Inside the Copywriting Brain That Powers My Funnels | #Marketing - Ep. 24

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Speaker 3 Do you have a funnel, but it's not converting? The problem 99.9% of the time is that your funnel is good, but you suck at selling.

Speaker 3 If you want to learn how to sell so your funnels will actually convert, then get a ticket to my next selling online event by going to sellingonline.com/slash podcast.

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Speaker 3 This is the Russell Brunson show.

Speaker 3 What's up, everybody? This is Russell. Welcome back to the show.
I've got a special episode today.

Speaker 3 I drug one of my favorite people in the room to come talk with me, and he's a little nervous his first time on the podcast.

Speaker 3 But I'm excited because he's here in town. Heath is our head copywriter for now five years, right?

Speaker 4 Yeah, it's been five years.

Speaker 3 So the way I found Heath originally, and no one can hire him, so don't Google his name. I don't even tell you his last name.

Speaker 3 No, the way I found him initially is Kelly Felix. I'd hired him for something, and he was showing me how he'd scaled his credit repair thing to like $100 million a year or something.

Speaker 3 And I was going through all the trainings, and he's like, oh, one of the things we use a lot are avatarials. And I had never,

Speaker 3 I'd heard of one, but I'd never done one before. I was like, do you know anyone do you recommend? And he's like, oh, there's this writer named Heath.
He's like the best in the world at avatorials.

Speaker 3 You should hire him. And so that's how we first got introduced.
And I don't know if you remember this or not, but he made me a video.

Speaker 3 It was like an hour-long video explaining why I should never use an avatar over my business. I was like, he just told me to not use his services.
This guy's great.

Speaker 3 And then we've been working together ever since then.

Speaker 4 Yeah, I always say, like, you hired me by me saying no. Like, the power of no is actually pretty, it can be pretty powerful.
No, I was. I was overworked at the time.

Speaker 4 I was stuck in an American Inn hotel because our RV was getting worked on.

Speaker 3 Did you say you were living in RV?

Speaker 4 We were living in RV at the time, and

Speaker 4 we got in contact. and I was.
I was overworked. I was doing four different projects.
I was partner on this gummy brand that ended up falling apart.

Speaker 4 And then you, yeah, I got in contact, and then I was looking at it, and I was like, but it's already converting. Why do you need an editorial? So I did.

Speaker 4 I did this whole big, long, it was like a 40-minute plus video, and I just talked you out of not hiring me.

Speaker 4 And then that was the key that gets you to,

Speaker 4 and then I couldn't keep you off of me. You kept hitting me up for things and so yeah anyway he's an amazing copywriter so he's in office this week we're writing copy we're actually doing it

Speaker 3 on Friday me him and Sean Vosseler are doing an event we're gonna be going through Napoleon Hill's truthful advertising and geeking out for advertising for a full day

Speaker 3 he's in office today writing copy with us and so I thought we're recording a podcast episode and I don't talk a lot about copy and copywriting things like that and so I asked him if he'd come in and reluctantly reluctantly he said yes and he's here now so do you want to tell people some of your background how you became became, how you got into the writing world?

Speaker 3 Yeah, I mean I've been a writer for a long, long time.

Speaker 4 I knew I wanted to be involved in film and my background has always been in comedy and I love film, comedy, comedians, and writers. And so I always I looked up to certain

Speaker 4 people that I've always admired. One of my heroes has always been Steve Martin and like Mel Brooks.
And so I always I looked at their trajectory and what do they do? Same with Conan O'Brien.

Speaker 4 And I saw a lot of them, you know, they'd go off to college,

Speaker 4 lift they would go into the literary field the writing field and I was like okay well I'm gonna go in that field that area so I just just was pushing myself that way so when I went into college I didn't have great grades in high school but then I really busted my butt in college to get perfect grades I wanted to get perfect grades because I knew I wanted to be a writer in some capacity I knew I wanted to create stories so I went and I have a bachelor's in English and creative writing and then I went back and did my master's in fiction and I just told myself, I'm going to get a career in writing somehow.

Speaker 4 I'm going to, I don't know what that's going to look like. I needed to make a living in writing.
I didn't want to be a financial advisor with my dad was.

Speaker 4 He was always trying to push me to be a financial advisor. The one thing I do appreciate with my dad is he always told me to be my own boss.

Speaker 4 So he was, I was raised, he was, he's been an entrepreneur my whole life.

Speaker 4 And he always told me, you know, be your own boss. And I always thought being your own boss meant to be a financial advisor.
I was like, no, this is the worst. I wanted to not do it.

Speaker 4 I couldn't do numbers. I couldn't deal with financial.
I just, it was so confusing to me.

Speaker 4 So that's, I got into, I was just, at the time after, it was after my bachelor's is when I was like, okay, I'm going to get a job and write it. I didn't know what that would look like.

Speaker 3 Did you know about copywriting at that time?

Speaker 4 I didn't know about copywriting at that time. I, no, no.

Speaker 4 It was, yeah, 2012. And I was just like, I just be able to use words to make a living.

Speaker 4 Because at the time, my whole goal was I have a family to support, my wife and daughter, and so I was looking around, and that's when I stumbled.

