The big secret of success, whether it’s in investing… in professional sports… or in copywriting, is one in the same: A focus on, and a mastery of, the fundamentals. The legendary basketball player Michael Jordan put it this way: “Get the fundamentals down and the level of everything you do will rise.” We’ve never done a show that just focused on copywriting fundamentals, so what better time than now? And one of the best sources of an expert list of the fundamentals is John Caples, in his book Te...
Mar 16, 2026•30 min
Our returning champion is Clive Cable, who was here a few weeks agotalking about his new book Neurocopy. As Nathan and I got to know Clive a little better, we found out he hasbeen doing a LOT with AI and copywriting that frankly we haven’t seen anyoneelse do. For example, he has a story-lede generator that comes up with a big idea for asales letter or VSL, and then writes a unique story lede to start the piece. Clive’s created a bot that writes like Gene Schwartz–but he only uses itto write the ...
Mar 09, 2026•34 min
Dante Aligheri was a copywriter kind of guy. Rather than write in the stuffy, formal Latin which is what everyone else was writing in the 14th century, he wrote in the home boy people’s language of Tuscan. Dante’s masterwork was The Divine Comedy, and his last line was “L'amor che move il sole e l'altre stelle” Translated into English, he’s talking about Love–the kind of love that moves the sun and the other stars. Thus proving that even in medieval Italy, LOVE was recognized as the most powerfu...
Mar 08, 2026•31 min
It’s a full-blown crisis. As if writing copy wasn’t hard enough, there’s a new demand falling on the plates of copywriters more and more. And while maybe it’s not fair, it IS real. And it’s important that you know about it, and know what to do about it. Good news. We’ve got just the person to explain what it is and how to come out ahead, looking like a million bucks and being a hero, whether you wear a cape or not. The crisis is one of Design. These days, just as more and more is being expected ...
Mar 08, 2026•33 min
These days people talk about neurochemicals a lot. Chemicals like dopamine, and cortisol, and the love chemical, oxytocin. I’ve always wondered how these chemicals are affected by copy, and how much it matters. So imagine my surprise when I discovered what our very special guest was doing! His name is Clive Cable, and he’s not only written a book about this, he has a complete system to evaluate copy based on the neurochemistry the copy will cause, and the buying behavior that chemistry will lead...
Mar 08, 2026•33 min
We’re really at a crisis point for a lot of marketers. It’s not just that ads keep getting more expensive. It’s that it just gets harder and harder to get and keep prospects’ attention. And with everything being engineered and optimized by AI and CRO, stuff ends up looking more and more the same. And that only works against you. You know you need to stand out–but how? Well, the best way to get and keep attention is, and always has been, a story. But how long is a story? I mean, a Hero’s Journey ...
Mar 08, 2026•27 min
Today’s show is for every talented copywriter stuck in the feast-or-famine cycle of business and would much rather get paid well, to reflect the enormous value their copy is bringing to their clients. We have a very special returning champion on the show today, Dr. Harlan Kilstein. He has just released a book called Value-Based Copywriting. Originally presented in a $997 seminar, this material has changed the lives and of course careers of some very fortunate copywriters. This book solves the pr...
Mar 08, 2026•34 min
Dante Aligheri was a copywriter kind of guy. Rather than write in the stuffy, formal Latin which is what everyone else was writing in the 14th century, he wrote in the home boy people’s language of Tuscan. Dante’s masterwork was The Divine Comedy, and his last line was “L'amor che move il sole e l'altre stelle” Translated into English, he’s talking about Love–the kind of love that moves the sun and the other stars. Thus proving that even in medieval Italy, LOVE was recognized as the most powerfu...
Mar 02, 2026
It’s a full-blown crisis. As if writing copy wasn’t hard enough, there’s a new demand falling on the plates of copywriters more and more. And while maybe it’s not fair, it IS real. And it’s important that you know about it, and know what to do about it. Good news. We’ve got just the person to explain what it is and how to come out ahead, looking like a million bucks and being a hero, whether you wear a cape or not. The crisis is one of Design. These days, just as more and more is being expected ...
Feb 23, 2026
These days people talk about neurochemicals a lot. Chemicals like dopamine, and cortisol, and the love chemical, oxytocin. I’ve always wondered how these chemicals are affected by copy, and how much it matters. So imagine my surprise when I discovered what our very special guest was doing! His name is Clive Cable, and he’s not only written a book about this, he has a complete system to evaluate copy based on the neurochemistry the copy will cause, and the buying behavior that chemistry will lead...
