Random Stuff Post #1

Ever tried the “Columbo close”?

How to Resurrect a Cold Email List

Got a list of subscribers you haven’t contacted in a while?

Here’s how to re-engage in a way they’ll welcome and can generate sales at the end…

Don’t send a grovelling email saying “sorry for not contacting”.

March in with fanfare and ribbon tape like you’re Macho Man Randy Savage.

Hit them with your best stuff. And if people unsubscribe, see it as cleansing the unworthy.

Aim for a week’s worth of quality content before presenting another offer. And remember that even if your open rate is just 20%, those 20% are your raving fans. They’re people eager to consume your content and open to you promoting products that help them on their journey.

Today’s tip comes courtesy of Brian Cassingena’s presentation at Project Persuasion Goes Dark 3.0.

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Creating a Channel that Crushes

This post is based on Mitch Miller’s presentation “Down the Rabbit Hole with Tai Lopez” at Project Persuasion Goes Dark 3.0.

You’re not just a copywriter. You’re a channel.

A channel people can subscribe, follow, and Like.

But only if they see you as someone on the rise. If you’re career is on the ascendenance, they’ll want to ride on your coat tails.

But if your progress has stalled or your content sucks, they’ll abandon you just as fast.

A more successful guru to follow is one swipe away.

So you need to be strategic about what you publish and how it reflects your brand. Every post needs to promote what makes you unique, what you represent, and why people should listen.

As Dan Kennedy says “Only fools market the thing”.

Pros know to maket what makes a “thing” special. And a great way to do this is to harness “self-congruity”.

Take the Tai Lopez Masterclass in Self-congruity

Self-congruity is why people are attracted to certain brands. It’s because these brands project the values they desire to obtain, and represent the tribe they want to belong to.  

Take Tai Lopez.

Lopez targets people who desire status and money. So he projects his own status and money to attract them.

His followers see money as the trigger for all the other things they want in life. So Lopez projects himslves as the ideal version his target market wants to become.

Because you see, we have three versions of ourselves:

• Past self
• Present (real) self
• Ideal future self

The present self is what people want to escape. And it’s becoming the ideal future self that triggers all their hot desire buttons.

Lopez knows to present himself as his market’s ideal future self. Because it’s the most powerful way to get people to take action.

Use Glamour to Magnify Your Appeal

Hand-in-hand with self-congruity goes “glamour”.

Glamour is the act of glorifying or magnifying what’s real.

Lopez uses the imagery of cars, stacks of money, and private jets to create glamour around his brand.

He may take glamour to extremes. But it’s something we all do all the time.

If you use filters on photos, dress up in clothes you wouldn’t normally wear, or rent cars and houses for photoshoots, you’re using glamour to enhance your personal brand.

But you’ve got be careful about how you use glamour.

Because it’s an illusion.

And if you use it too much to hide what you don’t want the world to see, like how a ballerina’s shoes hide the bruises, the backlash can be brutal.

Display your Kryptonite

Nobody likes people who are fake or pretend to be too perfect.

When Superman was unbeatable, few fans felt emotionally engaged with his struggles.

But when it was discovered kryponite robs his powers, his popularity soared.

When you try to seem too perfect, people are eager to see you get smashed into a skyscraper by an alien.

It’s only when you admit you’re not unbeatable after all that people come to your side.

So if you’ve spend too much time developing a perfect online persona, consider showing some weakenesses.

And a great way to do it is with “Zohavian Handicap Signalling”.

Zohavian Handicap Signalling is where you do something high risk to display your weakness.

It’s why antelopes jump up and down when a lion appears. Not because they want to get chased. But because they know their display of bravery will help attract a mate.

Make High Risk Gestures Others Aren’t Willing to Do

If you want to create a channel and online persona that’s unique, attracts your target market, and doesn’t push “glamour” to the point of fakery, think what you can do to reveal something about yourself that’s high risk.

Take a stand on a contentious issue. Rattle some cages. Call out someone for offering bad advice.

And when you do, record a full production video instead of just going live in your car on Facebook.

Because when you do what others are unwilling to do in defining your brand, the more you’ll crush competitors playing it safe.

And the more Likes, follows, and subscribers you’ll get to your channel.

