Podcast appearances and mentions of gary bencivenga

What's the best way to learn copywriting? Could it be hand-writing sales pages and other great copy from expert copywriters like Mel Martin and Gary Bencivenga? My guest for this episode of The Copywriter Club Podcast is Derek Johanson, the writer who created CopyHour, a program designed to help you learn to write by hand-copying great copy. We also talked about getting affiliates, mentoring, and a lot more. If you want to improve your copywriting skills, be sure to listen to this episode (and click here to learn about the CopyHour program). Click the play button below, or scroll down for a full transcript. Stuff to check out: The CopyHour Course Gary Bencivenga's Olive Oil Sales Page The Copywriter Club Facebook Group The Copywriter Underground Full Transcript: Rob Marsh: What's the best way to learn copywriting? Would it surprise you that handwriting great copy is possibly the most successful technique? This is The Copywriter Club Podcast. There must be something like a thousand different courses for copywriters to learn how to write copy. And probably another thousand more that talk about content—as if it's a separate skill set. And there are probably an additional thousand more free videos in places like YouTube that promise to teach you the skills you need to succeed as a copywriter. With that many choices out there, you would think the world would be crammed full of phenomenally skilled copywriters, but it's not. This should tell us that not all courses or workshops that promise to teach writers how to write copy and content actually work. So what does work? Is there a course out there that many copywriters talk about or recommend when it comes to writing engaging sales or conversion copy? And it turns out there is. One course recommended by people like Dan Ferrari, Chris Orzechowski, Elise Savaki, and hundreds of others is called CopyHour. Unlike many other courses, CopyHour focuses on handwriting great copy. Does that really work? I asked Derek Johanson, the writer who created CopyHour to be my guest for this episode of The Copywriter Club Podcast to answer questions like… why does hand-writing teach copy structure and pacing where other methods don't appear to have the same level of success?  We talked about the genesis and evolution of the CopyHour program and what it includes… things like writing great offers, writing headlines and bullets, and how Derek has improved the course over time. Now I want to be upfront about something… I came to this interview as a bit of a skeptic when it comes to hand-writing copy. I'm all in on studying good examples of emails, sales pages, and other good copy. In fact, I have a swipe file with more than 500 different sales pages that I've saved to study… those swipes are part of The Copywriter Underground… But handwriting? I wasn't so sure… I think Derek may have changed my mind. And if you're a skeptic on this topic, you may want to hear what he says about the science of handwriting and learning. If you're convinced by the end of this episode that you want to know more, you can go to thecopywriterclub.com/copyhour to find out more about Derek's course. It's open for new members the week this episode goes live, so check it out today… thecopywriterclub.com/copyhour Before we get to my interview with Derek, this episode is brought to you by The Copywriter Underground. You've heard me talk about how we've recently rebuilt The Underground dashboard to make finding the ideas and insights you need easier. But as I started recreating this new dashboard, it occurred to me that no one has time to watch more than 70 different workshops—even for those workshops that help you gain the skills and strategies you need to build your business. So I've taken more than 30 of those workshops on finding clients, having sales calls, using A.I., building authority on LinkedIn, and dozens of others… and I've created playbooks that break down the ideas in the workshops into...

#521 - Bist du bereit, die Geheimnisse des erfolgreichsten Copywriters der Welt zu entdecken? In dieser Episode lüften wir die Schlüsselerkenntnisse von Gary Bencivenga, dem Meister des Copywritings, der mit seinen unsichtbaren, aber mächtigen Techniken die Werbewelt revolutioniert hat. Erfahre, wie seine Methoden auch deine Marketingstrategie transformieren können. In dieser Episode erfährst du unter anderem: - Wie du durch klare Positionierung und polarisierende Aussagen Aufmerksamkeit und Loyalität gewinnst. - Warum überzeugende Kommunikation mehr bewirkt als aggressive Verkaufstaktiken. - Wie du mit Metaphern und passender Zielgruppensprache deine Texte lebendiger und wirkungsvoller machst. - Welche Kraft bewiesene Demonstrationen und Autorität in deinen Kampagnen haben. Lerne, wie du durch strategisches Copywriting deine Zielgruppe fesselst und deinen Umsatz maximierst. Höre jetzt rein und erfahre die Geheimnisse, die Gary zur Legende gemacht haben. Folge mir auf Instagram für Einblicke in mein Business: https://www.instagram.com/timgelhausende/ Du wünschst dir mehr zahlende Kunden für deinen Online-Kurs oder dein Coaching? → Tritt meinem Newsletter bei und erhalte 3 E-Mails pro Woche, die deine Conversions erhöhen: https://www.timgelhausen.de/newsletter/ Lerne in der Copywriting Academy, mit fesselnden Texten mehr von deinen Produkten verkaufen – ohne dabei aufdringlich sein zu müssen. → Setz dich hier unverbindlich auf die Warteliste: https://lp.timgelhausen.de/cca-warteliste Baue dir mit Grow & Sell eine E-Mail-Liste voll mit tobenden Fans auf, die alles von dir kaufen wollen. → Setz dich jetzt auf die exklusive Warteliste: https://lp.timgelhausen.de/nl-warteliste

Stell dir vor, du könntest jeden Konflikt in deiner Beziehung in eine Chance verwandeln. Einwände? Streit? Meinungsverschiedenheiten? All das muss nicht das Ende der Welt bedeuten. Ganz im Gegenteil! In unserem Podcast zeigen wir dir, wie du durch die richtige Herangehensweise diese Herausforderungen meistern und eure Beziehung stärken kannst. Klingt das nicht nach einem Plan? Wir tauchen gemeinsam in die Welt der Beziehungsdynamiken ein und entdecken, wie Einwände nicht nur gehört, sondern auch mit Liebe behandelt werden können. Dabei vergessen wir nie: Hinter jedem Konflikt steckt die Chance für Wachstum und Verständnis. Lass dich von uns führen und finde heraus, wie du Streitigkeiten in Bausteine für eine noch tiefere Verbindung umwandeln kannst. In einer lockeren, motivierenden Atmosphäre, ganz im Stil von Dan Kennedy und Gary Bencivenga, ohne dabei die Lösung direkt vorwegzunehmen, sprechen wir darüber, wie Meinungsverschiedenheiten tatsächlich eure Beziehung bereichern können. Dieser Podcast ist deine Einladung, gemeinsam mit uns zu lernen, wie du mit Konflikten so umgehst, dass am Ende beide Seiten gewinnen. Bist du bereit, die Kunst zu meistern, Einwände mit Liebe zu behandeln? Dann ist dieser Podcast genau das Richtige für dich. Lass dich inspirieren, motivieren und finde neue Wege, wie du und dein Partner oder deine Partnerin gemeinsam stärker werden könnt. Verpasse nicht diese Chance, eure Beziehung auf ein neues Level zu heben. Wenn auch du wissen möchtest, wie du deine Beziehung rettest, deine/n EX zurück bekommst oder die Trennung verarbeiten kannst, dann melde dich bei uns für ein kostenloses Erstgespräch: https://deinl.ink/oR6 Mehr von Beyond Breakup: - Beyond Breakup App https://deinl.ink/LoveSupportApp - Facebookgruppe: https://deinl.ink/sQd - Webinar Meister der Maske: https://deinl.ink/meisterdermaske - Workbook Soforthilfe bei Liebeskummer https://deinl.ink/JEk - Ex zurück Ratgeber: https://deinl.ink/ExzurueckEbook - TikTok: https://deinl.ink/Jal

“Writers without niches are starving artists. Because again, they're just competing in these massive competitions. Writers with niches are category kings.” — Nicolas Cole Nicolas Cole shares the lessons he's learned as one of the internet's most-read writers, including why he's fascinated with reverse engineering written work—from James Patterson novels to Twitter threads—into templates writers can use, why all great writing changes the reader, why his superpower is his ability to endure boring things for longer than others, and so much more. EPISODE GUIDE AND TRANSCRIPT https://www.outlieracademy.com/episode/140 WATCH THIS EPISODE ON YOUTUBE https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PL5QJhLoabFV1ZZfgVIIWmGqjKzbhe0N7o CHAPTERS (00:00:00) - Introduction (00:07:37) - Service Businesses, Linear vs Infinite Scaling, and Picking a Bag of Problems (00:10:02) - Ship 30 for 30 and Finding Your Niche (00:17:01) - The Origin Story of Category Pirates and Snow Leopard (00:20:13) - Category Creation, Competition, and Being Different vs Better (00:28:48) - Content-Free Content and Blinding Glimpses of the Obvious (00:35:34) - The Content Pyramid: Levels One, Two, and Three (00:49:44) - The Content Pyramid: Level Four (Making Non-Obvious Connections) (00:55:32) - Debunking Common Myths About Writing and Category Creation (01:04:10) - The Difference Between More Views and More Dollars (01:11:37) - What is Category Creation? (01:14:27) - How to Create a Category: Weird Problem + Weird Solution ABOUT THE BOOK Snow Leopard: How Legendary Writers Create A Category Of One by Category Pirates (Nicolas Cole, Christopher Lochhead, and Eddie Yoon) shares why all legendary writers who stand the test of time create a category of one. In decades past, David Ogilvy, Gary Halbert, Leo Burnett, Gary Bencivenga, Al Ries & Jack Trout, and many more master communicators have all written about the psychology behind how messages spread. Snow Leopard builds on their work with dozens of new insights and frameworks, and brings category creation and design into the digital age.

When you are a copywriter, do you look at the world differently? Old Master Clyde Bedell emphatically says yes. Clyde Bedell is not all that well known these days. We featured his work last year in an episode where we talked about his seven keys to believability. Though he's not all that well known today, decades ago Bedell was one of the top guys you would turn to if you want to learn how to write copy that works. Besides being a highly successful advertiser, he was also a prominent teacher. For example, he built a national sales training program for Ford Motor Company in the 1930s. When he was teaching copywriting at Northwestern University, he couldn't find a suitable textbook, so he wrote one. That textbook eventually turned into “How To Write Advertising That Sells.” It was first published in 1940—13 years before I was born. This book is 8-1/2 by 11 and a massive 539 pages. It's pretty hard to find a copy these days, but I found one copy for sale on Amazon for $956.62. Lucky for me, I got my copy years ago when it was easier to get and not quite as expensive. Today we looked at a chapter from this massive book called “Copy's Point Of View.” It covers key points on how copywriters need to look at the world if they want their copy to convert. We started with the understanding that what we're going to talk about today is not how a copywriter necessarily sees the world 24/7. It's not that you have a completely different way of eating breakfast… of buying shoes… or of dealing with annoying relatives. This is about how you look at things when you're writing copy. I saw an interesting meme on Twitter, quoting Gary Bencivenga. It said: “Copywriting is not a secret formula, it's a way of thinking.” That way of thinking is what today's show is about. We covered four big parts of the copywriter's mindset. This will be useful to new and advanced copywriters alike, as guard rails on what to focus on when you're writing copy. In the show, we looked at some ads to illustrate some of the key points in what Bedell had to say. Bedell's book is all but unavailable. However, here are two other books mentioned during the show: Twenty Ads That Shook The World, by James Twitchell https://www.amazon.com/Twenty-That-Shook-World-Groundbreaking/dp/0609807234 How To Write A Good Advertisement, by Victor Schwab https://www.amazon.com/How-Write-Good-Advertisement-Copywriting/dp/1648373143 Download.

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Our guest today is Meg Casebolt, founder of Love at First Search and host of the Social Slowdown podcast. I think the key words are “love” and “slow,” and let's see if I'm right. Meg's been very successful with a long-term search-engine optimization strategy she uses for her clients. One example that you should find interesting: Meg's client Sara Frandina showed up third for the keywords “conversion copywriter” -- and this was organic, not an ad -- yesterday when I searched for that term on Google. Third on the first page of organic search for “conversion copywriter.” Not too shabby! You may remember legendary copywriter Gary Bencivenga had a huge success with the headline “Get Rich Slowly.” Well, Meg's approach is similar. She doesn't go for the black-hat tricks and other gimmicks popular among some marketers. “We don't believe in quick-fix formulas that promise the world—but break your heart when you see they don't work,” she says. One key element of Meg's long-term, long-lasting approach: The strategic use of empathy in keyword research. Empathy, which could be seen as an appropriate expression of love. It's an approach I've never heard of before, in the specific way Meg talks about it. So I was very excited to talk with Meg about it. She began with a great example -- a stark contrast between a bad example of empathy (that is, hardly any empathy at all) and the good use of empathy. This was for keywords in weight loss. From there, Meg shared her four strategies for coming up with a comprehensive empathy-based keyword strategy: 1. Empathize with your customers' journey to find an answer 2. Understanding the WHY / Setting yourself apart 3. Providing a solution 4. Be empathetic when developing content This was a very valuable look at how to thrive in today's content-based search engine environment. Meg's website is: https://loveatfirstsearch.com/ Download.

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Nicolas Cole shares the lessons he's learned as one of the internet's most-read writers, including why he's fascinated with reverse engineering written work—from James Patterson novels to Twitter threads—into templates writers can use, why all great writing changes the reader, why his superpower is his ability to endure boring things for longer than others, and so much more. “Writers without niches are starving artists. Because again, they're just competing in these massive competitions. Writers with niches are category kings.” — Nicolas Cole EPISODE GUIDE (LINKS, QUOTES, NOTES, AND BOOKS MENTIONED) https://www.danielscrivner.com/notes/snow-leopard-nicolas-cole  FULL TEXT TRANSCRIPT https://www.danielscrivner.com/notes/snow-leopard-nicolas-cole-transcript   CHAPTERS (00:00:00) - Introduction (00:07:37) - Service Businesses, Linear vs Infinite Scaling, and Picking a Bag of Problems (00:10:02) - Ship 30 for 30 and Finding Your Niche (00:17:01) - The Origin Story of Category Pirates and Snow Leopard (00:20:13) - Category Creation, Competition, and Being Different vs Better (00:28:48) - Content-Free Content and Blinding Glimpses of the Obvious (00:35:34) - The Content Pyramid: Levels One, Two, and Three (00:49:44) - The Content Pyramid: Level Four (Making Non-Obvious Connections) (00:55:32) - Debunking Common Myths About Writing and Category Creation (01:04:10) - The Difference Between More Views and More Dollars (01:11:37) - What is Category Creation? (01:14:27) - How to Create a Category: Weird Problem + Weird Solution ABOUT THE BOOK Snow Leopard: How Legendary Writers Create A Category Of One by Category Pirates (Nicolas Cole, Christopher Lochhead, and Eddie Yoon) shares why all legendary writers who stand the test of time create a category of one. In decades past, David Ogilvy, Gary Halbert, Leo Burnett, Gary Bencivenga, Al Ries & Jack Trout, and many more master communicators have all written about the psychology behind how messages spread. Snow Leopard builds on their work with dozens of new insights and frameworks, and brings category creation and design into the digital age.

Our guest today, Jason Strachan, went through a powerful turnaround over 10 years ago. He was deeply in debt, not doing especially well as a copywriter. He heard about Gary Bencivenga's famous “Bencivenga 100” seminar in New York, but there was no way he could pull the money together to attend. However, when Gary offered the seminar on DVD, Jason moved heaven and earth, and might have missed a couple meals, to come up with the money to buy the recordings. And what he learned changed his life. Jason says, “I've always had this uncanny gift for assimilating new information when it interested me.” He put what he learned to work and his copy generated tens of millions for clients around the world. Fast forward to today. Jason has boiled down what he has learned over time into a formula made up of only 10 words, and written a book about it. I've reviewed the book, called The Magic Word Method.What I like about it is, any one of these words can be used, both as copy and as a strategic idea, to refresh and turbocharge just about any copy you'd like to perform better. The words are not unusual or unfamiliar. You've heard them before. But the way Jason looks at them is unique, in my experience. That's why I invited him to come on the show and share his viewpoint and some tips from his book. Jason told us about the steps along his path from struggling, in-debt newbie to successful, world-class copywriter -- and how he came up with the 10 Magic Words concept. We went through three of the words from several angles: How it was used in a winning headline, why this particular word is so powerful, and some of Jason's own experiences with how to get the most from this word both in copy and, as used strategically to boost response. And, he told us about his new book, The Magic Word Method. He has a very tempting offer with lots of bonuses. To get Jason's book, go to: www.10magicwords.com/book If you'd like to reach out to Jason personally, here's his email: Advertisingalchemy at gmail dot com. Download.

Our guest today has a unique vantage point in copywriting. As an executive at Boardroom for 34 years, Brian Kurtz worked with many of the most successful and famous copywriters of our time, including Gene Schwartz, Gary Bencivenga, and many others. As the guy in charge, Brian was responsible for selling well over one billion dollars' worth of products, “$39 at a time,” to millions of people. Seven years ago, Brian started a second career writing books and running mastermind groups. As well as republishing old direct marketing classics. I've wanted to have Brian on the show for a long time, and I was thrilled when he agreed to talk about the copywriting legends he has worked with. If you've ever wondered what the people at the top of this game were and are like, today's your lucky day. Brian's here to tell you. Brian started out by zeroing-in on what the greats of yesteryear (and some of the superstars he worked with are very active today) do differently from other copywriters. We can all suppose, imagine, or try to find hints from stories and their work. But Brian worked closely with these writers to create winners. After some sharp insights about what makes the champions a different breed, Brian and I spent a lot of our time talking about the man who just might be everyone's favorite Old Master, Gene Schwartz. We went way beyond Gene's two famous books as Brian shared some stunning stories about working with Gene, and his life outside of writing copy. Brian has a number of offers, including a special one (number 3) for Copywriters Podcast listeners only: 1) Opt in to Brian's weekly blog at briankurtz.net (and there is lots of free content at that link as well) 2) Go to OverdeliverBook.com to buy his book. You'll get instructions on how to buy it on Amazon, and send him the receipt to get the bonuses. Less than $20 for the book, and the bonuses are incredible. 3) My favorite: Special offer on Breakthrough Advertising / The Brilliance Breakthrough: Both books together for $300 -- a $35 saving. And free shipping If you're outside of the US, Brian will take half off of expedited shipping. So, $300 for both books, $330 for outside the US. We haven't set up a link for this special offer. It's good for up to one week after the podcast. You have to email Brian: brian at briankurtz dot net for this special offer, and be sure to put “Friend of David” in the subject line. Download.

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If you'd like to sell more using email marketing, you'll love today's episode. Even though people like to look for the latest social media hacks to gather more engagement, let me tell you this: Email sells at least five times more than any social media platform! So if you care about making sales and building a genuine relationship with your audience, you can't go wrong using emails. And today, Ben Settle joins me on this episode. Ben is what he calls himself an Email Supremacist and an awesome copywriter endorsed by the greatest copywriters and top-marketers like Gary Bencivenga, Brian Kurtz, David Deutsch, Bob Bly (just to mention a few of them). He's been writing daily emails for way over a decade, and today, he's willing to unveil some of his practices that allowed him to run a 7 figure business by simply sending emails. Here's some of what you'll discover: - How Ben built a 7 figure empire as a one-man band talking about the same topic for over 12+ years (and established himself as an unmatched leader in his market) - How to literally turn garbage into an email - The "secret" behind Ben's Creative routine that allows him to come up with endless daily email ideas… (and way more than he can humanly pour out!) - How to avoid people getting annoyed by your daily emails - Why worrying about SPAM complaints is a waste of time and energy - The shameless rule Ben uses to make sales almost every day out of short 300 words emails - How to avoid "product blindness" when pitching the same offer to your list every day - The one hack to start emailing daily (and keep the habit going…) - The powerful concept Ben applies to his daily emails (borrowed by one of America's most successful advertising geniuses who died even BEFORE email was invented) - The simple reason why you're doing your list (and your bank account) a HUGE disfavor if you don't email daily. - The easiest way to NOT send an email per day and why continuing doing this is nothing else than deliberately missing out on daily sales (it's also the fastest path to literally get "disgusted" by sending emails) - True story: Why tracking emails may be the stupidest thing you can do and also the best way to lose money on purpose. (Triggered by his astonishing experience with a supplement company) - How most autoresponder companies harm your daily emailing practices (making you leave money on the table by simply… continuing using them!) - And much more…   LINKS MENTIONED: Bensettle.com - Ben's daily email newsletter about… daily email newsletters! Berserkermail.com - Ben's Email marketing platform Mattgiaro.com - My Newsletter to level-up your content creation game ENJOYED THIS EPISODE? SUBSCRIBE so that you don't miss the next one!