Feb 16, 2026
We’re really at a crisis point for a lot of marketers. It’s not just that ads keep getting more expensive. It’s that it just gets harder and harder to get and keep prospects’ attention. And with everything being engineered and optimized by AI and CRO, stuff ends up looking more and more the same. And that only works against you. You know you need to stand out–but how? Well, the best way to get and keep attention is, and always has been, a story. But how long is a story? I mean, a Hero’s Journey ...
Feb 09, 2026
Today’s show is for every talented copywriter stuck in the feast-or-famine cycle of business and would much rather get paid well, to reflect the enormous value their copy is bringing to their clients. We have a very special returning champion on the show today, Dr. Harlan Kilstein. He has just released a book called Value-Based Copywriting. Originally presented in a $997 seminar, this material has changed the lives and of course careers of some very fortunate copywriters. This book solves the pr...
Feb 02, 2026
Life must have been at least a little frustrating for our Old Master on today’s show. His name was Walter Weir. He was a very active and successful copywriter and advertising professor, but he must have constantly run into resistance along the way, since so many of his ideas were ahead of their time. Walter Weir was born in 1909 and he died in 1996. He published a couple of books which are nearly impossible to find today. Maybe the publisher, my old employer McGraw-Hill, took them out of print q...
Jan 26, 2026
If you’re involved in copywriting in any way, you know right now we’re at an inflection point. Things have been changing fast over the last two years, and show no signs of slowing down. People who hire copywriters tell me it’s harder than ever to find a good one… yet people who write copy for a living, many of them, tell me it’s really hard to find good-paying work. There’s clearly a disconnect. AI has a lot to do with it. The very definition of what a copywriter is, and what a copywriter does, ...
Jan 19, 2026
It takes a lot of courage and a lot of confidence to do what our special guest today has done… and that’s fire all his clients and start an email-based business. But Alin Dragu did just that, and he’s here to tell us about it. He’s the best-selling author of the book Meaningful Marketing, he spent 5 years as direct of marketing at one of the fastest growing churches in the US, and 3 years as the VP of growth at a Christian marketing agency. Alin is definitely a copywriter’s copywriter. He’s obse...
Jan 12, 2026
Last fall, our returning champion Glenn Fisher and his business partner Nick O’Connor teamed up with mega financial publisher Marketwise for a bold experiment: Offer FREE training in financial copywriting to 12 people who competed for the spots. There were 500 people applied. Of the 12 who were selected, Glenn says, four were offered jobs… and two are being mentored by financial copywriting legend Mike Palmer. You know, in many stupid businesses, when something works, the business immediately st...
Jan 05, 2026
So a lot of people are building their brand by pouring tons of money into traffic… A/B testing… tracking every click… but deep down, you feel that something’s not landing. It’s almost like you wonder if you’re coming across as desperate, rather than confident. Maybe it’s time to take a look at a cherished assumption in online marketing: Namely, that more information and more volume equals more authority. Not really, says our own Nathan Fraser. He’s given me an advance peek at his new book, The S...
Dec 29, 2025
What was discovered and perfected over 100 years ago, that is one of the most important marketing strategies online today? We have a special Old Masters Series show today. It’s a hybrid between marketing discoveries of the early 1900s, and top moneymakers of 2025. Our old Master is Claude Hopkins. Most people don’t realize that there’s a strong connection between two of the most important principles he wrote about and used – sampling, and demonstration – and what makes for an effective lead magn...
Dec 22, 2025
Our returning champion today, Dr. Doug Pew, is well known in two different worlds: The world of high-powered copywriting for online course creators, where he has done many six and seven figure launches. And the other world where Doug is known is that of music. He is a composer whose work was actually performed at Carnegie Hall! And he wrote an opera that was performed at the Kennedy Center. Those worlds overlap in certain ways sometimes for Doug, and that’s what we’re going to talk about today. ...
Dec 15, 2025
Do you have an imaginary friend? Whether you do or not, today we’re going to talk about why a particular imaginary friend can solve one of the biggest problems copywriters are having today. And that problem is, your copy’s not connecting with the right target group of prospects. So your conversions are way lower than you’d like them to be. Now, the perfect solution to that would be to have a real-live focus group of honest, unflinching prospects available to you 24/7. People you could ask about ...
