Our guest today has a curious connection to copywriting. Though he is not a copywriter or even a traditional entrepreneur by trade, he is one hell of a copywriter anyway. His name is Dickie Bush and he describes himself as a macro investor. I’m not sure what that means but I think it has to do with hedge funds and numbers with lots of commas in them. Dickie caught my eye on Twitter because of an online writing program he has called “Ship30for30,” which gets people from all walks of life to write...
Feb 08, 2021
Our guest today is Roy Furr, a top copywriter and one of the best thinkers about copywriting I know. Roy’s been at the top of the game for over a decade. Perhaps he’s best known for writing the sales letter for Brian Kurtz’s legendary Titans of Direct Response event. He’s done many seven-figure promotions for clients and coached, trained, and mentored other copywriters. Glad to have a great copywriting coach on the show! Roy has also published his daily Breakthrough Marketing Secrets newsletter ...
Feb 01, 2021
I don’t know how controversial what we say on Copywriters Podcast is, because I don’t have much data or gut feel on the subject, one way or the other. But I think I can say with great certainty something that nearly everyone would agree on. And that is this: The single hardest part of writing copy is getting started. The terror of the blank page. Where do you start, anyway? I mean, after you’ve done all your customer research, your product research… after you’ve written all your bullets… after y...
Jan 25, 2021
So, I’ll start with this question: If you had the most powerful persuasion method ever developed at your fingertips and you didn’t use it to persuade yourself to live the life you really want -- what’s up with that? I saw a quote on Twitter that said: The problem with the rat race is if you win, you’re still a rat. It’s a real problem for a lot of us. Not the rat race so much as trying to fit in and do what we perceive everyone else thinks of as “normal” -- as opposed to going for what you reall...
Jan 18, 2021
As we’re recording this in December, one of my heroes died just a few days ago. The great test pilot Chuck Yeager. The whole idea, and the book and movie, called “The Right Stuff” was pretty much inspired by him… his courage… his innovations… his incredible skill. Here’s something from an obituary of sorts in the New York Times. “In his memoir, General Yeager said he was annoyed when people asked him if he had the right stuff, since he felt it implied a talent he was born with. “ ‘ All I know is...
Jan 11, 2021
I saw this article on the Slate.com website: “Whatever Happened to the National Enquirer?” For years, the Enquirer was a go-to resource for many copywriters, including me. Quoting from the article: “For decades, the Enquirers’s circulation was in the millions.” But in recent times, the article says, quoting journalist Lloyd Grove, “its circulation consistently plunged, year after year.” Grove blames the Internet for the Enquirer’s death spiral. It couldn’t speed up to adjust to the rhythm of the...
Jan 04, 2021
Our guest today is Donnie Bryant, a direct response copywriter and marketing consultant. Since 2007, he's written sales copy in more than a dozen niches. Agora Financial, Dan Kennedy's GKIC, and Early to Rise have all been clients. He's also shared the stage with legends such as Lamar Tyler, David Deutsch and the late Clayton Makepeace. I heard Donnie speak on an invitation-only copywriting webinar hosted by Agora Financial a couple years ago. He said some things about curiosity and neuroscience...
Dec 28, 2020
Since we’re getting near the end of the year from HELL, I wanted to have a feel-good show to cheer everyone up. It’s a long answer to the question: What are the greatest things about being a copywriter? I think sometimes we get so caught up in the what’s and the how’s and the why’s of copywriting that we don’t take enough time to appreciate all the unique aspects of being a copywriter that can make it so much fun… and so rewarding. Listen, I’m not going to skip over the money part. That’s import...
Dec 21, 2020
There’s one word keeps popping up this year when I’m talking to copywriters, and that word is “compliance.” If you don’t get the gist of what this means and what to do about it, you can get your ads shut down in a heartbeat. In fact, your whole ad account. This happens more often than you think. But if you navigate the compliance maze successfully, you have a real advantage. In some cases, you will be able to sell where you competitors can’t. And of course there’s a lot of money to be made when ...
