Mastering FinPub Copy: Insights from a Top Chief

FinPub Pro is produced by The Financial Marketing Summit, the #1 networking and marketing conference for financial newsletter publishers, trader educators, and digital financial media.

John Newtson, host and founder of The Financial Marketing Summit can be reached via LinkedIn at John Newtson

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:02):
All right, hey everyone, I am back today with
Patrick Bevey, and if you don'tknow who Patrick is, then you
obviously haven't been aroundnewsletters, you haven't been
around Agora, you haven't beenaround MarketWise, you haven't
been around FinPub that muchbecause Patrick has been
consistently one of the top copychiefs in the industry.
For anyone who doesn't know,first, over at Stansberry you
wrote a ton of great promos,classic promos yourself.

(00:24):
You've chiefed amazing teams.
You were on a year ago.
We had a great conversation andsince then a lot's changed
Awesome to have you back, man.

Speaker 2 (00:34):
It's great to be back , john.
I know a ton's changed for me,a ton's changed for the market,
so I'm excited to be here justto talk through it all man Like
help us get on the right foot.

Speaker 1 (00:44):
Yeah, let's um, let's talk about that.
So it's been a year roughly um.
The last we were talking it waswe were kind of talking bear
markets.
Um how do you see the kind oflike, how do you see this the
from a promotional standpointand kind of the industry this
last year?
How did you see it kind ofevolve from your vantage point?

Speaker 2 (01:03):
it was pretty bullish .
You know it was way.
The outcome was way morebullish than I anticipated.
But the nice thing aboutworking in this industry is that
if you have a viewpoint, youcould be early.
You could be wrong.
You could be early, you can beright.
Sometimes it's hard to tell thedifference, but if you're paying
attention to what's selling andyou're not trying to force
something on the market, youtend to do all right.

(01:24):
So I think I'm biased towardsthe downside only because I
think things have just gonebonkers for so long and I have
this natural.
I also like riding in bearmarkets.
Not that I would wish one on, Iwon't wish one on us, don't
worry.
But if it happens, then I feellike I have an edge.
So I'm not going to freeze upin a bear market, so kind of
like honey badger, honey badgerdon't care, yeah.

(01:53):
So so yeah, that was, that wasthe outlook then.
But sometimes the market willcontinue longer than you, than
it should, or you think it will,and but that's reality, right?
That's the moment and you'reselling in that moment.
So you have to stay wedded towhat the customer's beliefs are,
and so I could have a beliefand act a certain way with my
portfolio over the long term.
But in the short term I couldact entirely different in our

(02:14):
business, because you can't sella bearish idea in the middle of
a bullish market.
You could test and find outwhere you are, where the line is
, what the interest is, but itcould be a huge waste of time,
which is the greatestopportunity cost of all.
That's the worst possible thingyou could do is waste time on
an idea that doesn't make sense,because then, even if the

(02:34):
market does turn in your favorlater on, the copy might not fit
.
You'd have to write the wholedarn thing over again.
So I kind of have two minds onit.
I have my own view about wherethe market's going, just as a
handicapper slash investormyself, you know.
And then I have my real worldspectacles for when I'm writing
copies, sitting down trying tomeet the market where it is.

Speaker 1 (02:52):
Yeah, yeah, and that's the.
It's almost like I almost thinkof, like writing promo, and fin
pub is a little bit liketrading, where it's like you're
trying to catch short tomedium-term trends and you can't
, you really can't.

Speaker 2 (03:11):
You can have a long-term perspective, but that
doesn't affect today's trade.
Yeah, and sometimes it works inyour favor.
You can't control the market,right?
Nobody can.
But the promo that I just wrotefor Paradigm, which is off to a
huge start.
It's called the AmericanBirthright.
It's the $150 trillion trustfund promo that folks might've
seen on the internet.
It's off to a great start,knock on wood.

(03:31):
Never want to toot my own hornabout anything, especially in
advance, but it's a good startand it was a risk writing it
because, excuse me, it'sessentially a commodities promo,
right At a time where AI andcrypto were hot.
I started working on this lastyear and this is a bit on
handicapping the markets andlooking forward.
I just had a sense that this isgoing to turn, and sometimes

(03:54):
you're right, sometimes you'rewrong, and I was willing to bet
my time on this because gold wasinching up.
You can see the big picturewith China withdrawing these
commodities from the US pullingback.
You knew as soon as Trump wonthat he was going to smooth the
way in a second term and helpunlock some of these minerals
that have been trapped fordecades, if not centuries.
So it just seemed like a saferbet to me than it might have to

(04:17):
the average copywriter.
I took a chance on it and, man,it could have gone the wrong
way.
It could have gone if goldcrashed and sentiment cratered.
There's no amount of good copythat's going to sell it.
You know, it doesn't matter whoyou are, but if the market does
break your way, it feels like awonderful, like a tailwind
right.
It gives you a chance and sothe market gave me a chance and
so this happened to line up.

(04:41):
And it's also a departure forJim Rickards, who this is
written for.
He's typically more of abearish themed analyst.
I don't think he's a perma bear, but all of his biggest promos,
essentially the past severalyears, have been bearish.
So it was a risk in terms oftone for him.
Like, how do you, how do youwrite for this?
Incredibly accomplished, youknow, half century experience in
DC, kind of guru who's cut histeeth with bear their stories,

(05:05):
but you're flipping bullishunder a Trump administration
it's.
It wasn't exactly clear cut, butI'm glad.
I'm glad it appears to beworking.
I don't want to jinx it, butbut yeah, there's looking
forward as a risk as acopywriter and it's often safer
just to stay with what's working, and that's what a lot of
people do.
I just can't do that because Ijust get sick to my stomach.
Honestly, I can't.

(05:25):
I don't want to write anotherAI promo until something really
magical does happen in AI and Iknow that's crazy to say,
because it seems like somethingmagical happens every day, but
in a way that makes it lessspecial and overwhelming.
So you almost need a highwatermark in something.
You need a moment to come along.
That's like the chat GPT moment.
We're all sort of waiting forthat.

(05:46):
I just personally don't haveany interest in writing about AI
until that happens or until Ican connect the dots in a way
that paints the picture ofwhat's happening.
That's a bit of what goes oninside my head.
I just gave you a window ofbabble into what goes on inside
my head thinking about thisstuff.
I don't know if that's helpfulor not.

Speaker 1 (06:04):
No, it is.
It's very interesting to mebecause a few things right.
When I listen to you talk, theone of one of the things I think
about is that you started thislast year and we did end the end
of the year very bullishcommodities as a bullish idea
it's not something we see muchanymore Records and commodity

(06:26):
right.
I mean just like you don't seetoo much of it, right.
So Rickards, like you said,tended to have a lot of big
bearish promos.
He's kind of known as being thegold guy.
Commodities traditionally wasalso kind of one of those things
that you would see is kind oflike hey, stocks go down,
commodities might go up, and soit is even on the profit side
side.
There is like a bearish elementto it and to me this is

(06:47):
interesting because, like we'vebeen tracking with the, with all
the folks in fms, pro discordand at the summit, like the
first three weeks of the year,the end of 2024 banner, I mean
like people were having some ofthe best years they've ever had
and then, like around the lastweek of January, kind of
sentiment did drop back endsales.

