June 30, 2025 • 50 mins
Most ad copy is written to attract everyone—and that’s exactly why it doesn’t work. I sit down with copywriter Justin Blackman to talk about how writing for clicks instead of conversions leads to wasted ad spend.
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Justin is a brand voice expert who goes overboard. He’s written for more than 429 people and dozens of brands, and created voice guides for industry experts including Amy Porterfield, Stu McLaren, Todd Herman, and Danny Iny.
We cover why including your price in the copy actually helps performance, the kind of copy that pulls in the right people (not just curious scrollers), and how to think more strategically about what your ad is actually selling.
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Justin's Links:
- Connect with Justin on Instagram and LinkedIn
- Grab his Founder Feelings Wheel that helps you understand the nuances of voice easier!
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
So, if you wondered, is it just writing good copy
that affects an ad?
And then, is that the only partof the funnel, or do you also
need to worry about connectingto your new leads inside of your
email, nurture sequence and,what is most important, is it
just going after the conversion?
Is it relating to them on thoselike personality traits that
(00:21):
you have that they also couldidentify with?
Is it about putting the rightkind of case study in your email
, like how do you buildauthority and do all of this?
Well, I have a guest.
He is a copywriter, and I'vetalked to other copywriters and
I just got finished saying toJustin Blackman that I love
having copywriters on thepodcast because I myself am so
(00:44):
utterly horrible at the writtenword, and so I'm happy to have
you, justin, on the podcast.
Dear listener, you're going toenjoy this episode because
Justin has written ad copy.
At one point I think, justin,you said that you were writing
ad copy in an agency like like aFacebook and Instagram ad
(01:05):
agency, and you wrote ad copyfor how many different people in
one year?
Was it 200 something?
239 different people over thecourse of about 18 months that
makes you an expert at learningand writing in other people's
voice.
That is an absolutely insanestat.
Speaker 2 (01:22):
Yeah, it was one of those things that I didn't
realize how insane it was untilI, like sent it out loud to
someone and they're like, wait,you did what I know and so we're
gonna have to go into that.
Speaker 1 (01:35):
So, dear listener, when I was chatting with justin
blackman in on instagram andafter having seen him on a
couple of other podcasts youknow online friends that I know
he made it a point to say thathe believes in connection over
conversion and that theconnection will eventually lead
to the conversion.
And we're going to talk abouthow to sound and write more like
(01:55):
you in an authentic way.
Let me read his bio.
Justin Blackman is a brandvoice expert who goes overboard.
He's written for more than 429people and dozens of brands and
created voice guides forindustry experts, including I'm
sorry, your name's here AmyPorterfield, stu McLaren oh my
(02:16):
God, I love me some, stu.
Speaker 3 (02:17):
Yeah, we like Stu.
Speaker 1 (02:19):
Todd Herman and Danny Innie.
He uses a process called thebrand ventriloquism.
Speaker 3 (02:29):
Why is this word Ventriloquism?
Speaker 1 (02:32):
I like that Three times fast.
There are certain words likethat, like that linoleum, the
stuff in the kitchen Linoleum,that tile, I just can't say that
.
But I can't say millennium.
So there we go, I never knewthat about you.
Speaker 3 (02:47):
It's a very difficult word for you.
We've been married 16 yearsalmost.
Speaker 1 (02:51):
I know he couldn't say it there's certain words I
can't say but yes, radventriloquism to analyze and
replicate the nuance, make yourwriting voice unique and
documents it.
He documents it so otherwriters can scale like your
content without sacrificingauthenticity.
He's also worked with topbrands, including ihg hotels we
(03:14):
used to go here a five hourenergy.
Oh wow, like at the fast um, atlike the am pms, like right
there on the counter, thatlittle yeah, bottle station yeah
, the gas station, there we go,and red bull would not stop in.
Bell would not embellish his ownbio.
He runs workshops that's greatfor writers.
At brand voice academy, hehelps founders identify the true
(03:36):
essence of their brand.
So writing becomes a snap, nomatter who's creating the
content, and all the people sayhe's pretty fly or a right guy
awesome I've heard of weird alyankovic.
By the way, welcome to the showofficially have I heard of
(03:57):
weird out.
Speaker 2 (03:58):
Yeah, it was the second tape I ever owned.
It was weird.
Al on 3d, thank you seems likeyou just aged yourself a little
bit, just a whole day of a proudgen xer, part of a generation
that has forgotten while we'restill here we're still running
things.
Speaker 1 (04:17):
we're still running the show.
Justin, before we jump intothese things, ad copy and just
copywriting in general, can yougive us a snapshot of your
business as it stands today,this year, so far, like you know
?
Where are you pulling yourrevenue?
From what kind of offers do youhave More done for you, your
program that you have, and thenwe want to kind of know a little
(04:40):
bit about how you got to whereyou're at now, and then we'll
dive into all the goodcopywriting.
Speaker 2 (04:49):
Yeah, so there are two arms to my business.
The first one is there's BrandVoice Academy, which is the
teaching arm, where I work withcopywriters and basically help
them understand how brand voiceworks, how to sound like any
client, be able to kind of throwtheir voice to sound exactly
like a brand or an agency or aperson and really mimic them and
mirror their style.
I also teach them how to createbrand voice guides and have a
(05:11):
couple of different trainingsover there.
And then I havejustinblackmancom, which is my
done for you service, and that'swhere I work with entrepreneurs
to either help them punch uptheir writing to lean into their
style and to create brand voiceguides, which I do for both
solo, personal brands as well ascorporate brands, so I can
(05:32):
train their content teams andthe writers to stay on brand.
So one teaches writers, onehelps document entrepreneurs and
brands to really solidify thewriting style.
Speaker 1 (05:44):
And when you say brand voice guide, can you
educate me a bit?
Sure.
Speaker 2 (05:48):
So most people are familiar with the brand guide
and you think of like these areyour Pantone colors and your
fonts and your logo choices.
I do that, but with words Mostpeople define their voice.
Saying is like we're happy,we're casual, professional, but
when you get a designer it'slike our Pantone color for blue
(06:09):
is like one, three, eight, six,nine, two, whatever.
They get the exact shade ofblue down to the pixel.
Yeah.
But with with writing, they'resaying write happy.
That's like saying write in thecolor blue.
There are about 362 differentshades of blue.
(06:30):
Which one?
Write in what I do is I put thesame type of depth and analysis
on someone's writing style asthey do the colors and the
branding.
So I define how they write andI define that.
I define their brand, voice,their approach, their writing
style.
And we define voice asvocabulary, tone and cadence.
(06:54):
So vocabulary is the level ofwriting that you're saying, like
if something is, is it big, isit grand, is it large, is it
grandiose?
They all mean the same thing,but what level of writing do we
use?
Cadence is the rhythm of yourwriting.
Do you?
write short and choppy, do youwrite like curt and abrupt?
Or do you write long, flowy,wordy, bird sentences that go on
(07:17):
and on forever and hardly everuse a comma and just have this
gentle flowing feel to them andyou run out of breath or you
actually reach the endpunctuation.
This mind, just have thisgentle flowing feel to them and
you run out of breath or youactually reach the end
punctuation.
This guy knows his words rightwell, is it shorter?
It's like a breath that wasalmost passed out right there.
And then you've got the tone,which are the emotions in your
writing.
But rather than saying likehappy, we need to figure out
(07:41):
like what that means.
Like happy can mean anythingfrom like tranquil and balanced
and serene all the way to likegiddy and jubilant and euphoric
and ecstatic and sounded like acaffeinated kangaroo.
What level of happy do you want, god?
Speaker 3 (07:57):
Yeah, that's a really fantastic description of
comparing the colors to thewriting.
Speaker 1 (08:04):
I've never heard that one before, and so what you're
saying is is by defining a brandvoice like this, it really
changed the writing that muchTremendously.
Speaker 2 (08:15):
Yeah, yeah.
Between the references andanalogies that you might make,
like if you're watching thevideo of this, I've got, you
know, star Wars and Muppets andthings like that.
So those are going to be mytype of references, as opposed
to you know, some of the broaderthings that you might, that you
might reference.
So everything down to that, allthe way to the like, literally
(08:35):
measurable elements of yourwriting voice, that that you can
, that you can help, they canscale, and a brand voice guide
will do that.
It will help you throw yourvoice for writers, which is
where brand ventriloquism comesin.
Speaker 1 (08:48):
Yeah, nice, throw your voice for writers.
Yeah, okay, you did just saythat.
I did.
Speaker 2 (08:58):
Well, it was just, you know, basically having
having someone speak for youLike a ventriloquist has their
dummy where gotcha, it soundslike its own, like it's got its
own persona, its own style, butit's really the ventriloquist
speaking.
The copywriter is doing theactual speaking, but it sounds
like someone else.
It's being able to throw yourwriting voice.
(09:20):
I think, Okay, cool, I wanted togo back and ask on the Brand
Voice Academy is that a courseor is that like a group coaching
or what does that look like?
(09:40):
I've got another one that I'mworking on and then I've got
write more personality and thoseare pretty much copywriter
specific.
Write more personality is 81ways to add like punch, power
and pop to your everyday writing.
That one can really go foreveryone.
Speaker 1 (09:54):
I want that.
Which means you should take thecourse.
Speaker 2 (09:57):
Yeah, great.
Of course it's funny, it's afew years old but it's timeless,
like.
I actually watched it about twoweeks ago and I was like this
is still a great course.
So it's where it is Morepersonality.
It's it's just, it's silly,it's fun, it's just a, it's just
a good time.
It's just it's timeless.
Techniques that like have beenaround since you know the, the
(10:18):
Rosetta stone for like howpeople write.
Speaker 4 (10:29):
Since the right, uh, since the good old days, all you
had was copy and no media.
Speaker 2 (10:32):
Back to the myspace, back to newspapers, okay, yeah
and then I do have some livetraining programs which are more
intense and more in-depth.
Those are my favorite ones torun.
Speaker 1 (10:40):
That's for, like the true brand voice nerds wants to
run, that's for, like the truebrand voice nerds, so a
copywriter that also tradesother copywriters.
I got a question.
This one came to mind why doyou think it is in very blunt
terms that the stew mclarens andamy porterfields of the world
(11:01):
are dropping serious coin onbrand voice guides, when someone
that's making 50 grand a year,a hundred grand a year isn't?
Speaker 2 (11:11):
Well, part of it is because they have teams and
because their style andpersonality is so identifiable,
it becomes almost more importantfor them to for their
copywriters to sound like them.
You don't want it to sound fake, you don't want it to sound
wishy-washy.
Stu McLaren is one of thehappiest, most energetic people
(11:34):
in the world, but it's a verydistinct level that he's in.
I mean, he's for like theexcited and giddy level, but
he's not like euphoric, like,and you can't just be optimistic
or hopeful.
I mean he is, but that's notenough.
(11:55):
So, even just a little bit off,it starts to fall apart and be
like this doesn't sound like Stuand it actually begins to raise
some doubts in the readers,like what happened to stew here,
like in sense when the writingis off.
So being able to identify hisapproach, his style, not just
(12:17):
what he talks about but how hetalks, it's really important to
maintain that integrity andauthenticity for everything,
because it's not just about Studoing the writing, it's about
encapsulating all of hisapproach and his tone.
