The easiest way to grow a business is first optimize everything you've already got.

For example, if you want to optimize your business for the rest of 2022, just having rough goals like this could be helpful:

Or even doing something simple as pre-preparing for seasonal events can position you better

I personally plan out each month with a little goal sheet like this:

Then for yearly goals I'll sit around with some buddies and discuss, then come up with a few solid goals:

It feels like change is in the air for the world....maybe some recession-style stuff. This is often when great companies get built.

I'm curious, how are you planning for the 2nd half of the year?
• Write down goals?
• Discuss with friends?
• Other methods?

Reply in the comments and let me know!
Sincerely,
Neville Medhora

Hi, my name's Josh Haroldson. As a kid I never liked school all that much. What I really liked was summer vacation. Because that's where you got to work on whatever you wanted. For example:

• A couple summers I had a lawn service which taught me you could make money on your own by providing a useful service for people. I only bought enough money to buy a snowboard, but now, I'm a top-rated freelancer on Upwork.
• Another summer I learned to use my camera while backpacking. And a few years later ended up as an Instagram suggested user doing paid work for companies like Vayner Media and Food+Wine.

Dang. Turns out those summer projects can be pretty useful.

So, now that I'm a stay-at-home dad I figured, "Hey, why not bring back the summer project?"

Enter, the podcast. AKA my Copywriting Course Summer Jam.

What I want to learn:

• How to launch and edit a podcast.
• How to regularly create small pieces of re-usable content.
• How to promote a podcast to my first 1000 downloads.

My Goal:

• Have fun and create something I can share with my kid someday.
• Get to 1,000 downloads. That might not seem like a lot in the social media world, but me talking to a room full of 1,000 people would be pretty neat.

Link to the podcast:https://dadalwaystoldme.com/
Link to my social:  | @joshharoldson on Twitter
Link to the blog: https://joshharoldson.co/journal/

How I plan on promoting it: 

Instagram

Newsletter

Word of Mouth

Time Limit: Q3 of 2022. June 1st to Sept 1st

I will update this thread every few days with numbers and progress. Follow along!

(Swipe, Thought, Uplifting, Picture, Interesting, Drawing)

This is a fun email for Friday June 3rd, 2022. Hope you like it 🙂

🎤 Listen to this email here:

Swipe:

There's an interesting company called MSCHF (like mischief) that does viral contests.

Look at this cool old-school-looking page for an "MMO-SAT Test" they made:

At first I thought this was like an SAT test contest, but MMO-SAT means Massive Multiplayer Online Standardized Test.

This MSCHF company does "drops" and this particular contest is #70 in a sequence of ~100 they are doing.

They do lots of other contests like this, and release a list of their next "drops "so people can anticipate them:

No one has any clue if they make money or not, but this is super interesting company, and really cool how they "manufacture virality" over and over again!

Thought:

I used to regularly try to lucid dream (where you "wake up" during a dream and can control it).

People who lucid dream can do ANYTHING THEY WANT in a dream like fly, or meet celebrities, or hangout with dinosaurs.

A few years ago I spent months trying to do this, and could "become conscious" inside a dream with some regularity, but it would only last for up to 20 seconds (I would get so excited that I was inside a lucid dream that I'd knock myself out of it)!

The most reliable method I found to enter a lucid dream:
#1.) Look at both hands before you go to bed.

#2.) Then when you're dreaming, look at your hands inside the dream, and you'll "wake up" inside the dream!

So right before I'd go to bed I'd hold up my hands like this, and then if I was ever in a dream during the night, I'd try to "look at my hands inside the dream" and it would all of sudden pop me into the dream and I could control it!

It's kind of wild this is even a real thing and I've always been fascinated by it!

Uplifting:

I'm just going to assume you have a strange fixation with Shih Tzu dogs like I do, so here are the 3 best Shih Tzu Instagram accounts to follow:

#1.) Louie the Shih Tzu: @imlouiethetzu

#2.) Roku the Shih Tzu: @its.me.roku.the.shihtzu

#3.) Kimbap the Shih Tzu: @kimbap_the_shihtzu

If you follow these, I'm pretty sure your life will be happier. LOOK AT THOSE FACES!! 🙂

P.S. These dog accounts tend to have goofy sound effects, so I almost always watch the videos on mute.