In the last few years, content and copy have become necessary for any brand with an online presence. “Content is King,” says Bill Gates. Businesses all over the world have been spending more on good content and copy that converts. Thus, the need for excellent copywriters. But how do you convince business owners to hire you? Where do you even start, and how can you accelerate your growth? Today's guest, Samantha Novak, will share her copywriting journey and provide golden insights into becoming a successful copywriter! Samantha is best known as an Elite Copywriter, Copy Coach, and Marketing Specialist. She excels at bringing exciting and creative big ideas and marketing solutions to the table, plus an excellent audience understanding and depth to improve marketing and conversions across the board. She has been tapped to bring new angles and audiences to brands like Mike Tyson's IM-21 and Todd Lamb's Purelife Organics business, had the incredible honor and privilege of working directly with Gary Bencivenga and TJ Robinson on FB ads for their "Fresh-Pressed Olive Oil" business just a few months ago. Samantha also considers herself privileged to learn from Alen Sultanic, who recently directly and publicly referred her for CMO/CRO opportunities. On top of all her achievements, Samantha has been privileged to work directly alongside Stefan Georgi and Justin Goff within the Copy Accelerator community as a leader and the Director of Member Success, leading all of the coaching programs and owning the membership area development to make the vast resources inside Copy Accelerator more accessible for members. In addition, she developed a copy course called the "Foundational Fifteen," which aims to shortcut their members' path to success. “The biggest thing you do in copy is make your readers feel understood.”  -Samantha Novak For more inspiration about starting and growing your copywriting career, check out the episode below: Jumpstart Your Freelance Copywriting Career with Gurleen Singh - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1i5RxsRhXgg (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1i5RxsRhXgg) Resources: Copy Accelerator: https://www.copyaccelerator.com/ (https://www.copyaccelerator.com/) Connect with Samantha: Email: samantha@copperquillcopy.com Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/samantha.novak.1656 (https://www.facebook.com/samantha.novak.1656) Connect with Maria: Maria Sparagis Website: http://mariasparagis.com/ (http://mariasparagis.com) DirectPayNet Website: https://directpaynet.com/ (https://directpaynet.com) LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mariasparagis (https://www.linkedin.com/in/mariasparagis) Facebook: https://web.facebook.com/directpaynet (https://web.facebook.com/directpaynet) Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/directpaynet (https://www.instagram.com/directpaynet) Twitter: https://twitter.com/mariasparagis (https://twitter.com/mariasparagis) Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.ph/directpaynet (https://www.pinterest.ph/directpaynet)

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Today's guest on the Geniuses Of Copywriting Podcast is Mike Pavlish. Mike is an A-List direct response copywriter of long form sales letters and video sales letters that have sold over $558 million worth of nutritional supplements and health products. His copywriting has been praised by Stefan Georgi, Justin Goff, Chris Haddad, Gary Bencivenga, Bob Bly and other legends. Mike Pavlish's clients include the most successful health supplement companies in the world including Agora, Organixx, Healthy Directions, Phytage Labs, Truegenics, Al Sears MD, Relaxium, Revealed Films, Healthy Back Institute, Upwellness, Wholetones, Meaningful Beauty and many smaller entrepreneurs who sell supplements online. To learn more about Mike go to https://www.mikepavlish.com

Links related to this episode: https://www.buymeacoffee.com/royfurr (☕ Wanna say "thanks" for this episode?  Buy me a coffee...) ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Links mentioned in this episode ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ https://www.breakthroughmarketingsecrets.com/ask?utm_source=btms-daily&utm_medium=content&utm_campaign=organic&utm_content=20211115 (❓ Want to ask me YOUR question?  Submit it here…) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MFCx093YjPU (

Brian talks about the advantages to slow selling fro Neil Rackham's book, SPIN Selling. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=smEDWeDjMVY Transcription Advantages to Slow Selling, SPIN Selling a review. Hi I'm Brian Pombo, welcome back to Brian J. Pombo Live. Today we're going to be talking a little bit about this and a little bit about the concepts that were brought out by this book SPIN Selling, by Neil Rackham. You could tell this isn't a book, this is a collection of CDs, an abridged version of his book is just something I had available in front of me here that this was a real and I have to thank Sam Ovens was the one that tipped me off to how good this one was, it came out in 88. And it's one of those that isn't brought up very often SPIN Selling, it's an acronym, SPIN, it's for Situation, Problem, Implication, Need. And what that means is, it's a process that he takes people through to do consultative selling. So it's all about the slow sale and he talks about that early on discussing how, if you have certain products that are made for everybody that are impulse buys, then it doesn't take a whole lot of salesmanship to sell them. It doesn't take that long if it takes a conversation, it takes a quick conversation, it takes, you know, a little bit of a demonstration, it takes some shown showing you why you need it. And you either want it or you don't want it and you buy it. That's all fine and good. There's a huge value to that as soon as you go up in price, and further in how much time the product or service takes to complete or to be able to move on. Or let's say it's an ongoing product, some type of deal where you're going to be paying forever, you know, if you're talking about that, then a lot of times you're going to need some form of consultative selling, you're going to take a longer time to go about selling something to someone, explain it to them probably take more than one touch. It'll probably take more than one situation when people talk about selling they talk about as if it's all the same thing. Where if you're selling something that's very simple and very straightforward, and it's a low price, that's a whole different situation than selling somebody on something that is a larger price is going to take more commitment. It's going to take a whole lot of back and forth from the person that's purchasing or from their company or what have you. Then you've got a longer process on your hands. And you've got to be open to having a longer process, you got to be open to willing to have a little bit of a back and forth. Like I talked about being relationship reliant is a huge piece of this. And so you're going to want to develop some type of relationship long-term with the potential customer or client. Now that's where this comes in. He was one of the first ones to really talk about this in mass nowadays, it's talked about all over the place. But this is great if just for the historical benefit of going back and reading or listening to spins online. Excellent, excellent book. And there's a lot of pieces in it that I would say, have possibly changed, but it's very principle-based. So the ideas in it are very useful, especially if you don't have any salespeople, direct salespeople in your organization. If you have an e-commerce website, and you have no one on salespeople whatsoever. I highly recommend that you read books, and listen to conversations about selling one on one selling because you can take that and develop it into your marketing into your website into all the things that do the selling for you. But if you don't have any concept of that if you have no background in that, then it's a little bit more difficult. So that's why I always tend to mix one on one sales with marketing because in the end marketing is nothing more than one on one sales. I think it was Gary Bencivenga says, sales multiplied its sales in many different forms and able to reach...

Links related to this episode: https://www.breakthroughmarketingsecrets.com/ask?utm_source=btms-daily&utm_medium=content&utm_campaign=organic&utm_content=20211011 (Ask Roy your question) http://www.freescientificadvertising.com (Free Scientific Advertising by Claude Hopkins Audiobook & PDF) https://www.btmsinsiders.com/bundles/btmsinsiders-all-access-pass?utm_source=btms-daily&utm_medium=content&utm_campaign=organic&utm_content=20211011 (Roy's BTMSinsiders training library: like Netflix for copywriting & marketing training) https://www.youtube.com/user/royfurr?sub_confirmation=1 (Subscribe to Roy's YouTube channel) https://breakthroughmarketingsecrets.captivate.fm/listen (Subscribe to the Breakthrough Marketing Secrets podcast) https://www.breakthroughmarketingsecrets.com/work-with-roy/?utm_source=btms-daily&utm_medium=content&utm_campaign=organic&utm_content=20211011 (Work With Roy) https://www.breakthroughmarketingsecrets.com?utm_source=btms-daily&utm_medium=content&utm_campaign=organic&utm_content=20211011 (Get Roy's Daily Emails) “What's the best way to increase the chance of delivering results for clients?” - Jerome That's the question I'm answering in today's Mailbox Monday episode… And I go beyond just doing it for clients.  Because if you want to achieve maximum marketing campaign success for ANY marketing campaign… For your clients… For your own business… The answer is largely the same. And to get there, today I draw on lessons learned from Dan Kennedy, Gary Bencivenga, and Perry Marshall — plus my own insights and perspectives from my personal experience. https://youtu.be/DI1MLIp-PFg (Discover how to maximize your odds of marketing campaign success in today's episode...) Yours for bigger breakthroughs, Roy Furr

Simple but important message Brian noticed from Gary Bencivenga about not taking yourself too seriously. Transcription Don’t forget this. Hi I’m Brian Pombo, welcome back to Brian J. Pombo Live. I’ve got a secret for you. It’s something you never want to forget. And it’s one of those that’s it’s such a simple idea. It’s […] The post Don't Forget This

Simple but important message Brian noticed from Gary Bencivenga about not taking yourself too seriously. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4cBwmtJp4jo Transcription Don't forget this. Hi I'm Brian Pombo, welcome back to Brian J. Pombo Live. I've got a secret for you. It's something you never want to forget. And it's one of those that's it's such a simple idea. It's really easy to forget. But I'll tell you what it is anyways. First, though, I want to remind you about my book,9 Ways to Amazon-Proof Your Business. It's not one of these that I'm looking to sell a whole bunch of the whole point is I want to get the ideas out there and start discussions. find out whether you agree, disagree and otherwise. So go check it out, you go get a free copy at AmazonProofBook.com. What is the secret that I want to pass on to you? Well, it's not a secret. It's something you've heard before. It's a very simple idea. This, what brought it to mind today is I was looking over some of Gary Bencivenga. That fabulous stuff that he has out there, if you type in his name into Google, and he's got a great page, what would you call it Marketing Bullets. Gary, if you're not familiar with Gary, he's a famous copywriter, marketer, he really has a large understanding and a great way to be able to describe it is a fabulous teacher describing how just everyday marketing works. It doesn't matter what century you're talking about humans are humans. And there are just certain things that never go away. So he's got some great material out there and this was just on one of his lists on that website about success tips, and so forth. This is it, don't take yourself too seriously. And the real problem is, is that if you achieve any type of success whatsoever in your life, it doesn't take much it has its own where you set the bar. You know, I was thinking about this earlier today, success really is an illusion, in a sense, because it's, it's an invisible bar that you're setting to reach. And it but the best thing about success being an illusion is that failure is also an illusion because it's an invisible bar that you've dropped below. So you can move those as much as you want in order to achieve success or to overcome failure, or to completely ignore them and just see it as this is life and I'm moving, I'm going for the next thing and I'm going to try it and we're going to see what happens. And doesn't matter whether I make it or not, or whether I do it in the period of time I want to or not, that's a side note, I'm going off on a tangent here that I don't need to be going on. But you're going to come to a point where you feel like you've achieved some form of success. At that point, it's really easy to get all puffed up and to think, Okay, I figured it out, you know, this is I'm better than a whole lot of other people, I've achieved something and you have you probably have it depending on how lofty. The goal is that you've been able to overcome, you probably have done a whole lot better than everyone else. But here's the problem, we get into this trap of taking ourselves too seriously. And when you do that, when you take yourself too seriously. You know, pride comes before the fall like that, say, and you're just liable to make a fool of yourself. You're just setting yourself up to and so how do you keep from doing that? Well, when you start finding yourself getting a little bit big-headed, you back off and just realize, man, you know, life's short, it's not gonna last much longer than this, we got this little piece of time to go out there and have fun, and try and make a difference in the world. And just exist, just really enjoy ourselves and figure out what this whole thing is about. We know it's short. So if that's the case, you take yourself too seriously, you're setting yourself up for failure. I don't know an easier way of saying that and if you haven't experienced the concept of taking ...

David Garfinkel - The World's Greatest Copywriting Coach The World's Greatest Copywriting Coach David Garfinkel joined the The Next 100 Days podcast to discuss the Old Masters of copy. Our plan was to run through 6 copywriting tips from from the Old Masters. We managed 3 in this episode. The good news is David completed all six by covering the rest in Episode 294. Introduction to David Garfinkel David is a copywriting coach to business owners and professional copywriters. His sales letters and webpages have brought millions of dollars in for his clients. David has worked as a copy consultant to publisher Agora Financial. He critiques copy for small business owners in the GKIC network. Author of "Breakthrough Copywriting" and is the host of "Copywriters Podcast". Born in Washington DC, David made a decision to get as far away from there as possible, without leaving the United States. He moved to San Francisco. His kryptonite is buying guitars. This passion dates back to 1966 when he turned 13 and got a Gibson guitar. Copywriting Tips from the Old Masters As Graham said, they are all dead! The first Old Master is Claude Hopkins. His material dates from the early part of the 1900s. David is a direct response copywriter. The most famous British advertising man was David Ogilvy. He told a story about Ogilvy who published an old estate with a £600 budget. Ogilvy used a postcard and got them to take action. In real life, says Garfinkel, you have to give people an incentive to take action. Direct mail was the original direct response copywriting. Graham's business Finely Fettled still provides this service. Resources from the David Garfinkel The Next 100 Days Podcast This link covers material covered in Episode 293 and Episode 294 (Part 2 of the David Garfinkel podcast) Click here for David Garfinkel Resources Claude Hopkins Hopkins said the demonstration and sampling are most powerful forms of selling. http://thenext100days.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/Garfinkel-Claude-Hopkins.mp4 People and technologies have changed these days, but the principles still apply. Such as offering a free chapter in a Kindle book. Another example is the software 30 day trial, after which the software stops working. In car retailing, many of us have been hugely influenced by test drives. David spoke about the silver polish example provided by Claude Hopkins early sales experience. We discussed other transformational benefits. Like, the lady of the house's mother in law wouldn't by looking down on her so much. That speaks to embarrassment and guilt. Woman are infinitely better pragmatists than men. She buys silver polish as it helps her get it done quick! Demonstration takes features and benefits a step further forward. They can see the transformations and outcomes. John E Kennedy Canadian John E Kennedy also worked at Lord and Thomas in Chicago, like Hopkins. He was credited with the 'reason why' approach to copy. Reason why is about logic and evidential. http://thenext100days.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/Garfinkel-Reason-Why-Copy.mp4 Gary Bencivenga was a proponent of reason why copy. Here's what fellow A-list copywriter, Doug D'Anna said of Gary Bencivenga: “If a copywriter beats the control one out of four times, you've got a really good copywriter. (And) If he beats it two out of four times, you've got a great copywriter. If he beats it seven out of eight times, you've got Gary Bencivenga.” Gary write copy for Boardroom mail order promotions. He worked on general interest products in health and financial interest. We want something emotionally, then we search for all sorts of reasons until we feel okay about buying. Listen to Gio Marcus about celebrity copywriting in Episode 289. Robert Updegraff "Obvious Adams" http://thenext100days.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/Garfinkel-Obvious-Adams.mp4 How do I get to the simplest, most obvious way to convey my message to market?

Quante volte ti sei sentito sopraffatto dalle troppe cose da fare?Lavoro da finire - o ancora da iniziare - ma già in super ritardo. Questioni minori accumulate che prima o poi deciderai di smaltire, ma non hai mai tempo. E nel frattempo diventano troppe.Magari ogni giorno capitano degli imprevisti, tanto per non farti mancare niente.Poi provi rabbia per ciò che è successo ieri e ansia per qualcosa che devi fare domani. A volte basta un messaggio su whatsapp o una mail - che non avresti voluto leggere - per rovinarti il resto della giornata.Se sei come tanti di noi, lo stress e il nervoso non ti fanno concludere niente: arrivi alla fine della giornata scoppiato e ti ritrovi con più roba da fare di quando ti sei alzato al mattino. E magari hai lavorato fino a notte fonda e ti sei alzato presto, dormendo 3 ore.Rimani in un circolo vizioso dal quale non puoi uscire, se non dopo essere esploso e aver mandato tutto e tutti a quel paese.In pratica, esaurisci e raggiungi quello stato mentale chiamato burnout:sei costretto a fermarti.Spesso, in situazioni come queste, qualcuno ti dice “fai un respiro profondo”. Il problema è che se non sai come farlo quel respiro profondo, rischi di peggiorare la situazione.“E che ci vuole a respirare? Lo faccio da quando sono nato…”Sì, certo! Ma quando si tratta di recuperare il tuo stato mentale ottimale per ritornare produttivo, non è così banale fare QUEL respiro profondo.Semplificando al massimo:respiro profondo = meditazioneMa la verità è che dietro alla meditazione c'è un mondo.Se non l'hai studiata e praticata, non sai cosa sia e non hai idea dei benefici che può portarti nella vita di tutti i giorni, potresti stupirti dei suoi benefici: - i aiuta ad aumentare la concentrazione- rende le tue giornate più produttive- ti aiuta a rimanere focalizzato più a lungo- ti permette di non stressarti.Ti basta?La meditazione migliora sia la tua mente che il tuo corpo.Ecco perché in questa puntata Andrea Lisi ti spiega qualcosa che non si era mai sentito e mai visto in nessun altro contenuto riguardante il marketing e il copywriting.Dal 2013 Andrea ha viaggiato e vissuto in Asia, dove ha appreso svariate tecniche di meditazione: ha avuto diversi maestri, ha frequentato apposite scuole e pratica ogni giorno.Nella nuova puntata ha selezionato per te 7 tecniche di meditazione che puoi mettere in pratica subito.Fallo e ne avrai dei benefici immediati.Ecco alcuni degli argomenti di questa 185esima puntata:[00:00] Le 3 marketing unit che fanno aumentare i profitti aziendali (basi del sistema SfornaClienti su cui concentrare i tuoi pensieri).[04:33] Uno degli errori più frequenti di chi deve produrre ogni giorno: evitarlo ti permette di godere di risultati più soddisfacenti, sia nel lavoro che nella vita.[11:16] Quali sono gli effetti della meditazione sul cervello.[16:55] Una tecnica di meditazione mirata per dare nuove informazioni al tuo subconscio, da sintetizzare e usare nel tuo copy. Ti sarà utile per trovare nuovi titoli e argomenti per i tuoi contenuti ricorrenti (newsletter, post sui Social ecc).[19:32] Una tecnica di meditazione per chi lavora in remoto, usata e divulgata anche da Steve Jobs. Ti aiuta ad attivare meglio il cervello e a trovare nuove idee per i tuoi materiali di marketing.[23:05] 3 tecniche di meditazione basate sul respiro profondo, che ti rilasseranno, apriranno la tua mente, miglioreranno la tua salute e ti renderanno più felice. Ecco quando e perché farlo.***Risorse menzionate:Manuale SfornaClienti https://bit.ly/3eAXopkLa serie su “The Boron Letters” di Gary Halbert https://bit.ly/3cQWMsZ“La Forza della Meditazione” di Daniel Goleman https://amzn.to/36IMAkK“Obvious Adams”, il genio che ha ispirato David Ogilvy, Gary Bencivenga e tanti altri copywriter https://youtu.be/66ogWc8fxJY

Thoughts on why people buy stuff. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lmj2z3Uq9Rg Transcription Want versus Need. I'm Brian Pombo, welcome back to Brian J. Pombo Live. I wanted to talk with you tonight about the concept of want versus need in terms of the customer relationship. So if you are a business owner, if you're an executive, if you're one of the people in charge of developing products and services of the company that you work at, this is something you got to wrap your mind around. And it's tough, it's a really tough conversation to have because it has so much to do with semantics. The meaning of these two words is so broad in English, that it's difficult to have this conversation, because what does want versus need actually mean? What is a want? What is a need? Can you somewhat come to a conclusion about it? Because I've even heard Gary Bencivenga say that it's a semantic argument that we shouldn't get into. But I think it's important to understand the concept. Don't get hung up on the words, the words you can mean want. When you're saying need and you can mean need. When you're saying one, that's the problem with it. But they're very subjective and relative to whatever it is that you're talking about. But let's go into that, shall we? So are you selling a product or service that people need or that they want? Now they may want it but not need it or they may need it and not wanted. What situation do you want more is to see how it gets confusing. So let's take an example. Let's say what people really want are hot dogs. But what you're selling is broccoli. Now they may need I'm not going to get into the vegetable versus meat conversation here. But let's say that broccoli has the vitamins and so forth, that people in general, are lacking. And just for the sake of argument, we're just using this as an example. I'm not going to get into actual nutrition, okay, we're just saying you say broccoli is that thing that has what people need. But what people really want are hot dogs. Now you can try to sell them broccoli, but you're going to have an uphill battle because you're selling them what they need, not what they want. Where if you sell them hot dogs, you're selling them what they want, it's gonna be easier. Do you see the difference? So that's the first step, the first step is just to understand the fundamental difference, but that it doesn't end there. Because there are multiple things that you can do with this, let's say we're only dealing with this binary argument. I say sell them the hotdogs include this broccoli on the side. Now you have a chance of them actually getting what they need while also getting what they want. It's nearly impossible to sell people what they need if they don't want it. But here's another thing. Let's say people really did, you're going through a period of time where people really do want broccoli, maybe there's a shortage or whatever. Maybe Oprah or somebody famous came out and talked about the wonders of broccoli and how they're able to lose weight by eating only broccoli or whatever. All of a sudden, broccoli's demand comes up. People want broccoli, people also turns out they need the broccoli. You can have a situation where what people want is what they need at the same time, which is great if you can find that. Because that now you can get deliver both. Most of the time as business owners, as managers of the business, we tend to focus on what we know because we're in the situation so often, whatever it is, the situation that you're attempting to sell. We know what they need it. We know better than them what they need in most cases. But what they want is not what they need. So you can pile the two together you but you will have a better chance of getting somewhere. If you can coat, whatever it is that you have that you think they need with what they want,

I remember the first time Kev asked me to perform on stage. And let me be clear – he didn't ask me to speak, he asked me to SING. That triggered a whole ‘nother level of freak out, but I made myself say yes and the rest is history – to this day folks in the industry talk about that first performance I did in front of my colleagues. That's why I love that I got to talk to Kev about what it takes to put yourself out there as an entertainer. I think you're gonna get a lot out of this one.  Can't-Miss Moments From This Episode:Let's get meta: Kev and I explore the behind-the-scenes work that goes into putting on a podcast, what makes a great guest, and the staggering “7 episode” statistic that derails most would-be podcast creators When seconds count: how Kev thinks through preparing for a speaking engagement when it has to come in right on time. With no room for over or under, how does he nail the timing? How I went from newbie podcast host to recording enough content for an entire year inside 4 months (hint: there was a lot of making it up as I went)  What do you do when your performance or gig or speech bombs? (Bonus: massive fail stories from me and Kev's time on stage) “Don't tell me what to do” – a counterintuitive parenting approach that works in just about any kind of business or personal situation (especially if you want to keep that relationship!) This one is jam-packed full of awesome. Don't miss out - listen now! Kevin's Bio:Kevin Rogers spent years traveling the country as a stand-up comedian working the circuit with now-famous comics like Chris Rock, Louis CK, Billy Gardell and many more. After a decade performing comedy, Kevin retired from the road and married the love of his life. He also discovered a new professional passion - direct response sales copywriting. He spent ten years as a freelance copywriter, writing and chiefing the sales copy for high profile and insanely profitable product launches with the industry's top producers. Things changed again when Kevin discovered how a simple joke formula could be used as a powerful marketing hook and began teaching it to marketers as The 60-Second Sales Hook and released a book by the same name.The success of the book led Kevin to create Copy Chief, a private community-based forum and copy training center where talented copywriters partner with value-driven product creators and content providers to produce forward-thinking ad campaigns. After 12 years away from comedy, Kevin's recently returned to the stand-up stage, developing 25 minutes of new material over 60 days and performing for 2,000 people accepting a challenge to open a show for his longtime friend Billy Gardell, of Mike & Molly fame. Kevin is the Amazon best-selling author of The 60-Second Sales Hook and founder of Copy Chief, a thriving community of the world's top online marketers.Resources and links mentioned:Kevin's site, Copy ChiefKevin's podcast, Copy Chief Radio (yours truly guested on a few eps!)Carline Anglade-Cole's siteCarline's tribute to Clayton Makepeace (YouTube playlist)Gary Bencivenga's siteJohn Lee Dumas' siteKev's episode on the Entrepreneurs on Fire podcastFor funsies: Angie's last performance with her SF blues bandCome kick ass with me:Permission to Kick Ass websiteAngie's Facebook PageAngie on InstaAngie on YouTube

