Cough syrup in the 1920’s was LIT!! 🔥

A fun thing about browsing so many old ads is you see the INSANE ingredients that were in some old-timey medications. 

This "Cough Syrup" contained alcohol, weed, chloroform, and morphine...I bet this worked WAY TOO WELL 😂

Remember that people pay money for things that:
• Saves them time.
• Supports a cause.
• Saves them money.
• Improves their status.
• Teaches them new info.
• Gets them access to info.
• Satisfies a need or desire.
• Solves a specific problem.
• Improves their earning power.

If you sell a product, ask yourself which of these things your product solves!

Some people specialize, some people generalize. This guy (who is an electrician) decided to list evvvveerrryything he can do plus some funny stuff for novelty 😂

I would say this business card falls under the "novelty" category and entertains the reader enough so they might keep the card. 

This card reminds me of this soap I use called Dr. Bronner's Magic Soap. The packaging has these looonnggg rambbbllinng paragraphs of ultra small text all over the bottle: 

I use the soap because it's a quick way to rinse off (the soap "comes off" your body very fast compared to other stuff), but I'm always tickled and entertained by it's insane packaging 😂

My friend just posted a book I recommended The Male Mid-Life Crisis by Nancy Mayer:

I first read this when I was 17 in high school, and it fundamentally shifted the way I viewed life/relationships/death.

It was cool to see from a young age what causes (men in particular) to blow up their lives in middle age, and I took away many methods of avoiding it.

The book shows how males can approach a “mid life crisis” when all these stressors hit at the same time:

• They look at their children and realize “THEY are young, I am old.”
• Their parents are starting to fade or die, and they see they're next.
• Financial demands from children, spouse, life, parents.
• Time demands from children, spouse, friends, work, parents.
• Some men got pressured into marriage way too young and never got to explore the world outside their relationship and they realize "this is it."

According to the book a combination of these things happening at the same time can make a man snap.

I talk about it in this one minute clip:

Anyways, checkout the book if you're interested in the subject. I found her writing style to be incredibly raw and honest which is what I liked about the book.

Sometimes I’m jealous of people who are like: “I was broke as shit 2 years ago but now I’m hella rich and I’m gonna teach you how!!” 

My story is way lamer: “I haven’t been broke since I was 17, and have always had several years of savings ready!!”

😬 HOWEVER THERE'S A PLOT TWIST 😬

This current economy seems like a repeat of 2008: 

A bank fails, then another, then another...then a BUNCH.

During an obvious recession like this the climate shifts from get-rich-quick schemes to preservation of money. 

All of a sudden the get-rich-quick guy goes out of favor, and a boring-advice guy like Warren Buffet (who has been consistently rich for 60+ years) becomes more trusted. 

The next few years will be super interesting to watch as non-useful products fall by the wayside, and the useful products rise to prominence.
 

So many people obsess about the "Subject Line" of their email, but this is short term thinking.

Your sender reputation is far more valuable than your subject line!

Imagine your mom sends you an email but it has a crappy subject line.

You’d probably still read it! 

If your emails are:
✔️ So good readers forward them.
✔️ So good readers learn from them.
✔️ So good readers respond to them.
✔️ So good readers screenshot them.
✔️ So good readers look forward to them.
...they will likely consistently get high open rates.

This simple chart makes it visually easy to see prices of different medical procedures in the USA, Korea, Singapore, and India.

Fun personal story about Indian medical costs: 
In 2013 I got bit by a homeless guys pit bull and had to go to the hospital and get a full set of rabies shots. 

Insurance paid $7,500 for the first set of shots, and $350/each for the 4 follow-up shots. 

I was going to India THREE DAYS AFTER I GOT BIT, and the same shots cost: $50 for the first set of shots, and $7/each for the 4 follow-up shots.

The Indian healthcare system is far less regulated than the USA, so the quality of care was....questionable at times...but the difference in cost was staggering! 

$9,000 vs $78 😳 

Know who your actual customer is. 

For example: If someone is buying Crayons...it's the PARENT not the child spending the money. 

This 1979 Crayola ad appeals specifically to parents who want their kids to be creative, inventive, and explore their artistic ability....

SECRET TRANSLATION: 
"Get your kids to sit down and be quiet for a few minutes so they leave mom alone!!" 

They know their customer 😏

What's very easy to see here (thanks to a this simple data chart) is how NetFlix and YouTube combined account for ~25% of all internet traffic!

Fun thing yesterday happened yesterday: My friend Noah Kagan threw a SXSW party and panel to talk about content creation in 2023:

It was me, @noahkagan, @thesamparr, @jwmares, and moderated by the awesome @nickgraynews:

It was a fun turnout on East Sixth St here in Austin, TX during the SXSW Festival:

My friends @cathrynlavery, @thesamparr, and @ramonvanmeer chatting:

Some guy was wearing this funny shirt with Kim Jong Un on the back 😂

The "Cloud of Influence" is the cloud of exposure you get from posting on multiple platforms:

→ People directly subscribed (high engagement)
→ Mentions & conversations (medium engagement)
→ Exposure through feeds (low engagement)

10+ years ago it used to be simple to see where a follower came from:

They Googled "copywriting"
⬇
Found a post.
⬇
Subscribed to email.
⬇
Bought a product.

Now with so many social platforms/feeds, a customer journey can be loooong and winnnndddding.

So putting out a large "Cloud of Influence" helps!

I personally do this through posting every platform including Instagram, YouTube, TikTok, and Twitter.

 

Have you ever wondered how I blast out 50,000+ emails a week to this newsletter?

I use a service called ConvertKit.

It's my top pick for sending out an email newsletter because:

Most email senders are complex, CK is not.

The editor is the simplest I've ever used.

It does autoresponders, broadcasts, and email signups.

It's what I've been running 100% of my emails through for years.

In addition to this newsletter, I send out email sequences to people who have just signed up, ConvertKit also handles that:

This is a frequent question I get: "Which email service should I use??"

I have extensively used other platforms like Aweber, Klaviyo, MailChimp, and InfusionSoft....but ConvertKit has been my go-to for years. I wrote more in detail about it here!

This headline created a "surprised" emotion with the giant headline “Oops! We goofed”

I didn’t WANT to read the smaller print of this 1964 ad, but HAD to with this headline!

Since it got me with the headline, it runs me down the "Slippery Slope" to the small copy which examples they’re out of stock of Pop-Tarts because they’re so popular.

This 1979 Crayola ad uses a descriptive headline to appeal to parents who want their kids to sit and be creative (AND QUIET!!) for a few minutes.

Whoever wrote this ad knew what they were doing 😏

This headline clearly appeals to parents who would **just-for-a-bit** play with a toy that keeps them quiet.

This ad pulls a few heartstrings saying “I didn’t get the job” from a man who hasn’t shaved.

You can clearly feel the disappointment on the man and his partner through the combination of this headline and image.

This ad uses some reverse psychology to get your to read it by saying why NOT to buy the car 🤔

Since this headline grabbed us to read it the rest of the copy, you realize these are all ACTUALLY great reasons to buy the car!

This was a great headline in 1978 that causes some intrigue in your brain, since “Playing the TV” was a totally new and novel concept at the time!

I love the simplicity and grabbiness of this ad, and how it focuses on one major feature of this stereo: A handle.

It shows that by buying this stereo “boom box” you can take your music anywhere.

This is a tasty looking Big Mac ad from 1979 that has a very funny headline.

Both the image AND headline are quite grabbing!

The inside joke on this one was from a McDonald's in the 1970's where people say this sentence very quickly:

"Two-all-beef-patties-special-sauce-lettuce-cheese-pickles-onions-on-a-sesame-seed-bun"

The McDonald's swag game in 1984 was hard 😂

If they still had this promotion I'd totally buy a Big Mac just to get it 😂

Most of these hats are going for $100+ on eBay!

 

This cool illustration shows how much you learn from theory, from practice, and from mistakes:

This is an AWESOME way to display lots of data in a small image:

...at the same time it's disheartening to see the decline of a great show visualized like this.

There's many cool YouTube videos talking about how The Simpsons fell into an un-watchable show (which you can see reflected in its modern IMDB ratings):

tl;dr: 
- All of original writers left.
- Instead of mocking pop culture they became it, and had tons of weird celebrity cameos they "forced in."
- Storylines and jokes used to be layered and complex, then they became lazy and unfunny. 

Who else is like this? 😂

Also it's SXSW time in Austin and there's so many meetup/event thingies going on. Went to one yesterday thrown by my friends Nick and Cody:

The party was bigger than normal, so it was split up into different rooms in a big house:

Saw some of my friends there:

We had a similar meetup a few weeks ago at my house:

Fun Fact: Here's what ~30 people drank over a 2.5 hour period on a Wednesday at my party a few weeks ago: 

• 32 cans of seltzer water
• 8 normal water bottles
• 8 Topo Chico's
• 2 alcoholic seltzers
• 1 beer 

Very little alcohol consumed!

