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No-nonsense marketing content and interviews to help you master marketing and grow your business. Hosted by Allan Dib, bestselling author of The 1-Page Marketing Plan and Lean Marketing.
Inside the Parallel Welcome Sequence: Mastering Copywriting with Daniel Throssell
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Introduction to AI in Copywriting
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[00:00:00]
Daniel: Even if it was writing really good copy. If my list found out that they'd been reading copy from an AI, they wouldn't say, Oh, sick. I don't care. The copy was good. That's all I care about. They'd say, you know, I feel cheated. I thought I was reading from you.
If you are talking like a relationship based business, it's about the person. It's the fact that the person is writing. I don't care, you know, how well or how poorly they're writing as much as the fact that it is them that is writing.
Allan: All right.
Meet Daniel Throssell: Australia's Best Copywriter
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Allan: Today's guest is Daniel Throssell. He's a controversial copywriter. He uses a character that is kind of aggressive and, a lot of people find controversial. He's helped launch one of the bestselling books in Australian history. He's dubbed as Australia's best copywriter.
he invented the welcome parallel sequence and he writes amazing story based emails. And I love your writing, Daniel. Welcome to the show.
Daniel: Thank you for having me.
Allan: So, let's get right into it. you're Australia's [00:01:00] best copywriter. Now how did that come about and where did your career in copywriting start?
Daniel's Journey from Engineer to Copywriter
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Daniel: Well, I mean, so those are sort of two separate questions. The career in copywriting started when I actually used to work as an engineer. So I was a FIFO engineer on Barrow Island, on Chevron's Gorgon project in Western Australia. You know, I hated that job. I hated it. Absolutely miserable.
You know, flying out for 28 days, this little island with no internet, whatever. I followed Ramit Sethi at the time, though. This was about 2016, 2015. he once did this copywriting contest to promote one of his courses. And uh, I entered it. I didn't even know what copywriting was, I just liked Ramit. But I ended up winning the contest with my first ever sales letter.
And so I was like, oh, okay, maybe this copywriting thing is something I could investigate. So I kind of got into it from there. Did a bit of freelancing on Upwork and had some success and then later that year, Scott Pape, so the Barefoot [00:02:00] Investor contacted me and asked for some help writing some copy, which ended up being the launch funnel for the Barefoot Investor.
So it was actually just before he became, super duper famous, like he was already pretty well known, but you know, before that book became a national bestsellers, he brought me on actually to help with the launch funnel for that book. So that was sort of the. entry into copywriting. The whole, the Australia's best copywriter thing, you alluded to kind of the controversy that I play around myself and that's a little fun thing that I do because I mean, you know, really, What metric do you measure it on?
Allan: You just got to claim it and you
have.
Daniel: everyone has this, you know, sense of professional. humility or whatever it is that, you know, no one wants to say. So I was like, okay, I'll say it. I actually had Scott, it came from originally a testimonial from Scott who said, you know, he's not just a copywriter.
He's the best damn marketer in Australia. And I was like, ah, that's a cool testimonial to have from Scott Pape. And over time, you know, I started out by saying, oh I've been called Australia's best copywriter. And eventually enough people, you know, they misquoted or they [00:03:00] said, they started saying he is Australia's best copywriter.
And I'm like, yeah, okay. Title's official now uh, and I say it because, you know, because it rattles the cage of other people, like, how can you say he's the best, he's not the best, and you know, just end up talking about me. So, it's all a bit tongue in cheek, it's good fun, that's kind of how the title came about.
Allan: I love it.
The Controversial Copywriting Style
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Allan: So we'll get into Barefoot Investor and Scott Pape in a moment, but want you to just sort of talk about some of the controversial stuff that you do, because is very unusual. Like for example I noticed when you opt into your list, you've got to provide a phone number.
Uh, You ban people for all sorts of things from your list. You block certain countries and things like that. So, what are some of the things that you do there that maybe I've missed or that you want to elaborate on?
Daniel: I would say I've mellowed in the last 12 to 24 months. It's just, trying to take the stress out of my life. Cause I used to, you know, I'd pick fights with everyone and I'd call people out by name and say, you know, this guy's selling this course and it [00:04:00] sucks.
And, you know, over time I was like, yeah, probably as I get bigger, this, the legal risk and stuff. You know, Americans very litigious, very angry people sometimes. So I'll, chill out on that. But you are right. So, you know, one thing that I did very controversial, well. It's kind of about standing up for things that I believe in, even if people don't necessarily like hearing it.
So one of the earliest ways I did it was, you know, had this big thing about, you know, non native copywriters who aren't writing good English shouldn't be copywriters. And not saying that a way of being mean talking if, you know, English is your second language, you're pretty good at it.
I'm talking about people like Hey, can you critique this copies for me lol and just like terrible English. We're talking people who barely have English skills and they're being told on these copywriting groups online, you know, Oh, anyone can be a copywriter. It's so easy. In fact, if you're a non native, it's even better because you don't have bad habits to unlearn just by my course.
You know, we have all these Western people taking advantage of people like that. And you know, I don't believe [00:05:00] that's right. You know, I won't take money from someone who I don't believe is going to end up making that money back as a copywriter. So I have this thing, it's like, look, if you can't speak English, you can't make it as a copywriter.