Dec 14, 2020
Today we are back in the Old Masters series, with some helpful hints from a little-known but highly successful copywriter from the early 20th Century. He’s simply known by three initials: J.K.F. This was a guy who literally started out writing copy for food. He was quoted as saying, “No one wanted an advertising man like me. Had to eat so made a deal with the mate and cook of a ship who had opened up a restaurant on 23rd Street. Every week I put a poster in the window inviting people to come in ...
Dec 07, 2020
Our guest today is Kira Hug. You may know of her from The Copywriter Club or The Copywriter Underground, where she is Co-Founder. She also heads a micro-agency, as she calls it, where she leads a team of copywriters on projects for course, membership and product launches. In fact, her specialty is personality-driven launch copy and brand strategy. I’ve known Kira a while, and was really intrigued when I learned she knows a lot about working with junior copywriters. It’s a topic both beginners an...
Nov 30, 2020
I see a lot of questions from beginning copywriters, working pro’s, and business owners that all boil down to this: “What can I do to get good at copywriting and stay good?” Of course, the answer that first comes to mind for me is, “Hire me as your copywriting mentor.” But that’s not always practical for a number of reasons. I can only work with a few people at any time. A lot of people are too early in their skills for mentoring from me. Some people don’t want to make the investment, and some p...
Nov 23, 2020
Today I’m so pleased to have an old friend on the show who has branched out beyond direct-response copywriting. In the early 2000s, Michel Fortin was a living legend who wrote the first online sales letter that brought in $1 million in sales in one day. I am forever grateful to Michel for being my presentation partner in my famous 2005 Las Vegas Breakthrough Copywriting seminar. We also took the stage together a few years later at Harv Eker’s Marketing Event, and we sold somewhere in the neighbo...
Nov 16, 2020
Our guest today, Mike Giannulis, is a serial entrepreneur who understands, and has depended upon, the value of copy to really grow the business. When I met Mike and we started working together, his main focus was copywriting. But he has built several seven- and eight-figure businesses from scratch. And his the business he runs now, he told me, is currently on track to generate eight figures of revenue per year. It’s called Sanetris, with its products and programs focused on health and wellness. ...
Nov 09, 2020
Our guest today, Mike Giannulis, is a serial entrepreneur who understands, and has depended upon, the value of copy to really grow the business. When I met Mike and we started working together, his main focus was copywriting. But he has built several seven- and eight-figure businesses from scratch. And his the business he runs now, he told me, is currently on track to generate eight figures of revenue. It’s called Sanetris, with its products and programs focused on health and wellness. He has ab...
Nov 02, 2020
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 t...
Oct 26, 2020
Our returning champion is Dr. Doug Pew. As you may remember, Doug is an award-winning musician and composer, and a former university professor of music. His compositions have been performed at the Kennedy Center and even Carnegie Hall. You heard that right! A true over-achiever! Through a perfect storm of bad circumstances, though, Doug got fired from the university and found his way to copywriting, where he has flourished and inspired many others. He’s done work for Ray Edwards and many private...
Oct 19, 2020
Emotions make the world go round. One particular emotion, and that’s love -- according to the late singer-songwriter from the 60s, Deon Jackson, love is the emotion that makes the world go round most of all. But there are 11 other emotions that make the world go get their credit cards and push the order button. It’s conventional wisdom among a lot of copywriters and marketers that there are only two emotions that do that: greed, and fear. But today we’re going to show you others, that you can us...
Oct 12, 2020
Emotions make the world go round. One particular emotion, and that’s love -- according to the late singer-songwriter from the 60s, Deon Jackson, love is the emotion that makes the world go round most of all. But there are 11 other emotions that make the world go get their credit cards and push the order button. It’s conventional wisdom among a lot of copywriters and marketers that there are only two emotions that do that: greed, and fear. But today we’re going to show you others, that you can us...
Oct 05, 2020
We’re back Carline Anglade-Cole, is a top copywriter with a track record and a level of creativity anyone else would be jealous of. Her latest book is called, “My Life as a 50+ White Male.” That’s because, as a biracial woman, Carline has successfully found a way to get into the mindset of her prospect. Which, as you can imagine, is quite different than she is! Last week, Carline traced back the lessons of her career as an in-house copywriter for Phillips Publishing, and especially her mentorshi...