Sometimes using a "pattern interrupt" is great way to grab attention. A "pattern interrupt" can be something something that's a little different than normal, and gets attention in an otherwise mundane task. 

For example: This was a fun unsubscribe email from Drizly with a funny pattern interrupt! You get this funny copy and dog that tries to make you 2nd guess your decision of unsubscribing.

The "OMG look at his little glasses" part got me 😂

When un-subscribing to an email there's normally a boring thing like this:

But that fun copy and glasses-dog potentially make you re-consider 🙂

Another example is this extremely goofy gif on the homepage of Copywriting Course:

 

I've always wanted to make that area more professional, but the reason I keep it like that: That silly gif gets a 10% to 12% conversion rate.

That means out of 100 people that land at that page, 10 or 12 enter their name and email (which is pretty good). 

I've never been able to out-perform that number with other tests so far!

 

My "Splurge" recommendation today costs a grand total of $13. 

It's an AMAZING book called Project Hail Mary, and it's been my most recommended book in the last few years (and the one I've let the most amount of people borrow)!

You may recognize the author Andy Weir, he wrote "The Martian."

This is his third book and in my opinion the best (even better than The Martian which is an already amazing book).

Book 1.) The Martian: Great book! 
Book 2.) Artemis: Meh. 
Book 3.) Project Hail Mary: Amazzzzing book!

I like this book because it's "hard science fiction" which means the story is not real, but the physics in the book are real. 

I don't even want to tell you about the book, because it has some great reveals and stuff you'd never expect, so I don't want to rob you of that. 

My favorite thing to do is recommend this book, people start reading, then every few days they call and are like, "OMG I CAN'T BELIEVE ______!!!!!"

Happy Friday! Let's start today with an example of “Lumpy Mail” which is mail with an object inside that makes you curious to open.

This came from Self Publishing School and included a metal bottle opener.

When I got the mail I could feel it had something hard in it (giggity) so it got me curious.

When you open it there was a handy bottle opener!

"Lumpy Mail" is great because when people check their mail they often have two piles:

The 'A' Pile: Personal letters and stuff they want to open.
The 'B' Pile: Stuff you just toss in the garbage.

If you send mail that seems like it has something inside it...it'll more often get put in the A-Pile!

This is a fun diagram showing the meaning of life for different theories and philosophies. 
I thought this was a perfect perfect combo of images + text working to educate!

Why write lots of copy, when you can show a picture? Instead:
➡Show Don't Tell!⬅

Here's some graphics that convey wayyyy more information in a small space rather than large amounts of text.

Show Don't Tell #1.) The 12 Major Hair Types

There’s a lot of different hair types, but this chart makes classifying them very simple with examples of each:

Is there something in your industry you could simply explain with a graphic like this?

 

Show Don't Tell #2.) Keep guacamole green!

This combination of images and callout text taught me something I never knew....several ways to keep avocado guacamole nice and green for longer!

 

Show Don't Tell #3.) Different types of pasta

This helpful chart instantly taught me more about pasta than I've ever know, thanks to a quick combo of images and a little text:

 

Show Don't Tell #4.) The hardness scale in one image

This simple graphs shows a lot of helpful data in one simple-to-read chart. I love how it relates "hardness" to everyday things we can understand like a "fingernail" or "copper coin."

I'm gonna refrain from making any jokes 😂

Awwww F it I'm gonna make one joke!!

heh heh heh 😏

Two weeks ago we went out to a 500 acre ranch for my buddy Noah's birthday and it was really fun!

We did ocean fishing, pond fishing, hunting, and lots of grilling...here's a few random pics from the trip (apologies if you don't like gun/fishing pics 😬)

Some of the guys:

 

Huge ranch with one main house, and 6 smaller houses:

 

Cowboy Neville 🤠

 

Main house had hunting lodge vibes:

 

Some guys:

 

Hey I caught a fish in the pond!

 

Skeet shooting:

 

Went fishing and found this random shack built on stilts in the middle of the ocean and climbed on it:

 

We did a piñata for Noah's bday and shot it with a shotgun instead of hitting with a stick 😂

 

It worked 🌮

 

This pic looks so Texas 😂

 

So does this pic...goats + ranch + hunting truck

 

We went night hunting for boars using night vision stuff, never done that before and it was kinda neat:

Lots more photos, but that's enough for now! 

Why do Le Labo candles smell so much superior to other candles?

I've spent hundreds of dollars on these candles (FREAKIN CANDLES!!) and wanted to know why I couldn't find a cheapo knock off.

Honestly it was a difficult question to answer through Google, so I resorted to Twitter. 

Apparently it has something to do with certain fragrances costing thousands of dollars per ounce:

Other factors are the type of wax used and "fragrance load."

As someone whose worked in copywriting/marketing, I'm often skeptical of expensive products that are expensive only because of marketing.

Skin care is a big culprit of this. This $14/bottle of CeraVe lotion is probably the same (or better) than most $100/bottle lotions:

So I'm not 100% sure why Le Labo candles smell so damn good to me, but it seems like high quality ingredients (plus a dash of fancy marketing) is the cause!

To combat being a lazy asshole who goofs off all day, I have been using this site called CaveDay.org. It's a place to virtually co-work over Zoom, and I've used it a ton this month!

Normally I do 1-hour work sprints, but yesterday I did a 3 hour "Work Cave" with 80 other people on the call:

Essentially it's virtual co-working, but done really well!I love to co-work, in fact I get more done in co-working sessions than an entire day being alone.

I regularly invite people over to work with me:

....but scheduling in-person co-working is hard, and sometimes we just chat a bunch and don't do solid work. Also it's really hard to setup co-working EVERY SINGLE DAY with friends. 

So instead I "Book a Cave" and join the Zoom call with others who are also working:

I'm currently writing another book, and finding long periods of focused time to write is difficult, so I've been using CaveDay a ton...as well as for my daily regular work.

Full Disclosure: I'm not part of CaveDay, it's just a product I like, and I'm using affiliate links in the description (if you join from my link I get a small cut).

I love this old Atari ad, it has a great headline:

“Don’t watch TV tonight. Play it!” 

This was a great headline in 1978 when “Playing the TV” was a totally new and novel concept!

Things that seem weird to teach kids today:

- Cursive writing
- Reading an analog clock 

Cursive was designed to reduce ink splatter from quil pens. This is no longer a problem, so I'm not sure why kids should learn to write English in two different ways:
🤔🤔

Circular clocks were simplest way to keep time with the stored energy from a wound up spring. This is no longer a problem.

Your phone, your watch, your computer....can all tell time with digital layouts:

These can still be “fun and interesting” things to teach children, but they are outdated and shouldn’t be required (in my opinion).

Seems like that brain space could be better applied to more modern problems!

This book is now worth $1,000+ each 🤯

I own 4 original copies of this book...so you're looking at a man holding $4k worth of books 😉

The reason it's so expensive is I posted this Instagram Reel video 3 months ago about how much I love this book, and since then it's gained tons of steam with 800k+ views, now every original copy of this book is 100% sold out!

Me and some friends got together an "Austin Texas Internet Meetup" last night!

My friend Nick Gray "conducted" the party, and did several rounds of quick ice-breaker style intros:

He even did "scene changes" for the party and we all went outside then came back inside twice 😂

He also picked several people to give 45 second "Lightning Talks" about different subjects they're interested in:

My friend Sam's dog Sid came....he's kind of an old boi (13 years!) and I was surprised he snuck up on the couch while we were all outside 😂

If you had an extra ~$1,000 per month to spend on your business, where would you spend it?

• Monthly advisor calls
• Creating new content
• Spend on ads
• Specific role
• Freelancer
• Other?