And that's very controversial, apparently. And so, I made a big deal of it, because everyone was talking about it, calling me a racist, calling it hate speech. And I'm like, I'm not a racist. My wife is Asian, you know, I'm not racist. The Asians can be copywriters, whatever you want. It's just, if you can't speak English, you can't be an English speaking copywriter.
That's pretty obvious to me. So. You know, there's stuff like that, that when I see it's controversial, I will double down on it because, you know, people are going to talk about it, and not everyone has the stomach to do stuff like that, but, you know, to me it's kind of like the Australia's Best Copywriter thing.
People get angry about it, but to me it's funny. You know, it's kind of funny if people talk about it online. Like, it's all a game, marketing, to me. So, that's one thing. Another I did was I, yeah, I did implement a ban on a lot of countries from signing up to my email list unless they paid me 10.
And again, that one was [00:06:00] made purely on my revenue data. I just went through and I was like, Okay, 15 percent of countries make up 85 percent of my revenue, and most of the other countries are causing me a lot of hassle, so, you know, I'm just not accepting sign ups from those countries anymore, and they can still sign up, they can pay me a 10 fee, and get around it, but otherwise I'm just not gonna do it.
And of course that was hugely controversial. as well. You know, I had lots of good reasons for doing it, but I deliberately did play it, you know, a bit kind of in a way that made people talk about it because, it's brand building. But also I had a lot of people saying, you know, I'm from one of those countries and I agree with you, you know, good on you that you're not trying to take their money if you don't believe you can help them.
So to me, the controversy is like kind of an outward thing that I've always played on, but everything I do stems from. a belief that I want to help my customers, the people I can really help, I want to serve them and if there's a controversial stand I can take on that, so much the better, but it all comes from a place of trying [00:07:00] to help people.
I'm not using controversy just for the sake of being controversial if it's something I don't believe in and that's an important thing for me. I'm not doing controversy for the sake, but it's always for something that I actually do believe in.
Allan: Well, you know, they say the only thing worse than being talked about is not being talked about. Right. So, and you've really leaned into that which I love and you're right. It has helped you build a brand. Like when I think of copywriters with attitude I mean, I think of yourself, I think of maybe, you know, A small handful of others, maybe Laura Belgray, a couple of others that have a very unique voice, a very unique style, and I love that because you know, a lot of copywriters do try to be presenting themselves as professional and blah, blah, all of that sort of stuff, and I don't think it helps their cause because assume they're best copies for themselves, right?
So, copywriting seems to have almost become like the new drop shipping. like, Hey bro, you want to make [00:08:00] 10, 000 a month or whatever. when did that start to happen? And it seems weird thing, but yeah, it's just seems to be like a new thing
I'm seeing emerging.
Daniel: thing that happened I think a few years ago was Andrew Tate had, I think he still does, maybe he hasn't, they call it the real world now, but it was his Hustler's University. And apparently, in that there was You know, one of the streams they teach you for making income was copywriting.
You know, there's others like crypto and trading and stocks and whatever. And copywriting was one of them. That was a big reason. There's also, yeah, been a lot of kids on YouTube and TikTok and so on who've kind of, Coming up for the Gen Z market, I guess, I would say that I'm kind of more targeting the millennial market of copywriters, and you could really trace what copywriters are doing and certain copywriting gurus, whatever, are attracting different target audiences, and I've definitely gone more towards the millennials, but there are people after me who are going after the Gen Z, and that's definitely been a new [00:09:00] wave of get rich quick, make money online. But you know, it's always kind of been like that.
Allan: Yeah. And I mean, of anything that I would think of that would be a get rich quick copywriting for me would be like at the bottom of the list, I mean, it takes years to become really good at writing copy and even then, to get your value proposition across or whatever, I would rather use my copywriting skills to sell products, to sell books, to sell whatever.
as a means to an end rather than the thing that you're selling itself.
Insights on the Barefoot Investor's Success
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Allan: so let's switch back to Scott Pape. So Scott Pape is one of the bestselling authors in Australia.
He's written the Barefoot Investor and a bunch of things around that. and I'm asking this selfishly because I've written a couple of books I sold those copies globally. Like Scott as I understand it, he's at about 3 million copies and In a much smaller market.
Australia is like 25 million people. So it's like, almost one in five people or whatever in Australia has a [00:10:00] copy of his book. So how did that happen and what did you do to help make that happen? And yeah, I'm asking both for myself and for
Daniel: Yeah, no,
it's a good question. Look, the first thing I would say is in complete honesty. Like, you know, what did I do to help Scott is probably just extended his capacity. Cause he's brilliant. You know, he taught me so much of what I know. And you know, if I did anything to help him maybe in recent years I've contributed more ideas as I've, you know, learned off my own list and I've had some things to help him with launches, but really, you know, most of what I did in the early days was just being extra brain capacity for him is how I like to say it because, you know, he was really good.
And so what a lot of authors, you know, they'll look at someone like Scott and they'll say, well, how can I do that? And to me, one of the biggest things that Scott did first is, you know, he put in, what was it, you know, 10 to 15 years beforehand. he was writing his column before that, Barefoot Investor book came out, you know.
