt that you’re not really where you should be, you know, after all of this learning.

The other thing that these bullet points, for a linear path to learning, section would do is also highlight key personality qualifiers that would help them succeed in your program. So you, you know, you could also say, okay. This is for you if you’re someone who’s done a, b, and c and is now ready for x, y, and z because you are like this. So example, this was for, a membership site for people who wanted to learn how to stitch.

So very interesting. And the audience of this is essentially a lot of you know, we had a lot of senior citizens here. People who’d, you know, who’d retired or were on the verge of retirement, were looking for a hobby and things like that. So if you notice, this is very, very specific.

You haven’t picked up a needle and thread for years, but you have long held desire to express yourself creatively. It should be clearly. You’ve been dabbling with textiles for a while, but your process feels confused or overwhelming. You’ve, you know, ever told yourself you’re not naturally creative or worse someone else has said that to you.

This is for you, especially if you’re a beginner or have no experience with needle and thread, but you know you wanna be creatively inspired and confident. The next one is readiness bullet. So this type of section uses future focused tangible specificity. You wanna help your audience see what they need to be ready for once they’ve learned from you, once they’ve worked with you, once they’ve gone through your program.

You wanna solve the struggle they’re experiencing right now so that they can be better prepared for the future.

That is the readiness they need, and that is what this kind of a self identify section can do for them.

So this was for a mindset coach to Appreciation Academy. You’re ready to stop being average and playing small because that’s what, you know, you’ve learned in the past. You wanna step up and shine and have the confidence to empower others. So what do they wanna be ready for is to have the confidence to empower others.

And, package. You wanna be ready to be the best version of your for you of you or your family. You want your kids to grow up in a positive environment. You wanna be happy in the now limiting beliefs.

So you’re jamming already to say peace out to them, that kind of a thing. So you don’t wanna be what you wanna be ready for, you don’t wanna be semi committed to living your best life, you’re prepared to go all in. And then you’ve got the inspirational close. This cell phone and fire section doesn’t really come with the, you know, this is for you if or this is perfect for you if or like you saw in the past, join this if you’re so and so or Stitchcamp is for you.

The program is this one comes more towards the end of the page, and these are by definition, they are meant to inspire your leader towards momentum.

But why they qualify as self identified end of our sections? Because they generally help your audience visualize success. They help your audience see themselves doing the things that you would help them do, and it also kind of helps them think about what success will look like in a very emotional, almost, you know, very, very visual way.

This was a program for making your own homemade dairy products, cheese. So this was, like, at the end of the page, a heartfelt message from one homesteading mom to another. I know it feels hard. So you were acknowledging the opinion. I know it feels hard to spend time and money learning these skills, but think about how incredible it’ll feel to build up your dairy making skills over a period of time. How wonderful it will be to reach for yummy homemade coffee creamer and delicious smooth yogurt in the first week itself. So we are being very, very specific here about what they can expect to do or graduating to making sour cream and cultured butter, all kinds of cheeses.

Here’s what I know for sure, Brent. If, like me, you wanna give your family the best when it comes to food while saving time and money. So we’re speaking to a very specific audience here, and we’re helping them see what success looks like. We wanna start with homemade dairy products. The joy of seeing your kids lick a yogurt bowl clean or slapping rich homemade butter on toast and herbs. So really walking them through everything here.

Peace of mind, deep seated contentment. And let’s not forget the money is so tangible. There’s lot there’s a lot of visual imagery in this one, and this is not set up, like, in bullet point format either. And neither is it in the middle of the sales page, which is where you’d usually find that this is for your section, technically.

But at the same time, this does qualify as a self identify section. Why? Because we’re helping our audience see who is it for and what can they expect from this. The best self identified sections would create a vivid picture of who someone is now and who they will be after completing your product, program, taking your service.

Yeah. So we wanna use very specific details or signals like you saw in the examples that I shared. You wanna convey all three kinds of benefits. You wanna look at the functional benefit, which is like okay. This is what, like, a feature kind of a thing. We wanna look at the self expressive benefits, and we wanna look at the emotional benefits as well of that.

And then, of course, most importantly, we wanna get people to nod and say, yes.

This is me.

Cool.

We’re on time.

Alright.

Questions For those of you who have used this is for you sections in the past, what do you find is your greatest struggle when writing them? Or if you’ve never included them in the past, what’s your reasoning be? Wow. Has no one used it or has no one?

I used to get Marta, well, coached from you, actually.

And I think where I often get a little stuck is, I I think I’m pretty good at with the specificity and all and all that. Where I get stuck is, one, of course, if you don’t know, you’re one reader for sure, which has been a thing for me because I need to validate my offers more. So that’s always that’s kind of a struggle when I do approach that, but that’s obvious. Right? I think the part where I have wondered is I could go on and on, you know, really with if this is right for you and all that. And I think I appreciate your approach today because I think it makes it clearer with the different types.

Oh, okay. So only include that kind if I’m doing this type of section. Yeah. That makes more sense.

Because before, I was kinda like, oh gosh. I could write these kind of bullet points forever about who that you know, you know, making sure it’s the right person. So, I think your lesson today will help with that, but that was a previous problem where I didn’t know how how much should I go on and on about clarifying who this is right for and who it’s not for? You know what I mean?

Now that is, and that is hard. Right? That is hard to kind of figure out, especially if you’ve got different audiences that you’re looking at. So I actually wanted to share a couple of other examples and see if you could see what we are talking about here.

But, one of the things that I’ve done in the past where we’ve got, say, three different audience profiles. Right? So you could have someone who’s a beginner, someone who’s, say, intermediate, and then someone who’s, like, you know, an advanced learner is use the, you know, use a combination of readiness and linear path. So you can talk about, you know, like, what they’ve done, where they’re reached, and what’s possible for them next.

And you can also kind of talk about whether, you know, what would they be ready for.

So you can use, a mix of these as well, especially if you’ve got, like, you know, different audiences. Alright?

Any other questions? Because I have a few other examples, and I’d love for you to kind of take a look at it and see if you can identify what what kind of self identify sections are those. How many of you have used a self identify our section in your copy, sales pages, or emails? I have.

Okay. Yeah. I have. Yes. Sales pages. Not in emails. Okay.

Jessica, Abby, Naomi, Nicole. Have you used it?

Nope.

No. But this is giving me some great ideas for, social media captions and things like that.

Yeah. Social, it’s really, really great for social because you can turn into a carousel or you can turn it into a video, you know, especially on Instagram. So Yeah.

So I found it works really well for Facebook ads. Like, the, like, hands off is this is you kind of framework tends to get a really low CPL.

Yep.

Yep. Absolutely. That, Yeah. I would actually wanna test it out on a Facebook ad. I have not tested out in the Facebook ad, interestingly.

Okay. Cool.

I’m gonna show you another sales page section that I wrote, self identify section for. And I want you to identify so this was for an astrology. You should be able to see my screen.

This was for an astrology course. So it’s a the cosmic astro Academy of Astrology is your safe space to learn everything you need to know so you can cut through the noise and use astrology to understand yourself better, do reading through confidence, and create positive, meaningful change in your life, but it’s not for everyone. So before we look at the, the bullets here, here’s another thing. You do not always have to use this is for you if or this is perfect for you if or, you know, you should join us then.

You can actually play a lot with the subheads leading into the section and or if you’re using it in an email, you know, the the lead copy that goes into the section. So take a quick look at the bullets here. I’m not gonna read them. You can read it quietly.

And you can tell me what kind of self identify section is this.

Just so that I know y’all understood what I was talking about. Alright.

Who wants to take a shot? Nicole, because you’re the one I can see on camera, and I could see you nodding.

Okay. Can you repeat what I should be doing?

Essentially, just identify what kind of a section do you think this is. What kind of a self either? Is it a linear path to learning? Is it a readiness? Is it an inspiration closed? What do you think it is?

I wanna say it’s readiness because it’s like it does it, like, kinda talks a little bit about the path too. Like, it does talk about, like, you know, where you’ve been and, you know, what you need to do to get to the next step.

But at the same time, it’s just talking about, like, the readiness.

So it’s like, okay. You this is the type of person you are Mhmm. To get to you know, if, like, if you wanna see the results, I think.

Okay. Cool.

Cool. Alright.

Jessica, Abby, Naomi, do you all wanna pop guesses or what you think in the chat or wanna unmute yourself and tell me what you think?

Okay.

Abby says linear paths to learning. Alright.

Jessica.

Yeah. I guess I’m kinda with Nicole because at first when you asked, I was like I immediately went to readiness because I focused more on the phrase, you’re hungry.

You know that, like, you know, this is you kind of thing. That kind if you’ve already been doing you like, astrology isn’t new to you. You know? Mhmm.

But, yeah, I see obvious.

The but then the linear path is also kinda I don’t know.

I honestly don’t know.

Alright. So this is exactly what I was talking about is this is a combination of both, leaning a path to learning and readiness.

So you can merge the two. Right? And, again, there are no rules here. You need to see what will work with the we were talking to an audience.

I mean, this is, like, a really long sales page, but then we were talking to an audience that were at different stages of readiness and that were at that had a different, you know, kind of a path. Some of them had, you know, like, a basic knowledge, but for others, you know, it was more about what they could do with astrology regardless of whether, you know, they’ve been learning it or not. So, and then we have the personality qualifiers. So you’re willing to put in the work because, you know, we wanna be very clear that this is not, you know, like, one of those fluff filled courses.

This is, like, really deep intensive work. So we had those in as well. So you this is a combination of both linear path to learning and readiness. Inspirational close is actually really easy to spot because it’s in the name itself.

It generally end up closing the sales page or the email with it or the email sequence. I use it towards the end of the sales sequence.

But goal here is for y’all to see there are so many ways you could go with this.

I would but I would highly recommend you to kinda of think about what approach you wanna take, and don’t let just one thing kind of stop you. But think about, okay. If I’m speaking to different audiences, can I just merge these two in a way that that makes sense?

Cool. Alright.

Training time done. Let’s talk about copy reviews. Do you does anyone have copy you’d like me to take a look at?

Or do you have any other questions related to copy that you’re working on?

I have a question.

I’m wondering, like, when you’re running ads to web to webinars to opt in pages, have you noticed, like, a decrease in conversions, like, the past year? Because my benchmark used to always be, like, forty to sixty, but the last two I’ve worked on, they’ve been more, like, twenty five, thirty percent. I’m wondering if it’s me or if that’s kind of something other people are experiencing.

Okay.

I haven’t seen that. In fact, our I have a client right now who is running a page at okay. I don’t really the webinar was yesterday was on the tenth.

We’ve had a seventy five percent conversion rate, Abby. It’s wild. And this is, like, hold on. It’s homesteading niche.

The the webinar was on what about canning. Let me see if I can pull it. What I have seen though is, and I don’t know if you’ve tested this out is, and this was, like, kind of shocking to me when I personalized it, was that the shorter webinar registration pages have wild wild conversion rates. So, so yeah.

No. And last month, we did a webinar. The the same audience, we did a webinar on on rotational grazing again. You know?

That was, like, a super niche topic, but we had, like, a fifty, sixty percent sixty percent reg registration rate. And these are ads and the cost CPLs were also really low for them. Yeah.

So it could be niche specific as well.

But but, yeah, that’s, like, the most recent data I have.

Okay. Yeah.

I mean, I’m I tend to do long long form ads and then, like, a medium form, opt in page, but maybe I need to test the shorter opt in page.

Yeah. So I would highly recommend because this was really shocking to me as well was, like, their ads are like, I write their ad copy, and I did do a longer story based ad that I tend to do and but, the shorter ones way outperformed.

And then also this the registration page because we split tested both a long and a short one for this was the webinar on?

This was in February. Yeah. So that was, I think, a webinar on seed saving maybe. So, but, anyways, point being, the shorter one won by a huge margin, and since then, we’ve only used the the short one.

And that you know, like, literally, that is headline, timing, and what they’ll learn and then, you know, and an opt in form. Let me see if I can pull it up, actually. Would you want us to take a look at it? I could look Yeah.

Yeah. Go ahead. Okay.

That was, like, really.

Yeah. Because, like, last year, I had pages converting at, like, seventy, eighty percent. And it it’s yeah. I don’t know. I don’t know what’s going on.

If it’s Yeah.

I think maybe I’ve just gotten worse.

No. No. It’s just that, you know, I think this is what like, so this is like a webinar. I I mean, this was like Oh, wow. Okay. That’s it. That’s the page.

Mhmm.

It’s like And literally, we talked about manuals or anything.

No. I was like, you know and even nothing about, like, so I I tested this against the page, not not this one, but when we were running the test to see what the log would outperform short was.

So my the the test version had a brief bio section about the, you know, the client and then, of course, testimonials as well. Nothing.

It was, like, so cool. Like, literally, like, it made no sense for us to play with the longer version.

So it’s worth testing out.

Depending if other people have copy reviews, would you mind looking at the option page for my webinar?

Sure. Yeah. We have time. Okay. I’ll grab it. Cool.

Yeah. Because I kind of my instinct was that it needed to be a bit longer because, it’s a sophisticated market, so I felt like I need more social proof, because it’s teaching entrepreneur like, course creators how to set up a profit evergreen funnel.

Mhmm.

I feel like if it’s a sophisticated market, you need less information because they already have a lot of information. Like, maybe you need more technical, like, information, but I’m not sure it necessarily needs to be longer.

But, like, in terms of, like, social proof, and stuff.

No. Because I just feel like there’s so many out there. Like, I see so many ads specifically saying I could have a good funnel, so I’m kinda like, how do I make this look different? But I’ll I’ll show you, and then you can yeah. If I need to, like, scrap half of it, that’s fine.

Yes. A thirty percent conversion rate. So if I could, like, double that, then I would two x my ads then, so I’d be very happy. Yeah. Okay. Put it in the chat.

Cool. Okay.

And sorry for being off camera. I’m pretty ill, so that’s why.

Oh, sorry. Here you are. Well, hope you feel better soon. Thank you. Okay.

You can be savage. Like, I just want to improve my conversions.

I’m going to fax Tabby.

For your image wait.

Can you sorry.

If I I don’t know if you you can you have this picture on hand, but if you have your eyes looking to the right towards the text, it’ll help direct more people’s eyes to the title.

Mhmm.

I think I might do somewhere.

Yeah. I’ve heard that one as well, so maybe we’re swapping it out. It’s an easy easy fix. The the big thing that I don’t really know here, Abby, is that this is, like is this on demand? And I would also put the the boxes for name and email address right now here. You know? So Really?

No pop up?

Like, right now, I it says watch now, but I don’t know, you know, do I watch right now? Do I watch later?

So Yeah.

So yeah. Expecting when I click this button, I’m expecting the video to pop up. So after the email comes afterward, it’s like, oh, wait a second. How much more work am I gonna have to do here?

Am I gonna have to sell my Exactly my point.

Yeah. You know? Because I’m I’m clicking the button, and then I’m like, okay. Now I have to put my email address. Now do I have to choose a time later? I mean, I would just put name, email address, watch on demand, or something like that because watch now means that it’ll redirect you to, like, now you said, a landing page to watch the screen.

Okay.

How to sell more online courses.

Okay.

Also, you say go behind the scenes. Could you say, like, watch me create a day one evergreen?

Because, like, what does go behind the scenes mean?

Mhmm.

I feel like if they they’re watching you actually do it, that’s more compelling.

Mhmm.

Or if it’s not, you know, an over the shoulder kind of a tutorial kind of a webinar, then you may wanna kind of look at reevaluate this here because go behind the scenes means, like, you’re taking people behind the scenes there and helping them to see.

You could say, you know, learn how just, like, something like, you know, understand how to set up an automated funnel that’s built in for conversions every month. But what I would do is keep your take an excerpt of social proof and put it maybe to something like this. You know, sales are up by two hundred and forty percent from our last launch.

Have that as microcopy either below the CTA button or above it. So you could actually swap this out because you’ve got how to sell more this is a good promise. You could actually have, like, social proof here, then the name and email address and then the watch now thing.

Yeah. Now I’m thinking because I I’ve got a couple of good, like, results recently that I haven’t pop like, published yet. If I literally just had the headline and then, like like, seventy thousand last month, like, bullets of those kind of results. So then that’s literally it. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah.

Because this isn’t working. I mean, I’ve been running it, this version, for, like, a few good few months.

And I would move this move this up further, so that people can see what they’ll learn instead of keeping it below. Ryze social proof, we could move Ryze testimonial further down.

Yeah.

You can hop off the live launch or, of course, to go every week from day one with and then go into what they would, you know, what they would learn. Learn the what do you what have you looked at your heat maps to see what’s happening there?

No. I haven’t I haven’t got it set up for new pages.

Okay. Publisher principle. I tried that.

Could it be possible? This is this is very catchy and very clever. They’ll show me your conversion secrets.

But is it possible that people are confused by the different CTAs?

Mhmm.

Yeah. I’m I was thinking, like, do the benefit focused ones, and then it opens up the pop up where they sign up. But if I yeah. If I’m just gonna get rid of the pop up and just have the email address, then I don’t need any of these buttons.

Yeah. And I would I would so this is another thing that we and this would vary from audience to audience. But to know at this point, one of the things that we’ve tested with, you know, quite a few audience niches like therapists and, you know, astrologers, homesteaders is, keeping the same call to actions where the page is shown to work better.

Okay. Because I used to do this earlier. You know? And I still do it for, you know, a few few clients where people kind of associate it with their brand, so that’s fine. But if you’re running ads, these transfers, these are people who would be new to your brand. They may not even know you that well, so you wanna keep it consistent.

Yeah. Okay.

Because I I I really like this too. But, one of the things, Abby, is, like, I would wanna know how refreshably short this is.

Is it twenty five minutes? Is it forty?

Like, what is short?

I think it’s, like, fifty minutes, so it’s not that short. I just know that there’s, like, friction around the neck. So I was like, oh, I just stick that in.

Yeah. Just go with, like, in the in the time of my master class. So or, actually, let them know that it’s fifty minutes, you know, so people can plan accordingly.

And I haven’t seen the master class, but I feel like all of this, I feel like your audience, especially because you you have a sophisticated audience, chances that they’ve heard this. What we wanna look at is what have they not heard that you’re talking about. So leverage the principles of live launching that drive the highest conversion rates without not actually having to go through the nail biting stress of live launching or receive your audio pretending you’re live. I have you know, I’m like, will you be just telling me about using Deadline Funnel, or would you be telling me about using, you know, oh, use a webinar?

Yeah. I mean, like, a lot of people still don’t know about Deadline Funnel.

Like, I’m finding that, yeah, they’re sophisticated in the sense they they buy a lot of courses and they, you know, they’ve they’ve tried going evergreen, but, actually, like, I’m always surprised by how little they know about, like yeah.

But, mate, yeah, I I think I’m kind of, like, I’ve been pulled between two audience because I, like, I don’t know. I don’t I feel like if I make it more advanced, then I worry I’m gonna lose like that. I just yeah. I’m I’m stuck really because it is like the main one of the main selling points of the program is it’s a lot of, like, very comprehensive copywriting templates, which means my audience is gonna be DIY ing.

So if they’re still DIY DIY ing, then they can’t be that advanced is my theory. But so yeah. I’m like, do I need to make it simpler or more? Yeah.

I don’t know.

You could still speak to the same audience. I just feel like we just need to dial in on the to on the vaccinations, so to speak. Yeah. Because I feel like right now, these and also for you to kind of get really clear on who would be the perfect person for this.

So if they’re DIYers who may not know that something like Deadline Funnel even exists, then we need to pique their curiosity Mhmm.

About that. So leverage the principles of live launching. So maybe you could say leverage, you know, the the urgency of live launching without the nail biting stress. So people know that, oh, I don’t have urgency. How would I have urgency as a dead life funnel maybe?

So I feel like right now, this feels this feels generic because create consistent, sustainable cash flow. They’ve heard this a million times, but what is this? You know? Because every component of your funnel is engineered to convert.

What are we really talking about here?

Mhmm.

So create consistent sustainable cash flow because, you know, by leveraging a little known element of your funnel or an often overlooked element of your funnel depending on like I said, I don’t know what’s in the master class, so I’m just making things up on the fly here. But point is we need to really dial into exactly what would they be walking away with.

Mhmm. I mean, maybe you could even, like, instead of doing benefits, focus on what other people are doing wrong. Like, don’t call them out for it, but say, like, you thought this is the answer. Nope. You thought that was the answer.

Nope. That’s not the answer.

And then maybe put benefits later. Or don’t even put benefits. Just, like, show all the things that they’re doing wrong.

Mhmm.

Yeah.

Or you could use a self identify section and say This is for you if you’re tired of you know?

Or, you know, if you’re tired of launching live, you’re tired you know, you could just kind of use something like that there here instead of the the outcomes.

And I would take this and turn this into a headline maybe because and move your bio further down depending on what your ads look like as well.

And see right here, it says get instant access.

So we wanna kinda look at highlighting that here as well because it’s Also it’s not I’m sorry. Go ahead.

Abby, these testimonials are really long. Can you pull out, like, the, like, the bolded parts, like, the most important part, and then put them all on the same, like, screen together with their image?

Because I I feel like you could it’s it’s hard to read because there’s just a lot of text here.

Mhmm. Mhmm.

Yeah. Yep. Or you can make it, like, a pop up. Like, put, like, the main information there and maybe, like, link it to a case study or something so they can Yeah.

I think so.

I’ll just, like, fill out the results and get rid of the do do you think I should just get rid of my bio as well?

Is it like to Do you just keep it at all?

Do you talk about who you are in your ad before they reach the page here?

No. I think, actually, I do one of them. But, I mean, the whole my whole top of funnel needs a revamp.

Yeah. So if you’re using that in your ad and, you know, then I don’t I think you could easily get rid of this because you’ve got plenty of social proof as well.

Yeah. And I would definitely I would definitely redo the opt in page and test. You should test it out. Run ads to a shorter version, run ads to the longer version, and get your own data.

Mhmm.

If I were to if I were to kind of redo this and test it against a shorter version, it would just have, like, headline and either core outcomes or, or in all seriousness, the self identify section.

So, that’s it. That will be my my registration page.

Okay. Yeah. I’ll give that a go. Thank you.

Welcome. Does anyone else Nicole, Naomi, do you have any thing you’d like me to take a peek at?

Not really. Not this week.

Alright then. If that’s it, then we can all sign off. Or if you have any questions, let me know. Alright?

Nope. Alright. Thank you. Okay.

Okay. Thanks so much everybody for being here. Thank you.

Thanks, Brenna.

Bye. Thanks. Bye.

Worksheet

Self-Identifier Sections

Worksheet

Self-Identifier Sections

Transcript

Alright. Cool. So today, I have a training lined up for talking about self identifier sections. These are so I’ve used them pretty much anywhere from sales pages to emails to social content and even blog posts.

Mhmm.

But, yeah, I’m gonna share a few examples from sales pages itself. So Excellent. Oh, Jessica’s here. We can get started.

Hey, Jessica.

Hello. How are you both?

Good. Good. Good. How are you?

Doing good.

Awesome. Cool. So we’re gonna just kick things off, and this may be a I’m gonna do my best to stick to the fifteen minutes, but I’m pretty sure we’ll probably go a little over time. So let’s get going.

We’ve been having a little bit of a few power cuts lately. So just in case I lose power, I’ll be gone for about a minute or so, and then I’ll be back. Alright. Self identified sections.

Like, I was just telling the call a little while ago, this I’ve used these sections on sales pages, on emails, and social content, on blog posts, pretty much everywhere, for clients. They’ve, sales pages have shown consistently across niches that these sections get, like, even though they’re, like, further down the page, yeah, heat maps show them getting a lot of eyeballs, a lot of engagement. People clicking on the CDN buttons right below those as well. The clicks, map there is, yeah, pretty wild for, you know, again, different issues.

Emails written using these sections tend to do really, really well. Like, you could just turn a whole section into an email itself. So you may also know these as this is for you sections or yep. You know, who is this for?

Perfect for you. That kind of thing. I like to call them self identify and acquire sections and, you know, yep. That’s what we’re gonna kind of because they help people identify, themselves with whoever we’re talking about.

So what we’re gonna look at today is what are these, why do you need them, mistakes to avoid, and then, of course, the three kinds that I’ve tested extensively.

I’ve used a lot of these, but these are like, let’s just focus on the three for today. So quick introduction for those of you who may not know what these sections excited, informed decision about either joining you or not joining you for your program. Like, either which way, it’s a decision. They and they make that decision by self identifying.

They make that decision by reading those statements that that work with them, that work on them on a very tangible, emotional, visceral level almost. Why would you wanna use them? Quite simply because they work really, really well, but also because they they showcase that you understand your audience’s language. All of that voice of customer research that we’re doing, it works beautifully for these sections.

And it also shows them that you have empathy for their pain or an awareness at least, you know, for their pain, for their struggle. It helps you build trust and credibility while also being very entertaining and engaging. These are really great sections to show to help your audience see themselves as they are right now, and And then it to help your audience see themselves as they are right now and then as their future self. So they work wonderfully to kind of give a lot of information in a very condensed format.

The number one goal again of this section as is the goal for several sections on your sales page is connection. We wanna connect with our reader. The conversion always happens when we clear that connection. That is the goal of this section.

Some of the mistakes that I see, a lot of sales pages, and as someone who audits a lot of copy as well, you know, I see a lot of pages including that this is for you, perfect for you, self identify sections, but we missed the mark. And this is something that I used to do, like, way back in the day as well. So I know that this is something that happens. We know we’re supposed to do this action, but what happens is we end up making it either too weak.

You should join us if you’re interested in upleveling. I mean, like, what does that even mean? Or generic. This is for you if you’re an entrepreneur.

Okay?

But or focusing only on the pain. And here’s the deal. I know there’s a lot of conversation in sales copywriting and email copywriting niches around not focusing on the pain points of our audience. But the goal here is not to, like, kind of poke the pain.

The goal is to acknowledge the pain. We cannot just say that, oh, yeah. You know, everything’s correct. We wanna acknowledge the pain, but we don’t wanna you know, I heard this phrase somewhere.

It just kind of stuck with me because it’s just so icky. It’s like you don’t wanna poke the wound. Like, that’s not what you’re gonna do. It’s like that so you wanna acknowledge the pain, but you also wanna show empathy and awareness.

So when you’re writing these sections, the one thing you wanna look at is you don’t wanna be vague. You don’t wanna be generic, and you don’t wanna just be all pain focused here. Like, your life is just all doom and gloom. No.