(07:08):
We're getting more difficultfor a lot of folks.
We're seeing on the front end alittle bit more like I won't
say it's bad or anything, it'sjust it's more blah.
It was right.

Speaker 2 (07:19):
Oh yeah.
So, many things that, yeah, somany things happen.
That's the thing Like when,when, when, what you're excited
about happening.
It's sort of like being a kidon christmas, right?
You, you look forward tochristmas, or you look forward
to your birthday, whatever theheck holiday you're looking
forward to and then it getsthere and you know there's this
high and then does it meet yourexpectation or exceed it, does
it fall beneath your expectation?

(07:40):
And then you know, towards theend of the day, you feel down
because because it alreadyhappened and you have to wait a
whole other year for it tohappen again, or you don't know
when it's going to happen againin terms of a bull market.
So I think that's the psychologythat plays out among our
investors and among our copyteams.
You had the Bitcoin reserve topoint to, and an idea like that
is way more exciting when it'sin the future than when it

(08:00):
actually happens.
There's almost no way thereality of a Bitcoin reserve
could ever measure up to whatyou think it could be in the
weeks or months leading up to it.
And then that's what happened.
I think that happens in a lotof different ways, and then
copywriters run out of steam.
The market kind of runs out ofdirection and you're left
sitting out there adrift at seawith no breeze, just wondering

(08:22):
when the next one's going tokick up at sea, with no, no
breeze.

Speaker 1 (08:24):
You know, like just wondering when the next one's
gonna kick up.
Yeah, and the the fact thatyou're doing a commodities promo
here um it, how do I put it?
Commodities used to be like amainstay of the industry, like
it used to be like, like, rightdown the middle was commodity
investing.

(08:46):
It was a very robust part of theindustry.
Then over the last 10 years,especially during the big bull
markets, you had crypto, youhave all this stuff.
Commodities became a smallerpart of the industry.
It's become less or harder tosell.
Other than Jim Rickards, wedon't see a lot of big commodity

(09:07):
givers that have had a lot ofsuccess, and so it's really it's
just a very interesting dynamicto me and I do wonder if you
know, you think of all thesethings.
You have technological advances.
We have a completely changingglobal security order that's
going to affect supply chains.
It's going to have effects oncommodity chains.
Like, are we maybe going tostart to see kind of a return to

(09:31):
some of those more almost likeromantic themes of FinPub?
That, yeah, I mean.
What do you think on that?

Speaker 2 (09:40):
I sure hope so.
That's what I'm.
I mean, I'm trying to lean intoit because I miss writing for
those themes.
When I came into the businessyou're right there was entire
wings of these groups that weredevoted to commodities.
It was one of the best-sellingpublications you could possibly
have, whether it was oil or goldor silver or whatever.
Even uranium had its moment.

(10:01):
It's a lot of fun.
There's a romance to it, forsure, and it's real world stuff.
You know, in a world that'sdriven by nothing like fake
paper money and fake experts andgovernments that don't know
what the heck they're doing,like this is something to hold
on to.
So there is a romance to it andthere is an appeal to it.
But the downside of it is it'snot proprietary right, so it

(10:21):
does.
You're never going to have thesingularity or the specificity
of an NVIDIA chip in gold,because gold is a generic
element that theoretically,anybody could find.
Some people stumble over it ina stream and pluck a nugget out
of the earth, and so it can'treally compete in a world where
specificity is demanded in termsof like this is new, this is

(10:44):
special, this is different.
The golden silver never knewspecial, different.
That's part of their appeal butbut it in a world full of shiny
objects and shiny objecthunters, they they often take a
back seat.
And so I I knew in working onthis theme with with Jim, like
he was amazing to work with, hadso many insights and his whole
life story just is incredible.

(11:04):
But I knew working with himthat we couldn't just come at
this directly, no matter howmuch we wanted to.
There's just not a chance.
It had to be big, political,emotional theme to get into this
story and we had to make itappeal to a broader audience
that doesn't just call out tofolks who are already interested
in commodities because they'renot a big enough audience.
So that's part of the challengewhen you're writing for these

(11:26):
themes.
It's just like casting a widenet on a subject that's not
necessarily.
I mean it is broad, I mean Icould contradict myself.
Commodities are in a way, broadIf you consider the fact they
go into everything with an onswitch.
Okay, they're broad, but theydon't really have a broad
audience.
They don't have fans.
There's nobody asking the CEOof Newmont to sign their bra,
you know, like the way that, uh,nvidia CEO is literally

(11:49):
autographing women's.
You know chess and bras, likeat their conferences.
That's how excited people areabout AI.
It's nuts.
He's like a rockstar.
You're never going to see thatin the mining business, right?
Um, or maybe we will.
If we do, it'll be a sign atthe top.
But yeah, that's why it's sucha huge divide when you're
writing for it.
And crypto I think we talkedabout this in the past.
When crypto came along, it alsokind of broke investors' brains

(12:13):
in terms of their expectationsof what's possible, like how
much money can you make in ashort period of time?
Well, yeah, with crypto youcould have made a ton more than
anything else if you bought theright ones at the right time.
So it it.
It also had a way of excitingpeople but making everything
else seem incredibly tame.
It's.
It's sort of like you know Icould think of a million
politically incorrect examplesthat I won't share what that

(12:35):
means I could, but you know whatI mean.
It's sort of just like a orhere's a, here's a safe one.
You walk into a.
You walk into a golden corralbuffet which is like the bottom
of the dregs and somehow someway there's like a prime choice
age, like ribeye sitting thereand you know your steak right
and you see it there and youknow that's a hundred dollar

(12:56):
piece of steak next to theschlock.
You know that's been fedthrough a machine, like you
could spot it.
It's just it stands out.
So that's that's.
That's comparative to whathappens in our business
sometimes.

Speaker 1 (13:05):
Yeah, for sure, that's a great great example or
analogy, um.
So let's talk a little bitabout how you changed.
So when we last talked, um, uh,you weren't and you're doing
what you're doing now, um, whichis, you've actually formed a
copy agency.
That kind of works inside ofgore for companies, right?

Speaker 2 (13:23):
yeah, this was, uh, joe Schrieffer's genius idea.
Like it was not my idea, Iwould.
I was.
I recognized its brillianceimmediately because it was just
what I wanted and needed, and Ilove the idea of working back at
Agora.
I want to make Agora greatagain, so to speak.
You know like Agora is notanywhere near its heyday levels
right now, but man, we're goingto get there, I know it, and I

(13:45):
what what Bill and Mark did forthis business and everybody else
in it like to help grow.
It is so special to me becauseI got my start there and I I
desperately want them back ontop.
I desperately want them to bethriving, successful business
with lots of great competitionbetween the affiliates.
And so this was a chance to stepback into the fold and write
for anybody.