So he had a huge audience ready to sell it to His list at the time, I [00:11:00] don't know the exact figures, was probably 100 to 200, 000 people he had on his email list when he launched that first book. You know, that's a big advantage to have. And he put in the work to make that happen. You know, so it's not like the Barefoot Investor came out of nowhere.
And he had a Barefoot Investor book before that. Some years before that, that didn't do nearly as well because, you know, he wasn't as well known. So, you know, one thing that people overlook is he had a big audience and he put in the work to build that audience by nurturing it with his columns and with his emails.
you can't really write that off. The other thing is that, you know, you did say that Australia is a smaller market, you know, and that, that does have its challenges for sure. But. because of that, no foreign author can write a book for Australians to learn about money.
You know, you have someone like Ramit Sethi or Dave Ramsey in the US and they have finance books, but An Australian can pick them up and learn some things, but it's not going to tell you, you know, how do I deal with my super, because they're talking about 401k, and we've got super, and you know, our rules around health insurance are different, and life insurance, and all that [00:12:00] stuff.
So, in another way, it's like Scott had this really good market, kind of, with a moat around it that no one else could get into, and so by writing the definitive guide to how to deal with your money, It's like he kind of niched down and the niche happened to be an entire country, which is very fortunate in a way, but there was no other real competition for it.
So I think it was, there really was this perfect storm for that book to come in, where he's like, nothing has ever been done like this. A book that is so comprehensive about showing Australians what to do with their money. And the third thing is, he is just a brilliant writer. And a lot of people have, you know, tried to copy him.
But the fact is, you know, I've just never met a storyteller as good as Scott, and someone who could write, you know, he's a brilliant copywriter. And the way, you know, he wrote a finance book that wasn't so much about money, it was about, your finances sorted over [00:13:00] seven, six to eight nights, whatever it is, with garlic bread and a glass of wine in your hand.
And the first thing you do in the book is you take out, an orange card and you write on it, splurge. It's like he just made money so fun and he was telling stories about a bushfire and he's telling jokes and rude jokes sometimes. It's just. totally flipped the genre on its head of, you know, what you're supposed to do in a money book.
So he really kind of had all these things come together. You know, he has this audience that he's been building. He has this niche that can't be invaded by anyone else. And that is kind of ripe for the picking. And then he comes in with. You know, those two advantages alone would have led to a really good book, but what made the thing viral was that he wrote such a good book.
And the storytelling was fantastic. It was so specific about what to do. And the entire thing was just, you can give that to someone, and it's basically all they need to know. That it just walks them through and solves an enormous pain point. You know, as a copywriter, we talk about that. You know, are you solving [00:14:00] a pain point?
He's not writing a memoir. He's writing Get You Out of Debt, and, you know, Set Yourself Up Financially, and Fix Your Family. So, you know, he just basically checked off pretty much everything you could possibly hope for, which is why that book became the best selling book in Australian publishing history.
Because, you know, all those factors went well. And so I think I'd be saying to authors, you can't really expect all those things to be in your favor too. You're not going to have that audience, that timing, that market, and you have to focus on the things that are in your control, you know, growing your audience, nurture it and this What I have told other authors that I've taught about this, you know, focus what you can control, grow your audience, nurture it with emails and build that relationship.
So you have someone to launch to, and you know, you may not be able to control the niche you're writing in or whatever, but when you write your book, write a really good book. Cause a lot of books aren't really good. And the Barefoot Investor was. So I think all those things together combined to make it so successful.
Allan: [00:15:00] I 100 percent agree with that.
Daniel: Yeah, especially if you want to get the consumption, which is the important, as you say, the consumption is the really important part for a book and no one's going to refer a book until they've. Well, in rare cases, they might, if they haven't read the book yet. But mostly, you know, someone needs to have read a book and had it change their life before they're going to talk about it.
And so that's what The Barefoot Investigator did so well. It got people to not only read through it, but read through it and say, Wow, I need to tell other people about this. And yeah, you are absolutely right. You know, the quality of a book, you can sell a first wave of books based on who you are and your audience and so on, that was for Barefoot Investor, like, 50, 100, 000 copies.
You know, you don't get to 1, 2, 3 million, whatever it's at, unless you pick up that second wave of referrals, where the people who read it start telling other people. And that's what he was able to do.
Allan: What were your biggest learnings from, being behind the book launch, seeing the book launch? I mean, obviously write an amazing book. Was there anything that surprised you that either Scott did really [00:16:00] well or that, you know, you learnt during the book launch that you wouldn't have otherwise?
Daniel: Look, there are a few things. So, I mean, even the writing process of the book it's insane how hard they are to write. Like, you'd think, oh, it's just, you look at the length of it, it's like, ah, you write a column a week, and it's the length of, you know, ten columns, or, you know, it's so much effort.
There is so much effort. time and effort goes into it. This is why people have asked me, are you going to write a book? Absolutely not. You know, I just do not have the time or effort to put into something like that.
With the launch uh, one thing that we did that is very unusual each time actually, but mostly with the most recent two, Barefoot Investor for Families and Barefoot Kids we went for a very, very short launch window.
Now, traditionally your standard advice is to do really long launches. And you know, obviously he did talk about the book a lot, and go on interviews and so on, but our actual pre launch, our sale for the book only went for about three days, I think. you know, we found it [00:17:00] with the previous one, Barefoot Investor for Families.