I asked Twitter and here were some responses:

• Probably 80% creating content, 20% boosting content w ads - @TyrelJohnson
• Spend 100% of that budget on @MentorPass calls cc @NoCodeKenny  - @BryantJaquez
• I would have said content a few months ago, but now I'd invest it in a freelancer who could research and get me stats and data. - @Ldnbox
• Coaching/consulting for either the business or self development.You are a direct extension of your business that will have greater returns than anything else you put into it. The coaching could be on anything from Sales, Marketing, Leadership etc ... - @dream_liv_scale
• Have never tried ads so can’t speak for that one, but probably an advisor. I’ve spent $15k+ in coaching in the past 6 months and it’s been the most life / business changing money ever. - @SilvestriChris
• either a VA or some sort of software that can help distribute the content tbh - @dgajsek
• The right answer is ads to email list as a self-liquidating funnel. Then keep reinvesting that money into more growth. - @FonziCreates
• Funny thing is creating new content doesn’t cost that much money it’s more like time and opportunity cost - @jackie_startok
• My salary 😂 - @kylevandeusen
• Advisor calls - wake me up to what I’m missing based on their experience - @TheDabbleBro
• Getting it off the ground - @hofo
• Twitter blue? - @swinterroth
• Getting a content creator - @JaySinghWrites
• Staff time off ratio. - @chris_bore
• In my pocket - @theGloPro
• 80% VA I’m the Philippines, 20% Ad Spend - @SyndicatorGuy
• Ads. My dream is get a scalable funnel this year. $1000 a month would be great to experiment with to get there. - @WhoWorksThere
• Either towards some sort of coaching/paid community or I’d blow it all on fun events I’d invite my dream 100 clients or partners to. - @JohnVishnesky
• Totally dependant on the problem in that moment, and business objective. - @theox500
• Ads. No question. Easiest ROI. There isn't an advisor who can teach me anything at $1k a month that would netback like ads. - @InkConor
• Me personally, content. But this is certainly a question with no definitive answer. All about what can bring the value you need the most: time/money/connections - @ctro1998
• It sounds crazy but spending $300 of it for a maid service a couple times per month has a huge ROI for women business owners. Delegating the chores frees a ton of time and mental stress. - @kathchalmers
• I just did so I spent it on working with @HeyJeffFelten and developing a strong email marketing strategy. The next extra $$$ will go to hiring a VA for customer success. -@thesaraloretta

In the end it seems like a good use for an extra $1k/mo would be on ads going to my email newsletter, or talking to 1 or 2 advisors per month!

I hope you have a very happy Friday!!

BY THE WAY...If I added a section to this email where I either place a sponsor or promote a product I personally use (software, books, household products etc)...would you mind??

I would call the section "Sponsored" or "Splurge" or "Spend" (open to suggestions). 

Reply to this email and let me know if you'd care or not!

This helpful magazine guide shows how to use a cast iron skillet...the guide is so good you can cut it out of the magazine and frame it.

I love when helpful information is so good it can be art!

It reminds me of this Guinness Oyster Guide that was designed for bars to clip it out of a magazine and frame it in the bar (and conveniently advertise Guinness to all the bar patrons)!

Here's an interesting thing about copywriting: 

A lot of copy can be replaced by a simple image.

This one-image ad shows a great Before/After example of a shower that was old, but has been remodeled: 

This is a perfect example of the classic copywriting advice:

SHOW, DON'T TELL!

The image does all the heavy lifting, not much need for additional copy!

....this other bathroom remodeling ad takes it even a step further, and cleverly uses "This Morning" and "Late Afternoon" in place of "Before and After."

By giving specific times this ad demonstrates not only that they can remodel a bathroom, but also how FAST they can remodel a bathroom!

I've watched some great documentaries lately and thought I'd share!
- Ms Cleo doc (HBO)
- Shaq doc (HBO)
- Bernie Madoff doc (Netflix)
- Playboy Hugh Hefner doc (Amazon)
- Dana Carvey Show doc (Hulu)

I had run out of documentaries to watch so I asked for recommendations, here's some of them you all wrote back:

• Man on Wire
• Operation Odessa
• My Octopus Teacher
• Icarus
• The Dissident
• Redeem Team
• Coinbase documentary
• Toni Morrison documentary
• Air
• The Elephant in the Living Room 
• Pepsi, Where's My Jet?
• Full Swing
• Fire of Love
• Bill Russell doc
• Roadrunner
• Dealt
• The Great Hack
• (watched) Free solo
• (watched) Andre the giant
• (watched) Comedian by Jerry Seinfeld
• (watched) Stutz by Jonah Hill

I keep a list on my phone of docs to watch, hope this helps you add to yours!

Soon after this email goes out, I'm headed off to go to a friends bday party at this ranch in an undisclosed location!

Should be fun 🙂

I heard a friend talking about a daily check-in practice his team does at work called: P.E.I.

You rate each of these from 1-5:
Physical: How you feel physically.
Emotional: How you feel emotionally.
Intelligence: How sharp or clear you feel.

Everyday when they meet the team shares their PEI. This lets you know if someone is grumpy, or isn't 100% fit to do a certain task.

 

Years ago I made a small checklist to see why I would be grumpy on some mornings:

...however this PEI methodology is much simpler and better. 

On a day where you are:
Physical: 2
Emotional: 2
Intelligence: 1

...that may not be the ideal day to do creative work. So you know you need to rest up and handle your life before you're at optimal creativity. 

I thought this was a cool check-in practice and hope you try it out!

This interesting scribble shows you the different endings of surgical terms, and what they mean:

I learned something from this, but wish 12 year old Neville knew about this! 

Then I could've invented terms like:

• Buttectomy: You cut your butt off.
• Buttplasty: You change the shape of your butt.
• Buttrraphy: You sew up your butt.
• Buttdesis: Your butt is stuck together.
• 😂

I love this headline and image and copy combo, where Volvo makes the case that a wagon can be fast!

The small text copy goes on to show:
🚙 In a 0-60 test this Volvo beats the Porsche.
🚙 Just because it’s a wagon doesn’t mean it’s slow.
🚙 Road & Track Magazine called this Volvo Turbo Wagon the closest thing to a “five door sports car.”

One of the best things about owning a business is tax advantages.

I know that sounds really boring but...

If you have a hobby such as cooking...and you start a small cooking business, you can buy all sorts of cooking stuff FOR YOUR BUSINESS AS AN EXPENSE.

 

Start YouTube/social channel about building house stuff.

⬇

Build out your dream house, document it.

⬇

Write off renovations as a business loss.

😏

This guy's full time job is making fun tools on his personal website Neil.fun:

From making these cool little tools he gets:
• 4,000,000+ vists/mo
• 300,000+ SEO visits/mo
• Full time income monetized by Google AdWords

I'm totally jealous of this!

If I was hired as the copywriter for this 1986 Honda Helix scooter ad, I would've positioned it differently.

I think this is the UGLIEST SCOOTER I'VE EVER SEEN 😂

I re-made a few different versions of the original 🤪

This ugly scooter reminds me of this popular thermostat ad from Joe Sugarman. He loved how the thermostat functioned, but being an honest person he put this sentence right at the top!

You must have noticed that almost every service you signup to has either Monthly pricing, or Yearly pricing:

This may seem relatively obvious, but capturing a yearly customer is farrrrr better than a monthly customer! 

✅ You only pay fees once. 
✅ Collect all the money up front.
✅ No churn from expiring credit cards.
✅ You keep the customer for a full year.

Getting a yearly customer is so much better, that companies will usually give you 2 months off the purchase price if you pay by the year.

For example look at this ConvertKit email to upsell a yearly plan for my account:

✔️ The copy gets straight to the point.
✔️ It makes an offer for 2 months free to upgrade to yearly.
✔️ It has a call to action that makes it easy for me to accept by saying, "Just click here and we'll take care of the rest!"

Using this recurring revenue calculator you can see why yearly is so attractive.

Here's a $97/month product, with 100 subscribers. If each member stays on for one month, total revenue is $9,700:

However if you manage to bill people for a year, that same 100 subscribers at $97/month could be worth $116,400!

...and that's why you see so many subscription services incentive people to do yearly plans.

One of my favorite formulas for writing ANYTHING is the  AIDA Formula.

Have you ever used it??

I have a favor, can you respond to this email with how you've used the AIDA Formula in your work or personal life??

Just respond to this post with your story about how you've used the AIDA Formula!

Checkout this door flyer I received:

It appears to be handwritten (it's just a convincing print) so it catches your attention. Then it explains why replacing your windows is a good idea during the "down season."

I thought this was a great flyer that drums up business in the slow season...and the "handwritten" nature of it somehow got me to read all the way through!

The political style of your brain is a dictatorship, not a democracy. 

You are the dictator in charge.

Ruthlessly prune out people/news/information that doesn't serve you.

I asked people this:
Skip to 2025. You look back and reflect on February 2023 (today). What do you wish you started doing consistently?

Here's some answers:

@StartupFreshman: 
Exercise. And probably, more writing.

@xahuler:
Its 2025, I have been consistent for 3 yrs doing,

• Running a $50k MRR Saas
• Writing(sharing my journey as a solopreneur)
• Streaming(code)
• Making yt videos

@DallinsYield:
Sleeping at a scheduled time

@javs_says: 
Getting into action mode faster!

@FrancoisRice:
Focused more on the high-leverage tasks with the most benefits.

@BryantFerate: 
30-60 min of writing daily.

@shubhankarchau7: 
Putting my thoughts out into the internet.

@AliYalcinKaya: 
Exercise & meditation.

@drewmarkert: 
Writing publicly & exercising.

@NancyGoyal30:
Twitter, Inner Engineering, Workout.

@WriterSumeetG: 
Ice baths 🛁 

@minhasv:
Finding early adopters.

@VAplus1:
Gym and doing me more.

@ClayNichols:
Stretching

@InspiringSia:
Writing on Twitter again

@TheAllmaziful:
Making fresh mozzarella cheese every weekend.