(14:05):
I wanted to, and bring some ofmy best copywriters from back at
Legacy and we could write foranybody across the business,
which is appealing because ifone thing goes wrong, you go
through what I went through atLegacy, where everything's going
so well, and then the businessis completely dismantled.
You realize how little controlyou have, no matter what kind of

(14:25):
a job you do.
There could always be somebowling ball that comes and
knocks the pins down and thenyou have to start all over again
.
Well, the beauty of this newscenario is that it's sort of
decentralized.
We can write for any group, soif one group is struggling, but
we could be a hero and try tojump in and help if we feel
passionately.
Or we could just follow themoney and work for the ones that
are thriving and, uh, insertourselves in there and try to

(14:46):
help them succeed even more.
So it's it was an easy pitch tomy guys who joined the team.
There's six of us now and umplus me, and we're having a
great time and we're justgetting, you know, diving into
it.
It's a challenge, though, tryingto get to know so many
different people in so manydifferent businesses, but we
knew that going in it's just athat's.
The learning curve for us hasbeen, instead of learning, one

(15:07):
set of gurus.
If you're inside one businessas an employee, multiply that by
three.
Multiply all the marketers bythree, all the copy chiefs,
everybody in between.
So it's a lot of putting facesto names and figure out who does
what.
But we're all moving past thatnow and I'm feeling really good
about it.
I'm feeling great about it, andagora is such a wonderful
learning laboratory.
It's always been that way.

(15:27):
You know, with the zambesireport that comes out every day,
there's a lot of sharing thatgoes on within that community.
Um, you can't really hoardideas because it's so obvious
when something becomessuccessful, uh, so it's.
I feel like they're primallypositioned to grow and, uh,
there's lots of talent cominginto agora now too, so it feels
like it feels like old schoolagora.
It feels like the place to be.

Speaker 1 (15:47):
That's awesome that's awesome, that that that kind of
like, um, entrepreneurial,entrepreneurial kind of feel was
always one of the strengths ofof the that culture and
ecosystem, and so like hearingthat that's like that aspect of
it is really like kind of beingleveraged here, with like having
a group of really just likeblockbuster copywriters being

(16:09):
able to kind of hunt projectsacross the business and find
opportunities, is seems like aperfect fit for their model and
really just really exciting as acopywriter to be able to like
say, yeah, I don't want to dothat project right now, like
this is an idea that I have,this is somebody that fits with,
or I love what he's doing, um,for today, but I don't want to
get married to that guy.

(16:30):
Uh, maybe because you know,there's all kinds of reasons
from a creative standpoint,professional business, whatever,
yeah and speaking ofcommodities like the, the, oh,
the, there's all kinds ofreasons not to.

Speaker 2 (16:41):
From a creative standpoint, professional
business whatever.
And speaking of commodities,the most frustrating thing about
commodities is they're the most.
Commodity gurus tend to leadthe most romantic newsletter
lives right, and they're highlyvolatile.
They're fascinating, they'resome of the best writers and
thinkers in the business, butthey just blow off and disappear
for any reason.
It's a trend, it's an insidejoke.

(17:01):
For me in the business I'veseen so many amazingly talented
commodity gurus just blow off.
You know, I mean everybody fromDoug Casey.
You know, like he doesn't, buthe doesn't need the money.
You know like he's.
Everybody loves Doug Casey.
You got to love Doug Casey.
He's a, he's the icon.
He's on the Mount Rushmore buthe's you can't write for him now
.
And there's guys like EB Tuckerwho's amazing, like he has his
own newsletter on Substack nowhe's doing his own thing.
It's just like down the line,like you just keep going down

(17:23):
the line of all these greatcommodity gurus.
And yeah, so it's nice to be ina position like we are at Agora
, because we could take our pickfrom across all the businesses.
If one guy happens to leave, itdoesn our agency.
So I like that a lot.
Um, that's been a lot of fun.
I did have, um, I did.
I know, last time we talked, wedid talk about ideas and what's

(17:43):
working or not.
I got that.
I got some of that up my sleevetoo.
I know that when we talk aboutcommodities, I'm, I'm, I'm
detecting a lot of eye rolls.
I think it might be a lot ofguys.
Just don't, not from you, john,but I just.
I can feel it.
I can feel it from the audienceout there.
I'm sensing it.
I'm sensing it saying like I'llgo, for it's like that old
scooby-doo line I'll go firstafter you, I'll go first after
you, you'll be the first one inthe door that gets shot, patrick
, fine, okay, I'll do it, I'lltake it off, uh, but yeah, we, I

(18:07):
have plenty of that to talkabout too yeah, what else?

Speaker 1 (18:10):
so what other themes are out there that you see are
working right now?

Speaker 2 (18:14):
so, okay, obviously you know tech and I ai has been
perennial with crypto, but butbut I mean it's what's the most
important thing to know about.
It is like meeting the marketwhere they are, like their level
of sophistication.
And I see a lot of writerscoming in who are just writing
to an audience that doesn'texist, writing for a time that
doesn't exist.
And I think certain events thatoccur, whether it's something

(18:39):
like the launch of chat, gpt orit's something like the
presidential election they cancompletely flip a market and
they could have a drastic effecton what works and what doesn't.
So Trump's election railroadeda whole bunch of packages.
They just couldn't work.
That was it.
And then you just have to dealwith it and you have to figure
out well, can we pivot or not?
Maybe not, but the problem Isee in a lot of copy out there

(19:01):
for AI and crypto is it's sortof just like me too derivative
copy and it's focused on nextNVIDIA type stuff, which can
work.
Some of it, if it's executedwell, it can work, but it just
gets tired.
It gets so tired.
I mean our readers get exposedto so many of these messages and
I think sometimes the challengeis remembering that fact and

(19:21):
then trying to serve upsomething that's really specific
and unique.
So I think the key, the keything to understand, is like
where the reader's head's at, ofcourse, and what they've
already seen, and connecting thedots in a way that's
fascinating, that tells the nextstory, the next chapter in the
story of of or of AI or crypto.
So that's been the challenge,but they are some of the safest

(19:42):
things to write about.
It's just that, like I said amoment ago, you wouldn't want to
be writing a Bitcoin or cryptoreserve promo now.
I think that's crazy.
I think it's just it's alreadyhappened and it was a nothing
burger and maybe it'll besomething great.
Maybe they'll add to it andfind a way to make it what it
should be, but it's sort ofalready run its course.