It worked all right. And then we did it again for Barefoot Kids. And so we did a really short launch window and it was like, if you want to get the book at this special launch price with a couple of bonuses, you only have three days to do it. And most authors would think, you know, that's insane. I want to give people as many chances as they can to get the book.
What if they don't see my email? Like I should do it for weeks. But by doing it for three days, you know, we ended up with. Barefoot kids ended up breaking the record for biggest pre-launch in Australia in publishing history, even bigger than what Barefoot Investor had done. So that worked really well.
So that was one thing, a very surprising um, takeaway, if you will, from doing these launches, how well it worked to use, you know, a long tease and then a very short launch window.
Allan: Yeah, I agree. I agree on both fronts. I mean, on my latest book, Lean Marketing, I spent nearly two years and it's so much effort. So much time is just front loaded. I mean, no one with any sense would write a book. So, I totally understand that. And yeah, I spent probably a [00:18:00] month on pre launch and I definitely regretted it.
It was very stressful, took a lot of time, took a lot of effort, and I don't think it achieved you know, what it used to achieve back in the past. I think shorter launch windows. And now I think Amazon also doesn't count orders during the pre launch as being sold on the launch day. They just count them whenever they're sold.
So, I would definitely spend less time on the pre launch. Totally agree with that.
The Future of Copywriting with AI
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Allan: So with large language models like ChatGPT, like Claude, some of those sorts of things you know, some people are saying this is the apocalypse of copywriting. It's over. Other people like myself, I'm super excited.
I see it as a tool that can make us better, faster help us with the writing, not do the writing for us, but help us with the writing, improve it, help with research, help with finding the right word at the right time. What are your thoughts on those tools and what are your tools of the trade?
Daniel: Well, I'm not using AI in any way for my stuff. the big reasons, and one of the things I'm not [00:19:00] so worried about with it, is that, my business isn't about the words. It's about the fact that I'm writing the words to people. I mean, yeah, you could get, theoretically, if an AI got so good, I trained it up on me, and, you know, I'm like, I want to go on holiday, so Daniel GPT, you're writing me emails for the next month.
Even if it was writing really good copy. If my list found out that they'd been reading copy from an AI, they wouldn't say, Oh, sick. I don't care. The copy was good. That's all I care about. They'd say, you know, I feel cheated. I thought I was reading from you. The people are reading, and this is not true for every business, of course, you know, like a com bank who flipping cares where the AI probably did write their emails.
You know, they're just so boring. But If you are talking like a relationship based business, like, you know, like mine, probably like yours, like, like Scott's for sure, it's about the person. It's the fact that the person is writing. I don't care, you know, how well or how poorly they're writing as much as the fact that it is them that is writing.
So in that sense, you know, AI can never, this is not a matter [00:20:00] of, Oh, give it two years, give it five years. It can never be a person. People are never going to want to be hearing from an AI. And if you trick them, you know, maybe that will. work for a while, but eventually it's going to get found out and they're not going to want to read AI content.
People inherently want the human connection. So that's one reason that I am not super worried about it. and I'm personally not really using it because also, like, I think qualitatively it's not that good. Like it's trained on the average and, you know, it's always kind of. behind. It's just not as good as a human.
The other thing I look at is, you know, the way that, for example, I have worked with someone like Scott over the last five, six, seven years as a copywriter. I can tell anyone listening to this that job could never in a hundred years, what I did for Scott, have been replaced with an AI, no matter how smart it got, because it was never about writing words or critiquing [00:21:00] layout or something like the kinds of ideas that I've contributed the way that I'm there on the phone with him when he's writing a column and he's refining ideas, bouncing them off me.
And even his editor, you know, me, Scott and his editor are constantly on calls, you know, usually each week we'll be on a call together helping Scott write his column. And you would say, Oh, I've heard it said that the less you know about a profession, the less you understand a profession, the more likely you think it is to be replaced by AI.
And I think that's brilliant. And so people will commonly say, you know, especially us about copywriters, but certainly about editors. Oh, editors, they're done for. And editors are going to be completely replaced by AI. What would you need an editor for? You just paste it into the AI. But I can tell you what an editor does at the high level.
I mean, yeah, he does correct grammar and say, you know, that's grammatically incorrect, put a full stop here. Yeah, he does that. But the big picture stuff he does, he says, you know, the themes are not right here. this is too dark. this is not clear. That train of thought is not developed properly.
This section of [00:22:00] the argument isn't in the right place. And it's just light years beyond. who haven't worked with an editor, who don't truly understand what a good editor does, they have no idea of that. They're just like, Oh yeah, editors will be replaced by chatGPT, but they don't understand.
It's even more so, I believe, with copywriters, because we're not just writing copy, we're primarily dealing with ideas. You know, what idea do I need to convey here to give someone the belief necessary to make them take the action that I want them to take? It's actually a very complex thing. And all AI is basically is a giant predictive text and it's writing things that look like sales copy, but they're not.
actually thinking, it's not reasoning from first principles like a human is. It's just very good at predicting what should come next based on patterns, but it's not reasoning from first principles like we are, like a good copywriter is doing. So for reasons like that, I just don't see it as a huge threat to good, talented copywriters.