@jaxx_sam: 
Probably stretching and reflecting more

WHAT ABOUT YOU?? What will you look back on in 2-ish years and wish you'd been doing right now? Reply to the email and let me know!

We had a weird freezing day here in Austin, so some buddies came over to co-work: @heydannymiranda, @thesamparr, and Sid Da Dog!

"Copywriting" is associated with writing words on a page, but my definition is: 

"Installing an idea into someone’s head and getting them to take action."

The medium could be: 
- Writing 
- Images 
- Videos 
- Software 
- Combination of all the above

The medium of transmitting information has changed many times, the human brain has not.

Apparently this is how Benjamin Franklin used to organize his day 🤔

Almost all daily to-do list methods are similar. Like this "Ivy Lee Method" of productivity:

The beauty of this system is it limits you to 6 main tasks, then forces you to first organize them by importance. You can fill out a chart like this everyday:

My own daily to-do list method looks like this:

I will say my daily to-do list is more complicated looking than my monthly goal layout which is very simple:

In old-school print advertising you had to cram a lot of information into a small space because you were advertising in small slots like the back of newspapers or magazines.

This 1962 ad hits all the points of a good sales message:
• Attention: Grabs attention of new reader
• Interest: Gives interesting info
• Desire: Makes them desire product
• Action: Specific action

Oh yeah....also in 1962 you could just mail order a monkey 😂

A common path I've seen people take online:

Learn skills —> freelance for quick income —> sell small digital product for income —> make a business out of your skills —> hire people to help deliver —> build personal following —> use following to launch next thing.

I've had two ideas for Twitter I'd like to put out there: 

IDEA #1.) Allow people to browse email like a Twitter feed. 

Email makes me click back & forth hundreds of times per session. 

Instead, show me a scrolling interface for email that pulls up first part of an email. I can double-tap to load the rest. Soon as I "scroll by it" it archives the email. No need to do another action to archive it.

Benefits of this:
- There are ~4billion email users.
- People do 40 to 120 emails/day.
- People are on email half the day.
- SMTP is an open protocol so anyone's email can transfer to Twitter.
- Better email would contribute to “Unregrettable User Minutes” as Elon puts it.

As people "scroll their email" Twitter can insert ad spots between emails like regular twitter. Ad inventory would boom if 100's of millions of people would "scroll their email" on Twitter.

40 to 120 emails per day, ad spot every 20 slots.
2 - 6 extra ads/user/session = $$$

Try getting to "Inbox Zero" on your email client, and count how many clicks/swipes/backs/archives you must do.

The Twitter interface allows me to intake hundreds of posts with simple vertical scrolling.

tl;dr: If email is integrated with Twitter, lots more usage + UUM

 

IDEA #2.) Allow voice memos on Twitter.

It could look like this, with auto transcription:

Pro's of Voice Tweets:
• You can "Voice Tweet" a thought quicker than typing.
• Adds another layer of media onto Twitter.
• It's almost like short form podcasts.

Con's:
• Would make browsing Twitter partly audio.
• Would have to limit length to avoid rambling.

I wonder if a small-scale test could be implemented on this, and how it would effect Twitter 🤔

 

For my private community I chose to use a heavily modified forum over other social platforms. This was so members can post looooong things like sale pages or long blog posts or long emails for review. 

Not only that, but the posts had to be able to accommodate different sized fonts, in-line images, boxes, etc.... 

This was impossible on Facebook or other platforms, so I had to go custom:

Also I wanted the content to all be integrated, tracked, and lock/unlock access based on if someone is a guest or has access.

Lists like this were hard to do without going custom:

Anyways, I nerd out on the backend components of courses/communities...from my experience most people don't actually care that much so long as they get the value they paid for 😂

I had a candid conversation with a friend who is very close with 5+ multi-billionaires. Here's some notes I wrote down from the conversation:

#1.) There’s always people around.

An assistant, a hair person, security, nanny, chef, maid, driver. There’s not really times when you’re completely alone.

 

#2.) You can make your house like the fanciest spa or hotel you’ve ever been to.

Did you like a hammam at a high end resort in Morocco? You can hire the same company to build you a personal one.

Did you like the bathroom at your W Hotel Shanghai suite? Replicate at home.

 

#3.) Weird realms of possibility open up at that level of wealth.

You can buy/rent ANY physical thing. Think about how that impacts what you do.

See a cool plane? You can afford two.

Have a cool plot of land but can’t land your planes there? Build an airstrip, hangar, and private road.

Like a specific car but have houses in California and France? Buy two and put one at each home.

Did you want to speak with someone but don't want to fly to them? Send a plane to bring them to you.

These totally "not normal" things are accessible.

 

#4.) Access to anything gets so much easier.

Want to meet a rockstar or talk to a foreign country’s ambassador or president? It can be arranged.

There’s a whole team of people with an unlimited budget working on whatever weird whim you have.

 

5.) If you buy a yacht or cool plane, everyone wants a ride in it.

Politicians, business people, or anyone becomes grateful to you for the opportunity. Influence becomes easier.

 

6.) It becomes difficult after $500m+ to relate to normal people.

Developing new friendships with normies is harder, as people often have other motives for befriending you. Having a “normal” relationship with a boyfriend/girlfriend/spouse becomes harder because the power dynamic is so tilted.

 

I'm not saying any of these things are “good” or “bad”…rather just interesting observations picked up.

"The Circle Of Influence" concept can be applied to your business:

• Circle of Control: You can completely control these.
• Circle of Influence: Can't fully control, but can influence.
• External Circle: Can't control these at all.

Let's fill it out →

"Circle of Control" is things you have 100% control over, and should most focus on the most, such as:

• Your product
• Your social media
• Your website
• Your emails
• Your customer service

 

"Circle of Influence" is things you have SOME control over, but can't 100% control them, such as:

• Your employees 
• Your SEO results 
• Your product reviews 
• Perception of your product 
• Word of mouth marketing

"External Circle" is things you shouldn't "worry" about because you have no control, but rather learn to adapt around them, such as: 

• The economy
• Recessions
• Bull markets
• Foreign competitors

You cannot control these, only adapt and compete.

 

This concept is a variation of "The Circle of Influence" concept on what to worry about, and what NOT to worry about in your mind:

 

This is the perfect representation of “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it!”

The basic Bic Pen has been pretty much the same since 1955!

Here's a standard process I've seen people utilize the internet as a career:

Learn skills.
⬇ 
Freelance for quick income.
⬇
Sell small digital product for income.
⬇
Make a business out of your skills.
⬇
Hire people to help deliver.
⬇
Build personal following.
⬇
Use following to launch next thing.

 

Which stage are you in??

Do Venezuelan online gurus say: “I make 17-figures a year!”
😂

All this stuff happened in the last two years 🤯

It's kind of wild that in a few short years a couple of fields have pushed forward so fast.

in 2019 A.I. seemed a long way off, then in 2022 you could accurately have ChatGPT do tasks and write blog posts for you.

Kind of wild how fast that happened!

No business is operating at 100% efficiency. This is a big opportunity to fix these problems in your own business, or help others do it for their businesses:

• Can you show some results?
• Can you make a page convert higher?
• Can you add some good testimonials?
• Can you completely eliminate a process?
• Can you demonstrate your product is superior?
• Can you remove options/products that don't sell?
• Can you take what a human does and automate it?
• Can you remove or combine pages to reduce clicks?

Over the next year I would personally like to:
→ Optimize top SEO posts.
→ Optimize social media to email signups.
→ Double the email list size.
→ Optimize our Join Page.
→ Optimize our Home Page.

My goal in life is to play on the internet all day and somehow make a living from it.
Come to think of it, that's like 90% of what I do already!

Online income comes from these channels:

The plan for this year is to double all the metrics above. 

One of the key ways I used to output content is "Cascading Content" from blog posts, which means writing a long blog post then breaking it up into other forms of smaller content:

As time has gone on, I feel like more of my long form content has come from ideas originally posted on social media, more like this:

Then I often take the content that does the best or garners the most interest, and make more in-depth trainings on them in our Members Area.

I love the eye-grabbing image of this 1980 "boom box" ad, and how it focuses on one major feature of this stereo: The handle.

It shows that by buying this stereo you can take your music anywhere (which in 1980 was pretty neat):

Every business in the world will completely change how they operate in the next 10 to 20 years.

This is a huge opportunity to help them do it, or replace them.

There's always a shiny new thing on the internet. In my lifetime:
It used to be Digg
It used to be Craigslist
It used to be Del-icio-us
It used to be Orkut
It used to be MySpace
It used to be Xanga
It used to be Geocities
It used to be Friendster
It used to be Periscope
It used to be Instagram Posts
It used to be Instagram Stories
It used to be Instagram TV
It used to be YouTube
It used to be Vine
It used to be SnapChat
It used to be Twitter
It used to be Clubhouse
It used to be TikTok
It used to be Instagram Shorts
It used to be YouTube Shorts
It used to be BeReal It used to be........ ?