(20:04):
That story has run its courseand it would have to take a
different twist or turn to beexciting.
So then there's, of course, theTrump-Musk axis there.
So I mean there's a lot oflow-hanging fruit after the
election.
Course, he's going to do this,he's going to do that, his first
executive order.
Of course that's smart stuff towrite um.
But then the election happensand and the inauguration happens

(20:25):
, and they're.
They're in the real world andit becomes much harder to and
talk about a moving target.
There's so much coming out ofthat office it's very difficult
for copywriters to keep up, andmusk is moving with such frantic
speed it's hard to keep up withhim as well.
Um, this whole Doge story, forinstance, like so many live
themes are embedded in that Dogekind of storyline.
But copywriters are strugglingto keep up and because the

(20:47):
minute you write something likeas a prediction, they go out and
actually do it.
And then what?

Speaker 1 (20:52):
So you got to start over.
That's Matt Paulson, who's thefounder of MarketBeat at FMS.
He talked about a promo and hewas like and then the problem
with that promo is that theprediction came true and so it
was over.
It's like that's exactly thekind of thing that happens with
a forecast promo.
If it actually is very timelyand correct is well, okay, it
happened, it's done.

Speaker 2 (21:13):
It's so true, and that's why what I've been
telling my guys lately is that,especially the macro guys, like
if you're looking for somethingto write, I'm calling it like I
don't know if this has been usedbefore, john, but I'm calling
it meta macro.
Like meta macro is where youshould be right now, like
talking about the big picture.
So, for instance, like what Imean by that is talking about

(21:34):
finding the hidden meaning inall these events that are
happening today, or finding orexploring the feeling it creates
and the effects it creates onthe markets.
Like that's not going to be outof date.
You know that's not going to goaway.
And I think a lot of guys arefrustrated because they come
into the business and they'retrying to write something.
And I thought of this littleexample I was going to share
with you.
I don't know if this makessense or not.

(21:56):
I'd like to tell I've spent allthese stories to try to make it
real.
Um, you know, imagine if youwalked into the first party ever
on earth, if there'd never beena party before, and you walk
into this party and you're inthe room and it's just like a
regular party, like what we'dknow today, like there's there's
, there's beer in the fridge.
There's, there's music on,there's maybe a van and people
are mingling and there's a bunchof like finger foods and

(22:17):
Tostitos or whatever.
Maybe there's a game on orthere's whatever, something.
It's just a normal party.
If nobody had ever had thatexperience before, you could
simply just walk into that roomand comment on what you see,
what's obvious, and it would benovel, it'd be interesting,
right?
Like, oh, wow, they got likechips and dip.
Oh my God, like amazing, likethat's.
That's sort of like how it iswhen you're writing about a new

(22:37):
trend and there's low-hangingfruit, like you don't have to
work that hard and you shouldn't, right, you just talk about
what you see and you can just,you know, just have a little fun
on the surface, like skitteringalong the surface.
But we're actually in theweirdest party ever right now,
like this is like, and peopleare walking into this weirdest
party, where there's a bandplaying on the ceiling and
there's, like you know, the hostis walking around with a punch
bowl in their head filled withgoldfish and uh, you know, and

(23:00):
there's people dancing on thebottom of the pool like upside
down and like it's all thiscrazy stuff going on and the
copywriters are walking intothat environment, talking about
describing it like a normalparty, right, they're just
saying like, oh man, like lookat these chips and dip.
And I'm like that guy over there, like he's like, is he homeless
?
Like what are you?
Like you're talking, likethey're talking about super
service level stuff and theywere just walked into this crazy

(23:20):
party and treating it like it'sjust a generic you know, like,
and that only works when it'sthe first party ever.
It only works when it's likethe first rounds of some new
thing that you're writing about.
So I think that's the biggestchallenge for copywriters right
now is just stepping back,zooming out, just thinking about
, like what, what does thisreally mean?
You know not just what do I see, but what does it really mean?

(23:43):
Cause, if you write about justwhat's in the headlines, you end
up writing a crypto reservepromo, right?
Or you end up writing a nextNVIDIA promo, or you just or,
you just end up just you're.
You're constantly chasing,chasing, chasing, like you're
never going to get ahead of themarket, and I think the other
part of that is just like thislooseness or tightness of spirit
of what you're writing, likeyou don't have to be so tight.

(24:04):
You don't have to like be sospecific and pin yourself down
to a prediction that's crystalclear.
It's really just about theeffect of what's coming.
You can use your imaginationand paint a picture of how
whatever seems to be happeningnow is going to evolve and
affect the markets, and affectcivilization and the future, and
and the market will forgive youfor that if it's authentic to

(24:25):
what their actual experiencesand what their feelings are in
the moment.
So I think I think there's justlike um, at a time like this,
the dumbest thing to do is,right on the nose, like write
something like punchy on thenose.
It's crazy because it's all thelow hanging fruit is gone and
and nobody.
And it seems outdated in a waytoo, because the market's moving
too fast.
It's risky, right.
It's sort of like yourprediction that got that

(24:47):
actually came to be.
You're right I talk about beingright in the worst way possible
.
You write a promo that'spending and then it happens, and
then you're screwed and you'retrying to scramble and figure
out how to rewrite.
So I think I don't know I don'tknow if that you know.
I don't know I haven't refinedthis message very well, but I
don't know if that makes perfectsense, but it's just like a
looseness of spirit.

Speaker 1 (25:05):
I do, and I like the idea of like, kind of like the
meta macro in a sense.
So in November this was whattwo days past the election I had
a conference down in Miami andwe had one of the guys that was
on one of the panels was glenn.
He was the former head of usnews for the wall street journal

(25:25):
.
Um, and we were just afterwards, you know, sitting.
A bunch of us were sitting outon the patio, um, you know,
smoking cigars and drinking andtalking, and he said, um, we're,
you know, I was like grillinghim for, like, what were your
big ideas about?
Like where the country is andthings like that.
And he's like, you know, andthis is before Doge or Doge came
out or anything like thathappened.
And he's like, you know, I'mlooking at this and I think

(25:47):
you're missing the point If youthink this is the second Trump
presidency.
I say this is the first Muskpresidency and that this is that
this is going to be like a partof our politics going forward
for quite some time now, andthat, to me, is like, okay, you

(26:07):
can talk about all those AI andDoge stories and all the other
things that are related to Musk,but inside of that meta idea
which has longer legs.
That's more to me.
As a person.
I find that kind of ideafascinating, just like I find
the idea of the changing globalsecurity order fascinating,
right, like there is phenomenalpeople out there like Sarah
Payne.
She's an academic at the NavalWar College and she's talking

(26:31):
about the difference betweenlook at, a maritime power, like
what the US has been for thelast 67 years, versus a
continental power like the USused to be, or like Russia and
China is.
And then are we looking atshifting to a continental power?
Because talking aboutthreatening Canada, even like

(26:51):
slightly in Mexico, like thissuggests a strategic move toward
the continental power which issuch a dramatic change of what
the world is that, if you go inthat direction, the amount of
stories and how that's going toimpact everything.
And this is not tech related,right, there's tech stories in
it, but it's a meta idea, a bigidea of the world.