That’s not the goal here. And the big mistake is not including a self identify intersection. I very, very, very rarely would say that, oh, this is something you absolutely must do because we all know that there are, you know, ten different ways to, you know, write a sales page or to write an email sequence or whatever. But But because I have such huge amounts of data for this, like, over the years, I would, yeah, I would say it would be a big mistake to not include a self adored perception.

So that will be, like, a huge mistake. As far as possible, you you wanna include it. If you’re not putting it on your sales page, at least include it in your emails, include it in your prelaunch content, include it in your social media, but please do do include it. Okay.

So let’s talk about the three kinds of self identifier sections that you could choose from. You could mix and match these to make up your own, but these are, you know, some of the ones that I’ve written for over the years. So linear paths to learnings kind of a section. Now this shares specific strategies that your audience may have tried in the past and failed at. So here we wanna kind of acknowledge that less yes. You’ve tried to learn this in the past and you failed at it or you struggled with it or you felt that you’re not really where you should be, you know, after all of this learning.

The other thing that these bullet points, for a linear path to learning, section would do is also highlight key personality qualifiers that would help them succeed in your program. So you, you know, you could also say, okay. This is for you if you’re someone who’s done a, b, and c and is now ready for x, y, and z because you are like this. So example, this was for, a membership site for people who wanted to learn how to stitch.

So very interesting. And the audience of this is essentially a lot of you know, we had a lot of senior citizens here. People who’d, you know, who’d retired or were on the verge of retirement, were looking for a hobby and things like that. So if you notice, this is very, very specific.

You haven’t picked up a needle and thread for years, but you have long held desire to express yourself creatively. It should be clearly. You’ve been dabbling with textiles for a while, but your process feels confused or overwhelming. You’ve, you know, ever told yourself you’re not naturally creative or worse someone else has said that to you.

This is for you, especially if you’re a beginner or have no experience with needle and thread, but you know you wanna be creatively inspired and confident. The next one is readiness bullet. So this type of section uses future focused tangible specificity. You wanna help your audience see what they need to be ready for once they’ve learned from you, once they’ve worked with you, once they’ve gone through your program.

You wanna solve the struggle they’re experiencing right now so that they can be better prepared for the future.

That is the readiness they need, and that is what this kind of a self identify section can do for them.

So this was for a mindset coach to Appreciation Academy. You’re ready to stop being average and playing small because that’s what, you know, you’ve learned in the past. You wanna step up and shine and have the confidence to empower others. So what do they wanna be ready for is to have the confidence to empower others.

And, package. You wanna be ready to be the best version of your for you of you or your family. You want your kids to grow up in a positive environment. You wanna be happy in the now limiting beliefs.

So you’re jamming already to say peace out to them, that kind of a thing. So you don’t wanna be what you wanna be ready for, you don’t wanna be semi committed to living your best life, you’re prepared to go all in. And then you’ve got the inspirational close. This cell phone and fire section doesn’t really come with the, you know, this is for you if or this is perfect for you if or like you saw in the past, join this if you’re so and so or Stitchcamp is for you.

The program is this one comes more towards the end of the page, and these are by definition, they are meant to inspire your leader towards momentum.

But why they qualify as self identified end of our sections? Because they generally help your audience visualize success. They help your audience see themselves doing the things that you would help them do, and it also kind of helps them think about what success will look like in a very emotional, almost, you know, very, very visual way.

This was a program for making your own homemade dairy products, cheese. So this was, like, at the end of the page, a heartfelt message from one homesteading mom to another. I know it feels hard. So you were acknowledging the opinion. I know it feels hard to spend time and money learning these skills, but think about how incredible it’ll feel to build up your dairy making skills over a period of time. How wonderful it will be to reach for yummy homemade coffee creamer and delicious smooth yogurt in the first week itself. So we are being very, very specific here about what they can expect to do or graduating to making sour cream and cultured butter, all kinds of cheeses.

Here’s what I know for sure, Brent. If, like me, you wanna give your family the best when it comes to food while saving time and money. So we’re speaking to a very specific audience here, and we’re helping them see what success looks like. We wanna start with homemade dairy products. The joy of seeing your kids lick a yogurt bowl clean or slapping rich homemade butter on toast and herbs. So really walking them through everything here.

Peace of mind, deep seated contentment. And let’s not forget the money is so tangible. There’s lot there’s a lot of visual imagery in this one, and this is not set up, like, in bullet point format either. And neither is it in the middle of the sales page, which is where you’d usually find that this is for your section, technically.

But at the same time, this does qualify as a self identify section. Why? Because we’re helping our audience see who is it for and what can they expect from this. The best self identified sections would create a vivid picture of who someone is now and who they will be after completing your product, program, taking your service.

Yeah. So we wanna use very specific details or signals like you saw in the examples that I shared. You wanna convey all three kinds of benefits. You wanna look at the functional benefit, which is like okay. This is what, like, a feature kind of a thing. We wanna look at the self expressive benefits, and we wanna look at the emotional benefits as well of that.

And then, of course, most importantly, we wanna get people to nod and say, yes.

This is me.

Cool.

We’re on time.

Alright.

Questions For those of you who have used this is for you sections in the past, what do you find is your greatest struggle when writing them? Or if you’ve never included them in the past, what’s your reasoning be? Wow. Has no one used it or has no one?

I used to get Marta, well, coached from you, actually.

And I think where I often get a little stuck is, I I think I’m pretty good at with the specificity and all and all that. Where I get stuck is, one, of course, if you don’t know, you’re one reader for sure, which has been a thing for me because I need to validate my offers more. So that’s always that’s kind of a struggle when I do approach that, but that’s obvious. Right? I think the part where I have wondered is I could go on and on, you know, really with if this is right for you and all that. And I think I appreciate your approach today because I think it makes it clearer with the different types.

Oh, okay. So only include that kind if I’m doing this type of section. Yeah. That makes more sense.

Because before, I was kinda like, oh gosh. I could write these kind of bullet points forever about who that you know, you know, making sure it’s the right person. So, I think your lesson today will help with that, but that was a previous problem where I didn’t know how how much should I go on and on about clarifying who this is right for and who it’s not for? You know what I mean?

Now that is, and that is hard. Right? That is hard to kind of figure out, especially if you’ve got different audiences that you’re looking at. So I actually wanted to share a couple of other examples and see if you could see what we are talking about here.

But, one of the things that I’ve done in the past where we’ve got, say, three different audience profiles. Right? So you could have someone who’s a beginner, someone who’s, say, intermediate, and then someone who’s, like, you know, an advanced learner is use the, you know, use a combination of readiness and linear path. So you can talk about, you know, like, what they’ve done, where they’re reached, and what’s possible for them next.

And you can also kind of talk about whether, you know, what would they be ready for.

So you can use, a mix of these as well, especially if you’ve got, like, you know, different audiences. Alright?

Any other questions? Because I have a few other examples, and I’d love for you to kind of take a look at it and see if you can identify what what kind of self identify sections are those. How many of you have used a self identify our section in your copy, sales pages, or emails? I have.

Okay. Yeah. I have. Yes. Sales pages. Not in emails. Okay.

Jessica, Abby, Naomi, Nicole. Have you used it?

Nope.

No. But this is giving me some great ideas for, social media captions and things like that.

Yeah. Social, it’s really, really great for social because you can turn into a carousel or you can turn it into a video, you know, especially on Instagram. So Yeah.

So I found it works really well for Facebook ads. Like, the, like, hands off is this is you kind of framework tends to get a really low CPL.

Yep.

Yep. Absolutely. That, Yeah. I would actually wanna test it out on a Facebook ad. I have not tested out in the Facebook ad, interestingly.

Okay. Cool.

I’m gonna show you another sales page section that I wrote, self identify section for. And I want you to identify so this was for an astrology. You should be able to see my screen.

This was for an astrology course. So it’s a the cosmic astro Academy of Astrology is your safe space to learn everything you need to know so you can cut through the noise and use astrology to understand yourself better, do reading through confidence, and create positive, meaningful change in your life, but it’s not for everyone. So before we look at the, the bullets here, here’s another thing. You do not always have to use this is for you if or this is perfect for you if or, you know, you should join us then.

You can actually play a lot with the subheads leading into the section and or if you’re using it in an email, you know, the the lead copy that goes into the section. So take a quick look at the bullets here. I’m not gonna read them. You can read it quietly.

And you can tell me what kind of self identify section is this.

Just so that I know y’all understood what I was talking about. Alright.

Who wants to take a shot? Nicole, because you’re the one I can see on camera, and I could see you nodding.

Okay. Can you repeat what I should be doing?

Essentially, just identify what kind of a section do you think this is. What kind of a self either? Is it a linear path to learning? Is it a readiness? Is it an inspiration closed? What do you think it is?

I wanna say it’s readiness because it’s like it does it, like, kinda talks a little bit about the path too. Like, it does talk about, like, you know, where you’ve been and, you know, what you need to do to get to the next step.

But at the same time, it’s just talking about, like, the readiness.

So it’s like, okay. You this is the type of person you are Mhmm. To get to you know, if, like, if you wanna see the results, I think.

Okay. Cool.

Cool. Alright.

Jessica, Abby, Naomi, do you all wanna pop guesses or what you think in the chat or wanna unmute yourself and tell me what you think?

Okay.

Abby says linear paths to learning. Alright.

Jessica.

Yeah. I guess I’m kinda with Nicole because at first when you asked, I was like I immediately went to readiness because I focused more on the phrase, you’re hungry.

You know that, like, you know, this is you kind of thing. That kind if you’ve already been doing you like, astrology isn’t new to you. You know? Mhmm.

But, yeah, I see obvious.

The but then the linear path is also kinda I don’t know.

I honestly don’t know.

Alright. So this is exactly what I was talking about is this is a combination of both, leaning a path to learning and readiness.

So you can merge the two. Right? And, again, there are no rules here. You need to see what will work with the we were talking to an audience.

I mean, this is, like, a really long sales page, but then we were talking to an audience that were at different stages of readiness and that were at that had a different, you know, kind of a path. Some of them had, you know, like, a basic knowledge, but for others, you know, it was more about what they could do with astrology regardless of whether, you know, they’ve been learning it or not. So, and then we have the personality qualifiers. So you’re willing to put in the work because, you know, we wanna be very clear that this is not, you know, like, one of those fluff filled courses.

This is, like, really deep intensive work. So we had those in as well. So you this is a combination of both linear path to learning and readiness. Inspirational close is actually really easy to spot because it’s in the name itself.

It generally end up closing the sales page or the email with it or the email sequence. I use it towards the end of the sales sequence.

But goal here is for y’all to see there are so many ways you could go with this.

I would but I would highly recommend you to kinda of think about what approach you wanna take, and don’t let just one thing kind of stop you. But think about, okay. If I’m speaking to different audiences, can I just merge these two in a way that that makes sense?

Cool. Alright.

Training time done. Let’s talk about copy reviews. Do you does anyone have copy you’d like me to take a look at?

Or do you have any other questions related to copy that you’re working on?

I have a question.

I’m wondering, like, when you’re running ads to web to webinars to opt in pages, have you noticed, like, a decrease in conversions, like, the past year? Because my benchmark used to always be, like, forty to sixty, but the last two I’ve worked on, they’ve been more, like, twenty five, thirty percent. I’m wondering if it’s me or if that’s kind of something other people are experiencing.

Okay.

I haven’t seen that. In fact, our I have a client right now who is running a page at okay. I don’t really the webinar was yesterday was on the tenth.

We’ve had a seventy five percent conversion rate, Abby. It’s wild. And this is, like, hold on. It’s homesteading niche.

The the webinar was on what about canning. Let me see if I can pull it. What I have seen though is, and I don’t know if you’ve tested this out is, and this was, like, kind of shocking to me when I personalized it, was that the shorter webinar registration pages have wild wild conversion rates. So, so yeah.

No. And last month, we did a webinar. The the same audience, we did a webinar on on rotational grazing again. You know?

That was, like, a super niche topic, but we had, like, a fifty, sixty percent sixty percent reg registration rate. And these are ads and the cost CPLs were also really low for them. Yeah.

So it could be niche specific as well.

But but, yeah, that’s, like, the most recent data I have.

Okay. Yeah.

I mean, I’m I tend to do long long form ads and then, like, a medium form, opt in page, but maybe I need to test the shorter opt in page.

Yeah. So I would highly recommend because this was really shocking to me as well was, like, their ads are like, I write their ad copy, and I did do a longer story based ad that I tend to do and but, the shorter ones way outperformed.

And then also this the registration page because we split tested both a long and a short one for this was the webinar on?

This was in February. Yeah. So that was, I think, a webinar on seed saving maybe. So, but, anyways, point being, the shorter one won by a huge margin, and since then, we’ve only used the the short one.

And that you know, like, literally, that is headline, timing, and what they’ll learn and then, you know, and an opt in form. Let me see if I can pull it up, actually. Would you want us to take a look at it? I could look Yeah.

Yeah. Go ahead. Okay.

That was, like, really.

Yeah. Because, like, last year, I had pages converting at, like, seventy, eighty percent. And it it’s yeah. I don’t know. I don’t know what’s going on.

If it’s Yeah.

I think maybe I’ve just gotten worse.

No. No. It’s just that, you know, I think this is what like, so this is like a webinar. I I mean, this was like Oh, wow. Okay. That’s it. That’s the page.

Mhmm.

It’s like And literally, we talked about manuals or anything.

No. I was like, you know and even nothing about, like, so I I tested this against the page, not not this one, but when we were running the test to see what the log would outperform short was.

So my the the test version had a brief bio section about the, you know, the client and then, of course, testimonials as well. Nothing.

It was, like, so cool. Like, literally, like, it made no sense for us to play with the longer version.

So it’s worth testing out.

Depending if other people have copy reviews, would you mind looking at the option page for my webinar?

Sure. Yeah. We have time. Okay. I’ll grab it. Cool.

Yeah. Because I kind of my instinct was that it needed to be a bit longer because, it’s a sophisticated market, so I felt like I need more social proof, because it’s teaching entrepreneur like, course creators how to set up a profit evergreen funnel.

Mhmm.

I feel like if it’s a sophisticated market, you need less information because they already have a lot of information. Like, maybe you need more technical, like, information, but I’m not sure it necessarily needs to be longer.

But, like, in terms of, like, social proof, and stuff.

No. Because I just feel like there’s so many out there. Like, I see so many ads specifically saying I could have a good funnel, so I’m kinda like, how do I make this look different? But I’ll I’ll show you, and then you can yeah. If I need to, like, scrap half of it, that’s fine.

Yes. A thirty percent conversion rate. So if I could, like, double that, then I would two x my ads then, so I’d be very happy. Yeah. Okay. Put it in the chat.

Cool. Okay.

And sorry for being off camera. I’m pretty ill, so that’s why.

Oh, sorry. Here you are. Well, hope you feel better soon. Thank you. Okay.

You can be savage. Like, I just want to improve my conversions.

I’m going to fax Tabby.

For your image wait.

Can you sorry.

If I I don’t know if you you can you have this picture on hand, but if you have your eyes looking to the right towards the text, it’ll help direct more people’s eyes to the title.

Mhmm.

I think I might do somewhere.

Yeah. I’ve heard that one as well, so maybe we’re swapping it out. It’s an easy easy fix. The the big thing that I don’t really know here, Abby, is that this is, like is this on demand? And I would also put the the boxes for name and email address right now here. You know? So Really?

No pop up?

Like, right now, I it says watch now, but I don’t know, you know, do I watch right now? Do I watch later?

So Yeah.

So yeah. Expecting when I click this button, I’m expecting the video to pop up. So after the email comes afterward, it’s like, oh, wait a second. How much more work am I gonna have to do here?

Am I gonna have to sell my Exactly my point.

Yeah. You know? Because I’m I’m clicking the button, and then I’m like, okay. Now I have to put my email address. Now do I have to choose a time later? I mean, I would just put name, email address, watch on demand, or something like that because watch now means that it’ll redirect you to, like, now you said, a landing page to watch the screen.

Okay.

How to sell more online courses.

Okay.

Also, you say go behind the scenes. Could you say, like, watch me create a day one evergreen?

Because, like, what does go behind the scenes mean?

Mhmm.

I feel like if they they’re watching you actually do it, that’s more compelling.

Mhmm.

Or if it’s not, you know, an over the shoulder kind of a tutorial kind of a webinar, then you may wanna kind of look at reevaluate this here because go behind the scenes means, like, you’re taking people behind the scenes there and helping them to see.

You could say, you know, learn how just, like, something like, you know, understand how to set up an automated funnel that’s built in for conversions every month. But what I would do is keep your take an excerpt of social proof and put it maybe to something like this. You know, sales are up by two hundred and forty percent from our last launch.

Have that as microcopy either below the CTA button or above it. So you could actually swap this out because you’ve got how to sell more this is a good promise. You could actually have, like, social proof here, then the name and email address and then the watch now thing.

Yeah. Now I’m thinking because I I’ve got a couple of good, like, results recently that I haven’t pop like, published yet. If I literally just had the headline and then, like like, seventy thousand last month, like, bullets of those kind of results. So then that’s literally it. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah.

Because this isn’t working. I mean, I’ve been running it, this version, for, like, a few good few months.

And I would move this move this up further, so that people can see what they’ll learn instead of keeping it below. Ryze social proof, we could move Ryze testimonial further down.

Yeah.

You can hop off the live launch or, of course, to go every week from day one with and then go into what they would, you know, what they would learn. Learn the what do you what have you looked at your heat maps to see what’s happening there?

No. I haven’t I haven’t got it set up for new pages.

Okay. Publisher principle. I tried that.

Could it be possible? This is this is very catchy and very clever. They’ll show me your conversion secrets.

But is it possible that people are confused by the different CTAs?

Mhmm.

Yeah. I’m I was thinking, like, do the benefit focused ones, and then it opens up the pop up where they sign up. But if I yeah. If I’m just gonna get rid of the pop up and just have the email address, then I don’t need any of these buttons.

Yeah. And I would I would so this is another thing that we and this would vary from audience to audience. But to know at this point, one of the things that we’ve tested with, you know, quite a few audience niches like therapists and, you know, astrologers, homesteaders is, keeping the same call to actions where the page is shown to work better.

Okay. Because I used to do this earlier. You know? And I still do it for, you know, a few few clients where people kind of associate it with their brand, so that’s fine. But if you’re running ads, these transfers, these are people who would be new to your brand. They may not even know you that well, so you wanna keep it consistent.

Yeah. Okay.

Because I I I really like this too. But, one of the things, Abby, is, like, I would wanna know how refreshably short this is.

Is it twenty five minutes? Is it forty?

Like, what is short?

I think it’s, like, fifty minutes, so it’s not that short. I just know that there’s, like, friction around the neck. So I was like, oh, I just stick that in.

Yeah. Just go with, like, in the in the time of my master class. So or, actually, let them know that it’s fifty minutes, you know, so people can plan accordingly.

And I haven’t seen the master class, but I feel like all of this, I feel like your audience, especially because you you have a sophisticated audience, chances that they’ve heard this. What we wanna look at is what have they not heard that you’re talking about. So leverage the principles of live launching that drive the highest conversion rates without not actually having to go through the nail biting stress of live launching or receive your audio pretending you’re live. I have you know, I’m like, will you be just telling me about using Deadline Funnel, or would you be telling me about using, you know, oh, use a webinar?

Yeah. I mean, like, a lot of people still don’t know about Deadline Funnel.

Like, I’m finding that, yeah, they’re sophisticated in the sense they they buy a lot of courses and they, you know, they’ve they’ve tried going evergreen, but, actually, like, I’m always surprised by how little they know about, like yeah.

But, mate, yeah, I I think I’m kind of, like, I’ve been pulled between two audience because I, like, I don’t know. I don’t I feel like if I make it more advanced, then I worry I’m gonna lose like that. I just yeah. I’m I’m stuck really because it is like the main one of the main selling points of the program is it’s a lot of, like, very comprehensive copywriting templates, which means my audience is gonna be DIY ing.

So if they’re still DIY DIY ing, then they can’t be that advanced is my theory. But so yeah. I’m like, do I need to make it simpler or more? Yeah.

I don’t know.

You could still speak to the same audience. I just feel like we just need to dial in on the to on the vaccinations, so to speak. Yeah. Because I feel like right now, these and also for you to kind of get really clear on who would be the perfect person for this.

So if they’re DIYers who may not know that something like Deadline Funnel even exists, then we need to pique their curiosity Mhmm.

About that. So leverage the principles of live launching. So maybe you could say leverage, you know, the the urgency of live launching without the nail biting stress. So people know that, oh, I don’t have urgency. How would I have urgency as a dead life funnel maybe?

So I feel like right now, this feels this feels generic because create consistent, sustainable cash flow. They’ve heard this a million times, but what is this? You know? Because every component of your funnel is engineered to convert.

What are we really talking about here?

Mhmm.

So create consistent sustainable cash flow because, you know, by leveraging a little known element of your funnel or an often overlooked element of your funnel depending on like I said, I don’t know what’s in the master class, so I’m just making things up on the fly here. But point is we need to really dial into exactly what would they be walking away with.

Mhmm. I mean, maybe you could even, like, instead of doing benefits, focus on what other people are doing wrong. Like, don’t call them out for it, but say, like, you thought this is the answer. Nope. You thought that was the answer.

Nope. That’s not the answer.

And then maybe put benefits later. Or don’t even put benefits. Just, like, show all the things that they’re doing wrong.

Mhmm.

Yeah.

Or you could use a self identify section and say This is for you if you’re tired of you know?

Or, you know, if you’re tired of launching live, you’re tired you know, you could just kind of use something like that there here instead of the the outcomes.

And I would take this and turn this into a headline maybe because and move your bio further down depending on what your ads look like as well.

And see right here, it says get instant access.

So we wanna kinda look at highlighting that here as well because it’s Also it’s not I’m sorry. Go ahead.

Abby, these testimonials are really long. Can you pull out, like, the, like, the bolded parts, like, the most important part, and then put them all on the same, like, screen together with their image?

Because I I feel like you could it’s it’s hard to read because there’s just a lot of text here.

Mhmm. Mhmm.

Yeah. Yep. Or you can make it, like, a pop up. Like, put, like, the main information there and maybe, like, link it to a case study or something so they can Yeah.

I think so.

I’ll just, like, fill out the results and get rid of the do do you think I should just get rid of my bio as well?

Is it like to Do you just keep it at all?

Do you talk about who you are in your ad before they reach the page here?

No. I think, actually, I do one of them. But, I mean, the whole my whole top of funnel needs a revamp.

Yeah. So if you’re using that in your ad and, you know, then I don’t I think you could easily get rid of this because you’ve got plenty of social proof as well.

Yeah. And I would definitely I would definitely redo the opt in page and test. You should test it out. Run ads to a shorter version, run ads to the longer version, and get your own data.

Mhmm.

If I were to if I were to kind of redo this and test it against a shorter version, it would just have, like, headline and either core outcomes or, or in all seriousness, the self identify section.

So, that’s it. That will be my my registration page.

Okay. Yeah. I’ll give that a go. Thank you.

Welcome. Does anyone else Nicole, Naomi, do you have any thing you’d like me to take a peek at?

Not really. Not this week.

Alright then. If that’s it, then we can all sign off. Or if you have any questions, let me know. Alright?

Nope. Alright. Thank you. Okay.

Okay. Thanks so much everybody for being here. Thank you.

Thanks, Brenna.

Bye. Thanks. Bye.

Your 9-Word Evergreen Email Automation

Your 9-Word Evergreen Email Automation

Transcript

As everybody’s moving into, like, the next tier of growing your business, getting those all the other things that we’re talking about here in Copy School Pro.

Moving from looking for leads to making sure you have qualified leads and making sure you get more and more of them in. And then what do you do with those that don’t convert, what do you do with the email list that you’re building in some way, whether you’re like, I don’t really build one, Joe, or you’re like, well, I’ve put in got three hundred people on the list or I’ve got thirty thousand people on my list or whatever it is. If you’re not building a list of some kind, what’s stopping you? Not gonna get into the list building today, but what we are going to talk about is the fact that a lot of leads aren’t ready for you when you present an offer to them, or they sign up and they’re like, they join your list, and they’re not quite sure.

What they want or when they’re gonna need it, etcetera, etcetera. There’s all sorts of confusion. People don’t ghost you or say no to you simply because they’re always gonna say no to you. So we are talking about opens. When you have people who are on your list in some way.

It’s good to keep them engaged. So this is a trick. That I learned, a technique, a way to do that. Really straightforward. Everybody has heard of the nine word email.

Yeah. So if you haven’t Google it, it’s the nine word email.

But that’s a really that’s a way to reengage or reactivate somebody who has, you know, gone silent, on you a lead, and that could be a lead in any form. Right? So if you are selling courses or thinking of it, if you are taking clients, if you’re doing both, all of all of these people who you’re trying to reach out to or they reach out to you and these things don’t come together. We want to use something like the nine word email. So here’s the thing that we are doing today. I will switch over and share my screen and talk you through this really basic simple thing that we can all do. I actually Lindsay on my team is setting ours up.

So we can always ask Lindsay hard questions if we want to. Just kidding she’s still working on it. But I I love it and I wanted to share it with you the second I put my own together.

So here is the idea.

Over the course of a year, you drip out across every twenty three days across a year, you drip out in your email platform, active campaign ConvertKit, whatever you’re using. You set up an automation, and you could do this also in many chat as well. So if you’re like, I’m not really building my list, but I’m over on Instagram. I’m doing cool stuff over there. You can set up the exact same thing in Instagram so people who follow you can get this and Lindsay also does those for us. So she can maybe speak more to that. To what you would do in manychat, but here is the point.

You can both do this for yourself and sell this as something you do for clients. So if you’re like, you just wanna make some quick cash get another product type service or, like, you have, a client who is, who has, like, sales team or people that are involved in selling, including. They might have someone called an opener.

A setter, that’s usually an appointment setter, a warmer and a closer. So these are the sorts of roles that you might encounter or the terminology you might hear from client who needs something like this. We’re talking about opens here, opens including reactivation.

So what we do is we write sixteen. You just brain dump sixteen nine word email. They don’t have to be exactly nine words, but they are in the like great tradition of are you still looking for apps? So the nine word email I’m pretty sure it goes, are you still looking for such as, are you still looking for a hand with your website?

Are you still looking for, more conversions in your launches? Are you still looking for then whatever the thing is that you offer. Right? So are you still looking for new clients?

Are you still looking for x y z?

We go through and we brainstorm a variety of those and you can do that for yourself just again and again for one thing. If it is, like, I just wanna reopen conversations every twenty three days, automatically on the subject of me working for you. Okay. Fine.

Then you bring That’s all you’re selling. If you’re like, Joe, I’m fully on services. I don’t do other things. Cool.