Speaker 4 This was when I was in Arizona, where I'm from, and I found an e-comm company. There's a lot of e-comm out in Scottsdale, Arizona.
So, it was an e-comm company for health supplements.

Speaker 4 But it was a whole range of health supplements, all sorts of different supplements.

Speaker 4 So, they liked me because I have an improv background, and they like that I can jump into different voices and different characters and different perspectives and angles because

Speaker 4 I've been doing that now for over 15 plus years.

Speaker 4 And so they hired me and that's when I, that was my first intro into copywriting and I got thrown into the fire of, I mean, I was writing, every day was kind of different.

Speaker 4 I'd be writing baby formula supplements to bodybuilding supplements the next day.

Speaker 4 I was

Speaker 4 easily the unhealthiest one in the office. I was not taking care of my body and I was click clacking away telling other people of how their metabolism works.

Speaker 3 To put it in Frank, how tall are you?

Speaker 4 I'm 5'7.

Speaker 4 so 5'7 and right now you're like what i'm 167 160 how much did you weigh at the time that you're writing the weight loss ads boy i ballooned up to 260 so i was a i was a meatball boy i was a hefty i was a hefty boy did it did writing the copy four listings like was that part of like what transformed you like getting shredded and losing weight all that kind of stuff or no no no no no no no no no no halfway through the research like oh my gosh you know what's so funny you know what's so funny the reason why i wanted to lose a lot of weight is because or lose weight is because i was getting tired while reading i I was just getting so fed up I was trying to get through because once I got into grad school it was really busy we were reading like a novel a week and I had to do a lot of reading and quickly and understand it and analyze and I was getting really sleepy and that was my motivating factor was to so I can read more how nerdy is that so I just wanted to get shredded for books

Speaker 4 and that's yeah so that's really why I did yeah I got I and then now I'm yeah healthiest I've ever been so that's awesome

Speaker 3 very cool so I want to talk I mean, obviously, we could go for days talking about copywriting and different things, but I want to bring some unique stuff because I don't think a lot of our audience knows about some of the things I want to ask you about.

Speaker 3 So in my world, everyone knows about funnels. They know about landing pages, upsells, downsells.
That's what we spend so much time on. And maybe we'll come back to that.

Speaker 3 But what I originally tried to hire you for was a different type of creative. And it's something that

Speaker 3 I think was really big back in the day. Like you'd see magazines and they'd have these advertorials, right? They would push somebody to go buy something online or to call a phone number or whatever.

Speaker 3 But then people started using them almost like pre-funnel, like before the funnel starts, there's this page, this advertorial page.

Speaker 3 Will you explain kind of what an advertorial is, like how you've like how you kind of got into them?

Speaker 3 I want people to understand what that is so they can see how this might potentially fit into their business model. And then we talk about specifics on advertorials after that.

Speaker 4 Yeah, advertorials, and they've been used for,

Speaker 4 when I got into it, and then once I did my research and got more into it, I didn't realize

Speaker 4 they have been used for a very, very long time. And it's a sneaky way of the reason why it's called advertorial is because it's an ad, but an editorial.

Speaker 4 So it's made to look like an editorial piece, like it's like you would read in the newspaper. It just looks, it blends in with the newspaper.
It looks as though it's just another article written.

Speaker 4 And the way it reads also is like a, very much like an article, and then it slows, and then it pushes you into a call to action to buy a book, to put information to get a free

Speaker 4 there's there are old ones where you can get like free cassettes you know test out these cassettes check out check out these records free recipe book you can still see them I mean there's so many of them today even if you go to like the checkout line at the grocery store you pick up like a women's world magazine and that is filled with avatars in there they'll tell a big

Speaker 4 an amazing story of a transformation of someone losing weight and then it would go into a call to action to get this recipe book of what they've used so I got into it

Speaker 4 Let's see it was through his name is James Van Ellswick. He became an early mentor for me in the native space.

Speaker 4 So James did a lot of and continues to do a lot of work in the native space through Tabula, Outbrain.

Speaker 3 Well native advertising.

Speaker 4 Native advertising, yeah. So when you go to any of the websites, any of the news sites and you see the ads at the bottom and you click on it and it oftentimes it'll take you to an article,

Speaker 4 an ad, but it's made to look like an article as if you're still on that site or you're still involved in that world. And it's read as if like an editorial piece, but it's an avatarial.

Speaker 4 So it's like a pre-sale. It's a pre-sale to sales page.
So it's a way for people to get information. It's used for cold audiences, really, really cold audiences.
And it's a way to first

Speaker 4 understand the problem and then get them interested and then get them over to the sales page.

Speaker 3 Like you said, it's interesting because most

Speaker 3 the sites I see those ads on typically, they are like the news sites. And you scroll down and they look like they're almost like just articles on the news site.

Speaker 3 but there's usually things like it's taboo right above it or something and usually they're crazy pictures always like a crazy picture of like some some person like peeling their skin like eight inches away from their face or some weird like banana that's green or something or like purple or like weird things that catch your attention and you're like what is this thing and you click on it takes you to what looks like an article on that site and then at the end of the article usually and it's not they're structured in a way where it's kind of sellsy but not feels more like an article but then it pushes you to the part where where someone's gonna buy it right yeah so that's kind of the visual for you guys you're trying to imagine what it looks like.