Allan: Yeah. I agree with all that. And I agree [00:23:00] for other reasons that it's not at all a threat. I think it's super exciting and I think it's something that's going to make good copywriters stand out even more.
The Writing Process: Filling in the Blanks
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Allan: The way I think about, writing is writing's kind of like for me, at least really the last bit, where it's kind of like paint by numbers or whatever, where you've got the concept, you've got the idea, you've got the big idea the thing that's going to make a bestselling book or an amazing sales letter or whatever, it's the big idea behind it. And then Really, when it comes to writing. no good writer that I know of is staring at a blinking cursor thinking of something for the first time when they go to write.
When they go to write, they're essentially filling in the blanks. They're like, alright, great, I've got the skeleton, I've got the outline, I've got the big idea, I've got all of these things, and now I'm just kind of filling in the blanks. But really, the value that they bring is not I think of it as a more advanced [00:24:00] spellcheck, right?
So I remember when parents and teachers used to think that spellcheck on a computer would make us dumb, right? So they were very concerned that we would not know how to spell words or whatever.
AI Tools in Writing: A Double-Edged Sword
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Allan: And I think it's very similar with large language models like ChatGPT and Claude.
The other thing that I think is super exciting for really good writers is there's so much volume based crap coming out that you're really going to be a pattern interrupt and stand out when you do anything different because the large language models by design, they just do cliched kind of generic stuff because they're trying to predict the most common next sentences.
And so they're learning on that and it's kind of a a vicious cycle. And so they're going to produce a lot of the same sounding stuff. You can pretty much, pick it right. You don't even need a tool to say, has this been written by AI? You can usually pick it pretty easily. So for those few reasons, I think it's going to be a super exciting time.
I do use AI tools, but certainly not [00:25:00] to do writing. It's for things like research, like for example, tell me 10 Silicon Valley companies that pivoted after they launched. And so that could save me an hour of, you know, online research with Google, or, you know, give me ten words that mean intelligent, you know, so I'll use them for those sort of things.
Sometimes if I'm stuck on a sentence, I'll give it this, I'll say, complete this sentence, and, you know, it's never right, and I'm never just copy and paste. the output, but it prompts ideas. I'm like, ah, yeah, that's a good way to complete the sentence. Or that's, that gives me a little bit of an idea there. So that's the way I've I've been using them.
And I find that super exciting with
Daniel: Oh, for sure. Yeah I, and I've used it similarly, things like that. When I say I'm not using it, it's like I'm not using a whole cloth to write my emails. especially, you know, to, to circle back to what you said earlier in this conversation, copywriting being sold as the new dropshipping a big angle that's being used by certain people is, with AI, it's just super duper easy.
All you have to do is, you know, you can Google it. There's like [00:26:00] copywriting courses on AI. I'll show you how to use the AI to be a copywriter. It's just the dream business, right? You don't even have to write. You just get the AI to write it for you. So yeah, I'm not using it that way. That's what I mean.
Allan: Yeah.
Creating Characters vs. Authenticity in Writing
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Allan: So you've created this character and I think if I'm not mistaken, the character is quite different to who you really are. So like a lot of people talk about, you know, authenticity in social media, authenticity in your writing and all of that sort of thing. So what's your take on creating a, character for your writing or whatever media you use, whether it's text, audio, podcast, writing, speaking, whatever, versus kind of being yourself and being your, in quote marks, authentic self.
Daniel: Yeah. Look, I think authenticity is overrated because This is funny to say, but it's fake. When you say I'm being my authentic self, it's like nobody's one dimensional. You know, you have a self that you are to your colleagues, you have a self that you are to your spouse, you have a self that you are to your parents, you have a self that you are to [00:27:00] your kids, and you have a self that you are to your mates when you're down at the pub drinking.
I just think it's really a misnomer to say you're being authentic because you are always selectively presenting some part of yourself.
And when you say, you know, authentic, usually the self that you are presenting in my view is the one that you think is going to get the most likes or retweets or shares, you know, and nothing wrong with doing that. By the way, I do the same thing. Like I said, I was a hemming up controversy. So it gets shared all good with me if you want to do that brother, but it's just not necessarily authentic.
And I'm being honest about that. You know, I'm saying, yeah, I'm creating a character. way I think of it is that I create a character, but it's created in such a way that There are chinks where you can see it's a character and that's the whole point that my best readers Get that I'm playing this and they think it's funny.
They think it's a game. They're like, oh Daniel playing along You know, he does his scary voice. He's banning exact exactly. Okay, [00:28:00] you nailed it Exactly. So and anyone who talks to me in person gets an impression very quickly as oh, he's actually, you know nowhere near as scary in real life as he is in his email.
It's like, that's the point. I'm not trying to pretend that I'm this big scary guy or anything. The whole point is that you can see that it's a joke. And certain people who don't get that that's on them for being dumb. And you know, I will, I'll laugh at people like that.
Like people who talk about me online, on social media, like not in positive ways. Like, oh he's really mean, he's nasty, racist, whatever. Like they don't get the joke. And so they are serving my marketing in certain ways by doing that. But the people that I really care about, my true fans, my customers my readers, they get the joke.
And so, in that way, it's like, it creates a kind of sense of community among them. It's like, yeah we're on your side, is the whole us first them thing. And people who don't get it are on the outside. So, it's a kind of tribe building thing as well. But I'm not really into, authenticity, because I just believe that's a load of [00:29:00] bull bust.