And Stu McLaren has a brand,same with Amy Porterfield, like
we have to understand how shesounds, how she wants everything
(12:39):
to come up, to come across.
So it's authentic, even ifshe's not the one who's writing
the copy.
Because a brand doesn't meanthat every like authentic
doesn't mean it has to come upto come across, so it's
authentic, even if she's not theone who's writing the copy,
because a brand doesn't meanthat every like.
Speaker 1 (12:53):
Authentic doesn't mean it has to come from one
person, it just means it has tobe on brand.
Speaker 3 (12:55):
Authentic doesn't mean it has to come from one
person, it just means it needsto be on brand yeah, because I
feel like most people probablyknow at this point that someone
with those big names right, it'snot them writing their own
stuff, right, yeah, sometimes itis.
Speaker 2 (13:11):
Sometimes it is they write a lot of their own stuff
but they can't possibly writeall of it Right or even just
repurposing some of the content,changing one of their videos
into an email or a podcast likean announcement that doesn't
have to come from him.
It's more a goal.
He's got bigger things to do.
She or he or she, they havebigger things.
It's it's not effective forthem to write everything.
(13:36):
It's not realistic for them towrite everything.
Right, it's they.
They are the visionary of thebrand.
They need to be doing it.
They need to free up time to dothat bigger thinking.
It's okay.
It's okay, it's still authenticif a copywriter who understands
their message and theirapproach and their voice can
step in and do this.
And you know, I'm not justsaying I have a lot of clients
(13:57):
that whose names I can't saybecause they don't want that,
but I'm fortunate enough thatmany of my clients are are open
about the fact that they havesome content teams.
And you know it's realistic.
I think it's helpful to knowthat, like if you see them
everywhere, they're like how dothey show up everywhere?
Well, it's because they have ateam.
Speaker 3 (14:16):
Right, right.
Speaker 1 (14:21):
They are not super humans.
I think it's helping people.
Yeah, transparent about that,because otherwise you kind of
have like this false idea ofwhat and who you have, what it
takes and who you have to be toget to a certain level.
You know it's like actuallyit's couldn't be further from
the truth it's still them, it'sjust scaled authenticity, scaled
(14:41):
often that's good, I like Ididn't know those two words
could exist with each other, butI like that.
Speaker 3 (14:47):
Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (14:48):
When you figure out what your voice is, you're able
to do it Cool, Even with AI LikeI can get some really good
stuff out of AI because I definemy voice extremely well.
Mm-hmm.
And the people who are sayingthat like, oh, ai is terrible
and it's just generic.
It just means that you're usingrandom things or generic things
, like saying that you'rewriting as friendly and casual.
Speaker 1 (15:11):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (15:14):
Those aren't voices, those aren't personalities Like
let's say you've got six friends, let's say you've got Chandler,
phoebe, joey Monica Ross andRachel.
They sound familiar.
I like where you're going withthis.
Keep going.
Joey Monica Ross and Rachel,they sound familiar.
Speaker 3 (15:29):
I wish they were I like where you're going with
this.
Keep going.
Speaker 2 (15:32):
Oh, those are six friends, right.
Uh-huh.
They all sound friendly, butthey all sound entirely
different.
Some sounds, you know,controlling.
I just thought about you.
Some sound uneducated, some,you know, sarcastic.
Those are elements of a voice.
(15:52):
Friendly is not a voice,friendly is a personality you
need to actually understand whatthe voice is, what the writing
is, to make it sound like you.
It's much deeper than threeadjectives in an avatar.
Speaker 1 (16:07):
Wow.
Speaker 3 (16:08):
That's really good.
Speaker 1 (16:09):
That is so for me.
It's just I realized how littleI know when I talk to someone
like you.
Thank you, I know a whole lotabout very little.
Justin, can you tell us aboutyour emotions wheel and where
the listener can get it?
Speaker 2 (16:26):
Yeah.
So this all comes back to brandvoice.
I mentioned before how likefriendly isn't a personality.
Friendly isn't a voice, it's apersonality.
We need to get specificallygranular on these things.
I mentioned before that likehappy can mean anything from
jubilant and elated all the wayto peaceful, calm and balanced
and tranquil.
There are so many differentlevels of these.
(16:48):
So if you want to write better,you actually need to get
granular.
You need to understand exactlywhat tone you're looking for,
like the Pantone shade of blue.
We want to understand yourPantone shade of emotion, not
just write in the color yellow,but, like we want you know,
sunset yellow, canary ormarigold.
Yeah, marigold, there you go.
Yeah, there you go.
Way to pull out a color.
(17:08):
Yeah, that's my shirt.
Speaker 3 (17:09):
Or let's say it's true, yellow yeah.
Speaker 2 (17:12):
That's 3PO gold.
That's what we want, so it'sunderstanding that nuance.
So I have they are probablyfamiliar with emotions wheels or
tone wheels.
It's primarily used inpsychology but I actually have
one that I created forcopywriters and for copywriting
that's geared toward founders,which are the most prevalent
brands, the prevalent tones thatshow up in brands and in
(17:34):
writing, and if you go tojustinblackmancom, slash
feelings, you can download acopy of the founder feeling
wheel and you'll get some emailsthat will help you identify
some of the important tones andobviously it's also something
that I offer if you needadditional support on that.
Speaker 3 (17:52):
Wonderful, awesome, well, so how did you get started
in copywriting?
Did you study?
Speaker 1 (18:00):
brand voice.
Speaker 3 (18:01):
Yeah, like that specific.
Speaker 2 (18:03):
So my background is in field marketing.
That's where I work for Puma,red Bull, five Hour Energy and I
ran a lot of sampling programs.
So I was in charge of speakingto hundreds of thousands of
people about certain brands, butthey're all one-on-one
conversations and as I sort ofaged out like I was working for
(18:24):
Red Bull and I was on a collegecampus and someone called me sir
and I was like I can't do this.
So, yeah, so I moved to thecorporate side where I started
writing and training the, thesampling teams and really
helping develop the scripts.
So that's where I I startedleaning into writing and, uh,
(18:47):
eventually just moved fromspeaking to the written word and
started doing websites andcontent and working for IHG,
where I had to write for 14different brands at the same
time, like all their differenthotels, and so one message, each
message, had to change 14different ways.
And that's where I reallyleaned into brand voice and
(19:08):
tried to and started tounderstand and learn the nuance
and the structures behind brandvoice and was just fortunate
enough to get mentored by somegreat people and, yeah, I just
went into it deeper than anyoneever should and kind of became
the go-to guy for brand voice.
Speaker 1 (19:26):
Dang Wow.
I wonder if there's a listenerlike me who is now scared to
write any email.
I'm just kind of understandinglike the breadth and the depth
and just kind of the gravity ofmy words.
How do I write that next email?
What should?
What should be something whereI should figure that out.
Speaker 2 (19:45):
Sometimes I break people's brains.
The good news is I help putthem back together.
I definitely have a couple ofstudents who I teach this to and
they're like oh my God, I don'tknow how to write anymore.
Mike, you didn't forget.
I just made it a little harderfor you, which?
When we figure it out, we'll begood.
Yeah, it's a Dunning-Kruger.
Speaker 1 (20:07):
I just like pushed you off the edge like if it make
it drop down, let's make itvery like at least I'll give a
super straightforward questionwithin the context of a weekly
email that is doing double dutyand emails shouldn't do double
duty but so many of our emailsdo where we are talking about a
(20:27):
weekly podcast episode thataired and also somewhere down
the email transitioning to saybuy my stuff.
Speaker 2 (20:34):
Yeah, so yes, there is.
Speaker 1 (20:40):
Pretty typical like very down to earth.
Speaker 2 (20:43):
Like from a conversion perspective, I would
say the right answer is to sendtwo year print emails, but the I
understand that that's notalways going to be an acceptable
answer for people and there areways of doing it.
Getting people to do two thingsat once is always going to be a
challenge, but you can prefaceit like listen to a podcast
versus buy.
(21:03):
My stuff is a little bitdifferent and I've done this
before.
It's not.
It doesn't work as well as twoseparate emails.
I will say that off the bat.
But sometimes it's like if youlisten to this episode, it will
help you explain why you wantthis and sometimes people will
click that and open it up and ifyou can then explain a little
bit more about why they want it,sometimes that that explanation
(21:25):
can be enough to make someonebuy right there or take a second
action.
Sometimes they might open upthe podcast.
Whether they listen to it ornot is another story.
If they just made the purchaseand sometimes they want to
justify it, sometimes they'lllisten to the podcast.
If they're on the fence, maybethey'll listen to the podcast,
but ultimately the conversion isthe thing that you want, your
conversion to listen versus tobuy.
(21:47):
You're splitting your goal andyou're 50% as likely to get it.
So kind of different response.
Speaker 1 (21:55):
All right, listener, you're tracking with me.
So my next question, then, isgoing straight to the buy my
stuff kind of email.
When you and I were talking,you had said connection over
conversion.
Can you, can you unpack whatyou mean by that?
Speaker 2 (22:11):
Yeah.
So getting someone to buy yourstuff, it's easy if, like,
you're selling sunglasses andpeople are saying, yeah, I need
a new pair of sunglasses, oh,here's some, let me get it.
That's, you know.
Sometimes there there's fillinga need, but then there's also a
desire, and when it comes tolike coaching, for instance,
sometimes people will say Iwould need to learn brand voice.
(22:33):
Here's a class I will take it.
Other times, people will startto know you, and I have people
that join my courses becausethey're like I want to learn
from Justin, and you guysprobably get that too.
There are people that listentoin, and you guys probably get
that too.
There are people that listen toyou because you're you, and
then there are people thatlisten to you for the
information yeah, actually, yeah.
(22:57):
So sometimes we buy stuff,sometimes we buy people, and
I've actually been talking aboutthis a little bit more lately.
It's sometimes actually, it'smore like just talking off the
record.
I haven't been emailing aboutthis and my journal, which I'm
not going to share yet, butsometimes, when, like, I'm
creating a new program or a newworkshop, I'm trying to figure
(23:17):
out why, why they're, whysomeone would want this, and
it's an exercise that I thinkevery course creator should do
to really just kind of freewrite for like five minutes or
so.
Why would someone want this?
And then, ultimately, what alot of it comes down to at a
certain point is because theywant the same success as you.
You've been successful at this.
(23:37):
I want that success, which isreally saying I want to be like
you.
So by sharing a little bitabout you and sharing the
realness behind some stuff,people will buy you.
It's not a fast sale.
It's not a quick sale.
There are ways to do thisquicker.
I'm on the fence about whetheror not I believe that should be
(24:01):
done quickly or slowly.
I understand that we havebusinesses for runs.
We're looking for an ROI.
We obviously want to speed thatup the way.
Businesses for runs we'relooking for an ROI.
We obviously want to speed thatup.
But there are ways of giving alittle bit of insight about you
through connection that willmake someone buy.
It's just not directlytrackable.
It's not necessarily ameasurable result.
(24:23):
There's many people like ifsomeone buys my course and I
have a an email that goes outand says hey, let me know what's
going on in your business thatthat made you know that now is
the right time to buy.
And very often I will get anemail saying oh, I knew for a
year that I wanted to wait foryou.
I just was writing for waitingfor the right opportunity Sounds
(24:43):
familiar.
