Hello, my friends, and welcome to another episode of How to Sell Advice. The podcast, that's all about how to package and sell your expertise, not just your hands with advisory work, being at the center of it. And in this episode, we've got Billy Broas. Billy Broas is a marketer copywriter educator, and he's worked with some pretty fantastic creators and educators in the past.
The likes of. Tiago Forte, David Parell, Ali Abdaal and many others that are just, super successful in their spaces, online educators. And so he's got all this experience as a copywriter, as a messaging expert, and also now as an advisor and educator. And so we kind of break down not only his framework, but we talk about how he's managed to build a business around that. So he's got something called the five light bulbs framework, and we talk about what that is, how it works.
It's a messaging framework. Uh, we talked with them, how we leveraged that into courses, core courses, books, advisory services. And all kinds of other cool stuff. We also talk about how he focuses on the fundamentals of marketing and not just the next kind of new thing we talk about. How are you using this framework actually allows you to understand your customer better and therefore become a better marketer and create better products.
We talked about how he gets new clients through direct means as well as through getting in front of other audiences and teaching in front of other audiences of his target market. So we break down a lot of different things about how his business works and how it's based around his core framework. So stay tuned for this. One's very interesting. It goes about an hour and I'll see you on the other side. Billy, welcome to the show. So glad to have you with us today.
Thanks for having me, Kevin. Good to be back.
Yeah. Yeah. Billy actually was a guest, one of the original guests in the Mindshare community in, in terms of guest presenters. And he, he, he taught his core methodology that we're gonna get into today. And, uh, maybe actually we can start there. Uh, Billy, why don't you tell us about the, the core thing that you do today, which is teaching your proprietary framework, the five light bulbs framework, what, what is it, and then what are, let's start with this.
What is it and what are the five light bulbs?
Sure it's a messaging framework. You might call it a communication framework. Some people think about it as a, a copywriting framework. I prefer messaging framework. I think it's the most straightforward and best describes it. And uh, it's essentially a structure for your marketing. It's a, this universal language that I discovered and I turned it into this framework and now a, a methodology to, to help businesses cuz that's, that's what I do. I help businesses.
And so, um, it's very foundational. It's definitely not based on tactics. It's not dependent on any one platform like Twitter or Instagram or anything. It's uh, it's the 80 20 of your marketing. So if you, if you're staring at that blank page, which lot of us do I like, I'm a copywriter and I still do that, and you're trying to, to write something that brings in business. It's these five boxes that you can check that are just very simple, but. Powerful as well.
And if you just check those five boxes, you know you'll be in in pretty good shape.
Yeah, so they're kind of like the core ingredients you want to have. You may not use all of them, but the, the core ingredients you have, it's uh, uh, to use either in your website copy, which would be the most extensive, maybe have all five of them, or things like ads where you might talk about one or two of them. Why don't you tell us what those five light bulbs are and then we can unpack that a little bit as well.
Sure. And, uh, it's a very visual framework, so I definitely invite you to go to the website, uh, p post.com/framework. And um, I hired an illustrator, phenomenal. Illustrator, a guy named Matt who, who really brought this whole thing to life. And um, we have this whole crazy world. We have a bear, we have an owl, but I'll walk through them briefly here. So light bulb one, and these are categories of messaging. Think about 'em that way.
Uh, light bulb one, this represents your customers status quo. So where they are now, we often call this their unacceptable status quo. Because you wanna target someone. This is important. You wanna target someone who has existing demand or a market where there's existing demand. This is an old Eugene Schwartz lesson that you can't create demand. You can only channel it. Uh, so that's like bulb one, and it's the language of empathy.
It's messaging about the customer and where they're now, and making them realize that you understand them and what they're going through. Which then moves us to light bulb two because they want to move away from that area. Obviously from that place where they are that bad place. And Light Bulb two represents those other options they have.
Or if you look at the illustration, we use Bridges, so the other bridges that they can use to get away from where they don't wanna be in two, where they do wanna be and do you wanna give voice to those other bridges? And that's what Light Bulb two represents. Then we have light bulb three and uh, this one's really interesting and it, it. Really helps in a crowded market. It's a great differentiator, and Lipo three represents your approach. So it's not your product, but it's your approach.
It's your methodology, it's your philosophy, it's your your way of doing things. Then we have lipo four. This is the easiest for people to get because it's your offer. So it's your product. Yes. But it's larger than that. Your offer also includes your price point, your guarantee, any bonuses. So this tends to be pretty boiler plate.
People tend to know this information and, and typically this is all that people talk about in their marketing material, which is why people like the five light bulbs. They say It gives me other things to talk about. Light bulbs 1, 2, 3, and five. Uh, which brings us to five, which is the customer's new life. So the other side of that bridge where the sun is shining and the birds are chirping. And again, you want to give voice to that side of the bridge.
And a lot of people neglect that because they assume my customer will just get it. And uh, and you don't wanna say that phrase. So those are the five light bulbs.
Okay. I love it. So there's a lot to unpack there, and I think what I've, what I like about this is that copywriting is very, if you don't have a framework and you don't, and you haven't been trained, copywriting feels like you're just throwing. You have to be a good writer and throw words at the wall and hopefully convince someone like you're doing a sales, you know, it's like a, you're. It's like you're selling, but with words, but, but it feels like you have to sort of make it up.
And what I love about your approach is that you say, well, you don't have to make it up as long as you have these, as long as you're talking about your offer and, and, and your method and what's going on in the customer's mind. Uh, in all these different areas, it makes it easier to kind of check the boxes, make sure that I have the core ingredients. And then I think part of your method is that you can, you can basically order them in the way that makes sense for you.
And some people lead with say, a light bulb three, which is about, I think the method versus the better life, the light bulb. Uh, one I believe could be missing mixing these up, but like what I love about is the ingredients are there and then it becomes down to you to figure out how to use them. Uh, do you have any guidance for anyone in terms of. How to take these things and put them into a certain order to achieve a business result.
And we'll use a website as an example cuz that's probably the most heavyweight thing.
Yeah. Well, let's back up first. So, yeah. The reason why it works is because it's, it's really a radical approach to putting yourself in your customer's shoes. You think about some of the other marketing frameworks out there, they're very, like, for internal use only, they make sense to marketers. I'm very big on the human experience and really understanding someone's perspective and then what this is that it takes, it does that first, but then it maps it. It's a layer on top of that.