P.P.S. I spend way too much time looking at these accounts 😂

Picture:

If anyone needs a simple plan for the gym, this one-pager is what I use:

This is what my friend Billy Murphy used to win a #1 spot in a body building competition despite no previous experience.

Obviously he also had a very clean diet (which is probably more important than the working out part).

I've also scribbled this workout on my home gym wall. It's very helpful on days when I don’t know what to do, so I just pick a number and crank through it!

Maybe keep that photo in your phone, and if you ever need a workout to follow, just do one of those 🙂

Interesting:

One thing we do at Copywriting Course is run a community where we practice writing and re-write each others copy.

Here's the stats from from last month (May 2022):
• 37 videos added
• 1,610 posts written
• 2,705 likes given
• 229,312 words written
• 1,498,233 characters written
• See live feed

I'm very proud of a lot of "wins" we constantly get (see a live updated list of wins), such as:

“Implemented your suggestion for the headline and it worked! It had a CTR jump from 11% to 24%.” MH

“3 leads came in today after applying what I learned from your feedback.” LB

“Got advice on Office Hours, implemented it, immediately got 9x engagement on LinkedIn posts” CO

“I count on you guys to double check every piece of copy I send out. Your critiques are always spot on. You never disappoint.” LW

“Open rates on my newsletter are about 70% among my active subscribers! I couldn't have done it without your feedback and support!” KR

If you're looking for help on any of your copy, right now (mid-2022) might be a great time to start.

We're halfway through the year, so this is the time to optimize all your emails, webpages, product pages, and offerings for Q4:

TODAY is the last day of our mid-year sale, so signup now!
Normal: $750
Today: Get 35% off!
(use coupon code MID22 at checkout)

Drawing:

It was Memorial Day a few days ago, so I'd like to thank all the people who made the USA a great place to live.

My family lived out the American Dream and it’s pretty awesome 🙂

I feel very grateful for:
• The opportunity to work
• The opportunity to express
• The opportunity to participate
• The opportunity to be a value add

I'm also grateful for you reading this email. Thank you 😊

Hope you enjoyed these little tidbits, have a happy Friday!
Sincerely,
Neville Medhora - CopywritingCourse.com | @NevMed

One of the best ways to become a better writer.....is to write a lot!

So I challenge you to hit 100 posts inside the Copywriting Course Members Area

We've seen people who post 100+ posts get drastically better at writing, more confident at writing, and are able to craft clearer messaging on everything they create.

Here's some ways you can quickly hit 100+ posts!

• [Go] Copy Assignments: Get some copy practice.
• [Go] Make a work journal: You can see mine here.
• [Go] Answer Q&A questions: Answer these simple questions.
• [Go] Comment on blog posts: Only members can comment on posts.
• [Go] Submit your copy for review: Get copy reviewed and optimized.
• [Go] Give feedback on other members copy: Give honest feedback.

Do "Copy Assignments"

For example, we challenge you to "sell this boat."

 

We'll give you a few details about the boat, then you can write a cold email to sell the boat, and our professional writers inside the forum will review it and let you know how to improve!

Write a daily work journal

This is a great bang-for-your-buck, because you get writing practice AND have some work accountability!

For example I posted a small update in my Daily Work Journal showing where I am writing this post from:

Or here's another post outlining my daily to-do:

The simple act of sorting out your tasks, writing them down, then sharing them with a likeminded private community is EXTREMELY helpful.

You also get other people commenting on your work sometimes with suggestions, or even reaching out saying they are working on something similar and giving tips!

Answer Q&A questions

We ask some simple questions you can easily answer.

Taking a quick second to answer a few of these, and it will naturally get you to think about an answer, craft a message, and share it (all while secretly making you a better writer)!

Leave comments on blog posts

We've got a blog that gets many hundreds of thousands visits a month, and only members can comment on it.