There will always be "the next hot thing."

The underlying commonality is all these platforms allowed to you connect with other people 🙂

Ironically the one platform that still brings me the most sales, yet gets very little recognition: Email.

Whatever the very rich have, thanks to technology in 20 years it’s usually available to everyone.

From 2001 to 2023:
• Secretary → Calendly
• Private Chauffeur → Uber
• Vacation Homes → AirBnB
• Consultants → UpWork → YouTube
• Employees → Software Automation

It'll be interesting to watch what's only available to the rich become commoditized and super cheap in 20 years:
• Hair transplants
• In vitro fertilization
• Corrective vision surgery
• Private jet access
• Detailed medical testing
• Virtual assistants

What else??

That's me, talking on the phone, to YOU:

Did you know every Wednesday and Friday I do 10 minute calls with people on my email list?

It's my way of connecting to new people, seeing what they do, learning about them, and just chatting.

If you want to setup a time, reply back to this email with "I WANNA CHAT!" and we'll setup a quick call.

I started doing this sometime last year and have talked to 100+ people so far!

You are judged and rewarded by your utility in life.

This means without even thinking about it, people naturally judge you by:
• Your looks
• Your height
• Your strength
• Your intelligence
• Your cleverness
• Your entertainment value
• Your loyalty
• Your competence
• Your wealth
• Your social capital
• Your manual labor
• Your reliability
• Your skills
• Your experience

Of course some of these qualities may be more/less valuable for men or women.

(If) you are trying to move up in life, generally increasing one or more of these can help.

It's neat to see different AI trends popping in 2022:

For fun I ran these same charts with all Elon Musk related companies. It seems certain keywords like specific car models have stable demand through the year:

I thought this would be a cool graph but it turned out not to be that insightful:

This flyer lays out the reasons why people shouldn't be afraid of opossum’s.

Most people have a negative perception of opossum's (probably because they're not the cutest animal around), and this great copy changes that!

Love the friendly headline "Hi I'm your local opossum!" 😂

With some simple copy on a page, this flyer has managed to make people change their mind from thinking of opposum's from scary and gross animal:

To a friendly, harmless, and even helpful animal!

Here's what I mainly use  Twitter for 😂

Interestingly enough, just dicking around and harassing friends often gets a lot of engagement, and it keeps social media fun and "social!"

This sentiment has been popular lately: 
"People's attention spans have become shorter because of TikTok and Shorts." 

I disagree.

Human "attention spans" are the exact same...we just have more media options that didn't exist before.

People used to watch long movies and read long books simply because that's all they had. That was the entertainment option of the time.

If you teleported phones with TikTok to the 1950's, everyone would use it!

The human brain hasn't changed, technology has.

Short content relays MORE information to people in a shorter amount of time, so it's not crazy to think people would consume it.

Attention span hasn't necessarily decreased, we've just compressed the amount of time it takes to relay a message by eliminating all errs, umms, pauses, and useless information.

With that said, it seems the best way to consume media is:
• Short Form = Discovery + entertainment
• Long Form = Go deep on a subject

It's cool we have so many options now!

I did a fun project today: 

Step 1.) Bought a chainsaw on a long pole

 

Step 2.) Climbed onto the roof with the chainsaw 😎

 

Step 3.) Clear out some nuisance branches.

 

Step 4.) Chopped down two trees from top to bottom.

That’s all!

This probably isn't the greatest set of pictures in the world, but this was a fun project 🙂

It's fun to re-visit history and see every new technology get negative press for a while while it disrupts the existing system.

This article says too much reading can be bad:

 

When computers came out it was a problem for some:

 

When spell-check started becoming popular people got scared, much like people are with ChatGPT now:

 

Calculators were a "problem" for some:

 

Wild accusations of technology have always been a thing:

 

Some people thought too many novels were bad:

Image credits:  Pessimists Archive

New tech comes out ➡ Disrupts System ➡ Adaptation ➡ Repeat.

This graphic is so true 😂

Drawing by  Ferraro Roberto

A single notification on your phone can destroy deep thinking time so easily.

Here's some ways I personally combat notifications:
- Don't allow social & email apps to show up.
- Silence phone + turn phone upside down.
- Leave phone in different room.
- Use "Focus Mode" at night.

 

I like this ad because the headline copy and image work together to show your tires are the only part of your car that touch the road.

The headline uses underlining for "you're only safe as your tires" and the image cleverly removes the body of the car and just shows the tires:

 

I like this quote: 

Quote

“Once you understand the motivation, reward and punishment structure of any system, you can begin to control it.” 

- Guido Van Rossum (founder of the Python programming language)

I once heard Cesar Millan (the Dog Whisperer) say all dogs like at least 1 of these 3 different rewards: 
- Toys
- Food
- Affection

Once you know the type of reward a dog responds to best, it makes it much easier to train!

Hugsy likes toys, food, and affection:

 

Sid is primarily motivated by food, and is "meh" on the rest:

 

Poe mostly responds to affection:

 

Knowing the reward/punishment structure seems to help in any system!

- Training neural networks
- Training dogs
- Raising kids

Here's a funny term I heard:

A doctor friend said a lot of her patients have “Million Dollar Pee” because they take so many useless supplements 😂

I hope you're having a great holiday season!!

This picture sums up Christmas & New Year's in Austin: Cold enough to wear some long clothes, but warm enough to work outside without freezing to death 😂

Here's an idea for the U.S. Department of Education:

Crowd-source short form videos for every subject & every grade K - 12. Students can casually browse these like TikTok as a supplement to their classes.

Here's An Example: 
Take this 3rd grade Language Arts curriculum and put a $10,000 award for the best short video for each section (1 minute or less)…

Educators across the world will flood social media with their entries.

The $10,000 prize is split up into: 
• 1st place: $6,000 
• 2nd place: $3,000 
• 3rd place: $1,000 

You then take the winning videos and add them to playlists on TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube Shorts. 

Now let’s do the math…

The U.S. Department of Education budget in 2022 was $636 billion. 

Each grade curriculum is 32 weeks, with 5 lessons per week. 

• 160 lessons per grade X 12 grades = 1,920 lessons 

• 1,920 lessons X $10,000 per prize = $19,200,000 

• $636 billion / $19.2 million =  .003% of budget

Conclusion: 
For just .003% of your US Education budget, in one month, you could give high quality supplemental materials to every student in the country (technically the world)…and turn social media from a time-suck to kids, into a powerful teacher that benefits millions!

 

Evidence crowd sourcing works has been proven by @xprize and @DARPA. Interesting analogy is @thesamparr and @ShaanVP offered $5k for anyone who can make a clip viral…it resulted in hundreds of clips, hundreds of creators, and hundreds of millions of views…for just $5k 😳

Even if this program cost 5x or 10x what’s quoted here it would still be an intensely efficient use of funds.

This same competition could be held every year, or whenever there are changes to the curriculum…massively increasing the quality of the education as people compete.

This program could bring out a whole new generation of digital educators.

A high school English teacher in Missouri may discover she has the skills to educate millions of students online, rather than just 100 students in person.

Digital education would advance quickly with this method.

I hope someone takes this idea and runs with it!

My content consumption has changed in the last few years.

I’d say for every 1 blog post, I’m viewing 100’s of Reels/TikToks/Shorts

I've also noticed far more growth on my short videos than my blog posts recently (see full stats here).

How many blog posts do YOU read vs watching short form video? Reply to this email and let me know!

Instagram has seemingly been the best performing platform so far. 

Here's some stats:

 

I believe of all the social platforms, YouTube view counts are probably the most honest.

YouTube Shorts definitely boosted view numbers on my channel:

 

...however my lack of posting long form video hindered subscriber growth 😞

 

Overall I'd say the YouTube Shorts videos have helped the channel get more views and activity but not subscriber growth without long form content being added:

 

 

TikTok has been "meh" performing so far, although definitely doing something. 

I started with almost no followers, now have almost 2,000....so that's something. 

 

LinkedIn was kind of a long shot here because it's not known as a video platform, but it's doing decent.

One benefit of LinkedIn is that it brings in a totally different audience than other social platforms. 

 

 

Here's an example of a great cold email! 

- It seems personal, but doesn't use any personalization (less work).
- It gets straight to the point of what's important to me.
- Shows proof he can deliver the results.
- Gives a juice screenshot with stats.
- Offers to give some suggestions if I reach out.

I love seeing good emails in my inbox in a sea of bad emails!

“Once you understand the motivation, reward and punishment structure of any system, you can begin to control it.” - Guido Van Rossum (founder of Python)

Fun fact: Every time you fill out one of these Google Captcha's you're slightly training an A.I. 

A.I. systems for self driving or identifying objects need massive amounts of human labelling to learn from, and you're labelling these 9 pics as either:

- It's a car
- It's not a car

The A.I. system then shows these same pics to many other humans (sorry you're not that special 😛), and then determines if it was correct or incorrect about labelling the images. 