Fine. That’s great. You’re going to brainstorm sixteen nine word emails, write them out, and then you schedule them in your solution every twenty three days. And that over the course of a year, a little bit over a year, that will drip out this ongoing engagement with books.

Does this make sense?

Okay. So you can do this for if you’re beyond plan at work and you want to diversify the way that you’re generating revenue if you’re doing webinars. If you have evergreen webinars, obviously, in particular, if you do the same webinar every two weeks live, which, by the way, a lot of people actually do. So don’t feel weird.

If you feel weird about evergreen webinars, if you thought about doing a webinar and you’re like, I don’t wanna evergreen it, but I also don’t know, should I be delivering it live all the time? Yeah. You can do that. It’s fine.

Demo of bookings and demo could mean anything. It could mean how you help a person’s team if you’re doing copykeeping services or something like that.

Consult calls and that’s where it’s a setter where you’re going to book an appointment. So, that’s the goal is to set that appointment. If you have a PDF or a book giveaway, that could be the subject of an email, any IRL events that you might do, and this might not be happening right now, but it’s good to think about as you grow. What you would kind of like replace certain emails with along the way.

If you have a podcast, book and guess on that podcast, if you have a course to sell, opening the conversation. These aren’t closers, and they’re not necessarily setters either. These are open or reopen conversations with people who could become your smart client.

Workshops, product history services, really the list goes on. So this is what you’re going to do for the next fifteen minutes, sixteen minutes to give you one minute fur. I’m gonna quickly show you what ours looks like, and these are just some of the emails that I’ve drafted out for, Lindsey.

Knowing that we have a little bit of complexity, that you shouldn’t normally really have to worry about if you have one thing you’re trying to get done or a one audience you’re trying to speak to. We have general everybody, and then we have freelancers, which are very they need very different messages than startup founder needs and then an in a then an in house copywriter needs, etcetera. So we wanna find out quickly out of the gate, hey, are you still freelancing? Is twenty three days after a person opt in to our general list.

They’ll get an email that has subject line freelancing question mark in order to try to move only people who are freelancing to open this, and then they’ll reply. Again, this is an open. This is not something where you’ll necessarily have another, message that follows absolutely in your platform, although you could. Right?

You could do all sorts of triggers in active campaign. In many chat where if somebody does something, then x happens. But the best the simplest way to go about this is to write the email, the nine word email that is just, hey, are you still blank? That’s it.

And don’t worry about setting up anything that follows twenty three days later, the next one goes out. I’m running a workshop on. This is for an evergreen webinar that Paul is working on right now on our team. Would you like join us.

They answer yes. The conversation is opened and that’s where you take over. This is manual work, but it’s also sell by chats, right? It’s it’s getting you into this world of selling with conversations that happen by email.

Or on Instagram or even on your website if you decide that you’re going to do this in like, messenger or something else and there are other tools we’re gonna talk about as we go through Coffee School Pro. Okay. We’re gonna give you sixteen minutes to write your own sixteen nine word emails. The fastest way to actually make sure you implement this is to go into your convert kit or active campaign or whatever, and write the automation right in there.

You don’t have to activate it if you’re like, oh, these suck. Just put the basics in there, twenty three day wait between each, and get it done. K? You’ll have till half past.

Do you have any questions before you go?

No?

Good? Yeah. Cool. Just crazy. Yeah.

Abby. Unlike I’m worried about unsubscribes with this. Like, is there a reason why I just shouldn’t be worried about that?

I I mean, it’s twenty three days in, in most cases, they’re already close to disengaged or disengaged anyway. So it’s just to get them back on board. If they, unsubscribe, that’s kind of a blessing. I know a lot of you love subscribers, but, yeah, I’m not saying don’t start this on day one, but twenty three days later is, yeah, three weeks of just hanging out.

Okay. Cool. Thanks.

Cool. Sure. Good question. Anyone else?

No?

Alright. Exactly sixteen minutes until we have to be done. Alright. I’ll be here if you have questions.

That is Daniel.

We finished. We get stuff done.

We not finished. Need more time. Jessica, how’d you do?

Good. I mean, I didn’t put it in my ESP yet, so I’ll hold off on that. But I did give me actually an interesting brainstorm in potential future webinars, workshops, things that I might wanna do. So it was good.

That’s cool. That’s good. It’s a good outcome. Anyone else wanna share what they experienced in doing those sixteen emails Okay. Johnson says it really helped identify easy opportunities in my options for Outreach.

Yeah. So these are obviously the little systems that you set up. As you go, and most people don’t. So if you do, well done.

If you walk away and you don’t end up setting this up, keep that in mind in twenty three days when someone could be replying to something and instead you haven’t reached up to them. So set it up. Go to the work. It’s really easy work.

So get her done. Alright. Now we open the floor for any questions anybody this week about any of the training or anything in your business, client management, all of that kind of stuff, As usual, please be on camera for this part and before you dive in, share a win. And that can be a win of any kind. As long as it’s something cool that you’re happy about, that’s hopefully a result of some of the work that you’re doing to grow your business make more money, get happy in your business, all that stuff. So does anybody have any questions today?

Okay. So that’s my win.

I think the biggest win for me this week was, client feedback that I received yesterday where I had sent a sequence, an email sequence and and they replied that it was perfect. The perfect balance of exactly what they were looking for. That was great because I don’t love revisions, so that was great.

No. No one likes revisions. Okay. Cool. Nice win. Good job.

Thank you. Okay. So here’s my question. It’s actually going back a couple weeks ago where we I I I asked the questions. That kinda he said to bring on a call. Never managed to make your life, so I’m asking now.

I’ll remind you where it was. You mentioned that the email agency boxcar does like think he says something like fifty, sixty k, even like two hundred and fifty k projects.

So I’m kinda toying with the idea of building out into an email, a ecomm email agency.

And I’d love to, like, hear I know that you do typically more SaaS, but I’d love to hear more about what does that project look like, know that you said an ever more retainer style and retainer agreements, but I’m just curious on how, like, the basics of how you set them up. And what kind of clients I’m looking for these type of projects?

Yes. I love it. Okay. So I’m just gonna document this of the basics.

Of these projects and the kinds of clients for it. Cool.

And let me know if I don’t hit any of those for you or you want further third because it’s a great question. And everybody here, everybody and everybody who joins, and everybody decided to start an email performance agency I firmly believe there would still not be enough.

People out there doing this work. Email is tricky. It’s a skill set that almost nobody internally has.

If you do have that skill set, you’ve probably been scooped up by somebody who has massive margins, like a coach that sells huge masterminds.

So they could afford to scoop you up Otherwise, we’re looking at companies that have so much writing on email, and so little in house talent on this stuff and I mean across the board in house talent. So attribution is hard enough for every business. And I mean when I mean business, I’m all we’re copy School Pro or not at freelancing School, I’m talking about real businesses with real money to spend not that one little shop that’s got one person who works of times.

Businesses that have cash and see more on the horizon if only and the if only in this case is we don’t know if em, emails are working.

We don’t know what the freaking benchmarks should be. Like, how should they performing, is this good?

The list goes on, and that’s just like the strategy side of it. They’re bringing in consultants in CRO. Almost every one of them will have some sort of CRO agency that they’re working with, who they hope can do the work of optimizing emails.

Never works largely because Email is the specialized skill set and the tools are not things that you just wake up and know, right? You need training on these tools as Lindsey on my team knows, she was doing both of them implementation for a boxcar, and you’ll have to have it doesn’t. You can train on it. You can learn it, but a CRO agency isn’t doing that.

Now, some will have some people in those CRO agencies who care about email, but that doesn’t mean that they’re going to be great at it. So email, skill sets are hard to come by. Email is direct response for modern marketers. It’s what we do, but just like printers, like print was tough for marketers thirty years ago and beyond past that.

Digital direct response is also like this mystery. Right? So There’s huge opportunity attached to it and they know that, but nobody can handle it. So what do you do?

It’s a lot like SEO. So when I when we had our CH agency, before it switched over to Boxgar. I was always frustrated because no matter what we did, it would end up coming down to how long does it take to to write a landing page? That sort of thing where you’d end up on retainer still selling hours because in those end month reviews, they look at the work you did.

And unless you’re a CRO agency, you’re not measured on performance the same way. Email, is really good to get measured on performance just like SEO. So I when we were at CH Agency, I was like, how do we just have a model that’s like SEOs have where they just get to say, oh, here are some things I did this month and look at the results. Like now you’re here on SERPS for this keyword and that’s like they could do that in twenty minutes or they could do it in twenty hours and it was really just like on performance.

It’s very hard for most things that copywriters do to be measured on ongoing performance, but email is one of those things. So With email, the basics of these projects are you are a brand that has an email platform already in place. You probably have about three of them. So most of them will have a sales team working using HubSpot.

If they’re in SAS, they might also have intercom.

They’ll have tools like Mandrill that will send, non marketing transactional emails. And then they’ll have another platform as well, like e commerce, they’ll have Playvio, and everybody else just has whatever spud e commerce is really big on klaviyo. So if you are gonna work with e commerce, get good at klaviyo. That should be your number one goal is get that certification in there right away, know how it works, so you can go in and be smart about it, too.

You will need to implement. Nobody in freelancing school wants to do this. I’ve brought this up in freelancing school and they’re like, uh-uh, I don’t implement. You are shooting yourself in the foot.

You are absolutely like you if you implement, you can measure if someone else implements, they’re measuring and they’re looking out for themselves. So you will guarantee someone else implementing your stuff is gonna implement it wrong, even if you QA it, and then they’ll say, oh, that didn’t work. And suddenly they’re in there editing your emails.

Hard pass. You are in control and the more in control you are, the higher the rates you can charge. If you’re a doer, your rates go down. If you’re a strategic you’re a partner, if you’re somebody who’s like in the tool, you are high value.

You’re so high value. The CEO knows your name. That’s a really important thing. Okay. So you have access to the tool.

They give you access to the tool. They’ll probably have to pay for another license for you.

That’s that’s that’s part of the game. Of course, you have to. Oh, yes, you have to give me access to the tool full access. No question about it, and your job is to make sure they feel confident in you so that they will do that, and that means you have to know.

You have to be like, you know, I know. Don’t worry. I’m never gonna hit publish or send on something, like, I’ve been down this road before. They have to trust you.

Right? So cool. And you have to make sure you don’t ever hit send on something. It’s actually not ready to go.

So you have access to the tool. You are involved and you put a road map together upfront. So the earlier conversations story for anybody who doesn’t give a shit about email You’re gonna get a download on everything email.

But you go into this knowing what the roadmap is. So for us we would, go through and have one or two hour session with the client with the key stakeholders. So everybody involved in email gonna be a lot of marketers, people in product, and some SDPs and stuff like that.

You’re gonna have that meeting with them, say walk me through the what you’ve already got out there. Let’s screen share, show me inside intercom.

Show me inside Playvio. I need to see this thing. Walk me through what that is. What’s that?

What’s that that asking questions, making notes, reporting things, then you put a roadmap together. This is just a gantt chart where you’re like, here on the far left column, these are all of the sequences you have, and these are the ones that you need, and these are the ones that are top priority, so obviously organized in the right way. Then you have months along the top. And all you’re going to do is fill in, we’re doing plan on this one.

Planning planning planning planning planning planning as you go down and then execution execution execution execution next to it. Just gantt chart stuff and measurement.

And optimization.

So by the time you’re done this freaking gantt chart, you have got two years of emails mapped out. They’re like, holy shit. It’s a lot of work. Are we sure we need to do this?

There might be some reprioritization that happens at that time. But what they see is wow, there’s a lot here. Now you have to make sure that they also see the value of that. So if you can, in that gantt chart, put in in the row for the item, whatever that sequence is that you’re gonna work on, whether it exists or doesn’t obviously you need some sort of it’s better if it does exist or you’re gonna optimize.

You can say this is currently performing at x percent conversion, paid conversion. Ideally, they this is close to money. So go with paid conversions.

Or if you’re dealing with somebody who has like show up, and stuff like that, whatever the case is, however they’re measuring it, whatever matters to them, show that there, and then talk them through what thirty percent lift over the course of six months. If you can optimize that flow over six months, what that could look like. And then they can start to associate money with it because you’re gonna have to get to the point. Where you say, Hey.

This is a lot of work over a lot of time. Lots of specialized skills in there and here’s my rate for that. So then you say what the overall project rate is divided up month by month. That can turn into a retainer or it can turn into a project with an end date.

A lot of companies will start with a project with an end date. And then go okay. We have so many more needs. Like, we’ve been talking about this internally, and then they show you this giant.

List.

And so the project, depending on how many emails you’re gonna get done in what amount time. So you do it does still come down to the work you’re going to do, but they’re not you might make a subject line change rather than a full rewrite, right? Like you’re solving for opens. Clicks conversions on the other page, etcetera. Right? So that’s how your performance is going, how you’re working on things when you’re optimizing for performance.

And that’s fine. That’s cool. That’s great. That’s good to not have to do massive swings all the time. You just need to figure out what you’re going to charge. So right now, I’m I’m not actively involved in boxcar at all, but we have other people who’ve come to us who are friends for, quote unquote help because they’re kind of desperate.

Because there are a lot of businesses that need this. And they’re in at twenty, thirty thousand dollars a month, just to get one sequence planned and another sequence written. So I’m just subcontracting this out to two freelancers I’ve got who went through the email intensive that we did last November.

Not this last one. The one before that, one does planning and the other does execution on it. They work together. They chat together.

But This is a cool tech company and they’re like, we have a four month project on this because I was like, I can’t be here. I’ve got work. I’ve got my own stuff.

And they’re desperate. They’re like throwing money at these people to stick around to come work for them obviously. The biggest one. It’s like, hey, can you work for me?

But yeah, that’s how it goes. So you can see at x amount per month, times even just four months. That’s already a really big project and we’re only doing one sequence a month. One’s planning.

The other is executing, and then once the plan is signed off on at the end of the month, then the person executes on the plan that got signed off on and we keep going forward like that. And that’s not even getting into optimization because I told them I’m not going to optimize. I can’t stick around for this. But the the opportunity here, I can’t say it enough.

This is it. This is this sort of thing every business needs. They’ve got masses of users and subscribers that are just sitting there and nothing’s happening to them. And anybody who’s a CEO or CFO is like, what are they doing there?

How do we get them out of there? And that’s where you come in. And nobody in the organization knows how. Nobody knows how.

The CMO was like, I’m pretty sure we can do this. Like, how do we do this? So you get the CMO to buy into it and then you go from there. I don’t know if that helps.

Tech companies are really obvious low hanging fruit, while large, e commerce, like where the product is expensive such as mattress brands and, other, like, hardware.

Those are because they have big margins, there’s a lots that they can win, that they don’t have to pay because ads aren’t working for them anymore, either. Right? Ads are really expensive, etcetera, etcetera.

Email is still a wonderful opportunity, so they’re happy to reallocate budget toward email. Does that help?

Yeah. That was hugely helpful. Especially, appreciated how you broke down what a twenty k month looks like and how you broke it down into, like, planning execution. One coming up. That was really helpful. Thank you.

Awesome. Good. I really want everybody. You can find a way to do performance like measure what you’ve done.

The retainer is like endless, and it’s just it’s exactly what CRO agencies do. It’s exactly what SEO agencies do. We’re just doing it for email in particular.

Yeah. Cool. Awesome. Good luck. Thank you. Sounds great. Follow-up questions for that.

Yeah.

So what you were saying about how it’s a very specific skill set So if you were to advise like a fresh freelancer, maybe fresh out of college or high school, and they decide they wanted to specialize in email and get that skill set, what would you advise them?

Yeah.

Follow everybody. This is like anything that you ever want to specialize in, one, it’s a good thing that you’ve identified.

One thing to specialize in. That’s one of the hardest things that copywriters have to do is, like, what’s what am I gonna do? That I could do, like, everything needs to be written. This, this, the someone has to write the product packaging for that, like, everything.

So you decide on email and then you follow everybody who talks about email, but I mean in smart ways. I don’t mean they took one person’s course and now they’re gonna teach the world on it, but some people can do that and it goes very, very well. They actually care and think about it. So go out there and do the leg work to find out who knows their shit. Usually, they’re not talking very loudly because they’re so busy working on the stuff.

So keep that in mind.

I don’t know what you would read because most of the books on email marketing. Does anybody have a good one? I found that they’re like garbage, like, like, hot garbage.

Jess is looking at her bookshelf.

There was that one that Ryan Dice wrote oh, oh, oh, oh, no offense.

That’s not to Ryan dice, but it was so fucking bad. It was so bad. It was so basic and like this isn’t going to help anybody do anything.

So yeah. Go out and find that. We added triggered email stuff to ten x emails because of this master of seasonal sales, the emails tracked there. All so good.

And then just, like, keep a good swipe. Practice everything. Do what you’re already doing. Estergrace when it comes to like auditing what people are, saying go teach because teaching helps you learn the thing too. Obviously teaching from the position that you’re in not.

I’m an expert, but hey, I’m learning all this really cool shit about this.

Go to certifications for ships and gigs with Clavio and intercom and all of those popular tools, the ones that your prospects are going to use first. Right? Obviously, if you’re gonna work with SAS or if your friend is gonna work with SAS or this person who’s newly out of college, then use the solutions that SaaS uses. If you’re gonna work with e commerce, Clay a no brainer, braise is good in both cases, but start by just like documenting, just like massively learning everything and then start practicing.

And you can practice on your own email list. You don’t have to have somebody else’s email list to son. You’ll want that, but you don’t have to start there. Jessica, is this on the same topic?

Building off of it a little bit out. It’s similar.

Okay. I apologize to anyone who does not care about this because it’s still about this though.

My oh, my win. This opening myself for judgment.

I committed to taking my dogs twice a week to doggy daycare so that I could just and I already feel better. It hasn’t even happened yet.

That’s awesome. I know we have a dog walker come by two days a week. Just to, like, just go wear them out a bit. Like, they need to relax so that we don’t have to do it. Yeah. Smart. Good.

So I guess mine’s very specific. So related to this email thing though, I I too one of the big services that I’d like to offer is you know, I don’t know, email list management, the retainer, everything you just discussed. But the unique angle, I believe, is my seasonal sales into that and of course a big part of that is sales emails. And so what I’m kind of wondering is right now with slashing out my offers and all that I’m looking at seasonal sales campaigns and all that as one major offer and then the email ongoing stuff. But does that make I guess I’m just looking for any.

What are your immediate thoughts when I tell you that, I guess?

Yeah. I think that the retainer easily in your case could be I’m here for all of your seasonal sales emails because these e commerce brands that we’re talking about are they live on a seasonal calendar. Right? So I’m sure you’ve experienced this where they’re like, it’s president’s day.

Here is a pair of boots. For freaking president’s day? Like, what does that matter? But it’s like it matters.

So that I would do that, but I would just say, like, I’ll be or right hand when it comes to all of these seasonal sales emails that you’re writing. The problem is that it’s not performance space in that case, right? Like because you’re not doing president’s day last year versus this year, necessarily, unless you do, unless it does turn into this ongoing thing and then you can say, but it won’t be optimization like optimizing and automation. Of course.

Yeah. Yeah. But I still think it’s great and in demand. Yeah.

Great. Thanks. Awesome. Abby.

I have two questions. Should I discuss one or can I?

Yeah. But you have to say your win first.

Oh, my win. As as not like a big one, but I pre sold twenty five copies of my book, so I’m happy with that.

That’s amazing.

Very good. Yeah. So my question, so I have an Evergreen webinar funnel running for my course, and I’ve been running out I’ve got. So now I have about two hundred people that have been through the funnel, and I’ve realized that I’ve no plan of, like, what to do with them, the ones that did buy.

Like, I’m sending out get my week my biweekly newsletter. They’re gonna get some nigh word emails now, but I don’t know whether I should be like, because I see other course creators invite people back into the funnel, but it kind of, like, it’s like they said the same emails that it kind of makes the whole thing feel a bit, like, fake because it’s, like, makes the urgency feel fake because it’s, like, a but I use deadline for it. Yeah. And so I’m yeah.

I I don’t know.

Like, I just don’t know what to be doing with those people.

Did you ask them why they didn’t move forward?

Yeah.

What was the reason?

Like price.

They’re most mostly just like or saying, yeah, the the timing’s not right. Yeah.

So that’s either true or it’s not true.

And that’s the thing. If it is true, then that means that your audience is wrong, and I wouldn’t bother trying with them again. If price is really the objection, and it it can actually, but some people do not have any money.

They wanna learn from you, but they they can’t afford it. And those are good people to get out of your brain so they’re good to not try to reengage necessarily. I know that can sound harsh. Like, I’ve told you twice in today’s session to cut your list down. And you’re like, that’s my list. I’ve worked at it. So I get it.

But I would strongly encourage you to not think about the people who can’t afford your solution.

So that doesn’t mean that that they’re truly that that’s really the objection. And maybe there’s another way that you but I don’t it’s like, well, I could put together a cheap or something. Do you really need to spend your time or resources on building something for people who can’t afford what you’ve got.

Well, I think I think they can’t I don’t think it’s like they can’t afford it. I think it’s more like they’ve already spent their budget that month or they’ve, like, enrolled in other courses recently.

So they’re like, oh, I can’t it’s more like a timing thing, which makes as I’m saying that I’m thinking, maybe then I should give them another opportunity to buy If it’s a timing thing.

Yeah.

So it’s the first thing I stand over.

Does that if it’s a timing thing though, then there is. Are definitely. You can re engage them. That’s what that automation that we just set up today is for, bring them back. Eventually, it might be the right time for them, engage them in other ways.

It it depends on how far you wanna go with it and how much opportunity you do think is there because there’s so many different ways you could go, right? I would recommend you read the book super consumers.

It’s got good tricks on, like, quick, like, but but it takes it takes resources. So it’s like, have an IRl together for some, and then people have to fly in. Right? Like, it but but there are good ideas in there. So check that out.

What is a customer worth to you? If they convert, what’s their value?

It’s only, like, five hundred dollars. Sorry.

And that’s five hundred after you and everybody on your team has been paid. Wow. No.

Not like yeah. Once I take out, like, the tech stack and stuff, like, probably about Well, it depends how many I’m selling. So let’s say, like, like, I think my final cost, like, a hundred and fifty to run.

So Okay.

So you’re making three fifty? Is that what I heard?

Yeah. But then on the sale after that would be five hundred.

Okay. So for the lifetime value is then more in the eight hundred realm, like, once you get them in, even if it costs to acquire them I’m I’m really just trying to understand. No. No.

So no.

My lifetime value for these is like five hundred, like, unless they’re gonna hire me later, which I haven’t seen happen yet. But the the idea is hope that they’ll start making some money and then be able to afford to hire me, but it’s two early days. Yeah. So let’s just say the lifetime value is five hundred.

Yeah. Okay. Yeah.

And do you have a webinar already or a workshop that sells them?

Yeah. I have the Evergreen webinar. Yeah. Then the problem is if they go through and don’t buy. It’s like, what do I do with them?

Yeah. I know. So if the timing is wrong, then the automation sequence is one way to get them back on board, right, that then the sixteen by twenty three thing. Yeah.

Other ways then are right? Just like leave them on your general list. I just for me, I’m like, don’t pay too much attention to them if they’ve got these objections that you really can control unless there is something you can do to where timing is the problem.

What can you do to get rid of that problem. So how are you going to make yourself available when the time is no longer a problem? Can you book with them? Like, can you hop on a call with them in some way so that you can better, like, place yourself in their calendar I’m just one, I wouldn’t worry about the pricing people.

Two, if timing is a thing and you don’t wanna put them back through an evergreen funnel, then you have to figure out how you’re gonna get in front of them at the right time. And the evergreen funnel is the way typically of course to go. If it’s not right for them because they’ve been through it already, then I would just throw them on your general list and keep nurturing them old school and See if you can do some cross channel stuff. Also, I mean, my concern is people can always it’s very rare for timing to be a real thing too unless they’re multiple decision makers.

But sounds like there’s probably one decision maker here. They just didn’t get off their butt and do it.

Yeah. I mean, I think I think, like, to be honest, the more I think about it, the more like the nine word emails is probably enough to just because if they just say, yeah, I still want, like, want to, then I can just say, oh, I can, you know, I’m happy to, like, honor the discount for them. Like Yeah. Totally.

Yeah. Okay. Sorry. After all. I know your training that you did initially. It was so good.

That’s good.

That’s good.

I did have one other quick question if that’s all. Alright?

With so my evergreen final that I would have been final, like, bills cost my feedback into it. So that’s, like, the kind of the the USPS.

And part of that is thank you page surveys.

I originally, so I started using your question, the what was going on in your life. I wanted to find my own. I experimented with others. No question is as good. So I’m using that. I am I’m, like, giving you credit. Like I’m saying, this is Friday.

We’ve purchased a good day.

The I’m like, should I really be because it is quite an important part. Should I really be having my own question if I wanna really be like an authority in this? But I can’t think of a better question. Like, you know, I’ve I’ve tested lots of things. Like, so, yeah, what do you do you think it’s It’s a legitimate concern, or should I just keep on being like this is Joe’s question?

I would just stick with the question, but that would make think the thank you page entirely. So, what we’ve done with our thank you page is we go back and forth. We have surveys sometimes like a thank you page survey, the one question.

That you’re talking about and other times it is just skip skip ahead and book a call with us. Right? So you get the ebook, you wanna learn how to make five thousand dollars a month. And so you land on this on the page, the confirmation page, and instead of getting the ebook right away, it’s like, Hey, do you wanna skip the line?

And like, we could just hop on a call and talk through this and that’s gonna be a sales call. Right? So thank you pages across the board. You can just embed your calendly so if you’re like I’m not sure.

So what I’m hearing is you want to change the question because of a thought leadership thing. For you.

Yeah.

Great with it. Whatever. But if if what we’re really tapping into is you kinda don’t wanna use that question for whatever reason. Whatever reason. Whatever the reason is.

I do. I do.

Okay. Well then, what I would say is go back and forth. Yeah.

For when you know, switch between, I’m going to collect data, and I’m going to allow people to book an appointment with But it is more because I’m teaching it because I’m saying because I’m because in my course, I say, like, set up a thank you page survey, and this is the question that I use that Joanna Weeb taught me. So it’s like, I am I like I mean, I guess I’m I don’t know if I’m, like, asking permission here or what, like Oh, no.

Claire and Gia teach this too. Like, it’s yeah. I talk about all the time because I’ve tested a billion different ways, and that’s It’s just the best life. Yeah. It’s just it’s just going to help you find those that voice of customer. So just use it.