It maps these, these different categories, map to the human experience of making a decision. That's why you can use the five light bulbs for yourself. You know, you can think about a decision that you're going through and think about where am I now? Where do I want to be? What are my different light bulb twos, my different bridges to get there? And how do I decide which one to take?
And then once I decide which one to take light bulb four, which is the action step in this, in this case, it's not buying a product. It's, it's you taking this action on your own. It's okay, well here's my plan to get there. I'm gonna do this, this, and this every day for the next six months, and that's gonna get me there. So I wanted to, to state that first because it's easy to jump into, okay, what order do they go when the lip bulb was going?
But that's way downstream of first understanding the, the bigger picture here of what's going on.
Got it. Got it. Okay. So, uh, you have this framework. You teach entrepreneurs how to apply it to their own business. You've, and you also then teach marketers how to use it in their practice so that they can become more effective at it. So you kinda have a two-sided market, uh, or two kind of component market. Is that. Accurate still? Or are you sort of focusing more on one group over the other?
Now I do. Yeah. And I mean this is an important point too, cuz now we're gonna talk about my business model, which is not what I normally talk about and I'm excited to talk about it. Cause I'm normally just teaching the light bulbs and, and messaging. Um, but I'm very much at a transition point in my career, which started two years ago when I first came up with this crazy idea about these light bulbs. So I'm very much transitioning from.
Being a consultant, a coach, a service provider, um, to having a more, to having a more, I guess would say more of like a real business where I have products, um, which was only, and I, we could talk about this more too, which was, is really only made possible cuz it's tough in a business like ours where you're selling advice, right? Or selling the invisible it's name of a great book.
Great book. Yeah. I love that book.
Because we don't really have a physical product, right? Like, I have this cup right here. This is, this is easy to sell, right? I can, I can, I can have a store full of these and, and know my costs going into it, how many I sell per day, and the revenue and the margins and taxes and all that stuff. When you're selling advice though, it's tricky. Um, so IP to me has been the answer, and that's what. Five light bulbs is it's intellectual property.
So now I'm, I'm productizing, I finally productize my knowledge and then I can follow. Then it, it's, at least for me, it's simpler. I can think about now my product is more like this cup. And you know, that metaphor's gonna break down soon, but I can have all these different levels of implementation with it. Like, yeah, I can have the one-on-one, which I've been doing, and, um, helping people with the five light bulbs, but also now, uh, a self-paced course.
Uh, I'm working on a book now, but it's not that book, but eventually it'll be the five Light Bulbs book. So yeah, more of a well-rounded business, but I'm, I'm very much in it right now.
Yeah. Okay. This is great. So it sort of maps to my general paradigm that we go from doing. So you were copywriting for a long time. And you developing those skills to slowly moving into either managing either other people or managing your client's project to advising and then to teaching as sort of the tail end and to selling those as products would be the most leveraged form as you kind of go along your journey of selling your expertise.
Let's break down your business model a bit, cuz I know you have, you have a, uh, you have a copy critique and maybe we'll start there. So, um, you what, I guess maybe walk me up your, your path a little bit from. Copy critique, and then you've got a V I P day. What else do you have? Or maybe explain those two first and then we'll talk about the other
Well, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll present it this way. I think this would be the most useful for your listener. So, and I have to give a little bit of backstory here, which apologies if you've heard me say this before, but I, I used to have a completely different career. So I was working at, for a small engineering company, specializing in clean energy. I. And, uh, and that was awesome and I was really into that. Uh, but it was a small company. I had the entrepreneurial itch, wanted to get out.
And so I started this, this was 2008 or so. The four hour work week was out. The internet was taking off Twitter, I just launched. So I started a website about, uh, a passion I had, which was beer brewing. I was really into crap beer, making my own beer. So that's how I got into this, this marketing stuff. I didn't have any marketing experience before this. Uh, I got an mba, but they don't teach this kind of marketing, right?
They're assuming that you're like, uh, you know, c m o at Walmart or something, and the sales are already me and you're just kind of allocating budgets. So, and then, so then eventually with the beer site, I got really into the, the marketing side of things and said, man, this is, this is exciting.
And I started working with all these other businesses, even bigger than my beer website, much bigger, but I could still point out things marketing wise, especially copywriting wise, that they could do differently. So eventually my interest, and there were other factors too, happening with the beer website, but that faded, this other side of things took off, and that's when I got into being, I don't know what you would, you would call me, but I was doing marketing.
Consulting coaching, I would partner, uh, with businesses, with, uh, mainly online course creators, revenue share types of deals. So I have done every, every type of thing you can sell in this industry. I think I've sold it.
So where are you? So I want to come back to partnering and revshare because we did a training on this just uh, two days ago in our community about. Equity, equity, compensation and partnerships and that kind of thing, but, we'll, we'll come back to that one. But going back to what you're doing today, so what's your core model looking like now? How do you, what are you currently selling?
So I would split it into three tiers where I have my, my one-on-one work, which I've always been doing. And then a level down from that, we have cohorts. So group programs a more leveraged version of me working one-on-one, but I'm still very much involved. Uh, and it's been primarily that, I mean, honestly, the whole time until literally right now, cuz we're just now launching the on demand version of the five light bulbs. So this will be the first time. I'm offering something in this space.
Right. I haven't, I, I did this with my beer site, you know, I had these beer brewing courses where I wasn't, some of those I actually did as cohorts, but, um, but most of those were just on demand courses. Yeah, those, those were fun. Especially the beer tasting one. That was a fun
Uh, nice. Before, before cohorts were popular, you were selling beer cohort courses.
Yeah. This was 2013. We, I didn't call it a cohort. I was just like, Hey, if we're gonna have a beer tasting course, If you don't drink beer by yourself, you do it live. So we're gonna hop on Webinar jam and we're gonna drink this beer together and I'm gonna walk them through how to do it. Um, so that was, that was a lot of fun. But, uh, I forget what I was saying now. Yeah. Oh, and, and we're just now launching the, the on demand course for the five light bulbs.
So tho those are the, the three tiers.
Three sort of buckets. Now, it looks like you don't talk a lot about your one-to-one, but I know you offer it. Is it just the, is it just the, uh, the critique and the v i p day, or are you also writing? Copy or, or you said you were previously advising and consulting on a more, you know, protracted longer basis.