Anyone who says I'm being authentic, is deliberately picking what they're saying. And in many ways, I am being authentic sometimes in my emails, but I don't, make a big deal of, you know, this is the real me because there's lots of real me's and it depends in what circumstance I'm in and which one you're going to get and that's the way I see it.
Allan: I agree. Yeah. I love that.
Influences and Inspirations in Copywriting
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Allan: Who did you learn Copywriting from, I know you mentioned Ramit and it doesn't have to be directly learning from mentors, but whether it be books or whoever else who influenced you the most?
Daniel: Look, so Ramit was definitely the first person I ever followed. I would say there's not much influence of, from Ramit on my copy the way it is now. There used to be, because he was the only person I knew from, but you know, I definitely owe him a shout out for getting me into it. When I won his copywriting contest, one of the prizes was I got to speak to him on a call and I was like, you know, how do I get into this as a career?
And he actually recommended, one of the copywriters he recommended I check out was John Carlton. So John Carlton was [00:30:00] basically one of the biggest influences on me as a young copywriter. You know, I studied everything I could of his, I just adored him and his work. I still do. And so that was very formative on me.
And then, probably the two biggest influences on my current style would be be Scott. Scott Pape, you know, having worked with him for so long, You know, I don't write stuff for him. It's always kind of been this co writing process like, you know, he'll be on the phone to me and I'm in the Google Doc and I'm just like translating what he's saying onto the page basically.
But you know, all that time of writing, not as him, but with him, I guess, you know, was very formative and influential on my own writing. And you know, I still recommend copywriters that I'm Because a lot of people say, you know, they're inspired by me and the way I write. And I point them to Scott, I'm like, go and study him, because he's very good at how he does it.
And the other big one would be Ben Settle you know, I learned a lot of stuff about running my business from Ben and the voice and the persona stuff and the building a world, all that is [00:31:00] stuff that I've learned from Ben. And a lot of people have learned similar things from Ben, but then they end up applying it and they just sound like, you know, second rate, you know, hack Ben's, like Ben clones.
And what I did was to try and take what I'd learned from him and apply it in a different way. So to me, John Carlton, Scott Pape and Ben Settle have been probably the three biggest influences and inspirations for me in learning to develop my own style. But eventually, and this is something I've taught my subscribers in the past, like, you write enough over time that you end up becoming your own style.
Influence, which is kind of a weird thing to say, but you know, once you start developing your own style and you, once you create enough output, you start to have enough variance in what you've done, you look back on your work and say, I really like what I did there, I don't like how that one turned out, and you start trying to, be like the stuff that you wrote that you liked.
And in that way, you're kind of creating this what is it, a closed feedback loop, if it were, where you're kind of influencing yourself. At least [00:32:00] that's how I have developed some of my style, is taking some of the things that I wrote and I'm like, I like that, I'm going to write a bit more like that. And it slowly changes over time to where you're writing something kind of unique.
So, that's probably an answer that you didn't expect, but you know, myself, my past self is one of my influences.
Building a Business Around Email Marketing
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Allan: What sort of stuff did you learn from Ben Settle about running your business?
Daniel: you know, what I do is very much inspired by him, is that he has a business where it's all run by an email list, like that's the entry to his world. You know, he's not really using social media. It's all based around an email list and you get on there and the premise is you get one email a day, you get an email every day and when he's promoting something, you'll get multiple emails.
And those emails sell his other products, but primarily they push toward a paid subscription newsletter. And so in many ways, like my business model is, the same it's email based. I don't do any social media. I have no social media whatsoever. The only way you can find me is through [00:33:00] my email list.
If I go to my website, it only pushes to an email list and you get an email every day. And the emails sell my products and they sell a paid newsletter. And you know, that's like, I love that business model. It's so simple. So that's a big thing I learned from Ben. The character creation is something I learned from Ben because he similarly has a persona.
It's actually, you know, much grouchier than mine, if you will. Like mine, mine's kind of different to Ben's. Like it's, mine's kind of comical. He's like really snarky and sort of get off my lawn kind of thing. And so that's another thing.
Allan: I've seen in his footage as I'll see you if you copy and paste this email or whatever.
Daniel: Oh really?
He might have changed that because I haven't seen that, but I can imagine him doing something like that. But he, you know,
and especially the concept of what he calls world building, which is building this, your own world for your business with all these references and in jokes and things that people get.
And so I, I've done that in abundance with my email list. you know, I have a [00:34:00] fictional, place called Copyland. My, my newsletter is called Adventures in Copyland. So it's based around this kind of, fictional lore, if you will, that I've created. And I have all these manga illustrations, cause I like that stuff.
And my app that I run my business around, you know, it's all themed like a Pokemon game. I don't know if you can see in the background, I'm a big fan of Nintendo stuff. So all of that is, you know, world building as it were. And I learned a lot of that from Ben Settle. So he's been very influential on me in that way.
Allan: cool. I love the simplicity of your business model. Every time I've simplified my business, I've made more money. So. People get on your email list, then they subscribe for your paid membership product. How are you getting people onto your list in the first place? Are you running ads?
Are you doing JV sort of things or how are people getting onto your list in the first place?