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CIA Mindset Hacks for Managing Stress

“Father of online marketing” Mark Joyner knows a thing or two about stress.

 During his time as a CIA agent spying on North Korea, he had to be aware of his surroundings every waking moment on edge.

 The ability to stay calm under pressure then served him well as a serial entrepreneur, with 30+ startups under his belt.  

 At Project Persuasion Goes Dark, Mark Joyner shared his advice on managing stress and staying at the peak of your game.

 Stress is kills

 It drains your energy. Darkens your mood. Makes you sick. And it takes years off your life.

 Stress may be unavoidable.

 But in the freelance copywriting game, where you’ve swapped the comfort of a regular paycheck for surviving by your wits and word processor, having systems for managing stress is vital to your success.

1.  Reduce Overwhelm

Our brain’s can only handle so much information at once. But the amount of apps, channels, and people demanding our attention overwhelmed our brain capacity a long time ago.

The only way to stay productive is to make some cuts.

Identify the habits and channels that aren’t helping you (for me, it’s reading the news) and look to reduce the time you invest in them. Or even better, cut them completely.

Focus on the things you can control and help you towards your goals. Everything else is a distraction.

2. Don’t Feed the Trolls

“The greatest fear in the world is of the opinions of others. And the moment you are unafraid of the crowd you are no longer a sheep. You become a lion. A great roar arises in your heart. The roar of freedom” – Osho

 Haters gonna hate.

 Us copywriters (me included) tend to be introverted types. We don’t go looking for fights on Twitter.

 But as you start growing your following and running ads, the trolls will find you.

 There’s no shortage of frustrated people in this world looking for someone to unload on. So when they come, set ground rules on how you engage, if at all.

 Personally, I engage with people online the same way I would face-to-face. But if they can’t play nice, I pull down the shutters.

 A mind hack for dealing with trolls is to be clear on who you are and what you do. That way you can create emotional distance so you can walk away without feeling like you’ve lost face.

 After all, if you’ve confidence in what you have to offer, why should some random troll’s need to unleash bother you?

 3. Pursue Fulfilling Projects

 Life’s too short to be working for clients who don’t appreciate you or writing about junk nobody needs.

 Find projects and quality products you believe in.

 This will naturally make the hours at the keyboard more fulfilling. Believing in what you’re selling will naturally make your copy more persuasive too.

 4. Replicate Your Role Models

 

Why allow your feeds to get polluted with people complaining when there are so many positive people to take inspiration from?

 People I follow include Arnold Schwarzenegger (if you’ve read his autobiography you’ll get why), Joe Rogan, and Dave Asprey (Bulletproof Coffee founder). I follow them for their work ethic, desire to inspire others to be better versions of themselves, and their healthy attitudes to life.

 We might not have the money and success of our celebrity idols. But what we can do is share some of the traits that led to their success.

 So write down the characteristics of your role models you admire. Then try to adopt them in your daily life.

Mark Joyner and yours truly

 5. Know Your Path

 “Comfort is bullshit. Getting most out of yourself is real comfort. Get that through commitment” – The Iceman Wilmhoff

 We live in the safest period in history. Globally, you’re less likely to be killed in war or die in poverty. But that doesn’t mean happiness is assured.

 We still carry the same primal drives as our ancestors. They had to struggle every day to survive. And the only reason they survived and prospered was because of their motivation to overcome challenges.

 The drive to overcome challenges is still buried within us. And it’s something we’re going to need armies of psychologists and sociologists to cope with when AI arrives. When people suddenly have no reason to get up in the morning they’re primed to self destruct.

 It may still be a few years before AI can write a natural sounding sales page.

 So until that day arrives, remember it’s making progress towards your goals that makes you happy. Not the pot of gold at the end.

 6. Enjoy the Ride

 When you retire, your brain starts to shut down.

 The satisfaction that comes from living a productive life was reinforced to me when I met Drayton Bird a couple of years ago.

 Drayton is the UK’s copywriting godfather. Our own David Ogilvy. And he’s still going strong in this 80s. I plan on doing the same.

 Many entrepreneurs see retiring by age 40 as the goal. Or amassing a few mill to pay for endless travel.

 But this is a mistake countless millionaires have made. They may have bank vaults of cash to roll around in, but many still feel empty inside.