Yeah,
are the one-to-one services like?
of things, you know, and I, I go by my gut for a lot of this about what feels right. What's happening in the marketplace? Kind of where I'm headed, you know, like if I'm thinking two steps ahead, what I wanna be doing. I mean, historically it's been a combination of advi, I would say three categories. So advising, so meeting usually on a weekly basis, just doing a call, looking at what they have going on. Uh, there's often a lot of coaching in there too. Getting them clear on their goals.
Because you have to know that, right? In order to recommend the right solution, what do you, what do you really want? Do you wanna build a big company? Do you wanna more of a lifestyle business? Because there's different paths for each of those, and I need to know where we're taking this thing. Um, so that's a lot of it. Um, and then, and like I leveled down from that, I would say strategy and planning.
A lot of this has been made easier on me too, in, this is a good, this is a good lesson in the sense that, or by the fact that I've been in the same industry. So it's largely. Coaches and course creators. So we're, it's the same types of business models and the same types of ways to sell these products. So you pretty much have, in my world, launches and funnels. And so I can advise, we can do a project, then we can say, okay, I'm gonna advise you on this launch.
And that's a very set duration set kind of a thing. That's probably more of a consulting project, cuz people who haven't done that before, they might have a big audience, but they haven't done an online course launch before. They need to know like, what webpages do I need? What technology do I need? How do I follow up with the customers? And so that lends itself well to a project sort of arrangement.
Got it. Okay. So it sounds as though, and I think. Think you don't have any of this stuff listed on your website. You, you very, you don't really actively promote your one-to-one as far as I can tell. Like there's
The website has never played no. And that that's, that's a new website. Never. The website is never the website, and pretty much all the stuff that I do for clients has never been a big role until now in my business.
interesting, and then you bring basically whatever tool is required to get the job done for that particular client. So if they're like showing you something and you're like, I think this is a funnel. Scenario and you're looking for advice. I can help you look at this whole, I can map this stuff all the way through your funnel and work with you for a project or an extended period of time kind of thing. Do you just sort of, is every project custom,
It depends. It depends on what they need. It historically has been, yes. Which has been a challenge a as you know, that's a challenge doing custom stuff and estimating your hours and all that. Again, it's made easier by the fact that these tend to be the same kinds of projects. So I know
Online educators and
goes into 'em. Yeah, so some, some, sometimes it'll be, Hey, I'll help you plan your launch, and do you need copy? No, we have a copywriter. Okay. Well then we'll just do the planning. Or no, I don't have a copywriter. I need all the copy written too. It's like, okay, well that's a big thing we're gonna add on to this then. Uh, yeah, or, or something as specific as if it's a bigger company. Hey, we have this big team involved. We need someone to come up with some good Facebook ad creative.
I've done that before and I'm just doing the Facebook ad creative for this big launch.
And do. And do you underpin that with like an upfront strategy process where you kind of figure out all their messaging ingredients and then take that and then run it with the Facebook thing? Or do you just essentially
I mean idea in a perfect world, right? We do all the customer research, we do strategy, we interview cust, but sometimes it's like. Hey, we have this big opportunity, this affiliate is going to promote us, but only if we start this thing next week say, just do your best. Just dive right in with what you got. You gotta, so you gotta be very pragmatic too in this stuff cuz Yeah, it's, it's the real world. It, it's messy and you gotta, you gotta break things.
Yeah, and I, what I like about your model is that you're not really constrained to one specific way of solving a problem. I think marketing consultants, they either see themselves as advisors or fractional CMOs. Or freelancers. But what I like about what you're bringing is for first of all, a framework to organize your thinking, which I love. Uh, and also then you can say, well, it looks like you need some advice, or it looks like you need some actual handwriting, some copy here.
Maybe I'll do, I'll do some or all of it, or I'll introduce you. I think in the past you've introduced copywriters who then worked under your advisement with the client or who has taken your methodology and has run with it. So what I like about it is you're focused on the outcome the client's looking for, and you're packaging. The delivery of the mechanism that you deliver your services in according to the needs of the client.
Not some preconceived notion that I'm a copywriter, a strategist, or what have you. Is that accurate to say?
It is. Yeah, and, and I'll just point out once again that it's now much easier that I have the framework. For example, in the past, if I were doing a v I P day, it would be, okay, we have this shell, right? And uh, this shell product, what are we gonna do with these hours? And it, and, and that was fine. And it was like, okay, what do you, what do you need the most? And it might be working on a launch, it might be working on a funnel customer research.
Now that shifted where it's, Hey Billy, I want a v i p day to do my messaging map for the five light bulbs.
Right. So it, that's great too because it inherently constrains the relationship in a positive way. So it focus, it focuses it. So it's not like, okay, Billy, can you also tell me like, you know, what's wrong with my website code? Or where, wherever my targeting is wrong on Facebook at like, you're, you don't. It allows you to create a scope and therefore a price and therefore, you know, anchoring on value to the your framework and your expertise, and it simplifies that for you and for them.
it's better for both of us because. Otherwise, you're doing all the, you know how it is. You have to do something over and over and over again to achieve mastery. You have to do it a lot of times to get really good at it. I'm still, every time I do this, I'm refining this process. I mean, you get diminishing returns, you get the biggest gains the first few times, you know the first few reps.
But if you're jumping from a launch to a funnel to customer research, you're not getting many reps in with each of those. So they're not getting very good, like the products are just not as good as they could be. So that's been one of the good things about this is that by being so specific, yeah, there's a lot of benefits to me. I can productize things, I can predict revenue and profit better. I can even train other people on how to deliver this productize service.
But they're also getting a very, the, the client is getting a very dialed in product.
Well, also, you're horizontally quite narrow, right? Being copier, you, you know, you have an opinion on design, but that's not part of your framework. You have an opinion on. Um, you know, something like my work, for example, if it, if it, if it helps you get more customers and it's in the marketing arena, I'm gonna, I'm gonna at least advise you on it. But usually my method is, hey, we need to bring in a specialist for this. We need to get someone who's good enough for this.