That happens because ofsomething that you wrote that
had nothing to do with business,but it was an insight into you
that was relatable.
That was the thing that madesomeone want you Showing
accessibility versus authority,or leading with your outlook
Like Stu McLaren.
That is one of the happiest menI've ever met in my life.
(25:06):
There's just something like youknow what I really need levity
in my life right now and I wantto learn and and I want
something fun that I know I'mgoing to enjoy with, like you
know, break, dance intermissionsor dance, break intermissions.
That's Stu.
And you know, as opposed to someof the other people I've
written for it's like man.
I just want you know, asopposed to some of the other
(25:27):
people I've written for it'slike man.
I just want to know.
I want to learn from someonewho is detailed and meticulous
and just, is a higher level ofexpertise and is wants experts
to teach experts.
That's someone more like Miracyand Danny Innie that's.
Then there's Amy Porterfield,who's like I want someone to
teach me who's more nurturing, alittle more hands on, a little
(25:48):
more empathetic, a little moreparental.
That's Amy Porterfield.
Those are three differentpeople who all teach very
similar things, but you're goingto be attracted to someone's
persona and their character andtheir personality, more so than
their material.
Speaker 1 (26:05):
How does a person like me, or maybe the listener
who doesn't feel as comfortablewith the written word, get good
at writing in a way thatexpresses their persona, like
would be expressed when theyshow up on video?
What I'm trying to say is, likeI do great on video and I'm
myself on video, but my writingdoes not sound like me at all.
(26:27):
Yet so many people read myemails and I know for a fact
that people connect with me inreal life and therefore on video
.
Speaker 2 (26:35):
Yeah.
So there's a couple ofdifferent ways and it depends on
your, your level of writing.
The fact is, the way that we'retaught to write at school is
academic.
That works well for textbooks,it works well for tests.
That doesn't work well forsocial media.
You see a long, like a fivesentence paragraph, the way that
we're taught to in fullsentences, the way that we're
(26:57):
taught to write in English.
It doesn't work for emailbecause it's not mobile
optimized.
It's not that our attentionspans are short, but if we see a
chunk of text, we're like youknow what I need to focus when I
read this, I'm going to comeback to it.
And then, especially on social,you know, no one scrolls back,
it's scrolled out.
So it's got to be captivatingenough, it has to be intriguing
(27:21):
enough, it has to have a righthook.
There are copywritingprinciples that you can learn,
but like, for instance, I'lljust say that the average
sentence length in English is 15words.
Written is 15 words.
Okay, so you know that's prettymuch a, a, a complete sentence,
that it doesn't matter whatthat looks like, and just know
that it's 15 words.
Most copywriters hardly everwrite over 11 sentence words.
(27:46):
So like we just go, shorter wego, we go choppier we.
We do one thought per sentenceso we're taught in in academics
to write complete sentences withyou know, subject predicates,
all that stuff.
Copywriting breaks that rule ona on a very consistent basis.
It's just easier to digest, andthere's a lot of strategy to
(28:10):
that, but the fact is you haveto write more and looking at
something with curiosity.
One of the ways that I startedto really understand writing a
little bit more was to, when Iread something that was
interesting, I was like what didthey do there?
And then I just startedanalyzing it and that was,
honestly, my introduction intoit.
(28:30):
I know that's not a perfectanswer, but there's really no
best way to do it other thanjust read really good writing
and mirror it until you developyour own style.
Speaker 1 (28:41):
I can definitely relate.
I still think of not just myhigh school teachers, but even
my college professors.
When I had to do writing, itwas always the same thing, like
red pin everywhere, and theywould be like, okay, this should
not be an intro, this should beat the end of your paper and
(29:04):
this should be up here and thisshould be down there.
And then they're just likedrawing all these lines.
It was like every time I wroteit.
It was so horrible and throughthis day when I try to write for
social media or in an email,like it just sounds robotic and
I just freeze up, I'm like I'mdone all right before, like when
(29:24):
we I mean when we learned towrite.
Speaker 3 (29:26):
Like you were saying it's academic writing.
I mean at that time no one knewthe power of social media and
what that was going to look likeand how to write for that you
know, like that's not what wewere taught.
We were taught to write essaysand some people knew.
Speaker 1 (29:42):
Al Gore knew when he could.
It's right.
Speaker 2 (29:45):
Well, he knew it Right.
I would say this, kidding meit's right, oh al, he knew it
right.
I wouldn't do this.
So like that type ofinstruction, it's like it's
ingrained in us.
It's like this is gonna soundbad, but it's like small t
trauma.
It's stuff that like we, it'spart of us that we we're writing
, we're still writing to impressthat teacher.
I am, we are, it's okay.
(30:09):
It's okay to cry, it's.
The fact is like it takes along time to be able to let that
go.
Or I would say this Write ifthat teacher's in your head your
goal is to get a C oh, Thenyou're gonna get a better copy.
That's even more pay-to oh,Then you're going to get a
better copy.
Speaker 1 (30:28):
That's even more painful.
Not your hands and the son ofan immigrant father.
C that means spanking.
There's no room for C-.
Speaker 2 (30:42):
You ought to write spank-worthy copy.
Here's the key to spank-worthycopy.
Here's the bottom, the key tostaying worthy or not.
Speaker 3 (30:52):
Who knew?
An episode on copywriting wouldjust like bring out this
childhood drama.
Speaker 1 (30:56):
We never.
We are just another part ofthat.
I wear that shirt.
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (31:01):
Feeling that throughout the shirt we go to
YouTube and check, we should saywhile we're transitioning.
Speaker 1 (31:08):
Because Jamie has a question about personal brands,
since we were talking about howpeople, when they want to buy
something you're selling, theyeffectively want to buy you and
that ties into personal brand.
Not to ask a question, but yeah, if you're not watching us on
YouTube, it's kind of cool,click down in the show notes
below so you can see us andexperience us better.
But also a lot of the otherepisodes I do Cool, click down
in the show notes below so youcan see us and experience us
better, but also a lot of theother episodes I do about
(31:33):
Facebook and Instagram ads.
They're just visual in natureand I don't know if you knew,
but you can see all that onYouTube.
And so when I'm clicking aroundand ad accounts and showing you
all the ninja tricks that Ilive and breathe daily like
that's better consumed on RightPlus, let's not overlook the
fact that I live and breathedaily Like that's better
consumed on Right From whereyou're going.
Speaker 2 (31:49):
Yeah Well, plus, let's not overlook the fact that
I'm really good looking.
Speaker 3 (31:53):
Ah, there's been that I mean, you guys gotta get over
to YouTube and see this guy.
Speaker 1 (31:58):
You got to be.
Speaker 2 (32:00):
Adam Sandler and Jerry Seinfeld had a kid.
Oh really Okay.
Speaker 1 (32:06):
Actually now I could kind of move there.
Bruce.
Bindler like 20 years ago, yeah.
Speaker 2 (32:15):
We've got gym shorts on.
Can't see.
Speaker 1 (32:19):
You remember those plaid shorts?
Oh, those were horrible.
Speaker 3 (32:22):
No, they were great.
Well, at the time they weregreat yeah.
Oh, how fashion changes.
Okay, so what I was going toask this is all supposed to lead
into was what is some outdatedadvice, then, of personal brands
?
Speaker 2 (32:41):
So all right.
So this is actually where myshirt comes in.
It says you're gross.
Where where my shirt comes in,which says gross.
So there was this trend goingon for probably 2020 to 2023.
It seems like it's kind ofdying a little bit.
Well, actually, there's two.
The first one I was going totalk about is weaponized
vulnerability, like after berniebrown said, like the power of
(33:06):
vulnerability and all this stuff.
People just got too carriedaway with it the crying on
LinkedIn, the, the, the pityparties, the, the showing just
like marketing pain or trying tomake something painful, where
it's like, yeah, dude, get overyourself.
(33:26):
Like there was some of that andit was just to me that was a
major turnoff.
It was when people, whenprivate lives, started becoming
way too public.
I thought that was awful person.
I'm happy to see that the trendas has moved away and this might
(33:46):
be a little off topic, but butI think it's important to say,
like, even if you go on LinkedIn, like the about section, people
are like as a proud parent ofthree people, and you know
someone who has ADD and you know, you know from this country or
that country.
That's the first thing thatthey lead with Now here in the
(34:07):
States, if you're applying for acorporate job, I'm not allowed
to ask you are you a parent?
Are you, do you have anymedical disabilities?
Where are you from?
I legally cannot ask you thosequestions because it can affect
it will affect my view of you.
It will like it can't not, itwill subconsciously happen.
(34:31):
The fact that we're leadingwith all of this stuff in most
of our bios, yes, it is a goodpoint of connection, but
honestly I think that sometimesit goes too far good girl yeah
oh, honestly like that.
That's one of my things that Ifeel like boundaries are good.
And when it comes to my shirt,the feelings are gross, so it's
(34:53):
kind of like the pretty fly fora right guy.
It's a pun.
Feelings are gross.
They're everything that youhave accumulated throughout the
course of your life.
It is your gross earnings.
Your brand is your net.
It's you minus deductions.
It's putting boundaries aroundcertain things so that
everything shows up.
(35:13):
It's everything that you'veaccumulated versus what should
be in your brand, with brandvoice, and all this stuff is
putting those boundaries tofigure out what your net is
that's actually showing up inyour business.
It's understanding what's real,what's not what's real.
But what's what's here?
(35:34):
Like watching this video yousee here to here, you have no
idea what's beyond these wordsor what wearing on the bottom
yeah, you don't know this downhere on the bottom.
Speaker 3 (35:54):
Yeah, you don't know this down here.
Speaker 1 (35:56):
Yeah, I've got from the ceiling right there.
You can't see it right.
It's true, I love rose birthnet feelings are gross.
I I didn't even get that untilyou said it, but I like it yeah,
and I also enjoyed back in thepandemic days, in the depth of
the pandemic, when we would justlike, on these Zoom calls, pan
our computers around so we allcould like see what our space
truly looks like.
Rather than the actuarial andthe eyesight and I'm okay with
(36:21):
that.
Speaker 2 (36:22):
Like there are times when it is absolutely great to
show that stuff.
You want to have your cat andyour kid show up on camera.
Go for it.
I don't have a problem with that.
But there are some things thatjust that aren't necessarily
representative of your brand,which it's okay to acknowledge
them, but it's not necessarilythat we should lead with them.
And even as a personal brand,you're still selling something
(36:47):
and it's okay to share.
You're still selling somethingand it's okay to share.
I believe in translucency.
I don't believe in fulltransparency.
I don't want you to be able toset a window.
It's a tinted wall.
I can see the sub stuff.
It's just not see-through, it'snot entirely see-through.
Speaker 1 (37:05):
It's cloudy.
Speaker 2 (37:05):
Translucency.
I believe in translucency, nottransparency, less transparency.
Okay, it's cloudy translucent,translucency not transparency,
less transparency okay, yeah,yeah.
Speaker 3 (37:12):
I was gonna ask like in part of this, do you also
mean like where people werehitting pain points too hard?
Speaker 2 (37:24):
so that there can be.
So, from awriting perspective,there's the problem agitate
solution I know you're dealingwith this and it feels like this
and it's twisting the knives.
But there are different levelsof it.
It can go too far sometimes.