Speaker 3 It's something that's happening, it's between the new site, avatarial page, and then from there we go to your funnel.

Speaker 4 Yep.

Speaker 4 And there's all sorts of different types of avatarials too, and also a level of aggressiveness of like how aggressive the avatar might be depending on what site you're on.

Speaker 4 So like you talk about those thumbnails, those different images, they can be really, you know, really kind of a strange fruit that they're holding, and it talks about like some sort of weight loss supplement.

Speaker 4 And it'll mention like, you know, unbelievable fruit burns three pounds overnight and so you click on it oftentimes you'll go to what's called a jump page that's also an avatarial a jump page is just a very short one and it it's a page between the website you were just on and a VSL a video sales letter which is a long form you know a long form video that sells you of course the product so that jump page is used for compliance reasons but also it's kind of like a tease it gets you to want to click over to to that video to watch the video.

Speaker 4 And that jump page will be maybe two, three paragraphs. It's very short.
And then I'll just have a button that says watch now. So

Speaker 4 that's another type. And then you'll have other types that are more longer.

Speaker 4 It all varies of how they look, depending on e-comm or an info product, finance. It all depends on

Speaker 4 the industry.

Speaker 3 Interesting. Now, I saw, this is way back in the day, so it's been a while, but

Speaker 3 it was actually pre-ClickFons.

Speaker 3 We were building out our NerveCell NervePain offer back then and we're looking at all the avatars That's where a lot of that traffic was coming from and I saw a lot of companies like the acai berry and weight loss companies who in the avatar they'd have two products where they're like hey step one you need to get the acai berries and step number two you got to get the whatever whatever wrap where it was pushing the two different funnels I remember talking one of media buyers and he was saying that like for every one cell you get on number one you get like like half a cell number two or something so increase their cart value by having did you see many of those or did people kind of shit like i haven't seen them for a long time so i was wondering if it stopped working or yeah i'm not sure about that i can't even recall.

Speaker 4 I would have to like look at that, but I don't remember that.

Speaker 3 Yeah, he did like step one, go buy the dot-com secrets books, you know, sound a funnel.

Speaker 4 Step two, get your free ClickFunnels account, you know, like, and it would be on one page, yeah.

Speaker 3 It was on, it was in the article, yeah, it was in the page basically.

Speaker 3 Like, here's the step-by-step process: go get because it would say it was like, this is a system, so you need like the acai berries are the supplement, and this was like a wrap.

Speaker 3 And then, so it was almost like you know, or face cream, like this face cream is the step one, this was step two.

Speaker 4 Um, anyway, so I just interesting. We'll still use steps.

Speaker 4 I still use steps in an avatarial, and then I, because I've taught a lot of people how to do avatarials, and so at the end of the avatarial, a lot of times they're like, what to do now? And

Speaker 4 I still do it. I'll say, step one, go here.
And then step two, a lot of times I'll just some sort of urgency. Step two, make sure to order more.

Speaker 4 Make sure to order at least three because this is

Speaker 4 selling out fast and everything. Or we'll also do the reverse kind of like urgency where it's like

Speaker 4 limit five per household. So it's almost kind of like it's already selling out so fast we can only limit.
And so a lot of times I'll still do the step one, step two, and then step three.

Speaker 4 And then on the step three, click here now. But it's just an it's it's kind of like in a

Speaker 4 nice sneaky way of each one is a CTA to the same thing to the same thing.

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Speaker 3 So, um, okay, what are other elements that typically you would have in an advertorial?

Speaker 3 It's not like a sales letter, like headlines, story, like it's different, right? The structure?

Speaker 4 It is. There's so many different types.
I always, when I was doing them pretty hardcore and pretty consistently every week, I would start doing,

Speaker 4 we would always test above the fold. So I'd always give three, the main body would always be the same.

Speaker 4 So what I would always do is I would do three headlines and three top images and then three leads.

Speaker 4 And out of those three, we can get a good winner. And then the main body of the avatar would be the same.
Because it's always above the fold you want to test the most.

Speaker 4 Because that's where people are landing. That's where people are bouncing.
So we wanted to see, we would always, and then we would do variation.

Speaker 4 So we'd always, yeah, always, always three different headlines, three different images, and then three different leads to go in.

Speaker 4 So a lead might be, I'd always do a story lead, something that that evokes that emotion, whatever that emotion may be, depending on the product.

Speaker 4 So if it's a survival product, there's a different emotion there for a survival product compared to a weight loss supplement, different kind of emotion.

Speaker 4 And then also the point of view of who is it coming from. And then, for instance, for a gadget, for a gadget avatarial, a lot of times people love the underdogs.
So it's like this small, this

Speaker 4 startup company is disrupting the billion-dollar watch industry. People love that.
Those kind of leads always did really, really well. So that would be a different lead that I would use in there.

Speaker 4 And then taking a look at the headlines, I obviously do a lot of funnel hacking. So I have a massive avatarial swipe folder that I keep

Speaker 4 and I keep adding to it. So I'll save and I'll show different examples from all the different industries of what they're doing for their headlines.
So I always jump in there, take a look.