And I'm helping them basically allocate resources and create, bring in the right people to do execution that's in their wheelhouse and their specialty. So what I like about you though is that you're very much able to say, here's where I'm. I specialize horizontally, and then there's a vertical. Usually you're with online course creators, although I'm sure you've worked with many industries, but that allows you to really just get really good at applying that same methodology over and over again,
Yeah. Yeah. And I, and I've also seen big benefits from, and this is just how I am, I'm very much a foundational principles type of guy. Like when it, you know, I got into online marketing, I have, and I have a lot of friends, man, where a new tool comes out and uh, and they're just all over it, right? And they're hitting me up and they're like, yeah, check. Have you checked out this new email marketing tool or this one? It brings them joy. It brings me a lot of stress.
I'm like, Hey, can I just write a simple email? Like I don't care about all these tools. It's, it, it feels very overwhelming for me. Um, so I've always retreated back to the basics. Back to the basics. Like, I would see these funnels that people would bill cuz they copied, you know, they, they read about this funnel somewhere. This, this funnel is the key, but then the copy's terrible. The messaging is terrible.
I'm like, none of that stuff matters unless you get this foundational stuff correct. Um, so it ha what I'm saying is it is very specific to my business model. I think it's a good idea to specialize in something. And it's really benefited me focusing on these foundational principles, uh, and, and specializing in that because that then, then that can apply to everything. It's, it's not gonna go anywhere. I can show you how, cause we're focusing on messaging, your foundational messaging.
So I can say, oh, well yeah, Facebook ads, I'll show you how that fits in. Or Instagram, I'll show you how that fits in our seo. So that's been one nice thing.
Yeah. Okay. So you've talked a little bit about your one-to-one stuff, and uh, so I know you have, you'll do a critique. For example, you'll, you'll do a v i p messaging day where you spend the day in, in one or two parts, uh, helping them map out all this messaging stuff. Um, you have done successfully several cohort courses and now you're moving to self study courses. Um, Why make that move from cohort to self-study?
Are you finding the, that's where the market's going or have you just, is there another reason for it?
Oh, the, the typical re. I mean, I put a lot into the cohorts, and I can only do that with so many people.
Got it.
I mean, I, I really am, I'm not just BSing here. Like, I really think that this can, this can change marketing. This five light bulbs thing, it's a, uh, it's a terrible industry in a way. I mean, it's, it's tough to be in. It has a terrible stigma. Uh, no one enjoys it. People, people distrust marketers. They just wanna focus on their product. Um, But we also can't avoid it. We also need it too.
And so I can, I can run from it and say, I don't wanna be in that icky area, but you know, there, there's problems everywhere and there's bad stigmas everywhere and misperceptions and everything. And, uh, I think the best way to change something is from the inside out, not from getting outside of it and throwing rocks at it. And so I really see this as some, as a, as a force for good. And it's such a, a universal language. And it's, so, it's bottom up.
It's not top down like so many things out there. Like it really puts, it, it, it empowers the reader or, or the, the, the user or the student. And it puts it on them to, like, we ask you these questions, like, what is the value that you provide? And then we show you, and then we show you how you can use that. And we that into a creative message. It's a very creative framework, which is very exciting for me and one of the reasons why I'm, I'm so passionate about it.
Uh, so I really want everyone speaking this, you know, whether you. By one of our courses or not. want everyone speaking this light bulb language cuz it, it really helps with marketing and who doesn't want that?
Yeah, and, and what I like about it as well is, okay, anyone who creates any kind of a product, let's say you're either an engineer or you are a service provider, or it doesn't matter what you do, our natural tendency is to focus on the widget itself, right? Like this, you know, and like all the details of how much ram the computer has, the thing, because that's as practitioners, as product creators. That's the thing that, like we, we've, we've obsessed on.
We've spent our years learning how to do our craft and therefore we, we only wanna talk about it. Whereas the client is thinking like, I'm over here and this is the pain I'm in and I want to get over there. And that's the pain you're in and you're talking about your shoelaces and how great they are. Um, and what I love about your framework is that it, first of all, recognizes okay, like, What is your situation? What else have you tried? Where are you trying to go?
What's the better life that you're in? Um, and then, you know, so it's much more three-dimensional than, than just staring at your navel and saying, here's how good I am. And that's one of the reasons I love it. It extracts by nature. All these other pieces that are important,
Yeah, and that, and it also leads to a better product. Like I believe, I can elaborate on this as much as you want me to, but I believe that it, I believe that it will lead to more innovation and better products too, the way that it's set up. It has to it naturally. If you follow the methodology, it naturally leads to more innovation.
I love this idea because you know, one of the first things I read when I went to back to School for Business was in marketing was marketing is the four Ps of marketing product, rice Place, promotion. And I think marketers say, oh, your product is no good, so I can't help you. I can't market it.
But I really believe that the quality of the product and how you innovate is very much based on market feedback and, and basically innovation happens at the cutting edge of your product and your marketing meeting the, the human, the customer on the other end. And I believe it is our job to help help our clients shape the product in a way that matches what the market is looking for. And by gathering that intel and un and empathizing and speaking and to them, and. Hearing from them.
And I think that's, I dunno if that's where you're going with that, but I really like that. It like by by. No, by thinking in terms of the lens of the five light bulbs, you're now able to make sure everything is aligned with real humans on the other end of the transaction.
Exactly. A lot of product creators think they have a good product, but it's only good if it's good in the eyes of the prospect and what they value their, their light bulb five, to use that word, they uh, What they value might not be what the product creator thinks they value. So then it doesn't matter how good your product is, if it's taking them, if it's a bridge to the wrong place, then it's not a good product. So absolutely.
Yeah, so it, as much as it is about messaging, it's also about. It's also about the product is about maybe even evolving the product to better fit the market, right?
If you are selling boots with cleats and you're trying to sell it to rugby players, but they're not, that there's a better product out there and you're like, well, if we just put, made them spike here and position them for, you know, for them climbing mountains, that we may have better luck because we can see here that there's not a sufficient product in the market or that for some reason mountaineers are resonating with this, uh, better. So you can kind of guide the product.
And not just the messaging. And I think that's part of the issue is that marketers often try to put lipstick on a pig or try to market something that the market inherently doesn't want. Like, you know, making it look really good when it's not actually a good fit. And I think it's kind of combining the message with an actual product that fits the right type of person.
agreed. And, and then the, the other part of this too is finding, I'm a big believer in finding a better way of doing things. And, and this is really light bulb three, your approach. And this is what I meant by. One of the things I meant by, I think that I know that this approach will lead to more innovation because part of this file light bulb methodology is I, I tell you, I teach this. You need to make an argument for your light bulb.