Have you ever wanted marketing advice from some of the best eCommerce marketers in the business? I reached out to seven of my friends in the eCommerce space and asked them: What’s the single best piece of marketing advice you’ve ever been given? From words by Mark Zuckerberg all the way to legendary writer Gary Bencivenga, we’re packing in 8 evergreen pieces of marketing advice that every marketer and entrepreneur needs to have in their arsenal. Episode Guests Steve Chou, founder of My Wife Quit Her Job and cofounder of Sellers Summit Peep Laja, founder of CXL and Wynter Noah Kagan, founder of AppSumo Kurt Elster, founder of Ethercycle and host of The Unofficial Shopify Podcast Ezra Firestone, founder of Smart Marketer Chris Orzechowski, Ecommerce Email Marketing Strategist and founder of Orzy Media Andrew Youderian, founder of eCommerceFuel and host of The eCommerceFuel Podcast  Austin Brawner, founder of Brand Growth Experts and host of The Ecommerce Influence Podcast  Episode Highlights 3:56 Steve Chou: Avoiding shiny object syndrome  5:43 Peep Laja: The number 1 thing to look into if you’re not making traction 8:15 Noah Kagan: What to remain focused on at all times 10:58 Kurt Elster: What it takes to be a true expert 14:26 Ezra Firestone: Are you quitting too soon? 17:00 Chris Orzechowski: How to never have a customer retention problem 20:19 Andrew Youderian: Doubling down on what works  23:35 Austin Brawner: Pressure over time Links and Resources: Steve Chou My Wife Quit Her Job Sellers Summit Peep Laja Peep's Website Conversion XL Wynter Noah Kagan Noah's YouTube Channel Noah's Podcast OkDork AppSumo Kurt Elster Kurt's Website The Unofficial Shopify Podcast Ethercycle Ezra Firestone Smart Marketer Boom! By Cindy Joseph Chris Orzechowski The Email Copywriter Make It Rain Monthly Founder of Orzy Media Andrew Youderian Ecommerce Fuel Ecommerce Fuel Podcast Austin Brawner The Coalition @a_brawn on Twitter Review or subscribe on iTunes

Today we’re back with our Old Masters series, with a topic that has been begging to be on Copywriters Podcast for a long time: Reason-Why Copywriting. First, a little about our Old Master, and he really deserves the title, even though he is not particularly well known these days. It’s George Burton Hotchkiss. We’ll be drawing from a couple chapters in his book Advertising Copy, published in 1924. Almost 100 years ago. Hotchkiss worked as a reporter for the old New York Sun newspaper, and after that, became a copywriter for the ad agency which later became the famous firm known today as BBDO. Later he went on to found the Department of Advertising and Marketing at New York University, where he was chairman and where he worked for 48 years. What he says about reason-why advertising in his book is really not that different than what’s true and what works today. We’ll dive into it and pull out a few of the most important pieces. Now, reason-why copywriting. It’s alive and well today, but people don’t talk about it a whole lot. We’re going to spend a few minutes talking about reason-why copy, and then I’ll give you some examples of parts of a promo written first as reason-why copy, and next as emotional copy. But first, let’s get clear on our terms. What is it? In short, reason-why copy appeals to the prospect’s reason, while what we’ll call “emotional copy” appeals mainly to emotions. Now to be sure, you can mix elements of the two kinds of copy in the same email, or ad, or web page. But for this show, we’ll treat them as separate and opposite. Just to make it clear what reason-why copy is. Hotchkiss says, “If all buyers were logical and all purchases were based upon a deliberate choice, there would be little place in advertising for anything except reason-why copy. “Human beings, however, are not wholly logical. And they all make purchases that are not even sensible.” (For example, the Fender Jazzmaster guitar I bought. It’s mostly for surf rock and jazz. And I don’t play much of either one. But it felt so good to get it — NOT logical!) So you understand that reason-why copy is more matter-of-fact than emotional copy, for starters. OK. The next question is, where do you use it and when shouldn’t you use it? • Use it for high-end offers. People with more money spending or investing larger amounts tend to respond better to reason-why copy than purely emotional copy. • Use it for B2B offers. Let’s say you were selling a grinding machine to factories. Reason-why copy is going to work better than sensual, dramatic, emotional copy. • Of course you can use some aspects of reason-why copy in anything, even a low-end bizop offer or a straight consumer offer. But for those kind of offers, you’ll probably want to lean more heavily on emotional appeals. Hotchkiss has 21 sections in two chapters about reason-why copy. We can’t get to all of them, but here are the two most important: First, evidence. Hotchkiss says, “In a mail-order advertisement, where the object is to secure immediate response, it is often desirable to cram the copy full of facts. If the reader is unwilling to read so much material, he is not a sufficiently good prospect to be ready to purchase the article or to seek more information about it.” So, facts. Evidence. And the kind of advertising we talk about on this podcast is advertising designed to get an immediate response. The second really important factor in reason-why copy is logic. That’s much to go into in-depth here, but this really stood out to me, when Hotchkiss says, “It is commonly complained that people do not think.” Hotchkiss doesn’t buy this argument, but he says, whether it’s true or not, he goes on, “This, however, is no excuse for the copywriter. He must be a logical thinker. He needed not study formal logic, but at least he should be able to trace an effect to its cause and a cause to its effect. And he should be able to present that train of ideas so that his reader will follow it. “His facts and his conclusions must not be confused; they must be arranged in orderly sequence.” This is a tall order. But I’ve found the most successful copywriters are very, very good at this. Including the best female copywriters. OK. Evidence and logic. Sounds pretty boring, right? But many people have said Gary Bencivenga’s copy was reason-why. I’d agree. And considering the results he got, you could hardly call that boring. Because it’s all in how you use the evidence and logic. There are ways to make it interesting, even if it’s not terribly emotional. Let’s get into some examples. The background is, I’m breaking out some things I’ve been doing as part of my mentoring and critiques, and now offering them as separate services.. Since not everyone wants to learn copy or have their copy critiqued, but a lot of business people might want one or more of these services. For example, USP. I’ll be launching a USP-building service later this year. USP stands for Unique Selling Proposition. It’s very similar to a Positioning Statement, and from a direct-response point of view, it’s almost identical with branding. Because a good USP sets you apart from competitors and bonds your customers to you. This is something I’m already doing, by the way. I’ve helped copywriters get their USP, and I’ve worked with a few companies to help them get theirs, too What I’m about to share with you are some rough-draft pieces of copy to promote this new service. What I will do is share the same piece of copy, like a headline, written in the reason-why format, and next, written as emotional copy. Then we can talk about each one afterwards. 1. Headline The reason-why headline is How to get the same powerful marketing weapon the world’s largest companies have — at a fraction of the cost And the emotional headline is: Imagine your business becoming a “household name” among your customers and prospects I think they’re both good headlines. The difference is, it’s pretty easy to prove the first one. Large companies all have USPs. Most small businesses don’t. A USP truly is a powerful marketing weapon, because of how it helps you win the battle for the prospect’s preference. And while it will cost a bit to work with me, what I charge is still a lot less than the hundreds of thousands of dollars large companies often pay for their positioning and branding statements. So, all provable. Now, if instead of a USP service, I were selling a regular consumer item, like strawberry jam,, emotional copy might actually be a better choice in the headline. But for what I’m selling here, I’m going with the reason-why headline. 2. Now let’s move onto the big promise -- what they prospect can expect to get from this USP service. The reason-why version is: A custom-develop positioning statement, based on what research says: • Is important to you • And is important to your customer OK. Now let’s hear a big promise for the same service in the language of emotional copywriting: You’ll have a unique identity in the marketplace you’ll be so proud of, and your customers will fall in love with your business. I guess both are good, but I like the first one, because I know I can deliver that. The second one… I have yet to see a positioning statement customers fall in love with, with the possible exception of Wal-mart’s old one, which they tragically replaced in 2007: Always low prices. People who love to shop could fall in love with that now-retired USP. (Nathan comments) 3. Testimonials play a role in reason-why copy. It’s just that they’re a little more fact-based and a little less emotional. Here are two examples to compare. I made these up but I could get similar testimonials from a handful of clients very easily, because I’ve had people say these things to me in casual conversation. The reason-why version of a testimonial: “I was reassured after David found unique appealing benefits in our business that we were simply too close to for us to see them ourselves. We feel like our USP is our new ‘secret weapon’ in the marketplace -- even though we will make sure it’s no secret at all!” And the emotional version: “We are so thrilled with the new USP you put together for us. Getting it was like unwrapping a whole bunch of brand-new presents on Christmas morning!” Of course, the first one is more logical and factual. The second one is based on feeling. Just as important, the first one is about utility -- how the client will actually use the new USP. 4. Now lets look at two versions of the offer -- first, a reason-why style offer, and second, an emotional-style offer. The reason-why offer is: This is your opportunity to set your business apart from all others in a way that is important to you AND to your customers. This means you will frequently be the first choice for people and companies you most want to do business with. And the emotional one: Now, at long last, customers will fall in love with your business. And it won’t be a one-night stand, either. It will be a satisfying, long-term relationship! You can see the difference. The first one is definitely impactful. But it’s based on some practical considerations that would make business better for you. The second one is purely emotional. It may be true, but it just as easily could be seen as fantasy. OK, now you’ve got the basics of reason-why copy. If you find you lean way in the direction of reason-why copy, you might want to add more emotion to what you’re doing. And vice-versa. And if I accidentally made you want to get a USP package from me, I don’t even have a web page up for it yet. But you can send me a note using this email address: podcast@davidgarfinkel.com Please put “USP” in the subject line so I can find it quickly. We’re going to put the detailed show notes up today with all the examples and quotes so you can study them if you’d like to get a better idea of reason-why copy. And the email address. The Hotchkiss book is out of print and very hard to find, but if you’d like to try, it’s simply called “Advertising Copy.” Download.

My guest today is Lori Haller, owner of Designing Response.Lori is known globally as the secret weapon of direct response design to top A-Lister copywriters like Gary Bencivenga, the late Jim Rutz, John Carlton, the late Clayton Makepeace, Carline Anglade-Cole, Parris Lampropoulos, David Deutsch and companies including The Agora Companies, Boardroom, Newsmax, Oprah Winfrey’s O’s Big Book of Happiness, 4Patriots, Healthy Directions and more.In this episode Lori walks through a long form sales page for a dietary health supplement funnel. This example uses direct response copy and design tactics to increase bottom line response. Here's the link https://youtu.be/3YMmrv0F3lE to see just that portion of this interview.Here's the full interlude video if you prefer to watch https://youtu.be/mJN4nrCyckIThis episode is brought to you by http://www.creativethirst.com The revenue optimization agency for health supplement companies. Specializing in split tests, funnels, upsells, and direct response copywriting so you can maximize profitability and scale.

Leveraging the power of unquestionable proof is one of the key pieces to generating amazing sales. This was best represented through the story of Elisha Otis, the most influential elevator innovator in the world.  You see, the initial elevator was extremely unsafe. If a cable failed, everyone in the elevator car was plummet to their death… and cables failed often. People were so used to the problems of elevators that builders didn’t build overly tall buildings and in general, nobody used elevators. Elisha Otis found a way to create a braking system that stopped a plummeting elevator, even if there was no cable to support the car. He shouted to the world about his invention, but nobody took notice. Why? Because it was so ingrained in them not to believe that elevators could be safe. This all changed when Otis took his innovation to the Crystal Palace Exhibition. Otis practiced the most important part of the 4-part persuasion equation. Listen in as I share: What the 4-part persuasion equation is and who created it. Why the persuasion equation is the ideal copywriting tool How the persuasion equation works and its most critical step. No matter if someone knows you, likes you, and trusts you, they also have to have proof that what you say is true. Are you gathering proof to share with you potential clients and customers?  In This Episode:  [04:32] - Learn the three key insights you’ll learn in this episode.  [06:07] - A tip of the hat and deep bow to Gary Bencivenga. [07:31] - Hear the story of Elisha Otis and his amazing elevator innovation.  [09:52] - Why were builders prior to the 1850s scared to build tall buildings and use elevators? [11:50] - Despite his amazing innovation, Otis’s business did not take off… learn why. [13:26] - Learn why being believable is the most important part of selling. [14:23] - How did Elisha Otis finally gain believability?  [18:11] - From that single demonstration, people no longer feared getting into elevators that had the plaque.  [19:40] - What is the 4-part persuasion equation?  Urgent Problem Unique Promise Unquestionable Proof User-Friendly Proposition [22:39] - Why don’t people buy from you?  [24:55] - The unique promise is not a solution, it’s an intention. [26:21] - Why you should start with proof. [27:07] - The Alexism is, “Wild success in business is nothing more than doing ordinary tasks consistently that will ultimately produce extraordinary results.” [27:55] - Hear a quick review of the key insights in this episode:  What the 4-part persuasion equation is and who created it. Why the persuasion equation is the ideal copywriting tool How the persuasion equation works and its most critical step. [29:06] - If you’ve already given Alex a review, write down your biggest takeaway from this episode on an index card. If you haven’t, though, please use that Aha! moment as your review for the show at this link! [30:51] - In honor of this episode, Alex gives listeners a final gift. You can get a 30-day free test drive of Kartra.    Links and Resources:  Alex Mandossian Alex Mandossian Fan on Facebook Alex’s Friday Live events MarketingOnline.com Marketing Online 4-Part Video Training Series Alex Mandossian on YouTube Alexisms by Alex Mandossian All Selling Aside on iTunes Alex Mandossian’s free live Friday show   Kartra Test Drive Gary Bencivenga Crystal Palace Exhibition

Creating sexy names and powerful propositions that sell is the single most valuable skill you can ever learn. Turning on your marketing time machine to study copywriters like Gary Halbert, and Gary Bencivenga helps. Studying NLP framing is powerful. But, this can be a long painful process. In this episode - Igor shortens the learning curve for you with several tips in this riveting podcast.

Creating sexy names and powerful propositions that sell is the single most valuable skill you can ever learn. Turning on your marketing time machine to study copywriters like Gary Halbert, and Gary Bencivenga helps. Studying NLP framing is powerful. But, this can be a long painful process. In this episode - Igor shortens the learning curve for you with several tips in this riveting podcast.

To offer people something of value that solves a problem, you must know your audience. You can’t market correctly, offer the right solution, or adequately gauge how customers will react if you don’t know them. So what does that learning process look like? Listen in as Dean and I chat with Spencer Lum—The Big Vision Guy at ExtraBold—all about your audience. After years of being unable to hold down a steady job, Spencer found himself building websites. This morphed into helping people with branding. Eventually, Spencer realized he could help others best by solving their very specific problems. He understands how to create and market addictive content. Listen to this episode of Just the Tps for insight into his mind!  Outline of This Episode [0:45] We introduce our guest of the day, Spencer Lum. [3:05] How he learned business the hard way [6:00] Becoming his own boss [10:20] Launching his first business [12:20] Developing a framework [15:40] Look at the symptoms to narrow down the problem [20:20] What is the solution to the problem? [24:00] Understanding practical and emotional pain [26:30] How to build your unique mechanism [29:40] Back to the basics: know your audience [31:50] The part psychology plays [36:30] Spencer’s special Just the Tips offer! There’s always a “but”... When Spencer was a teenager, his Dad told him “You can achieve anything you want...BUT I really don’t know if you’re going to”. It was meant to be a pep-talk and it fell miserably short (but luckily he can look back on it in a humorous light). After years of starting and quitting jobs and becoming a lawyer (it didn’t stick), he finally realized his dad was right. So what was the logical next step? Spencer became a serial entrepreneur. While he was working in an HR position, he started building a website for himself. He soon realized that there was a market for that kind of work, and his first business was born (and he subsequently quit his HR job). Keep listening as we chat about his transition from job-to-job and finally landing on something that stuck.  Develop a framework that meets people’s needs We know if we offer something to the market that nobody needs, it’s not going to succeed. It’s simple: what you offer has to be something that is needed. Spencer lays it out like this: Offer what people need. Find the right way to convey your message. Make sure you’re speaking to the right audience. He fully embraces Gary Bencivenga’s “persuasion equation”. The equation, in its simplest form, looks a little like this: Problem + Promise + Proof + Proposition = Persuasion There is a problem only you can solve that you promise to solve for your audience. You show proof that you can solve it (data and case studies) and propose how you shall do it. The simplest means of persuasion. Know your audience better than they know themselves To sell an idea and appropriately pitch to your audience, you need to understand who they are and what problems they need solved. Spencer points out that most audiences don’t actually know what their problem is. Your job, then, is to figure out their problems based on the “symptoms” and provide a solution.  You need to be able to get in your audience’s head and offer to solve their very specific problem. Are their pages not ranking in google? Do they have low conversion rates? Do they have enough cash-flow from their conversions? Take their measurable problems and find a way to give voice to a solution. Once you’ve identified the symptoms of their problem, narrowed down the issue, and marketed the solution—then you develop the system to solve their problem. You must 100% understand your market before creating anything.  Develop your own secret sauce You have to take everything that you’ve learned about your audience and their problems and develop your own unique and oh-so-special mechanism for solving that problem. You cannot attempt to solve “all the problems” for “all the people”. Spencer advises finding your niche—an audience that you connect with better than anyone else. Solve the problem in a way only you can accomplish. Everyone has something particular that works for them. Your vernacular won’t reach or speak to everyone and that’s okay. Every word you choose and every bit of what you do needs to match with your audience and how they want things done. Everything you do MUST align with who your audience is. Resources & People Mentioned Special offer for Just the Tips Listeners: Free 8-day course! Spencer’s website: https://goextrabold.com/ Spencer’s Twitter Spencer’s LinkedIn Spencer’s Photography site Make sure this “music” paragraph is intended in the Libsyn post Musicfor “Just The Tips” is titled, “Happy Happy Game Show” by Kevin MacLeod (http://incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License Connect With James and Dean James P. Friel: CEO Quickstart: https://jamespfriel.com/ceo-quickstart/ Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/hustledetox/ Site: www.jamespfriel.com Interested in being a guest on the show? Dean Holland: Blog: www.DeanHolland.com FB Page: https://www.facebook.com/DeanHollandHQ Billion Dollar Project: https://www.facebook.com/groups/BillionDollarProject/ Audio Production and Show notes by PODCAST FAST TRACK https://www.podcastfasttrack.com

Our guest today is notorious and endlessly fascinating: Ben Settle. He’s an email specialist, author, anti-professional, and novelist. People go nuts over Ben. Including me. I once wrote to him, “You’re the f’in’ hottest email copywriter on the Web now.” But I wasn’t alone. Our recent guest Richard Armstrong says, “I start my day with reading from the Holy Bible and Ben Settle’s email, not necessarily in that order.” And the normally sober Gary Bencivenga admits. “Good copy intoxicates me. Yours is high proof. I’m enjoying it.” Well, that pretty much gives you the picture of what other copywriters think about Ben. He’s like… amazing! But Ben brings another skill to the party. While it is morbid, I have a morbid fascination with it and Ben has agreed to tell us about it today. He writes horror fiction. Let me read you this from the promo copy for Zombie Cop: The Enoch Wars, Book One. "The blood was still warm and there was meat and what looked like veins between his teeth - hanging out like dental floss." Nobody knew where the still-living decapitated head came from. But when the head bit Police Chief Rawger, he becomes a zombie with an insatiable appetite for human flesh, revenge, and power. But, unlike Hollywood-depicted zombies, he can think, speak, and strategize. He's also deranged, sexually perverted, and takes absolute pleasure in his evil acts. I think you get the idea. What does this have to do with copy? Nathan and I are hoping and praying that we’ll find out. And before we jump into the world of horror fiction, let’s take a moment to remember some comforting words that help little children fall safely asleep at night: Copy is powerful. You’re responsible for how you use what you hear on this podcast. Most of the time, common sense is all you need. But if you make extreme claims... and/or if you’re writing copy for offers in highly regulated industries like health, finance, and business opportunity... you may want to get a legal review after you write and before you start using your copy. My larger clients do this all the time. Wow. Now let’s get out the cloves of garlic for our personal protection and welcome Ben Settle. Ben, thank you for joining us today. 1. A lot of successful copywriters are interested in writing fiction, but most of us, including me, kind of balk when it comes to actually sitting down and writing a book. Not you. At least, not after a certain point. Tell us how this all came about? 2. So, when you have an idea for a book, what are the steps you go through to get it written? 3. We talk a lot on this podcast about taking techniques from writing fiction to write copy. But we’ve never had someone who writes material as intense as you — and I’m talking about your fiction, although I could be talking about your emails — on here before. Could you share what’s similar, and what’s different? 4. So, your emails are just bolder and more provocative than almost any other I’ve seen. OK, I’ll level with you. More than any other I’ve seen. Have you rewritten the rules for yourself, or, did you just decide a long time ago that there are no rules? 5. Could you give us a few Ben Settle tips for writing emails that get noticed and get response? 6. What do you think gets in the way of most people doing what you teach? 7. What’s next for you — in your copy/marketing business, and in fiction? Ben Settle's WebsiteDownload.

Our guest today is notorious and endlessly fascinating: Ben Settle. He’s an email specialist, author, anti-professional, and novelist. People go nuts over Ben. Including me. I once wrote to him, “You’re the f’in’ hottest email copywriter on the Web now.” But I wasn’t alone. Our recent guest Richard Armstrong says, “I start my day with reading from the Holy Bible and Ben Settle’s email, not necessarily in that order.” And the normally sober Gary Bencivenga admits. “Good copy intoxicates me. Yours is high proof. I’m enjoying it.” Well, that pretty much gives you the picture of what other copywriters think about Ben. He’s like… amazing! But Ben brings another skill to the party. While it is morbid, I have a morbid fascination with it and Ben has agreed to tell us about it today. He writes horror fiction. Let me read you this from the promo copy for Zombie Cop: The Enoch Wars, Book One. "The blood was still warm and there was meat and what looked like veins between his teeth - hanging out like dental floss." Nobody knew where the still-living decapitated head came from. But when the head bit Police Chief Rawger, he becomes a zombie with an insatiable appetite for human flesh, revenge, and power. But, unlike Hollywood-depicted zombies, he can think, speak, and strategize. He's also deranged, sexually perverted, and takes absolute pleasure in his evil acts. I think you get the idea. What does this have to do with copy? Nathan and I are hoping and praying that we’ll find out. And before we jump into the world of horror fiction, let’s take a moment to remember some comforting words that help little children fall safely asleep at night: Copy is powerful. You’re responsible for how you use what you hear on this podcast. Most of the time, common sense is all you need. But if you make extreme claims... and/or if you’re writing copy for offers in highly regulated industries like health, finance, and business opportunity... you may want to get a legal review after you write and before you start using your copy. My larger clients do this all the time. Wow. Now let’s get out the cloves of garlic for our personal protection and welcome Ben Settle. Ben, thank you for joining us today. 1. A lot of successful copywriters are interested in writing fiction, but most of us, including me, kind of balk when it comes to actually sitting down and writing a book. Not you. At least, not after a certain point. Tell us how this all came about? 2. So, when you have an idea for a book, what are the steps you go through to get it written? 3. We talk a lot on this podcast about taking techniques from writing fiction to write copy. But we’ve never had someone who writes material as intense as you — and I’m talking about your fiction, although I could be talking about your emails — on here before. Could you share what’s similar, and what’s different? 4. So, your emails are just bolder and more provocative than almost any other I’ve seen. OK, I’ll level with you. More than any other I’ve seen. Have you rewritten the rules for yourself, or, did you just decide a long time ago that there are no rules? 5. Could you give us a few Ben Settle tips for writing emails that get noticed and get response? 6. What do you think gets in the way of most people doing what you teach? 7. What’s next for you — in your copy/marketing business, and in fiction? Ben Settle's WebsiteDownload.