From a conversion perspective,that actually works better, but
from an empathy standpoint andfrom a humanity standpoint,
(37:46):
everyone's line is going to bedifferent, and I've worked with
certain people who were like oh,I don't even want to mention
pains, I just want to be fullsunshine and rainbows, and that
can work for certain people.
But there are other people thatare like, yes, yes, twist the
knife, make them bleed, makethem laugh, and it works.
It's a Dr Burns mentality or MrBurns mentality.
(38:07):
It works, but it's also aturnoff to certain people.
It depends on the audience, itdepends on what it is, and so
that was the thing, like withsome of the Facebook ads that I
that I wrote.
Everyone has different lines.
There are certain things that Iwould never say, that I
absolutely refuse to say.
I would never say you can'tafford not to do something, and
(38:29):
a lot of people said like, oh,put this line in there, I won't
write it.
You want to hire you?
Like, I'll give you the copy.
If you want to put that inyourself, that's fine.
I will literally never writethose words you can't.
I don't know what someone canafford.
I don't know what they can'tafford.
It's not for me to say whatthey can't afford to plus Plus.
I'm not the one who's makingthe final deliverable and I
(38:50):
don't know if it's truly goingto work for them.
It's between you know learninghow to write copy versus paying
your electric bill.
Pay your damn electric bill,like that's Keep the light on
yeah.
Yeah, yeah, and that wassomething that I, you know, I
(39:11):
didn't.
I didn't.
I'm not the one who came upwith that boundary, but I heard
it and I was like, oh yeah, no,that makes sense, I'm sticking
with that, but everyone hasdifferent boundaries.
Uh, there there are.
There are absolutely somepeople who have refused to write
, to write, for when I see theirwork, I'm just like this feels
like predatory really I'm justand I'm not.
(39:32):
I don't like that.
But there are also a ton ofgreat people who you know.
They, some people like the.
The empathy is good, butempathy also means acknowledging
pains.
So as far as talking about thepains and the agitation and
things like that, it works.
It's just finding your owncomfort level and also
(39:56):
understanding what your audiencelikes, and sometimes you
actually have to write a littlebit more than you're comfortable
with, like just not a lot, I'mnot saying go gory, but
acknowledging and trulydescribing what their pains
might feel like.
Sometimes it's actually an actof compassion because it's
saying, if you're providing thesolution for it, if you're
genuinely providing the cure forit, ok to talk about.
Speaker 1 (40:19):
Right Agreed.
Speaker 3 (40:22):
That's good yeah.
Speaker 1 (40:23):
Agreed.
Speaker 3 (40:24):
Is this a good place for you to mention that word?
That?
Speaker 1 (40:27):
you said before we hit record.
That word was bouncing aroundin my mind and I was like we
have to talk about it right now.
Speaker 3 (40:34):
Linoleum, Not linoleum.
We already covered that Rightright.
Speaker 1 (40:42):
The listener is like what is the word?
What is the word?
Speaker 2 (40:46):
Right, and this is where we break for an ad.
Speaker 1 (40:48):
I was just going to say Please have a Zorg.
Oh man, the old TV days whenyou had to watch commercials.
That word just was so funny tome when I heard it.
So much sense.
The word is broetry.
How did you use the wordbroetry?
How did you use the wordbroetry?
How did you use the wordbroetry?
Speaker 2 (41:10):
Broetry.
So back when I was writingFacebook ads, broetry was the
thing that was that really longcopy of filled with really short
sentences.
Okay, have you ever heard ofthis Line break?
What about this Line break?
And when you do it, thishappens Line break, and then
this and this.
And when you do it, thishappens line break, and then
this and this.
And it was funny and it was andit was.
(41:32):
It was punchy, but they werelike 123 lines long where you
just kept scrolling andscrolling and LinkedIn took over
doing this for a long time.
It seems to be changing alittle bit right now, but it's
basically it looks like it'spoetry a little bit right now,
but it's basically it looks likeit's poetry.
It looks like you're writinghaikus over and over and over,
(41:52):
but it's usually kind of scammy,a little sketchy type of copy
that has a certain feel to it.
That's can be very off-puttingfor some people or it can be
like hell yeah, this is for me,other people and it's very much
used in the bro marketing.
It's hell yeah, just soundedlike johnny lawrence from.
Speaker 3 (42:07):
We just finished watching cobra kai by the to
other people and it was verymuch used in the bro marketing.
It's how we are just soundedlike Johnny Lawrence from.
We just finished watching CobraKai by the way Nice, you can
fix it, you want to close it off.
Speaker 1 (42:17):
super well, it was good.
Speaker 2 (42:20):
So, but that's actually a great example of
Brand Boy's gone too far.
Like Johnny Lawrence is a greatcharacter who's who's there's
like ralph baccio, he's or Ijust forgot his name, what's the
?
Uh, daniel, yeah, daniel, yeah,daniel larusso was influenced
by the 80s.
Johnny lawrence is still stuckin the 80s.
The he's still listening to awalkman.
(42:41):
He becomes a caricature of the80s, whereas daniel larusso is a
brand voice of the 80s.
He's someone that experiencedsome good things and not
highlights and still hasreferences.
The show itself has somethrowbacks and it has
acknowledgements of the eighties, but it's not stuck in the
eighties.
Connie Lawrence is a caricatureand that's what happens when you
(43:02):
go too far with brand voice.
When you like when with awriter like picks up one certain
element of it, like look, I'vegot Muppet references.
I'm not.
I'm not opening up every emailswith, like you know, any type
of like Jim Henson or a childthat PBS references is not like
hey, you guys, like I'm notdoing that with every email.
I'm not dropping Kermit giftsand Ms Peggy everywhere.
(43:25):
I do it on occasion, but whenyou do it too much, it begins to
get off voice and it's likethis has gone too far.
This doesn't sound like mePutting those boundaries on the
feelings.
The gross first net puttingthose boundaries around it
allows it to scale.
Okay, all right, yeah.
Speaker 1 (43:44):
So I want to ask about some of the principles,
the timeless principles thatstill apply, that you could
share, that you picked up whenyou were writing ads for.
In 18 months, you said over 230.
What was the exact number?
239 people in 1839 differentbusinesses, people that you were
(44:05):
writing ads for, and you becamean expert at writing.
Or what was the other phrase?
Throwing your voice.
Throwing your voice?
Speaker 2 (44:13):
Throwing your voice right.
Speaker 1 (44:14):
So what are some principles that the listener
could take away that still applyto writing ad copy today?
Speaker 2 (44:21):
So social media?
I heard this description of ita long time ago and it stuck
with me.
It's basically they said wedon't go to social media to make
decisions.
We go to social media to avoidmaking decisions, and I love
that line yeah.
The way I started writing adswas I would just scroll to my
(44:43):
newsfeed and I'll look at myfriends and their copy to my
newsfeed and I look at myfriends and their copy and the
stuff that got me like where.
I kept reading it, like it.
You have to train your brain todo this.
But what are your friendswriting?
What looks like it belongsthere anytime.
I started with like you know,dear business owners, or
attention, business owners, I'mlike nobody wants that and know
(45:06):
that like an ad can do that.
It works well on the radiobecause it perks you up.
But the stuff on social mediaif I see something that looks
like an ad, I don't want tointeract with it unless it's
calling out a specific thingthat I'm dealing with and like
there's.
I saw an ad that did really wellrecently about like how to
learn Spanish, and it wasn'tlike are you trying to learn
(45:28):
Spanish?
It would be like and it wouldstart with all right, the
hardest thing about learningSpanish is blank.
And I'd be like ah, yeah, okay,it just looked natural.
Here's something they don'ttell you when you're trying to
learn Spanish.
Ever try to like like you'restill hearing like talk about
some of the problems that arethere.
Why is it that or the the?
(45:49):
The simplest line to say inspanish is spell the word socks
s-o-c-k-s, in which is.
This is what it's about likejust sort of learning these
little hooks and tricks that getyou and they interest you and
they intrigue you because theylook like they belong.
They're kind of offeringsomething of value and even if
it's just straight upentertainment right off the bat,
(46:10):
and me that was the mosteffective ad.
Going back to some of the Gen Xreferences, one of the best ads
that I ever wrote was for acoach, that it was a female
empowerment coach and she helpswomen own their voice.
And I just started off that theopening line was nobody puts
baby in a corner.
That line killed Cause it wasfor, like, gen X women.
(46:35):
It it had.
It did so incredibly well tothe point where, like, everyone
was like holy hell, what did wedo?
It was that it was just thislittle point of connection.
It wasn't like dear quietedwoman, you know, it wasn't that,
it wasn't acknowledging a pain,it was acknowledging who they
are and that, just to me, that'swhat always worked best.
Speaker 1 (46:57):
Okay, it wasn't acknowledging a pain.
It was acknowledging who theyare.
Look at your friend's socialmedia and write things that feel
like they go there.
Speaker 2 (47:09):
Yeah, some of my best hooks.
I remember, like my friend whois a copywriter, is a great
writer.
He started with a post.
He's like, okay, this can't beright.
And then he was just liketalking about, like his electric
bill.
And I remember I just copiedthat line Okay, this can't be
right.
And I started an ad with it andit did gangbusters Because it
(47:30):
just developed intrigue rightoff the bat.
That can't be right.
This can't be right, becausewhen you're trying to start a
business and they tell you toput yourself into the brand,
everything becomes content.
And now I got to start talkingabout my kids rather than what I
do, rather than my solutions,rather than my business.
I don't want to talk about mykids, I don't want to talk about
(47:50):
work, I want to talk aboutsuccess and challenges and
things like that.
That's a hook.
Mm-hmm.
Speaker 1 (47:57):
It is a hook.
Yeah.
I might have to steal that hook.
Oh yeah.
Speaker 2 (48:03):
I stole it from.
I'll give him credit.
Jimmy Parent, my copywriterfriend.
I I stole it from.
I'll give him credit JimmyParent, my copywriter friend.
I stole that hook from him andI used it dozens of times and it
worked really, really well.
Right, okay, this can't beright.
Speaker 3 (48:17):
Uh-huh.
Speaker 1 (48:38):
We're suddenly going to see all these ads.
What is?
Speaker 2 (48:39):
two final thoughts that you would leave the
listener with about beingauthentic, connecting with
somebody over just trying toconvert them and writing that
sounds more like them.
Sometimes being helpful is notalways the way that we're
defining it, and what I mean bythat it's sometimes the
connection is there.
Sometimes you just need to givepeople a simple answer and that
works.
There is no best wayuniversally.
(49:01):
It looks different foreverybody.
It depends on your situation,it depends on your background,
it depends on your audience andnot just your background.
It depends on your audience andnot just I don't mean your
audience as a whole, I mean thespecific person who you're
speaking to.
So I'm not a big believer inbest practices.
I believe that they arecompletely subjective and all I
want to say is Han shot first.
(49:21):
So I don't know man.
Speaker 1 (49:25):
Right?
No, that's fine.
When we meet up in maine, it'sgonna be cool to meet you in
person.
Thank you for sharing what youshared on this episode.
Speaker 3 (49:36):
I'd rather enjoy that yeah, it was very, very yeah,
yeah, man, I had a good time tooyeah pretty, fly copy on
instagram right, yep, where elsecan somebody connect with?