Three, you need to argue for your approach and make a good rhetorical argument and provide, uh, proof and, and evidence and, and back it up and explain why it's, why it works better than everything else out there. And, and so if you do that, and if you make a good faith argument then, and you have the proof to back it up, then you and, and everyone, let's assume everyone in this market does this. All the companies do this and they're all making ar.
You know, you have, you have a hundred different people making arguments. Well, they're gonna start competing against each other to find the best way of doing things. The best light bulb three. And that will lead to more innovation and a better product.
Interesting. Yeah. Yeah. And that kind of goes back as well to, um, you know, your approach is maybe your framework, but then how you deploy that approach is how you've, especially in a one-to-one way, Like your framework underpins what you do, but then how you deliver that is maybe through teaching it, maybe through advising, maybe through writing, maybe through, you know, a tear down, what a critique or what have you.
And, uh, so I, you know, I just love that, like not being too glued to my identity as a copywriter, as a consultant, as a teacher, and saying, and you know, saying like, okay, what is this methodology doing and is it working? And if not, how do I dial it in so it works even better? And then deliver it in the way that makes the most sense for the right different kinds of customers. So, yeah.
Well, I think making that step, that was an important step for me, going from the guy who just gave good marketing advice to now creating something that has independent value.
Mm-hmm.
That's that, that ip, that systematizing that, uh, codifying. And that's what I think we should strive for, is, yeah, like, let's be good service providers, good advisors, study our industry, our topic and everything. Have a skillset set, you know, have a skillset set on top of that. Um, but I, I believe that final step a, a great goal is to then bring that all together into something that I can outlive you frankly.
Yeah, that's the goal. I mean, my goal is that to take everything outta my head, to break it down into its component pieces, to document it in some way. And then to, to eventually have that live outside of my head and you in the meantime use it to supplement my consulting work. So I can say something and say, go here for the more full, complete version of what I mean by this. And in your case, that's training on light bulb one three doesn't matter.
Like there's some definitive thing you can point to and say that's the authoritative guide. It'll become your book, for example. Uh, so it kind of supplements your consulting and then eventually can be sold outside of your head. And if you're lucky, maybe leave a legacy behind you and, uh, make the marketing world a little better.
Yeah, we'll see.
Yeah. I'm with you. Um, okay, so just kinda shifting gears just a little bit, how do you, so how do you get clients currently? So you've, you've kind of got a few different methods. It sounds like some of it's word of mouth, uh, you've got a few partnerships. Explain to me a little bit about how you generally get clients for all these different categories.
Historically, it's been two main sources. So the first. You have to go back. I mean, this was, you know, before Covid, but I would go to a lot of conferences. So I'd say the, the first source would be relationships. Um, a lot of those started through conferences and masterminds and meetups and old school in-person stuff. Hugs and handshakes. So, and I would, I would do speaking some speaking engagements too at those at masterminds and conferences.
Uh, so that, that's, that was, that's been the main one. Uh, yeah, word of mouth, uh, people introducing me to someone over email who I helped in the past.
Yeah.
And then the second one again, and I, this is sort of before this transition into the five before. Five light bulbs. Pre five light bulbs. That's what I'm talking about now. Uh, the second one would be, I got a lot of leads and clients from Teachable. And the reason for that is, if you know Teachable, it's this big online course platform. Um, I, I got involved with them back in the day. This is a whole nother story.
I had a, a client, I was working as a, uh, an automation consultant for Entreport. I got certified through Entreport, mainly for my own business cause I was using Entreport, but I had some clients as well. And I, and I had this big client early on who was using. It wasn't called Teachable at the time. It was using, it was called Fedora. That was their first name. And, uh, an anchor, the, the c e o, he's now exited. Uh, we would work closely together. I give him credit.
He was very much involved in, uh, in working with their early customers. And so through Teachable then I got very plugged in with them and they featured me on their websites. So I had a lot of teachable people who would come to me.
Very cool. And that's how you probably went down into the online educator space, because I know you've worked with some remarkable big creators. And it's interesting as well, so I wrote recently on like, let the ne let the niche or the niche find you. And as a copywriter and as a messaging expert, you kind of makes sense that you'd work with online educators who are teaching. And a lot of that marketing is done in words in language, right?
Like it's, yes, there's ads and everything else, but it kind of makes sense that they have more of a landing pages have a bigger involvement in the process. Their ads have a big, you know, component to it and the words that are used in a very brief setting. The funnels that you mentioned, the emails that follow up, it kind of feels like you landed on that both because of your skills and your expertise. You know, it kind of, it kind of chose you in a way.
these things into, into benefits for people and these niche topics, this is the curse of expertise, is that you get, you're so in it, you forget what it's like to be zoomed out. And, and I, I was able to go in and, and quickly learn these topics. Uh, again, I really enjoyed learning 'em, but then turn around and explain it in simpler terms and, and in in terms that someone, uh, would make someone wanna join one of these programs and learn this topic or, or go deeper into it.
So that was the unique value that I provided, and it very much aligned with what I enjoyed doing.
Yeah. Very cool. Yeah. Yeah, cuz if you were to do this for one of the niches, I work with co-working spaces. There's not a, there's not a, as, as much value to be had in like super nuanced messaging com. Like it's, it's a known category with some slight differentiators from client to client, and then there's only a pool of five or 10 spaces in a location. And whereas you have a much bigger impact with the online educator space. Uh, so you've kind of followed where the value was created too.
Yeah. Yeah, tho those are fun too, though. I mean, that, that's a constraint, right? Let's take a boring industry and, and try to create some exciting messaging for it. So I like that as a challenge as well.
Yeah. Uh, yeah. I'm a big fan of trying to convey one main thing, so you can hook one, one idea to your name, but not three and not five, and like maybe you can com you can combine some later on as the subtext. But if you were to hook one main thing to your business that I love that constraint. I don't know if, do you do that at all? Is like, is that part of your method at all to say like, what, what one main thing are we trying to. Hook people on in terms of your differentiator, for example.
Well, and, and yeah. And then this might even get into the advice that we give your listeners. What I say to do is with the five light bulbs, you're always trying to figure out which is the one that's gonna resonate the most, which is the one that we should turn up the wattage on. And that, and that's really a matter of. It's almost a lot of things. It's knowing your market. It's intuition, it's testing.