Speaker 4 And not only that, but I'll also go to, I look at old advertorials as well. So

Speaker 4 my little thing, I've always mentioned this, is if you look at old magazines, I'll go to antique shops and find old magazines. You can find old Playboys.
I did that.

Speaker 4 I have a whole stack of really, really old Playboys of like 70s and 80s articles for the art of the ads. It really is for the ads.
It was so funny. And

Speaker 4 no one believes me, but I'm trying to say it. It really is, to be honest, because they're pretty astounding.
They're amazing. The artwork and everything is so cool.

Speaker 4 They're really fun to look at. And so you can look at what they did, and you can see what still stands the test of time, of what still works today

Speaker 4 when it comes to a headline and a lead and so on.

Speaker 3 It was nerdy. Last night I bought 15 ads on eBay from LaSalle University.
Because LaSalle Extension University is where Napoleon Hill used to work for.

Speaker 3 Anyway, but I started finding their ads and like their long form ads promoting like them. Because you could do an extension school to become a lawyer or become a

Speaker 3 business operator and all these different ones, but I'll just show them to you.

Speaker 3 But like 15, each one's about 10 bucks, but it's a long form advatorial, all selling LaSalle University, but different hooks they had. And they were beautiful.

Speaker 3 All of them had like rock-solid headlines, really cool imagery, cool call to action. Like they were just, anyway.

Speaker 3 So this is what Heath and I do in our nerd time is we just buy old magazines and ads just to look at them.

Speaker 4 I think what's funny is I, when I talk to my other copywriting friends and other people in the marketing,

Speaker 4 people don't also, I'm like, you know, Russell is probably one of the nerdiest when it comes to copywriting. People don't, they think he was a funnel guy, but I'm like, I've seen Russell's collection.

Speaker 4 He's got more swipe outs than anybody. He has like some rare stuff that I'm like, holy smokes, you have,

Speaker 4 you know, just... I couldn't believe some of the things that I've poked around back here of what your collection.
And so people forget, like, you have your own copywriting shops too.

Speaker 4 You just don't want to do it all the time. That's why you have me.

Speaker 4 Because

Speaker 4 you're excellent in your own right.

Speaker 3 Well, it's funny because when I got in this business,

Speaker 3 I was learning all the pieces and copywriting was the one I was like, I don't want to do that. Like, that was the worst.
There's also the most expensive.

Speaker 3 I remember the first time I tried to hire a copywriter,

Speaker 3 it was Michael Fortin, and he wanted 15 grand. I was like, what? I'm like, and that freaked me out.
And then the first time I hired someone was Johan Mock. I paid him $8,000.

Speaker 3 And we never launched a product, but it was like $8,000. And he was like all the money I had.
And finally, I was like, I can't afford copyrights.

Speaker 3 I have to learn this I like I forced me to learn this skill set

Speaker 3 but it's funny because for me it's like copywriting isn't just the words on the page like copywriting is everything eventually when you get better and better copywriting like the perfect webinar is just me copywriting like it's literally it's a sales structure in place that I do off the top of my head but I know the structure so well you know emails are copywriting like Facebook live like podcasts like every time you're speaking like as you get better you start weaving copywriting into it

Speaker 3 and so yeah like I've become a good copywriter because I had to but also it's like now it becomes like second nature where like you're always persuading somebody to do something, right?

Speaker 3 Right now you guys are listening and we're entertaining you, but we're also trying to persuade you to listen to the next thing and hopefully go check out sellingonline.com because you're going to learn how to sell more and whatever the next thing is, right?

Speaker 3 But like that's why this is like such an important skill to master.

Speaker 3 I think it's one of the tragedies that a lot of people have is now they're leveraging AI for copywriting, which I don't think necessarily bad, but by doing that, they're missing.

Speaker 3 learning the skill set, which is the most,

Speaker 3 I think of all the skill sets I've learned in the business world, it's the most important, the most, it is the most expensive to hire out because it's the most valuable. But like, they may get a good

Speaker 3 VSL done on ChatGBT that works, but then they're going to go on a podcast or a Facebook Live or whatever trying to promote the thing, and they don't have any of the chops of how to do persuasion and copywriting because they had ChatGBT write a version for them.

Speaker 3 You know what I mean?

Speaker 4 Absolutely. I like that you brought that up.
There's so many things that you touched on that I want to mention.

Speaker 4 I think what we lack in the AI, don't get me wrong, I know a handful of these copywriting guys that I respect and are friends with, and they're doing masterful things with AI for sure.

Speaker 4 I don't have interest in that because I also, I think what people, copywriters, what they're, if they're just using AI

Speaker 4 just

Speaker 4 for the copywriting, you're missing out on their lived in experience.

Speaker 4 It's that lived experience, because I think when I think of copywriting, what you talked about persuading, it's getting to know people, it's getting to know their background, getting to know who they are.

Speaker 4 So you can actually, you're just channeling their desire onto your offer or whatever it is.