(27:15):
And to me that that kind oftrue, like there's room, there's
a romance to like that bigmacro story, the geopolitical
story that we don't evenapproach anymore because, like
so much of the industry's movedto trading versus macro.
Even so, even within the macrostories there's fewer people
total.

Speaker 2 (27:33):
But yeah, oh, those are fascinating themes, I mean I
, I I'm with you on that and Ithink I think those are worth
working.
I think it's just a question ofdoes it match up with the right
guru?
And then, what part of thestory do you focus on?
And I was.
I was actually on a call withuh, with Porter, on a research
project, uh, and he brought upsomething very interesting.
He brought up this idea of howthe Ukrainians had taken down or

(27:55):
taken out of a Russian warshipwith a store-bought drone, and
I'd never read that story myself, but when the moment he said it
I thought, wow, I mean, youthink, well, it's asymmetric
warfare.
Probably could link that toasymmetrical returns, which
would be kind of cool.
And then, what does it reallymean for the global order?
What does it mean about how weproject power and what the
future is going to look like?

(28:16):
What does even what isquote-unquote safety and
stability even look like, andwhat is the cost of it?
And um and there, and are wegoing to go through a period of
time where those two are odds,the old world and the new world?
It's really ugly and messy,probably.
Um, could that time period begiven a name, absolutely.
I mean there's that fourthturning right there again.
So it's like there's a or somevariation of that for so and

(28:38):
then, and then the move to takeum canada or greenland you know,
which is like still lists alittle chuckle, but it's not a
zero percent chance, not a zero.
And it's not a hundred percentchance obviously either, but it
it?
If we're, if we're in an areawhere the lines of the map could
possibly be redrawn, thenpeople need to adjust their
focus and open up and loosentheir minds up a little bit.

(28:59):
There's that concept.
One of my favorite concepts isthat of the Overton window,
which is sort of that phrasethat's used to describe what is
considered possible or probableby the general public or by your
audience in general.
And if the window is shut orbarely open, it just means that
audience is not willing toconsider many different ideas or

(29:20):
much deviation from the present.
If it's wide open or blown open, then that means that, wow, it
seems like anything is possible,anything can happen.
Holy crap, I have to be readyfor anything.
And that's sort of where we arenow.
We're in this world of theOverton window is wide open,
it's maybe been busted out ofits sockets there and it's
flapping in the breeze, and alot of people would prefer just

(29:40):
to focus on the same old, sameold, because it feels safe and
convenient.
But they're making a hugemistake, whether it's investors
or copywriters, and I thinkthat's something that the ideas
you're talking about and youbring up.
They appeal to me becausethey're in line with this.
They're exploring areas ofradical change taking place in
the world today, and wherethere's radical change, there's

(30:02):
radical profits to be had.
It goes without saying.
Like you don't even have toprove that that's just the truth
.
Of course you could prove it.
I could easily dig up examples,but but and I would if I was
writing it but, but, yes, I meanthat's like nobody should be
afraid about writing.
Now the thing is it just can'tbe political red meat Like you.
Just you wouldn't do that andsay rah, rah, usa, like we're
growing bigger every day.

(30:22):
You know you're not going tosay that, so you're going to
tell the story.
But what the heck does thatmean for the, for the, for the
reader?
What does it mean for themarkets?
What does it mean for, like,geopolitical tensions?
You know there's there's somuch wrapped up in that.
What does it mean for thecurrency?
Uh, there's infinite levels andlayers you can explore.
But yeah, man, I just love thatyou're into those ideas,
because that's to me that's agreat spot to be digging around

(30:44):
yeah, I love that stuff.

Speaker 1 (30:44):
I love like, like, like seeing how, like, like even
trading etfs in thisenvironment, right like the dax
has been up like straight upsince you know the beginning of
the year.
And like european defense, andlike you know you're not.
You're not selling the stocksin the us is hard to sell.
Like investing in internationalstocks, but there's plenty of
ETFs.
At this point I mean you can.

(31:05):
But just like people are muchmore comfortable buying ETFs and
ETFs on these plays are reallyinteresting and there's just so
much meat.
That's why I keep saying this isa newsletter writer's market,
somebody who's really into ideasand what's happening in the
economy and how it impactsinvestments.

(31:25):
Like not just the trading.
Like this is like I don't know.
It's like it could be like aboom time, just in terms of the
ideas.
There's so many big fundamentalthings that are changing that
like to talk about um, andthat's not to discount the, the
value of having like a tradingbusiness and things like that.
It's just that this is not todiscount the, the value of
having like a trading businessand things like that.
It's just that this is a.
To me, a unique feature of the,the current time that we're in

(31:49):
is that for better or for worse.
A lot of stuff's changing andit's.
We're gonna all feel thechanges, and that's from an
investment and promo standpoint.

Speaker 2 (32:02):
And that's that's that creates two emotions, that
creates excitement anddiscomfort, massive discomfort,
and and it's unexpressed becauseyou can't like, everybody's so
caught up in a silly small talk.
Nobody's talking about it andbecause they're afraid to talk
about it, because they don'twant to picture it, they don't
know what to do.
But there's an unmet need.
The reader has an unmet needfor somebody to explain to them

(32:24):
that they're not crazy and thenwhat they're seeing is really
happening.
In fact, it may be worse orbetter than what they think,
depending on what the story isand how.
There's a simple way tounderstand what's happening and
and protect yourself from profit.
There's this is a classicnewsletter architecture, but
it's, but it's, it's notreinventing the wheel, it's
really.
But that's to me, that's thegusher that you want to tap as a

(32:45):
copywriter that well of emotionthat's unexpressed, unmet.
You know unmet needs and who'snot meeting it, like society and
mainstream media and uh, butthat they're causing people pain
, or you know whether it's FOMOor there's just pure, pure fear,
dreading the future If it cameto AI, like they need somebody

(33:06):
to connect the dots for them orat least to confirm that they're
not crazy and that what they'reseeing is true, and I think if
you can find a way to do that ina unique way as a copywriter,
you're golden, like you got halfthe battle right there and you
just got to hope you have theright.
Of course you need the rightproduct and the right editor,
right sell.
You can't conjure that up outof thin air.
But yeah, you're.
If you got the right solutionon, then you're, then you're
done.

Speaker 1 (33:27):
You're pretty much home free yeah, yeah, um, and
that's uh.
I know when you're saying thatyou see a lot of kind of just
like a little bit half-assedcopied copy out there like this
is just um.
Another thing Matt Paulson hadsaid he was talking about how
because on the acquisition side,working with large publishers,

(33:47):
you have groups like MarketBeat,you have it's Today, you have
other affiliate CPA models.
They're so good anymore that onthe first day or so that an
offer goes out to them, that'sworking.
They're going to show it to amillion people and so the
lifecycle of those ideas um hasshortened because they're going

(34:08):
to.
They're so good at getting itout to everybody and getting it
in their face from so manydifferent angles, so quickly at
scale that like, if you'recopying other ideas, like those
ideas are just like you know youhave diminishing returns on
kind of just that kind ofhalf-assed I'm going to copy.
And there's people I mean thisis not, this is gonna sound bad.