Right. Yeah. Love that. Love that.
Coming back a little bit to the marketing side of things, so you've, it sounds like relationships were a big component of it, and one of the recent trainings that I did in the membership, uh, was talking about the Golden Goose strategy, which is instead of going out looking for individual clients, which we all have to do to some extent anyway, how do we spend some, some of our time, Building relationships with people who can refer you to other people in the future.
So that would be things like, you know, you've got partners, you've got, um, you know, Teachable, software that serves the target market you're trying to communicate with. So rather than going out and looking at, for all these individual folks in your industry or in your target market, folks like, Teachable speaking at conferences. Uh, you also partner with, I believe, Tiago on some of your, uh, cohort stuff. Tiago Forte of building a second brain.
Uh, and I assume he, he helps drive just by virtue of the size of his audience. Some traffic and awareness to the cohort programs feels like a big part of your marketing strategy, whether you've
Yeah. So now, so now post five light bulbs? Yes, I have, now that I'm growing my email list, so on. Yeah, he's, I have a lot of people from his audience on my email list, cuz Yeah, he does have a big one.
Yeah, so I just love that idea. It's very hard. Do you have any tips for someone to find these opportunities? It sounds like you kind of landed into it through, through your interest of your natural being and relationship building, but like any tips in terms of getting in front of other audiences?
Yeah, I mean, I mean the one with him, it's not glamorous. I mean, the best ones you earn, I mean, he, he wouldn't put his trust behind me unless I did something right and it took time, two
yeah,
years.
yeah. Did you write much copy for him?
that's not an overnight thing. Tiago writing copy. Well, um, so he, he has a marketing. We don't work together anymore. Um, we're just friends. I'm going to his, his birthday party in a few days here. But he has a, he has a director of marketing now who actually graduated from our cohort and she learned the five light bulbs. Um, I didn't write a ton of copy for him. It was more so calls with him. It wasn't like me writing a long form sales page for him.
He did one of my programs and then we would do regular calls.
Very cool. So he came in as a student or maybe a, I don't know, a friend or something who also took your course and then
Yeah, this was an earlier one before I was really serious about doing programs. It was a very small group. Uh, and yeah, he, he came in, he did that first, and then it turned into a, a one-on-one engagement.
Yeah. Very cool. Love that. As well as an initial way, you know, that's one of the reasons teaching what you know and having a framework, uh, is a great way to kind of build a backend offering. Like, for example, I just did a, I published a video of a website, I believe it was Fletch, and they do like homepage copy. And that can be a great segue into an advisory relationship cuz you've figured out what, what the dials are, what the messaging is, who the market is. How to communicate it.
And then it's logical that you said, Hey, you know, if you need help with broader marketing and or applying some of this to other areas, we can help. And they didn't do that. But, um, that to me as an advisor mind is a great way where you, you do something small like teaching or doing a project and that can lead into longer, bigger relationship based market, uh, engagements.
Yeah. Some of my best one-on-one clients are people who took one of my programs first.
That is a very interesting insight. Yeah. That's super interesting.
We're on, we're on the same page, we hit the ground running. They speak the language of the light bulbs. They know me, they trust me. I know them. I trust them. It's a good first date.
Yeah, I think what I'm trying to do with how to sell advice, uh, rather than leading with a membership, I wanna lead with a course by the same name that then says, if you want help, or if you're looking for more, more like nuanced, deep, you know, around the edges, content and coaching and that kind of thing, the membership is there for you rather than, Saying Everything's in this membership, take it or leave it. Which not everyone wants to buy, right?
But some percent may want to, you know, some percent want to just take a course and go away and some percent wanna do that and then stay involved and are living it day-to-day and want that
Mm-hmm.
help navigating it. So it's just an interesting way, like you may be, you may wanna sell the ongoing retainer of engagements, but maybe the way is to package it up into smaller projects or training like what you did, especially because it led to such. Great success for you in terms of the backend and just in general, just making a bigger impact.
Yeah. Yeah, it, it's been, I'm really glad I did it. And I also, I also love teaching too. I really enjoy. I know a lot of people don't, and they'd rather not hop on a call and, and teach and coach and all that. But, uh, I really enjoy that. It's not like I force myself to do it. So that's, that's an important thing to point out too.
Yeah, I remember telling one of my teachers that I wanted to be a teacher when I got older, I had no idea wanted, wanted to do in high school. And he is like, yeah, your, you know, your grades are about good enough to be a teacher. And I'm, I'm like, okay, that's a bit of a backended, uh, affirmation. But no, it was, you know, I was a seventies, eighties student. Um, but, uh, but yeah, but then I remember saying like, I'm gonna be a teacher. I just, it won't be in a traditional way.
Like for some reason, as my path went on way before I got, you know, deep into the marketing world, For some reason, I always knew I was gonna be a teacher, and that's one of the reasons I love doing this and helping my peers and people at various stages around me, is because teaching is just a different thing than it's similar to advising, and yet it's just a different, very rewarding form of expertise, conveyance and expertise, delivery. And to make a business out of it is even better. Right.
Yeah. Yeah, it's great.
Okay, cool. So you've talked a little bit about your marketing. You've got a great email list. Are you writing every day now? I know you transitioned into a more frequent cadence you were gonna do daily.
I email pretty frequently compared to most people. Uh, so yeah, three or four times a week.
You were actually one of the guys who inspired me to, I was on a daily train for like a couple of years, and then I'm like, I like Billy's style and that He kind of shows up when he is, got something to say and leaves and just comes back. Sometimes like there's not, like what? I don't what, like I don't actually read that many weekly roundup newsletters, and you and I write similarly in that we write a letter, we write, we say something, and then we try to teach, you know, usually one topic.
Write an email. It's very friendly and conversational in tone. Um, any thoughts on that in terms of how well that approach has worked, either just for you as the creator or in terms of resonating with your, with your market?
I, I, I think it's worked for everyone. I think everyone who's used it, I think it's one of those old principles that that's really what it is. I mean, what is it? It, what, what have we learned? We throw away some, many of these things that we learned. Cause we think there's something new that has replaced the principle. It's like, no. Oh, when you write something, one thing, the rule of one, keep it focused on one topic. One, one. Call to action. Write it personal.