Richard Armstrong is a top A-List copywriter and I’m proud to say he’s my friend. He’s written for all the big mailers: Agora, Boardroom, Rodale, Kiplinger’s, Reader’s Digest, and many others. The late and extremely picky William F. Buckley, Jr. once allowed that Richard’s writing is “terrific.” The legendary Gary Bencivenga called Richard “one of the best copywriters on the planet.” And the great Dan Kennedy simply said of Richard, “I envy his talent.” Gotta agree with Dan on that one. I envy Richard’s talent, too. But envy has never prevented me from having a guest on this podcast. Today Richard’s going to talk about con artistry — and there’s a perfectly legitimate reason for that — as well as some storytelling stuff you’ve probably never heard before. 1. Richard, we’re going to talk a lot about copywriting today, but I want to start by plugging your excellent new book, The Don Con, and ask you just a little about your research for that. Specifically, what did you learn about who con artists are and what they do? 2. I know you’re going to be offering our listeners a free special report, and we’ll talk about it later. Besides your really cool book, I also got the chance to review your special report in advance, and I would like you share with us one of the most astonishing things I read in it: You said that a lot of the techniques, or maybe all the techniques, that con artists use are the same ones we copywriters use. So what are those techniques, and what’s the difference between a con artist and a copywriter? 3. In a former lifetime, I interviewed you for a webinar series and you said something that keeps echoing in my brain, for years. It was that the secret A-List copywriters know, that other copywriters don’t, is about research. Could you talk about the level of research a top copywriter does, and what’s involved? 4. Richard, as a fellow advertising guy, surely you must remember the old ad for Certs: It’s a breath mint and a candy mint. How they packed all that into one mint, I’m still puzzled about to this day. But in your own way, you’ve got a similarly rare distinction. You’re a copywriter and a novelist. Tell us, what do novelists know about storytelling that copywriters don’t know? 5. One of my favorite Richard Armstrong stories is your lift note for Kiplinger’s Personal Finance about your aunt Jane. It, of course, is great storytelling in itself. Here, let me read it out loud so our listeners will be familiar with it: Dear Friend, My aunt Jane is rich as sin. And nobody in my family can figure out why. She worked as a librarian her whole life. Her husband, who passed away a few years back, was a tool-and-die maker. They never earned much money in their lives. But boy, were they ever smart with what they had. There was a little vacation home that they picked up for a song and wound up selling for $250,000. Some well-chosen stocks that grew in value over the years. Mutual funds. Municipal bonds. Treasury bills. Even a vintage Volkswagen “Beetle” that’s worth more now than the day they bought it. Nowadays my Aunt Jane -- who we always thought was just a little crazy -- is a bonafide millionaire! One day I asked her for the secret of her success. “I have three rules,” she said. 1) Never let your money sit idle 2) Never pay more than you have to for anything 3) Never pass up anything that’s free Well, my friend, unless you return the enclosed card today, you’re going to break at least one -- and probably all three -- of my aunt’s rules. Because if you return the enclosed card, you’ll get a free issue of KIPLINGER’S PERSONAL FINANCE (Rule #3). If you decide to subscribe, you’ll get the next 11 issues at a very low price, plus three free bonus gifts (Rule #2). And instead of spending the rest of your life working for money, you’ll put your money to work for you. (Rule #1) I know my Aunt Jane wouldn’t pass up a free sample issue of KIPLINGER’S PERSONAL FINANCE magazine. But of course... She already subscribes. Best regards, Richard Armstrong Could you tell us about this piece of copy? I particularly love hearing you recount how you wrote it -- or how you gave up entirely, and it wrote itself. 6. When you’ve written controls or blockbuster promotions, beside inhuman amounts of research, what are some of the other techniques you use that might be helpful to our listeners, who are copywriters and business owners interested in copy? 7. Finally, your special report: “How to Talk Anyone Into Anything.” Besides the smidgen of your research findings that we talked about in the beginning… tell us about the other research you did writing your new book The Don Con, that led up to this report. And, tell us how our readers can get a free copy of this magnificent free special report! Check Out Richard's New Book Download.

Richard Armstrong is a top A-List copywriter and I’m proud to say he’s my friend. He’s written for all the big mailers: Agora, Boardroom, Rodale, Kiplinger’s, Reader’s Digest, and many others. The late and extremely picky William F. Buckley, Jr. once allowed that Richard’s writing is “terrific.” The legendary Gary Bencivenga called Richard “one of the best copywriters on the planet.” And the great Dan Kennedy simply said of Richard, “I envy his talent.” Gotta agree with Dan on that one. I envy Richard’s talent, too. But envy has never prevented me from having a guest on this podcast. Today Richard’s going to talk about con artistry — and there’s a perfectly legitimate reason for that — as well as some storytelling stuff you’ve probably never heard before. 1. Richard, we’re going to talk a lot about copywriting today, but I want to start by plugging your excellent new book, The Don Con, and ask you just a little about your research for that. Specifically, what did you learn about who con artists are and what they do? 2. I know you’re going to be offering our listeners a free special report, and we’ll talk about it later. Besides your really cool book, I also got the chance to review your special report in advance, and I would like you share with us one of the most astonishing things I read in it: You said that a lot of the techniques, or maybe all the techniques, that con artists use are the same ones we copywriters use. So what are those techniques, and what’s the difference between a con artist and a copywriter? 3. In a former lifetime, I interviewed you for a webinar series and you said something that keeps echoing in my brain, for years. It was that the secret A-List copywriters know, that other copywriters don’t, is about research. Could you talk about the level of research a top copywriter does, and what’s involved? 4. Richard, as a fellow advertising guy, surely you must remember the old ad for Certs: It’s a breath mint and a candy mint. How they packed all that into one mint, I’m still puzzled about to this day. But in your own way, you’ve got a similarly rare distinction. You’re a copywriter and a novelist. Tell us, what do novelists know about storytelling that copywriters don’t know? 5. One of my favorite Richard Armstrong stories is your lift note for Kiplinger’s Personal Finance about your aunt Jane. It, of course, is great storytelling in itself. Here, let me read it out loud so our listeners will be familiar with it: Dear Friend, My aunt Jane is rich as sin. And nobody in my family can figure out why. She worked as a librarian her whole life. Her husband, who passed away a few years back, was a tool-and-die maker. They never earned much money in their lives. But boy, were they ever smart with what they had. There was a little vacation home that they picked up for a song and wound up selling for $250,000. Some well-chosen stocks that grew in value over the years. Mutual funds. Municipal bonds. Treasury bills. Even a vintage Volkswagen “Beetle” that’s worth more now than the day they bought it. Nowadays my Aunt Jane -- who we always thought was just a little crazy -- is a bonafide millionaire! One day I asked her for the secret of her success. “I have three rules,” she said. 1) Never let your money sit idle 2) Never pay more than you have to for anything 3) Never pass up anything that’s free Well, my friend, unless you return the enclosed card today, you’re going to break at least one -- and probably all three -- of my aunt’s rules. Because if you return the enclosed card, you’ll get a free issue of KIPLINGER’S PERSONAL FINANCE (Rule #3). If you decide to subscribe, you’ll get the next 11 issues at a very low price, plus three free bonus gifts (Rule #2). And instead of spending the rest of your life working for money, you’ll put your money to work for you. (Rule #1) I know my Aunt Jane wouldn’t pass up a free sample issue of KIPLINGER’S PERSONAL FINANCE magazine. But of course... She already subscribes. Best regards, Richard Armstrong Could you tell us about this piece of copy? I particularly love hearing you recount how you wrote it -- or how you gave up entirely, and it wrote itself. 6. When you’ve written controls or blockbuster promotions, beside inhuman amounts of research, what are some of the other techniques you use that might be helpful to our listeners, who are copywriters and business owners interested in copy? 7. Finally, your special report: “How to Talk Anyone Into Anything.” Besides the smidgen of your research findings that we talked about in the beginning… tell us about the other research you did writing your new book The Don Con, that led up to this report. And, tell us how our readers can get a free copy of this magnificent free special report! Check Out Richard's New Book Download.

Connaissez-vous les 2 SEULS ÉLÉMENTS que vous devez posséder pour réussir tout objectif ? En plus de ça, il s’agit de 2 éléments facile “à posséder”… Regardez la vidéo d’aujourd’hui pour tout savoir. C’est un des plus grands copywriter du monde, Gary Bencivenga, réputé pour battre, à chaque fois, les “packages contrôles tests” avec ces […]

Ryan Johnson, Head Copywriter at IWT (short for I Will Teach, Ramit Sethi’s company) steps up to the microphone with Kira and Rob for the 53rd episode of The Copywriter Club Podcast. This interview covers a lot of ground, including: •  how after a grueling interview in his car, Ryan failed to get a job with IWT only to get hired a few months later (never give up) •  how to get inside the head of your client so you can speak with his or her voice •  his process for laying out all the moving pieces of a launch, and •  how he maps emotions to his launch plans so customers can’t wait to respond •  the 7 deadly email funnel sins •  two reasons to use long-form sales pages •  the “leap stacking” technique he uses to help his writers uplevel their skill (and what doesn’t work when trying to improve) Plus Ryan shares the “copy levers” that Gary Bencivenga used to get better at his craft, how he avoids writer’s block, and the one thing he would do if he had to start his career all over. Lots of good stuff packed into this episode. To hear it, click the play button below, or scroll down for a full transcript. The people and stuff we mentioned on the show: Sponsor: AirStory Ramit Sethi The Briefcase Technique Jay Abraham IWT AIDA Gary Bencivenga Abbey Woodcock Justin Blackman The Headline Project Kira’s website Rob’s website The Copywriter Club Facebook Group Intro: Content (for now) Outro: Gravity Full Transcript: The Copywriter Club Podcast is sponsored by Airstory, the writing platform for professional writers who want to get more done in half the time. Learn more at Airstory.co/club. Rob: What if you could hang out with seriously talented copywriters and other experts, ask them about their successes and failures, their work processes and their habits, and then steal an idea or two to inspire your own work? That’s what Kira and I do every week at The Copywriter Club Podcast. Kira: You’re invited to join the club for episode 53 as we chat with in house copywriter, Ryan Johnson, about he became a copywriter and landed a job writing for Ramit Sethi, how he tackles a massive launch, capturing the voice of your client, and how long it takes him to write a 50 plus page sales letter. Ryan, welcome. Rob: Yes, welcome Ryan. Ryan: Thank you for having me. Glad to be here. Kira: Yeah, it’s great to have your here, and I think a great place to start is just with your story of how did you end up becoming a copywriter? Ryan: It was kind of a circular process to copywriting. I didn’t even know what copywriting was at the very beginning. My original interests were in film and creative writing, which led me into a delightful career waiting tables. After a few years of that, my first real job was in instructional design, and I was editing textbooks, and building training programs. I actually ended up designing an associates degree in business. I packaged and edited textbooks on business, and economics, and entrepreneurship before I realized that doing that was with no experience was totally crazy. But it was a good baseline. But while I was doing this, I can still remember. I was in the middle of editing this 500 page textbook on economics, which is about as exciting as it sounds, and my wife was working as a creative copywriter, and she was getting paid much, much more than me to edit this glossy one page ad. It looked like so much fun and so much easier than what I was doing. I’m like, “I’m doing something wrong, ‘cause there’s clearly a cap on where I am, and there’s no clap over here.” So shortly after I figured out how I could transition into marketing, into copywriting. It’s been a race every since. Rob: You’re working as an in house copywriter, but what does that look like today? What is the day to day ... How do you spend your time? What are you working on? Those kinds of things. Ryan: Yeah, so with Ramit at IWT / Growth Lab, I am the head of the sales team and the editorial tea...

Show notes In today's show we have deep dive into conversations with Legendary A List copywriter Doug D'anna who shares many powerful insights into the world of direct response marketing. Where he has been successfully cutting his teeth for over four decades as direct response copywriter producing wining controls for major financial newsletter publishers like InvestorPlace, Cabot Heritage Corp, Money Map Press, Forbes, Newsmax, Weiss Research, Street Authority, and Boardroom—companies that together generate hundreds of millions of dollars through direct response copywriting.   So pull out your note pad with pen and take reams of money making actionable notes. Here's a small sample of the actionable content; Model: The best copywriting formats discovered after conducting over 600 split tests (Yep he Gives ya proven winners to bank cashola)... Hear how Doug’s mistaken identity copy story, elevates his status amongst his peers and makes him the go to hired gun copywriter almost overnight Discover why the greatest living copywriter Gary Bencivenga, considers Doug “one of his ablest competitors.” Learn how to design the perfect customer buying scenario adopting “The Bridge to Next Breakthrough Methodology” (This allows you to zero in on the buying triggers for customers). At the 8 minute mark: Doug reveals one of his best kept secrets for crawling into your audience minds and drilling deep to unearth information which aids the sale... How to use the smile and dial method for finding freelance work, highly paid projects or land a dream job (anybody can use this method it’s so simple) Doug reveals what attributes you really count TO be an “A List Copywriter” even if your command of grammar and spelling is lousy. (Very inspiring) Doug retells his unusual back story of how he met ex rolling stone manager as a college student and how it kick started his career as a copywriter. The red flags warning system that can save you time and energy on dead end projects. This simple checklist of questions is worth its weight in precious gold. Success Quote The bridge to your next breakthrough begins on the customer side of the river. How To Connect Web: www.dougdanna.com

In the 42nd episode of The Copywriter Club Podcast, Kira and Rob talk with Casey Slaughter Stanton about his career path and how he found his way into marketing by pushing a lawn mower. Today he runs his own marketing and tech business, and focuses on what he calls “functional marketing”. During our conversation, we asked Casey about his approach to business and working with customers. He shared: •  How you can sell more by selling to only one person •  How empathetic guessing can help you connect better with your customers •  The DOS formula and how it helps him understand his client’s business •  His approach to creating proposal clients can’t say “no” to •  How to qualify potential clients so you only work with the right ones •  What he learned working with Gary Bencivenga and Ted Nicolas (he didn’t know who they were at the time), and •  The “head, heart, and home” questions he asks about each of his clients This one is less about copywriting and more about selling your client on your services and expertise. If you struggle to land more than half of the clients who you talk to about a project, this is a must-listen episode. Click the play button below, or scroll down for a full transcript. The people and stuff we mentioned on the show: Sponsor: AirStory Tony Robbins Tech Guys Who Get Marketing Dr. Marshall Rosenburg Genius Network Joe Polish KOLBE Dan Sullivan StrengthsFinder Gary Bencivenga Ted Nicholas Peter Diamandis Abundance: The Future is Better than You Think Bold: How to Go Big, Create Wealth and Impact the World 10X Talks Strategic Coach Titans of Direct Response Brian Kurtz Parris Lampropolous CaseyStanton.com The Proposal Template Casey shared at Titans Kira’s website Rob’s website The Copywriter Club Facebook Group Intro: Content (for now) Outro: Gravity Full Transcript: The Copywriter Club Podcast is sponsored by Airstory, the writing platform for professional writers who want to get more done in half the time. Learn more at Airstory.co/club. Kira: What if you can hang out with seriously talented copywriters and other experts? Ask them about their successes and failures, their work processes and their habits, then steal an idea or two to inspire your own work. That’s what Rob and I do every week at The Copywriter Club Podcast. Rob: You’re invited to join the club for episode 42 as we chat with Casey Slaughter Stanton about how single proprietors like copywriters can better market themselves, improving the sales process, creating client proposals that clients say yes to, and what he calls city dating. Kira: Hey, Casey. Hey, Rob. How is it going? Rob: Guys. Casey: Hey, great. Great, great to be on, you all. Kira: Casey, a really great place to start would be with your story and since most of our audience has not heard of you before so let’s start there. Casey: Sure. Back in 2008 I graduated from Michigan State University with a Bachelor’s degree in Environmental Policy. When I say graduated, I just did the air quotes because I had to plead to my native American music professor to actually give me a D minus in the class and I think he gave me a D. He even threw me a bone there so I graduated somehow. I was pretty shocked and I hit the workforce and I was looking for jobs immediately after school thinking that I could get into a sales role. What I found was that unemployment was a real big issue and I watch the unemployment stats go from 5% to 6 to 7 to 8 to 9. While I was still looking for a job, they topped out at 10.5% and I was screwed because I had no real experience in anything and environment policy. It kind of meant I could only work in lancing and I just couldn’t survive there. What I was forced to do was move back home with my parents and I took the basement over and picked up a job mowing lawns and spent a whole summer on the back of a lawn mower trying to figure out what I was going to do.

Kim Krause Schwalm joins Rob and Kira to share her thoughts and advice about copywriting. She also talks about how she went from successful marketing director to control-beating copywriter in less than two years. It’s a great story. Along the way she shared her thoughts about: •  climbing the copywriter ladder (and why it’s so lucrative) •  how to stay in control of your writing process •  the copywriting lessons she (re)learned from Parris Lampropolous and Clayton Makepeace • the one thing all A-list copywriters have in common • and why you might not want Kim to make your next lasagna It’s another great interview and look into how a fantastic copywriter runs her business. Click the play button below, or scroll down for a full transcript. The people and stuff we mentioned on the show: Sponsor: AirStory Clayton Makepeace interview with Kim Boardroom Gary Bencivenga Jim Rutz Healthy Directions Ted Nicholas Kim’s L.A. Bootcamp David Deutsch Brian Kurtz Clayton Makepeace Parris Lampropolous Advanced Bionutritionals The Girls Club KimSchwalm.com TheMarketingSuperPower.com Kira’s website Rob’s website The Copywriter Club Facebook Group Intro: Content (for now) Outro: Gravity Full Transcript: The Copywriter Club Podcast is sponsored by Airstory, the writing platform for professional writers who want to get more done in half the time. Learn more at Airstory.co/club. Kira: What if you could hang out with seriously talented copywriters and other experts, ask them about their successes and failures, their work processes and their habits, then steal an idea or two to inspire your own work? That’s what Rob and I do every week at The Copywriter Club Podcast. Rob: You’re invited to join the club for episode 40 as we chat with A-list copywriter Kim Krause Schwalm about writing effective direct response controls, what steps other writers can take now to get a control beater, writing in the health and finance niches, and her ongoing efforts to help other women succeed in the business. Kira: Hi, Kim. Hi, Rob. Welcome. Rob: Kira, Kim. It’s good to talk to you guys. Kim: Hey, it’s great to be here. Rob: Kim, we are so excited to have you here, partly because I’ve known about you for several years. I think I remember reading an interview that Clayton Makepeace did with you a number of years ago, and I’ve followed your career and I know Kira and you have connected recently as well. We’re thrilled to be able to talk with you, but I think where we’d really like to get started is just your story, how you got into copywriting. Kim: I didn’t know copywriting existed as a profession until I was working in marketing for a major publishing company called Philips Publishing. I don’t know if you’ve heard of it, but for many years it was considered one of the powerhouse direct response marketing companies. In fact, it was bigger than Agora at the time. It was up there with Boardroom and Rodale and other major companies in terms of working with the very top-level copywriters, the ones that we all consider legends like Gary Bencivenga, Jim Rutz, Clayton Makepeace, et cetera. I went to work for them back in 1992, which seems like an eternity ago. I actually had had marketing management and brand management experiences with other companies. I had an MBA in marketing and I was just full-bore marketing, but I always could write copy. It was always one of the many hats I wore in different jobs. It was the same story at Philips, but at Philips it was one of these things that was really valued because so much of their business was built on strong copy. A lot of my different roles, I would write copy as well as direct marketing efforts. I ended up, after being there just a short while, I was asked to help them launch their supplement business, to promote supplements formulated by Dr. Julian Whitaker. I helped launch and run that company, which is called Healthy Directions,

In this week's edition of The Next 100 Days Podcast we have a big name form the USA. Brian Kurtz chats to us about direct marketing and his book The Advertising Solution. Brian Kurtz loves direct marketing. For 36 years, he worked with Boardroom Inc selling millions of newsletter subscriptions and books. He became expert in direct mail and lists. He oversaw 1.3 billion pieces of direct mail over a period of 20 years. Brian's whole life is dedicated to educating the next generation of direct marketers. Brian Kurtz told us he had to do a 10-minute talk on direct mail, and asked his son what he could say. The answer was “Dad, that's like 9 minutes, 30 seconds too long!”. The experience Brian Kurtz got working largely in one company is like compound interest. You meet a copywriter, meet with them, get some ideas, meet the next copywriter, work with them and build on that. Then he'd work with a direct mail consultant, learn this, then another, build on that. Everything Brian has done in his life is cumulative. In an interview with Doberman Dan, a copywriter in the US, Brian Kurtz who had worked with luminaries of direct response since 1981. Brian had mentors like Eugene Schwartz (“one of the smartest and most proficient copywriters the world”) and Marty Edelston (who founded Boardroom Inc), and Dick Benson who was ‘the smartest direct mail guy of all time' and Gordon Grossman, who invested the sweepstakes model at Readers Digest. Dan asked Brian “at the time, during those early years, did you think you were doing something that was incredible?” Brian answered that on the one hand he didn't think he was taking it for granted, but he does remember that there was an element of “pinch me”. In the case of Gene Schwartz, he wasn't a list expert, Brian was, so Gene would go to Brian for list information, so Brian was helping him. He didn't know then that the accumulation of these experiences was going to be what it has turned out to be. He didn't foresee himself as being a future educator of direct marketing in 2017. Brian did like to teach, and taught students in his early days. He stressed to students, you must get into this business – it's awesome. You are going to get feedback on everything you do. If your promotion sucks, you are going to know it immediately. If your promotion is great, you are going to know it immediately. Accountable advertising as the Hall of Fame copywriter Gary Bencivenga called it. Great tips: http://marketingbullets.com Brian now has 2 mastermind groups, of the best direct marketers. He has written a book about the 6 legends of advertising – The Advertising Solution (https://www.amazon.co.uk/Advertising-Solution-Influence-Prospects-Multiply/dp/1599185962) and that he is about to write another book about his experiences. Direct Marketing with Brian Kurtz - The Next 100 Days Podcast Brian eulogised about Frank Kern. https://frankkern.com Brian Kurtz is a student of the online world. And studies at the feet of Frank Kern. To his surprise, Brian was invited by Frank to his $50,000 mastermind group in California! Same thing, “pinch me”. A group of the best online marketers were interested in what Brian knew…as Brian said, “pinch me”. Frank's group were eating it up. But Brian did a speech to 400 up-and-coming copywriters last year, and he asked them… “How many people know what RFM is?” About 5 or 6 people raised their hands. So, they don't know recency, frequency, monetary. (If you don't either here is Brian's recent email on the subject, which you'll find illuminating) What is the ONE fundamental every marketer needs to know, regardless of the medium they work in, that is “the fish oil of direct response? That is, what is that one thing that everyonecan apply to everything they do when selling or marketing any product or service that will steer them most powerfully to their best customers, now and in the future? And it came down to three simple letters: RFM