If you hit 50 posts in the forum you get to display you social links, so this often results in some cool exposure!

From these social links alone people have got more exposure, increased their following, and even got hired for gigs and positions!

You never know who might see these, so go comment and participate on the blog!

Submit your copy for review

One of the most popular features inside Copywriting Course is posting your copy, and our professional writers go through and make it better with you.

This way you get realtime feedback on your writing, spot improvements, and learn-by-doing.

What's even cooler is you rack up post counts for getting copy reviewed and interacting with the community inside your thread.

Give feedback on other members copy

You don't have to be an expert writer to give feedback on someone's copy. In fact you can just share what you think is right/wrong about a piece, and give suggestions on what you thought about it.

This is SUPER USEFUL to the person asking for feedback, because it's great to hear from different perspectives

Your Goal:

✏️ Make 100 Posts ✏️

[Go] Give feedback on other members copy
[Go] Submit your copy for review
[Go] Comment on blog posts
[Go] Answer Q&A questions
[Go] Make a work journal
[Go] Copy Assignments

Sincerely,
Copywriting Course

(Swipe, Thought, Uplifting, Picture, Interesting, Drawing)

This is a fun email for Friday May 27th, 2022. Hope you like it 🙂

🎤 Listen to this email here:

Swipe:

The famous old-school copywriter Gary Halbert made his first million dollars at age 32 with a promotion called: The Coat of Arms Letter.

This was the one-page letter to specific last names in the phonebook where he would sell "Coat of Arms" family crest you could buy through the mail (this was 1971 and that was the only way to buy):

The product people received was literally a printed family crest.

This was an example of the front & back of the Coat of Arms you would get:

Shoutout to @eston_esau who sent me these pictures of his grandpa's framed Coat of Arms!

Thought:

Some types of media take longer per minute to make than others.

For example:

Production Time -vs- Final Product ratio:
• MOVIE: 12 months for 2 hours (4,300:1)
• SONG: 100 hours for 3 minutes (2,000:1)
• PODCAST: 2 hours for 1 hour (2:1)
• LIVE VIDEO: 1 hour for 1 hour (1:1)

Uplifting:

This weekend we did a fun Spartan Race with some friends and it was a great time!

I'm MAINLY just happy I didn't hurt myself! 😬

It was 10k of running with 25 obstacles and challenges in between.

We rented a nice house near the lake where the race was being held:

Goofing off before the race

The morning of the race, having some snacks and getting ready

We arrive at the ranch where it's held

We're all still clean and about to start!

The race begins! Carrying a bucket fill of rocks

There were lots of monkey-bar-type hanging obstacles

My friend Noah Kagan running through mud

We all completed the race!

Jumped in the lake to clean off

Enjoyed the rest of the weekend hanging with friends

It was a good time, good friends, and we made a full weekend out of it on the lake 🙂

Picture:

On my iPhone always use a few unknown settings to make better pics.

These 5 iOS photo modifiers make your pictures look WAY better (and doesn't wash out the photo)!

On almost any photo you take, apply these:
• Increase "Brilliance"
• Increase "Shadows"
• Increase "Vibrance"
• Increase "Definition"
• Straighten & Crop

Here's an example:

Here's an example of a photo ruined by lots of backlight, and simply increasing the exposure just washes out the picture, but if you do those 5 modifiers the photo becomes great:

This photo was almost unusable, but 20 seconds of:
• Increase "Brilliance"
• Increase "Shadows"
• Increase "Vibrance"
• Increase "Definition"
• Straighten & Crop

...and we're in business!

Toggling these 5 settings is often the difference between a "meh" photo and an awesome photo. The magic is in the post-editing!

Interesting:

A Copywriting Course member wanted to build an email list for sneaker deals:

↳ Progress for emails was slow, so he started his own sub-Reddit instead!
↳ 3,000 subs first month! 200,000 views. 2 viral hits.
↳ He tried a promotion but it failed.
↳ Then he made a Top 10 post, it hit and brought in revenue!