Speaker 4 And so when you're you're writing you're able to tap into your unconscious just by writing even though you have a structure of what to do for the copywriting but you also have your own unique lived-in experience that you can't you can't just outsource that to an AI and try to dump your own childhood and everything

Speaker 4 your own story into AI for it then conjure up because there's been a lot of times you know even with you we go back and forth and then you have that's why I always say I need a Russell rant because like when I'm doing a new sales set or whatever it is that we're doing I always have you, wherever you're at in the world, send me over a Vox because I don't know where your brain is at.

Speaker 4 I know that you're lived in experience. Can all of a sudden you had an experience that day that I didn't know about, but because of that experience, then there's that hook.

Speaker 3 There's the hook, the lead, the destroy all the pieces.

Speaker 4 Yeah, and then you like, and then that's why I say, okay, where's your brain at?

Speaker 4 And so, you, we did, we've done this for so many of our products, for so many of the offers with Dan Kennedy and our own products.

Speaker 4 And so, sure enough, I'll get a Russell rant, a good three-minute Russell rant, and it helps me tremendously because then I go great and then it also will trigger something I'm like you know what that's awesome that that connection I just now made a connection from what you said to what I just experienced at the gym or something like that that made me realize this can be a really good hook this really good angle and so I yeah I think AI obviously it's there it's here and we're trying to figure out what's how to best utilize it that works for us but I I also don't want it to take away the thing that I love, the thing that I know is heath.

Speaker 4 That's what I am. I'm a writer.
This is what I do. And so, for it to outsource it,

Speaker 4 that's where

Speaker 4 you still need to be artistically satisfied and fulfilled, or just fulfilled in what you're doing rather than

Speaker 4 because then it just, how is it fun to just pull levers? That's what it comes down to with an AI.

Speaker 4 If I just get these cool prompts, it's just me pulling a lever, just putting in the right prompts for it. And it just, yeah, it just doesn't.

Speaker 3 You're a purest like me, I understand.

Speaker 4 Yeah.

Speaker 4 But I mean, I still utilize it for sure. There's been a time where, you know, how do they

Speaker 4 ask it questions and help me? I'll honestly, it's the fastest when it comes to citing sources.

Speaker 4 When I'm just like, take this, take this, and now put it in an MLA format and give me a cite source and things like that. Or it helped me with research, or also it'll help me with a springboard.

Speaker 4 I'm like, just give me 10 ideas based around this, just to kind of get my brain moving rather than just have, I don't have it right for me, none or no, or any of that, but it's more of an idea generator.

Speaker 3 For sure, that's like I've been,

Speaker 3 i i've never was big ai until just the last man like two weeks i've been playing with a lot and 100 like like we were talking about idea generation so like for me i have a million swipe files on a thing like book funnels or webinar funnel or whatever right so what i've been doing um actually i've i started running a report off to get you a copy of it but um i've linked to like every Agora front end I could find like that are like free plus shipping books or things like that right so I was like look at all these book funnels that Agor is publishing and then like tell me like like analyze them come back and tell me like what's the same about them what's different what are you noticing what are the headlines what are this you know and then it'll come back and it'll give you all that data where it's like okay they're using one of six different headline structures like oh cool we should split test all six of those you know and oh the all these led with a story about this or you know three were this three or that but it gives you all the the analytics and then at least no it gives at least for me it gives me an idea like what i could write or what i should be able to write about things like that 100 which makes it more fun 100 because i also like obviously i'm a purist when it comes to the writing and bringing it unconscious but i also know what marketing takes and we all love data We're always enough data.

Speaker 4 We always want to know, we don't want to reinvent the wheel. We want to know what's working.

Speaker 4 That's why we funnel hack and that's why, you know, if this has worked, then let's continue to have it work. And then we work upon that and make the variations and all the split tests from there.

Speaker 4 But absolutely.

Speaker 3 Yeah. So I want to talk about the first project we did together because it's a lot of fun.
And then we'll probably end the episode.

Speaker 3 So the very first project Heath came in on because he was doing a bunch of e-comm stuff at the time and I had just bought a green green company called Zuma Juice.

Speaker 3 And it was the first time we had a chance to work together. And so, anyway, it was, it was probably the most fun I've had.

Speaker 3 Like, because usually I either write copy of my own, or I outsource parts to copywriters.

Speaker 3 Anyway, there's been, you know, good times and bad times with that, but it was the first time, like, just working with you on a project. And our styles were very similar, which I love.

Speaker 3 So the first thing we did, if you remember this, we set up a Trello board. And the first thing was like, let's go funnel hack every single thing we can find around this.

Speaker 3 So we found every green drink product we could find.

Speaker 3 And then we went and bought everyone and took screenshots of, here's the first page, second, upsell down and like down every single green drink and then we found other e-comm products that were similar other other supplements things like that we funnel hacked those and so we built a Trello board with I don't even know probably 30 40 different funnels we had funnel hacked along with like emails and ads and things like that and then we bought the brand from somebody else you remember we bought from Luke Jaden and we kind of called him and it was fun watching you because The questions you were asking were so interesting because I've only written a copy for myself.

Speaker 3 I've never done it for other people. So

Speaker 3 I always have a lens on just writing to the people I know how to write for where you were coming into a whole different world and it was fascinating watching you.