Direct response guru Brian Kurtz joins The Copywriter Club Podcast to talk copy. But interviewing Brian isn't like interviewing most people. He's a bit like a jazz musician who takes your question and riffs on it—sharing all kinds of great stories and advice in the process. You just let him go. In this episode, Kira and Rob asked Brian about his article, The Next Million Dollar Copywriter, in addition to questions about mastermind groups and what baseball can teach us about copywriting (listen to the end of this admittedly long interview for his fantastic answer). This is one of our favorites and once you listen, you'll understand why. Special bonus: Brian broke our record for the most people and stuff mentioned in a single episode. Check them all out. Click the play button below, or scroll down for a full transcript. The people and stuff we mentioned on the show: Sponsor: AirStory Mel Martin Gene Schwartz Parris Lamprolous How to Write a Good Advertisement by Victor Schwab Breakthrough Advertising Bencivenga Bullets Boardroom Marty Edelston Jim Rutz David Deutch Clayton Makepeace Jim Punkre Judy Weiss Joan Throkmorton Kim Krause Schwalm Carline Cole Bill Jayme Dick Benson Gordon Grossman Titans of Direct Response Dan Kennedy Eric Beteul Arthur Johnson Ken McCarthy Perry Marshall Jay Abraham Joe Sugarman Greg Renker Fred Catona The Advertising Solution Jeff Walker The next million dollar copywriter John Carlton’s course You may not know it when you see it Genius Network National Enquirer Dan Sullivan’s Strategic Coach Mariano Rivera TheLegendsBook.com BrianKurtz.me Kira’s website Rob’s website The Copywriter Club Facebook Group Intro: Content (for now) Outro: Gravity Full Transcript: Rob: The Copywriter Club Podcast is sponsored by Airstory, the writing platform for professional writers who want to get more done in half the time. Learn more at Airstory.co/club. Kira: What if you could hang out with seriously talented copywriters and other experts, ask them about their successes and failures, their work processes and their habits, then steal an idea or two to inspire your own work? That’s what Rob and I do every week at The Copywriter Club Podcast. Rob: You’re invited to join the club for episode 22, as we chat with marketing titan and direct response expert, Brian Kurtz, about working with A-list copywriters like Gary Bencivenga and Gene Schwartz, what the next million dollar copywriter will be doing, what copywriters need to know today about lists and direct mail, and what baseball can teach us about marketing. Kira: Hey, Brian. Hey, Rob. How are you? Rob: Kira, Brian, we’re thrilled to have you. Brian: I like those fascinations, you know? Gene Schwarz and Mel Martin and a host of other copywriters would be proud of your teaser bullets. Rob: It might not be quite the level of something Parris would write but we sure try. Brian: At Boardroom, we call those fascinations and it’s something that ... and you mention Parris Lampropoulos, who’s one of my close friends and a copywriter who we made millions together at Boardroom and he has copy cubs that he works with and I believe he still ... One of the first things he does, he makes them read Victor Schwab’s book and makes them copy the first three chapters of Breakthrough Advertising by Gene Schwartz, hand write copy. One of the things Parris does, I think for the first big chunk of time that he trains his copywriters is teaching them how to write bullets, teaching them how to write fascinations. Kira: Interesting. Brian: Don’t worry about the body copy. Don’t worry about the narrative. Don’t worry about the storytelling. Get the copy, get the bullets down. Gary Bencivenga called his newsletter Bencivenga Bullets. It’s sort of like getting the technique down in a way so that you start really thinking like your prospect, what’s going to get under their skin,

Get ready to learn about the power of direct response copywriting from one of the masters of the craft, Scott Martin, founder of Scott Martin Copywriting. He joins me on today's Go For Launch podcast. Scott has been a professional copywriter for his entire career. He was born in America, spent his formative years in England, then moved back to America where he lived in Charlotte, North Carolina for 27 years. He now lives in Aspen, Colorado. He has taken detours into corporate communications, magazine publishing, and writing books but he has always written copy. Today, he’s a direct response copywriter. His clients include direct marketing giants like Agora, The Motley Fool, and Ryan Deiss’s Digital Marketer. But he also writes for much smaller businesses including a local pub. He has helped this small establishment build an opt-in email database of 2,500 people. Scott is a member of the Titans marketing group run by former boardroom executive Brian Kurtz. He conservatively estimates that his copy has generated over $50 million in revenue in the last four years. One of his clients was named the fastest growing business in the Charlotte area by The Charlotte Business Journal. He’s written 17 books, including a book about Caddyshack, published by Taylor Trade. Right now, he’s focusing on direct response copy—plus he just launched two websites with resources for direct marketers and direct response copywriters. Topics we discuss include: How Scott was spurred to become an entrepreneur after being laid off as a corporate copywriter How he decided to write the book and what it was like to track down some of the people who made the movie The basics of the craft of copywriting Specifics of Scott’s specialty, direct response copywriting Why direct response copywriting is critical to selling products and services Scott’s process for engaging with his direct response clients Why testimonials are so vital (“like snow at a ski resort”) and how to improve them Why Scott does not write branding ads and branding copy (and how these differ from direct response copy) The origins of direct response copywriting (in the 13th century!) Some of the reasons why it has remained powerful and effective for thousands of years A timeless example from the Gary Bencivenga, considered the greatest living direct response copywriter Other masters of neurolinguistic programming How to measure the ROI of direct response copy A great exercise to hone your direct response copywriting skills

Three years ago, Dan had no clients whatsoever. He’d never even written a sales letter in his life. Nobody knew his name. Now, he’s written controls for the Motley Fool, earned the respect of legends like Gary Bencivenga and Ken McCarthy, and moved to Hawaii.