Write it from a letter to a friend. Don't be a big company
Yeah.
and be frequent. Show up frequently in people's lives where you're more connected to someone you see on. Think about the people you see on a regular basis versus that relative that you see at Thanksgiving once every three years. You're not, you don't feel that connection to that person. So these are principles, f frequency, one thing, let let letter to a letter to a friend.
Yeah,
you know, and then, and, but then we say, now I'm gonna do this newsletter with 17 different calls to action in it. And, and write it in a very impersonal way. So, yeah, I mean, I'm just following the boring principles.
Well, what I like about it too is that it builds a relationship, you know, so it allows you to kind of develop, and I think people do business with people they know, like, and trust. And so by you showing up and saying, Hey Kevin, here's some, here's an interesting thought for you. Here's a challenge or something. Here's something. I've been working on it. I'm left with a little bit of insight. Didn't take me a lot of work, didn't have to click a hundred links.
Um, but now I feel more connected with your expertise. I've gotten some value out of you. I think that drip method really does pay off in terms of building relationships, which, as you've mentioned, is the key to your success at the end of the day.
Yes. Yeah, and, and you have to, We tend to think about marketing, like that's something we have to do. We just gotta get something out there. We don't put much thought or intention into it. We don't think about it like a craft. I think that marketing should be good the way that your product is good. I put a lot into those emails. It's easier for me now cause I've written thousands of them, so I, I can do it faster.
It's more intuitive, but I, I put in my 10,000 hours and so yeah, send frequent emails, but try to make them good and you're, and know that you're not gonna be good at first. But they, but eventually you should be good.
And do you come into it? Reverse engineering whatever your call to action is, or do you come into it with, here's a topic I've seen people asking me a few times recently, or it's just, for some reason it's on top of mind, like how do you go about creating the, the topic?
Mm. Yeah. It's a good question. There are so many considerations to that. I mean, one is the calendar, what's going on the calendar. You have to factor that in. Uh, sometimes I'll just get an idea and it's like something I just know. A good story trumps everything. So if I get a really good story, it's like I'm telling that story. Uh, a lot of people underutilized their good stories.
Right.
What else? The five light bulbs, I, I take that approach to it. So go through the five light bulbs, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and you're always trying to find the one that has not been given enough voice. The one that say the thing that no one else has said. And, and, and people, other people will give that advice. The trouble with that is that it's hard to know where to look to find that thing. And so that's the nice thing about the five light bulbs is that it gives you, it's a framework for testing.
So you can say, let me try a light bulb one email, or lemme try a light bulb two email. And a lot of people just have not even seen that before. It's something that's now, it's like hiding in plain sight. Right. And then, and then because they have, and that's a good opportunity too, cuz typically if you haven't said one thing and now you say that one thing, the dam is gonna break. So that's, that's how I approach.
And of course, like I said, there's other considerations, calendar, personal life, what's going on, et cetera.
This is one part. Okay. I've got this thing coming up so I know what my call to action's gonna be. So roughly I'm gonna, you know, tie this into that. The other one is, what I like about your, what I love about strategy and your method in particular is that it makes visible the invisible. So like, you know, I can have a, I can operate with a strategy and you'd have no idea what it is.
But if I told you and then you looked back at all my marketing, you would see, you would see that, uh oh, I get it. I get it. I get why they do the, you know, in my case, my, I get why he does all the, the things of what he does, cuz this is what he's optimizing for. This is his core strategy. And what I love about yours is that like, this is, you're making visible and concrete the invisible, which is like, You haven't talked about your, your offer in this particular way.
Haven't talked about your method this particular way. Haven't really focused on all these other things that they've, that they've tried the status quo, you know, which is, I think you're one or two. So I love, I love that that, that it forces you to think from angles that are outside of your own head, but also very logically from different perspectives, and then it actually works. You've, you've given me advice before I've written an email and seen more conversions or more action from.
Taking that approach, it blew, blew me away. I'm like, wow. Like we all get so in our head that we forget. So it forces you to think in those lenses. I love it.
Yeah, I'm kind of obsessed with the idea of blind spots and just knowing that they're out there and that they're the biggest area for opportunity is to shine a light on those and. And um, and look, and I wasn't always this way. It takes, um, I've been, especially in my twenties, was very arrogant and thought I knew everything. And now I'm much more humble and, um, and I'm excited by that cuz I, I, I'm excited by the things that I don't know and the five light bulbs.
Yeah, I mean, the metaphor helps with this too. The light bulbs where they shine a light on these blind spots, right? So it's sort of like a check on your blind spots and just acknowledging that you have them. And if you know that, if you just go back and forth through these again because, and you, you can have confidence in them knowing that they map to this human experience and making a decision like it really does. There's no blind spot in it. There's no dark spot.
The the, the five lipos cover the whole bridge left to right. And so if you do that, you don't have to worry so much about blind spots. Cause I do worry about those. That's always my biggest fear is what am I not thinking about? What do I not know that I don't know.
Or I forgot to factor in, like maybe I knew, I know this. I know it, right? I know it. I just, it's the same reasons surgeons have checklists. Pilots have checklists. If you read the checklist, manifesto, you know, same idea.
have a terrible memory too, like my wife will tell you this, and I'm very sensitive to that. And so,
do. I mean, I'm in the same boat, so,
yeah. I mean, my head's in the clouds all the time, so, so yeah, so I'm, I'm very aware of that and I try to build in safeguards against that. And so maybe this, maybe this, maybe this is, yeah. Maybe that's where this came from.
Well, that's exactly why I have my Trello board, which I showed you a long time ago, which is basically like any good idea I have, I put it in there and then I refine it over time. Maybe I create training on it and document it over time because during my consulting engagements, I want to be able to look at all my tools and go, oh yeah, you know what? We haven't tried this yet. And that's what your framework does in the micro sentiment.
Not a micro, in a smaller, like a PLA application, and, but as a broader marketing advisor, strategy advisor, I have to think about all the different components of. The tactics and the strategy and remember them. So I, I'm a huge fan of getting a Trello board, or in your case it's a, it's your five light bulbs. And then there's probably tons of details in there cuz you do forget, even though you've done it a hundred times,
Oh yeah.
you do forget. And these things are so valuable.
Mm-hmm.
Um, couple questions for you as we wrap up here. You know, I'm gonna throw one that I didn't prepare you for and uh, and then I'll, I'll tell you about the other one. What is the truest. Sentence, you know, first thing that comes to mind, the truest sentence. You know about marketing?