Speaker 3 I don't know if you remember this, but you interviewed Luke for like an hour on the

Speaker 3 tone of the brand. Do you remember this? Like how do you talk to all that kind of stuff? And I want to go a little deeper there.
Because number one, first off step.

Speaker 3 Step number one, guys, everyone funnel hack was step number two, like we're doing the funnel hacking. It's not just in copying as most people do.

Speaker 3 Like what he did next that was interesting was like figuring out the voice, or not the voice, the tone of the brand. Like, how does it communicate? How does it do stuff like that?

Speaker 3 Which I never thought of. And I'd love you to talk about just your thought on that part of it.
Oh, yeah.

Speaker 4 I'm a big believer of getting closest to the person who is creating the product,

Speaker 4 that understands the product, that knows it in and out, and has been working with it. So, obviously, Luke.

Speaker 4 And then I also did this, I worked closely also with Trey Llewellyn, who, you know, friends, and e-commerce. And so I would get on the, when I would work with Trey, I would also call up his customers.

Speaker 4 I would, you know, talk to a few customers and why they buy so many of this and actually get to know them, understand why they're buying it for.

Speaker 4 And so I always, I'm a big, that's part of the copywriting is the sales, is just talking to people. And the biggest thing is I just ask questions, then I sit back and listen.

Speaker 4 So I just was just listening to what, how Luke, and he was, you know, had so much passion behind it. He loved, he, I mean, he loved this drink that he created.

Speaker 4 And so I wanted to know, yeah, how did he approach it? Because he was, and

Speaker 4 the tone was a really important thing because that is a, I mean, that's part of the whole branding: how the, how to stand out in the marketplace with that specific tone.

Speaker 4 And so, when it comes to the tone, and also who you're going for, and how that tone is touching that person.

Speaker 4 Because when it comes to different groups of people, how you talk to them, and how you're not going to talk to,

Speaker 4 you know, busy moms to say when you're going to talk to a bunch of masculine hardcore guys. Like, there's a different way to approach

Speaker 4 the brand. And so I would just, my biggest thing is I would just ask Luke questions and then he would talk about it and I go, tell me more about that.

Speaker 4 And I would just, and then let him, and I just listen and I take notes because a big thing is just copy. I always say, it comes from Kim.
I'm going to ruin her name. I'm so sorry, Kim, Kim Schwamm.

Speaker 4 She's an amazing. A-list copywriter, been around for a long, long time.
And she, I love the phrase she used, copy collecting.

Speaker 4 And I really think that about that, I don't think it's copywriting, I think it's copy collecting. So I'm just collecting the things that Luke is telling me.
I'm like, oh, and I just make notes.

Speaker 4 And so there was a lot of fun tone.

Speaker 4 What I got from the greens dreams at the time, the Zuma juice, was it was a lot of fun.

Speaker 4 This was a Greens juice that was really, really fun because at the time it was like hardcore, like the greens, and you know, it's for your health, and everything was so just organic, and everything's so base for your health, it felt very just

Speaker 4 not

Speaker 4 a fun way of approaching it. And so, Luke wanted to do this: like, you know, the green's drinks that kicks your butt.

Speaker 4 And it's really, he used fun language around it, about you know, giving you a kick-butt energy, and he liked the fun part of it.

Speaker 4 So, like, and that also went to show because in the video he first created, yeah, was really, really fun. It had that early Harmon Brothers feel that he really liked.
And so, there was obviously

Speaker 4 he wanted to approach a bigger market to show that

Speaker 4 Green's drink doesn't have to be an expensive, just really high, high, you know,

Speaker 4 high-priced and

Speaker 4 health food that is only for a very specific audience that only goes to Whole Foods. He wanted to make it be like, no, this is actually for everyone and it's good for you and it's so easy.

Speaker 4 He wanted that

Speaker 4 angle of it, like you can put in your greens very easily.

Speaker 4 So that was, yeah, the my biggest secret is just

Speaker 4 asking more questions. I just interview the person and then I just write down notes and then they kind of write the copy for me, to be honest.
It's fun.

Speaker 3 I remember Kaylin Poland asked her one day, because when she ran Lady Boss, she was writing all the copying stuff, and she said, I stopped writing copies.

Speaker 3 What I started doing, I go to my community and Facebook, and I ask questions, and I would just listen to the ladies respond, and I'd literally use their phrases.

Speaker 3 Like, the things they would say to respond to my messages, like, that was the copy. Like, they said it the way that it sounded to them, and so I just copied that and sent it back.
And

Speaker 3 so in our company, you get a chance to write for me, sometimes for Dan Kennedy, sometimes for um

Speaker 3 uh for barn and pt like you're gonna learn a whole bunch different do you get schizophrenia ever switching from voice to voice it's a little different when i go from you to dan kennedy i cut out all exclamation points

Speaker 4 all exclamation points and then i structure it because big blocky blocks big blocky blocks because he he

Speaker 4 older older kind of traditional style uh writing almost like journal kind of like style a little different compared to how direct response marketing and copywriting has changed over the years and so and with yours, yeah.

Speaker 4 And then with Barnum PT, I get to play with voice, of course, and then different ones. So, but I got used to that.
Again, that's like the improv background.