Just use it. Yeah. I did I’m thinking, like, based on what you said, what I could do is teach kind of like different thank you pages you can use depending on what you want. So if you want to voice your customers that question, if you wanna find out how people are landing on your page, use like a different question.

Like, that kind of thing. If you want, like, one to ones, then book a call. So yeah. Okay.

Anyway, yeah. Sorry. I don’t wanna hog your time. Thank you.

Cool. Thanks, Abby. Naomi. Thanks for waiting. You gotta win?

Alright. What about the win? I don’t have one at the top of my mind.

You will post an instance later.

I interestingly enough. Oh, okay. I have one. Okay. Good. So I was working on a landing page, and I met with the, I met with the marketer, meaning the guy who runs the Google campaigns, And I found out that he’s running three campaigns, and the guy who runs the business told me that he’s only running one.

And so if you work on Google campaigns, you know that but you really need a new landing page for every campaign to make sure at the very least that it matches the keywords. If not also the intent, the length of the page, etcetera. So I sent an email saying, you know, you really should have a different landing page for this other campaign because the people searching for this have a slightly different mindset. And so I just added that to the bill. So that was an extra, extra sale there, and that was really easy.

So, yeah, so that’s the win.

I am pretty sure I’ve asked this before, but I haven’t gotten a great answer anywhere. I’m gonna ask it again because email came up.

For the vast majority of the companies I work with, they might have a newsletter, but the newsletter is very content focused. And if they’re running these very traditional b to b ad campaigns, which most companies still are, they’re promoting white papers. And if they’re doing content syndication, which I know, everyone hates. They’re still, like, promoting learning papers, and so they get all of these leads.

And a lot of times if somebody reaches out to them, like, okay. You could always, like, retarget them if you’re tracking properly. But if somebody reaches out to them by email, it’s really the SDR or the BDR stop. To to contact them, to start building that relationship, because a lot of these things are very relationships focused.

But they typically these BDRs and SDRs, if they have hundreds of leads coming in, and they’re also getting leads from trade shows they don’t and they also have like regular leads coming up signing up for a demo that they have to set up discovery calls with. They don’t have the time to contact all those people. And if they are contacting them, usually it’s a very generic email, or it’s like a email sequence that happens like two weeks after the lead already drops in the CRM. So I’ve brought up the idea having nurturing sequences, which are really very different from newsletters. Newsletters and nurturing sequences have very different goals, but the pushback that I always get is This feels too sales y. This is too impersonal.

We need people to we need our sales team to reach out to them personally but the sales team is not reaching out to them and they don’t have the time. But I get this feedback over and over again from very technical b to b products, and to some degree, there is some legitimacy to that because a lot of times the sales funnel looks very different whether it’s different decision makers in the buying, like, if it’s the champion versus the decision maker versus person holding the budget or his different solutions or whatever it is, it it would actually be difficult to write a nurturing sequence and to segment a list that effectively when you have when you’re not doing it as large of a scale. So, I’m gonna ask again. Do you have any thoughts on how email would be effective here? Because there definitely is a lot of opportunity.

Yeah.

I mean, and this is the thing. I haven’t when I’ve worked with very technical large companies selling into enterprises with multi threading with all of the bananas stuff that happens in large sales organizations. I mean, like people who There’s one who, moves you from your mainframe to mainframe in the cloud Like, people still have mainframes out there. And to get moved off your mainframe is like a multi million dollar project, but like business, banks, communication, like telecom companies are on mainframes in a lot of cases still.

So these are even people who no matter the size and the complexity of the project and everything, they’re still emailing. They’re still doing it. They reach out to me as they can you help us with these emails So I’m I guess I’m a little confused as to why why your these clients or prospects don’t want to use email and saying it’s sales y is only once they’ve seen a thing. So what’s stopping them from using email in the first place?

It’s not that they’re not using email. It’s that they’re using email either the the sales reps, like, the AEs are using email, and sending personal email to them, like nine word each.

Sorry. I mean, like, why aren’t they using the nurturing sequence that you mentioned? Like, what’s really getting in their way there?

I would say number one, being able to segment people, like, right, the the less information you ask for when you ask for a white paper, the more people are gonna convert. So Of course, you’re especially if it’s like LinkedIn. Right? Like, you ask for, like, automatic information and half of that is probably LinkedIn guessing. So, like, if you have such little information because you want to get those leads in, then what kind of how much can you segment that list? And if you can’t segment the list, can your emails really be specific enough to be effective?

Okay. So their hearing, I need to segment. That’s a lot of work. We’re not gonna do that upfront on the form because it’ll surprise conversions.

And that means that we go into this with this big dump of people that are just a generic dump of people to us. And if you want to come in, and send emails to them with segmentation, we can’t because it’s too much work. Is it work?

Is it the function?

It’s work that a person could do but work like if they went and looked to figure out who the hell that is on LinkedIn, but I’m not sure how easy it would do. It would be to do in HubSpot or whatever email tool you’re using.

Yeah. And like you can say, I guess, so if their objection to it, one of their objections or starting one that makes it a nonstarter for conversation is we don’t have segmentation. Then take segmentation out, don’t segment then. And I know you need it, what do you need it to be specific, but I’m snow company actually segments.

Like we’re talking about a best practice is to segment. The reality is lasting. Everybody blasts. And that’s like what we’re really dealing with out there because these aren’t smart marketers when it comes to email.

Right? So if we always start from a place of, I know hundred times more about email marketing than you do. I have empathy you don’t say that. How do you know that?

Right? I have empathy for you and the sadness of what you don’t yet know could happen for your business. So what’s my easiest way to get you to start down the path of what email could do for your business because a newsletter is already a form of nurturing.

You have the sales team that is waiting too late before they reach out. So a potentially warm lead has gone cold, and now you have to, like, heat them up again. Why would you wait on that? So if you can talk them through and really and understand like, why are you waiting on that?

Like, maybe there’s an easier soul. Maybe it’s just like, oh, we should just tell our reps sooner. But if it’s like, no, that two week window has to pass and you’re like, well, let’s do something about that two week window. When’s the last time you want to be nurtured when you’re ready for something.

So there’s gonna be people that you’re just playing missing out on. Right? Can we agree on that? And if they can’t agree on that, you’re never gonna get someone But if you they can agree that, yeah, there’s definitely people who reach out and are ready to start the conversation at least.

Are ready to open the sales conversation from day one, then all you need is to sell them on a series of opener emails to like get them in, get them to set an appointment with a rep, get them warmed up on all of this stuff, so that they’re more likely to show up when a rep reaches out in two weeks and says, hey, you specifically you. I know everything about you and let’s hop on a call. They’re already nurtured there. So to me, it sounds like they think it has to be really hard work.

If you make it clear that it’s easy work, and you’ve done this before, and you can totally do this with very little effort from them. And the result is when an SDR reaches out there’s a real lead there. I mean, even the SDRs would get on board with that, right, that they could have good warm leads.

But in terms of actually writing the email, like if you have a use case, let’s say you have a use case for marketing and you have a use case for for product or product marketing and you have a use case for sales and maybe like one other one other department. And on top of that, you have the decision maker, you have a champion and maybe the person involves the purse strings or like somebody else in upper management. Like, what would be your approach in writing nurturing emails to all of those different that’s a that’s a lot of people.

It’s a lot of people.

What do you know about them? Do you know what white paper they downloaded? Or do they just get dumped into a single list?

No. You probably would know what white paper. I mean, it was the Right.

So let me start. And start there. Right? Like, as simple as are you still looking for a subject of white paper?

And then that’s like a way for them to at least hit apply to the email and go, yeah, remind me what that was, and then the SDR has a warm, like, contact that they can do something with. So if you’re able to do that with a single email and then if it doesn’t work, x period of time passes, and something else about the white paper, Hey, did you see this like complimentary video that supports what’s on page three? Go to page three and here’s the video or something. Right?

Like all we’re really doing is using email. If if there is an SDR, email’s job is to either get them to start a conversation or to move towards setting an appointment and then showing up for the appointment. So show up sequences and all those kinds of things that go along with that. So there’s already quite a things you can sell into a sales team.

But yeah, that’s I mean, it doesn’t have to be a long email. It can be a short one that’s just tapping into the thing that they showed interest in. No one reads a white paper. So you can just start like engaging them on, hey, do you wanna skip the line and like instead of reading the white paper, we could just talk about what you’re going through, and that’s an email that you can send. Yeah.

So so because these kind of short emails I would associate, like, those are the kind of emails that I typically assume SDR’s should send or BDRs are are supposed to be sending good, you know, the type the kind where they, like, make a typo in the subject line on purpose. So you would just automate those.

Yeah.

I mean, you can’t it depends on what you’re solving. If you’re typically solving for that two week gap, then, yeah, all you’re doing is Instead of nothing, you’re sending emails that look like an SDR sent them. That’s it. You’re just scheduling those up and that’s easy peasy. If you’re solving for something else, then you might need a different solution. But in this case, yeah.

I don’t think it has to be more complicated than that. It hasn’t been. You charged like it is, but it’s not actually more complicated than you knowing to send those emails that are about x and that respect the reader’s time and just try to get them into a conversation with an SDR.

So you wouldn’t provide more of something more engaging, something a little bit longer, more marketing oriented, you would stick with the more sales short and quick approach?

It I would only go to marketing messaging if your client is using SQLs and MQs. Like, if they’re measuring the quality of the lead. If a a certain number of ignores, reduces them down to more getting qualified lead instead of a sales qualified lead, once they’re no longer sales qualified. Okay.

But it really comes down to sales qualified and more qualified. If they’re marketing qualified lead, they get marketing emails, and that’s to get them back to a place of showing interest again and then if they’re sales qualified, they get sales emails. That’s it. Does that make sense?

Yes. I mean, I’m doing a dirty word. It’s like a four letter word in twenty twenty four.

And q l and SQL?

Oh, yeah. Everyone hates on q l’s. And q l’s are out. No one’s measuring on q l’s anymore.

Not in my world.

That’s for sure.

Or or not.

Yeah. Maybe.

For people who come talking to us. So but whatever the case is, whatever they’re calling it, there is a point at which marketing no longer is qualified to be the one talking exclusively them, whatever you wanna call it. But there’s lead scoring of some kind going on. Anybody with the sales team has lead scoring going on. If the lead is ready to be sold to, then they can have short quick emails that are there to get you to open a conversation.

If not, Then there’s the question of do we do a marketing message, like that’s a bit longer and softer more remote that kind of thing. What else do we do there? Yeah.

Okay. Interesting.

Yeah. That’s yeah. That’s what we’re seeing.

Cool. Cool.

Alright.

Anybody else? Now that my dogs have plumbed There’s a moment of peace in the house.

I’ve got a question.

Motion.

Wait.

So my win is kind of related to my question. I have a cousin who, works at a a unicorn startup.

As, head of product design, but he’s also, sort of assisting the CEO.

And He was telling me about the the internal state, which is like kind of crazy that their marketing team is like two two, graduates from from Uni.

Absent.

And the co founder who’s now gone was like a sales crazy dude who, kind of wanted to shut down marketing and just have sales.

And, yeah, it was, a shit show, apparently. So he’s out and things are better. And, he was, anyway, and he was telling me about the problems. And, obviously, I, as casually as possible, mentioned that I could If I had some time, maybe I have a glance at the website and just do a quick, a quick run through. So I did that. I sent it to him and he ended up, circulating it internally in, like, thirty people saw it, and then I guess they changed pretty much everything on their homepage. It was tons better.

Then nothing really came of it, but two weeks or a week ago, my cousin reached out and basically said, might have some work. Can we help in a call? So we did, and he needs three landing pages, homepage, potentially like a, a a voice guide and, like, I mean, honestly, like, there’s everything here. I mean, email alone.

But so, I don’t know, I sent a proposal over with some really, big scary numbers in it for me.

And, he forwarded it over to the CEO because they basically said he basically said, they need numbers before they could bring in the CEO.

So So I just recorded a Loom and and, and then decided to include, I’m sorry for anyone. This won’t make sense to some people, but the the narrative selling thing So I I pitched I kind of not pitched it, but, kind of infused it throughout the whole thing.

Just as casually as possible. And so I think it’s gonna I don’t know, but my my cousin said he he he loved it and forwarded it over to the CEO. So I’m waiting to hear back. And, that’s kind of the weird.

It’s just like to get the opportunity is great. And kinda crazy. But Love it. The the question is, do you because obviously, I think there’s really good opportunity here to, to help them because probably everything is I mean, their homepage before was, like, crazy bad.

So I think there’s just a massive opportunity here to to get some good numbers maybe. And then, obviously, make lots and lots and lots of content. So, I also was just wondering is, is there any what advice? Just broadly speaking.

What advice would you have for me in this situation? Thanks.

Okay. Advice for which part, like, for getting it closed?

Yeah. For just, like, bulk. If we hop on a call, I’m gonna, yes, but maybe as well just kind of I was thinking more broadly how to maximize, the opportunity for Of course.

Yeah. They’re based in the UK.

Yeah, Irish thumb.

Oh, they’re Irish? Okay. Oh.

Yeah.

Do I know who they are, probably?

Maybe.

I mean, Let us know who they are?

Yeah. I I mean, I could say yeah. Sure. It’s, Wayflyer, e commerce funding.

Oh, no. Okay. Oh, that’s cool. I thought it was somebody else, but that’s cool.

Okay. Awesome. So The reason I asked if they’re in the UK, is simply or not in America is really what it comes down to, is the ways of selling into different cultures.

So if you were over here, I would have recommended a, something slightly more, assertive on on it on the subjects. Just more of, like, let’s get, like, let’s do this thing kind of thing.

So it’s it’s tough because take what I say with a green really what I’m just gonna say. Like, try to modify it and apply it for what you know about your market, and the people that you’re serving there and how they react. To selling, which is really serving, but it’s called selling. Okay. Fine.

Yeah, because already I’m Did you find out what their budget is before you voted?

No. But I told but I had a quick call with my cousin and I said, I I pointed some rough numbers, and he was like, yep. That all sounds fine. So then I, maybe inflated them a little.

Has he ever signed off on a project like this Yeah.

Yeah.

He’s I think he’s he’s fallen into a kind of, second in command sort of thing to the to the CEO because he’s this guy, I don’t know, he sounds like he needs help. But So so, yes, he’s he’s kind of overseeing a bunch of stuff that probably isn’t in his role, typically.

Okay. So he is a good person to say this is the right price?

Yes. Or at least this is the right price.

Okay. So it’s gone. It’s been handed up to the CEO. When did that happen?

On Friday. I I think he’s seen it now. He also saw the tear down, which was I didn’t intend for anyone else to see, but my cousin size four of it and was it all. So they’re gonna know they’re gonna kind of look, and I also did quite a, like, exhaustive head, just because I kind of wanted to, obviously, show off a bit. Yeah.

So yeah. So he’s seeing that he’s maybe sitting on it now, the proposal.

So yeah.

Cool. So I mean obviously early on it would have been better not to do free work for them because now you’ve slightly devalued it. It doesn’t mean that that’s always true because people hire people on spec work all the time. Like agencies fight against each other on spec. So it happens. It’s just I would try not to do that in the future. See what happens if next time you charge instead of giving your cousin something.

See what happens if you I really was just, expecting him to just look at it and be like, cool.

I need to hire you. But instead it got he sent he sent it around. So that was not intended.

Cool. Yeah.

Either way, what they take out of free, they’ll still circulate it if they love it. So, there’s just that. I would just keep that in mind for everybody. Right?

Try not to do free anything unless you have such a strong reason to believe that that’s the only way forward. And I would imagine with your cousin, there was another way forward. I know Natitism can feel like tricky. Like, how do I get a credit card?

But yeah, so going forward, so you’ve shown internally that like you’ve proven to people that you offer a value. Don’t know if they knew your name don’t know, like, the thing that got shared around, did it have your name attached to it, or did they just know there was this smart person who sent this around?

This is the latter, I guess.

Okay. So there was a smart person who sent this around. Not this is Johnson spink. This is his work.

No. Well, no. No. Probably just this is Juts. Someone Jut has I don’t actually know how he presents it.

Yeah. It would just be yeah. And so even if you do send around, like, a loo or something again, just make sure you, in some way, brand it so it’s clear.

David, I mean, everything was branded with my my logo.

I finished on the end with my LinkedIn, my website, all of the the email and everything.

That’s what I’m wondering because obviously the CEO makes a decision, but makes a decision that is influenced by people around. Often on their own. Right? But they’re still gonna be if someone’s like, oh, that was so cool.

We’re still winning from what Johnson sent us. Like, when are we bringing this guy in? That’s obviously what you’re looking for. Right?

So as long as you’re He did actually say that everyone, talked about it for a bunch.

For a while. So I think it had an impact.

Okay.

So I think I I might my so I guess my my so I I think I know where your my assumption is I’m coming in there.

As an authority, like, to some degree?

My question with all of this understood is how do you, like, I I’m I’m not I don’t have visibility into it. So what is the gap that we need to close? Between the CEO looking at that and you getting on a call with the CEO?

Well, I don’t know if there’s anything, now because the the things off, he’s looking at it. And as far as I know, it’s it’s on it’s on trajectory, you know.

So really more, it’s about what happens when we when he says, okay. Let’s let’s talk to this guy. And how do I make sure that that’s, that’s that’s the last. That’s the only la the the last touch point.

Is it is the proposal high enough that it does require a call or is it something where the CEO will just sign off on it. Do you think based on conversations with your with your cousin, etcetera?

I think he’ll, yeah. I mean, I think he can sign off on it.

But it yeah. I think I I don’t imagine you’d have to consult anyone or not.

With me.

You mean with me? Yeah.

No. Maybe not. No. No. You could do that without hopping on a call. And I did say, at the end, I was like, we can hop on a call, and we can talk more about this.

Or if you just wanna look in my time because this is a big project, you can I’ll send over a statement at work, and you’ve got seventy two hours too. To sign that.

Okay. So did you already give him that, or would you later save by seventy two hours spent? Debbie have a deadline No. No.

No. I he has an option now between shoot choosing between statement of work straight away and signing it, locking in by time, or hopping on a call first?

Is there a deadline? What does he know about when he has to make this decision?

No. It is not a deadline.

K.

Cool.

Tricky because he’s a CEO, he’s busy, unless he’s prioritizing this, the team already made some changes based on it. Right? So he’s already got some hopefully winning copy and maybe less urgency around it. So what I would do if I were you is try to find a way to make sure a fire is lit under his butt. And now I know it’s like, well, it’s too late to put a deadline in there.

But What can you do going forward? Make sure you do have that. Like, hey, I can talk to you on Monday or Tuesday.

After that, if we can’t lock this in, it’s gonna be not until June make it really uncomfortable. And then if he still doesn’t move on it, it was a hard sell anyway.

So just keep that in mind that failure is okay.

Just put those deadlines in there for him. He needs to feel the pressure to move on this, and that’s why I asked what the team is the team pushing him. Your cousin is gonna have a hard time because of mephitin them. These might feel a little bit weird about it.

Right? So it doesn’t mean he will, but it might be like, oh, I can’t push too hard. So you need like a groundswell. You need people internally.

What can you do? Do you follow any of them on LinkedIn? Is there anything you can do to like seed conversation with the people who are going to influence the CEO moving on it. If by end of day tomorrow you haven’t heard from the CEO, what can you do with those people who fell in love with your ideas?

I would reach I would find a way to like what they say on LinkedIn or just like reach out to them and go like, Hey, were you one of the people who saw what I sent around or something? Right? But just started start a conversation there to try to get more people working on your behalf.

That’s what I would do at least if there’s if a deadline passes, it would also follow-up.

Were you directly connected with the CEO?

No.

Next time. Yeah. It’s I mean, or can you reach out on LinkedIn?

Does I don’t know culturally if that’s, like, weird to do it, like, in your Probably probably a little probably a little weird.

It is something that that might help this whole thing was kind of like, I need numbers before I can, like, bring him into this conversation kind of thing. So it was kind of a, gay gay keeper position, if I would like.

So I guess So you didn’t get to do a lot of the things that we want to do when we’re selling into.

No. And I didn’t I mean, I didn’t wanna he he just wanted numbers. So I was like, I sweated it for a day.

I was like, oh, it’s just not that first.

Yeah. I’m sorry. I mean, but I I think that it I I did at least. I mean, I, you know, I pointed out the the the the problems. And I and I stated, I mean, several different ways, but several times that they’re losing revenue. Like, kind of as we speak. Like, revenue is being a lot potentially, like, a lot of revenue.

And and this is a and that’s which I think is more is the the the the growing sense in the company. So I think it’s reflecting what is happening internally at least.

Naomi?

Could I, yeah, could I potentially step in? I, recently did a project, helping a startup rewrite a lot of their web copy because they had developed, like, a new it introduced AI so they needed new AI messaging.

And they broke it down into several different batches. So they started with, like, the main plan pages, the home page.

And or the main product pages, the homepage, and the plans page, and then they had broken it down into other areas of the website that, like, would be nice to update, but not critical. Could you start with, like, the pages that will bring the biggest uplift and the fastest quick win, make sure to go into Google Analytics, measure their conversion rate, measure time on page, all of those good metrics. And then when you’re done, show them how much it improved, and then it’ll be much easier for them to go on to the other pages because, like, when it comes to website copy, there are some mailer elements besides you. Right? Because you have to have the designer. You’re going to change the out the layout of the page, and you’re gonna have to have the developer, and it’s gonna be a huge headache for them. So if you can sort of reduce the scope of that project, you might be able to get in and and once they see how great the project is, it might be easier to continue.

Yeah. That’s that’s good advice. I I did, you know, I explained the price. I gave them a price per landing page and a price per home page.

So I quoted that together as a bundle, and I, you know, I I did the whole, being able to I reduced the scope and I reduced the cost. So, they’ve got that as an option. If they want to pick just one page here, I mean, that’s, that’s, I think that’s pretty straightforward.

Like, leap for them, but I didn’t mention it. I mean, I wouldn’t, I guess, I wouldn’t want to. But Yeah. I want them to buy. I want them to buy the whole picture.

Yeah. And every once that wins quickly though. Right? Yeah. It’s it’s a very good point about getting that win quickly. It will get by in. I know we’re at the end of our time for those you have to leave.

Talk to the CEO, everybody who’s still here.

Pop on call with the CEO, don’t they want numbers? Oh, just tell me what it costs. If they’re a CEO, they are used to being on a lot of calls. They’re used to prioritizing the right things if they care about money, which they do because their CEO, they want to be on a call.

They’re used to it. They’re not scared marketing managers who don’t know what to do with their time, they know. So you don’t your response if you get shut down, you will only get better at having them like actually hear you and say yes. So I’m saying like, no, let’s hop on a call.

I’d love chat with you. I wanna meet the person who built this school company. I wanna talk to you about what I can do for you and I wanna make sure what I have in mind aligns with what you have in mind. You’ve got the vision for this.

So get on the call. Do what it takes don’t let your cousin say, oh, no. I’ll just do this. Like, no, no, man.

Like, I can really help here. So get me on that call. Trust me. I will make you look good.

And that’s it. Then you show up on the call. You make the cousin look like a freaking genius for being related to you and knowing to bring you in, and the CEO gets to talk with you. And that’s good.

If you didn’t, just don’t worry about the things that you might be worried about, hop on a call you’ll close the CEO on the call if only because you had the freaking guts to say, no, I really wanna hop on a call you. Like that goes a long way. CEO’s wanna solve problems and they want it done yesterday.

So don’t be afraid of them.

Alright. Yeah. Thank you, Jared. Thanks.

To get on that call. Yeah. Good luck.

Thank you. Thanks.

Awesome. Cool. I know we’re at the end of our time, Esther Grace. Do you have a quick question?

Yes, please. If you don’t mind.

Sure. Let’s do it.

Okay. So it’s Sorry?

Nope. I was just saying to everybody else if you have to go. It’s not weird.

So I I have a lead or I had a lead was just like the perfect client.

They have a massive list. They’re not doing anything with email. They were very responsive. Like, they just wanted to hand everything off to me the expert to handle it for them.

We went through the proposal process. They agreed to the contract. They agreed to everything. And then and that was when I shared my win in the channel.

And after I sent over the contract and the invoice, they did reply for, like, a week. I followed up, didn’t hear anything, and then they sent me an email saying, they’re not comfortable with me being international, like living abroad.

So they would prefer if we worked on a smaller project to build the relationship first. So I offered them a smaller project included, like, a hundred and one different ways to make things easier for them, and then they just haven’t replied. I did the nine word email follow-up last week. No reply, no response, nothing, and I just feel so bad.

Yeah. Let’s back up then, to a few things. So out of the gate, Where did they think you were? Like, is that a legit concern?

Or yeah.

So right now I’m in Nigeria. I moved from the US, in December last year. I told them this on a call when we were talking and they’re like, oh, where are you based? And I’ve talked about how is how I moved to Nigeria, and they were like, oh, cool. That was it. But I don’t know where this came.

It’s a little tricky. Right? Like what a client tells you I mean, that that teaches you, like, tells you a bunch of things about them, but also about the reality of the world and fears of I don’t know. Whatever countries, I don’t know anything about what happens there.

Right? So There’s times when you I mean, I think that’s why some people just have US mailing addresses easiest thing when I worked for conversion rate experts. They had a San Francisco office and a New York office. They didn’t have office in San Francisco or New York, they have mailing.

They had a post office box there. So just like have a US location if only to look international.

So consider that if it’s an objection that you’ll ever have to come up against in the future, you know who you are We always have to think about who is trying to hire us and how afraid people are of making the wrong call when it comes to spending money. So consider that US based location on the bottom of your website along with it.

And that’s it. You can be on vacation abroad right now. If it’s anything weird, just I wouldn’t tell somebody or I’m from Canada if I thought it was gonna be weird for them. When the truth comes out about how horrible Canadians really are, then no one will wanna hire me. So, there’s that to consider. But Two. How did you follow-up with them?

So I followed up when the when I got the response, I followed with, an email detailing, like, what the smaller project could include, and then did some more, like, sales eat things in there, like, some tactics how it’s good for them.

And then I also added it like PS if they wanted to hop on call to chat through those details.

And then after that one, a couple of days later, I think a week later, then I followed up with the nine word email. So that was last week.

Are you using the word follow-up?

No. Just checking. Yeah.

Good. It’s always worth checking in to make that’s not happening.

Yeah, I mean, sometimes you lose, I don’t think that had to happen here. I think you might be dealing with people who got shy about the whole thing, and that sometimes happens. That doesn’t mean that that’s absolutely true either, but be, hey, you’re in a place we didn’t know you’re in. To me is like, it’s weird.

What’s going on there? There’s also, like, people get excited. Now you quoted them on that first call where they got excited. You told them what you charged.