Speaker 2 (49:50):
you, justinblackmancom is the easiest
place to go, and then if youwant to hear a little bit more
about the whole feelings aregross thing just go to
justinblackmancom.
Speaker 4 (50:00):
Slash feelings okay, right on right well, it's that
time, dear listener.
Speaker 1 (50:06):
Until the next time you see us or hear from us, take
care, be blessed, and we'll seeyou in the next episode take
care bye.
So, if you wondered, is it just writing good copy
that affects an ad?
And then, is that the only partof the funnel, or do you also
need to worry about connectingto your new leads inside of your
email, nurture sequence and,what is most important, is it
just going after the conversion?
Is it relating to them on thoselike personality traits that
(00:21):
you have that they also couldidentify with?
Is it about putting the rightkind of case study in your email
, like how do you buildauthority and do all of this?
Well, I have a guest.
He is a copywriter, and I'vetalked to other copywriters and
I just got finished saying toJustin Blackman that I love
having copywriters on thepodcast because I myself am so
(00:44):
utterly horrible at the writtenword, and so I'm happy to have
you, justin, on the podcast.
Dear listener, you're going toenjoy this episode because
Justin has written ad copy.
At one point I think, justin,you said that you were writing
ad copy in an agency like like aFacebook and Instagram ad
(01:05):
agency, and you wrote ad copyfor how many different people in
one year?
Was it 200 something?
239 different people over thecourse of about 18 months that
makes you an expert at learningand writing in other people's
voice.
That is an absolutely insanestat.
Speaker 2 (01:22):
Yeah, it was one of those things that I didn't
realize how insane it was untilI, like sent it out loud to
someone and they're like, wait,you did what I know and so we're
gonna have to go into that.
Speaker 1 (01:35):
So, dear listener, when I was chatting with justin
blackman in on instagram andafter having seen him on a
couple of other podcasts youknow online friends that I know
he made it a point to say thathe believes in connection over
conversion and that theconnection will eventually lead
to the conversion.
And we're going to talk abouthow to sound and write more like
(01:55):
you in an authentic way.
Let me read his bio.
Justin Blackman is a brandvoice expert who goes overboard.
He's written for more than 429people and dozens of brands and
created voice guides forindustry experts, including I'm
sorry, your name's here AmyPorterfield, stu McLaren oh my
(02:16):
God, I love me some, stu.
Speaker 3 (02:17):
Yeah, we like Stu.
Speaker 1 (02:19):
Todd Herman and Danny Innie.
He uses a process called thebrand ventriloquism.
Speaker 3 (02:29):
Why is this word Ventriloquism?
Speaker 1 (02:32):
I like that Three times fast.
There are certain words likethat, like that linoleum, the
stuff in the kitchen Linoleum,that tile, I just can't say that
.
But I can't say millennium.
So there we go, I never knewthat about you.
Speaker 3 (02:47):
It's a very difficult word for you.
We've been married 16 yearsalmost.
Speaker 1 (02:51):
I know he couldn't say it there's certain words I
can't say but yes, radventriloquism to analyze and
replicate the nuance, make yourwriting voice unique and
documents it.
He documents it so otherwriters can scale like your
content without sacrificingauthenticity.
He's also worked with topbrands, including ihg hotels we
(03:14):
used to go here a five hourenergy.
Oh wow, like at the fast um, atlike the am pms, like right
there on the counter, thatlittle yeah, bottle station yeah
, the gas station, there we go,and red bull would not stop in.
Bell would not embellish his ownbio.
He runs workshops that's greatfor writers.
At brand voice academy, hehelps founders identify the true
(03:36):
essence of their brand.
So writing becomes a snap, nomatter who's creating the
content, and all the people sayhe's pretty fly or a right guy
awesome I've heard of weird alyankovic.
By the way, welcome to the showofficially have I heard of
(03:57):
weird out.
Speaker 2 (03:58):
Yeah, it was the second tape I ever owned.
It was weird.
Al on 3d, thank you seems likeyou just aged yourself a little
bit, just a whole day of a proudgen xer, part of a generation
that has forgotten while we'restill here we're still running
things.
Speaker 1 (04:17):
we're still running the show.
Justin, before we jump intothese things, ad copy and just
copywriting in general, can yougive us a snapshot of your
business as it stands today,this year, so far, like you know
?
Where are you pulling yourrevenue?
From what kind of offers do youhave More done for you, your
program that you have, and thenwe want to kind of know a little
(04:40):
bit about how you got to whereyou're at now, and then we'll
dive into all the goodcopywriting.
Speaker 2 (04:49):
Yeah, so there are two arms to my business.
The first one is there's BrandVoice Academy, which is the
teaching arm, where I work withcopywriters and basically help
them understand how brand voiceworks, how to sound like any
client, be able to kind of throwtheir voice to sound exactly
like a brand or an agency or aperson and really mimic them and
mirror their style.
I also teach them how to createbrand voice guides and have a
(05:11):
couple of different trainingsover there.
And then I havejustinblackmancom, which is my
done for you service, and that'swhere I work with entrepreneurs
to either help them punch uptheir writing to lean into their
style and to create brand voiceguides, which I do for both
solo, personal brands as well ascorporate brands, so I can
(05:32):
train their content teams andthe writers to stay on brand.
So one teaches writers, onehelps document entrepreneurs and
brands to really solidify thewriting style.
Speaker 1 (05:44):
And when you say brand voice guide, can you
educate me a bit?
Sure.
Speaker 2 (05:48):
So most people are familiar with the brand guide
and you think of like these areyour Pantone colors and your
fonts and your logo choices.
I do that, but with words Mostpeople define their voice.
Saying is like we're happy,we're casual, professional, but
when you get a designer it'slike our Pantone color for blue
(06:09):
is like one, three, eight, six,nine, two, whatever.
They get the exact shade ofblue down to the pixel.
Yeah.
But with with writing, they'resaying write happy.
That's like saying write in thecolor blue.
There are about 362 differentshades of blue.
(06:30):
Which one?
Write in what I do is I put thesame type of depth and analysis
on someone's writing style asthey do the colors and the
branding.
So I define how they write andI define that.
I define their brand, voice,their approach, their writing
style.
And we define voice asvocabulary, tone and cadence.
(06:54):
So vocabulary is the level ofwriting that you're saying, like
if something is, is it big, isit grand, is it large, is it
grandiose?
They all mean the same thing,but what level of writing do we
use?
Cadence is the rhythm of yourwriting.
Do you?
write short and choppy, do youwrite like curt and abrupt?
Or do you write long, flowy,wordy, bird sentences that go on
(07:17):
and on forever and hardly everuse a comma and just have this
gentle flowing feel to them andyou run out of breath or you
actually reach the endpunctuation.
This mind, just have thisgentle flowing feel to them and
you run out of breath or youactually reach the end
punctuation.
This guy knows his words rightwell, is it shorter?
It's like a breath that wasalmost passed out right there.
And then you've got the tone,which are the emotions in your
writing.
But rather than saying likehappy, we need to figure out
(07:41):
like what that means.
Like happy can mean anythingfrom like tranquil and balanced
and serene all the way to likegiddy and jubilant and euphoric
and ecstatic and sounded like acaffeinated kangaroo.
What level of happy do you want, god?
Speaker 3 (07:57):
Yeah, that's a really fantastic description of
comparing the colors to thewriting.
Speaker 1 (08:04):
I've never heard that one before, and so what you're
saying is is by defining a brandvoice like this, it really
changed the writing that muchTremendously.
Speaker 2 (08:15):
Yeah, yeah.
Between the references andanalogies that you might make,
like if you're watching thevideo of this, I've got, you
know, star Wars and Muppets andthings like that.
So those are going to be mytype of references, as opposed
to you know, some of the broaderthings that you might, that you
might reference.
So everything down to that, allthe way to the like, literally
(08:35):
measurable elements of yourwriting voice, that that you can
, that you can help, they canscale, and a brand voice guide
will do that.
It will help you throw yourvoice for writers, which is
where brand ventriloquism comesin.
Speaker 1 (08:48):
Yeah, nice, throw your voice for writers.
Yeah, okay, you did just saythat.
I did.
Speaker 2 (08:58):
Well, it was just, you know, basically having
having someone speak for youLike a ventriloquist has their
dummy where gotcha, it soundslike its own, like it's got its
own persona, its own style, butit's really the ventriloquist
speaking.
The copywriter is doing theactual speaking, but it sounds
like someone else.
It's being able to throw yourwriting voice.
(09:20):
I think, Okay, cool, I wanted togo back and ask on the Brand
Voice Academy is that a courseor is that like a group coaching
or what does that look like?
(09:40):
I've got another one that I'mworking on and then I've got
write more personality and thoseare pretty much copywriter
specific.
Write more personality is 81ways to add like punch, power
and pop to your everyday writing.
That one can really go foreveryone.
Speaker 1 (09:54):
I want that.
Which means you should take thecourse.
Speaker 2 (09:57):
Yeah, great.
Of course it's funny, it's afew years old but it's timeless,
like.
I actually watched it about twoweeks ago and I was like this
is still a great course.
So it's where it is Morepersonality.
It's it's just, it's silly,it's fun, it's just a, it's just
a good time.
It's just it's timeless.
Techniques that like have beenaround since you know the, the
(10:18):
Rosetta stone for like howpeople write.
Speaker 4 (10:29):
Since the right, uh, since the good old days, all you
had was copy and no media.
Speaker 2 (10:32):
Back to the myspace, back to newspapers, okay, yeah
and then I do have some livetraining programs which are more
intense and more in-depth.
Those are my favorite ones torun.
Speaker 1 (10:40):
That's for, like the true brand voice nerds wants to
run, that's for, like the truebrand voice nerds, so a
copywriter that also tradesother copywriters.
I got a question.
This one came to mind why doyou think it is in very blunt
terms that the stew mclarens andamy porterfields of the world
(11:01):
are dropping serious coin onbrand voice guides, when someone
that's making 50 grand a year,a hundred grand a year isn't?
Speaker 2 (11:11):
Well, part of it is because they have teams and
because their style andpersonality is so identifiable,
it becomes almost more importantfor them to for their
copywriters to sound like them.
You don't want it to sound fake, you don't want it to sound
wishy-washy.
Stu McLaren is one of thehappiest, most energetic people
(11:34):
in the world, but it's a verydistinct level that he's in.
I mean, he's for like theexcited and giddy level, but
he's not like euphoric, like,and you can't just be optimistic
or hopeful.
I mean he is, but that's notenough.
(11:55):
So, even just a little bit off,it starts to fall apart and be
like this doesn't sound like Stuand it actually begins to raise
some doubts in the readers,like what happened to stew here,
like in sense when the writingis off.
So being able to identify hisapproach, his style, not just
(12:17):
what he talks about but how hetalks, it's really important to
maintain that integrity andauthenticity for everything,
because it's not just about Studoing the writing, it's about
encapsulating all of hisapproach and his tone.
And Stu McLaren has a brand,same with Amy Porterfield, like
we have to understand how shesounds, how she wants everything
(12:39):
to come up, to come across.
So it's authentic, even ifshe's not the one who's writing
the copy.
Because a brand doesn't meanthat every like authentic
doesn't mean it has to come upto come across, so it's
authentic, even if she's not theone who's writing the copy,
because a brand doesn't meanthat every like.