Daniel: there's one website where I have an arrangement to like, buy traffic, you know, I'm just paying him a per lead and he runs ads on his site. That gets me like, you know, 50 opt ins a month. But, other than that, it's [00:35:00] mainly word of mouth. For the second half of this year, we're going to be using a classified advertising strategy and running, targeted classified ads in other email lists that we find.
I have one of my apprentices working on that for me. So she's got control of the project, but for the last few years, the vast majority of the growth has been aside from a couple, I've run a couple of classified ads, but everything else has just been organic word of mouth.
Allan: you literally started at like subscriber number one, number two, number three and
writing the daily emails for
Daniel: yeah, so when I started emailing my list in 2020, you know, there was this one blog post I had on my website. It was like how to write a resume or something. It was based on something I'd done years ago, and I'd been on like a couple of, podcasts or something being interviewed as a copywriter, I had like 40 leads and I'd never emailed them. So it was like a dead list. So I didn't start from zero when I started emailing. There was like at least probably three people reading at least, I guess. And
Allan: Well, that's pretty close to zero.
Daniel: [00:36:00] yeah. You know, in that first year I was doing more stuff.
Like, so I had, I did, I ran a classified ad to Ben Settle's email list shortly after I started, it got me about 100, 150 leads. I participated in some summits, maybe was doing a few more podcasts, and I did have a few strategies that I was using to get people talking about me and like, copywriting Facebook groups and so on, but, you know, I don't really do that stuff anymore.
I don't put any active effort into it. into it, or I haven't for the last 12 months. I've, I think this is the second podcast I've done in the last year, and the other one was last month. I did one with the Copywriter Club. You know, I just don't really do anything anymore because it's partly the nature of the industry as well, the copywriting industry, which, you know, You know, I got to know very well when, you know, having been a copywriter for so long and just studying the way it worked.
So I've been very deliberate in the way that I've approached my list growth. So this may not work in every industry, but I did know that the copywriting industry was very, [00:37:00] interconnected and they, someone Google's like, you know, I want to become a copywriter. You come across the same sites, the same groups, They're talking about the same people, so I was like, okay, if I can suddenly get myself to the point where I'm one of those names that are mentioned in those few strategic places, you know, in certain Facebook groups, certain communities, whatever, that are, you know, the entry points or where copywriters tend to go, then I'm going to probably get that growth happening on autopilot.
So that's been the majority of what I've done, and also, part of it is to be honest, I've been doing really creative stuff. You know, I write really good emails. I put a lot of effort into them. Now I'm not phoning it in. I put in a lot of effort into my emails. I make them fun. I make them creative. I'm doing.
The Power of Daily Emails
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Allan: long does it take you to write an email? Because I mean, you do these
Daniel: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I'd say it very rarely takes me less than an hour. And you know, Maybe one to two hours on an average day. And that's like all the time, you know, I'm thinking about the [00:38:00] email, writing it, and then constantly coming back to edit it through the day. Some days it will take more than that.
Some days it will take three or four hours, and just days when I am bereft of an idea, and I'm like, ugh. But it's a real commitment to me. I will get an email done every day. I do not miss that. I think I've missed One or two days in the last four years, and, you know, one of them was I locked myself out of my computer, and then I didn't want to wake my wife, who had a newborn baby, and she was sleep deprived, and I was like, OK, I'm just going to go to bed.
I didn't want to wake her for her password. So, Other than that, I just, I send the email every day. So, even on days that I don't have an idea, and I won't phone it in, you know, I don't want to send something crappy either. I want to have a good email to send my list every day. So, some days it does take a very long time, but, you know, to me, that's the cornerstone of the business.
Like, I'm not doing anything else, I'm not posting content on LinkedIn, I'm not making YouTube videos, I'm not doing anything. So, the email has to go out. And as long as the email goes out the business is moving forward. That's [00:39:00] the way I see it. Yeah,
Allan: every day versus say like an evergreen sequence that runs for like a year or two years? Because I mean, somebody opting into your list today will have missed out on all that bank of, you know, years worth of awesome emails that you've written over the years. Why not have like a like a maintenance sequence or an evergreen sequence that
Daniel: I used to struggle with that question and I was like, man, I've written some really good stuff and someone who opts in today isn't going to see it. And I realized it came from this. scarcity mindset, if you will, like, Oh, my best ideas are behind me. And over time I came to recognize that's not true.
I can continue to produce, I can continue to deliver. So what I have, the slight compromise is I do have a welcome sequence. I call it the parallel welcome sequence. It's very fun. And it is, about nine or 10 really good emails that have proven to be really engaging, really funny, and people are going to get a good.
sense of my style. Because you know, there are people, like [00:40:00] Ben Settle does not have, he has one welcome email, but you're straight on the list. And I'm like, some days I might write something kind of controversial or negative or snarky or whatever. I don't want that to be my first experience for a new lead.
So I want new leads to have a Kind of guaranteed save good experience with me not safe, but you know, they're all they know I know what they're gonna get and so I have that but then after that I just realized that if I hold up the new Emails for the old emails.
I'm still creating one every day, you know, like when are they ever gonna catch up? So I just kind of let go of that. Realize if you will that there's a lot of wasted effort of those emails that people will never read, but you know what? The business is really good. It's really profitable.