↳ The sub-Reddit is now 6,100 members in about ~2.5 months!
↳ He's been turning those members into email subs (currently 140+)
↳ Is now releasing a paid database of sneaker deals to them.

Kind of neat how email collection was going slow, but starting a Sub-Reddit was an immediate hit!

See Sub-Reddit: https://Reddit.com/r/midsoledeals/
Follow progress: https://Copywritingcourse.com/blogs/50 (you can see a full live-updated journal of progress here)

Drawing:

Here's a cool little artifact from the 1990's:

A Simpsons drawing guide that Matt Groening created for the animators:

He had these pages that would guide the writers to create a consistent product like he liked:

This is pretty common in the animation world.

For example this is "Mickey Mouse's Hand Guides" from Walt Disney:

Cool to see these behind-the-scenes guides 🙂

Hope you enjoyed these little tidbits, have a happy Friday! 
Sincerely, 
Neville Medhora - CopywritingCourse.com | @NevMed

(Swipe, Thought, Uplifting, Picture, Interesting, Drawing)

This is a fun email for Friday May 20th, 2022. Hope you like it 🙂

🎤 Listen to this email here:

Swipe:

This is a cool chart sent along with a toaster that visually shows the different heat settings.

The numbers 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 don’t really mean much to the user, but showing them like this instantly conveys what each setting does!

This is an example of simple and effective copy visuals!

Thought:

Movie posters are basically one-pager advertisements, however they often contain NOTHING but the title of the movie and an image.

For example this Spider-Man movie poster just says "Spider-Man" and some action shots of the main characters:

They can get away with this because everyone already knows what Spider-Man is! All they have to do is show the new movie is coming out, and an audience will follow.

Another sequence of posters that needs very little explanation or words is James Bond.

The franchise is so popular that just showing a sparse poster is enough, like this Golden Eye poster:

...or this Spectre poster with nothing but a cool picture of James Bond:

Now some movie posters need to add more context to the poster because the general public may not know much about the character, like this awesome Kamen Rider poster.

Notice the extra story text on the left and right:

Or when Scarface came out it's poster had additional context explaining the story because no one knew this character:

Uplifting:

One of the absolute simplest time-saving tricks I’ve seen bars do in recent years is:

“We’ll keep your tab open but give your credit card back right away.”

When they do this you can just leave, and at the end of night they’ll close your tab and do an automatic 20% tip.

Customers love this because they can leave anytime without spending 10 minutes trying to close a tab.

Bartenders love this because they get 20% gratuity on every check.

Bars love this because bartenders are filling drink orders, not settling tabs.

This is such a small change, but yields big results!

Picture:

Totally random, but these are the 5 different light settings my home office scrolls through depending on my mood:

It's all controlled through a Phillips Hue remote, with 4 Phillips Hue Play lights, 2 Phillips Hue color bulbs inside lamps, and 4 LED lamps for some extra lighting power when on calls.

It all looks like this in the day:

...and looks like this at night:

Interesting:

I couldn't believe this actually works! Notice the difference in reading speed on the below text:

Text on left: Normal text. Text on right: “Bionic Reading” text with specifically bolded letters.

Watch how fast you can read the text on the right with the bolded letters!

It's kind of wild how much faster you can read the right side with these specifically bolded letters!

Drawing:

I've utilized drawing little stick figures and such for years, and it's always been difficult....but over the year's it's become easier.

My original drawings were done on tablet computers or an iPad Pro and then edited in Photoshop:

Then for a while I used a Google Presentation file with different body parts of StickGuy (heads, eyes, noses, mouths, bodies)....so I could just drag-n-drop them into different permutations like this:

Then I was using Canva a lot, and you can draw + add images:

Or you could use Canva pre-existing templated stuff:

Now I'll often edit and create images directly within ConvertKit (what I'm using to send this email):

Making images used to be this very skilled thing few people could do, but now it's become so much more accessible with better tools!

Hope you enjoyed these little tidbits, have a happy Friday!
Sincerely,
Neville Medhora - CopywritingCourse.com | @NevMed