(34:28):
I don't mean it badly, but I'mlike there are plenty of those
writers and kind of people inthe publishing business who most
of their career is essentiallylike I'm going to just wait till
somebody else comes up with anidea and then I'm going to write
a version of that and that'swhat they do and it's.
Oh yeah, it was a lot less of aproblem.
You know you had a longertimeline, but faster, you know,

(34:50):
faster timelines mean less timefor ideas to work, time to
market is is more and moreimportant.
Um, I don't know how if youguys have seen like a like a big
shift in using ai to speed upyour promo process, but I think
that's a huge thing that, likepeople need to be thinking about
too.

Speaker 2 (35:07):
Oh, I love it.
Yeah, you're right, I meancause at some point.
I mean that's it's going tospeed up the knockoffs for sure.
Right, you'll be able to justupload any promo in there and
just say like give in there.
And just say like give mesomething that sounds like this,
but it's like 90% different,you know, or whatever it has to
be.
And I don't know what theprompt will be, but that'll be
sort of the nature of the promptand it'll spit out something

(35:28):
that's decent and um.
But the thing is, then we won'tneed those copywriters anymore.
This one's like I'll just knockmyself off over and over again
and just have fresh leads Likewhy would we need some B or C
level copywriters to do it?
So that's like those guys arereally just seeding their own
demise If they're not moving upthe ladder, moving up the food
chain.
I think that's what everycopywriter should be focused on
today, like it's a difficulttime if you're new and breaking

(35:52):
in, unless you're superiorlytalented.
If you have a great talent andgreat desire, you can make it in
this business a hundred percent.
But it's not as easy orforgiving as it once was and you
don't have as much timenecessarily.
But um.
But for as far as ai goes, man,I use it every day.
I love it, I love it.
I love it like I.
I I've used it to writesubheads when I'm tired and
don't want to write subheads,and I'll refine them.

(36:12):
I'll use to give me lift noteideas and I'll go back and edit
quite a bit.
I'll use it on research almostexclusively.
Um, compared to google, I'll.
If it points my way to a book,I'll read the book.
But man, do I love AI forresearch.
I use it for image generation.
I think Shutterstock is dead.
I think they're useless.
I think Grok AI is like.
The images it generates are soincredible and funny.

(36:34):
Like I actually asked it togenerate an image of Trump on
Mount Rushmore for my birthrightpromo that I did with Rickards
and I actually went to chat withGPT first and it wouldn't do it
.
It wouldn't do it.
It's like, oh, we can't, wecan't do that for a public
figure.
I'm like, come on, it's like,what a Karen.
So so I go over.
So I go over to Grok and Grok'slike yep, sure, and of course

(36:57):
it botched it the first fewtimes and uh, but the final, the
final rendering, it came out sogood I threw it in the promo.
It gave me a picture of Trump'sface on a um, on a dollar bill
or something like that, and itlooked like it, looked like you
could.
It was engraved on thereyesterday.
It just looked so real and it'sjust you couldn't.
You couldn't go to an artistand get that, like you know.

(37:17):
Or if you did, it would take alot of money and a lot of time
to get the right artist lined up.
But I think it's very freeingfrom a design perspective.
You're thinking, man, I justneed the right, visually
compelling image to make thispoint.
I even used it to generate thoseimages in Birthright of what
the boom towns of the 19th and20th century looked like before
and after their gold rushes oroil rushes and oil rushes.

(37:37):
And those pictures I mean Idon't have time.
I don't have time to go througharchives and dig up actual
pictures, but Grok served themup immediately.
Another thing I'm using it fora lot is handling objections
right.
So the biggest thing, one ofthe biggest things about writing
copy is you have, if you don'thandle objections, you fail,
because the reader or viewersees it and has an unanswered

(38:00):
objection you didn't take careof and they're gone, they'll
blow.
So you could upload your entirescript into one of these GPTs or
rock and just say, like I wantyou to give me 20 skeptical
questions.
So I used that for this recordspromo and I turned a bunch of
those questions into the Q&A atthe end and then I just riffed
on you know with Jim on the endand then I just riffed on you

(38:22):
know with with Jim on the um, onthe answers.
But it, it's, uh, it's, it'sgreat for speeding up that part
of the process.
I don't think it's good foridea creation at all yet, but I
don't think it's very creativeat all.
I think it's just all knowingand connected to all knowledge.
I mean, if we had you or I hadthe ability to zap knowledge
into our head, that we couldwrite it as fast as chat gpt.
It's just that we don't.

(38:42):
We have to rely on our frailmemories, um, and we don't have
any wi-fi.
So but, but it may get theresomeday and who knows, like I'm
open, I'm open to having havingit help me co-write if we do get
to that point.
It'd be crazy, not to though.

Speaker 1 (38:57):
Yeah, yeah, that's really interesting.
So let me switch gears here fora second.
Because you mentioned the Q&Aat the end, I have kind of a.
This is one of my copy geekythings the idea of these kind of
like elements that you use in apromo like that are like a Q&A

(39:19):
or like an involvement device,or in a video.
Like you know, tv like hasthere's a lot of things that
they do on tv that that thenielsen ratings and kind of
watching data has driven them todo, like the banners at the
bottom that are telling youwhat's coming next in the, in
the video.
Um, the teaser scripts or orthe teaser promos in the

(39:39):
beginning, things like that.
What kind of like stuff likethat?
These like kind of formatthings.
Um, do you kind of include inpromos that maybe other people
don't like, like that, like youknow, q a at the end for
specific objections, or do youthink about that kind of stuff?

Speaker 2 (39:56):
um, I I sometimes do.
I think I do it more on webinarsbecause it just feels like
that's part of the formula Onthe front end.
I try to leverage curiosity asmuch as I can and it's just more
of an actual pacing and teasingthat goes on rather than a
call-out, an explicit call-out.
I never said in this promo withRickards that, oh, we're going
to have a Q&A at the end,because I didn't want to call it

(40:18):
out because it wasn't an actuallive Q&A anyway.
So I didn't want to misleadpeople about that.
But although with webinars youcan, because if it's live you
could actually do that, it'sgreat.
But yeah, I think it could be.
I think of it more of like achain of like pulling somebody
through and having one layerunfold after another, and I like

(40:40):
having it slightly off kilter,I think.
I think I think it's almostlike there's different schools
of thought when it comes to this, but we're not, since we're not
exactly artists, you know.
It's like an art and a science.
I think it has elements of bothand and and.
I like things a little bit offkilter.
I like things to go wrong or Ilike things to appear like

(41:03):
somewhat odd, but not like whatthe heck is that I'm out of here
.
It's more just like slightlyincongruent or just I want
people to stop and wonder asthey go through the copy.
And that's sort of my, my ownengagement device is to try to
try to get them to feel that wayis to try to get them to feel
that way.
So in this example with Jim, wetalked about Trump's claim of

(41:26):
building 10 new American cities,which I thought was fascinating
the moment he said it.
It was very patriotic, but alsoa strange thing to say, because
nobody ever does that Like,what does that even mean?
And it kind of passed quicklyin the news cycle a year or so
ago.
But then I thought about it andgot with jim and we talked
about, like, the future and howcould, uh, what could be the
basis of these new cities?
How could this actually happen?