...and that's how it learns and gets better. Neat huh!

Canva just released  "Canva Docs" , which is interesting for writers that use tons of visuals in their writing 👀

I played around with it and it's kinda neat. 

Their built-in editor AI is pretty sweet. Check this out:

My prompt: Write me 5 reasons copywriting is awesome 

The result:

And it even has text-to-image generation:

I asked it to draw: "Show me a guy putting on sneakers in the dessert"

Not sure I'll be switching from Google Docs over to Canva docs just yet....but so far no editor has even COME CLOSE to Google Docs for me except this...so I'm impressed already!!

Remember how "The Will Smith Slap" was what EVERYONE IN THE PLANET was talking about for a while?

Whatever happened to that? 

Then everyone was talking about the Johnny Depp divorce thing. 

Then everyone was talking about Iran....

Some topics capture the public imagination, and the whole world gets obsessed for a short period of time....then moves on. 

This is known as  "The Current Thing." 

Here's some cool visualizations of "The Current Thing" from 2022:

Or here's some more "Current Thing" for 2021:

This cycle seems to play out across every industry, every country, and every group...it's cool to see it in visual form like above!

Have you been using ChatGPT (the A.I. writing tool)?

Outside of testing it out, what have you been using it for? 

I've been using it for: - Running ideas by it.

- Occasionally drumming up headline or subject line ideas.
- Asking it to come up with content ideas.

I'm starting to use it a bit less now as the initial novelty has worn off....and it's interesting to watch how others are using it:

Some responses from Twitter :

 Jason:  I’ve been going to subject matter expert episodes of long form podcasts on YouTube (1hr to 2 hour) coping the transcripts and then asking ChatGPT to summarize in long sentences and 20 points what was said in the interview.

Kamphey:  I ask for FAQ for topics, to add more sections to blog posts. I used it to figure out subsections, subheadlines. I asked for clickbait titles, buzzfeed type titles. I asked for B2B titles, and subheadlines and subsections. I asked it to summarize youtube videos.

Olivia:  Since we are a content agency we are exploring its power with: 1. Headlines 2. Summaries 3. Outlines 4. Content Ideas based on research? 5. Articles 6. Tweets 7. Threads 8. Text extraction 9. Copy

---------------------------------------------------------

What's interesting is ChatGPT likely won't take away a SINGLE job in the whole world (for now)...

...but it's going to make some jobs a whole lot easier, and restructure what some job titles do.

Example:

"Manually-Writing-Numbers-On-A-Chalkboard-Guy" probably didn't lose his job the moment electronic spreadsheets came out:

However he probably shifted certain tasks to computers over time, so he didn't have to begrudgingly add numbers all day...instead a computer could do it faster, and he could focus on more important stuff:

Then the spreadsheet technology got even better and he would have to re-train himself to use something more like this on a modern computer:

Ultimately "Manually-Writing-Numbers-On-A-Chalkboard-Guy" would be able to start his on company managing the books for multiple other companies....and raising his potential income level by A LOT:

Inside our Copywriting Course forum and Office Hours we've been working side-by-side with A.I. tools, and it's been invigorating to have new tools to use for creativity! 

Although sometimes you have to beware of using these tools wrong, like for trying to game search engine results:

It's been fun showing people how to leverage A.I. to make awesome content....although the best content is still an A.I. + Human collaboration:

This old Range Rover ad has it all:
✔ Grabbing image
✔ Interest-grabbing headline
✔ Great copy showcasing it’s features and benefits

This is definitely a frame-able piece of marketing, and one of my favorite ads of all time! Look at that beauty:

Copywriting Tip: Sometimes a simple Before & After photo will explain an entire product without much need for copy.

For example, this simple advertisement for a charging device shows a 1-outlet device replacing multiple charging bricks:

You instantly understand the product.

Since that charging device is a PHYSICAL PRODUCT you can see, it's easy to do a before & after of it. But if you sell a service you can show the after results of using your service, like these ads:

So instead of showing the service itself you show the RESULTS of the service.

I like to destroy all distractions on my computer with an extension called "Focus45." Hit the button and for 45 minutes it'll block access to your time-sucking websites:

If you need to access a blocked website (which is very common) there's a way to temporarily bypass it for a minute by entering a code like this:

Here's a demo in action →

I just like that it's a quick and easy way to avoid getting distracted by all the fun stuff out there!

Got to hangout with Andrew Tate today!

Just kidding, this is not Andrew Tate (a controversial social media character), it's my friend Ayman…but the similarities are uncanny, and when we go out people always tell him he looks just like that guy 😂
 

81% of people say that email is their primary form of communication at work because it’s:

• Time-stamped
• Reliable
• Archivable
• Deposition ready

I will say a huge portion of my introductions and initial contact with people is now over social networks, but when it comes to making sales (according to my own business and clients businesses), email is still reigning king:

Email is hard to replace because it keeps evolving. Email in 1999 is not the same as email is 2022, it's barely the same product:
• Spam is wayyyyy down.
• Images and gifs load easily.
• Gmail Tabs help sort junk and notification emails.
• You can store unlimited emails.
• You can send gigantic attachments.
• Easy to sort email in folders.
• Email is accessible on any device, through many different platforms.

Even social networks use email to get you back. I get roughly 2-3 notification emails a day from Facebook alone. 

Anyways, email might be useful thing to learn in 2023! Like how I build this newsletter every week:

When trying to schedule a hangout with someone, a 45 second call is way better than 15 back-n-forth interspersed text messages!

Few understand this:

I think scheduling and communicating over text is great, and do it all the time, but when working out a potentially complex schedule there's nothing like a good ole phone call to sort it out quickly!

Here's two pieces of advertising:

One gives gives you 6 reasons to own the car. The second one gives you 10 reasons NOT to own the car 😂 

Since the AMC Gremlin car is pretty hideous, this ad appeals to it’s more practical qualities, giving you 6 reasons to own it:

Then this Volkswagen GTI ad uses reverse psychology, giving you “Ten Reasons NOT To Buy.”

This is a fun way to grab some attention, by saying NOT to buy the car, but then listing great reasons to buy the car:

An underrated convenience: Having a printer in your home.

It seems so outdated and un-needed, but I have a wireless printer tucked away in a junk closet that's always on:

I always wonder why I need this thing...then I'll have to print a random form (like a Defensive Driving certificate), and it's so nice to just hit "PRINT" from any device on my network and it happens.

A printer is ULTRA CONVENIENT when needed, and VERY FRUSTRATING when you need to print a random form and can't do it!

Maybe a printer could be a Christmas idea for someone??

Interest in the keyword "Copywriting" from 2004 to present has skyrocketed since January 2022.

What's your explanation? Reply to this email and let me know!

My eating got 10x better when I installed a gas grill outside my kitchen.

For example here’s lunch the other day:
- Lamb kabob 
- Mini peppers
- Asparagus 

You really don’t need any extra sauces or prep besides this.

Other friends who bought basic grills said their eating improved immediately as well!

Unless you’re an expert grill’er, I would stay away from “egg shaped” grills or fancy pellet grills with timers and phone apps. 

Everyone I see buy those stops using them after 6 months. 

My advice for grilling is to buy a regular-ass gas grill (turn knob, flame turns on). It's super easy to use, and your food will be more delicious.

Yesterday I grilled these up for dinner 😍😍😍

As AI keeps getting better, people ask: “What will humans do?” 

The answer is: 
One human will do what used to take many humans.
For example....

It used to take a team of 50 humans to manually light oil lamps that illuminated a few popular streets in a city:

...now a team of 50 can run the entire electrical grid and illuminate every street in the same city in an instant.

Or it used to take a department of 10 humans to receive, sort, deliver, and send mail for a company. Handling tens of thousands of pieces of physical mail.

....but now as 1 person and a laptop, I’ve personally sent out over 15,000,000 emails this year.

It used to take a team of 100+ humans with T-square rulers and drafting tables to create blueprints for a simple building, with many potential errors. 

...now 1 human can copy/paste detailed CAD models with electrical, internet, and HVAC conduits and thorough safety checks.

 

AI and technology amplify human capability. 

Think of a process or company that needs 10, or 50, or 100 humans to operate…now imagine in 20 years being able to do that entirely by yourself.

By the way, all the art used in this essay was 100% generated by AI! I show you how in this training video I just made (CC Members Only):

....by the way, I've been playing around with ChatGPT just released by OpenAI. You can watch me test it out here and ask it questions like how to get rich and to write code for me:

If anything overtakes Google Search, it’ll likely be something like this:

Are you selling a product in 2023? 

To make $1,000,000 in 2023 you would need: 
• 5,000 people to buy a $200 product 
• 2,000 people to buy a $500 product 
• 1,000 people to buy a $1,000 product 
• 500 people to buy a $2,000 product
• 300 people to buy a $3,333 product
• 200 people to buy a $5,000 product 
• 100 people to buy a $10,000 product
• 50 people to buy a $20,000 product
• 5 people to buy a $200,000 product

Knowing these numbers is a helpful way to "Work Backwards" into your 2023 monetary goal. You can modify the number here and calculate different amounts:

"1 dog year is 7 human years" is what I've always heard....but that's not totally accurate! 