Speaker 1 (12:53):
Authentic doesn't mean it has to come from one
person, it just means it has tobe on brand.
Speaker 3 (12:55):
Authentic doesn't mean it has to come from one
person, it just means it needsto be on brand yeah, because I
feel like most people probablyknow at this point that someone
with those big names right, it'snot them writing their own
stuff, right, yeah, sometimes itis.
Speaker 2 (13:11):
Sometimes it is they write a lot of their own stuff
but they can't possibly writeall of it Right or even just
repurposing some of the content,changing one of their videos
into an email or a podcast likean announcement that doesn't
have to come from him.
It's more a goal.
He's got bigger things to do.
She or he or she, they havebigger things.
It's it's not effective forthem to write everything.
(13:36):
It's not realistic for them towrite everything.
Right, it's they.
They are the visionary of thebrand.
They need to be doing it.
They need to free up time to dothat bigger thinking.
It's okay.
It's okay, it's still authenticif a copywriter who understands
their message and theirapproach and their voice can
step in and do this.
And you know, I'm not justsaying I have a lot of clients
(13:57):
that whose names I can't saybecause they don't want that,
but I'm fortunate enough thatmany of my clients are are open
about the fact that they havesome content teams.
And you know it's realistic.
I think it's helpful to knowthat, like if you see them
everywhere, they're like how dothey show up everywhere?
Well, it's because they have ateam.
Speaker 3 (14:16):
Right, right.
Speaker 1 (14:21):
They are not super humans.
I think it's helping people.
Yeah, transparent about that,because otherwise you kind of
have like this false idea ofwhat and who you have, what it
takes and who you have to be toget to a certain level.
You know it's like actuallyit's couldn't be further from
the truth it's still them, it'sjust scaled authenticity, scaled
(14:41):
often that's good, I like Ididn't know those two words
could exist with each other, butI like that.
Speaker 3 (14:47):
Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (14:48):
When you figure out what your voice is, you're able
to do it Cool, Even with AI LikeI can get some really good
stuff out of AI because I definemy voice extremely well.
Mm-hmm.
And the people who are sayingthat like, oh, ai is terrible
and it's just generic.
It just means that you're usingrandom things or generic things
, like saying that you'rewriting as friendly and casual.
Speaker 1 (15:11):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (15:14):
Those aren't voices, those aren't personalities Like
let's say you've got six friends, let's say you've got Chandler,
phoebe, joey Monica Ross andRachel.
They sound familiar.
I like where you're going withthis.
Keep going.
Joey Monica Ross and Rachel,they sound familiar.
Speaker 3 (15:29):
I wish they were I like where you're going with
this.
Keep going.
Speaker 2 (15:32):
Oh, those are six friends, right.
Uh-huh.
They all sound friendly, butthey all sound entirely
different.
Some sounds, you know,controlling.
I just thought about you.
Some sound uneducated, some,you know, sarcastic.
Those are elements of a voice.
(15:52):
Friendly is not a voice,friendly is a personality you
need to actually understand whatthe voice is, what the writing
is, to make it sound like you.
It's much deeper than threeadjectives in an avatar.
Speaker 1 (16:07):
Wow.
Speaker 3 (16:08):
That's really good.
Speaker 1 (16:09):
That is so for me.
It's just I realized how littleI know when I talk to someone
like you.
Thank you, I know a whole lotabout very little.
Justin, can you tell us aboutyour emotions wheel and where
the listener can get it?
Speaker 2 (16:26):
Yeah.
So this all comes back to brandvoice.
I mentioned before how likefriendly isn't a personality.
Friendly isn't a voice, it's apersonality.
We need to get specificallygranular on these things.
I mentioned before that likehappy can mean anything from
jubilant and elated all the wayto peaceful, calm and balanced
and tranquil.
There are so many differentlevels of these.
(16:48):
So if you want to write better,you actually need to get
granular.
You need to understand exactlywhat tone you're looking for,
like the Pantone shade of blue.
We want to understand yourPantone shade of emotion, not
just write in the color yellow,but, like we want you know,
sunset yellow, canary ormarigold.
Yeah, marigold, there you go.
Yeah, there you go.
Way to pull out a color.
(17:08):
Yeah, that's my shirt.
Speaker 3 (17:09):
Or let's say it's true, yellow yeah.
Speaker 2 (17:12):
That's 3PO gold.
That's what we want, so it'sunderstanding that nuance.
So I have they are probablyfamiliar with emotions wheels or
tone wheels.
It's primarily used inpsychology but I actually have
one that I created forcopywriters and for copywriting
that's geared toward founders,which are the most prevalent
brands, the prevalent tones thatshow up in brands and in
(17:34):
writing, and if you go tojustinblackmancom, slash
feelings, you can download acopy of the founder feeling
wheel and you'll get some emailsthat will help you identify
some of the important tones andobviously it's also something
that I offer if you needadditional support on that.
Speaker 3 (17:52):
Wonderful, awesome, well, so how did you get started
in copywriting?
Did you study?
Speaker 1 (18:00):
brand voice.
Speaker 3 (18:01):
Yeah, like that specific.
Speaker 2 (18:03):
So my background is in field marketing.
That's where I work for Puma,red Bull, five Hour Energy and I
ran a lot of sampling programs.
So I was in charge of speakingto hundreds of thousands of
people about certain brands, butthey're all one-on-one
conversations and as I sort ofaged out like I was working for
(18:24):
Red Bull and I was on a collegecampus and someone called me sir
and I was like I can't do this.
So, yeah, so I moved to thecorporate side where I started
writing and training the, thesampling teams and really
helping develop the scripts.
So that's where I I startedleaning into writing and, uh,
(18:47):
eventually just moved fromspeaking to the written word and
started doing websites andcontent and working for IHG,
where I had to write for 14different brands at the same
time, like all their differenthotels, and so one message, each
message, had to change 14different ways.
And that's where I reallyleaned into brand voice and
(19:08):
tried to and started tounderstand and learn the nuance
and the structures behind brandvoice and was just fortunate
enough to get mentored by somegreat people and, yeah, I just
went into it deeper than anyoneever should and kind of became
the go-to guy for brand voice.
Speaker 1 (19:26):
Dang Wow.
I wonder if there's a listenerlike me who is now scared to
write any email.
I'm just kind of understandinglike the breadth and the depth
and just kind of the gravity ofmy words.
How do I write that next email?
What should?
What should be something whereI should figure that out.
Speaker 2 (19:45):
Sometimes I break people's brains.
The good news is I help putthem back together.
I definitely have a couple ofstudents who I teach this to and
they're like oh my God, I don'tknow how to write anymore.
Mike, you didn't forget.
I just made it a little harderfor you, which?
When we figure it out, we'll begood.
Yeah, it's a Dunning-Kruger.
Speaker 1 (20:07):
I just like pushed you off the edge like if it make
it drop down, let's make itvery like at least I'll give a
super straightforward questionwithin the context of a weekly
email that is doing double dutyand emails shouldn't do double
duty but so many of our emailsdo where we are talking about a
(20:27):
weekly podcast episode thataired and also somewhere down
the email transitioning to saybuy my stuff.
Speaker 2 (20:34):
Yeah, so yes, there is.
Speaker 1 (20:40):
Pretty typical like very down to earth.
Speaker 2 (20:43):
Like from a conversion perspective, I would
say the right answer is to sendtwo year print emails, but the I
understand that that's notalways going to be an acceptable
answer for people and there areways of doing it.
Getting people to do two thingsat once is always going to be a
challenge, but you can prefaceit like listen to a podcast
versus buy.
(21:03):
My stuff is a little bitdifferent and I've done this
before.
It's not.
It doesn't work as well as twoseparate emails.
I will say that off the bat.
But sometimes it's like if youlisten to this episode, it will
help you explain why you wantthis and sometimes people will
click that and open it up and ifyou can then explain a little
bit more about why they want it,sometimes that that explanation
(21:25):
can be enough to make someonebuy right there or take a second
action.
Sometimes they might open upthe podcast.
Whether they listen to it ornot is another story.
If they just made the purchaseand sometimes they want to
justify it, sometimes they'lllisten to the podcast.
If they're on the fence, maybethey'll listen to the podcast,
but ultimately the conversion isthe thing that you want, your
conversion to listen versus tobuy.
(21:47):
You're splitting your goal andyou're 50% as likely to get it.
So kind of different response.
Speaker 1 (21:55):
All right, listener, you're tracking with me.
So my next question, then, isgoing straight to the buy my
stuff kind of email.
When you and I were talking,you had said connection over
conversion.
Can you, can you unpack whatyou mean by that?
Speaker 2 (22:11):
Yeah.
So getting someone to buy yourstuff, it's easy if, like,
you're selling sunglasses andpeople are saying, yeah, I need
a new pair of sunglasses, oh,here's some, let me get it.
That's, you know.
Sometimes there there's fillinga need, but then there's also a
desire, and when it comes tolike coaching, for instance,
sometimes people will say Iwould need to learn brand voice.
(22:33):
Here's a class I will take it.
Other times, people will startto know you, and I have people
that join my courses becausethey're like I want to learn
from Justin, and you guysprobably get that too.
There are people that listentoin, and you guys probably get
that too.
There are people that listen toyou because you're you, and
then there are people thatlisten to you for the
information yeah, actually, yeah.
(22:57):
So sometimes we buy stuff,sometimes we buy people, and
I've actually been talking aboutthis a little bit more lately.
It's sometimes actually, it'smore like just talking off the
record.
I haven't been emailing aboutthis and my journal, which I'm
not going to share yet, butsometimes, when, like, I'm
creating a new program or a newworkshop, I'm trying to figure
(23:17):
out why, why they're, whysomeone would want this, and
it's an exercise that I thinkevery course creator should do
to really just kind of freewrite for like five minutes or
so.
Why would someone want this?
And then, ultimately, what alot of it comes down to at a
certain point is because theywant the same success as you.
You've been successful at this.
(23:37):
I want that success, which isreally saying I want to be like
you.
So by sharing a little bitabout you and sharing the
realness behind some stuff,people will buy you.
It's not a fast sale.
It's not a quick sale.
There are ways to do thisquicker.
I'm on the fence about whetheror not I believe that should be
(24:01):
done quickly or slowly.
I understand that we havebusinesses for runs.
We're looking for an ROI.
We obviously want to speed thatup the way.
Businesses for runs we'relooking for an ROI.
We obviously want to speed thatup.
But there are ways of giving alittle bit of insight about you
through connection that willmake someone buy.
It's just not directlytrackable.
It's not necessarily ameasurable result.
(24:23):
There's many people like ifsomeone buys my course and I
have a an email that goes outand says hey, let me know what's
going on in your business thatthat made you know that now is
the right time to buy.
And very often I will get anemail saying oh, I knew for a
year that I wanted to wait foryou.
I just was writing for waitingfor the right opportunity Sounds
(24:43):
familiar.
That happens because ofsomething that you wrote that
had nothing to do with business,but it was an insight into you
that was relatable.
That was the thing that madesomeone want you Showing
accessibility versus authority,or leading with your outlook
Like Stu McLaren.
That is one of the happiest menI've ever met in my life.
(25:06):
There's just something like youknow what I really need levity
in my life right now and I wantto learn and and I want
something fun that I know I'mgoing to enjoy with, like you
know, break, dance intermissionsor dance, break intermissions.