(41:47):
What if they had something todo with these vast untapped
minerals lying on federal lands,which is where he wants to
build the cities on federallands?
Um, so it's, it felt like a bitof a curveball and uh, and
patrick mckelvey is the chiefover paradigm brought up a
really good point we read thesection was like yeah, this
feels like it kind of comes outof nowhere.
I'm like you're right, it kindof does.
So I went based on his objection.

(42:08):
I inserted a line in theresaying like when you hear this,
it's probably gonna sound like alittle bit, you know, crazy or
like it's not gonna make anysense, but I promise it will in
a minute, just like I tried to.
That's one way to answer anobjection is to just acknowledge
it Even without answering it.
Just acknowledge the fact thatit's there.
That way people don't think,man, this guy's crazy, like no,
no, no, there's a whole point tothis.
We're going to get to that.
So if you kind of you don'thave to answer the objection

(42:30):
that would be awkward if Ianswered the objection there.
But if I simply acknowledge it,which I was so happy he brought
to me because I was so close tothis project, like we always do
in our promo.
But that's just another examplethere.

Speaker 1 (42:45):
I like that phrasing too in general, because it's one
of those things that it's kindof like a readership viewership
sale.
Like you open a loop and hey,we're going to explain this in a
minute, just hold on.
And so it's like okay, now I'msticking around just for that,
right?
So I definitely like that, theidea of like going to geeky mode

(43:06):
again of different ways toanswer objections.
I feel like there's some thingsthat like, uh, cause natural
objections, right, and some ofthose things you can remove
instantly in the next sentence.
And so, like you're sayingsomething like hey, I like take,
take, like a really crass kindof straight up claim of like I
turned you could turn 500 into amillion dollars, right,

(43:30):
theoretically, um, and thenthat's, that's kind of a, that's
bullshit, um kind of thing.
So if you, if you had thatclaim in there not that you
would do that anymore, probablyfrom a legal but like let's say
that this could happen, um, youwould then follow that up, if
you could, with an immediateproof element, saying that this
is true, even if you're going tocome back to it later.

(43:50):
But like you take, youunderstand that that whenever
you say something, there is areaction that's going to happen.
You hit it immediately beforemoving on, because you don't let
objections pile up.

Speaker 2 (44:01):
Yes, yeah yeah, there's, and there's so many
ways to do that.
You could do it byacknowledging immediately,
before moving on, because youdon't let objections pile up yes
, yeah, yeah, there's, andthere's so many ways to do that.
You could do it byacknowledging the audacity of
the claim you know, like youcould.
You could say like I know thatsounds crazy because, look, even
if you took and you could pickout the highest flying stock
there is, like, even if you putthat money into Nvidia at the
start, you wouldn't be anywhereclose to that.
So you may be wondering, like,what could possibly top that you

(44:23):
know like, and the right answeris like you're probably never
going to see that in yourlifetime, except for maybe once
or twice.
And this just happens to be oneof those opportunities.
I'm going to explain why in amoment.
So that's, in a way, it's likeI'm not answering the objection,
I'm just acknowledging.
I'm just saying I'm not tryingto blow smoke here, I'm not just
throwing big numbers at you toget you greedy and then take
your credit card, like I'm goingto explain everything before
you have to make any decisionwhatsoever.

(44:45):
So that's a bit of a more likearmor on the shoulder, like I
get you, you get me like I'm notplaying games here like, or.
Or you acknowledge how long itcould take.
You know, like I mean,depending on the nature of the
investment, if it's crypto,maybe it's like an overnight you
know sensation.
But if it's what?
If it?
But what if it's a way to dothat in 20 years?
Well, 20 years is a long time,but it's still a pretty awesome

(45:05):
return.
So what if you could plant aseed right now that costs $500
and you knew in 20 years it'd beworth a million?
Would that be boring to you?
Unfortunately, most investors,they fall asleep when I talk
like this because they want ittomorrow, but they're probably
going to end up losing everypenny.
You could, because they want ittomorrow, but they're probably
going to end up losing everypenny.
You know, like you could saysomething like that.

Speaker 1 (45:24):
That's a little more like stern and loving, like a
stern, loving parent.
Well, that's like, um thatclassic, classic direct mail
promo by Gary Benzavenga, um getrich slowly.
And it's like the exactopposite of what everyone else
was saying.

Speaker 2 (45:44):
Um, but it's a backend service and that's the
pick.
You could say look, these aremoonshots and 8 out of 10 of
them are going to be dead wrong.
8 out of 10 of these are goingto lose your money.
One or two of them are going tomake up for everything and then
some, and then give an exampleof that.
We've done that a million timesat the vc center.
So it's really just I I don'tmind, like I mean, like I don't
mind being open and honest aboutthat.

(46:05):
It's actually stronger becausewhen, if you're the reader or
the viewer and you're sayingbullshit, then I'm like I'm, I'm
acknowledging your, your callof bs right there, and I think
the other thing to do um changeyou really just don't see a lot
of guys do is like too many guysuse the um.
I feel like I'm lecturing.
This is crazy, but I feel likeI'm doing it for a good reason.
I want to help Um, so anyway,too many guys.

(46:27):
I feel like they they turn theanchor in these promos into a
yes man slash cheerleader andit's just sickening to me.
I'll read it.
I'll be like this is not real.
This never happens.
This is not what a realinterview sounds like, have you
watched a real interview?
And I think the interviewershould represent the reader.
The interviewer should be themost skeptical person on earth

(46:48):
and you will get to witnesstheir conversion over the course
of the script, like then.
So, as the viewer is beingconverted, the interviewer on
the viewer is being converted,the in the interviewer on his
screen is being converted, andthat's what I try to do.
If you look at the, the scriptwith aaron gensler did an
amazing job hosting um.
That's that's, that's his roleand that he executed flawlessly.

(47:09):
And it's important because,like, if you're cheerleading or
just agreeing with everything orworse, inserting facts that
support the case, why would aninterviewer help somebody he's
interviewing, like bycheerleading him and saying, I
know it's even better, you know,like it's just it's so fake and
I know the thing is like.
That doesn't mean it won't workat all.
Like, I think if you're writingin, if you're writing in the

(47:31):
middle of a massive bull marketor a hype cycle, the market's
extremely forgiving you or ahype cycle, the market's
extremely forgiving you can makelots of mistakes.
I saw that even at Legacy inpost-2020 when it was renting
money with all the Stimmy checks.
But that's not a normalenvironment.
That's not a normal environment.
You can't get away with that ata time like this.