Speaker 4 And then what I first started with the e-comm company,

Speaker 4 one day I remember, I remember I had to write this whole line of, was it baby, it was like baby products, like different soft, it was like lotions and different products for like a newborn up to like two years.

Speaker 4 And then after that was done, like the next thing was no kidding, it was this brand at the time called Enraged. It was Enraged Nutrition.

Speaker 4 And it had the most aggressive, like, like,

Speaker 4 scary names that you would,

Speaker 4 I don't think you can let fly today. Like, they're the most aggressive names.

Speaker 4 So I had to then change the tone and go from like just hardcore, put on a different, it's like putting on a different alter ego, a different persona while you write.

Speaker 3 So awesome. Yeah.

Speaker 3 Yeah. Oh, man.
All right. Last question for you, and then we'll wrap the podcast for today.
And thank you for doing this. This is a lot of fun.
Yeah.

Speaker 3 For someone out there, because a lot of people in our world are trying to learn as a business game, and there's so many pieces, right?

Speaker 3 There's copyright and there's funnel building, there's traffic, there's there's so many different things.

Speaker 3 And initially, like the best way to make money at first, I think, is learning one skill set and then going and doing that as a service for other people. Yeah.

Speaker 3 And I think if someone wants to learn copywriting, it's a obviously there's work to learn it, but it's also one of the most valuable skills. Like you pay good copywriters a lot of money.

Speaker 3 For someone who's just in that spot where they're not sure what they're in it, but they're thinking, maybe I should become a copywriter.

Speaker 3 What's the path or how does it look to like go and actually start learning and getting a client? What's that first beginning part look like?

Speaker 4 I would highly recommend, there's a couple ways to do it. I would recommend getting with a company.

Speaker 4 It's going to, you know, start off just learning, getting with, getting an in-house position with an e-comm company and then starting off small perhaps just starting with Facebook ads.

Speaker 4 Just getting with a company that

Speaker 4 you know you can work hard and they see that you're hungry and you they want to get after it because then from there you're gonna be able to learn the skills while also on their time be able to they're helping you they're training you while also getting up to speed with what you want to do i did you know i that's kind of how i got started they wanted me because i had a degree in writing they knew i could write i could write a sentence i could write i be able to write a structure yeah a structured uh argument and everything and so they were like okay great now we can use that and then this is how we actually do things to make sure it sells i would do that and then also and then from there if you want to start making more money and getting your and building your name, I was on Upwork at the time.

Speaker 4 I never was on Fiverr, but I was on Upwork, man, and I took every position I could get. And then I started posting in groups, and so different groups on Facebook about services.

Speaker 4 And that's how I got connected with a lot of people that was really surprised. And also, when you're doing these posts, being yourself.
Don't try to be another copywriter of how they structure things.

Speaker 4 Really understand who you are and your personality. If you're funny, if

Speaker 4 you have a certain style about you, use that in your copywriting because that really makes you stand out with your personality.

Speaker 4 And business owners love that. They want to see that.
So I would say, yeah, and then just, you're going to be putting in some grinding, but if you're enjoying it, then it's fun.

Speaker 4 I mean, back in the day, this is crazy. I don't know if I ever told you this.

Speaker 4 When I was like,

Speaker 4 I was just wanting to get out of this certain position and wanting to make it out on my own. So when ClickFunnels was first, it was new.
It's It's fairly new.

Speaker 4 And I remember one of my, the media buyer I was with at the time, I was working with this company and I was doing, it was when probiotics was the rage and I wrote this massive VSL and it was, I got to really get nitty-gritty and we printed off all the transcripts from all the Gundry VSLs and everything.

Speaker 4 And then he was showing me, he's like, look at this new thing. And he showed me ClickFunnels.

Speaker 4 He was like, show me a site that he built. And I saw, remember the buttons all wiggling and everything.
He's like, what is all this?

Speaker 4 And then, sure enough, down the line, I eventually was able to work with someone who had a ClickFunnels account, and I would log into their account and I would be in my closet.

Speaker 4 I had a little desk set up in my closet, I'd be up until two in the morning, and I would build a funnel just to see how to structure it and drop things in, make a headline.

Speaker 4 I was like, Oh, this is really easy, and then I would delete it because I didn't want them to find out that I was building funnels in this thing. And I was like, I don't want them to find out.

Speaker 4 So, I'd build a whole funnel and be like, Oh, this is really easy.

Speaker 3 I could do this, and then I'd delete it.

Speaker 4 So, I got really so. I would just find any opportunity.
I mean, I was doing descriptions for yamakas on Upwork at one point.

Speaker 4 I was taking any job I can get and just to stack up and just to, you know, a lot of times in the early days, you're just wanting to feel more confident that you can do this, that you can be get after it.

Speaker 4 And you're going to make a lot of mistakes and you're going to get clients that want to take advantage of you and you're going to have to figure things out. And it's rough.

Speaker 4 But it doesn't. I think if I were to do it again, I would definitely.

Speaker 4 get with an in-house, get with someone in-house where you know how to, some sort of, you're good at writing in some sort of capacity, and then they want to, and then you're hungry, because a lot of times, I mean, business just wants someone that's hungry that stay with them and really know how they work, and then build from there.