That's Stu.
And you know, as opposed to someof the other people I've
written for it's like man.
I just want you know, asopposed to some of the other
(25:27):
people I've written for it'slike man.
I just want to know.
I want to learn from someonewho is detailed and meticulous
and just, is a higher level ofexpertise and is wants experts
to teach experts.
That's someone more like Miracyand Danny Innie that's.
Then there's Amy Porterfield,who's like I want someone to
teach me who's more nurturing, alittle more hands on, a little
(25:48):
more empathetic, a little moreparental.
That's Amy Porterfield.
Those are three differentpeople who all teach very
similar things, but you're goingto be attracted to someone's
persona and their character andtheir personality, more so than
their material.
Speaker 1 (26:05):
How does a person like me, or maybe the listener
who doesn't feel as comfortablewith the written word, get good
at writing in a way thatexpresses their persona, like
would be expressed when theyshow up on video?
What I'm trying to say is, likeI do great on video and I'm
myself on video, but my writingdoes not sound like me at all.
(26:27):
Yet so many people read myemails and I know for a fact
that people connect with me inreal life and therefore on video
.
Speaker 2 (26:35):
Yeah.
So there's a couple ofdifferent ways and it depends on
your, your level of writing.
The fact is, the way that we'retaught to write at school is
academic.
That works well for textbooks,it works well for tests.
That doesn't work well forsocial media.
You see a long, like a fivesentence paragraph, the way that
we're taught to in fullsentences, the way that we're
(26:57):
taught to write in English.
It doesn't work for emailbecause it's not mobile
optimized.
It's not that our attentionspans are short, but if we see a
chunk of text, we're like youknow what I need to focus when I
read this, I'm going to comeback to it.
And then, especially on social,you know, no one scrolls back,
it's scrolled out.
So it's got to be captivatingenough, it has to be intriguing
(27:21):
enough, it has to have a righthook.
There are copywritingprinciples that you can learn,
but like, for instance, I'lljust say that the average
sentence length in English is 15words.
Written is 15 words.
Okay, so you know that's prettymuch a, a, a complete sentence,
that it doesn't matter whatthat looks like, and just know
that it's 15 words.
Most copywriters hardly everwrite over 11 sentence words.
(27:46):
So like we just go, shorter wego, we go choppier we.
We do one thought per sentenceso we're taught in in academics
to write complete sentences withyou know, subject predicates,
all that stuff.
Copywriting breaks that rule ona on a very consistent basis.
It's just easier to digest, andthere's a lot of strategy to
(28:10):
that, but the fact is you haveto write more and looking at
something with curiosity.
One of the ways that I startedto really understand writing a
little bit more was to, when Iread something that was
interesting, I was like what didthey do there?
And then I just startedanalyzing it and that was,
honestly, my introduction intoit.
(28:30):
I know that's not a perfectanswer, but there's really no
best way to do it other thanjust read really good writing
and mirror it until you developyour own style.
Speaker 1 (28:41):
I can definitely relate.
I still think of not just myhigh school teachers, but even
my college professors.
When I had to do writing, itwas always the same thing, like
red pin everywhere, and theywould be like, okay, this should
not be an intro, this should beat the end of your paper and
(29:04):
this should be up here and thisshould be down there.
And then they're just likedrawing all these lines.
It was like every time I wroteit.
It was so horrible and throughthis day when I try to write for
social media or in an email,like it just sounds robotic and
I just freeze up, I'm like I'mdone all right before, like when
(29:24):
we I mean when we learned towrite.
Speaker 3 (29:26):
Like you were saying it's academic writing.
I mean at that time no one knewthe power of social media and
what that was going to look likeand how to write for that you
know, like that's not what wewere taught.
We were taught to write essaysand some people knew.
Speaker 1 (29:42):
Al Gore knew when he could.
It's right.
Speaker 2 (29:45):
Well, he knew it Right.
I would say this, kidding meit's right, oh al, he knew it
right.
I wouldn't do this.
So like that type ofinstruction, it's like it's
ingrained in us.
It's like this is gonna soundbad, but it's like small t
trauma.
It's stuff that like we, it'spart of us that we we're writing
, we're still writing to impressthat teacher.
I am, we are, it's okay.
(30:09):
It's okay to cry, it's.
The fact is like it takes along time to be able to let that
go.
Or I would say this Write ifthat teacher's in your head your
goal is to get a C oh, Thenyou're gonna get a better copy.
That's even more pay-to oh,Then you're going to get a
better copy.
Speaker 1 (30:28):
That's even more painful.
Not your hands and the son ofan immigrant father.
C that means spanking.
There's no room for C-.
Speaker 2 (30:42):
You ought to write spank-worthy copy.
Here's the key to spank-worthycopy.
Here's the bottom, the key tostaying worthy or not.
Speaker 3 (30:52):
Who knew?
An episode on copywriting wouldjust like bring out this
childhood drama.
Speaker 1 (30:56):
We never.
We are just another part ofthat.
I wear that shirt.
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (31:01):
Feeling that throughout the shirt we go to
YouTube and check, we should saywhile we're transitioning.
Speaker 1 (31:08):
Because Jamie has a question about personal brands,
since we were talking about howpeople, when they want to buy
something you're selling, theyeffectively want to buy you and
that ties into personal brand.
Not to ask a question, but yeah, if you're not watching us on
YouTube, it's kind of cool,click down in the show notes
below so you can see us andexperience us better.
But also a lot of the otherepisodes I do Cool, click down
in the show notes below so youcan see us and experience us
better, but also a lot of theother episodes I do about
(31:33):
Facebook and Instagram ads.
They're just visual in natureand I don't know if you knew,
but you can see all that onYouTube.
And so when I'm clicking aroundand ad accounts and showing you
all the ninja tricks that Ilive and breathe daily like
that's better consumed on RightPlus, let's not overlook the
fact that I live and breathedaily Like that's better
consumed on Right From whereyou're going.
Speaker 2 (31:49):
Yeah Well, plus, let's not overlook the fact that
I'm really good looking.
Speaker 3 (31:53):
Ah, there's been that I mean, you guys gotta get over
to YouTube and see this guy.
Speaker 1 (31:58):
You got to be.
Speaker 2 (32:00):
Adam Sandler and Jerry Seinfeld had a kid.
Oh really Okay.
Speaker 1 (32:06):
Actually now I could kind of move there.
Bruce.
Bindler like 20 years ago, yeah.
Speaker 2 (32:15):
We've got gym shorts on.
Can't see.
Speaker 1 (32:19):
You remember those plaid shorts?
Oh, those were horrible.
Speaker 3 (32:22):
No, they were great.
Well, at the time they weregreat yeah.
Oh, how fashion changes.
Okay, so what I was going toask this is all supposed to lead
into was what is some outdatedadvice, then, of personal brands
?
Speaker 2 (32:41):
So all right.
So this is actually where myshirt comes in.
It says you're gross.
Where where my shirt comes in,which says gross.
So there was this trend goingon for probably 2020 to 2023.
It seems like it's kind ofdying a little bit.
Well, actually, there's two.
The first one I was going totalk about is weaponized
vulnerability, like after berniebrown said, like the power of
(33:06):
vulnerability and all this stuff.
People just got too carriedaway with it the crying on
LinkedIn, the, the, the pityparties, the, the showing just
like marketing pain or trying tomake something painful, where
it's like, yeah, dude, get overyourself.
(33:26):
Like there was some of that andit was just to me that was a
major turnoff.
It was when people, whenprivate lives, started becoming
way too public.
I thought that was awful person.
I'm happy to see that the trendas has moved away and this might
(33:46):
be a little off topic, but butI think it's important to say,
like, even if you go on LinkedIn, like the about section, people
are like as a proud parent ofthree people, and you know
someone who has ADD and you know, you know from this country or
that country.
That's the first thing thatthey lead with Now here in the
(34:07):
States, if you're applying for acorporate job, I'm not allowed
to ask you are you a parent?
Are you, do you have anymedical disabilities?
Where are you from?
I legally cannot ask you thosequestions because it can affect
it will affect my view of you.
It will like it can't not, itwill subconsciously happen.
(34:31):
The fact that we're leadingwith all of this stuff in most
of our bios, yes, it is a goodpoint of connection, but
honestly I think that sometimesit goes too far good girl yeah
oh, honestly like that.
That's one of my things that Ifeel like boundaries are good.
And when it comes to my shirt,the feelings are gross, so it's
(34:53):
kind of like the pretty fly fora right guy.
It's a pun.
Feelings are gross.
They're everything that youhave accumulated throughout the
course of your life.
It is your gross earnings.
Your brand is your net.
It's you minus deductions.
It's putting boundaries aroundcertain things so that
everything shows up.
(35:13):
It's everything that you'veaccumulated versus what should
be in your brand, with brandvoice, and all this stuff is
putting those boundaries tofigure out what your net is
that's actually showing up inyour business.
It's understanding what's real,what's not what's real.
But what's what's here?
(35:34):
Like watching this video yousee here to here, you have no
idea what's beyond these wordsor what wearing on the bottom
yeah, you don't know this downhere on the bottom.
Speaker 3 (35:54):
Yeah, you don't know this down here.
Speaker 1 (35:56):
Yeah, I've got from the ceiling right there.
You can't see it right.
It's true, I love rose birthnet feelings are gross.
I I didn't even get that untilyou said it, but I like it yeah,
and I also enjoyed back in thepandemic days, in the depth of
the pandemic, when we would justlike, on these Zoom calls, pan
our computers around so we allcould like see what our space
truly looks like.
Rather than the actuarial andthe eyesight and I'm okay with
(36:21):
that.
Speaker 2 (36:22):
Like there are times when it is absolutely great to
show that stuff.
You want to have your cat andyour kid show up on camera.
Go for it.
I don't have a problem with that.
But there are some things thatjust that aren't necessarily
representative of your brand,which it's okay to acknowledge
them, but it's not necessarilythat we should lead with them.
And even as a personal brand,you're still selling something
(36:47):
and it's okay to share.
You're still selling somethingand it's okay to share.
I believe in translucency.
I don't believe in fulltransparency.
I don't want you to be able toset a window.
It's a tinted wall.
I can see the sub stuff.
It's just not see-through, it'snot entirely see-through.
Speaker 1 (37:05):
It's cloudy.
Speaker 2 (37:05):
Translucency.
I believe in translucency, nottransparency, less transparency.
Okay, it's cloudy translucent,translucency not transparency,
less transparency okay, yeah,yeah.
Speaker 3 (37:12):
I was gonna ask like in part of this, do you also
mean like where people werehitting pain points too hard?
Speaker 2 (37:24):
so that there can be.
So, from awriting perspective,there's the problem agitate
solution I know you're dealingwith this and it feels like this
and it's twisting the knives.
But there are different levelsof it.
It can go too far sometimes.
From a conversion perspective,that actually works better, but
from an empathy standpoint andfrom a humanity standpoint,
(37:46):
everyone's line is going to bedifferent, and I've worked with
certain people who were like oh,I don't even want to mention
pains, I just want to be fullsunshine and rainbows, and that
can work for certain people.
But there are other people thatare like, yes, yes, twist the
knife, make them bleed, makethem laugh, and it works.