In today's episode we talk to the $1.5 BILLION dollar copywriter - Clayton Makepeace. Clayton is an absolute legend in the industry and is now semi-retired, working with just one single client, yet he graciously came on the show to talk to us about how to write world-class copy that increases revenue every single time. This is a must-listen episode! Resources Mentioned awaionline.com Want To Work With Me? Visit http://www.JeremyReeves.com or email me at Jeremy@JeremyReeves.com Enjoy! Transcript Jeremy Reeves: Hey everyone, this is Jeremy Reeves with another episode of a sales funnel mastery podcast and today I have on the line, one of the best living copywriters in the world right now, his name is Clayton Makepeace, and I will let him get into his you know, into his background and all that kind of stuff and who he has worked for, what kind of copy he writes, and all that kind of stuff, but let us just say this, he has made -- he has up to 1.5 billion dollars in sales writing copy which blows me out of the water. So Clayton, how are you buddy. Clayton Makepeace: I am doing good. It is good to be here. Jeremy Reeves: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I am excited to have you. So before we you know, we get into questions and all that kind of stuff, tell everybody a little bit you know, go into a little bit more detail about who you are, who you have worked for, some of the copy you have done and that kind of thing so they can get a good understanding of who they are listening to. Clayton Makepeace: Sure, well, really quickly. I have been writing copy for 43 years, it is about to be 44. I started back in the 70s. I have written for the health industry as well as for financial. I started out in the financial industry and then people (inaudible 1:11.1) and said, hey, we want to start an alternative health newsletter, would you write a promo for it and I agreed reluctantly. So we launch Health and Healing which was the world’s first alternative health newsletter. We sold 2 million subscriptions to that $29 newsletter. Prior to that, I had taken two companies to over 100 million in sales (inaudible 1:42.4) we start from $300,000 a month in sales to $16 million a month in sales in 1 year. Jeremy Reeves: Wow! Clayton Makepeace: And then (inaudible 1:49.7) company from about $20 million a year in sales to $120 million and then I started freelancing again and did the Health and Healing thing for Phillips. Then in the late 90s, I established relationship with Weiss Research and we turned safe money reported to the largest $98 investment newsletter in the world at that time and (inaudible 2:23.4) doing their acquisition program as well as their health style promotions. We just completed one selling high price investment advisory service. The service went for $3,000 and we did 15 million dollars in 4 months on that promotion. So it is a lot of fun, keeps you active that is for sure. Jeremy Reeves: Yeah, definitely, definitely. So that kind of gives everybody a good background that you clearly know what you are talking about after that much you know, that experience and you know, it is a pretty impressive you know resume. So I have a whole bunch of questions lined up for you and I could probably have you on the phone for the next like be in a week and a half straight, but we will kind of keep it within you know 45 minutes or so. So I kind of -- I have some questions some are for copywriting you know, just salesmanship and then the other ones are for basically, I think it is going to help really anybody in the service industry you know, get clients and then also make like maximize the money that they make with clients you know, themselves and for other clients. So let us start with something of the copy questions. So my first one is and this is you know, I know that you could probably talk about this one for an entire day, but you know, when you are researching and you are one of the big things with copywriting and you know, writing any kind of package is the big idea you know, the hook. So what is your process for finding that you know, because there is one big one for each and another is kind of like a couple of mini ones even throughout the packages, but do you have any kind of specific process that you go through with that or do you kind of just keep like researching until it you know, until it hits you or what are your thoughts on that. Clayton Makepeace: Well, usually the hooks come fairly quickly to me. I do not have to -- I almost never do research in order to come up with a hook. I am looking for you know, what is a hook? What is the purpose of it? Right. Well it is something that is going to focus the mind on either the problem that the product solves or on the solution itself, right. So if you are focusing the mind, let us say, in the financial area. You are focusing the mind on the problem well the problem might be an impending crash in the stock market. So that would be your lead. That is where you would be focusing on. You would be explaining why you know this is about to happen. How much people lost last time. How you know, bloody it is going to be this time that kind of thing and you would begin with that. That would be your hook. If you have a product that has a really unique solution, then you might begin with that and that is basically the big promise headline. We have -- we are working at a promotion right now where the profit potential from these investments if you win is like winning a lottery. It is like you know, even that is $10,000, walk away with 10 million dollars. I mean it is just enormous, okay. So, on something like that, you might want to lead with the actual benefit of the product. Also, quite often we will look at the product and I will say, what is a good metaphor and we are talking about the lead you know, how to get in, how to start the conversation. So I will say, what is the good metaphor for what this product does. One of the products I am working on right now, look at it, okay, well this product is like having a rich uncle anytime I need money I just need to call him up and he will send a check or it is like having my own personal ATM or is like having a money tree in my backyard. Anytime I need a little extra money, I just go out and just pick it off of the tree or it could be -- maybe it is like a slot machine that pays off every single time you pull the handle, right. So I came up with a bunch of these metaphors that very quickly focus the mind on the benefit. Wow, could it really be that easy, right, and then it is just up to you to explain, yeah, it can be. Here is how it works. Maybe it could be a story if you have one or it could be constructed or it could be (inaudible 7:05.7) from the news. Anything that your prospect is thinking about -- he has feelings about. So he is worried about it. He is curious about it. He is fearful about it. He is excited about it. So somebody is reading about the elections right now for example that is dominating the news. How are they feeling about the elections. How are they feeling about the various candidates. How can you take what he has already thinking about and insert yourself into that conversation that he is having with himself. So those are just some of the things that I look for when I am looking for a lead. Jeremy Reeves: Okay, nice. What if it say something like you know, because even in the -- I do a lot of work in the like in a supplements base health, the health industry and some of the products that (inaudible 7:54.9) a lot of benefits. So one example is like turmeric you know, it does not just do one thing, it is like it helps with your brain, it helps with you know, metabolism and fatigue and all different kind of things. How do you -- if it is something like that works not just like the one big benefit or one big problem that is kind of like mixed up you know, how do you take a look at things like that. Clayton Makepeace: Well I have done a lot of supplement promotions as well. In fact, I have one -- we mailed 90 million pieces of. It was for (inaudible 8:27.4) for health resources. I have to say that, basically, you stopped looking at the product and you start looking at your market you know, if a particular substance lifts your mood and also prevents heart disease which do you think you should leave it. You know, you are going to leave with a health problem that is shared by the largest number of your people and that is also intense enough to make him want to take action to alleviate it and that is why you know, typically and I know there are some promotion now where brain supplements are starting to work and anti-aging to a lesser extent, but those things have never done as well as because you are talking about things that are not screaming, crying, problems that people have right now, right. So they have never worked as well as the prostate cure, the heart cure, the blood pressure cure, the cancer cure you know, arthritis cure you know, the things have people are dealing with every single day. So I would look for the benefit that shared by the most people and is also intense enough to cause people to want immediate relief. Jeremy Reeves: Okay, got it. That makes a lot of sense. And so you know, speaking of you know, a lot of -- I mean really, a lot of it comes down to or almost everything comes down to understanding who you are talking to you know, so I am sure you have some kind of process for doing the research, understanding the market, understanding the product that you are selling, all that kind of stuff. Do you have like a structure way of doing that or you kind of just start you know, dig in somewhere and then see you know, where it leads you or is it something like you do this first then second you know, how do you -- Clayton Makepeace: I do not have to worry about that too much anymore because I am focusing on the financial market and so you know, I learned decades ago who these people are and I have got a pretty good handle on that. It has not changed much over the years, but for example, when I went in to the health market for the first time it was like 1990 and I was doing my first health promotion and I say, well I do not even know who these people are you know, there bunch of -- (inaudible 10:48.7) you know, obsessed with their own health and so I did not share anything in common with those folks and so I went to the bookstore and I went to the aisle with all the books on various aspects of alternative health and I started looking at the chapter titles. The titles of the books and also the chapter titles and I figured out you know, which ones were the best sellers and so again, you know, the people I am going to be talking to are the people who made these the best sellers, right. Then I went to the news rack and I looked at the alternative health magazine like prevention and others and all other world health magazine and I looked at the various covers that they had and you know, I knew from friends of mine that did work for (inaudible 11:48.6) had several covers for prevention magazine each time it went out and so they had years of research on what kinds of articles (inaudible 12:01.7) on the cover that sell the magazine. Jeremy Reeves: Okay. Clayton Makepeace: So you know, by looking at what -- again, by looking at what my prospects are reading I got some really good cues as to who they were and what would get them and then also you can go to the Standard Rate and Data Service which is (inaudible 12:23.2) 30-pound book (inaudible 12:25.9) can get it all electronically, but Standard Rate and Data Service, you can look up all the competitors of your client. You can also look up your client and you can find out what the people bought in order to get his list. Then finally, you go to your client you say, hey look, show me what has worked in the past. Show me what has not worked in the past. Show me the most effective or successful promotion in any of your competitors are using and show me some (inaudible 12:58.1) that they put out there.” And all of that is -- not just a cue to what is working, it is a clue to you know, who your market is and what will get their attention. Jeremy Reeves: Okay, got you. So at this point you know, you have your -- you understand who you are talking to, you have the lead, you have the you know, the headline, the big idea all that kind of stuff so then you know, you kind of write the package. How about the offers? That is an area that I found that a lot of people do not put enough attention on you know, and I have worked with -- I worked with I mean everybody from you know, people kind of just starting to work with the 12-figure company right now. And a lot of -- I have done a couple with like infomercial kind of products and when I worked with them, I noticed that like 80% of their thinking at least goes into exactly what the offer is going to be you know. So when you are putting these packages together, how do you put an offer together including you know, the bonuses, the price point, even the names of the products, things like that. Clayton Makepeace: There is a lot there. Mainly the products for example, we are not selling Campbell suits so we do not have to you know, naming strategies are very different in the retail space than they are in the directors (inaudible 14:14.3) because in the retail space, the whole idea to come up with the name that will stick in someone’s mind so the next time they are at the store maybe they will remember your product and buy it, right. Very tenuous. (inaudible 14:28.0) direct response (inaudible 14:29.1) very nervous with that kind of nebulous, tenuous connection, but that is what they are doing you know. They are just trying to get a name that will stick in your brain. In our promotions, the name of the product quite often does not show up until 2/3 of the way through the promotion you know. We (inaudible 14:49.6) third of the promotion capturing the guys attention getting him to read. The next they are telling our story and the final (inaudible 14:57.2) presenting our solution which is a product. So the name of the product is less important to us; however, whenever I may name a product I tried to get a benefit into the name and I try not to worry about it being too descriptive. For example, I am working on something right now, it is a service that helps you invest in small mining shares, right. A gold mining companies that are very small and the stock is cheap. They are called Junior Miners. You know, somebody wanted to call it Junior Miner, (inaudible 15:39.0) something like that, right. Well that is descriptive, but there is no benefit there and also there is too much information. The word junior makes me think that maybe the service is not worth that much so you know, because I do not know if you are really -- if junior is modifying miners or if you know, describing a service you know, it would be quite simple to just drop it and say, Mining Millionaire you know, we are gold mining millionaire. Now you got gold because you know that your market is extremely excited about gold. Mining which is descriptive. We are not you know, we are not buying bullion we are buying money shares and millionaire which is the benefit, right. So I tend to look at it that way for (inaudible 16:31.3). The author needs to write -- if you are a freelancer though your client has already spent hopefully hours and hours on author and comes to you with a product that is fairly well conceived and (inaudible 16:46.4) comfortable with based on their own testing and their own track record. So that is usually good, but I always encouraged writers if you see something that you think can be improved, talk to your client about it because they love that. They feel like they are getting something extra other than just copywriting. I just had a situation where they gave me a product per month and I said, I absolutely hate it and they said, well, we are going to do it anyway and I said, well, okay, and I just turned to one of my junior copywriters and I said good luck buddy you know, this is your project and then probably should say this, well, actually Clayton, we are hoping you would write it. So I said okay, you know, I guess you know, if that will make you happy, I will write about it -- tell you right upfront this really sucks. And so the first thing I did was I changed the name of the service (inaudible 17:42.4) was I changed the focus of the service and the next thing I did was I changed the offer. It was the buy 3 years kit, 5 years offer. I changed the guarantee -- basically, I did not have to promote the service that they told me to promote because I completely changed it into something that it was not (inaudible 18:01.4) to promote. Jeremy Reeves: Nice. Clayton Makepeace: So when you see opportunities like that, take them you know. In terms of the author, basically you are just looking to create as much value as you can. We have a fairly standard template in the newsletter field. If you subscribe to 1 year, you will get 1 or 2 special reports and a premium. So you are connected with the subject matter at hand, and if you take 2 years, you will get 3 to 4 additional reports and the reports are given a value and so you know, the best offer you get you know, I just wrote 1 week at $700 in free gifts and discounts and so in terms of the price of those newsletters basically the industry will said the price for you because you are competing against other newsletters and so you know, you look around and you will say okay, well $29 seems to be what I am competing against. We can always have up or down from there, but that is kind of the industry standard. With pricing for premium service products, the price is directly related to the profit potential of the advice that you are given. So if you are doing an income service where you basically promising them that you will double their yield and they will get 6% instead of 3%. You can charge $5,000 a year for that because unless they got a couple of million dollars that they are investing you are not generating that much money for them. So you know, your price is lower, but if you got option service or a warrant service that has (inaudible 19:40.7) you can demonstrate of 2%, 3%, 4000% per trade. Now you are talking of service where you can charge a lot more money and the other variable course (inaudible 19:53.0) some of the service is we have to limit the number of people that can get in because of liquidity problems and so we you know, we will limit 500 or 1000 people, with that limit it is just (inaudible 20:08.9) to raise the price. So those are just some of the things that we look at in terms of offer. Jeremy Reeves: Okay, yeah, got you. So how about for buyers, it is kind of another you know, another area that I see -- huge mistake that a lot of people make typically online you know, people they call themselves you know “online marketers” you know, they are all focus on getting the lead you know, getting the first customer then they kind of forget about the buyers which is obviously a giant mistake because that is where all the money is you know. So what about buyers, you know, you write all these promotions to get people, I mean, you know, they are both first time buyers and then repeat buyer promotions, but do you have anything in place any specific examples that you can think of where it was a very structured approach like you had a package that was specifically meant just to get a first time buyer and get them in the door and then you had something that went on or hold sequence that went out to then get them you know, to kind of you know, opt in to the higher level packages. Clayton Makepeace: You know, for some really good stuff on that you should talk to Todd Brown. I can give you his contact information. Jeremy Reeves: Oh, yeah, (inaudible 21:18.4). Clayton Makepeace: Okay, so Todd is really great on this but you talked about funnels and yeah we have -- if you buy a product from us, let us say you come in as a lead and your response is something on Americas 10 best (inaudible 21:36.6) right. It is a special report, so you read the report and you opted in, you come to a squeeze page so we have your email address, but you do not buy anything okay, so you come on to our (inaudible 21:50.4) well there is a 7-week funnel process that you are about to go through as a new lead on our funnel. The first week and it is really interesting because first we assumed that you are (inaudible 22:09.0) because you like the product that you are looking at, but you just did not buy it. So we come back to you with a better offer and then we try another product along those same lines and then we will try something wildly different. And something else wildly different. Each week is a week long campaign where we -- with a deadline because a deadline is the most powerful tool you got online to get people to act. So 1 week campaign aimed at moving you into one of these products. After 7 weeks you see that the totality of what we have available for you. And there is a very good chance you will obey the purchase. If you come in having bought a product you will also get a funnel designed to introduce you to (inaudible 22:59.4) and introduce you to other products so we could basically cross sell you. You come in on a $29 newsletter, we can cross sell you to another $29 newsletter or we could push you all the way up to a $3,000 trading service, and it is amazing. Some of these people come in for $29 and their next purchase is $3,000. Others come in at $29 and they will buy another $29 and another $29 for God knows how long so that is on the low end of the scale. It is a wide end of the funnel, right. The leads that come in and the first time buyers of low price product. So funnels are the answer there and Todd is great because he automates and does all kinds of fancy stuff and he can be working with us on our stuffs too. The other thing is will you buy a high price service. It is a complete (inaudible 23:54.6) deal. If you just spent $3,000 with me I am not interested in selling you another product right now. What I am interested to doing is making absolutely sure you do not exercise the money back guarantee because you know I sell 15 million dollars worth of products, half of those people cancel I am out 7 million dollars, 7.5 million. So you know, it is very important to me to get you to consume the service and to experience some winners and so the funnel there is not aimed at making a sale at all, but is aimed at getting you to participate to engage with the service, to consume it, and so very different kind of approach. Jeremy Reeves: Yeah, definitely. I call that a personal coach campaign because you are kind of taking them through like you know, just getting them to use the product, get a result from it that kind of thing. I love it. Clayton Makepeace: Exactly. Jeremy Reeves: Alright. So how about -- I have a feeling that we have similar thoughts on this, but what are your thoughts on writers block. Clayton Makepeace: Yeah. I do not ever have it, I used to, but over the years I have developed an approach to writing so that before I ever have to sit down and do the hard work of actual writing I have something that approximates the rough draft, but I did not have to write you know. So I go to the process of outlining you know, I will sit down -- let us say you give me a product, right. And the first thing I need to do is read the product profile. Identify the benefits and any unique selling proposition. You know, a lot of our products will have benefits that are common with other products that hopefully some of them will also have unique benefits that no other product has so I am looking for that and then I asked myself several questions. First question is what must my prospect believe in order for this product to become absolute mandatory for him to purchase. What must he believe in order to make this a mandatory purchase for him. The second question (inaudible 26:13.6) identify 2 or 3 things maybe 3 or 4 things. My next question is you know, what must I say to him or show him to make him believe those things without a shadow of doubt and that is my researcher question, right. You know, what chart do I need to show. What quote do I need from the famous person. What do I need to show him to absolutely nail down you know, that this is a mandatory purchase. Then I got this Ryan Deiss we were on the phone the other day with my mastermind group and Ryan is a real cool guy. I love the way he thinks and he said, he likes to sit down and basically draw a word picture of his prospect before he uses the product and after he uses the product you know. Basically this is -- and you can use it just like that in your copy you know. In fact, I did it once with the (inaudible 27:18.9) product where I showed this guy reversing his own heart disease and canceling his appointment with the heart surgeon you know. In picture 1, he is on the bed at (inaudible 27:30.9) and in picture 2, he is out dancing (inaudible 27:33.6) or something. So you know, you have this before and after picture. How is this product going to change your prospects life. How is it going to bring value to his life. How is it going to change him as a person. And then finally the final question I asked is what is he worried about, frustrated about, angry over, or excited about right. What are the things in his life that have him feeling these emotions. There are typically -- what I am looking for here are topical things, news, things in the news you know, because this is how I am going to get his attention. You know that old national anthem (inaudible 28:22.9) you know (inaudible 28:24.8) the word sex and then underneath it just said, now that I have your attention and then you know, it told you what was in the magazine. That is a very effective technique for what we are doing, not quite that blatant. I am doing a campaign right now for example that has to do with credit spreads, right. What could be more boring than credit spreads, right. So how did I start the engagement process. Well, I looked around and I said what is that everyone thinking about right now. What is everyone have their (inaudible 29:00.7) right now, the elections, you know. If you are republican, you hate other republicans because they vote for Cruz and you vote for Trump, you know. If you are a democrat, you hate republicans and you hate other democrats that are supporting Hillary if you (inaudible 29:17.5) support. So you know, everybody is up in arms over the elections and so that is all anyone is thinking about, it is all in the news. So instead of starting my campaign talking about credit spreads, I started out by doing a survey and asking people to tell me who is going to win the election you know, who is going to win this nomination, who is going to win that nomination. And then over time, and I said I will give you my prediction (inaudible 29:44.7) in the meantime I want (inaudible 29:46.7) from you. Like that is the conversation started that way but then later when my analyst said you know what he was predicting. His prediction was you know what, it does not matter because this thing which I named the golden red show, is credit spread is already determined that we are about to go through 4 years of hell in this country no matter who is president and so now is my transition into the product. You know, that is how you use this topic (inaudible 30:23.7) to get their attention. Now that was a stretch usually you do not have to go through that much of a stretch but that is an example of a stretch. So that is it, and I take those things and I create a strategy document and I create an outline for what I am going to write then I say, what is the (inaudible 30:44.3) do we need here in order to make this point and that because my research request. And now I sit down ay my computer and I have got this completed outline with all of the facts and figures in it and it is time to start writing. Jeremy Reeves: And you are already 80% done? Clayton Makepeace: 80% done. You are right, you know. So now you just have to turn it into a conversation, simple, you know. Jeremy Reeves: Nice, I love it, yeah. I actually -- I like how you kind of laid it out like what do they have to believe you know and then how do you, you know, what do you have to say to have them believe that. I love that. I am going to start using that actually. That is good. Alright, so moving into a little bit more of the business side of all this. I have a couple of things in here for people who are on the service side of thing, but then also you know, also clients who are hiring people like us you know, so what do you see -- I am trying to figure how to say this, when you are -- actually you know what, let us start with this one. When you are working with clients and they complained about people they are hiring you know, contract or service providers, copywriters, marketers, things like that, what are some of the things that they, that kind of you know, piss them you know, that pisses them off a little bit about people they are hiring you know, taking away the results and all that kind of stuff because that is you know, you kind of get the result or you do not. But you know, in terms of like the working relationship you know, what are some of the things that you see clients not particularly enjoying about working with copywriters. Does anything come into mind. Clayton Makepeace: Yeah. A lot of things. I am a client you know, I have gone to a point where although I write copy every day, I also hire other writers every day and I have got a staff 3 in-house writers. We also hire freelancers. So I see it all the time. I think the first you know, the first thing is, this is not my first -- this is my first rodeo. So do not try blowing smoke at my ass you know. It is physically impossible if 3 grandmothers all die while you are in this process you know, or you know, 6 grandfathers to get hospitalized still you cannot make your deadlines. If you are struggling, if you need help ask for it. If you do not understand your assignment, if you have questions ask them you know. It is a sign of intelligence you know. It is a sign that you thought this through, you thought about it and you have some valid questions. I am working with Eric Patel right now. Eric is a great writer. One of the top guys in health industry and every once in a while, he will work with me on a financial project. Eric is just, he is great that way you know, he is very intuitive, but there is no question he would not ask. The other thing is you know, communicate, if you are going to blow a deadline, that is fine. You know, Gary (inaudible 33:54.9) once said to me you know, I hired him to do a project, but I asked him when I am going to expect the first draft and he says, Clayton, my man, he goes the heartbreak of a blown deadline, has quickly forgotten in the warm blow of the new control. That is so true you know, but just do not be working on somebody else’s project and you know, we are doing -- not working on my project and putting me off. At some point, I am going to give you a kill if he did not tell you (inaudible 34:30.1) call me again. Another mistake that probably the most -- 2 mistakes real quick and then we can move on. The first mistake in copy that I see all the time is just (inaudible 34:46.4) or a disconnect between the product or the problem that you are talking about and the solution that you are offering you know, this happens a lot in the financial field. It would happen a lot less in the health area, but in the financial field it happens a lot (inaudible 35:05.8) with some like the elections that their backend is all about something else and there is no connection whatsoever. There is no transition. There is no way that these 2 have halves of this puzzle fit together. The other one is copywriters who will just simply make grand sweeping statements and expects the prospect to believe them you know, (inaudible 35:37.7) your prospect is not an idiot, she is your wife you know, and so you treat your prospect with respect. If you are going to make a statement as hard to believe, back it up. If you are going to make any kind of a statement that is key to them making the purchase, back it up you know, and respect their intelligence. Do not -- you know, read it critically. One of the hardest things for copywriter to do, you are in love with your copy, you just spent a month on it (inaudible 36:11.5) The hardest thing for you to do is to read it as a critique would, as a scenic you know, read it and say, oh, bullshit every other line you know, and ask yourself how can I make this absolutely believable. Jeremy Reeves: I actually -- sorry I cut you off. Really quick, I was listening to an interview, I think it was David Doidge, I might have that (inaudible 36:35.6). Clayton Makepeace: We are having dinner with David tonight. Jeremy Reeves: Yeah, so you could ask him if he said it. It was a couple of weeks ago, I think I forgot, I listened to all kinds of stuff. I think it was him though and he was talking about the amount of benefits to put in a package and he said, he was saying that sometimes you can have too many benefits because it dilutes the big promise that you are making you know, and I love that and he said a lot of people the mistake they make is saying you are going to get you know, A, B, C, D, E, F, G you know, all the way down to Z and then they do not back up each individual one with you know, with proof and he said that actually because you know, even like little -- it kinds of adds up if they do not believe a tiny a little bit it is like okay you know, I will keep going, but then if you say 10 things and you are not backing up 10 things then they are like alright, this guy is bullshit you know. Clayton Makepeace: Absolutely. Think of the situation where you have the one main benefit that you really focus on your entire package and then in one section of a copy you say, oh by the way you know, users have also recorded the following: Bullet, bullet, bullet, bullet, right. But they are pushed way down. You do not have to believe those things in order to buy, right. The whole reason to buy the product is that one major reason you have upfront. Jeremy Reeves: I love it. So working with clients, I know you have always been huge on doing you know, (inaudible 38:03.7) deals, royalties, things like that you know. How do you go about structuring it with the client. I know in most of the area that you have worked with that is kind of you know, (inaudible 38:15.1) and all that. That is kind of like what they do you know, so they are used to that, but if you are going after somebody who they were not in that world like it was a new thing to them you know, how do you go about approaching them with (inaudible 38:28.8) hey, I am going to write this for you for X dollars, it will take you know whatever 8 weeks or whatever it is you know, how would you kind of position the pitch to get a royalty from it or some kind of (inaudible 38:40.3) deal you know, something beyond the one-time fee structure. Clayton Makepeace: You know, Jay Abraham did this with the IcyHot. It is actually a little well -- it depends on the kind of (inaudible 38:55.9) you are talking about. If you go to a work for Agora they already have a royalty program all set up. They know what their use (inaudible 39:02.6) you might be able to negotiate up a little bit if you have a super hot hand, and they really want you, but pretty much, they have a standard royalty rate you are going to pay. When you go to somebody that is not used to paying royalty or does not used to hire any copywriters, then you can do what a friend of mine did once. He just simply said, look, I am going to give you two choices in terms of how to pay for this, you could cut me a check right now for $25,000 and I write this or you can cut me a check for $5,000 now and give me 10% of revenues, if it works, right. So you know, most of these people are not that bright frankly and they are going to say, I am sorry but it is true, they just instinctively in a knee-jerk manner will go to the lower cost today. They will go to the $5,000 you know, but I had a project once where I had 10% revenues and for 30 days work I got paid 2 million dollars. So you know, I mean it is a -- and Jay Abraham made like 20 million on that IcyHot deal, you know. So you know, I like that idea of giving him a choice. One time I even went so far if you you know, every once in a while maybe 5 or 6 times in a lifetime if you are lucky, you will come across this guy with a kick butt product who does not have the first clue about marketing and he knows he has got a great product and he just cannot figure out why nobody is buying it, and you can go to him and -- you only do this if you are absolutely sure, but you can go to him and say, man I tell you the truth, I would pay you to (inaudible 41:08.2) and write this, but here is what I am going to do, I am going to write a promotion and I am not going to charge you a penny, but I want 10% or ask for 20% you know of the revenues and negotiate down from there. So you know, either give him a choice or let him pick the one that is going to end up making you the most money because it is less money out of pocket for him upfront or I mean use that -- I ended up with a 5 year client out of research publications by making that offer to Johnny Johnson back in the 70s. I said, you know, your (inaudible 41:45.2) I can really kill it, you know, and I tell you what, I am going to write a promotion for you, if you promise to mail it, test it, I will write a promotion for you and if it works, you pay me my normal upfront fee and my royalty, if it does not work, you pay me nothing and it is like a no brainer. Jeremy Reeves: Yeah, definitely. I take it you know, if I was hiring someone and they said it to me. I think that is you know, I think you -- kind of just have to look at that as you know, what would I you know, what would be a no brainer it is almost like putting together an offer just for a product but you are doing it a service you know. Clayton Makepeace: Exactly, and think if you are talking to somebody, you put yourself in a client’s shoes. You talk to somebody and they show that kind of confidence you are going to want to hire him. Jeremy Reeves: Yeah, definitely. Alright, so we are kind of coming up on time here. So let us do two really quick questions. This first one might take a minute or two and then the second one is a really quick one. So the first one is, if you look back over your career you know, it is now spanning you know, whatever it was 46 years or whatever it was, if someone was you know, kind of in the beginning stage of that or you know whatever the stage of that and you were looking back over your career and there were like 2 or 3 big things that you know, held you back that you can help somebody to kind of not hit those road blocks you know, what would they be and let me know that -- that question came out a little bit weird, let me know if that was clear. Clayton Makepeace: Yeah, I think you are asking what would I ask if I was you know, -- Jeremy Reeves: Yeah, exactly. Clayton Makepeace: Well, the cool thing is you know, today, there is 9 million people out there well I would not overstate it, but today you have access (inaudible 43:37.8) good copy coaches, right. So back when I was getting started (inaudible 43:43.4) was my copy coach. I was brand new, he is a little older than me. He was already established and so I heard he was a good writer and I figured out who he was writing for and I subscribed to their publications and so I started getting all his great direct mail pieces and I would run you know, run at the mail box grab at one end and get my scissors out, I start cutting them out. I had a book for headlines. I had you know, I outlined a piece so -- it was amazing how consistent his outlines were. And I would look at the subheads, I look at every part of the author. I would memorize it. I never would steal anything but you are internalizing all of the stuff so the next time you write something is there. You get what he is doing right without doing anything verbatim. So that was how we had to (inaudible 44:37.5) and then my buddy, Gary Halbert, came along, Dan Kennedy came along, AWAI came along and Gary Bencivenga with his Bencivenga bullets. All of these guys are there to help and so you know, you got to take advantage of this. This is like it is a gift from (inaudible 45:03.0) from heaven you know, that you got these writers who have done great things in their careers and they are willing to help you. The questions that I would have had would have been pretty much the ones that you have asked me today. The ones about how do you connect with your market. How do you organize your promotions. How do you avoid writers (inaudible 45:29.4). How do you structure an offer you know, all of those things, and it is amazing when Mike Palmer came to visit a couple of weeks ago and we have drinks and Mike is a guy that wrote End of America for Stansberry. He sold 750,000 subscriptions after that one video sales letter and you know, just to talk to my -- and we were just sharing, well, how do you do this, how do you do that and our approaches were so different, but I learned from him and I think he may have learned a little bit you know, from me. In fact, one time, Mike called me up and said, can I just come to your office and sit in front of your desk for 2 days. I just want to -- I do not want to talk, I just want to watch you work and I said sure you know. So you know, he did that and like I said earlier, we have a dinner with David Doidge tonight, your friend (inaudible 46:31.9) to get his career started. All of these people have slightly different approaches to how they do things (inaudible 46:39.6) will sit down and write 350 fascinations before he starts writing a copy you know, and you can learn from each of them. So you know, I guess what that boils down to his networking you know. Spent time with other writers. Go to the American Writers and Artists boot camp every year in October. You will meet 500 or 600 other writers there. Join a mastermind. I have got a mastermind group. We had a couple of group members and we all share secret Facebook page plus we have webinars every month. So you are constantly (inaudible 47:16.0) each craft plus you can show your copy to other people, other copywriters give (inaudible 47:24.5) so you know, networking is very, very important. It is a gift that we have today and you take advantage of it. Jeremy Reeves: Definitely. Fully agree. Absolutely. Alright, so the final question is and you can throw out as many as you want, one or twenty or you know, whatever kind of pops in your head, but what are some of your favorite copywriting or marketing books, because a lot of times you know, some of the best copywriting books are not you know actually copywriting books you know, so besides any of your own stuff obviously you know, because I have gone through them and they are just ridiculous (inaudible 47:59.1) amazing there, but you know, any kind of you know, normal books. What pops in your head as kind of must reads for people either learning copywriting or just marketing you know selling in general. Clayton Makepeace: Well, you know, I kind of find I guess because I am an old guy you know, when I read modern day books, current day books, and copywriting, they seemed to me (inaudible 48:23.0) regurgitation of what Claude Hopkins wrote, what John Caples wrote, what David Ogilvy wrote, what (inaudible 48:33.5) wrote, what Eugene Schwartz wrote. Those are the guys -- I was speaking last year at the boot camp for AWAI and American Writers and Artist and I asked a question, how many of you have read Tested Advertising Methods, and maybe 10% of the people in the room raised their hand. Now these are people who just spent thousands of dollars to go through a conference on copywriting and they had read the masters, you know, blows my freaking my mind. You can go to a library, get this book for free and read it and it is pure gold, right. So again, Caples, Hopkins, Ogilvy, Eugene Schwartz anything by Mark Ford too, more modern day, Mark is absolute brilliant guy. Ready, Fire, Aim is awesome. He wrote copy logic with Mike Palmer, is also awesome. So you know, that would be my advise you know, to go to those guys and read all of the masters first and then start building up what they already knew what 100 years ago, 50 years ago. Jeremy Reeves: They figured it out a long time ago. I cannot even imagine what they could do if they were alive now with all the you know, split testing, so easy now and all that kind of stuff, it is just (inaudible 50:06.0) brilliant, but yeah, I totally agree. For anybody listening, if you know, they were a lot of things for (inaudible 50:12.3) so I will -- I will put all of my favorite books which are basically the same ones into the show notes so you can go and I will have the links to all of them and all that kind of stuff so you do not have to worry about remembering all the different names. You just click on the link. Well, hey, Clayton, I really appreciate you coming on. It was really fun for me. I was really looking forward to this interview as a copywriter myself. You are kind of a you know, you are one of the legends you know, so it was an honor having you on. Before we hop off you know, what can people do to find out more about you, get in touch you know, wherever you want to -- wherever you want to send them. Clayton Makepeace: Well, you can contact American Writers and Artist Institute. You can go to their site, awaionline.com and poke around, looking for me. If you cannot find information on my mastermind group you can always send an email though to help you out. Also, ask them about August, I am going to be doing an intensive, I think it is going to be in Denver and the point of this intensive is basically speed writing, I am known as one of the fastest copywriters out there and I am going to take for 3 days, I am going to take a group of 50 writers and we are going to -- I am going to teach them my method for creating really great sales pages in a week or less. So check that out too. Jeremy Reeves: Sounds fun. I am going to check that out myself actually. Sounds good. It was -- again, it was a pleasure having you off and we will talk to you soon. Clayton Makepeace: Alright, take care. Thanks for having me. Jeremy Reeves: Thanks.