Speaker 3 Yeah, yeah, that's cool. And then if you're an entrepreneur who can't afford a copywriter yet, then the process is kind of similar.

Speaker 3 You're not doing work for other people, but you got to write a lot for yourself. And I got a spot where I was writing emails every day and I was writing sales letters.
I just kept writing and writing.

Speaker 3 And for me, I wasn't good at writing. So I would do is I would just, I'm very much a modeler.

Speaker 3 So I look at like whatever like if I was launching I remember launching my first software product I went to Armin Moore inside and he was launching something similar so I was funnel hacking what did he do okay he had headline right my headline he had an intro story I have an intro story he had it and I just like followed the structure I started doing VSL so I would get the VSLs transcribed and then I would I would look at the whole whole thing and I would try to break out okay the first three lines like this was a hook okay boom there's I need a hook and the next five lines they were leading with a story and then you know and I just kind of like started in fact you look at the dot-com secrets book um when I I wrote that, all the scripts I showed in there literally came from me funnel hacking a dozen people with that same thing and then looking at the similarities amongst all of them and then making my own videos based on that that would work.

Speaker 3 And like, oh, there's the formula. Like, I reverse-engineered the formula from other people doing it.
I didn't make it up. So I kept seeing it over and over and over again.

Speaker 3 And so it's like, okay, I know the things I need to fill in to make a good VSL or to make a good webinar or make a good whatever the thing is you're trying to create.

Speaker 4 I did that with email. So when I really cut my teeth in the direct response, when I started going out on my own, was with email.

Speaker 4 So I got really good at email and I was on Ben Settle's list and I bought bought it. I started buying slowly or got on his list and then I'd been following him for years and years.

Speaker 4 So then I would start to get on everyone's list just to get their emails and then I'd save them in different folders so I'd see what they're doing and email wise.

Speaker 4 So then I started slowly buying what you can afford. I was like, okay, and then I started buying.

Speaker 4 So I learned a lot also from Ben Settle was a lot of the early stuff I started buying and then really soaking it in. And then I was like, oh, I can do this.
I can do this.

Speaker 4 And yeah, sure enough, once you started seeing the pattern, that's when, yeah.

Speaker 3 Yeah. The pattern basically, the framework and the framework.
And you had your art on top of it and your personality and your. Anyway, so Heath, that was fun, man.

Speaker 3 I appreciate you coming and hanging out at the office this weekend and jumping on the podcast. Any of you guys are aspiring copywriters, want to learn copy? You got some great stuff from Heath today.

Speaker 3 Avatarials, oh, one last question, Avatorials.

Speaker 3 If someone wants to run an Avatarial, they need to go to Tabula or is there other platforms?

Speaker 4 Do you even know anything about that? Oh, yeah, there's a lot.

Speaker 4 I mean, there's, I mean, Tabula, Tabula and Outbrain, it's been a bit since I've liked the actual insight of it when it comes to this part. But Tabula and Outbrain, you look at, you know,

Speaker 4 those are the top ones because they're on the best kind of publications. You're going to get the better quality traffic.
And then there's other ones that

Speaker 4 will run more, because also it depends on what your offer you're running.

Speaker 4 So sort of, say, for instance, like CBD gummies and stuff, things where they're a little iffy that maybe were a little bit more difficult for different publishers. But I mean, there's so many.

Speaker 4 So Tabulu and Outbrain are...

Speaker 4 Yeah, I mean, there's so many people also to follow for when it comes to native. Yeah.

Speaker 3 I was in advatorials. I'd almost step back and not do an advertorial if you've got a niche specific business, right?

Speaker 3 It's more for mass market because you're targeting like new sites where it's all the people not like, you know.

Speaker 4 Native is definitely takes it from

Speaker 4 it takes a more of a skill. There's definitely you're going to get a lot less clicks.
The percentages are completely different compared to what you're used to on meta and with Instagram and Facebook.

Speaker 4 So you know, to start with Facebook and Instagram, much, much better because then you can, that one, they just like, you just, it's all about creative and you just turn on the switch and then just keep pumping it with creative until the algorithm finds its way when it comes to native yeah that's you're

Speaker 4 yeah different type but it's absolutely worth it but also with the advertorials

Speaker 4 That doesn't mean you just have to go for native. Advertorials are absolutely being used on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, wherever it is, Google.
I see them all the time.

Speaker 4 Because it's a great opportunity to bring in those cold traffic, give them an information, and then send them on. And so, and also, it helps you to

Speaker 4 whittle down your, what's working.

Speaker 4 So a lot of times we'll do like split tests, multiple different avatarials, and then we see, okay, which one is actually getting the more clicks, then drop the other ones and focus on that one and then do split.

Speaker 4 So it's also a way to find what the market is actually really, really interested in. Yeah.
What they're, yeah.

Speaker 3 Very cool. Awesome.
Thank you, Heath. Appreciate it.
Hope you guys enjoyed this episode. First time we're talking about copywriting in a long, long time.

Speaker 3 And hopefully you guys got some ideas and some cool ways to get your copy game up. So appreciate you.
And we'll see you guys all on the next episode of the Russell Brunson

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