Right?

So that wasn’t the first call. So I first, Okay.

So the first call, I Oh, sorry, Esther Grace.

Just to be clear, I also needed some time. Before you gave them the proposal or the amount, they knew the price.

No. They did not. That’s that’s it.

That’s it. And then there are I mean, I think it’s one thing they didn’t know the price so you can’t watch proposal boot camp. Watch it and watch it again. If it’s not like clicking, you have got to make sure that the client knows what your fees are, the vicinity of them.

They don’t have to have the exact quote, but it’s an actual waste of time for you. And look what it does. Now you feel dejected. Now you feel like, oh, Greg.

I lost them. You didn’t. You’re too expensive for them. That’s okay to be too expensive for them.

You’re going to be too expensive for a lot of people along the way.

So but you have to bring up your price or it’s not like it’s not a real thing. You’re going to have to bring it up eventually.

You gotta bring it up before they see it on a proposal or an estimate or in writing. You bring it up talking with them. So a project like this, generally, I mean, the last project I did with, like, this was, I think it came in around ninety five hundred, give or take, How does that sit with your budget? And then they’re like, oh, ninety five. And you can see because you’re on Zoom together.

You can see. Their reaction. So they’re like, oh, okay. Well, it’s more than we thought.

And you can see how crazy you’ve scared they are of how much more than they thought it is or if they’re like, Okay. You know, and, obviously, there’s reactions. Right? And there’s nuances.

That’s why you all wanna be on camera. So you can watch and you control your expression too because this is game face.

But you gotta you gotta do that. Never send a proposal over even a bullet point proposal in an email, don’t do anything until you have spoken about what it costs.

Yeah. So I just wanted to mention. So the structure I used was a little different since it was my first, pitch for this particular offer. I decided to do, like, a hundred percent performance basis.

So on the first call, so since this email, I was like, okay, we’ll only do performance just because I wanted I had never done anything like that before. I was like, let me just test it out with this potential client. So that was what I told them on the first call that it’ll be performance based. So we’ll have another call to talk through, like, the strategy for them.

So I did, like, a free audit just because I know I’m not supposed to do free audits, but just because it was I want you to watch this replay back, and you can pick out all of the things that I don’t need say to you right now.

Esther grace, don’t make life so hard for yourself.

Charge projects out of the gate. Once you have a bunch of email experience under your belt, then you can build a performance based email marketing agency, and you can do a bad ass job a bit. But to get there, you need to first have a bunch of experience.

It’s good to have ambition. I freaking love the ambition.

But you’re shooting yourself in the foot, hundred percent by a bunch of the things that you did that are like, well, I’m gonna go out and try it on my own. That’s what happens. You’re guessing, and you’re like short you’re trying to shortcut things. Just do it the easy way.

Just make it a proposal for a project, the thing that they said they wanted, tell them it’s gonna cost this much. Here’s when it starts. Here’s when it ends Here’s what you’ll know by the end if it performed well. If you want from that point on to have me continue to optimize it, we can pass that bridge when we get there.

Go into every call with an oh hell’s no. Right? Just like we talk about a proposal boot camp. It starts with no. No. I can’t do this How can I make the project smaller for you? What?

Your time is more valuable and when you make these modifications for people, you’re saying got nothing but time. And if you have nothing but time, that means nobody’s hiring you. And so I don’t have to hire you either.

Play hard to get.

Be hard to get. This is all a fucking game all the time. Be hard to get. Make them want to hire you.

Be open and honest about what you’re charging so that they can actually opt in and say, yes, I do want this from you. How soon can we get started. And don’t worry about giving things away for free. You don’t actually have to with real businesses.

You don’t have to give things away for free.

Mister Grace.

You gotta make this up to us. You gotta find a way to make sure that you don’t put our hearts through this again.

Just follow, go watch proposal boot camp. Hang out in ten accepting you still and then freelance some schools lack. As well as here, right? But it’s critical that you don’t just make up the rules. It’s not gonna work. It might work but man the bloodshed along the way. It’s just not worth it.

Keep it simple. Alright y’all. Thanks everybody for staying on and asking questions.

Yeah. So we’ll see you in Slack. We have, of course, another session on Thursday.

Go set up your sixteen by twenty three automation. If you didn’t finish it today, that’s fair, but make sure you do it.

And good luck with all of your and projects and things that you’re working on, and we’ll see you in slot.

Cool. Thanks for all.

Bye. Have a good day.

Worksheet

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Worksheet

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Transcript

As everybody’s moving into, like, the next tier of growing your business, getting those all the other things that we’re talking about here in Copy School Pro.

Moving from looking for leads to making sure you have qualified leads and making sure you get more and more of them in. And then what do you do with those that don’t convert, what do you do with the email list that you’re building in some way, whether you’re like, I don’t really build one, Joe, or you’re like, well, I’ve put in got three hundred people on the list or I’ve got thirty thousand people on my list or whatever it is. If you’re not building a list of some kind, what’s stopping you? Not gonna get into the list building today, but what we are going to talk about is the fact that a lot of leads aren’t ready for you when you present an offer to them, or they sign up and they’re like, they join your list, and they’re not quite sure.

What they want or when they’re gonna need it, etcetera, etcetera. There’s all sorts of confusion. People don’t ghost you or say no to you simply because they’re always gonna say no to you. So we are talking about opens. When you have people who are on your list in some way.

It’s good to keep them engaged. So this is a trick. That I learned, a technique, a way to do that. Really straightforward. Everybody has heard of the nine word email.

Yeah. So if you haven’t Google it, it’s the nine word email.

But that’s a really that’s a way to reengage or reactivate somebody who has, you know, gone silent, on you a lead, and that could be a lead in any form. Right? So if you are selling courses or thinking of it, if you are taking clients, if you’re doing both, all of all of these people who you’re trying to reach out to or they reach out to you and these things don’t come together. We want to use something like the nine word email. So here’s the thing that we are doing today. I will switch over and share my screen and talk you through this really basic simple thing that we can all do. I actually Lindsay on my team is setting ours up.

So we can always ask Lindsay hard questions if we want to. Just kidding she’s still working on it. But I I love it and I wanted to share it with you the second I put my own together.

So here is the idea.

Over the course of a year, you drip out across every twenty three days across a year, you drip out in your email platform, active campaign ConvertKit, whatever you’re using. You set up an automation, and you could do this also in many chat as well. So if you’re like, I’m not really building my list, but I’m over on Instagram. I’m doing cool stuff over there. You can set up the exact same thing in Instagram so people who follow you can get this and Lindsay also does those for us. So she can maybe speak more to that. To what you would do in manychat, but here is the point.

You can both do this for yourself and sell this as something you do for clients. So if you’re like, you just wanna make some quick cash get another product type service or, like, you have, a client who is, who has, like, sales team or people that are involved in selling, including. They might have someone called an opener.

A setter, that’s usually an appointment setter, a warmer and a closer. So these are the sorts of roles that you might encounter or the terminology you might hear from client who needs something like this. We’re talking about opens here, opens including reactivation.

So what we do is we write sixteen. You just brain dump sixteen nine word email. They don’t have to be exactly nine words, but they are in the like great tradition of are you still looking for apps? So the nine word email I’m pretty sure it goes, are you still looking for such as, are you still looking for a hand with your website?

Are you still looking for, more conversions in your launches? Are you still looking for then whatever the thing is that you offer. Right? So are you still looking for new clients?

Are you still looking for x y z?

We go through and we brainstorm a variety of those and you can do that for yourself just again and again for one thing. If it is, like, I just wanna reopen conversations every twenty three days, automatically on the subject of me working for you. Okay. Fine.

Then you bring That’s all you’re selling. If you’re like, Joe, I’m fully on services. I don’t do other things. Cool.

Fine. That’s great. You’re going to brainstorm sixteen nine word emails, write them out, and then you schedule them in your solution every twenty three days. And that over the course of a year, a little bit over a year, that will drip out this ongoing engagement with books.

Does this make sense?

Okay. So you can do this for if you’re beyond plan at work and you want to diversify the way that you’re generating revenue if you’re doing webinars. If you have evergreen webinars, obviously, in particular, if you do the same webinar every two weeks live, which, by the way, a lot of people actually do. So don’t feel weird.

If you feel weird about evergreen webinars, if you thought about doing a webinar and you’re like, I don’t wanna evergreen it, but I also don’t know, should I be delivering it live all the time? Yeah. You can do that. It’s fine.

Demo of bookings and demo could mean anything. It could mean how you help a person’s team if you’re doing copykeeping services or something like that.

Consult calls and that’s where it’s a setter where you’re going to book an appointment. So, that’s the goal is to set that appointment. If you have a PDF or a book giveaway, that could be the subject of an email, any IRL events that you might do, and this might not be happening right now, but it’s good to think about as you grow. What you would kind of like replace certain emails with along the way.

If you have a podcast, book and guess on that podcast, if you have a course to sell, opening the conversation. These aren’t closers, and they’re not necessarily setters either. These are open or reopen conversations with people who could become your smart client.

Workshops, product history services, really the list goes on. So this is what you’re going to do for the next fifteen minutes, sixteen minutes to give you one minute fur. I’m gonna quickly show you what ours looks like, and these are just some of the emails that I’ve drafted out for, Lindsey.

Knowing that we have a little bit of complexity, that you shouldn’t normally really have to worry about if you have one thing you’re trying to get done or a one audience you’re trying to speak to. We have general everybody, and then we have freelancers, which are very they need very different messages than startup founder needs and then an in a then an in house copywriter needs, etcetera. So we wanna find out quickly out of the gate, hey, are you still freelancing? Is twenty three days after a person opt in to our general list.

They’ll get an email that has subject line freelancing question mark in order to try to move only people who are freelancing to open this, and then they’ll reply. Again, this is an open. This is not something where you’ll necessarily have another, message that follows absolutely in your platform, although you could. Right?

You could do all sorts of triggers in active campaign. In many chat where if somebody does something, then x happens. But the best the simplest way to go about this is to write the email, the nine word email that is just, hey, are you still blank? That’s it.

And don’t worry about setting up anything that follows twenty three days later, the next one goes out. I’m running a workshop on. This is for an evergreen webinar that Paul is working on right now on our team. Would you like join us.

They answer yes. The conversation is opened and that’s where you take over. This is manual work, but it’s also sell by chats, right? It’s it’s getting you into this world of selling with conversations that happen by email.

Or on Instagram or even on your website if you decide that you’re going to do this in like, messenger or something else and there are other tools we’re gonna talk about as we go through Coffee School Pro. Okay. We’re gonna give you sixteen minutes to write your own sixteen nine word emails. The fastest way to actually make sure you implement this is to go into your convert kit or active campaign or whatever, and write the automation right in there.

You don’t have to activate it if you’re like, oh, these suck. Just put the basics in there, twenty three day wait between each, and get it done. K? You’ll have till half past.

Do you have any questions before you go?

No?

Good? Yeah. Cool. Just crazy. Yeah.

Abby. Unlike I’m worried about unsubscribes with this. Like, is there a reason why I just shouldn’t be worried about that?

I I mean, it’s twenty three days in, in most cases, they’re already close to disengaged or disengaged anyway. So it’s just to get them back on board. If they, unsubscribe, that’s kind of a blessing. I know a lot of you love subscribers, but, yeah, I’m not saying don’t start this on day one, but twenty three days later is, yeah, three weeks of just hanging out.

Okay. Cool. Thanks.

Cool. Sure. Good question. Anyone else?

No?

Alright. Exactly sixteen minutes until we have to be done. Alright. I’ll be here if you have questions.

That is Daniel.

We finished. We get stuff done.

We not finished. Need more time. Jessica, how’d you do?

Good. I mean, I didn’t put it in my ESP yet, so I’ll hold off on that. But I did give me actually an interesting brainstorm in potential future webinars, workshops, things that I might wanna do. So it was good.

That’s cool. That’s good. It’s a good outcome. Anyone else wanna share what they experienced in doing those sixteen emails Okay. Johnson says it really helped identify easy opportunities in my options for Outreach.

Yeah. So these are obviously the little systems that you set up. As you go, and most people don’t. So if you do, well done.

If you walk away and you don’t end up setting this up, keep that in mind in twenty three days when someone could be replying to something and instead you haven’t reached up to them. So set it up. Go to the work. It’s really easy work.

So get her done. Alright. Now we open the floor for any questions anybody this week about any of the training or anything in your business, client management, all of that kind of stuff, As usual, please be on camera for this part and before you dive in, share a win. And that can be a win of any kind. As long as it’s something cool that you’re happy about, that’s hopefully a result of some of the work that you’re doing to grow your business make more money, get happy in your business, all that stuff. So does anybody have any questions today?

Okay. So that’s my win.

I think the biggest win for me this week was, client feedback that I received yesterday where I had sent a sequence, an email sequence and and they replied that it was perfect. The perfect balance of exactly what they were looking for. That was great because I don’t love revisions, so that was great.

No. No one likes revisions. Okay. Cool. Nice win. Good job.

Thank you. Okay. So here’s my question. It’s actually going back a couple weeks ago where we I I I asked the questions. That kinda he said to bring on a call. Never managed to make your life, so I’m asking now.

I’ll remind you where it was. You mentioned that the email agency boxcar does like think he says something like fifty, sixty k, even like two hundred and fifty k projects.

So I’m kinda toying with the idea of building out into an email, a ecomm email agency.

And I’d love to, like, hear I know that you do typically more SaaS, but I’d love to hear more about what does that project look like, know that you said an ever more retainer style and retainer agreements, but I’m just curious on how, like, the basics of how you set them up. And what kind of clients I’m looking for these type of projects?

Yes. I love it. Okay. So I’m just gonna document this of the basics.

Of these projects and the kinds of clients for it. Cool.

And let me know if I don’t hit any of those for you or you want further third because it’s a great question. And everybody here, everybody and everybody who joins, and everybody decided to start an email performance agency I firmly believe there would still not be enough.

People out there doing this work. Email is tricky. It’s a skill set that almost nobody internally has.

If you do have that skill set, you’ve probably been scooped up by somebody who has massive margins, like a coach that sells huge masterminds.

So they could afford to scoop you up Otherwise, we’re looking at companies that have so much writing on email, and so little in house talent on this stuff and I mean across the board in house talent. So attribution is hard enough for every business. And I mean when I mean business, I’m all we’re copy School Pro or not at freelancing School, I’m talking about real businesses with real money to spend not that one little shop that’s got one person who works of times.

Businesses that have cash and see more on the horizon if only and the if only in this case is we don’t know if em, emails are working.

We don’t know what the freaking benchmarks should be. Like, how should they performing, is this good?

The list goes on, and that’s just like the strategy side of it. They’re bringing in consultants in CRO. Almost every one of them will have some sort of CRO agency that they’re working with, who they hope can do the work of optimizing emails.

Never works largely because Email is the specialized skill set and the tools are not things that you just wake up and know, right? You need training on these tools as Lindsey on my team knows, she was doing both of them implementation for a boxcar, and you’ll have to have it doesn’t. You can train on it. You can learn it, but a CRO agency isn’t doing that.

Now, some will have some people in those CRO agencies who care about email, but that doesn’t mean that they’re going to be great at it. So email, skill sets are hard to come by. Email is direct response for modern marketers. It’s what we do, but just like printers, like print was tough for marketers thirty years ago and beyond past that.

Digital direct response is also like this mystery. Right? So There’s huge opportunity attached to it and they know that, but nobody can handle it. So what do you do?

It’s a lot like SEO. So when I when we had our CH agency, before it switched over to Boxgar. I was always frustrated because no matter what we did, it would end up coming down to how long does it take to to write a landing page? That sort of thing where you’d end up on retainer still selling hours because in those end month reviews, they look at the work you did.

And unless you’re a CRO agency, you’re not measured on performance the same way. Email, is really good to get measured on performance just like SEO. So I when we were at CH Agency, I was like, how do we just have a model that’s like SEOs have where they just get to say, oh, here are some things I did this month and look at the results. Like now you’re here on SERPS for this keyword and that’s like they could do that in twenty minutes or they could do it in twenty hours and it was really just like on performance.

It’s very hard for most things that copywriters do to be measured on ongoing performance, but email is one of those things. So With email, the basics of these projects are you are a brand that has an email platform already in place. You probably have about three of them. So most of them will have a sales team working using HubSpot.

If they’re in SAS, they might also have intercom.

They’ll have tools like Mandrill that will send, non marketing transactional emails. And then they’ll have another platform as well, like e commerce, they’ll have Playvio, and everybody else just has whatever spud e commerce is really big on klaviyo. So if you are gonna work with e commerce, get good at klaviyo. That should be your number one goal is get that certification in there right away, know how it works, so you can go in and be smart about it, too.

You will need to implement. Nobody in freelancing school wants to do this. I’ve brought this up in freelancing school and they’re like, uh-uh, I don’t implement. You are shooting yourself in the foot.

You are absolutely like you if you implement, you can measure if someone else implements, they’re measuring and they’re looking out for themselves. So you will guarantee someone else implementing your stuff is gonna implement it wrong, even if you QA it, and then they’ll say, oh, that didn’t work. And suddenly they’re in there editing your emails.

Hard pass. You are in control and the more in control you are, the higher the rates you can charge. If you’re a doer, your rates go down. If you’re a strategic you’re a partner, if you’re somebody who’s like in the tool, you are high value.

You’re so high value. The CEO knows your name. That’s a really important thing. Okay. So you have access to the tool.

They give you access to the tool. They’ll probably have to pay for another license for you.

That’s that’s that’s part of the game. Of course, you have to. Oh, yes, you have to give me access to the tool full access. No question about it, and your job is to make sure they feel confident in you so that they will do that, and that means you have to know.

You have to be like, you know, I know. Don’t worry. I’m never gonna hit publish or send on something, like, I’ve been down this road before. They have to trust you.

Right? So cool. And you have to make sure you don’t ever hit send on something. It’s actually not ready to go.

So you have access to the tool. You are involved and you put a road map together upfront. So the earlier conversations story for anybody who doesn’t give a shit about email You’re gonna get a download on everything email.

But you go into this knowing what the roadmap is. So for us we would, go through and have one or two hour session with the client with the key stakeholders. So everybody involved in email gonna be a lot of marketers, people in product, and some SDPs and stuff like that.

You’re gonna have that meeting with them, say walk me through the what you’ve already got out there. Let’s screen share, show me inside intercom.

Show me inside Playvio. I need to see this thing. Walk me through what that is. What’s that?

What’s that that asking questions, making notes, reporting things, then you put a roadmap together. This is just a gantt chart where you’re like, here on the far left column, these are all of the sequences you have, and these are the ones that you need, and these are the ones that are top priority, so obviously organized in the right way. Then you have months along the top. And all you’re going to do is fill in, we’re doing plan on this one.

Planning planning planning planning planning planning as you go down and then execution execution execution execution next to it. Just gantt chart stuff and measurement.

And optimization.

So by the time you’re done this freaking gantt chart, you have got two years of emails mapped out. They’re like, holy shit. It’s a lot of work. Are we sure we need to do this?

There might be some reprioritization that happens at that time. But what they see is wow, there’s a lot here. Now you have to make sure that they also see the value of that. So if you can, in that gantt chart, put in in the row for the item, whatever that sequence is that you’re gonna work on, whether it exists or doesn’t obviously you need some sort of it’s better if it does exist or you’re gonna optimize.

You can say this is currently performing at x percent conversion, paid conversion. Ideally, they this is close to money. So go with paid conversions.

Or if you’re dealing with somebody who has like show up, and stuff like that, whatever the case is, however they’re measuring it, whatever matters to them, show that there, and then talk them through what thirty percent lift over the course of six months. If you can optimize that flow over six months, what that could look like. And then they can start to associate money with it because you’re gonna have to get to the point. Where you say, Hey.

This is a lot of work over a lot of time. Lots of specialized skills in there and here’s my rate for that. So then you say what the overall project rate is divided up month by month. That can turn into a retainer or it can turn into a project with an end date.

A lot of companies will start with a project with an end date. And then go okay. We have so many more needs. Like, we’ve been talking about this internally, and then they show you this giant.

List.

And so the project, depending on how many emails you’re gonna get done in what amount time. So you do it does still come down to the work you’re going to do, but they’re not you might make a subject line change rather than a full rewrite, right? Like you’re solving for opens. Clicks conversions on the other page, etcetera. Right? So that’s how your performance is going, how you’re working on things when you’re optimizing for performance.

And that’s fine. That’s cool. That’s great. That’s good to not have to do massive swings all the time. You just need to figure out what you’re going to charge. So right now, I’m I’m not actively involved in boxcar at all, but we have other people who’ve come to us who are friends for, quote unquote help because they’re kind of desperate.

Because there are a lot of businesses that need this. And they’re in at twenty, thirty thousand dollars a month, just to get one sequence planned and another sequence written. So I’m just subcontracting this out to two freelancers I’ve got who went through the email intensive that we did last November.

Not this last one. The one before that, one does planning and the other does execution on it. They work together. They chat together.

But This is a cool tech company and they’re like, we have a four month project on this because I was like, I can’t be here. I’ve got work. I’ve got my own stuff.

And they’re desperate. They’re like throwing money at these people to stick around to come work for them obviously. The biggest one. It’s like, hey, can you work for me?

But yeah, that’s how it goes. So you can see at x amount per month, times even just four months. That’s already a really big project and we’re only doing one sequence a month. One’s planning.

The other is executing, and then once the plan is signed off on at the end of the month, then the person executes on the plan that got signed off on and we keep going forward like that. And that’s not even getting into optimization because I told them I’m not going to optimize. I can’t stick around for this. But the the opportunity here, I can’t say it enough.

This is it. This is this sort of thing every business needs. They’ve got masses of users and subscribers that are just sitting there and nothing’s happening to them. And anybody who’s a CEO or CFO is like, what are they doing there?

How do we get them out of there? And that’s where you come in. And nobody in the organization knows how. Nobody knows how.

The CMO was like, I’m pretty sure we can do this. Like, how do we do this? So you get the CMO to buy into it and then you go from there. I don’t know if that helps.

Tech companies are really obvious low hanging fruit, while large, e commerce, like where the product is expensive such as mattress brands and, other, like, hardware.

Those are because they have big margins, there’s a lots that they can win, that they don’t have to pay because ads aren’t working for them anymore, either. Right? Ads are really expensive, etcetera, etcetera.

Email is still a wonderful opportunity, so they’re happy to reallocate budget toward email. Does that help?

Yeah. That was hugely helpful. Especially, appreciated how you broke down what a twenty k month looks like and how you broke it down into, like, planning execution. One coming up. That was really helpful. Thank you.

Awesome. Good. I really want everybody. You can find a way to do performance like measure what you’ve done.

The retainer is like endless, and it’s just it’s exactly what CRO agencies do. It’s exactly what SEO agencies do. We’re just doing it for email in particular.

Yeah. Cool. Awesome. Good luck. Thank you. Sounds great. Follow-up questions for that.

Yeah.

So what you were saying about how it’s a very specific skill set So if you were to advise like a fresh freelancer, maybe fresh out of college or high school, and they decide they wanted to specialize in email and get that skill set, what would you advise them?

Yeah.

Follow everybody. This is like anything that you ever want to specialize in, one, it’s a good thing that you’ve identified.

One thing to specialize in. That’s one of the hardest things that copywriters have to do is, like, what’s what am I gonna do? That I could do, like, everything needs to be written. This, this, the someone has to write the product packaging for that, like, everything.

So you decide on email and then you follow everybody who talks about email, but I mean in smart ways. I don’t mean they took one person’s course and now they’re gonna teach the world on it, but some people can do that and it goes very, very well. They actually care and think about it. So go out there and do the leg work to find out who knows their shit. Usually, they’re not talking very loudly because they’re so busy working on the stuff.

So keep that in mind.

I don’t know what you would read because most of the books on email marketing. Does anybody have a good one? I found that they’re like garbage, like, like, hot garbage.

Jess is looking at her bookshelf.

There was that one that Ryan Dice wrote oh, oh, oh, oh, no offense.

That’s not to Ryan dice, but it was so fucking bad. It was so bad. It was so basic and like this isn’t going to help anybody do anything.

So yeah. Go out and find that. We added triggered email stuff to ten x emails because of this master of seasonal sales, the emails tracked there. All so good.

And then just, like, keep a good swipe. Practice everything. Do what you’re already doing. Estergrace when it comes to like auditing what people are, saying go teach because teaching helps you learn the thing too. Obviously teaching from the position that you’re in not.

I’m an expert, but hey, I’m learning all this really cool shit about this.

Go to certifications for ships and gigs with Clavio and intercom and all of those popular tools, the ones that your prospects are going to use first. Right? Obviously, if you’re gonna work with SAS or if your friend is gonna work with SAS or this person who’s newly out of college, then use the solutions that SaaS uses. If you’re gonna work with e commerce, Clay a no brainer, braise is good in both cases, but start by just like documenting, just like massively learning everything and then start practicing.

And you can practice on your own email list. You don’t have to have somebody else’s email list to son. You’ll want that, but you don’t have to start there. Jessica, is this on the same topic?

Building off of it a little bit out. It’s similar.

Okay. I apologize to anyone who does not care about this because it’s still about this though.

My oh, my win. This opening myself for judgment.

I committed to taking my dogs twice a week to doggy daycare so that I could just and I already feel better. It hasn’t even happened yet.

That’s awesome. I know we have a dog walker come by two days a week. Just to, like, just go wear them out a bit. Like, they need to relax so that we don’t have to do it. Yeah. Smart. Good.

So I guess mine’s very specific. So related to this email thing though, I I too one of the big services that I’d like to offer is you know, I don’t know, email list management, the retainer, everything you just discussed. But the unique angle, I believe, is my seasonal sales into that and of course a big part of that is sales emails. And so what I’m kind of wondering is right now with slashing out my offers and all that I’m looking at seasonal sales campaigns and all that as one major offer and then the email ongoing stuff. But does that make I guess I’m just looking for any.

What are your immediate thoughts when I tell you that, I guess?

Yeah. I think that the retainer easily in your case could be I’m here for all of your seasonal sales emails because these e commerce brands that we’re talking about are they live on a seasonal calendar. Right? So I’m sure you’ve experienced this where they’re like, it’s president’s day.

Here is a pair of boots. For freaking president’s day? Like, what does that matter? But it’s like it matters.

So that I would do that, but I would just say, like, I’ll be or right hand when it comes to all of these seasonal sales emails that you’re writing. The problem is that it’s not performance space in that case, right? Like because you’re not doing president’s day last year versus this year, necessarily, unless you do, unless it does turn into this ongoing thing and then you can say, but it won’t be optimization like optimizing and automation. Of course.