It's a Dr Burns mentality or MrBurns mentality.
(38:07):
It works, but it's also aturnoff to certain people.
It depends on the audience, itdepends on what it is, and so
that was the thing, like withsome of the Facebook ads that I
that I wrote.
Everyone has different lines.
There are certain things that Iwould never say, that I
absolutely refuse to say.
I would never say you can'tafford not to do something, and
(38:29):
a lot of people said like, oh,put this line in there, I won't
write it.
You want to hire you?
Like, I'll give you the copy.
If you want to put that inyourself, that's fine.
I will literally never writethose words you can't.
I don't know what someone canafford.
I don't know what they can'tafford.
It's not for me to say whatthey can't afford to plus Plus.
I'm not the one who's makingthe final deliverable and I
(38:50):
don't know if it's truly goingto work for them.
It's between you know learninghow to write copy versus paying
your electric bill.
Pay your damn electric bill,like that's Keep the light on
yeah.
Yeah, yeah, and that wassomething that I, you know, I
(39:11):
didn't.
I didn't.
I'm not the one who came upwith that boundary, but I heard
it and I was like, oh yeah, no,that makes sense, I'm sticking
with that, but everyone hasdifferent boundaries.
Uh, there there are.
There are absolutely somepeople who have refused to write
, to write, for when I see theirwork, I'm just like this feels
like predatory really I'm justand I'm not.
(39:32):
I don't like that.
But there are also a ton ofgreat people who you know.
They, some people like the.
The empathy is good, butempathy also means acknowledging
pains.
So as far as talking about thepains and the agitation and
things like that, it works.
It's just finding your owncomfort level and also
(39:56):
understanding what your audiencelikes, and sometimes you
actually have to write a littlebit more than you're comfortable
with, like just not a lot, I'mnot saying go gory, but
acknowledging and trulydescribing what their pains
might feel like.
Sometimes it's actually an actof compassion because it's
saying, if you're providing thesolution for it, if you're
genuinely providing the cure forit, ok to talk about.
Speaker 1 (40:19):
Right Agreed.
Speaker 3 (40:22):
That's good yeah.
Speaker 1 (40:23):
Agreed.
Speaker 3 (40:24):
Is this a good place for you to mention that word?
That?
Speaker 1 (40:27):
you said before we hit record.
That word was bouncing aroundin my mind and I was like we
have to talk about it right now.
Speaker 3 (40:34):
Linoleum, Not linoleum.
We already covered that Rightright.
Speaker 1 (40:42):
The listener is like what is the word?
What is the word?
Speaker 2 (40:46):
Right, and this is where we break for an ad.
Speaker 1 (40:48):
I was just going to say Please have a Zorg.
Oh man, the old TV days whenyou had to watch commercials.
That word just was so funny tome when I heard it.
So much sense.
The word is broetry.
How did you use the wordbroetry?
How did you use the wordbroetry?
How did you use the wordbroetry?
Speaker 2 (41:10):
Broetry.
So back when I was writingFacebook ads, broetry was the
thing that was that really longcopy of filled with really short
sentences.
Okay, have you ever heard ofthis Line break?
What about this Line break?
And when you do it, thishappens Line break, and then
this and this.
And when you do it, thishappens line break, and then
this and this.
And it was funny and it was andit was.
(41:32):
It was punchy, but they werelike 123 lines long where you
just kept scrolling andscrolling and LinkedIn took over
doing this for a long time.
It seems to be changing alittle bit right now, but it's
basically it looks like it'spoetry a little bit right now,
but it's basically it looks likeit's poetry.
It looks like you're writinghaikus over and over and over,
(41:52):
but it's usually kind of scammy,a little sketchy type of copy
that has a certain feel to it.
That's can be very off-puttingfor some people or it can be
like hell yeah, this is for me,other people and it's very much
used in the bro marketing.
It's hell yeah, just soundedlike johnny lawrence from.
Speaker 3 (42:07):
We just finished watching cobra kai by the to
other people and it was verymuch used in the bro marketing.
It's how we are just soundedlike Johnny Lawrence from.
We just finished watching CobraKai by the way Nice, you can
fix it, you want to close it off.
Speaker 1 (42:17):
super well, it was good.
Speaker 2 (42:20):
So, but that's actually a great example of
Brand Boy's gone too far.
Like Johnny Lawrence is a greatcharacter who's who's there's
like ralph baccio, he's or Ijust forgot his name, what's the
?
Uh, daniel, yeah, daniel, yeah,daniel larusso was influenced
by the 80s.
Johnny lawrence is still stuckin the 80s.
The he's still listening to awalkman.
(42:41):
He becomes a caricature of the80s, whereas daniel larusso is a
brand voice of the 80s.
He's someone that experiencedsome good things and not
highlights and still hasreferences.
The show itself has somethrowbacks and it has
acknowledgements of the eighties, but it's not stuck in the
eighties.
Connie Lawrence is a caricatureand that's what happens when you
(43:02):
go too far with brand voice.
When you like when with awriter like picks up one certain
element of it, like look, I'vegot Muppet references.
I'm not.
I'm not opening up every emailswith, like you know, any type
of like Jim Henson or a childthat PBS references is not like
hey, you guys, like I'm notdoing that with every email.
I'm not dropping Kermit giftsand Ms Peggy everywhere.
(43:25):
I do it on occasion, but whenyou do it too much, it begins to
get off voice and it's likethis has gone too far.
This doesn't sound like mePutting those boundaries on the
feelings.
The gross first net puttingthose boundaries around it
allows it to scale.
Okay, all right, yeah.
Speaker 1 (43:44):
So I want to ask about some of the principles,
the timeless principles thatstill apply, that you could
share, that you picked up whenyou were writing ads for.
In 18 months, you said over 230.
What was the exact number?
239 people in 1839 differentbusinesses, people that you were
(44:05):
writing ads for, and you becamean expert at writing.
Or what was the other phrase?
Throwing your voice.
Throwing your voice?
Speaker 2 (44:13):
Throwing your voice right.
Speaker 1 (44:14):
So what are some principles that the listener
could take away that still applyto writing ad copy today?
Speaker 2 (44:21):
So social media?
I heard this description of ita long time ago and it stuck
with me.
It's basically they said wedon't go to social media to make
decisions.
We go to social media to avoidmaking decisions, and I love
that line yeah.
The way I started writing adswas I would just scroll to my
(44:43):
newsfeed and I'll look at myfriends and their copy to my
newsfeed and I look at myfriends and their copy and the
stuff that got me like where.
I kept reading it, like it.
You have to train your brain todo this.
But what are your friendswriting?
What looks like it belongsthere anytime.
I started with like you know,dear business owners, or
attention, business owners, I'mlike nobody wants that and know
(45:06):
that like an ad can do that.
It works well on the radiobecause it perks you up.
But the stuff on social mediaif I see something that looks
like an ad, I don't want tointeract with it unless it's
calling out a specific thingthat I'm dealing with and like
there's.
I saw an ad that did really wellrecently about like how to
learn Spanish, and it wasn'tlike are you trying to learn
(45:28):
Spanish?
It would be like and it wouldstart with all right, the
hardest thing about learningSpanish is blank.
And I'd be like ah, yeah, okay,it just looked natural.
Here's something they don'ttell you when you're trying to
learn Spanish.
Ever try to like like you'restill hearing like talk about
some of the problems that arethere.
Why is it that or the the?
(45:49):
The simplest line to say inspanish is spell the word socks
s-o-c-k-s, in which is.
This is what it's about likejust sort of learning these
little hooks and tricks that getyou and they interest you and
they intrigue you because theylook like they belong.
They're kind of offeringsomething of value and even if
it's just straight upentertainment right off the bat,
(46:10):
and me that was the mosteffective ad.
Going back to some of the Gen Xreferences, one of the best ads
that I ever wrote was for acoach, that it was a female
empowerment coach and she helpswomen own their voice.
And I just started off that theopening line was nobody puts
baby in a corner.
That line killed Cause it wasfor, like, gen X women.
(46:35):
It it had.
It did so incredibly well tothe point where, like, everyone
was like holy hell, what did wedo?
It was that it was just thislittle point of connection.
It wasn't like dear quietedwoman, you know, it wasn't that,
it wasn't acknowledging a pain,it was acknowledging who they
are and that, just to me, that'swhat always worked best.
Speaker 1 (46:57):
Okay, it wasn't acknowledging a pain.
It was acknowledging who theyare.
Look at your friend's socialmedia and write things that feel
like they go there.
Speaker 2 (47:09):
Yeah, some of my best hooks.
I remember, like my friend whois a copywriter, is a great
writer.
He started with a post.
He's like, okay, this can't beright.
And then he was just liketalking about, like his electric
bill.
And I remember I just copiedthat line Okay, this can't be
right.
And I started an ad with it andit did gangbusters Because it
(47:30):
just developed intrigue rightoff the bat.
That can't be right.
This can't be right, becausewhen you're trying to start a
business and they tell you toput yourself into the brand,
everything becomes content.
And now I got to start talkingabout my kids rather than what I
do, rather than my solutions,rather than my business.
I don't want to talk about mykids, I don't want to talk about
(47:50):
work, I want to talk aboutsuccess and challenges and
things like that.
That's a hook.
Mm-hmm.
Speaker 1 (47:57):
It is a hook.
Yeah.
I might have to steal that hook.
Oh yeah.
Speaker 2 (48:03):
I stole it from.
I'll give him credit.
Jimmy Parent, my copywriterfriend.
I I stole it from.
I'll give him credit JimmyParent, my copywriter friend.
I stole that hook from him andI used it dozens of times and it
worked really, really well.
Right, okay, this can't beright.
Speaker 3 (48:17):
Uh-huh.
Speaker 1 (48:38):
We're suddenly going to see all these ads.
What is?
Speaker 2 (48:39):
two final thoughts that you would leave the
listener with about beingauthentic, connecting with
somebody over just trying toconvert them and writing that
sounds more like them.
Sometimes being helpful is notalways the way that we're
defining it, and what I mean bythat it's sometimes the
connection is there.
Sometimes you just need to givepeople a simple answer and that
works.
There is no best wayuniversally.
(49:01):
It looks different foreverybody.
It depends on your situation,it depends on your background,
it depends on your audience andnot just your background.
It depends on your audience andnot just I don't mean your
audience as a whole, I mean thespecific person who you're
speaking to.
So I'm not a big believer inbest practices.
I believe that they arecompletely subjective and all I
want to say is Han shot first.
(49:21):
So I don't know man.
Speaker 1 (49:25):
Right?
No, that's fine.
When we meet up in maine, it'sgonna be cool to meet you in
person.
Thank you for sharing what youshared on this episode.
Speaker 3 (49:36):
I'd rather enjoy that yeah, it was very, very yeah,
yeah, man, I had a good time tooyeah pretty, fly copy on
instagram right, yep, where elsecan somebody connect with?
Speaker 2 (49:50):
you, justinblackmancom is the easiest
place to go, and then if youwant to hear a little bit more
about the whole feelings aregross thing just go to
justinblackmancom.
Speaker 4 (50:00):
Slash feelings okay, right on right well, it's that
time, dear listener.
Speaker 1 (50:06):
Until the next time you see us or hear from us, take
care, be blessed, and we'll seeyou in the next episode take
care bye.
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