The truest sentence I know about marketing. It all starts with marketing, even the product creation, everything. It goes back to what we were saying earlier about it's only a good product if the customer thinks that it's a good product.
Yeah. And is aware of it, I guess.
yeah. It's kinda, it's kinda like this idea of this thing a copywriters say also, which is write the sales page first,
Yeah.
so forget what, forget whatever the product is. Write a sales page for something that people really want, where they see that sales page and they're like, please give me that and then go make that thing that I, that idea is what I'm trying to capture with what I said.
Love that. And it's like Jeff Bezos. He's like, if you've got a new idea, write a brief. And like, and what they did at Amazon was they would actually read the brief in a meeting rather than them explaining it. It forces them, forces you to get clear and articulate all your thinking in one place. So they would sit, like all the executives would sit and read the thing in the meeting and then comment on it.
And so if, if that's working for Amazon, one of the weakest companies in the world, I, I just love that thinking in terms of like, get, get the idea across first, maybe even pre-sell it or not, but make sure it maps to the market
Yeah. Yeah.
Last question for you. Any, is there a book that comes to mind that has most impacted or changed the trajectory of your career?
Hmm. I'm gonna give you a a category of books, but I'm really big on this idea. I think we've lost a lot of ancient wisdom. I think we're so proud of our technology that we think that everyone who came before us was stupid. And that's just not the case. I mean, technology takes time to be developed, right? Like we just happen to be here when this technology's being developed. Um, so I, I don't, so, you know, that tells me, Hey, there's probably things to learn from people who came before us.
And so within marketing, studying the old copywriters, I, I also really like this idea of constraints, and it's not that it's so much that they were smarter than us, but they had constraints. Constraints that we don't have that created, uh, favorable conditions for them to really figure out what works best.
Big direct marketing with print or mail, for example.
like, like having to put the stamp on the envelope and pay for that envelope to be sent versus just sending off an email. I mean, it just makes sense that if we were in their position with that constraint, we'd be more likely to write a better letter. If they were in our position where they can just send off an email, they wouldn't be as incentivized to spend so much time writing that letter.
So I think, and so that, that, that's a microcosm of a larger thing, but I think we can learn a lot by studying people who came before us because of the constraints that they had, not necessarily because they were smarter than us.
Any examples come to mind?
Well, I mean, the whole five light bulbs framework is, is based on, mainly based on Eugene Schwartz and his idea of, uh, belief building, which I think is the concept that even the, the top advertising professionals on Madison Avenue today probably don't even know about.
Yep.
It could be a big GA game changer for a lot of people, and that's what I'm trying to do. Also, one of the things with the five light bulbs is I baked in that teaching as well as some other ones so that it's naturally part of the framework, part of the system, so you get to take advantage of it without having to go study all these dusty old copywriting books.
Yeah, I mean, that one I think you can buy it for like a hundred bucks on, uh, we can, I'll find the link and put it in the, in the thing for you. It's not on Amazon. You can't get it anywhere except this website and, but it's a great one. Or maybe you can, but they,
I think it's like 500 bucks on
It's like 500 bucks on Amazon, or like a hundred bucks on the web, the direct, right. Um, but what I love about that is like, yeah, that book is dense, breakthrough advertising, for example. Uh, but is, but is extremely good. So if you can sit, if you want to get, it's like the textbook of marketing in a lot of ways. And, um, but super valuable in terms of you can't create demand. You have to capture it and talking about belief building. Um, okay, well, well, I'll send people there.
And also I think, you know, um, Gary, Hal Halbert and others potentially would be in that
Yeah. Gary Halbert. Um, You can go way back. Claude Hopkins,
Mm-hmm.
uh, Joe Sugarman, uh, his books are great as well. Uh, Victor Schwab. Yeah, you, you can google this, this kind of thing and find a, a good list. But yeah, study those old copywriters. They, they knew what they were doing.
Yeah, and there's some timelessness to that. So thank you for working on behalf of the marketing industry to bake in some of these timeless and true. Wisdoms into a methodology we can apply in today's digital world. And thank you for sharing your business model with us and how you get clients and how you market yourself. Uh, where can people go to learn more about you and to follow along with what you're doing.
Go to the five light bulbs. That's the best place. Yeah, opt in for whatever we have there. You'll get on the email list and we would love to have you.
That's five light bulbs.com. It'll be in the show notes. And, uh, Billy's also on, uh, Twitter. Good guy to follow. Uh, if you're on, on the Twitters. Okay, my friends. Thank you so much, Billy. I really appreciate, uh, you being here today and sharing all your wisdom and expertise with us. And, uh, yeah, if you're not a member of Mindshare, of Mindshare, uh, Billy's got a great training on this stuff. His website is where you wanna go to find all the information. Uh, five light balls.com.
Billy, thanks so much for joining us today.
All right. Thank you, Kevin. And that's it. My friends. I hope you enjoyed that podcast with Billy. I know I did. We went really deep into how. To create intellectual property and crate. An entire business around it. And that's really the most fascinating part is that. This whole thing is not about just selling advice. It's about having advice, be central to the work that you do as one of the ways you convey your expertise.
And what I like about Billy's method is that he's come up with a proprietary framework that he can use in terms of selling courses, advising people, because there's a ton of different ways. You can use that framework in a ton of different contexts. Even though he'll teach everything. He knows. There's always ways that advising can be core to what he does. You can also write and implement that stuff.
So this is the kind of nature of what I'm trying to convey here with the how to sell advice podcast. And Billy really exemplifies it super, super well. I hope you go check out his stuff five light bulbs.com. And. In the meantime, if you like this podcast, share with a friend head on over. If you're not on the mailing list to how to sell advice.com. Right on the homepage, you can get on the mailing list and you'll get personal emails for me, two to four times a week.
I typically just write short, friendly letters and then sometimes I'll go deeper on a subject and I'll share a longer post, but it's always in a conversational letter style format. So. Head on over to how to sell advice.com, get on the mailing list. And I really look forward to the next episode. We've got a few more episodes planned and in the works for you. So stay tuned on that. And yeah, if you liked this episode, share with a friend, that's all I ask.
Okay. My friends, you have yourself a wonderful day and I'll talk to you again soon. Bye for now.