Yeah. Yeah. But I still think it’s great and in demand. Yeah.

Great. Thanks. Awesome. Abby.

I have two questions. Should I discuss one or can I?

Yeah. But you have to say your win first.

Oh, my win. As as not like a big one, but I pre sold twenty five copies of my book, so I’m happy with that.

That’s amazing.

Very good. Yeah. So my question, so I have an Evergreen webinar funnel running for my course, and I’ve been running out I’ve got. So now I have about two hundred people that have been through the funnel, and I’ve realized that I’ve no plan of, like, what to do with them, the ones that did buy.

Like, I’m sending out get my week my biweekly newsletter. They’re gonna get some nigh word emails now, but I don’t know whether I should be like, because I see other course creators invite people back into the funnel, but it kind of, like, it’s like they said the same emails that it kind of makes the whole thing feel a bit, like, fake because it’s, like, makes the urgency feel fake because it’s, like, a but I use deadline for it. Yeah. And so I’m yeah.

I I don’t know.

Like, I just don’t know what to be doing with those people.

Did you ask them why they didn’t move forward?

Yeah.

What was the reason?

Like price.

They’re most mostly just like or saying, yeah, the the timing’s not right. Yeah.

So that’s either true or it’s not true.

And that’s the thing. If it is true, then that means that your audience is wrong, and I wouldn’t bother trying with them again. If price is really the objection, and it it can actually, but some people do not have any money.

They wanna learn from you, but they they can’t afford it. And those are good people to get out of your brain so they’re good to not try to reengage necessarily. I know that can sound harsh. Like, I’ve told you twice in today’s session to cut your list down. And you’re like, that’s my list. I’ve worked at it. So I get it.

But I would strongly encourage you to not think about the people who can’t afford your solution.

So that doesn’t mean that that they’re truly that that’s really the objection. And maybe there’s another way that you but I don’t it’s like, well, I could put together a cheap or something. Do you really need to spend your time or resources on building something for people who can’t afford what you’ve got.

Well, I think I think they can’t I don’t think it’s like they can’t afford it. I think it’s more like they’ve already spent their budget that month or they’ve, like, enrolled in other courses recently.

So they’re like, oh, I can’t it’s more like a timing thing, which makes as I’m saying that I’m thinking, maybe then I should give them another opportunity to buy If it’s a timing thing.

Yeah.

So it’s the first thing I stand over.

Does that if it’s a timing thing though, then there is. Are definitely. You can re engage them. That’s what that automation that we just set up today is for, bring them back. Eventually, it might be the right time for them, engage them in other ways.

It it depends on how far you wanna go with it and how much opportunity you do think is there because there’s so many different ways you could go, right? I would recommend you read the book super consumers.

It’s got good tricks on, like, quick, like, but but it takes it takes resources. So it’s like, have an IRl together for some, and then people have to fly in. Right? Like, it but but there are good ideas in there. So check that out.

What is a customer worth to you? If they convert, what’s their value?

It’s only, like, five hundred dollars. Sorry.

And that’s five hundred after you and everybody on your team has been paid. Wow. No.

Not like yeah. Once I take out, like, the tech stack and stuff, like, probably about Well, it depends how many I’m selling. So let’s say, like, like, I think my final cost, like, a hundred and fifty to run.

So Okay.

So you’re making three fifty? Is that what I heard?

Yeah. But then on the sale after that would be five hundred.

Okay. So for the lifetime value is then more in the eight hundred realm, like, once you get them in, even if it costs to acquire them I’m I’m really just trying to understand. No. No.

So no.

My lifetime value for these is like five hundred, like, unless they’re gonna hire me later, which I haven’t seen happen yet. But the the idea is hope that they’ll start making some money and then be able to afford to hire me, but it’s two early days. Yeah. So let’s just say the lifetime value is five hundred.

Yeah. Okay. Yeah.

And do you have a webinar already or a workshop that sells them?

Yeah. I have the Evergreen webinar. Yeah. Then the problem is if they go through and don’t buy. It’s like, what do I do with them?

Yeah. I know. So if the timing is wrong, then the automation sequence is one way to get them back on board, right, that then the sixteen by twenty three thing. Yeah.

Other ways then are right? Just like leave them on your general list. I just for me, I’m like, don’t pay too much attention to them if they’ve got these objections that you really can control unless there is something you can do to where timing is the problem.

What can you do to get rid of that problem. So how are you going to make yourself available when the time is no longer a problem? Can you book with them? Like, can you hop on a call with them in some way so that you can better, like, place yourself in their calendar I’m just one, I wouldn’t worry about the pricing people.

Two, if timing is a thing and you don’t wanna put them back through an evergreen funnel, then you have to figure out how you’re gonna get in front of them at the right time. And the evergreen funnel is the way typically of course to go. If it’s not right for them because they’ve been through it already, then I would just throw them on your general list and keep nurturing them old school and See if you can do some cross channel stuff. Also, I mean, my concern is people can always it’s very rare for timing to be a real thing too unless they’re multiple decision makers.

But sounds like there’s probably one decision maker here. They just didn’t get off their butt and do it.

Yeah. I mean, I think I think, like, to be honest, the more I think about it, the more like the nine word emails is probably enough to just because if they just say, yeah, I still want, like, want to, then I can just say, oh, I can, you know, I’m happy to, like, honor the discount for them. Like Yeah. Totally.

Yeah. Okay. Sorry. After all. I know your training that you did initially. It was so good.

That’s good.

That’s good.

I did have one other quick question if that’s all. Alright?

With so my evergreen final that I would have been final, like, bills cost my feedback into it. So that’s, like, the kind of the the USPS.

And part of that is thank you page surveys.

I originally, so I started using your question, the what was going on in your life. I wanted to find my own. I experimented with others. No question is as good. So I’m using that. I am I’m, like, giving you credit. Like I’m saying, this is Friday.

We’ve purchased a good day.

The I’m like, should I really be because it is quite an important part. Should I really be having my own question if I wanna really be like an authority in this? But I can’t think of a better question. Like, you know, I’ve I’ve tested lots of things. Like, so, yeah, what do you do you think it’s It’s a legitimate concern, or should I just keep on being like this is Joe’s question?

I would just stick with the question, but that would make think the thank you page entirely. So, what we’ve done with our thank you page is we go back and forth. We have surveys sometimes like a thank you page survey, the one question.

That you’re talking about and other times it is just skip skip ahead and book a call with us. Right? So you get the ebook, you wanna learn how to make five thousand dollars a month. And so you land on this on the page, the confirmation page, and instead of getting the ebook right away, it’s like, Hey, do you wanna skip the line?

And like, we could just hop on a call and talk through this and that’s gonna be a sales call. Right? So thank you pages across the board. You can just embed your calendly so if you’re like I’m not sure.

So what I’m hearing is you want to change the question because of a thought leadership thing. For you.

Yeah.

Great with it. Whatever. But if if what we’re really tapping into is you kinda don’t wanna use that question for whatever reason. Whatever reason. Whatever the reason is.

I do. I do.

Okay. Well then, what I would say is go back and forth. Yeah.

For when you know, switch between, I’m going to collect data, and I’m going to allow people to book an appointment with But it is more because I’m teaching it because I’m saying because I’m because in my course, I say, like, set up a thank you page survey, and this is the question that I use that Joanna Weeb taught me. So it’s like, I am I like I mean, I guess I’m I don’t know if I’m, like, asking permission here or what, like Oh, no.

Claire and Gia teach this too. Like, it’s yeah. I talk about all the time because I’ve tested a billion different ways, and that’s It’s just the best life. Yeah. It’s just it’s just going to help you find those that voice of customer. So just use it.

Just use it. Yeah. I did I’m thinking, like, based on what you said, what I could do is teach kind of like different thank you pages you can use depending on what you want. So if you want to voice your customers that question, if you wanna find out how people are landing on your page, use like a different question.

Like, that kind of thing. If you want, like, one to ones, then book a call. So yeah. Okay.

Anyway, yeah. Sorry. I don’t wanna hog your time. Thank you.

Cool. Thanks, Abby. Naomi. Thanks for waiting. You gotta win?

Alright. What about the win? I don’t have one at the top of my mind.

You will post an instance later.

I interestingly enough. Oh, okay. I have one. Okay. Good. So I was working on a landing page, and I met with the, I met with the marketer, meaning the guy who runs the Google campaigns, And I found out that he’s running three campaigns, and the guy who runs the business told me that he’s only running one.

And so if you work on Google campaigns, you know that but you really need a new landing page for every campaign to make sure at the very least that it matches the keywords. If not also the intent, the length of the page, etcetera. So I sent an email saying, you know, you really should have a different landing page for this other campaign because the people searching for this have a slightly different mindset. And so I just added that to the bill. So that was an extra, extra sale there, and that was really easy.

So, yeah, so that’s the win.

I am pretty sure I’ve asked this before, but I haven’t gotten a great answer anywhere. I’m gonna ask it again because email came up.

For the vast majority of the companies I work with, they might have a newsletter, but the newsletter is very content focused. And if they’re running these very traditional b to b ad campaigns, which most companies still are, they’re promoting white papers. And if they’re doing content syndication, which I know, everyone hates. They’re still, like, promoting learning papers, and so they get all of these leads.

And a lot of times if somebody reaches out to them, like, okay. You could always, like, retarget them if you’re tracking properly. But if somebody reaches out to them by email, it’s really the SDR or the BDR stop. To to contact them, to start building that relationship, because a lot of these things are very relationships focused.

But they typically these BDRs and SDRs, if they have hundreds of leads coming in, and they’re also getting leads from trade shows they don’t and they also have like regular leads coming up signing up for a demo that they have to set up discovery calls with. They don’t have the time to contact all those people. And if they are contacting them, usually it’s a very generic email, or it’s like a email sequence that happens like two weeks after the lead already drops in the CRM. So I’ve brought up the idea having nurturing sequences, which are really very different from newsletters. Newsletters and nurturing sequences have very different goals, but the pushback that I always get is This feels too sales y. This is too impersonal.

We need people to we need our sales team to reach out to them personally but the sales team is not reaching out to them and they don’t have the time. But I get this feedback over and over again from very technical b to b products, and to some degree, there is some legitimacy to that because a lot of times the sales funnel looks very different whether it’s different decision makers in the buying, like, if it’s the champion versus the decision maker versus person holding the budget or his different solutions or whatever it is, it it would actually be difficult to write a nurturing sequence and to segment a list that effectively when you have when you’re not doing it as large of a scale. So, I’m gonna ask again. Do you have any thoughts on how email would be effective here? Because there definitely is a lot of opportunity.

Yeah.

I mean, and this is the thing. I haven’t when I’ve worked with very technical large companies selling into enterprises with multi threading with all of the bananas stuff that happens in large sales organizations. I mean, like people who There’s one who, moves you from your mainframe to mainframe in the cloud Like, people still have mainframes out there. And to get moved off your mainframe is like a multi million dollar project, but like business, banks, communication, like telecom companies are on mainframes in a lot of cases still.

So these are even people who no matter the size and the complexity of the project and everything, they’re still emailing. They’re still doing it. They reach out to me as they can you help us with these emails So I’m I guess I’m a little confused as to why why your these clients or prospects don’t want to use email and saying it’s sales y is only once they’ve seen a thing. So what’s stopping them from using email in the first place?

It’s not that they’re not using email. It’s that they’re using email either the the sales reps, like, the AEs are using email, and sending personal email to them, like nine word each.

Sorry. I mean, like, why aren’t they using the nurturing sequence that you mentioned? Like, what’s really getting in their way there?

I would say number one, being able to segment people, like, right, the the less information you ask for when you ask for a white paper, the more people are gonna convert. So Of course, you’re especially if it’s like LinkedIn. Right? Like, you ask for, like, automatic information and half of that is probably LinkedIn guessing. So, like, if you have such little information because you want to get those leads in, then what kind of how much can you segment that list? And if you can’t segment the list, can your emails really be specific enough to be effective?

Okay. So their hearing, I need to segment. That’s a lot of work. We’re not gonna do that upfront on the form because it’ll surprise conversions.

And that means that we go into this with this big dump of people that are just a generic dump of people to us. And if you want to come in, and send emails to them with segmentation, we can’t because it’s too much work. Is it work?

Is it the function?

It’s work that a person could do but work like if they went and looked to figure out who the hell that is on LinkedIn, but I’m not sure how easy it would do. It would be to do in HubSpot or whatever email tool you’re using.

Yeah. And like you can say, I guess, so if their objection to it, one of their objections or starting one that makes it a nonstarter for conversation is we don’t have segmentation. Then take segmentation out, don’t segment then. And I know you need it, what do you need it to be specific, but I’m snow company actually segments.

Like we’re talking about a best practice is to segment. The reality is lasting. Everybody blasts. And that’s like what we’re really dealing with out there because these aren’t smart marketers when it comes to email.

Right? So if we always start from a place of, I know hundred times more about email marketing than you do. I have empathy you don’t say that. How do you know that?

Right? I have empathy for you and the sadness of what you don’t yet know could happen for your business. So what’s my easiest way to get you to start down the path of what email could do for your business because a newsletter is already a form of nurturing.

You have the sales team that is waiting too late before they reach out. So a potentially warm lead has gone cold, and now you have to, like, heat them up again. Why would you wait on that? So if you can talk them through and really and understand like, why are you waiting on that?

Like, maybe there’s an easier soul. Maybe it’s just like, oh, we should just tell our reps sooner. But if it’s like, no, that two week window has to pass and you’re like, well, let’s do something about that two week window. When’s the last time you want to be nurtured when you’re ready for something.

So there’s gonna be people that you’re just playing missing out on. Right? Can we agree on that? And if they can’t agree on that, you’re never gonna get someone But if you they can agree that, yeah, there’s definitely people who reach out and are ready to start the conversation at least.

Are ready to open the sales conversation from day one, then all you need is to sell them on a series of opener emails to like get them in, get them to set an appointment with a rep, get them warmed up on all of this stuff, so that they’re more likely to show up when a rep reaches out in two weeks and says, hey, you specifically you. I know everything about you and let’s hop on a call. They’re already nurtured there. So to me, it sounds like they think it has to be really hard work.

If you make it clear that it’s easy work, and you’ve done this before, and you can totally do this with very little effort from them. And the result is when an SDR reaches out there’s a real lead there. I mean, even the SDRs would get on board with that, right, that they could have good warm leads.

But in terms of actually writing the email, like if you have a use case, let’s say you have a use case for marketing and you have a use case for for product or product marketing and you have a use case for sales and maybe like one other one other department. And on top of that, you have the decision maker, you have a champion and maybe the person involves the purse strings or like somebody else in upper management. Like, what would be your approach in writing nurturing emails to all of those different that’s a that’s a lot of people.

It’s a lot of people.

What do you know about them? Do you know what white paper they downloaded? Or do they just get dumped into a single list?

No. You probably would know what white paper. I mean, it was the Right.

So let me start. And start there. Right? Like, as simple as are you still looking for a subject of white paper?

And then that’s like a way for them to at least hit apply to the email and go, yeah, remind me what that was, and then the SDR has a warm, like, contact that they can do something with. So if you’re able to do that with a single email and then if it doesn’t work, x period of time passes, and something else about the white paper, Hey, did you see this like complimentary video that supports what’s on page three? Go to page three and here’s the video or something. Right?

Like all we’re really doing is using email. If if there is an SDR, email’s job is to either get them to start a conversation or to move towards setting an appointment and then showing up for the appointment. So show up sequences and all those kinds of things that go along with that. So there’s already quite a things you can sell into a sales team.

But yeah, that’s I mean, it doesn’t have to be a long email. It can be a short one that’s just tapping into the thing that they showed interest in. No one reads a white paper. So you can just start like engaging them on, hey, do you wanna skip the line and like instead of reading the white paper, we could just talk about what you’re going through, and that’s an email that you can send. Yeah.

So so because these kind of short emails I would associate, like, those are the kind of emails that I typically assume SDR’s should send or BDRs are are supposed to be sending good, you know, the type the kind where they, like, make a typo in the subject line on purpose. So you would just automate those.

Yeah.

I mean, you can’t it depends on what you’re solving. If you’re typically solving for that two week gap, then, yeah, all you’re doing is Instead of nothing, you’re sending emails that look like an SDR sent them. That’s it. You’re just scheduling those up and that’s easy peasy. If you’re solving for something else, then you might need a different solution. But in this case, yeah.

I don’t think it has to be more complicated than that. It hasn’t been. You charged like it is, but it’s not actually more complicated than you knowing to send those emails that are about x and that respect the reader’s time and just try to get them into a conversation with an SDR.

So you wouldn’t provide more of something more engaging, something a little bit longer, more marketing oriented, you would stick with the more sales short and quick approach?

It I would only go to marketing messaging if your client is using SQLs and MQs. Like, if they’re measuring the quality of the lead. If a a certain number of ignores, reduces them down to more getting qualified lead instead of a sales qualified lead, once they’re no longer sales qualified. Okay.

But it really comes down to sales qualified and more qualified. If they’re marketing qualified lead, they get marketing emails, and that’s to get them back to a place of showing interest again and then if they’re sales qualified, they get sales emails. That’s it. Does that make sense?

Yes. I mean, I’m doing a dirty word. It’s like a four letter word in twenty twenty four.

And q l and SQL?

Oh, yeah. Everyone hates on q l’s. And q l’s are out. No one’s measuring on q l’s anymore.

Not in my world.

That’s for sure.

Or or not.

Yeah. Maybe.

For people who come talking to us. So but whatever the case is, whatever they’re calling it, there is a point at which marketing no longer is qualified to be the one talking exclusively them, whatever you wanna call it. But there’s lead scoring of some kind going on. Anybody with the sales team has lead scoring going on. If the lead is ready to be sold to, then they can have short quick emails that are there to get you to open a conversation.

If not, Then there’s the question of do we do a marketing message, like that’s a bit longer and softer more remote that kind of thing. What else do we do there? Yeah.

Okay. Interesting.

Yeah. That’s yeah. That’s what we’re seeing.

Cool. Cool.

Alright.

Anybody else? Now that my dogs have plumbed There’s a moment of peace in the house.

I’ve got a question.

Motion.

Wait.

So my win is kind of related to my question. I have a cousin who, works at a a unicorn startup.

As, head of product design, but he’s also, sort of assisting the CEO.

And He was telling me about the the internal state, which is like kind of crazy that their marketing team is like two two, graduates from from Uni.

Absent.

And the co founder who’s now gone was like a sales crazy dude who, kind of wanted to shut down marketing and just have sales.

And, yeah, it was, a shit show, apparently. So he’s out and things are better. And, he was, anyway, and he was telling me about the problems. And, obviously, I, as casually as possible, mentioned that I could If I had some time, maybe I have a glance at the website and just do a quick, a quick run through. So I did that. I sent it to him and he ended up, circulating it internally in, like, thirty people saw it, and then I guess they changed pretty much everything on their homepage. It was tons better.

Then nothing really came of it, but two weeks or a week ago, my cousin reached out and basically said, might have some work. Can we help in a call? So we did, and he needs three landing pages, homepage, potentially like a, a a voice guide and, like, I mean, honestly, like, there’s everything here. I mean, email alone.

But so, I don’t know, I sent a proposal over with some really, big scary numbers in it for me.

And, he forwarded it over to the CEO because they basically said he basically said, they need numbers before they could bring in the CEO.

So So I just recorded a Loom and and, and then decided to include, I’m sorry for anyone. This won’t make sense to some people, but the the narrative selling thing So I I pitched I kind of not pitched it, but, kind of infused it throughout the whole thing.

Just as casually as possible. And so I think it’s gonna I don’t know, but my my cousin said he he he loved it and forwarded it over to the CEO. So I’m waiting to hear back. And, that’s kind of the weird.

It’s just like to get the opportunity is great. And kinda crazy. But Love it. The the question is, do you because obviously, I think there’s really good opportunity here to, to help them because probably everything is I mean, their homepage before was, like, crazy bad.

So I think there’s just a massive opportunity here to to get some good numbers maybe. And then, obviously, make lots and lots and lots of content. So, I also was just wondering is, is there any what advice? Just broadly speaking.

What advice would you have for me in this situation? Thanks.

Okay. Advice for which part, like, for getting it closed?

Yeah. For just, like, bulk. If we hop on a call, I’m gonna, yes, but maybe as well just kind of I was thinking more broadly how to maximize, the opportunity for Of course.

Yeah. They’re based in the UK.

Yeah, Irish thumb.

Oh, they’re Irish? Okay. Oh.

Yeah.

Do I know who they are, probably?

Maybe.

I mean, Let us know who they are?

Yeah. I I mean, I could say yeah. Sure. It’s, Wayflyer, e commerce funding.

Oh, no. Okay. Oh, that’s cool. I thought it was somebody else, but that’s cool.

Okay. Awesome. So The reason I asked if they’re in the UK, is simply or not in America is really what it comes down to, is the ways of selling into different cultures.

So if you were over here, I would have recommended a, something slightly more, assertive on on it on the subjects. Just more of, like, let’s get, like, let’s do this thing kind of thing.

So it’s it’s tough because take what I say with a green really what I’m just gonna say. Like, try to modify it and apply it for what you know about your market, and the people that you’re serving there and how they react. To selling, which is really serving, but it’s called selling. Okay. Fine.

Yeah, because already I’m Did you find out what their budget is before you voted?

No. But I told but I had a quick call with my cousin and I said, I I pointed some rough numbers, and he was like, yep. That all sounds fine. So then I, maybe inflated them a little.

Has he ever signed off on a project like this Yeah.

Yeah.

He’s I think he’s he’s fallen into a kind of, second in command sort of thing to the to the CEO because he’s this guy, I don’t know, he sounds like he needs help. But So so, yes, he’s he’s kind of overseeing a bunch of stuff that probably isn’t in his role, typically.

Okay. So he is a good person to say this is the right price?

Yes. Or at least this is the right price.

Okay. So it’s gone. It’s been handed up to the CEO. When did that happen?

On Friday. I I think he’s seen it now. He also saw the tear down, which was I didn’t intend for anyone else to see, but my cousin size four of it and was it all. So they’re gonna know they’re gonna kind of look, and I also did quite a, like, exhaustive head, just because I kind of wanted to, obviously, show off a bit. Yeah.

So yeah. So he’s seeing that he’s maybe sitting on it now, the proposal.

So yeah.

Cool. So I mean obviously early on it would have been better not to do free work for them because now you’ve slightly devalued it. It doesn’t mean that that’s always true because people hire people on spec work all the time. Like agencies fight against each other on spec. So it happens. It’s just I would try not to do that in the future. See what happens if next time you charge instead of giving your cousin something.

See what happens if you I really was just, expecting him to just look at it and be like, cool.

I need to hire you. But instead it got he sent he sent it around. So that was not intended.

Cool. Yeah.

Either way, what they take out of free, they’ll still circulate it if they love it. So, there’s just that. I would just keep that in mind for everybody. Right?

Try not to do free anything unless you have such a strong reason to believe that that’s the only way forward. And I would imagine with your cousin, there was another way forward. I know Natitism can feel like tricky. Like, how do I get a credit card?

But yeah, so going forward, so you’ve shown internally that like you’ve proven to people that you offer a value. Don’t know if they knew your name don’t know, like, the thing that got shared around, did it have your name attached to it, or did they just know there was this smart person who sent this around?

This is the latter, I guess.

Okay. So there was a smart person who sent this around. Not this is Johnson spink. This is his work.

No. Well, no. No. Probably just this is Juts. Someone Jut has I don’t actually know how he presents it.

Yeah. It would just be yeah. And so even if you do send around, like, a loo or something again, just make sure you, in some way, brand it so it’s clear.

David, I mean, everything was branded with my my logo.

I finished on the end with my LinkedIn, my website, all of the the email and everything.

That’s what I’m wondering because obviously the CEO makes a decision, but makes a decision that is influenced by people around. Often on their own. Right? But they’re still gonna be if someone’s like, oh, that was so cool.

We’re still winning from what Johnson sent us. Like, when are we bringing this guy in? That’s obviously what you’re looking for. Right?

So as long as you’re He did actually say that everyone, talked about it for a bunch.

For a while. So I think it had an impact.

Okay.

So I think I I might my so I guess my my so I I think I know where your my assumption is I’m coming in there.

As an authority, like, to some degree?

My question with all of this understood is how do you, like, I I’m I’m not I don’t have visibility into it. So what is the gap that we need to close? Between the CEO looking at that and you getting on a call with the CEO?

Well, I don’t know if there’s anything, now because the the things off, he’s looking at it. And as far as I know, it’s it’s on it’s on trajectory, you know.

So really more, it’s about what happens when we when he says, okay. Let’s let’s talk to this guy. And how do I make sure that that’s, that’s that’s the last. That’s the only la the the last touch point.

Is it is the proposal high enough that it does require a call or is it something where the CEO will just sign off on it. Do you think based on conversations with your with your cousin, etcetera?

I think he’ll, yeah. I mean, I think he can sign off on it.

But it yeah. I think I I don’t imagine you’d have to consult anyone or not.

With me.

You mean with me? Yeah.

No. Maybe not. No. No. You could do that without hopping on a call. And I did say, at the end, I was like, we can hop on a call, and we can talk more about this.

Or if you just wanna look in my time because this is a big project, you can I’ll send over a statement at work, and you’ve got seventy two hours too. To sign that.

Okay. So did you already give him that, or would you later save by seventy two hours spent? Debbie have a deadline No. No.

No. I he has an option now between shoot choosing between statement of work straight away and signing it, locking in by time, or hopping on a call first?

Is there a deadline? What does he know about when he has to make this decision?

No. It is not a deadline.

K.

Cool.

Tricky because he’s a CEO, he’s busy, unless he’s prioritizing this, the team already made some changes based on it. Right? So he’s already got some hopefully winning copy and maybe less urgency around it. So what I would do if I were you is try to find a way to make sure a fire is lit under his butt. And now I know it’s like, well, it’s too late to put a deadline in there.

But What can you do going forward? Make sure you do have that. Like, hey, I can talk to you on Monday or Tuesday.

After that, if we can’t lock this in, it’s gonna be not until June make it really uncomfortable. And then if he still doesn’t move on it, it was a hard sell anyway.

So just keep that in mind that failure is okay.

Just put those deadlines in there for him. He needs to feel the pressure to move on this, and that’s why I asked what the team is the team pushing him. Your cousin is gonna have a hard time because of mephitin them. These might feel a little bit weird about it.

Right? So it doesn’t mean he will, but it might be like, oh, I can’t push too hard. So you need like a groundswell. You need people internally.