It's a lot of fun for me. I'm going to keep writing the emails and I can keep delivering. I'm not running out of ideas. Now I've been doing this for more than four years every day and I'm not running out of ideas. So to me it's just kind of a scarcity mindset. The idea that I would need to have my past emails backing me up because I [00:41:00] know that I can continue to come up with the good ideas.
If it's someone else, like, to me, email writing is my strength. It's like, you know, I love doing it. I love writing emails. It's just, it's fun for me to do it. If it's someone else who hates writing emails, then I'd have different advice. I'd be like, yeah, sure, do it. Get you good emails, put them in an autoresponder, and, you know, focus on what you're good at and what makes you money.
But for me, what I'm good at and what makes me money is email writing. I'm really good at it and I can do it every day, so I'm happy to do that. Because also So, there is a real connection that people get, knowing that the emails are coming from me live. And they do, because at the end of the welcome sequence it says, okay, you're on the live list now, and I'm referring to things happening right now, I'm referring to things happening in my day, I'm running promotions in real time, and if anything, it's a big competitive advantage for me over other people in my niche who are uh, you They don't enjoy writing emails as much as me, so they are trying to minimize their effort.
So they're recycling emails, they're scheduling them ahead of [00:42:00] time, and so any given day, someone rocking up to their inbox, if they're subscribed to 5 like, they're like, oh, that guy sends recycled stuff, but I know Daniel's email is going to be new today. And, you know, When you have the new fresh thing, like, you know, in today's world, that's just, that's always gonna get the attention.
So it is a competitive advantage for me as well, to be able to keep doing that. So those are all reasons that I do it live every day.
Allan: Cool. What about like, you know, going on vacation or holidays or whatever for a couple of weeks? Do you pre-write those or what do you do there?
Daniel: I write the emails from holiday, you know, it's like I bring my computer with me and I just write an email every day. And it's a change of scenery. You know, people are like I'm in Japan. I'm like, oh yeah, I'm writing this one from a Starbucks in Japan, you know, soccer.
Like, I genuinely enjoy it.
It's kind of a creative outlet for my day. And there's plenty of things I do each day. You know, I exercise each day. I don't take breaks from exercise when I'm on holiday. So, to me, just keeping the streak going isn't a burden. And again, it's like, I'm not saying everyone should do that. But for me, it works.
[00:43:00] Like, I enjoy it. And one of the biggest ways to succeed at something is to learn to love the thing that you have to do. You know, so for me I've, got a winning formula that I love the thing that I have to do, which is sending the emails, so it doesn't really bother me to go on holiday I've done it many times over the last four years.
Allan: cool.
The Parallel Welcome Sequence: A Unique Approach
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Allan: You mentioned the parallel welcome sequence. You're known for inventing that. Briefly maybe describe it, but also really the best way that people can experience it is by actually experiencing it and going to your website and getting it. So it's a really cool copywriting or slash email marketing device.
And I haven't seen a lot of stuff as unique as that for a while, but maybe describe that a little bit.
Daniel: Yeah, so it's basically a triggered welcome sequence. that you know, and I didn't invent that bit, by the way, the idea of a triggered sequence where you click to get the next email in the sequence. I don't remember where I learned it from, unfortunately, because I like giving credit. I don't remember who told me that one, but that wasn't my idea.
But what I did was [00:44:00] so I have this email triggered welcome sequence, but then I made it so that each number one, I called it time travel. I called it email time travel. So every time you click your traveling forward in time, but also each one lands on a different page where I tell this sort of parallel storyline.
So you read the email, you get email number one, and then it says, The story is basically interrupted, and to continue reading you have to click to get the next email, but that then takes you to this parallel webpage sequence, where I'm telling a storyline in parallel, and that's where I'm setting up the more crazy, fun side of my business, like this fictional world where I have this, Copywriting themed monsters and all my courses and products are weapons in this world.
Okay, so and I'm telling that story there You are finding items to unlock and while that's happening, then, you know, so you join my email list, you're reading the first email, you click the time travel link, you're reading this story, and while you're reading that story, the next email lands in your inbox, just as you [00:45:00] finish.
So you go back to your inbox, and like, oh cool, there's a new email here, you read that, and then it happens again. So I've had people join the list, and then, like two and a half hours later, they email Damn you, it's one in the morning and I've just been up reading your stupid welcome sequence. I have people go through and they're like they signed up for my list and then 90 minutes later they paid me like 1, 500 and they're buying all these courses.
So, you know, it's worked really well and it's a lot of fun for people too. So I like it.
Allan: That's really cool. That's really cool. And like I said probably the best way for people to experience that is to just try it themselves. So that's at persuasivepage. com, isn't it?
Daniel: Persuasivepage. com or you can Google my name. They're both hard to spell in certain ways. So, you know,
whichever, whichever works better.
Allan: the URL in the show notes.
Conclusion and Final Thoughts
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Allan: Daniel, I think this is a good place to end. Thank you so much for your time. So you're at persuasivepage. com for anyone who really wants to up their copywriting skills I highly recommend your stuff. [00:46:00] I love what you're doing and yeah, you're definitely a voice of value in the copywriting field.
Daniel: Thanks Allan, I appreciate it, and thanks for having me on today.