This super cool chart clarifies that statement with more info based on weight:

How old is your pet according to this??

...and how old do you think this little guy is?? 🙂

Here's a funny story how over the years I've swung the price of this book (This Is Earl Nightingale) from $15 to over $450 several times. 

Currently if you search this book it's at $244: 

....yet 5 days ago it was about $20 🤔

So I talk about this book all the time. I originally bought a copy ~15 years ago that was signed by the author Earl Nightingale:

If I’m ever confused, pissed off, sad, or lazy (or other non-desirable state)….I pick up this book and open a random chapter:

Within a few minutes of reading one of the chapters (each 1 to 3 pages long), I generally have a paper/pen out and am jotting out the quickest solution to my problems.

It’s almost like a sure-fire way to make me feel better since it gets me thinking RATIONALLY about an issue I may have, rather than just “oh poor me complain complain complain” shitty circular thinking that gets you no where.

So for a $15 book I bought 15 years ago, it's had massive returns for me!

So 5 days ago I posted an Instagram Reel about the book, and I watched the price go from $20, to $150+, to $200+ 😂

It's a combination of enough people wanting to buy an original copy (no longer printed), and a very limited supply of those copies, plus this isn't like a super popular book lots of people sell:

I personally have an affinity for this book because it was one of my most-referenced books of the last 2 decades. 

Earl Nightingale has so much wisdom that's sometimes tough to swallow and very matter-of-fact.

Here's some fun little nuggets of wisdom from it:

“Your total environment is an exact and merciless mirror of you as a human being.” 
- Earl Nightingale

“The amount of money a person receives will always be in direct proportion to the demand for what he does, his ability to do what he does, and the difficulty of replacing him.” 
- Earl Nightingale

"A happy plumber makes a greater contribution to the world than a miserable university professor."
 --Earl Nightingale

“We become what we think about. People who think about becoming lawyers, become lawyers. A bad environment makes you think bad thoughts. A beautiful environment makes you think beautiful thoughts.” 
-Earl Nightingale

Can you simply describe your own product/service with this framework?

Example 1: 
Feature: Sun cream. 
Benefit: No sun burn. 
Experience: A burn free summer. 

Example 2: 
Feature: Blackjack Guide.
Benefit: Win more money than your friends.
Experience: Bragging rights from your weekend in Vegas.

Example 3: 
Feature: QMS building framework.
Benefit: Connect, Organize and Visualize your QMS data.
Experience: Faster quality management decision-making than your competitors.

Example 4: 
Feature: Micro exercises.
Benefit: No burnout.
Experience: A refreshed mind and body.

Write your product/service out like this, and reply to this email with your answers!!
• Feature: ?
• Benefit: ?
• Experience: ?

I've been very resistant to these "Shorts" videos for a while....but I'm not gonna deny some of these results:

Suuurreee the numbers are all probably highly inflated, but it's an interesting format to get tons of different information in a small amount of time. 

I posted our analytics on all these platforms in last weeks SWIPES Email, and I'll update again after roughly a month of posting!

I'm currently thinking through my 2023 goals, and perhaps some “Month-Long Experiment” ideas for 2023 plus their desired results.
Here's an example:

#1.) Observe Sabbath (no religious connotation): 
I would pick a day of the week to use little-to-no technology.

Result:
Hope to read more, disconnect just enough, regain long focused periods without distraction of fun technology.

#2.) Sober Month No drinking, no nothing, mayyybbbe caffeine. 

Result: Just make sure can still do it, no way to escape, reduced calories, potentially better sleep.

#3.) Calorie Restriction Month 
Set a strict calorie cutoff for each day. 
2,100 calories for workout days 
1,500 calories for non-workout days 

Result: 
At those numbers I guarantee go into a calorie deficit. Forces me to make good food choices, and high penalty for poor choices. 

I’ve tried many of these before, and usually find some small action to get the desired result faster without doing a month of the same thing. Ideas I’m not 100% sure need a full month but seem interesting: 

• Everyday writing habit month 
• Wake up really early month 
• Morning/evening stretching month (maybe while I brush/floss)
• Solve a trivial inconvenience each day 
• Track all of your time for a month
• No added sugar month

I really liked this blog post documenting a bunch of similar experiments and their results.

Do you have any month-long experiments you'll be doing in 2023??

CopyWork is a copywriting exercise where you hand-copy ads to learn how they were written. 

When you learn piano you first copy other songs, then later you create your own songs. 

It's a similar concept with copy. 

You first copy famous pieces, then create your own.

For example here's a world-famous Volkswagen ad:

Here's a CC student's CopyWork for that popular Volkswagen ad:

Here's another students rendition of it:

And another:

If you want to practice CopyWork on your own, here's 31 different ads to pick from:

Feel free to pick one of those ads, write it out on a sheet of paper, and reply back to this email with a photo of it!
 

Last week I became one of those "Short Video" people. Last week we posted one video per day to: 
- TikTok 
- LinkedIn 
- Instagram 
- Facebook 
- YouTube Shorts 

Here's the results after one week on each platform →

TikTok: Bad 

The first video we posted got ~700 views, then all downhill from there. 
Possible reasons: 
- I just suck. 
- I'm not a great demographic fit for TikTok.
- We've only been consistent for for one week and need more time.

 

Instagram: Pretty good 
- Getting some views. 
- Getting some comments and messages about vids. 
- People reaching out saying they like them. 

The increase in reach are very visible on Instagram:

I do feel kind of self conscious that I mostly use Instagram for purely personal reasons, and now I'm blasting people with, "HEY IT'S NEVILLE LEMME TELL YOU STUFF ABOUT COPYWRITING!!!!"

LinkedIn: Decent

- People watch and comment.
- People messaging about the vids.
- LinkedIn in seems like a solid platform that's not as glamorized as TikTok, and I think the bar for content is MUCH LOWER. 

One neat thing is LinkedIn stats show you detailed demographic info:

 

Facebook: Meh. 
- The shorts don't look good on Facebook Pages, it's not made for it.
- Views are meh.
- Engagement is very low. 
- It gets SOME views, but engagement is like zero compared to our other posts.

 

YouTube Shorts: Good
- Getting likes. 
- Getting comments. 
- Getting subscribers. 

The plan is to keep posting at least once per day across all platforms. 

I noticed when other friends did this it took about 2 months straight before any real growth happened.

It'll be an interesting experiment to see if people like these! I'm open to feedback to improve!! Email me back if you have suggestions!
 

When you incentivize something....you get more of it.

Around 2003 Google introduced its ad product called AdSense,  and it literally “ignited” the web! 

Content publishers could finally make money from their content, so more was made.

Twitter is about to throw its hat in the ring, giving rev-share to content makers for video and written content:

Pretty much every publishing platform is now giving creators money for content (of course only a small percentage of creators get enough traffic to create real revenue), but it's a good step in the right direction.

The most common cold email I got this year was people/agencies offering to make YouTube Shorts, IG Reels, TikTok Clips etc (like I showed above).

It kind of reminds me of people cold-pitching making websites in the early 2000's, and people cold-pitching building Apple iOS apps in 2008.

Short video clips have kind of turned into a media form of their own, so it's logical this is a big service being offered all over the place.

Here's some sample cold emails I get everyday:

I've engaged with many of these pitches, but the major problem I've seen with these pitches is:

I ask for samples of their work, and they are very poor quality 😞

Most of the clips they send me are poorly picked, or poor quality. 

Compare that with some of the recent clips I've had released with captions, graphics, and lots of editing: 

I've tried making some of these Shorts clips myself just to figure out how much work it is....and honestly it's almost as much work as making a full YouTube video 😂

There's so much editing, shortening, and picking out solid lessons that goes into it....it's much harder than it looks. 

Last week was my 40th birthday, and I'm thankful to have friends/fam that surprised me with like 2 weeks worth of celebrations! Think I got like FIVE cakes for this bday 😂

The week before my bday a group of us went to Mexico City:

I got several Mexico City bday surprise cakes 🙂

A Spa Day...

Then back in Austin a surprise party on actual bday:

Then over the weekend a BIIIGGGGGGG SURPRISE came when I was lured out to the lake with the help of Sam and Sara:

Where a bunch of friends were waiting and surprised me in the driveway of this dope house with the "Dancing Tesla" feature where it plays music and flashes the lights 😂

I got ANOTHER cake!