What can you do? Do you follow any of them on LinkedIn? Is there anything you can do to like seed conversation with the people who are going to influence the CEO moving on it. If by end of day tomorrow you haven’t heard from the CEO, what can you do with those people who fell in love with your ideas?

I would reach I would find a way to like what they say on LinkedIn or just like reach out to them and go like, Hey, were you one of the people who saw what I sent around or something? Right? But just started start a conversation there to try to get more people working on your behalf.

That’s what I would do at least if there’s if a deadline passes, it would also follow-up.

Were you directly connected with the CEO?

No.

Next time. Yeah. It’s I mean, or can you reach out on LinkedIn?

Does I don’t know culturally if that’s, like, weird to do it, like, in your Probably probably a little probably a little weird.

It is something that that might help this whole thing was kind of like, I need numbers before I can, like, bring him into this conversation kind of thing. So it was kind of a, gay gay keeper position, if I would like.

So I guess So you didn’t get to do a lot of the things that we want to do when we’re selling into.

No. And I didn’t I mean, I didn’t wanna he he just wanted numbers. So I was like, I sweated it for a day.

I was like, oh, it’s just not that first.

Yeah. I’m sorry. I mean, but I I think that it I I did at least. I mean, I, you know, I pointed out the the the the problems. And I and I stated, I mean, several different ways, but several times that they’re losing revenue. Like, kind of as we speak. Like, revenue is being a lot potentially, like, a lot of revenue.

And and this is a and that’s which I think is more is the the the the growing sense in the company. So I think it’s reflecting what is happening internally at least.

Naomi?

Could I, yeah, could I potentially step in? I, recently did a project, helping a startup rewrite a lot of their web copy because they had developed, like, a new it introduced AI so they needed new AI messaging.

And they broke it down into several different batches. So they started with, like, the main plan pages, the home page.

And or the main product pages, the homepage, and the plans page, and then they had broken it down into other areas of the website that, like, would be nice to update, but not critical. Could you start with, like, the pages that will bring the biggest uplift and the fastest quick win, make sure to go into Google Analytics, measure their conversion rate, measure time on page, all of those good metrics. And then when you’re done, show them how much it improved, and then it’ll be much easier for them to go on to the other pages because, like, when it comes to website copy, there are some mailer elements besides you. Right? Because you have to have the designer. You’re going to change the out the layout of the page, and you’re gonna have to have the developer, and it’s gonna be a huge headache for them. So if you can sort of reduce the scope of that project, you might be able to get in and and once they see how great the project is, it might be easier to continue.

Yeah. That’s that’s good advice. I I did, you know, I explained the price. I gave them a price per landing page and a price per home page.

So I quoted that together as a bundle, and I, you know, I I did the whole, being able to I reduced the scope and I reduced the cost. So, they’ve got that as an option. If they want to pick just one page here, I mean, that’s, that’s, I think that’s pretty straightforward.

Like, leap for them, but I didn’t mention it. I mean, I wouldn’t, I guess, I wouldn’t want to. But Yeah. I want them to buy. I want them to buy the whole picture.

Yeah. And every once that wins quickly though. Right? Yeah. It’s it’s a very good point about getting that win quickly. It will get by in. I know we’re at the end of our time for those you have to leave.

Talk to the CEO, everybody who’s still here.

Pop on call with the CEO, don’t they want numbers? Oh, just tell me what it costs. If they’re a CEO, they are used to being on a lot of calls. They’re used to prioritizing the right things if they care about money, which they do because their CEO, they want to be on a call.

They’re used to it. They’re not scared marketing managers who don’t know what to do with their time, they know. So you don’t your response if you get shut down, you will only get better at having them like actually hear you and say yes. So I’m saying like, no, let’s hop on a call.

I’d love chat with you. I wanna meet the person who built this school company. I wanna talk to you about what I can do for you and I wanna make sure what I have in mind aligns with what you have in mind. You’ve got the vision for this.

So get on the call. Do what it takes don’t let your cousin say, oh, no. I’ll just do this. Like, no, no, man.

Like, I can really help here. So get me on that call. Trust me. I will make you look good.

And that’s it. Then you show up on the call. You make the cousin look like a freaking genius for being related to you and knowing to bring you in, and the CEO gets to talk with you. And that’s good.

If you didn’t, just don’t worry about the things that you might be worried about, hop on a call you’ll close the CEO on the call if only because you had the freaking guts to say, no, I really wanna hop on a call you. Like that goes a long way. CEO’s wanna solve problems and they want it done yesterday.

So don’t be afraid of them.

Alright. Yeah. Thank you, Jared. Thanks.

To get on that call. Yeah. Good luck.

Thank you. Thanks.

Awesome. Cool. I know we’re at the end of our time, Esther Grace. Do you have a quick question?

Yes, please. If you don’t mind.

Sure. Let’s do it.

Okay. So it’s Sorry?

Nope. I was just saying to everybody else if you have to go. It’s not weird.

So I I have a lead or I had a lead was just like the perfect client.

They have a massive list. They’re not doing anything with email. They were very responsive. Like, they just wanted to hand everything off to me the expert to handle it for them.

We went through the proposal process. They agreed to the contract. They agreed to everything. And then and that was when I shared my win in the channel.

And after I sent over the contract and the invoice, they did reply for, like, a week. I followed up, didn’t hear anything, and then they sent me an email saying, they’re not comfortable with me being international, like living abroad.

So they would prefer if we worked on a smaller project to build the relationship first. So I offered them a smaller project included, like, a hundred and one different ways to make things easier for them, and then they just haven’t replied. I did the nine word email follow-up last week. No reply, no response, nothing, and I just feel so bad.

Yeah. Let’s back up then, to a few things. So out of the gate, Where did they think you were? Like, is that a legit concern?

Or yeah.

So right now I’m in Nigeria. I moved from the US, in December last year. I told them this on a call when we were talking and they’re like, oh, where are you based? And I’ve talked about how is how I moved to Nigeria, and they were like, oh, cool. That was it. But I don’t know where this came.

It’s a little tricky. Right? Like what a client tells you I mean, that that teaches you, like, tells you a bunch of things about them, but also about the reality of the world and fears of I don’t know. Whatever countries, I don’t know anything about what happens there.

Right? So There’s times when you I mean, I think that’s why some people just have US mailing addresses easiest thing when I worked for conversion rate experts. They had a San Francisco office and a New York office. They didn’t have office in San Francisco or New York, they have mailing.

They had a post office box there. So just like have a US location if only to look international.

So consider that if it’s an objection that you’ll ever have to come up against in the future, you know who you are We always have to think about who is trying to hire us and how afraid people are of making the wrong call when it comes to spending money. So consider that US based location on the bottom of your website along with it.

And that’s it. You can be on vacation abroad right now. If it’s anything weird, just I wouldn’t tell somebody or I’m from Canada if I thought it was gonna be weird for them. When the truth comes out about how horrible Canadians really are, then no one will wanna hire me. So, there’s that to consider. But Two. How did you follow-up with them?

So I followed up when the when I got the response, I followed with, an email detailing, like, what the smaller project could include, and then did some more, like, sales eat things in there, like, some tactics how it’s good for them.

And then I also added it like PS if they wanted to hop on call to chat through those details.

And then after that one, a couple of days later, I think a week later, then I followed up with the nine word email. So that was last week.

Are you using the word follow-up?

No. Just checking. Yeah.

Good. It’s always worth checking in to make that’s not happening.

Yeah, I mean, sometimes you lose, I don’t think that had to happen here. I think you might be dealing with people who got shy about the whole thing, and that sometimes happens. That doesn’t mean that that’s absolutely true either, but be, hey, you’re in a place we didn’t know you’re in. To me is like, it’s weird.

What’s going on there? There’s also, like, people get excited. Now you quoted them on that first call where they got excited. You told them what you charged.

Right?

So that wasn’t the first call. So I first, Okay.

So the first call, I Oh, sorry, Esther Grace.

Just to be clear, I also needed some time. Before you gave them the proposal or the amount, they knew the price.

No. They did not. That’s that’s it.

That’s it. And then there are I mean, I think it’s one thing they didn’t know the price so you can’t watch proposal boot camp. Watch it and watch it again. If it’s not like clicking, you have got to make sure that the client knows what your fees are, the vicinity of them.

They don’t have to have the exact quote, but it’s an actual waste of time for you. And look what it does. Now you feel dejected. Now you feel like, oh, Greg.

I lost them. You didn’t. You’re too expensive for them. That’s okay to be too expensive for them.

You’re going to be too expensive for a lot of people along the way.

So but you have to bring up your price or it’s not like it’s not a real thing. You’re going to have to bring it up eventually.

You gotta bring it up before they see it on a proposal or an estimate or in writing. You bring it up talking with them. So a project like this, generally, I mean, the last project I did with, like, this was, I think it came in around ninety five hundred, give or take, How does that sit with your budget? And then they’re like, oh, ninety five. And you can see because you’re on Zoom together.

You can see. Their reaction. So they’re like, oh, okay. Well, it’s more than we thought.

And you can see how crazy you’ve scared they are of how much more than they thought it is or if they’re like, Okay. You know, and, obviously, there’s reactions. Right? And there’s nuances.

That’s why you all wanna be on camera. So you can watch and you control your expression too because this is game face.

But you gotta you gotta do that. Never send a proposal over even a bullet point proposal in an email, don’t do anything until you have spoken about what it costs.

Yeah. So I just wanted to mention. So the structure I used was a little different since it was my first, pitch for this particular offer. I decided to do, like, a hundred percent performance basis.

So on the first call, so since this email, I was like, okay, we’ll only do performance just because I wanted I had never done anything like that before. I was like, let me just test it out with this potential client. So that was what I told them on the first call that it’ll be performance based. So we’ll have another call to talk through, like, the strategy for them.

So I did, like, a free audit just because I know I’m not supposed to do free audits, but just because it was I want you to watch this replay back, and you can pick out all of the things that I don’t need say to you right now.

Esther grace, don’t make life so hard for yourself.

Charge projects out of the gate. Once you have a bunch of email experience under your belt, then you can build a performance based email marketing agency, and you can do a bad ass job a bit. But to get there, you need to first have a bunch of experience.

It’s good to have ambition. I freaking love the ambition.

But you’re shooting yourself in the foot, hundred percent by a bunch of the things that you did that are like, well, I’m gonna go out and try it on my own. That’s what happens. You’re guessing, and you’re like short you’re trying to shortcut things. Just do it the easy way.

Just make it a proposal for a project, the thing that they said they wanted, tell them it’s gonna cost this much. Here’s when it starts. Here’s when it ends Here’s what you’ll know by the end if it performed well. If you want from that point on to have me continue to optimize it, we can pass that bridge when we get there.

Go into every call with an oh hell’s no. Right? Just like we talk about a proposal boot camp. It starts with no. No. I can’t do this How can I make the project smaller for you? What?

Your time is more valuable and when you make these modifications for people, you’re saying got nothing but time. And if you have nothing but time, that means nobody’s hiring you. And so I don’t have to hire you either.

Play hard to get.

Be hard to get. This is all a fucking game all the time. Be hard to get. Make them want to hire you.

Be open and honest about what you’re charging so that they can actually opt in and say, yes, I do want this from you. How soon can we get started. And don’t worry about giving things away for free. You don’t actually have to with real businesses.

You don’t have to give things away for free.

Mister Grace.

You gotta make this up to us. You gotta find a way to make sure that you don’t put our hearts through this again.

Just follow, go watch proposal boot camp. Hang out in ten accepting you still and then freelance some schools lack. As well as here, right? But it’s critical that you don’t just make up the rules. It’s not gonna work. It might work but man the bloodshed along the way. It’s just not worth it.

Keep it simple. Alright y’all. Thanks everybody for staying on and asking questions.

Yeah. So we’ll see you in Slack. We have, of course, another session on Thursday.

Go set up your sixteen by twenty three automation. If you didn’t finish it today, that’s fair, but make sure you do it.

And good luck with all of your and projects and things that you’re working on, and we’ll see you in slot.

Cool. Thanks for all.

Bye. Have a good day.

The Whys, Wheres and Hows of Funny Copy

The Whys, Wheres and Hows of Funny Copy

Transcript

Yeah. So Joanna asked me to talk about humor copy writing since this is your advanced copy week. And I was like, how do I translate everything that I know love and teach in two twenty minutes?

I gave can’t, but I will try. And so I wanna quickly go through, like, why you would consider writing funny your copy or adding humor to your copy. Where you should do it and then a couple ways to start doing it easily. If that sounds cool to y’all.

So like real quick. Why do we do this?

There are multiple different kinds of benefits of funny copy cognitively. They can have some beneficial effects for how you process information.

Socially, it’s kind of like that, you know, breaking the ice, making people feel good about being around you, and emotionally, obviously, like, humor is a coping mechanism. There’s a lot happens emotionally, with humor.

So brief overview, we all know that funny is shared funny is good, funny builds affinity. Here are some links if you don’t believe me. I will send the slides to you after this or they will.

And why does this work? It’s just built into us as humans. Right? We’re just ingrained to look for funny things, enjoy them and share them.

And I’m gonna go really fast because like I said, I have hundred slides. I’ll slow down when it gets more interesting.

But broadly, This is important because we like people and brands that make us laugh. And as you know, when people like you, they give you money. And you need money to live because we still live under capitalism.

So in your brain, humor can actually help you solve problems. I like to think of this as the improv brain where you are looking for solutions outside of the normal, like very linear ways the problem solving that we’ve been taught. So you are more likely to go outside the box and think of different options for solving a problem.

Can actually help people remember information. If you make a funny joke around a piece of information you want them to remember, they will associate that joke with the information and be more likely to remember it, which is really useful.

And it helps people make connections. Right?

I can’t remember what the cognitive research says about how this works like neural pathway wise.

I’ll look it up later if you are interested.

And that it also helps us support more effective planning and judgment.

So if you are Planning to do something.

Can you bring a humorous lens to it and say like, what is the worst that could happen here. Like if I were to completely forget what I wanted to say for this bullet point in this presentation, what is the worst that would happen? And the worst that would what happened is that I would just keep going, right? And maybe it would come to me later. That may or may not just be what happened.

Emotionally and socially, We all use humor as an icebreaker to relieve tension. We use it as an affiliation. So, like, feeling like we belong in a group, we use it to tie together a group in the of challenges or danger. This is all very like if we were facing down a saber tooth, Tiger, and somebody cracked a joke, we’d be like, guy has my back.

And it helps us cope with adversity, which is where we get gallows humor, right? Like, if we can laugh in the face of death and saber tigers, then, we can probably deal with challenges at work.

I wanna say terrible things that happen in the world, but I don’t have any jokes to be made about what’s going on, in foreign countries right now. So we’ll move past that.

And it helps us save face and assuage awkwardness.

So if you especially if you tend toward a more self deprecating style of where, if you kind of poke fun at yourself, that puts other people at ease because it helps them know that they’re not gonna be the target. Right? Like, they can laugh at you with you. And while it’s not good to do that all the time because it destroys your authority, if you lean too heavily on it, it is a useful tool to whip out to again build that affiliation with people. I’m already spending too much time. We can also sue conflict with humor, make a joke, defuse tension, bring down right? If you’re fighting with your partner or someone at work and you make a joke, that can be sort of the bridge that you need to start rebuilding.

Cool. Right? Everyone’s like, alright, I’m sold.

Rick and Baugherty is a style of humor that we can talk about later.

So where Should you bring humor in in your copy? I have a rule of thumb that I tend to apply, which is how deep into the customer journey? Is your reader.

Are they on like a deeply embedded landing page that they can’t get to unless they’ve been through your entire email funnel? That’s a great spot. To use humor because it means you know a lot about them and you probably know what’s gonna make them laugh. If you zoom out or back up a little bit.

On your website, main landing pages, sure, depending on how daring you wanna be, in your hero section headline on your homepage very risky. Right? So, like, the colder someone is, the less they know you, especially if you’re just getting started with humor or you haven’t built brand around it. Probably wait and ramp it up as you get to know them. So, emails are a safe place landing pages if you know something about their stage of the funnel stage of awareness, sure.

General homepage, derral website and homepage may be a little riskier. Right?

That’s one rule.

Quickly other ways to think about where to use humor. There’s a theory of humor called arousal theory, and arousal theory works for other things in life, not just humor and comedy.

But basically it states that when we get physiologically aroused in some way. Like our heart’s pounding. Our skin gets a little electric. We get flushed and like maybe a little blood goes to places we mention.

That is what is known as arousal. It can be positive or negative. So you can be like really attracted to somebody and like really laughing at their jokes and be positively aroused or you can have someone jump out at you and scared to be Jesus out of you and be negatively aroused.

And interestingly enough, there is a straight linear correlation between how much people enjoy laughs and joking and humor and how much their body reacts.

So it doesn’t actually get unpleasant, which is why you can pee your pants laughing. Like you can think something is so funny that you, your body will just pee. At which point, I assume it then gets unpleasant. Luckily, this is happened to me.

This is all such nerdy stuff, so that’s why I’m blazing through it.

If we’re laughing, we’re enjoying something emotionally, but we can also rate something as funny without, laughing. So cognitively, you can be like, That’s really funny, which is what a lot of seasoned comedians do if you watch them watch each other stand up. They’re like, that’s good. That’s really good. Just very grimly cognitively, appreciating the joke.

There’s another theory called relief theory, Sigmund Freud was a fan of this one that says humor is like a pressure release valve for tension.

So think about arousal is tension based in the body like pent up energy and relief theory says we can make somebody laugh and relieve a little bit of that pressure.

Or if they’re nervous, if we’re asking them, like, hey, spend ten thousand dollars on this course or this product, and they’re like, oh my no model. A laugh placed appropriately can defuse that and make them less anxious, build affinity, help them get ready to buy.

Help this is all making sense. It makes sense in my head. I feel like a mad scientist right now with like the red stream.

So The takeaway that I want you to think about between these two theories is that you can pump somebody up in any way that you want. Which for example could be like, Hey, I have really bad news.

And they’re like, oh god, and you’ve gotten them physiologically aroused. And then you can use humorous tangically to relieve that tension, build a relationship with you or push them into action.

So you can use humor to be like, It’s chill, here’s a joke, take a deep breath, or you can choose to keep that tension and push them toward a CTA, right? Like, Hey, if you’re really worried about this thing because I’ve just built this whole problem up in the copy, click this button and I’ll solve it for you or click this link and I’ll solve it for you.

So what should you do? You can take, anything in any copy asset in your customer journey or you can zoom out and look at the journey as a whole and start mapping the sort of emotional arousal journey of people and how you want them to feel at various stages. When should they feel really excited and amped up? When should they feel kind of relaxed and chilled? When do you want them to feel anxious because you’re pushing them to take action? And when could you potentially use humor both in an individual copy asset like the ride of a page or throughout the entire journey because you are driving right? You get to use humor strategically, to to make people feel certain ways.

So I that’s my challenge for you. Map out either a page, an email, even a social media post could be a tiny little roller coaster ride and decide how you want people to feel where and where you might use humor. So that’s the where.

Let’s see. How many minutes are we in? I think I’m like blazing through this. Which is great. There’s so much more. So now we’re getting to the how.

How do we think about humor? How do we decide on what kinds of jokes and styles of humor are appropriate for us. How do we pick the topics of things to joke about and how do we actually come up with jokes? Which is the gigantic three part promise of section three.

So I like to think about humor as five different types of humor or senses of humor.

There’s a great book called Design Funny, by Heather Bradley, where she has a lot of visual examples of these kinds of humor.

But one is lowbrow and crass. So like dumb and dumber. This is where we find hoop and sex jokes. This is where find violence and people falling down and getting hurt, slapstick, and then stereotypes. It’s like Jeff Foxworthy like if it’s you know you’re a redneck if it doesn’t take a lot of work to get this and it can appeal to our base senses.

So you might have a little bit of this. Everybody has a mix of these five senses. You probably have more of one than of the four, but you probably have a mix.

So here’s Shyna is a brand I love, doing lowbrow, humor, and actually making fun of their customers who are offended by it.

They get emails that are like, this is offensive and crude. I do not wish to see it nor have my children be exposed to it. Like, we hate to hear that you found our catalog under your kid’s mattress. Oh, Masterbase joke about children. That’s about the lowest lowbrow you can get.

Sign up for Sex Ed is their CTA button.

Shiny state. Here’s another. Yeah. They do a lot of like Venus related jokes, which I think is hilarious. It’s who they are as a brand. This is again, this is literally ball the wall.

I won’t play this for you, but if you want this clip, I will send it to you later. It’s just a guy farting into the customer service phone at Costco, and it’s very loud.

It’s hilarious.

Here’s a nut butter. I think this is Joy, j o I. It says, thanks for nothing.

Again, kind of a joke.

What is the opposite of lowbrow humor? High brow humor. So here’s Schrodinger’s cat into a bar and doesn’t, highbrow humor requires you to have some sort of prior knowledge, and that knowledge makes you feel smarter, better, or somehow more superior to the other people around you.

So, you can recognize highbrow humor if it’s making literary or scientific references. There’s some sort of understanding required to get the joke.

Sophisticated word play or portmanteau. Yes, that is how you pluralize portmanteau.

And it’s probably subtle.

So, here’s an example of a high brow tweet fell through the roof of a French bakery in a lot of pan right now.

And means bread in French, you have to know French to get the joke.

Here’s Moose Jaw, which is a great brand that leans on high brow sometimes.

MC Hammer came to me in a dream and told me that too legit to quit was based on Khan’s categorical imperatives. So there’s that. It’s not even a joke. They’re just like, We’re funny. And if you like can’t, then you should buy our camping stuff.

Stacy’s like, this is it for me. So Stacy is high brow. I’m guessing. Lots of high brow in there.

And here is a really, really rare mix of high and lowbrow.

So, Cronitor is like a cron job monitoring plugin. This is a developer thing. Jobs that have to run repeatedly on schedule and cover your back end.

So back end is obviously a butt joke, which makes this low brow. But the sort of wink wink nudge nudge subtlety of it makes it highbrow. This is a very rare combination.

So I wanted to show it to y’all.

There’s also dark and morbid humor, right? Dead baby jokes, Michael Jackson jokes, anything that makes you go like, oh, that’s That’s dark.

Usually these jokes are about death and dying, destruction.

They get the response like that’s sick. They’re sick.

They think of death as funny and they take on taboo topics.

So for example, here is a this was not a real ad. This was a mock up by a designer, but like imagining what would have happened if none of these people had been born because, their fathers used a condom.

Like the worst people in the world, visually doesn’t need copy, but pretty good. Right?

Here is, I can’t remember the brand.

All of y’all, all of your faces are in the way.

The copy on this plush toy, which would usually be like, he’s so squishy. He’s so fun. Like, give him to your kids. Everyone will love him. The copy is he’s with you in the morning. He’s with you at night.

And when he’s really ruining your life, you can pick him up and slam him to the ground or put him in the closet or ring his little neck as a reminder that this is your life and not his identity.

Didn’t have to go that far. With this copy, very dark, a little bit lowbrow and crass because we have that swear, the profanity, but like I’m showing you this because I feel like all different humor styles get pigeonholed into certain kinds of brands, like cards against humanity is always gonna be balls to the wall super brass and profane, but there are there is room for different styles of humor in every industry.

And the more unusual you can be plugging in funny where it’s not expected, the more you will stand out, which is why I really love writing funny copy for super technical, very dry soft businesses because no one expects it and the the rewards are all that much greater.

And Another style of humor, just like forges straight ahead, nonsense humor. This is like the what up boy frog on a unicycle style of humor.

It takes longer to get because what’s happening in your brain is your brain is noticing an incongruity Like what I expected? What’s happening? There’s a gap here. Your brain is trying to solve that problem and the answer is that there is no solution.

There is no joke to make you go, and that moment of realization itself is the punchline. You it’s almost like you become the punchline with absurd humor.

There’s nothing to get. That’s funny. I’m the punchline. Non sequiturs are a great, style of absurd or nonsense humor. And then just making outlander statements as fact.

If you happen to enjoy nonsense or absurd humor, you are probably smarter than the average person and you probably are more liberal liberal politically, which I found really interesting.

So think of the inverse of this if your audience is very conservative or like kinda dumb nonsense humor is probably not gonna resonate with them.

So here’s cards against humanity.

Dear horrible friends. As you know, we’re crazy about Black Friday. We never fail to more the occasion. We’ve taken down our entire store and we’re asking you to give us five dollars. They actually made money on this because people just love this diversion from the norm. Like we’ve all seen the Harmon Brothers and sandwich videos that are like funny ads, but at the end of the day, they’re still trying to sell us something. Cards against humanity is like, give us money for nothing and people did.

Arena Flowers is another great follow on Twitter, which I will never call X.

Think of a number, double it, well done. You’re now in charge of the economy. Don’t mess it up. Like these massive leaps and reasoning another hallmark of nonsense humor.

And finally, the most accessible, most loved style of humor is wholesome humor. So it doesn’t hurt anyone. Everyone gets it.

It makes a joke about something that we can all see in serve instead of about me, which can be a little like awkward and self deprecating and like uncomfortable or about you, which can be offensive. What’s the difference between hippo and a Zippo? One is quite heavy. The other’s a little lighter.

This is where cute animals and babies fall in. This is where like most reaction, gifts, and memes fall in.

Yeah, harmless physical comedy. It might be people falling down, but it’s clear that they don’t get hurt. Dad jokes, simple puns belong here, and this is gonna be the style that I recommend starting with. If you’re just starting to dip your into funny humor because, again, it’s the most accessible.

So here is Brooklyn saying dive under the covers, they sell sheets. Get it, like book covers and bed covers, they explain the joke. Another kind of hallmark of, wholesome humor is explaining the joke, just what a dad would do.

I can’t remember what this brand is. Let’s see donuts, long ear donkey legendary email dude, light emitting diode, today’s mega deal is definitely one of those. And notice like, this isn’t a joke. This isn’t a knock knock who’s there, like, has a defined punchline joke. This is just a fun way of approaching your copy.

So even if none of your jokes actually make it into your final copy, this can be a really fun way to loosen up. Also why I recommend that everybody in the world picks an improv class because, again, that strengthens your ability to think outside the box and make weird connections, and that’s where fun lives.

Another way to think about humor. I’ve mentioned this a couple times. There’s so many lenses and dimensions that you can use to think about humor.

One of them is styles that are affiliative and enhancing, which tend to be like healthy for us as humans. They’re adaptive ways of co with our situations. And then on the flip side, we have aggressive and self defeating humor. So, like, again, making fun of other people or making fun of ourselves to the point where it’s like, yikes.

So two more lenses if these resonate with you. I just wanted to offer those up.