Join us with our guest, Ty Cohen who really just wants to help you build your passive income stream…and is ready to prove it.  Very generous with his advice, Ty shares with us his secrets for generating a TON of revenue through selling ebooks on Amazon.  Learn from this entrepreneurial master, who overcame some pretty major obstacles early on, but turned those challenges into an incredible (and profitable) ebook empire. - 4 Incredible Facts To Create A Passive Income Stream With An eBook Business - 4 MORE Things To Guarantee Your eBook Gets Completed - How Amazon's Sales Ranking “Really” Works - 4 Proven Strategies For Promoting Your E-Book Ty Cohen is an accomplished publishing expert, internet marketer, personal development coach, mentor, internationally known speaker, former morning talk show radio personality (WCLY1150 Raleigh, NC) and author who over a decade ago, took a major gamble with his life financially by quitting his corporate job and starting a business of his own. That business soon became both an offline and online successfully generating millions of dollars in sales and totally transforming Ty’s life as well as the lives’ of countless others in just a few short years. Over the last 11 years, Ty has taught tens of thousands of individuals how to successfully market, promote & sell their books on Amazon’s Kindle Direct Publishing Platform using the very same system that allows him to generate upwards of $50, 000.00 a month with KDP publishing. You'll learn his simple formula for turning life’s obstacles into life’s financial opportunities that will enable you to effectively reach your personal and/or business goals. Using a unique combination of tested and proven methods and resources, Ty’s goal is to educate and empower individuals just like you with the tools needed to operate a successful business both on and offline. After creating millions of dollars in sales and successfully working with thousands of clients across the globe, Ty decided to take his expertise global and has created or consulted with thousands of individuals and businesses around the world helping them to find that missing piece that would allow them to create lasting success in both business and life.   “Either you accept the fate that was handed to you or you make an unwavering decision to create the one you want.” Ty Cohen How did Ty Turned His Major Life Obstacles Into An EBook Empire of Greatest Success Ty is an accomplished publishing expert, an internet marketer, a personal development coach, a mentor, an internationally known speaker, a former morning talk show radio personality and an author who took a major financial gamble by quitting his corporate job to take a huge step by starting his own EBook business.  You might say that “success” is his last name. However, you’re wrong. Like most of us, he did not start out as a success right away. It is actually the opposite. He was born in one of the nation’s most crime ridden towns, where gang wars and drug related crimes exited daily. Ty was also born with a rare, chronic life threatening blood disease called Sickle Cell Anemia. His Doctors even gave a prediction of a life expectancy of only 17 years. At his early age, death was already a reality for him. However, his mindset is different, he took these obstacles as his life motivation to change his destiny. And, he did not fail. Ty soon learned that life is what you make it, “Either you accept the fate that was handed to you or you make an unwavering decision to create the one you want.” 4 Incredible Facts To Create A Passive Income Stream With An eBook Business Ty became very successful by having a passive income stream, through his E-Book Business. However, during the time that he was just starting, he actually attended different types of marketing and business seminars, which in the end, just gave him all the same information. He found that either the main focus of these seminars were just to sell their products or the presenters were just good at speaking but didn’t really know what they were talking about. These meetings led him to his ultimate and unselfish goal, and that is to help people who have the same mindset as him to become successful by giving them genuinely helpful information that they can use. Ty’s 4 Essential Steps To Creating eBook Success Ty wants you to experience the same success that he has experienced, and you can start by following his essential Top 4 Success Tips; Research - If you want to become successful, you have to spend time to study the business. Research and find out what people really want, what is selling and what is not. If you want to use the Amazon platform, it is very important for you to check the Sales Rankings all the time, Sales Rankings should be the foundation of your decision. Create the actual E-Book - Once you’re done with your research, it is time to create your e-book. On this interview, he gives a few great tips on writing an e-book; An E-Book Doesn't have to be long. Don’t pressure yourself too much. Spend more time with your headlines. If you have a great headline, make sure the content of your e-book matches the headline. A reminder from Ty: Amazon normally reviews all e-book published on their site. They will check if the cover, title and the headlines of your ebook matches the main article. If not, your sales ranking will greatly suffer. Don’t spend too much. Create a checklist and have a plan. Ty’s strategy; if your ebook sells minimum of 10 copies, then selling 1000 copies is easy to achieve. However, if it sells less than 10, then leave it as is, but don’t invest anymore it advertising it. Outsource. Hire an e-book/ghost writer, graphics designer, etc. to take care of your ebook cover or the contents of your entire ebook. Publish your Ebook to Amazon. Amazon’s goal is to become the biggest online bookstore, so having your book published on it, is the first major step you need to take (after completing your ebook). Monitor your sales. Monitoring your sales is important because business is all about sales. As a business owner you should be aware of your strategies and if they are working, whether your sales are increasing or decreasing. If you stay on top of those really important points, you’ll have available solutions and more options that otherwise you would not know.  Pay close attention and you will have the chance to have an early response to any sales problems that may come along. What Is The Amazon Sales Rank Guide? Every product on Amazon that has ever been purchased includes a sales rank on its product page. Now you, who wants to sell your EBook on Amazon will ask, What is sales ranking? The sales rank is a number with 1 to 8 digits. And below are the guidelines (from Amazon.Com): The better a product sells at Amazon, the lower the sales rank number. The best selling product in a category has a sales rank of 1. The worse a product sells at Amazon, the higher the sales rank number. If a product hasn’t sold for several days, its sales rank will likely be in the millions. If a product has never sold on Amazon, it won’t have a sales rank. Different editions of a product (like hardcover, paperback, and Kindle books) each have different sales ranks. Every product page has its own sales rank. Sales ranks are different in various categories. For example, books, Kindle e-books, software, and office products each have different sales ranks. Books have overall ranks and also specific ranks within subcategories. Ranking #1 in books overall is much, much better than ranking #1 in a specific subcategory. Authors, publishers, marketplace sellers, and many other people and businesses use sales rank data to help judge how well their products are selling. They also study sales ranks to help predict how well a product may sell and to help decide whether or not to sell a particular product on Amazon.Know more about Amazon Sales Ranking by clicking here. Ty Shares His Top 4 Proven Strategies In Promoting His E-Book. How Many Are You Not Practicing? Turning an Ebook business to an empire is not easy. However, Ty mentioned that it is not all about hard work. Business success is about having a rock-solid strategy, a strategy that will generate continuous income and year-round profits. Read below for Ty’s Top 4 proven success strategies. Don’t spend a lot of time and money unless it is going to sell. This is one of his essential tips now turned into a strategy. Ty seriously advises to never throw away your money and don’t invest unless you are confident that your E-Book will sell.  A lot of entrepreneurs jump in immediately to all the steps of promotion, without testing first if the product is selling or will sell. Translate your ebook to different languages. Now that you’re sure that your ebook will sell. Consider now investing toward translating your ebook into another language (most common is Spanish). This will not just expand your market reach but will also increase your sales. Create a audio book. Creating an audio book is another way to reach other markets. There’s a lot of people who are not fond of reading an ebook or don’t have time to read, they are always on the go and would like to read a book by listening to one. Create a physical book. Like Ty’s wife who is not an avid fan of Kindle, or ebooks -- she loves reading physical books. These are traditional readers or sometimes called “digital natives”, who love how a book smells, they like scribbling in the margins, underlining interesting sentences and folding a page corner to mark a place. If you don’t have a physical book then you’ll instantly lose this market. An Irresistible Offer That You Have To Grab --Now! Ty has a program called Kindle Cash Flow in which he will share with you his entire system. This means, he is going to share everything. His promise, whether you’re someone who’s totally new to this business, like the way he started or maybe you’re someone who may have a few kindle e-books and they’re not just selling the way you anticipated --  If you are someone who has always wanted to create serious, passive income from your very own eBook, then this is the program for you. Ty’s program will tell you everything that he learned and studied about this business.  With his program, he will show you how he earned more than $10k per month! Ty’s program is an awesome place for total beginners, where you can get answers to all of your questions and even get regular updates for the latest in trends and strategies. For anyone who's listens to the Social Media Business Hour, Ty will give you 50% off the original retail price. So what are you waiting for, Grab Ty's Offer NOW! [content_toggle style="1" label="Click%20Here%20To%20Read%20The%20Entire%20Transcript%20Of%20The%20Show" hide_label="Hide"]Ty:                   This is Ty Cohen from kindlecashflow.com and I’m here with Nile and Jordan for a social media business hour and today I’m going to show you, your business partner, spouse, kids, family and just about everyone else how to create a passive income stream by publishing digital eBooks on Amazon.com. Let’s go. Woman:          In business and know the way forward most include social media. Perhaps you find it a bit confusing. Even frustrating. Well, you have no idea how to make it work for your business. Fear not. We interview some of the best social media experts in business who will share their experiences, ideas and knowledge. Plus offer tips and tricks to make using social media a breeze. Leverage the power of social media and grow your business now. Welcome to social media business hour with your host Nile Nickel. Jordan:            Hello and thank you again for joining us. This is Nile’s trusty sidekick and co-host Jordan and I’d like to take a moment to share with you how you can benefit from Nile’s incredible experience using social media for real business success. If you’re an entrepreneur or thinking about starting your own business then using social media might be the most cost effective and time effective way to get your business real results. That’s not to mention much of what you can do to get those terrific results on social media is even free. Take Linked In for example. Nile always says it’s the best social media platform for business today. And that’s why I recommend you go to linkedinfocus.com and start your social media education today. Sign up for Nile’s free tips, tricks and strategies. Once again, it’s free and it only takes a few seconds. Go to linkedinfocus.com today. You’ll be glad you did. Nile:                 Jordan, it’s not very often that we have the opportunity to have a guest on that is a former radio personality. Jordan:            Yeah. That’s true. That’s true. Nile:                 And Ty -- you probably don’t know this. Ty Cohen is joining us tonight. You heard that from the tease folks. Whenever I do a bio or an intro I don’t just read it. I do it very interactively because I think reading it, that’s just boring. I’m doing this long introduction for you. I’m going to do a long introduction anyway but we’re just going to have fun with it. We’re going to do it interactively so I want to ask you. You’re a former radio person. Where were you at, what did you do? Ty:                   I was actually on a business talk radio show here in Raleigh, North Carolina and I was invited to co-host the show and I did it for about a year as a way of just stretching myself, right. And getting out of my comfort zone because prior to that I was just this totally introverted guy and I said you know what? this would be something that will not only help me but it will help other individuals by me being able to share some information so I did that for about a year and got it out of my system and that was that. Nile:                 And nothing wrong with that. I haven’t got it out of my system yet. Who know? I might but everybody says I like to talk too much anyway so I’m not sure if that will be the case or not. Ty:                   You might be fake introverts. Nile:                 Yeah. Well, no. I think I’m more of an introvert in person and better behind a microphone which is quite the opposite for a lot of people. Ty:                   Awesome. Nile:                 Well, Ty is an accomplished publishing expert, an internet marketer, personal development coach, mentor, internationally known speaker, former morning talk show radio personality and an author who took a major financial gamble by quitting his corporate job and starting his own business and that’s a huge step. That’s a scary step. Jordan:            Yes, it is. Nile:                 So kudos to you Ty for that. Ty:                   Absolutely. It’s so scary but it actually took me three years to quit that job. The security of my job. Three years after I had created my business and I was doing well I still wasn’t mentally secure enough to say let me leave this thing. Nile:                 That happens to so many of us. It really is amazing so I’m glad you’re sharing that with us because I know we all struggle with that and some people just don’t like to admit it so I know that as we talk about it here it’s just absolutely encouraging to all of us that we hear something like that, that we’re not alone in this journey. But I know over the last 11 years since you made that transition you’ve taught tens of thousands of individuals how to successfully market, promote and sell their books on Amazon’s Kindle Direct Publishing Platform and we’re going to be talking about that a lot and I know that all of us are interested in that so I can't wait to hear it but before we get into that, I was reading a little bit of your background and one of the things that jumped out at me immediately was you really said you should’ve been dead by the age of 17 and so you’re really grateful and surprised that you’ve made the transition and been as successful as you have. That caught my attention so tell us about that a bit. Ty:                   Absolutely Nile. I actually had two obstacles going against me. Probably more than that. Two major ones, right. I was born with a disease called sickle cell anemia and just to give you a short on it sickle cell anemia is actually a blood disorder that affects people of African American descent, people from India, couple of folks from Italian -- not Italian. Italy, from Sicily. And I lost a sister to the disease when she was 27 years old and it’s one of the most painful things that you can ever experience. As a kid I spent weeks and sometimes months in a hospital, Yale New Haven Hospital in Connecticut where I’m from and it was during one of these stents in the hospital -- I had been in a hospital for six weeks and outside of my bedroom door, my hospital room door I heard my doctor tell my mom as clear as day Mrs. Cohen, you shouldn’t expect your son to live past the age of 17 because this disease is going to kill him. And I was about 10 or 11 years old at the time and it just stuck with me. To this day I can just -- I can still hear those words, I can still literally see, smell and just feel everything that was taking place in the room. So that’s how much it was cementer in my memory. About two years later my sister had died and as I said she was 27 when she had died and it was just -- out of eight siblings it was just her and I that have this disease, that we’re born with it. so by that time when she died I was 15 and I’m really -- I’m just totally shaken up because I’m still thinking about what the doctor said and I hear my sister had passed away from it and on top of that we didn’t grow up in the best neighborhood. We actually grew up in the worst neighborhood. Now, when you think of Connecticut you’re probably thinking that there couldn’t be any such areas, a bad area in Connecticut but during this time we had the highest crime rate in the nation and we were second in the murder rate in the nation behind Louisiana. So I thought that either I would die from a disease or I would die like so many of my friends at the time, young friends who were in their teens that were dying just from gangs and drugs and just all the other elements that come with growing up in the hood. So that was -- and as you said, when I hit 18 I said wow. This -- okay. Well, maybe there’s a difference here. And it was a few things that lead up to that shift in my mindset that got me to say this is not going to be my destiny. There’s other options for me. Nile:                 Yeah. That’s really inspiring. I know it touches me. I’ve had friends that I’ve watched deal with that and it is scary because you just don’t know. And I understand things have gotten better but I’m not sure. Is that true? Ty:                   Health wise, yes. Absolutely. Things have gotten better and my neighborhood has changed big time. It’s done a total 360, right. Health wise I have not been in a hospital for two years now. Nile:                 Wow. Ty:                   Whereas before I would be hospitalized let’s say every six months. Nile:                 Wow. Ty:                   And the difference is knowing how to cope with things and knowing how to condition not only your mind but your body and how to better understand -- how to train yourself to eat so that your body accepts certain foods and then is able to use those foods to help nourish itself and also to avoid things like stress and just a few other things that can promote a sickle cell anemia attack. Nile:                 That is absolutely -- that’s great to know and I really appreciate you sharing that with us. I have to ask you and we may have just got some insight into that. we’re going to talk about obviously your success with Kindle books and what you’ve done and all of that and I think that’s outstanding but with all of that, I always like to know what’s your big why, what is your reason, what has motivated you to teach so many people how to become successful and you’ve been doing it through publishing eBooks on Amazon but what’s that bit why? Ty:                   The biggest why for me is probably twofold. Number one, because I want to be able to give someone -- my goal has always been to give people genuine information. Okay. when I first got started with marketing in general one of my first businesses was an offline business where I would sell old Disney windups and GI Joes from the 60s and 70s and things like that and I didn’t have the resources at that time so I would literally take the bus to downtown bridge port and visit the library and pick up copywriting books by guys like Gary Halbert, Gary Bencivenga, Dan Kennedy and just read everything that I could on marketing. So there was no YouTube, right, at that time. There was no Google, there were no -- there were probably seminars but at that time I wasn’t aware of them. Probably couldn’t afford them. So it was a long process for me. And then as things got a little bit better as far as my understanding of being able to go out and get access to resources I started to attend different seminars and events and a lot of the seminars and events that I attended and even spoke at -- excuse my French but a lot of it was BS. I mean, the presenters would sell information that really was a bit outdated or it didn’t work or they had no true knowledge so I said if I ever get into a position to be able to teach people I have to make sure that if I get up on stage or if I get in front of a group or if I get in front of an audience that I can teach those individuals the same information that I would be comfortable with teaching my mother, my wife, my daughter, my son. So I don’t ever want to be in a position where I have to just sell something just for the sake of making money or to present something to someone that is not something that I am legitimately doing. So that’s my why right there. Nile:                 And that’s a great why. That actually is much more than I know we expected so I appreciate that. It gives us great insight into obviously why you’re doing things and what your motivation is. So let’s jump into it just a bit here. And we haven’t talked a lot about eBooks so I want to start real basic. I talk about eBooks and I throw the term around. You probably do as well but I know not all of us do that and so just so that we’re all sort of on the same page -- no pun intended since we’re talking about eBooks. But since we’re all on the same page, tell us what your definition of an eBook is. Ty:                   Yeah. Absolutely. An eBook is just a digital version of anything that you would want to have more information on or anything that you would want to use to be entertained so just like you would pick up a book, a physical copy of a book like Think and grow rich or the Alchemist or whatever it might be. A Millionaire’s notebook. Those are physical versions but now digital versions -- because of companies like Amazon and even Apple and Barnes and Nobles is even in the game, right. But because of companies like the companies that I just mentioned digital books are becoming more and more popular. So much so that they actually outsell physical books. I was reading a -- there was a piece by Jeff Bezos who’s actually the CEO of amazon.com a couple of years ago and at the time he said that eBooks were outselling physical books two to one. Two to one. And it just shows you the direction that we’re going in which is similar to the direction that the music industry went in, right. Before we used to primarily listen to music in physical formats. We had eight tracks. I know I’m dating myself, right. We had vinyl records, we had cassettes and now how do we primarily listen to music or audio books and things like that? In a digital format. And we’ve got our iPhone, we’ve got our iPod, we’ve got some type of a mobile device that we’re listening to music on and the same thing now applies to books. If you look at individuals at an airport they probably have a Kindle device or some type of a mobile tablet, right. Like an iPad or an iPad mini and they’re just consuming eBooks and they’re reading their eBooks on these devices. So that’s where we’re at. Nile:                 As we end the first segment here we’re getting ready to jump into this in a more heavy way so I want you to join us into the next segment. But in the next segment we’re going to talk about how to create an eBook. Obviously we’ve talked what they are. Let’s talk about how to create them. Join us in the next segment. Jordan:            Hello and thank you again for joining us. This is Nile’s trusty sidekick and co-host Jordan and I’d like to take a moment to share with you how you can benefit from Nile’s incredible experience using social media for real business success. If you’re an entrepreneur or thinking about starting your own business then using social media might be the most cost effective and time effective way to get your business real results. That’s not to mention much of what you can do to get those terrific results on social media is even free. Take Linked In for example. Nile always says it’s the best social media platform for business today. And that’s why I recommend you go to linkedinfocus.com and start your social media education today. Sign up for Nile’s free tips, tricks and strategies. Once again, it’s free and it only takes a few seconds. Go to linkedinfocus.com today. You’ll be glad you did. Nile:                 Hey, thanks for joining us once again. In the earlier segments we got to know Ty Cohen a bit and we talked about what is an eBook, what motivated Ty and if you haven’t listened to that we absolutely need to go back and listen because it was a great foundation there. But Ty what I wanted to talk about in this segment is -- we talked a little bit about the eBooks and we understand the transition. How do we go about creating an eBook because that sounds like it probably has some special formats and special process. What’s the process you teach people to go create an eBook? Ty:                   Yeah, absolutely. So there’s actually several different ways that you can create your eBook and it depends on what you’re after, right. And I want to step back for a moment just to briefly, quickly explain why you would probably want to go about creating your own eBook. Amazon who right now is the planet’s largest book store has done something amazing for authors, writers and just individuals who are looking for a way to create a passive income stream. And what they’ve done is they’ve created this platform called the KDP platform and that’s short for Kindle Direct Publishing platform. Now what Amazon has allowed you to do is now they’ve allowed you to take your written material, your content, turn it into an eBook, a Kindle eBook more specifically and make it available to all of their customers, their Kindle readers. And it’s just a great time to be able to go out and do a little bit of research, find out what people are after and create an eBook that will provide them with a solution to a problem that they’re looking to solve or actually even entertain them, right. If you’re looking to go in and create a fiction eBook. So the process for creating an eBook is to -- if you go in the nonfiction realm and nonfiction sells incredibly well especially when you’re creating how to titles. How to create a rose garden. How to go in and redo your back patio. How to buy a car. How to sell a house. If you’re creating a how to title the first thing that you would do is to go in and do some market research and you do that by going on amazon.com and typing in a few keywords that are related to the topic that you’re thinking about publishing your eBook on. And then just go out and take a few minutes and look at some of the eBooks that are selling. You can always tell those that are selling because you’ll see where they’ve got a good number of reviews and then you’ll see where their sales rank is -- it’s lower than 20000. So if you scroll down to the left you’ll see a sales rank number and if it’s lower than 20000 then that’s a good seller. The lower of a number, the better of a seller it is. So that’s the first step is to go in and find out what people actually want because you don’t want to create something that they’re not -- that’s just not going to sell, right. Nile:                 Absolutely. But I’d love to stop you because I didn’t understand something there. Ty:                   Absolutely. Nile:                 But you mentioned it and I’m really interested. What is the sales rank number? How is that derived? I’ve never seen that so I’m unfamiliar with it. I know I’m not alone. Ty:                   Absolutely. So Amazon has this algorithm that they use and basically depending on how many units your book sells, your eBook sells a day it will be assigned a sales rank. So if you’re selling -- let’s say if you sell a 100 copies a day which is a pretty high number for someone that’s just starting out, right. So don’t get your hopes up high here if you’re listening. But if you’re selling a 100 copies a day then they’ll assign you a sales rank of about 1500. Alright. That will be your sales rank. If you’re selling like 75 copies a day then you’ll have a sales rank of about 2000. And these numbers are not set in stone because it changes from time to time. But that’s how they calculate their sales rank there because Amazon literally has millions of products that are sold from their site. And it’s just a ranking system. Nile:                 So it sounds to me like the sales rank number is how you’re ranking of all the sellers on Amazon. Ty:                   That’s right. That’s it exactly. Nile:                 Okay, okay. I could understand that. Ty:                   And it becomes a game. You do things to help promote your books and to get your sales up and it’s just really exciting. So we were talking about -- I think your question was how do you go in and create your content so -- Nile:                 Yeah. And you were talking about the market research which is where we got on the sales rank and I interrupted you so we’ll jump in. Ty:                   Good question. Nile:                 We’ll jump back in together and go through the process now. Ty:                   Alright. Awesome question there. So now if you’re going in, you found a topic that you want to go in and publish your eBook around. Let’s say you want to publish an eBook on how to create your -- how to increase your energy levels throughout the day. So the next thing would -- you have two choices. You can either go in and write it yourself, right. Now, when I say write it yourself, some of the individuals that are listening right now may be thinking I don’t have time, I don’t have three, four, five, six months a year to go in and write an eBook. Well, here’s the good news. Your eBooks don’t have to be long. I find that some of the bestsellers are eBooks that are 40, 50, 60, 70 pages. In fact, I never publish anything that’s more than 75 pages. EBooks traditionally of this sort especially nonfiction are shorter than what you would normally find in a book store. They’re shorter than what you would normally find in a physical book so you don’t have to go in and pet 200, 300 pages. So that’s the good news especially if you’re writing this. The other option of getting your eBook created is to hire someone so to hire a ghost writer. Now there’s several different outsourcing sites that you can use to go in and hire a ghostwriter and usually for 50 to 60 page eBook I’ll pay about 150 dollars to have someone write that eBook for me. You can find a ghostwriter on sites like eLance which is E-L-A-N-C-E.com or Guru which is G-U-R-U.com and then there’s another site called Upwork U-P-W-O-R-K.com that I like to use. And I’ve actually hired dozens and dozens of ghostwriters to write eBooks for me over the years, over the last five years actually of doing this and the beautiful thing about this is it’s a win-win situation so you have people that are on these sites that love writing, that are awesome researchers, right. That are great when it comes to grammar and punctuation and spelling and all of the stuff that I’m terrible at and you pay them and they provide you with a finished product. So it’s -- like I said. It’s an awesome win-win. Nile:                 I know. I’m drooling at the process. I’m drooling at the process. So we were then talking about after we sort of get the content created, then what? Because I know that there’s some format stuff that goes on but I don’t understand all of it so -- Ty:                   Absolutely. So once you go to kdp.amazon.com if you’re listening right now you might want to write that down. kdp.amazon.com. That’s Amazon’s -- that’s actually where you can go in and sign up for your Kindle publishing account. It’s free. They don’t charge anything to go in and sign up. once you’re in you’ll see that there’s an area where you can actually upload your eBook so in most cases, nine times out of 10 you’re going to have your finished product returned to you in a Microsoft Word format. Okay. On some of the same sites that I mentioned, you can also go in and hire someone to format this eBook for you. Amazon has specifics when it comes to formatting and it’s -- there’s a ton of different things that you can do as far as formatting. You can upload the Word document as is which I don’t recommend or you can go in and hire someone to format it for you which is very inexpensive. It’s about 20 bucks to do so. You can also find folks on Fiver that will do it for you for about 10 bucks. Fiver is F-I-V-E-R.com and on that site you’ll find folks that have actually formatted hundreds and thousands of eBooks so very specialist in formatting. And the formatting, I actually -- I don’t do myself. I wouldn’t do it unless you have a good amount of time. I would also outsource that as well. And then once you have it formatted the other thing that you’re going to need is a cover. You can find a graphic designer on any of the three sites that I just mentioned as well as on fiver.com as well. And the covers are not expensive either so you can get this entire thing done for just about 200 bucks. Now, the beautiful thing about that is once you make it available on Amazon if it’s a seller because not every single one will be a home run but you can create a monthly residual, recurring income stream. I have eBooks that I published four and a half years ago that are still generating me income every day to this day. So that’s a bit of a process. The first thing is step one, go in, do your market research, find out what people actually want to buy, what they want to learn about, what they want to read, in what ways they want to be entertained. Step two is to go in and create the actual eBook and you can write it yourself or you can go in and outsource it which I would -- I prefer to actually outsource it. And then step three is to actually go in and after you’ve had it formatted, you’ve had your cover created, go in and publish it to your Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing account. And then the next thing is to watch the sales roll in and that’s where the addictiveness of it starts to kick in because for the first three years of me doing this -- I’m not so bad now. I went to a couple of meetings. But the first three years of me doing this, I would literally get out of bed in the middle of the night, login into my Amazon account, hit refresh to check my sales and I’m just looking at the sales coming in and it’s a beautiful thing to wake up in the morning and you’ve made money because someone over in the UK or someone in Australia has purchased an eBook that you’ve made available for sale. Nile:                 I have to ask you Ty. Do you mind if we get really personal? Ty:                   Let’s do it. Nile:                 Yeah. I’m curious about two things. The first thing is the most money you’ve made from an eBook. That may be too personal of a question so if you want to give us a vague answer that’s fine. But I’m curious about that because you’ve told us sort of the process and the investment. So let me ask that question. Ty:                   So I’ve got an eBook right now. One single eBook that makes me about 4200 dollars a month. Nile:                 That’s not small change. Ty:                   No, it’s not. And again, I want to put a disclaimer out there. Not every eBook will do that because I also have some that make me about seven bucks a month. But once you do this and -- the key is the research, right. That’s the key. The key is to find out what people want and then the second thing is to not overcomplicate the process. It really is -- now, there’s a few things in between each of those steps but it really is as simple as doing the research, having your content created and then publishing it. And the reason why it’s that easy is because you’re dealing with Amazon. Amazon is a multibillion dollar company and if you think back to when Amazon first got started. Their initial goal was -- do you remember what their initial goal was Nile or Jordan? Nile:                 I really don’t. Jordan:            I think it was just to sell books. Ty:                   It was to sell books but it was to become the world’s largest book store. Jordan:            Oh, that’s right. Ty:                   Okay. And you can't do that alone. Like you can't do that with just the published authors that are out there and just the folks that are submitting manuscripts so the way you do that is if someone over there is really smart -- I don’t know if it was Jeff Bezos or if it was sort of his cabinet members, right. But someone said why don’t we just open up our platform to anyone that has content? Nile:                 I love this and I know that we’re going to learn a whole lot more about this. This is where you need to hang around, go with us to segment three. Jordan:            Hello and thank you again for joining us. This is Nile’s trusty sidekick and co-host Jordan and I’d like to take a moment to share with you how you can benefit from Nile’s incredible experience using social media for real business success. If you’re an entrepreneur or thinking about starting your own business then using social media might be the most cost effective and time effective way to get your business real results. That’s not to mention much of what you can do to get those terrific results on social media is even free. Take Linked In for example. Nile always says it’s the best social media platform for business today. And that’s why I recommend you go to linkedinfocus.com and start your social media education today. Sign up for Nile’s free tips, tricks and strategies. Once again, it’s free and it only takes a few seconds. Go to linkedinfocus.com today. You’ll be glad you did. Nile:                 Ty, you’ve been blowing us away with all you’ve told us and I understand that some of your books -- you said it’s as little as seven bucks a month. I suspect some of the books it’s as little as zero but you’ve also encourages us where you’ve had some books that have been making thousands a month. Ty:                   Absolutely. I went from nothing to 50000 dollars on average. Now I do between 40000 to 50000 a month especially during the holidays. You’ll see those numbers shoot up. And it’s been a journey but it’s something that if you get involved and you stick with it and you make that first sell. The first sell is all that’s required. Then you’ll see the possibilities. Jordan:            I’ve got a question for you. Actually, I have two for you Ty. Ty:                   Let’s do it. Jordan:            Early on in segment one you mentioned picking up some marketing books and then you went about mentioning as far as I’m concerned the holy trinity of direct marketing Gary Halbert, Gary Bencivenga and Dan Kennedy. We didn’t stop Ty by the way to let our listeners know what kind of huge gold nugget that is right there. I mean, we want to talk about using anything that those guys read as a bible. I do that all the time. I think those are incredible, incredible copywriters. My question is do you -- how much of their influence do you include when you are actually building the actual content of your books? I mean, they’re sales copywriter guys and I think most people without really knowing who they are and what they’re about they’d say okay. Well, great. You can use them to sell but can you really use their techniques and their strategies to actually write the content? I’m curious. Ty:                   And that’s a great question. I love that. No one has ever asked that so I can tell that I’m talking to someone who really loves marketing, right. And I love that. But as far as the actual content, no. I don’t use any of their techniques to write the content. But where I do use their techniques is in writing the title for my eBook, right. Because your title has to be something that’s attractive, it has to be something that stands out to a degree without being just totally overblown. It has to be something that answers the questions that your prospects are subconsciously asking themselves in their head, right. when we’re looking at these eBooks on -- when we’re looking at something on Amazon or when you’re just shopping in general online you don’t know this but you’re looking for something specific and it’s the title or it’s something about that item that you click onto and you ultimately buy that has grabbed your attention. So it might be the title, it might be a description and the description is basically sales copy so that’s where I’ll use a lot of these principles. In the title and then in my eBooks’ descriptions. I’ll go in, I’ll use bullet points, I’ll use some of the _____42:31 principles. Attention, interest and things like that. And then I’ll just talk about how the prospect is going to feel after they’ve read this book, what can they accomplish, what can it help them with. So you start to inflict those emotions. You get the emotions involved there so if they’re at the point where they say okay. This is definitely what I want. And then you’ve got to back that up by making sure that the book actually delivers on what you’ve written in that description, right. what you’ve written in that sales copy because if not Amazon has this amazing review system where if your book doesn’t match up to what’s written in the description you’re going to get negative reviews. But if it does match up you’re going to get positive reviews and the more positive reviews, the more sales you’re going to get because people are going to look at those reviews and they’ll say this is awesome. This is what I’m looking for. Most of my purchases when I buy on Amazon -- I bought a USB extender today and I bought it based off of the reviews. It had like 3000 four and a half star reviews and I’m like this has to be good. Jordan:            Man, that’s great. All of that is just solid, solid great advice. So speaking of sales copy and how you actually write your description I’m curious and maybe I’m jumping ahead a little bit Nile. I’d like to know how you promote your books. Ty:                   So here’s the things. I don’t put -- and I want everyone that’s listening including you and Nile -- Nile and Jordan. I don’t put a lot of time, I don’t put a lot of money into any one eBook unless I know it’s going to sell. So with that said, I don’t go in and market and promote them until I see where I’ve gotten at least 10 sales. Alright. Because at that point, if I get 10 sales I know that I can get 10000 sales. It’s just a matter of me making it available, me making more people aware of it. Jordan:            Wow. Ty:                   And that’s it. And then what I’ll do is I’ll go in and start using some Facebook advertising and that’s probably -- at this point that’s the most what I do. And I actually just started using Facebook advertising about a year ago. Before that it was all internal. I mean, all of my sales just came directly from Amazon because Amazon -- they’ll promote your eBooks especially if it’s something that’s selling. If it’s something that has a demand you’ll see where -- and you guys have probably noticed this, right? When you go to Amazon, you buy one item and it’ll say people who purchased this item also purchased -- so Amazon will start to promote your books and that way they’ll send folks that buy eBooks that are of similar content, emails and they’ll say we noticed that you purchased this book. Here’s something else that you might be interested in. so up until last year I really didn’t do any marketing outside of Amazon. Nile:                 So do you currently work exclusively with Amazon? Do you use any of the other eBook publishers or do you just stay with Amazon? Ty:                   Great question. I do. I actually do publish to Barnes and Nobles NOOK platform and Smash Words as well but that’s only again after I’ve gotten 10 sales. Can I share something with you that I think will be pretty beneficial to your listeners? Nile:                 Oh, absolutely. I mean, we’re all hanging off the edge of our seats waiting for it so yeah. Ty:                   Awesome. So here’s the process, right. Again, I said I don’t like to put time and too much money -- I’m a -- I hope this doesn’t offend anyone. I’m a black Jew. Alright. My name is Ty Cohen. Alright. So I hustle like hell and I save like hell. Alright. So the black part hustles, the Jewish part is the saver, right. So I like to make sure that I’m not just throwing money away and I think everyone that’s listening should do the same thing. So with that, you don’t put a lot of time, a lot of effort into this stuff until you know that you’re going to get a seller. Now, once you get 10 sales, right. And I like to say 10 sales within a one month period. That’s pretty lenient because it takes time for your eBook to get into the system and for it to get visibility. But once you get those 10 sales then you can open up the floodgate. Alright. The next thing I do is I start promoting it using Facebook ads. And again, I’m very, very cautious with how much money I spend, right. I’ll set my daily budget to about three bucks initially a day. I’ve made a mistake of setting my daily budget to a 100 bucks, 200 bucks a day when I first started and it was just a nightmare so you don’t want to -- I’ve made the mistake already. Just don’t follow my path in that regard. The next thing I’ll do is once I start to get about a 100 sales, right. I’ll have the eBook translated into other languages so Spanish, right. I might have it translated into French and there’s a few other languages. But I always start with Spanish first. And then the next thing I will do is I’ll then have it turned into an audio book version and you can make that available on Audible and that’s a whole another call. And then the next thing I do is I’ll use Amazon’s sister company which is called Create space and I’ll turn an eBook into a physical book. So now, why am I doing this, why am I turning it into an audio book, why am I translating it into Spanish and why am I turning it into a physical book? Because if you have the interest in new digital book, you best believe that there’s folks that are Spanish speakers and they don’t know how to read English, right. And they want to buy that book too but they just can't because you’ve just made it available in English. You best believe that there’s folks like myself who -- I’ve got about 400 audio books on CD that are around here that drives my wife nuts because I just don’t have the time to read physical books, right. So if you don’t have an audio version of it then you’re losing out on those folks. If you don’t have the physical version of it, you’re losing out on folks like my wife who just loves to read physical books. She won't read a Kindle book, right. And I know a lot of this can sound like it’s a lot and it could be overwhelming but each of these steps are actually very easy to do. You can do each of these in a day, right. And it’s just an awesome way to continue to add onto those income streams. I would never have an eBook that’s selling and is doing well without adding the other components onto it because it’s just -- you’re just missing out on money that’s just sitting there for you to take it. Nile:                 That sounds like when you’ve found where the fish are and they’re biting you want to make sure you put more lines in the water and give them more things to bite on. Ty:                   I love that. That’s exactly that. I’m going to steal that and I’m going to use that as Ty Cohen original. Nile:                 Ty Cohen original inspired by -- there you go. Well, I appreciate that. I’ve looked at a number of links that you have on your website and your website will be shared out on our social media business hour page as well as our Facebook page. It’s episode 120. But you’ve got a lot of great things. You’ve got great training, you’ve got some YouTube videos and all of that that we will also share links for. But I’ve got one final question I want to ask because we’re getting close to Halloween. A lot of people are going to listen to this right at that time or maybe even over the Halloween holiday. Do you do seasonal books just out of curiosity? Ty:                   I do not. Nile:                 So that’s something you don’t do. I know some people that have been successful with that. I was just very curious. There are people that specialize in that. Ty:                   Yeah. There are. And there’s a lot of money that could be made in seasonal books. I mean, the Christmas stuff, the cook books and -- I mean, it’s just a ton of things that are out there, right. But so I don’t publish books that deal with fads, right. And I don’t publish books that are seasonal because I want to make sure that the effort that I put in is going to generate me year round profits. Nile:                 I love that. I love that. All the way around the year. Ty:                   That’s right. Nile:                 Well, I know that you’ve got a special offer for us. We’ll have the link shared up for the special offer. Just go to socialmediabusinesshour.com remember again this is episode 120 where you’ll find all the details but share with us this great special offer you have. I can't wait to hear. Ty:                   Absolutely. I have a program called Kindle Cash Flow in which I share this entire system. I mean, I share everything. Whether you’re someone who’s totally new to it the way I was when I first got started or you’re someone who may already have a few Kindle eBooks that are up and they’re just not selling the way that you anticipate them selling or if you’re someone that’s even more advantaged and you’re already doing well. You’re making five, six, seven, 10000 dollars a month doing this. This program that I put together has actually taken everything that I’ve learned, everything that I’ve studied and it’s just totally, totally just one package. And why I put this together. When I first put it together I said to myself -- my daughter as 14 at the time. She had just turned 14. And I said I want to be able to structure this thing in a way that my daughter Maya -- that’s her name, Maya. Would be able to take the course and without coming in my office and bugging me and saying dad, how do I do step six, how do I do step seven. Be able to take the course and follow along. So you get to actually look over my shoulder and you watch on my screen as I do things and you see what I do and why I do it. The rhyme and reason behind it. So I put this course together in that manner so that Maya could take it and get results and it’s actually worked. I’ve taught it to just literally thousands and thousands of people. We actually have close to 700 members in our Facebook group, our private Facebook group for members only and we’ve got folks in there that are doing 20000 dollars a month. I’ve got a guy Darren Devery who’s one of my students. He’s -- Darren’s about 67 years old. I’m really proud of him. He’s from Perth from Australia and he’s just killing it. And then we’ve got folks that are just total beginners that have just come on board and they’re just finding their way. And it’s an awesome place to come in and ask questions and get updates when things are updated. So with that said, that is the entire program and for your listeners, for the social media business hour listeners I’m going to give anyone that wants it 50 percent off of the original retail price that I normally sell this program for. Nile:                 Man, that is absolutely awesome and really we can't thank you enough Ty. You have shared just extremely valuable content and I know that I’ve learned a whole bunch. I know that I’m not alone so I want to thank you for joining us but to the listener, I want to thank you too. Hopefully, you’ve learned a few new ideas or concepts, maybe you were just reminded of a few things you already know but you haven’t been doing to improve or grow your business. Our desire is that you take just one of the things that you learned or were reminded of today and you apply it to your business this week. We know that a small change can make a big difference and I’m committed to bringing you at least one new idea each week that you can implement. So go back and identify just that one small change that you can make and see what a big difference it will make for you. So until next week, this is Nile Nickel. Now, go make it happen. Woman:          Social media business hour is powered by linkedinfocus.com. For show notes, updates and to pick up the latest tips and tricks head over to socialmediabusinesshour.com. Until next time. Thanks for listening. [/content_toggle] Weblinks: Twitter: @TyCohenInstagram: @CohenTyPeriscope: @TyCohenMeerkat: @TyCohenLinkedin: Ty CohenPinterest: pinterest.com/tycohenWebsite: www.tycohen.com/

