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Discover what it takes to excel in copywriting from an industry expert who's made a million dollars a year without relying on the hyped-up promises of quick riches. In this eye-opening Biz Bite, Will debunks the myths of copywriting courses and shares the real secret to making an irresistible offer – it's simpler than you think, but far from easy.
Gain insights into the transformative power of clear, honest copy that delivers on its promises, and learn why tactics like the surprisingly effective Post-it note ad are just fleeting advantages in the ever-evolving landscape of marketing. Whether you're crafting your next campaign or refining your brand's message, this episode will arm you with the foundational principles of copywriting that endure beyond the latest trends.
Listen to the full episode here - https://beyond8figures.com/podcast-episodes/
Watch the Episodes On YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/@Beyond8Figures/videos
Watch the Episodes On YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/@Beyond8Figures/videos
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What is Beyond 8 Figures?
At Beyond 8 Figures, we believe in DELIBERATE entrepreneurship. It means creating a solid foundational framework for your entrepreneurial journey, building from a place of passion, and intentionally aligning your actions with your goals so that you can create success on your terms.
Join A.J. Lawrence, the journeyman entrepreneur with several 7 figure exits, as he shares honest conversations with successful entrepreneurs about their experiences starting and scaling businesses to $10M and beyond, the realities of being a modern-day entrepreneur, advice for practicing deliberate entrepreneurship, and more!
[Intro]
A.J. Lawrence:
I want the audience to understand. You have, at least on your twitter and this is how we've been interacting up until just about a half hour ago, you have a devotion to marketing copy. I know you haven't done every day for this, but the daily marketing truths and just your positioning of how to look at it, there's very little fluff to it. Yes, you are selling things and all this, but you're not overly doing this. How did you kind of come to that direction where you are now with copywriting?
Will Green:
Yeah. So what's different about me than a lot of that, not to say anything about the clickfunnels but use their name, that clickfunnels crowd, I did not decide I was going to become an affiliate marketer, sell something off Clickbank, figure out copy as I went along, and do that and do hacks, and then immediately go, hey, I can make more money selling people how to do copywriting. I don't make any money selling how to do copywriting. If you buy the Hunger games, which is my copywriting course, 100% of the profits goes to feeding the hungry. Because I'm deeply of the opinion, if you have to make money telling people how to write copy, you don't know how to write copy. I came out of this, I was working as a marketing director at a little actual book publishing company in my early 20s. Publishing art books doesn't feed your kids.
A.J. Lawrence:
Cool.
Will Green:
So I needed something else.
A.J. Lawrence:
That's like not-for-profit work.
Will Green:
Right, except I needed it to be for-profit work. So I made a change, and I got a job at a company called Stansbury, which is a division of a much bigger company called Agora, which is a huge financial newsletter company. And I've worked my entire career as a working copywriter. First copywriter, then senior copywriter, then copycheet. I've had campaigns that did very well. I've done very well personally, just directly writing copy. And one thing that has ruined my life as a hiring manager are all the copywriting courses out there that tell people, oh my God, you're going to work 3 hours a week from the beach and you're going to make a million dollars a year as a copywriter.
And I'm like, look, I've made a million dollars as a copywriter and I worked 80 hours from my desk while my body devoured my internal organs for sustenance. That is not what you're doing. And if that's what you think you're doing, could you please not apply for these jobs?
So copy is one of those things that has never been complicated. It's human behavior. It's a very simple set of things that things, but that doesn't make it easy. And I really want people that are going to follow me, that are going to read me that are going to try to do this, understand the distinction between doing a common thing uncommonly well and thinking that there's this silver bullet out there that's going to cure all your problems.
Because, yeah, there are tactics that work really well. We were talking before about post-it note ads. Those are amazing. They work really well right now, but they'll stop. Like if everyone starts doing them, they'll stop.
A.J. Lawrence:
What Will's referencing, he had a blog post that got a ton of- blog posts, God, I'm dating myself. Twitter post where he said one of the biggest pricing hack is just put the price on a post it note and use that as the image for your offer. I guess you were getting a lot of flack for doing that because people didn't want you to share that.
Will Green:
Yeah, a bunch of my affiliate marketer friends who are running like 10-50 million a year on Facebook ads were like, and it's just take your headline for whatever your thing was on a post-it note, stick it on a wall and take a picture. It works so much better than a more designed graphic. And it works for all sorts of reasons. It has depth and shadow to it that a graphic actually very hard to get, which you get on a photo. It's got bright colors. It's a physical thing. You feel like you pick up a whole, all of these things, increase conversion.
But right now if you just take a post-it note ad, they tend to beat everything else. But like any other marketing tactic, yes, a lot of people know it and do it, but if everyone starts using it, it'll work less well because right now it stands out.
You have this sea of really fancy images or these graphics and these giant bundle shots of these courses. And then you get a post-it note that says click here to make money. And people are like, wait, what's that? Because it stands out.
So a lot of my friends were like, delete that right now. Don't tell people this. Please don't tell them our good tactics that work. Those silver bullet tactics like that, they're not what move the needle long term. What works in copywriting is you make an offer that people want, and you make it clearly, and then you prove that you can deliver it. Because if you promise me something I want, and you prove to me that you can deliver it, and I can afford your price, I'm going to buy. That's it. Period.
I say this all the time, the first lesson I ever teach any kids that come to me that want to learn copywriting is I ask them if they can define copywriting. And copywriting does have a definition, and there's sort of a famous one that's been out there for years that I hate. That is copywriting is salesmanship, which is absolute and complete nonsense because you can't put salesmanship in there.
Salesmanship is a live one on one interaction where I have all of these amazing tools that I can judge based on my prospect's response. What I should say next, I can modify my argument based on what they're saying. A copywriter has none of those tools. You can't put salesmanship into it.
Copywriting is the scripted transfer of belief in a promise. When I start a piece of copy, I make my reader a promise. At the beginning of the copy, I believe the promise. At the end of the copy, they believe the promise. That's it. That is what successful copy does. And anyone adding anything else is talking about a tactic to accomplish that.
But what you are doing is you're scripted. It's not spontaneous. I can't change it. It's not improv. Once it's out there, once I have a sales page out there, it's static for that reader. Once I have a video out there, it's static for that reader. So it's pre-scripted. I can't change it in the moment. I have to make my best shot at taking my belief in the truth of my promise and making it your belief in the truth of my promise.
And that's all we ever do, every day, every way.