And I like to think of humor as scale. So the five senses of humor that we’ve just gone through going from like wholesome lighthearted accessible to everyone to definitely gonna offend an enormous proportion of people. Where on that scale do you or your client wanna fall in the copy. This can be a really helpful referential tool. And I’ll give you a couple more of those, later as we start to talk about writing and what to write about and how to write about it. I just wanted to to put these on a scale for you.

So takeaways of the humor style section go for wholesome humor. When in doubt, if you’re not sure if it’s funny, if you’ve come up with something, ditch it. We’ll talk about this a little bit more when we talk about editing.

Editing in and out humor. And then like consider your reader what they find funny. Are they smart? Are they conservative? Will nonsense humor resonate with them if that’s something you wanna write.

Oh, and I have this, humor quiz, which is best if you are an English speaking American, because that’s what I am. So a lot of the references and shows that I have in that quiz, won’t resonate if you like grew up in Sweden or Thailand, but, it’s still useful to figure out what your balance of wholesome high brow low brow dark and absurd is. It’ll give you a percentage based on your answers. So if you want to take a little fun quiz, I would recommend it.

Finally, at long last, I think we’re like twenty minutes in already. I should probably stop talking.

But if you want to quickly go into how to make some jokes, we can do that.

I’m just waiting for somebody to be like, no, shut up. Let’s get to the MA.

But I’m gonna keep going.

So, we know why we’re joking.

We know where we’re gonna make a joke. We kind of know what style of joke we’re gonna make. And now what should we joke about? We’re at the point like, okay, I’m bought in.

Ready to make a joke. I think it’s gonna be wholesome. I think it’s gonna be at a place when I wanna relieve tension and build affiliation with my reader. What do I joke about?

And surprise conversion copywriters here. We love customer research.

So ask your readers what they think is funny.

And we are actually gonna do that really quick.

I’m gonna put a link in the chat.

I can find the chat again.

I have a little worksheet for y’all to be working through. You can do this now or you can do this later.

But humor starts with introspection.

Getting to know your sense of humor starts with introspection. So have you ever actually taken a deep look at the kinds of things you think are funny and then figure out what all those things have in common.

Probably not. Right? You’re just like, Oh, I like this comedian. Oh, this is my favorite show.

Oh, I think that movie was really funny. Well, if you put them all together, are they mostly eyebrow? Are they mostly dark? You know, how can we analyze your own sense of humor to know what style will come most naturally to you to write You might already know this if you are a funny person or if you write jokes or if you tend toward absurd or dark or whatever.

But it’s worth doing. There’s a link in the chat to make a copy, I think, of the worksheet.

Maybe not. I’ll put another link in. Just in case. If you want the direct copy link, that will be here, or you can just make a copy from that first link that I gave you.

So that is a fun little thing to do.

I’m gonna share again.

Dive back in. Are gonna have to watch this. Like, if people are watching the recording, you’re gonna have to watch on, like, point seventy five speed.

I think.

What are some other things if you’re not getting anything from your customer research? What are some other things you can joke about?

The other guys, right? Or the problems that your reader is having, the that your client is having or your client’s client. Whoever you’re writing for. Joke about the problem in a way that makes them feel like you’re on their side and you get it. So it’s basically just like problem copy that’s like, hey, we get you but with some jokes thrown in jokes about the other guys because they’re the worst. Right?

So like, don’t name names, punch up, consider the amount of power and status that you have versus the person or thing you’re being fun of and try not to make fun of people or things with less power or status than you.

And then you can make fun of the other ways do a certain thing. If you’re not if you don’t want to name names, if you don’t even want to describe, other people or brands, just make fun of alternatives to the solution. Like you could spend hours with a pen and paper, you know, doing your taxes or scratching rooms into a clay tablet or you could use fresh books, like whatever it is.

Making fun of yourself, one of my go tos, always good to show that you’re a fallible human because in certain doses, this makes people trust you, right? Like, oh, Leanna is a great copywriter, but She’s also gonna listen to me if I have a question about this line in the copy. She’s not gonna just like dismiss me or take my money and run. So that’s kind of how I tend to think of self deprecation. Like again, we’re we’re here. Everybody poops, you know, it’s not that serious. Make fun of yourself.

And then what’s around you. We’ve talked about building affiliation through observational humor. So poking fun at something you can all see. I sometimes do this when I go to speak if I pay attention to the room or the like ballroom that I in and something weird is happening or something weird has happened that day at the conference. I will call that back on stage and I don’t even have to make a real joke about it. I can be like, hey, remember when that thing happened? And everyone’s like, yes, I was there.

So another fun way to build affiliation.

Second most easy way to start adding humor is gifts, memes, and visual humor because they do the work for you. You don’t have to write. It’s also a really nice way to build in visual breaks.

So if you are like, this is a wall of text, I can add more sub headers, but I’ve already added so many.

What if I had a visual here? Add a GIF.

And this is my GIF adding process.

Kind of like an editing sweep. You zoom out. You’ve already identified where people are feeling like on edge where you might need to relieve tension with a joke or a visual like a gift.

You’re looking for those feelings. Right? So this is callback, arousal theory, where do you need to lighten the mood or add levity? And like, where could you also just use to, where could you also just break up a wall of text?

So you’ve picked your spot. Read the sentence of the copy right before that spot. And then right after you read it, which you can read it out loud.

Respond to it, like talk back to your own copy. Make a little sassy comment back at your own copy. I know this is a very weird thing to advise you to do.

So here’s here’s what that would look like.

Trying to think of a product that I’ve written about recently.

I don’t know.

This CPAP machine is, you know, come through will fit comfortably on your face. I haven’t written for a CPAP machine, but for some reason that came to mind.

And if I read that out loud, if it’s like, okay, this thing will fit comfortably on your face.

I might go, I sure hope so or it better like, oh, if it didn’t, what then? So that’s kind of my reaction to the statement of the copy. So two to three word phrase. You having a conversation with a copy, then you go to Giffy or Jiffy dot com. We’re not gonna have this bite.

Type in that phrase and see what comes up. You will get this sort of conversational gift, that works perfectly inside your copy and it’s much better than just sort of searching for like funny gift or like person saying this. If that’s I don’t know how y’all are looking for gifts, but this is my my process. And then couple of rules of thumb for picking one. Pick one that people can get even without knowing the show or the movie that it’s referencing.

Pick one that’s high res.

Pick one that doesn’t last too long because you don’t wanna somebody stuck on watching the gif over and over or watching it for a really long time and it takes them out of the flow of reading the copy.

So like the first one that stands out not too distracting. It isn’t inappropriate if you don’t want inappropriate, and it’s large and high res enough to be easily clocked. That’s probably the right one.

That make sense?

Yes. I think cool.

Now I have a billion joke writing formulas for you. They’re not formulas. Of them aren’t formulas, but, here’s one. Here’s the easiest formula of all time. You already know this if you’re a copywriter.

Put the funny thing last.

You’re like, wow, groundbreaking.

It works because we’re waiting for it. You have to rearrange your sentence, or you cut away any of the trailing excess. So what does that look like?

Swimming is good for you when you’re drowning especially, and swimming is good for you. Especially when you’re drowning.

Can you hear how we’re just waiting to land on the word drowning?

Like the joke is just funnier the second way. I think we can all agree. Right? So if you’ve written a joke and you’re like, oh, it’s kind of flabby. It’s right. I can’t figure it out. Try rearranging or cutting pieces off the end of it to land on a funny thing for last.

Here is a real sentence written by one of my students in my course, a couple years ago. I was at over this question when the answer hit me like a stack of amps falling out of the sky. The funniest part of this is stack of amps and it’s also got this sort of closiveness linguistically.

So it is just funnier if we say I was agonizing over this question when the answer hit me like a stack of amps.

Right? Yeah. Cool.

There’s so much more about like the linguistics of funny that we don’t have time for because we’re already over time.

This is my nightmare.

I’m having a great time.

Another way to write a joke or trigger joke writing in your head, set yourself up for it. So thing one is like this because there’s something unexpected that they have in common. Like zoom out far enough that you find the unexpected commonality.

So you can also add more unexpected commonalities if you come up with two. Or more.

So for example, doing comedy for the first time for me was very similar to losing my virginity.

Pause. Don’t read the punchline. Imagine we have two columns. We have doing comedy and losing my virginity and then we’re just brainstorming associations with each of those things and then we’re picking the funniest associations and connecting them together.

So it was awkward It was uncomfortable, but I did get a lot of laughs. Like, two things that are real and true and not funny for both and then two things that are real and true and funny or one thing that’s real and true and funny. I did get a lot of laughs. Pretty good.

I wish that was my joke. So for example, This election is like Black Friday. We have election in this column, Black Friday over here.

No matter how many emails they send, I’m not buying their bullshit. So in that list of associations, we might have put like lots of emails.

Feels kind of scammy and sleazy. They want me to do something and then turns into they send a lot of emails and they’re all full of shit.

Or, but at least when I stand in line for hours on Black Friday, I go home with something useful. Voting.

You know, it’s a sham.

It’s not. I believe everybody vote voting is important. I’m just disappointed, in our world.

Anyway, another way to add humor is by taking a list of unfunny things, you are copywriters. You all know the power of a rule of a group of three So just add one funny thing to the end of your group of three. Hopefully that doesn’t fit the pattern of the group of three. And if you can make it really, really strange, like, ducks, geese, swans, and my late Uncle Herberts, dementia medication That’s those are very different things. Right?

There’s no joke involved in that. I’m just like spitballing.

But here’s a joke.

We’ll go back to that. America, the land of the free, and the home of the brave, and Bob Hope.

So he’s going lofty and large and then coming back to himself in a very funny kind of clunky way.

I’m not giving this the, pay attention it deserves because I think we have we’ve run out of time.

But this is a useful trick for when you have to actually present information in your copy, but you still want to end with something fun. So, like, if you’re talking about a very technical product, or you wanna convey information and not be too jokey, give the information and then add a joke to the end as a fun surprise for anyone who’s still paying attention. This is my other rule of thumb, hiding jokes and body copy, and in captions, and in easter eggs rewards the people who are paying attention, and they feel like I’m gonna keep looking for those. I’m gonna open all of her emails to see what other secret things she might have for me.

Okay.

I think we have to stop. Do we have to stop with somebody in the chat?

I think it’s fine. It’s fine.

I think so.

Abby, anyone else?

We’ll keep we’ll keep going. I don’t know.

Just briefly. And again, I will make sure you get these slides if you want them.

Here with me making a list of my cat’s names. This is all factually true. Space ghost bank, smokey Rocky Sierra and holy fuck she has too many cats. Right? True.

Oh, no.

Word play. Oh, this is a this is a weird one. If you’re not good at puns, it is absolutely a muscle. If puns don’t come naturally to you, I will warn you once you start exercising this muscle, you will lose other areas of your brain that you actually need.

Like I can’t get anywhere without Google Maps. I can come up with a dumb pun almost instantly pretty much like ninety percent of the time. So you make these sacrifices.

But if you want to reverse engineer, the pun creation process, start with the word, free associate again kind of like we did with those two, handles.

This is a reference to joke building. Free associate a list of terms, and then see if your word contains any other words. And doing this out loud is really helpful. So like wanted to make a pun on the word confirm. I split it into two words, con, firm, and then I wrote a very, very ham fisted setup.

So Con could be like a con man, a firm, it’s like a group of lawyers. What do you call an organized group of criminals, a con firm?

So dumb, right? But technically, yes, it is a joke.

Technically, I will allow it.

There are multiple different kinds of wordplay. Some might come more easily to you than others.

Double entendre usually happens with sexy stuff.

This is Kristin l France, who I adore. She said, don’t let a bad experience in the back end taint and otherwise great relationship.

Subtle, but joke.

I don’t I don’t wanna get too deep into these types of wordplay. I will send this to you if you want examples.

But You can do if you want to make a pun around a theme or a bunch of puns around a theme like Boomerang is doing here. Again, you just free associate a list of related words. So the theme is dog. Words are hounding, rough. You could do pause, what a fur, and then see if you can push those words in somewhere or make puns around those words to do puns on a theme.

Okay. Let’s see. I’m skipping all these because I wanna get to the end.

Oh, I love this one, though. I like a girl with a head on her shoulder because I hate next.

Okay.

Okay. Timing and pacing. People ask me this all the time. How funny should my funny copy be? If you are writing copy that is just like full of bangers and you cannot bear to cut a single one, then send it to me because I’d love to read it.

But my general rule of thumb is no more than one joke per paragraph Otherwise, you risk, making the copy more about the jokes than about the copy, and you’re probably writing it for a reason to get people to pay or to buy things.

So no more than one joke per paragraph if you have that many.

And that is all I have for you today.

I think apart from that worksheet.

Do we wanna talk about any of this stuff?

No. Resounding no. Okay. I love that for me.

Keep going, say some people, keep going, don’t stop, keep going. Yay. When I try to come up with a pun, I can’t. Worst time to be funny.

And then I can’t read the second word in this because the reaction thing in Zoom, they fly out of my mouth. Oh, yes. Yeah. Yeah.

No. I can’t stop myself. For making dumb puns. But when I need one on demand, like, right now, there are nowhere to be found.

So I get that, Jessica.

Cool y’all. Do you have questions? I know I just like threw so much stuff at you. It probably makes a lot more sense in my head how it all ties together, but I hope that you got a few useful things out of it, and what questions can I answer for you?

Zero.

Hi.

I have a question, actually.

Great.

Have you ever dealt with humor across cultures? Because, people from different countries have very, very different senses of of humor, and it doesn’t often translate beyond just wordplay, which is obviously a sticky area.

That is the most common question that I get, and that’s a great question.

I have and I tend to avoid trying to play at another culture’s humor because I’m just not versed in it.

I have worked with a fair number of Australians who are very funny I find and they tend to be more lowbrow than Americans. So I can play in that zone. I can play in like the UK humor zone, but there are just things that are funnier in other cultures that I don’t know about or I’m not familiar with. And so I usually say like, Hey, you know what? I’m gonna connect you with someone else. And sometimes that’s like, Hey, I know a Canadian copywriter or like an Australian copywriter who’d be better for this.

I will say the universal, humor appeals of cute animals, babies, and wordplay are the safest to translate across cultures.

I hope that answered your question.

If not, please clarify more questions.

Anyone else?

You can ask me anything if you want.

You don’t have to.

Since we can ask you anything, just, can you give some examples of, I I hadn’t known of you before today. So tell me how you do you teach humor? Do you actually write humor as copy yourself?

I’m just curious what you do.

Yeah. I probably should have introduced myself.

I yes. I teach humor. I have run a course a couple times. I’m in the process of ever grading it.

It’s been live. The two times that I’ve run it, it’s called conversion comedy. And so it’s it’s like I basically tried to condense conversion comedy, which is a six to eight week course with live tracks, into twenty minutes, which like, why? Why did I try that?

I write funny copy that converts for mostly software businesses and online stores. So SaaS and e commerce are my zones.

Anybody who wants to use humor to build a relationship or convert, they tend to be great clients. That’s the other thing about writing funny and being more authentically yourself in your client communications and stuff, like you just get to work with more fun people. I don’t have the patience for like a really, up to sort of jargon filled business email anymore. Hate LinkedIn.

I just wanna write funny stuff that makes money.

But yeah, that’s that’s who I am. This is my whole job. Punchline copy dot com is my website.

Thank you.

Yeah.

I have a question. Do you think it’s an important to be, like, consistent with the type of humor. Like, because, like, my humor that I use is kind of, I guess, quite, like, innocent, more, like, that kind of quirky cute humor. But then some, like, when I saw your story on Instagram the other day, I, like, pissed myself.

I figured I was like, Oh, the one, of the you got the the message from the the guy, and then you, like, Drew, like, Dick’s going into his mouth. And I was like, this is the stuff that I share with, like, my close friends on Instagram, but I would never share it, like, publicly. Then my Instagram content, like, completely bores me so much. I have someone else doing it, and I’m like, ah, so I’m like, can do you think you you need to be consistent, or can you just, like, switch to be, like, try it on, like, kind of, like, oh, I’m gonna have, like, a dark humor kind of flavor today and then sort back.

I think for yourself, definitely play around.

If you wanna experiment, like, go for it. No one can tell you what your sense of humor is and your sense of humor evolve.

When you’re writing for clients, this is something that I’m thinking about a lot lately actually. It is much easier to just be known as the person with this sense of humor and I will apply my sense of humor to your copy.

That’s not what I offer.

I work with clients to figure out their sense of humor or the brand’s sense of humor and then write in that voice, but it’s a lot harder. Right? So I’m like, in the interest of making my business easy as possible. What if I just stopped doing projects in other people’s senses of humor and like stopped codifying those for them? And was just like, this is how I write. Take it early that Mhmm.

Yeah.

Yeah. So, I mean, so for my brand, you think it’s okay to just, like, change up. That doesn’t need to be in, like, consistency.

I mean, it’s whatever feels right to you. And if you wanna experiment with dark humor or crass humor, like, go for it.

For what it’s worth, my mom replied to that story. Someone sent me an inappropriate reply to an email, which happens often, and it’s always an older white man. And so I screenshotted his profile picture and drew a bunch of penises on it and put it on Instagram because you’re gonna be weird to me, I’m gonna be weird at you, but that is like, that’s very unbrand for me and my mom was like, that’s so rude. That’s so true.

Yeah. So, like, play with the line. If it feels like you’re wearing a mask, then it’s probably too far.

It’s for your brand. It’s really good that you know. You tend to go for those like lighthearted cutesy things, and you know that’s your strength. Maybe you identify a couple other areas that you wanna shore up. And you start watching comedians reading humor pieces that are in that zone.

Oh, thank you.

Yeah. Good question.

Can I ask a quick question?

You talked about how you might research the type of humor that you could use. And you said, I think, just ask them what they find is funny. But I imagine if I asked, I don’t know, the seven or eight people I might interview, what they found funny, I What if there’s no crossover or, like, what if there’s no clear type?

Like, how do you I’m just kinda one wondering how you experience and have have run, results like that?

That is a great question.

I tend to work with where I have one point person who’s responsible for the voice. So that’s it’s usually them if they’re the founder. But if you’re working with teams, you can ask things like, what kinds of, like, what’s the tone of the slack? What kinds of reaction gives to people put in Slack. What do y’all tend to joke about if you’re standing at the water cooler, whether that’s virtual or not, to get a sense of where everybody’s sense of humor over lapse.

Another question that I like to ask in this works for both individuals and teams is what brands do you find really funny? Like who if you could emulate anybody in the world? Who would that be? Or is there an email list that you’re on where you open every single one that makes you laugh? And if you collect all of that data from six to eight people, guaranteed there will be places that overlap, even if it’s just as broad as like, okay, they like wholesome humor. That makes everybody feel good.

Okay. And then, yeah, yeah, perfect sense.

And then I suppose, like you said, you you can fall back on wholesome humor.

Like, if in doubt, kind of do do your wholesome humor.

And also, everybody will have different answers to, like, what problem are you solving or how do clients talk about their problems. Like if we’re looking for topics of humor, getting a bunch of different answers from everybody on a team gives you more ammunition to write jokes with.

So it’s not just about the sense of humor, but like what should we joke about?

And then you get to decide what style of humor those topics work best with.

Got you. Okay.

I I had one other question as well.

I think I I think you kind of answered it later, but I just wanted to double check. You said that you can use it in a moment of tension. You could use a call to action or humor.

And human is used you use that to relieve attention. It that’s even exchange for, a closeness to bit of a reader and increased, a better relationship, a better, yeah. Is is that right?

Yes. So you have to decide what do you want them to do with the tension? Like, if you’ve if you’ve successfully created tension which you have because you’re advanced copywriters.

Do you want to build that relationship with them right now and ask them to do something later, whether that’s later on the page or later in an email funnel funnel or later in the journey or whatever, or do you want them to do something right now and click?

I sometimes like to blend this approach.

If I’m asking them to click a button, and I know that they’re gonna be like, I don’t know. Like, what’s on the button? You all know how to write good button copy. Right?

It’s compelling. It shows what’s gonna happen after the click. It makes them feel safe, right, lowers friction. You can do that with humor.

You can add a little click trigger copy, underneath. That’s like, you know, we do ask for your credit information, but that’s only because we have a lot of online shopping to do.

Or like, click this button to rescue a kitten. Like, I wrote a a sales page recently where the button was, every time you click this, a spreadsheet gets murdered. It was like an anti spreadsheet software solution. So, like, make them wanna click it and funny if you can.

That’s clever.

So kinda yeah. When you if you’re doing just humor, you’re not you’re not trying to transition that into a call to action.

You’re you’re using Humana to to I don’t know, improve your your audience’s pos perception of you to to increase your the strength of your relationship with the reader. Right? Like, you’re you’re I don’t know. You’re you’re making self deprecating humor.

You’re showing me. You understand that. Their world. Your so there’s not a direct moment there.

It’s just along the the funnel your your yeah, improving a relationship with the reader. Is that is that right? Like, if you’re just using humor.

If I’m just using humor, it’s definitely like this is the primary goal of this copy is to build relationship.

Yeah. Okay.

I’m not asking them to do anything. This is where that sort of like slider bar of clarity versus clever comes into play or clarity versus humor, right? Like do we want to be funny at the expense of messaging and action probably not, but maybe sometimes, you know, if it’s an email and a flow that’s like, you’ve sent them five meaty information pack emails and you send them one that’s just from you and it’s one paragraph. And it’s like, Hey, I know I’ve said you a lot. Like, here’s a funny dog gift or a joke. Like, see you next time.

I think yes. I will also say that I like to blend humor and calls to action in my own stuff.

I am more careful about that with most clients because while clients are terrible at reporting back about data, the data usually supports that the simpler CTAs that are like join the membership now, you know, work a little better than the funny ones.

That’s interesting.

Oh, that’s interesting.

Yes. Yeah.

Cool. Okay. Thanks. Thank you.

Yeah. Yeah. Great questions. Anyone else?

I have another question. Do you have any specific questions that you ask yourself, to determine whether something is going to land or not besides does this seem funny or not? Because I remember a distinct time when I was working at Monday, and the CEO came up with this commercial and retested it, and it was it was really bizarre. No one understood it, and he was like, all gung ho for it.

So do you have any of those, like, like, check yourself kind of questions that help to Yes.

Sorry. Sorry? No. I interrupted you saying what a great question.

I I do have those, those things. I also wanna know your cat’s name. I’m gonna share this with you.

Here are two ways to decide on the balance of jokes and clarity. You can look at them separately.

So first, look at the copy and the messaging. Second, look at the humor. And then third, like, can I cut anything? And then will everyone get these jokes? And if they don’t get it, is anything lost.

Second way is start broad and big and work into specifics. So like kind of the editing sweeps that Joanna teaches like structural level editing. Does this flow? Is it clear line level and then word level?

Have I added jokes where I need them, have I used the funniest words and numbers? And then other ways, the mom test would my mom find this funny would she get it? And you can use your avatar client or your customer or whoever you are writing a copy for as this person. Hopefully you know them.

Like, and this this brings back in your cultural question. Like, is this a reference to a show that didn’t air in this country?

Is this a taboo topic to joke about in this culture?

So there is some like Do I know this about my reader? Can I find this information out and when in doubt should I just cut it or replace it with something, less potentially distracting or hopefully not harmful?

Is that helping? Okay.

Well, I can also share this with you. This is also from my course. Oh, I was going through the course today and I was like, wow.

I did a lot of work on this.

It’s not funny when you’re like, good for me, but I also need to know your cat’s name.

Her name is Dusky.

Dusky?

Yeah. With a a k, Dusky.

Adorable. I love her. Cool y’all. We have more time.

Sure. I have no question then.

Like, or, like, more like a kind of a ramble my way to the question, if that’s okay. Like, so, like, when when you’re saying, like, like, I’m a big fan of agitation, but then I I tend to use, like, humor when I agitate so it feels less hard but then I was just thinking about what you said about kind of using humor to alleviate the anxiety. And I’m thinking, like, does it, like, would that be, like, the wrong time to use it? Because then you’re alleviating the anxiety and the point of agitated is to kind of, like, heighten it. I just wonder if you had, like, any thoughts on that.

That’s such a good question. I think so I tend I do also use humor in the agitation. We’ve talked about making fun of problems that someone can have, which belongs in that that section of the copy.

I don’t think it’s bad to relieve a little bit of that anxiety because it can be a way to prove that you’re a real person. Like, if you think about traditional direct response copy that’s like, you’re fat. You’re terrible. You’re stupid.

You’re never gonna be anything. And this is all your fault and it’s terrible for all these reasons and here’s five sections of copy about the worst parts of your life. Like Jesus, can we get a little lightness in there, please? Like first of all, I’m not all that.

And second of all, I’m much more likely to believe you if you, like, add a joke here and there, like, Okay. I get it. You know, it’s it’s a lot. Even if you’re saying like, look, I know I’m throwing a lot of problems at you, I don’t wanna make you feel terrible.

So here’s a raccoon riding a pink scooter. Now let’s continue with what’s wrong with you.

I do think it can work in the agitation section and it is doing sort of affinity building and trust building.

You don’t want to do it too much, right? Cause you do want them to be anxious enough to want to make a change.

I think if you’re doing it in a way that feels natural and conversational, the balance is probably right.

Yeah. I’m just thinking about, like, conversions, like, whether I need to, like yeah. Yeah. I don’t know. It’s just like a whole balancing, isn’t it? Because sometimes if you are to stay harder, you will get more conversions, but, like, I will And if you’re making people shitty, then that doesn’t feel good. So what’s the point?

Please. This is why I will never be a world famous direct response copywriter I just don’t I’m not willing to make people feel so shitty. I only want the customers that are like perfect for the thing. I don’t ever want anyone to like, well, I don’t know, but okay. Like, and then they’re disappointed.

Oh, thank you for sharing your thoughts.

Yeah. Yeah. Such good questions y’all.

I’m gonna drop my email address in the chat. If you come up with anything else, feel free to email me.

And then I guess I can hand it back to Nicole and Michael.

Question mark.

Yeah. There’s really not much else to say at that point if we’re all wrapped up here than, just so I wanna thank everybody for joining us again today. Always a pleasure.

Yeah. Thank you.

Sorry. Go on.

No. I was just gonna say thank you. I was just it was really great. And, the the I would have liked even more slides. It was really, really, helpful. Thanks.

There are so many more slides, Johnson.

Thank you for for sticking with me through that, I I realized it was a very frenetic, presentation. I just get really excited about this, and I wanted to share a lot of stuff with you. So if anything was unclear, or one of several moments at which I was like, I don’t know. What am I saying? If you want clarification, please email me. Because I am on the internet.

Thanks y’all.

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