Ben Settle is an email marketing professional who has been working in direct response copywriting for more than 10 years. He has received testimonials from some of the best in the business; including: Brian Clark, Gary Bencivenga, Scott Haines, Ken McCarthy, and the list goes on.

  * Joe shares where's been over the past few weeks and the high level people he's been spending time with, including: Gary Bencivenga, Brian Kurtz, Tony Robbins, Eric Schmidt, Craig Venter, Martine Rothblatt, Mark Owen, Chris Anderson, Stuart Johnson, Darren Hardy, Larry Page and many more! * Dean shares how a 90-minute book positions you, gets more people buying from you, and gives you the opportunity sell at higher prices * Why exposing yourself to new environments and different people makes you a better marketer and entrepreneur * Joe and Dean discuss how to make your products and services irresistible with powerful titles, headlines, education and copy   * Life lessons from United States Navy SEAL Mark Owen who participated in the mission that resulted in the death of Osama bin Laden  * BOOK MARKETING SECRETS: 5 big lessons Joe has learned helping Arianna Huffington, Peter Diamandis, Eric Schmidt/Jared Cohen, Tony Robbins and high level people with their book launches

After 33 years generating hundreds of millions of dollars with direct response marketing, Brian shares the 9 eternal truths you need to know if you want long-term success The unusual way you can become more influential, likeable, and connected Brian reveals his simple LinkedIn strategy for building relationships with hard to reach people (This is the same strategy Brian used to connect and become friends with Jeff Walker, creator of The Product Launch Formula) 2 secrets you can use to build and nurture a more targeted, responsive list (PLUS: 3 factors that tell you who your profitable customers will be) A big opportunity online entrepreneurs are overlooking (This is the #1 strategy many smart online entrepreneurs could use to make a fortune this year) How To Insult Your Customers: Brian and Dean talk about the hidden danger of sending THIS type of message to your list (Most people don't even realize the damage they are doing to their list when they send this type of message because the damage doesn't show up until it's too late and your customers leave you to buy from your competitors...) Brian shares how to make your dreams come true, live past 100, and love your life How to be part of a one-time only opportunity to see, meet and connect with the greatest copywriters and marketers in the country The fundamental success secret of the most respected, richest A-list writers and marketers alive (Brian knows this secret because he's personal friends with legends in the field like Gary Bencivenga, Jay Abraham, Dan Kennedy, Joe Sugarman, Parris Lampropoulos, Arthur Johnson, and many more Titans Of Direct Response...)

An EU ruling has ordered that people should have the right to be forgotten and have unwanted search listings about them which are deemed to be irrelevant or outdated to be removed from the SERPs. This opens a can of worms because it raises lots of concerns about fraudulent requests, freedom of information, the logistics of how Google will decide which requests to accept or reject and some other issues too, this is a big story will be covered by mainstream media so I'm sure you'll be seeing more on this as things develop. Google rolled out their Panda 4.0 update last week, so there has been another shake up in the SERPs. Rumour has it that this is the update that Matt Cutts described as being softer and gentler and will help small businesses to still be able to compete in Google's organic results. Bing ads have updated their performance trends graph to give an instant snapshot of how your ads a performing over different time periods. In Facebook news, The new Facebook Pages redesign is rolling out more widely now, I logged into my fan page the other day and I liked what I saw. Their new one column layout is much easier to look at in my opinion. They have been rolling this out slowly this last month but all pages will start to be eligible for this new page layout soon. Facebook have also announced that automated status updates or statuses coming from 3rd party apps will get less visibility in the news feed. They say that tests have shown these types of post get less engagement and they will be responding by giving them less weight in the news feed. Good news for restaurant owners, if you have a restaurant and facebook fan page, you can now upload a pdf of your menu and it will show as a tab on your facebook page. In Facebook ads news, premium video ads have now gone international, as I mentioned in previous episodes these were being rolled out in the USA but they will now start be available in the UK, Canada, Australia, Brazil, France, Germany and Japan. However Facebook are still being selective over who can use these ads, they don't want this new ad type to be ruined by poor quality ads so this will only be available to a limited number of advertisers. Pinterest have announced that business insights are coming so that brands can gauge which of their pins and boards are getting the most engagements, they will initially be providing this information by opening up it's api so that 3rd party social media analytics tools will be able to tap and report back that data. Pinterest have also announced their board widget for websites, you can paste the board into your website and people can see your latest pins and follow your boards all from your website. Yahoo have announced they will be soon to release their own video sharing platform set to try and compete with YouTube, a big task indeed, but one carrot they will be using to lure content creators over to their platform will be far great revenue sharing, we'll see what happens. Mozilla firefox may soon be rolling out sponsored content in the near future, suggesting web pages or content that may be of interest based on a person's browsing history. For us advertisers this may be a nice new shiny place to run ads, keep an eye out for that. JV zoo have been very busy releasing lots of new updates including split tests for different variations of your sales pages, custom HTML can now be added to receipt pages and prefilled order forms to make the checkout process go quicker. If someone has bought a product from JVzoo previously, they will be cookied then the next time they buy something their details will auto populate. They also worked out a deal with paypal so that subscriptions can last longer and the order value can increase. There used to be a limit of 3 years or $3,600 whichever came first but that limitation has now been increased to 10 years or $10,000 whichever comes first. Infusionsoft have announced some new updates including better website analytics, increased email sending speeds, a faster,speedier experience within the infusionsoft back office and all aspects of infusionsoft will now work on google chrome. they also have released 3 new widgets inside the infusionsoft back office. The contacts, email and sales widgets will give you a quick snapshot of your accounts most recent activity. Contest domination have released a brand new page template which allows for 2 step opt-in boxes even on a mobile device, any contest domination users may want to go check that straight away. On the subject of contest domination, Travis Ketchum the founder of contest domination will be appearing on the online marketing show in the near future. Stay tuned. Leadpages have announced a new membership level, the enterprise membership level which includes live phone support and leadpages coaching with their in-house trainers. The chat widget Zopim has been acquired by zendesk, apparently there won't be many changes in the coming months except for improved zopim/zendesk integration but there may be more changes in the future. The king of the product launch Jeff Walker has recently released his new book simply titled Launch: An internet millionaires secret formula to sell almost anything online, build a business you love, and live the life of your dreams. His products are usually high ticket so this a chance to learn his product launch secrets for the price of a book. In events... Hubspot are hosting a global event called Inbound marketing week. Over 50 events will be held through out this week at many different locations across the globe. I can't all the dates and locations here but if you go to inboundmarketingweek.org you can find out all the details and if any events are happening near you. Perry Marshall is hosting the 4-man intensive, 48 hours to reinvent your business at his home in Chicago, on the 5-6th of June and September 18th and 19th. Search marketing expo is in Seattle, Washington 11th-12th of June and Paris, France 16th-17th June. Tanner Larrson is holding the sustainable online business summit in Orlando, Florida on the 13-14th of June. The Social Media Strategies Summit is being held in Amsterdam, Netherlands on the 18th and 19th of June. Michael Penland is hosting the internet marketing success seminar in Orlando, Florida on 27th – 29th of June. Infusionsoft are holding their infusionsoft university events at several locations over the next few months. Chandler, Arizona 10th-13th of June, London England on the 24th – 27th of June and Chicago, Illinois 22nd – 25th of July. Also they are holding one of their implementation accelerator events in Chandler, Arizona on the 18th – 20th June. Youth Marketing 2014 will be taking place in London, England on the 1st of July. SES, Search Engine Strategies event is in Atlanta, Georgia, on the 9th of July. Digital Exchange will be taking place in Brighton, England on the 10th of July. Kevin Nations is hosting Big Money from small events at his home, spa nations in Las Vegas, Nevada on the 18th-20th of July. Kevin Nations and Adam Spiel will be teaming up to host another event at spa nations on the 29-31st August. Chris Ducker is hosting the New Business mastermind in New York on July 21st. Clickz live is going to be in Hong Kong, 5th-7th August and San Francisco, California 11th – 14th of August. Jack Canfield is hosting Breakthrough to success in Scottsdale, Arizona 11-15th of August. Podcast movement 2014 is being held in Dallas, Texas on the 16th – 17th of August. Speakers include Chris Brogan, Jaime Tardy, Cliff Ravenscraft, John Lee Dumas and more. Martech the Marketing Tech conference will taking place in Boston, Massachusetts 19-20th of August. JV Zoo will be hosting Marketing Mayhem live in Orlando, Florida on august 28th-31st. Speakers include Mike Filsaime, Joel Comm, Armand Morin, Daven Michaels as well as JVzoo.com founders E. Brian Rose and Bryan Zimmerman. Oh and Vanilla Ice will be performing at the official party too! And last but definitely not least Brian Kurtz is hosting Titans of direct response in honour of his late business partner Marty Edelston. It's 11th-12th September in Stamford, Connecticut. This really is going to be amazing event Gary Bencivenga who rarely ever speaks is coming out of retirement to speak at this event. The rest of the line up is incredible too, Joe Sugarman, Dan Kennedy, Jay Abraham, Perry Marshall, David Deutsch and many, many more will be at this conference.

If you’re a direct marketer — all I need to tell you is Gary Bencivenga hired her to design his projects. If not — telling you she did book promotions for Oprah might be enough. I could go down the list.  Lori Haller does design for the best marketers in the business. She’s widely considered […]