 It’s the journey, not the destination. So enjoy the ride.

 7. Conquer Procrastination

 Procrastination arises from indecision + distraction.

 Here’s how to beat it…

 Get clear on what you want. Write it down. Then write down how getting stuff done gets you closer to that goal. And post it somewhere around your screen.

 Writing down your objectives this way makes it easier to stay focused on the prize. You can strip away the time wasting habits and bat away the “fear” of doing something hard that makes many of us freeze when staring at a blank screen.

 If that’s not enough to get you shutting down tabs, keep ratcheting up your desire for the things you want until it overwhelms your avoidance behaviors.

 The more you focus on being productive, the more it becomes a habitual pattern.

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Easy Way to Get $5k Retainers

1. Google “[keyword] we hate spam as much as you do” to find newsletters related to your area of specialist knowledge.

2. Signup to their newsletter and see if their thank you page takes you to an affiliate offer

3. If not, send them an example of an advertorial you’ve written and explain how turning their thank you page into an advertorial can instantly earn them more moolah

4. Followup with an offer to write their daily emails for $5k a month

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Mass Hallucination

I’m guy wearing the hat second from the right back row

Last weekend I attended Project Persuasion Goes Dark in Phuket.

Over 3 days I was lucky enough to rub shoulders and grab quick chats with legendary marketer Mark Joyner, personal branding genius Mitch Miller, and email wiz Brian Cassingena. And all while having my brain expanded by sessions on deep marketing psychology. Some of it was pretty dark too.

The good news is you won’t have to run a gauntlet of stray dogs each day, like I did, to learn it. Because I’m going to share the chunkiest golden nuggets with you.

First off, a post based on Mitch Miller’s session on why we’re all living a mass hallucination, and why the world’s not as real as we think…

Is the world real? Or are we living in a simulation?

 It’s a question that baffles the world’s brightest minds. And it’s beyond the scope of this post (or my brain’s capacity) to answer.

But what I can tell you is that all of us are experiencing the world in different ways.

 No, I’m not about to jump down the rabbit hole of alternative realities. What I’m talking about is how we all view the world through a  different “lens”.

 This lens dictate how we view ourselves, events, and the world around us. Over time, it gets filtered by our own biases and experiences. And it dictates how we think, behave, and the stuff we buy.

Buying Choices are Based on Fiction

 Let’s say you’re buying a new pair of jeans. Do you check the quality of the denim, the stitching on the inside leg (“selvedge” to fashionistas), or size of the pockets?

 Or do you just make a beeline for your favorite brand?

 Whether we like to admit it or not, we’re all on a quest to be liked and validated. We buy things we think help us on this quest. And the choices we make are all based on our individual lens.

 So what is this lens exactly?

 It can be broken down into 2 layers:

1. Shared fiction “mass hallucination” layer

The world is filled with mass movements based on ideas.

Brands, money, and countries all started as ideas. But because enough people believe in them, they morphed to became accepted as true.

 The shared fiction layer has led to all sorts of subcultures, trends, and tribes emerging. Groups we all seek to belong to because of how we see the world and our place in it.

2. Individual fiction layer

This layer defines our own reality. It controls how we perceive ourselves and the tribes we think we belong to.

We believe this layer to be as true as the first layer. It’s how we experience the world so it seems real to us. But when you dig down, it’s even more false than the first layer.

Brands Look Different Through Different Lenses

We can only experience the world through our own lens. So you could say everything we know is an illusion. Just a single view on the vastness of human experience.

 Yet, our lens controls the brands we’re attracted to. We choose brands that reflect our own individual fiction and our desire for social status, prestige and belonging.

 Take Gucci, for example.

 To some people it’s the height of sophistication and glamour (more on “glamour” in an upcoming post). To others it’s garish, or even vulgar.

 But what matters for the person wearing Gucci is that through their own lens it satisfies their need for uniqueness and tribalism.

Your Copy Has to Satisfy Both Layers

I know this all sounds confusing and woo woo.

But the bottom line is that when writing about a brand you need to think how you can pitch it so it satisfies both layers of target buyer’s lens.

You need to explain how it meets their individual layer’s need for uniqueness and shared fiction layer of belonging to a tribe. Only then will they view it as a product that can help them on their quest to being liked and validated.

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