I was so surprised, had no clue this was happening:

My friend Noah was there (also a lot of people wore onesies) 😂

He cooked an awesome lunch one day:

Noah also did a full roast 😂

My friend Nick Gray was there too:

He organized a bunch of fun games including "Sardines" and "Celebrity":

One day we all jumped in the lake....and it was 37F degrees outside 🥶

Then immediately jumped in the hot tub 🙂

The house was ammmmaaazzziinnggg:

Someone really thought through all the details:

It was probably one of the best layouts of any house I've ever been in:

Anyways, it was an awesome birthday and I was thankful for that and all the fam/friends involved in putting it together!!

20 years ago I was in a college entrepreneurship club with 200 members.

Only 2 people out of 200 actually had a business: 
- Me (ran a rave equipment drop shipping site). 
- Dude who patented a roofing device inspired from his family’s business.

Since then entrepreneurship has boomed, and I think a few things have changed:

 

1.) It was VERY taboo and weird to openly speak about money.

It was common courtesy to NOT ask people about money or finances…and you rarely heard people openly discuss their personal finances.

I used to openly list my finances on my first blog NevBlog.com, and this was considered an insane move. 

Nowadays people openly say on their Twitter profile “I sold a company for $10.5m.”

So it's cool to see people more open about money, so more people can learn how to make it.

 

2.) Owning a business was HARD, cost a lot of money, and little information was available.

Even a website cost a lot of money in hosting/bandwidth. Just owning a computer cost thousands of dollars.

Nowadays you can run a huge website or social following from a phone, essentially for free.

 

3.) Owning a business wasn’t cool. It was looked upon as an odd and un-safe thing to do.

Entrepreneurship was starting to become slightly cooler, but it was investment bankers and finance people that were looked upon with admiration, not entrepreneurs.

That’s changed.

It's neat to see in 1 generation "starting a business" go from a fringe/weird activity to a mainstream thing possible for anyone! 

I asked people what they wanna build in 2023, you can see 300+ responses here: 
copywritingcourse.com/blogs/233-what-are-you-building-next-year

The most common answers with 10+ responses each were:

• Start an eCommerce store (surprisingly tons of these)
• Starting a blog.
• Starting a social media presence.
• Building community membership site.
• Start a retail website.
• Start freelancing or consulting.
• Write a book & blog combination.
• A side income of some sort.
• Get to multiple streams of income.

The things is, all of these things are do-able in one year. 

If you break a year down into 4 quarters (3 months each), you can easily "work backwards" into your goal:

So this Black Friday we're offering 1 year of Copywriting Course for 55% off if you grab it before tonight!

If you use coupon code BLACKFRIDAY (expired) right now, you'll get 55% off, PLUS TWO FREE MONTHS of access!

That means if you buy today you'll have access to:
- Unlimited copywriting training, including any new stuff added.
- 24/7 copywriting forum for help, advice, and re-writes.
- Weekly Office Hours where you can come chat with me directly.

....alllllll the way till the end of next year!

Copywriting course is usually $97/mo, so times 14 months that's $1,358.

If you buy right now you get all 14 months for $497.25 😮!! 

55% off for Black Friday + 2 Free Months. Our lowest ever offered!
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Use coupon code BLACKFRIDAY (expired) at checkout for 55% off plus 2 free bonus months. This deal goes away tonight so grab it now!

Sometimes a simple comparison helps you *instantly* understand something. 

This simple graphic seen on Instagram *instantly* shows your fullness level after eating 400 calories of 
oil -vs- beef -vs- vegetables:

I first learned what a "calorie" was when I was 26 years old, and comparisons helped me understand it better.

I ate King Size Snicker's bars all the time which were 440 calories each.
"440 calories" on it's own meant nothing until I started comparing it to  other foods.

I was shocked I could eat 12 clementines and get less than 440 calories! I even made this image for myself back then:

These comparisons slowly helped me discern good foods and bad foods.

Using comparisons (or "analogies") are very useful when explaining something!
 

 

I love this quote:

Quote

The mediocre teacher tells.
The good teacher explains.
The superior teacher demonstrates.
The great teacher inspires. 
- William Arthur Ward

I'm not a big hot sauce person, but for some reason this one just hits the right spot:

- Very flavorful.
- Goes on anything.
- Not hot enough to wreck stomach.

Cholula is great in general, but the Chipotle flavor is even yummier!

Yesterday was my 40th birthday, so here's 40 lessons l've learned about life...

Just kidding, I dunno anything, I'm just gonna have fun 🤩

I was in Mexico City last weekend celebrating a bit, and this weekend I'll be in Austin. 

Friends have stuff planned but I don't know what it is yet 😬

"Be clear, not clever" is generally great advice, especially when trying to sell something. 

However sometimes "cleverness" and "beauty" can work!

For example I think this graphic of bicycle parts is both beautiful and clever:

 

Or what about this clever (and kinda funny) ad for Pringle's Hot & Spicy 😂

 

Or this beautiful Rolls Royce ad just showing how pretty the car is:

When selling and writing, I think clearness is best.....but every once in a while some cleverness and beauty can go a long way!

The "Compression of Information" marches forward as we get better technology. 

For example I made a 7 minute video about "Becoming Indispensable", but recently put out a YouTube Short video that's only 39 seconds....and to be honest it kinda gets the same point across, but 10x more efficiently!

To me, copywriting has always been about getting information from one brain to another brain....or one brain to a MILLION brains. 

Whichever the most efficient method is best. 
 

This "compression of information" has happened to reading:
🕓 🕓 🕓 Books: Days to read.
🕓 🕓 Magazine Articles: Minutes to read.
🕓 Tweets: Seconds to read. 

Also it's happening to video:
🕓 🕓 🕓 Movies: Hours to watch.
🕓 🕓 YouTube Videos: Minutes to watch.
🕓 "Shorts" Videos: Seconds to watch. 

I've been experimenting with some shorter form content all this year, maybe you could follow me on those platforms to see it?

• Instagram
• YouTube
• Twitter
• TikTok
• LinkedIn

Do you like shorter form content? Do you consume it?? Reply and let me know!

Here’s some clever ways to turn boring data & stats into easier visuals:

1.) This was a clever way to spice up a boring “bar chart” and make it into a “Battery Bar Chart!” 📊

2.) Instead of boring bar charts show boring megaton data, this chart uses nuclear explosion visuals to show the different sizes of nuclear blasts.

3.) Instead of using words and data to describe lethality of different drugs, these viles each show a lethal dose of 3 different drugs, and shows how shockingly little is needed to overdose.

This visual hits home harder than plain numbers and data:

We are visual creatures. Our minds are ~6X likely to remember a message if it's combined with an image:

So if trying to get data across, sometimes it's beneficial to make it an image!

This is a neat quote:

Quote

“The amount of money a person receives will always be in direct proportion to the demand for what he does, his ability to do what he does, and the difficulty of replacing him.” 
- Earl Nightingale

This is a cool way to judge which career path or business to get into:
→ Demand for what you do
→ Your ability to do it
→ The difficulty of replacing you

In fact we could make a measuring scale out of this:
→ Demand for what you do (Rate 1-5)
→ Your ability to do it (Rate 1-5)
→ The difficulty of replacing you (Rate 1-5)

A janitor is a job associated with low pay because MOST people in the world are capable of doing the job.

If an average janitor needs to be replaced, it's very easy:
→ Demand for what you do (3)
→ Your ability to do it (3)
→ The difficulty of replacing you (1)

If an average brain surgeon needs to be replaced, it's very difficult:
→ Demand for what you do (5)
→ Your ability to do it (3)
→ The difficulty of replacing you (5)

I've given other note-taking and organization apps like Notion and Coda many solid tries....but I keep winding up back on Google Docs.

90% of what I love about Notion is being able to navigate to different pages quickly via it's sidebar menu.

If Google Docs had something like this, it would like beat the pants off any other up-and-coming app.
I wish Google Docs would add this functionality, like:

 

Editing a physical paper "back in the day" had a whole markup language of its own, shown in this graph:

If you were an editor or proofreader, you would know most of these!

I only knew two of these symbols: The "insert" mark ^ and the paragraph mark ⁋

How many of these symbols did you know??

Features -vs- Benefits is a common discussion in copywriting. 

Feature: Something your product has (ex "Water Resistant Cloth").
Benefit: Result after using your product (ex: "You stay dry in the rain").

For example you can sell the features of an umbrella: 
Unbreakable stems, wooden handle, water resistant cloth.

-or-

You can sell the benefits of an umbrella:
Keeps you dry in the rain, keeps the sun off when it's hot.

 

Selling the "benefits" of a product is usually the wiser decision. Even David Ogilvy said so:

My advice on the Features -V- Benefits debate is:
 

USE BOTH!

I prefer trying to sell the benefit, and backing it up with the features. So:

Love the use of "rhyme" to help people remember important stuff.....such as which bear to run from 😬

Something I got from people's comments on Twitter were Polar Bears are by farrrr the most dangerous bear!

• If they're Polars, they'll soon be spitting out ya molars
• If it's a Polar, you cannot control her

If you take away one thing from this email....it's don't play with Polar Bears 😂