Sep 28, 2020
Our guest today, Carline Anglade-Cole, is a top copywriter with a track record and a level of creativity anyone else would be jealous of. Her latest book is called, “My Life as a 50+ White Male.” That’s because, as a biracial woman, Carline has successfully found a way to get into the mindset of her prospect. Which, as you can imagine, is quite different than she is! I asked Carline if she would trace back the lessons of her career as an in-house copywriter for Phillips Publishing, and especiall...
Sep 21, 2020
Last week we talked about the Big Four questions you need to answer when you’re designing a new product you’d like to sell a lot of. You can also use these questions to fix a product that’s not selling very well. As I said last week, I really got a lot out of interviewing my friend and former mentoring client Chris Haddad over the last two shows. One of the things that struck me about what he said was: That he creates products exactly, or almost exactly, the way he writes sales letters and VSLs....
Sep 14, 2020
I really got a lot out of interviewing my friend and former mentoring client Chris Haddad over the last two shows. One of the things that struck me about what he said was: That he creates products exactly, or almost exactly, the way he writes sales letters and VSLs. I’ve been doing that for so long myself that I had forgotten most people don’t know about this trick. And if they know about it, they don’t do it. Then, last week, I did a consult for a client who wanted help planning a new product. ...
Sep 07, 2020
We’re back for another show with legendary copywriter and info-products publisher Chris Haddad. As a freelancer, he was so good that one of his clients referred to him as “moneyfingers!” We happened to be working together at the time, and I told him he should take the word and run with it. Which he has — Mr. Moneyfingers. As a marketer of his own products, Chris went way outside of the niche and managed to get himself on a national TV show with Rachel Ray. This was for his product “Text the Roma...
Aug 31, 2020
We’ve got legendary copywriter and info-products publisher Chris Haddad on the show today, and for that I am grateful. As a freelancer, he was so good that one of his clients referred to him as “moneyfingers!” We happened to be working together at the time, and I told him he should take the word and run with it. Which he has — Mr. Moneyfingers. As a marketer of his own products, Chris went way outside of the niche and managed to get himself on a national TV show with Rachel Ray. This was for his...
Aug 24, 2020
Have you ever noticed that some copy you read is immediately believable, while other copy leaves you wondering whether it’s the real deal or not? One of the most important reasons copy is believable is whether the copywriter used one or hopefully more of a few little hacks. Today, continuing our Old Masters series, I found an extremely valuable chapter in an old book that spells out what these hacks are. I’ll leave it to you to decide how valuable they really are, and whether you are already usi...
Aug 17, 2020
Lori Haller is known as the Lion Tamer of Copywriting, because she has successfully collaborated with some of the most headstrong personalities in the industry… and afterwards, everyone left as friends! Lori is a creative strategist, speaker, author and trainer. Her company, Designing Response LLC, has been creating award-winning, sales-generating direct mail, online promotions, space advertising and design for more than 20 years. She’s worked with every big name in direct response you can think...
Aug 10, 2020
The number one thing you’ve got to do as a copywriter is first, get people’s attention. Sounds obvious, I know. But how many times have you had to write a headline and you spent hours, not knowing where to start? It happens to all of us. I found an old book in my personal library that can help you out. It’s called “The Magic Power of Emotional Appeal,” by Roy Garn. It was a best-seller, way back in 1960. And so this is part of our Old Masters series. And it turns out the author boiled it all dow...
Aug 03, 2020
Our guest today has lived the kind of life most of us only see on TV and movies. He worked as a specialized contractor in Iraq in PsyOps, which in a way is like the military version of persuasion or direct marketing. Of course, much of what he did is classified, but he’ll share some insights that don’t compromise sensitive information today. He’s also worked at the heartbeat of world media, as an editor for CNN, NBC, Sky, CNBC and MTV. Our guest is Christian Dixon, and these days, he’s pursuing ...
Jul 27, 2020
I’m in a book discussion group with a client and two of his friends. The only problem is, both of his friends are also podcasters, so you can imagine how hard it is to get a word in edgewise. The book we were discussing last time was Jonathan Haidt’s A Righteous Mind. This is an especially important book because it offers some concrete ways to bridge the big political divide going on in America and really much of the rest of the world right now. I want to focus on something else in the book that...
Jul 20, 2020