Dec 08, 2025
Ever spend hours, just waiting for the “perfect time” to start writing? Maybe first you decide to do a guided visualization. Or answer a few emails. Could be that there’s that perfect song that always gets your juices flowing… or a motivational youtube video you love… Well… Here’s a tip: Don’t wait and don’t find an excuse to do something else. Just start. I know it sounds crazy. Maybe impossible. But here’s the thing: When you’re not writing, it almost never “feels like” the right time to start...
Dec 01, 2025
What if you found you were sitting on tons of money that you didn’t even know about? It sounds like the beginning of a new Netflix series, right? But this happened in real life to our returning champion, Agency owner and entrepreneur Cath Rehorn. She will be the first to admit that numbers are not her. She’s a words and people person, not a data ninja. But she developed a conversation with ChatGPT to get it to review her Stripe data, even though, as she also admits, at first she really didn’t ha...
Nov 24, 2025
Our very special guest today is Angus Fletcher, professor of story science at Ohio State’s Project Narrative. His research has been called “life-changing” by Brené Brown and “mind blowing” by Malcolm Gladwell; has been endorsed by psychologists, neuroscientists, and doctors such as Martin Seligman and Antonio Damasio; and has been supported by institutions ranging from the National Science Foundation to the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. In 2023, he was awarded the Commendation Med...
Nov 17, 2025
A lot of people struggle with email marketing. Today’s special guest, Tom Ruwitch, has been at it for a quarter of a century… and he’s discovered some pretty interesting things about using stories to sell, as well. In 2001, Tom founded an email marketing business called MarketVolt. This was very early in the online business revolution. His company licensed their software to businesses worldwide, and used it themselves as part of a full-service agency. He sold the business in 2019. In 2021, Tom l...
Nov 10, 2025
As we record this in mid-October, the world has without a doubt gone absolutely bonkers over AI. People are making all kinds of extreme predictions: Some see a heaven on Earth in a future with AI, and others confidently predict unmitigated disaster. But how many of these people are talking from actual in-the-trenches experience? Who can take the long view based on what they’ve actually done and seen… and an informed view of what’s possible for the future? I personally know only one person who fi...
Nov 03, 2025
Our guest today does something I’ve been looking for in a guest on this podcast for a long time–he helps beginning copywriters get started and become success. Matthew Volkwyn is a coach, copywriter, marketer and entrepreneur. He doesn’t just talk the talk; he walks the walk. Matt has helped dozens of business coaches rapidly grow their own businesses with email marketing, a he’s built three six-figure businesses of his own. I invited Matt on after he had me as a guest on his podcast, and I found...
Oct 27, 2025
Have you ever been in a meeting where people are brainstorming ideas, and each idea is more idiotic and off-target than the last one? It has happened to all of us. And if you’re an experienced copywriter, sometimes it’s hard to bite your tongue. Because the cheerful but inexperienced leader of the meeting has announced a rule: “There are no bad ideas!” Well, yes there are. In that meeting, you just heard a whole pile of them. I can almost guarantee what the problem was. There are several steps, ...
Oct 20, 2025
Legendary NY Yankee Yogi Berra said it best: “It’s tough to make predictions, especially about the future.” He’s right, you know. But there’s one important exception, and I don’t blame Yogi because, as talented a player and a coach as he was, Yogi wasn’t a copywriter. So he didn’t know about the important exception we’ll talk about today: showing your prospect a compelling future. Not every copywriter does this, but if you don’t, you’re missing out… on conversions. And even if you do, we’re goin...
Oct 13, 2025
A little over a month ago we did a last-minute podcast about an audacious experiment our special guest today, Nick O’Connor, did with Glenn Fisher and the financial publishing giant Marketwise: Glenn told us how they put together a special program called Financial Copy U, which would train 12 copywriters ABSOLUTELY FREE on how to write copy for financial publishers. With the understanding that some graduates might be offered full-fledged copywriting jobs on the spot, depending, of course, how th...
Oct 06, 2025
It’s the sure-fire strategy that makes you overconfident. It looks like this: The copy’s loud. Aggressive. Alpha-male on a double dose of adderall. It’s practically SCREAMING at you to buy. And you know what? Sometimes it works. But not most of the time. Especially these days. Hyper-aggressive copy is just a huge risk you don’t want to take. And here’s why: While it’s true that pressure might trigger an action, it almost never creates belief. And belief is what you need to MAKE the sale… and KEE...
Sep 29, 2025