Speaker 1 (47:50):
And to your earlier point, that skill gap is one of
those things there, just becauseyou made some money you could
have made a lot more money justbecause you made some royalties.

Speaker 2 (48:04):
You could have made a lot more royalties.
Sure, yeah, do it.
Oh yeah, and and feel better,and feel better about it.
Like I want to be able to sendmy promos to.
I wish I do.
I send it to my dad, I send themto friends.
My uncle even bought.
He's like I'm going to sign upfor this newsletter.
I'm like cool, like is it worthit?
I'm like this is for real.
He's asking him like yeah, jimrickards is amazing man, he's
one of a kind you're gonna lovethis newsletter.
I love this newsletter.
So I won't, I won't write foranything I don't believe in.

(48:24):
And then I won't write itunless I feel like I could send
it to friends and family.
My best friend bought too.
I sent him.
I sent him the link.
He ended up he's like, oh deal,like man I can't believe you've
never heard of him before.
But uh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
So so that's, that's what youwant.
You don't want to have to likehide what you've written.
Um, and a lot of that cringecopy where it's just like so on

(48:47):
the nose it's just like, oh god,here comes the carnival barker
again like, oh, stop it, juststop it, it's, it's.
It does way more harm than goodover time I think they it
pushes away more customers thanit attracts.
So even if you do succeed,you're attracting a bunch of
desperate loonies who are notgoing to be around for much
longer.
I don't want to do businesswith desperate loonies.
I want to do business withpeople who are more like us, who

(49:08):
are inquisitive, curious aboutthe world, have some money to
spend and really want to know.
They're curious.
They want to know.
They really like they're.
They're curious.
They want to understand howthose dots connect.
Those to me are going to bebest customers like not the life
wrap grabbers, you know, likepill poppers and life grab
grabbers like all my name that'sdan kennedy line up.

Speaker 1 (49:27):
Yeah, yeah, is that the?
So is that pretty much the?
The problem that you werementioning earlier, when
somebody's writing somethingyou're like this is a terror,
like this is a terrible customeryou're writing to, this is a
yeah, because you're just so onthe nose, you're so like you
promised the moon and likemisrep well, not misrepresent,
but just hit the highlights onlywithout like any depth to it oh

(49:48):
, it kills me and it can work.

Speaker 2 (49:49):
There's some guys I don't I won't mention names, but
there's some guys in thebusiness who've been very
successful in that line and I,you know it's not.
It's not, it's a free country.
It's not like I'm not sayingthey shouldn't be allowed to do
it.
I mean, if that works for them,fine.
But I just feel better aboutour business and the future of
the business if we're not doingthat and I don't, I would never
want that to become the standard.
I'm.
I'm a libertarian at heart, Idon't want to control anybody,

(50:10):
but it's just.
I just don't want to write thatway To me.
It just makes my stomach turn.
And, uh, cause?
It's not just about getting thesale.
We're building an empire, we'rebuilding a relationship, we're
building a connection, we'relaying the ground for the next
step to be taken.
We're not just rolling intotown selling our snake oil and
then rolling out.
And there's actually a story tothat.

(50:31):
In Charlotte, locally here whereI'm at, I was taking a tour the
other day and there's thisbeautiful brick home in the
center of the city and this guywho who built it, was peddling a
hair tonic that he said wouldregrow men's hair and eliminate
women's wrinkles, and he wasthere for about six months and
he made so much money he wasable to build this mansion right
in the center of town.
But then, of course, six monthspassed and all the bald guys
like me didn't have any hair andthe women were so I don't know

(50:51):
how they were had a stillresting bitch face and he, he
was run out of town, you know,and probably had to go and do it
somewhere else.
So it's just uh and that's not.
I don't want that lifestyle orlegacy, I don't want to have
anything to do with that.
And I think people sometimes uh, well, I don't know if it's a
conscious decision or or if it'sjust the way they're wired, or
if they it's just money.

(51:13):
You know it's not a connectionto them, but I love this
business way too much to writethat way and I don't want to
read it anyway.
So if I wouldn't want to eat, Iwouldn't cook food that was
loaded in seed oils andsaturated fat and covered in
sugar.
I'm not eating that.
I wouldn't serve it to anybodyelse either.
So I kind of think of it thesame way in the business, I
wouldn't prepare an experiencefor the reader that's going to

(51:37):
mislead them or obscure a keypart of the story or lead to an
inevitable letdown down the line.
And I wouldn't want to write tosomebody who's not the avatar,
not the type of person I'd wantto hang out with or connect with
in an event, or somebody whomay not have the funds to even
become a lifelong customer,although they could work their

(51:58):
way up, I mean if they're juststarting out.
But yeah, I think those arequestions that don't get asked
often enough and because it'shard to measure, it's almost
impossible to measure theirimpact where it's easy to
measure the result of a sale,and so we tend to lean towards
what's easiest to measure anduse those metrics to guide the
entire business.
But then it was hard tounderstand, hard to fathom

(52:19):
metrics that you'll never pindown, but they could matter a
great deal.
So it's really more about thespirit in which you approach it
with good faith.

Speaker 1 (52:27):
Yeah, nice.
Well, I guess we're up on anhour, so I don't want to take
too long here, but I do want toend with one quick thing, which
is you mentioned before westarted talking an opportunity
that like if I was a youngcopywriter, a junior copywriter,
I would kill for and this is Imean I literally picked up, sold
my house, my wife and I my wifedid her job to to to take an
opportunity just like this whichwas how I got in the industry

(52:50):
was I was a junior writer.
Clayton make peace had aconference.
He had a competition.
I won the competition for apromo, I wrote and then did a
little bit of work.
And then he calls me up like six, seven months later and he's
like, hey, I'm going to hire afull-time writer here, a junior.
I'm going to pay you peanuts.
You're going to come here,you're going to learn everything

(53:10):
, just as you get good, you'regoing to leave me and go off and
make six figures, which is whatdid um right out of?
You know um, but you're gonnalearn more in those, in that in
the first two years and of beinghere in person, than you ever
would any other way.
And I did.
I sold my house, my wife quither job, we moved to north
carolina and if it wasn't forthat, like I never would have

(53:31):
had like that huge string ofwinners that I had, that then
led me to starting fms and gotme in the industry and really,
like, started my career.
And so you are literally I'mlooking for somebody like that
right now to come work with youin person in North Carolina.
You want to talk about that alittle bit?

Speaker 2 (53:50):
Yeah, so I built this agency.
We call ourselves FK7, which iskind of fun.
It sounds like a MissionImpossible group, like an early
Navy SEALs, but it's really anhomage to the flesh Kincaid
score FK seven we try to writethat seventh grade level, um.
So anyway, yeah, I have a bunchof really seasoned, talented
guys on my team, but I and Ihave an abundance of ideas.

(54:10):
They have abundance of ideas.
I can't force multiply it.
My team's not big enough, soI'm looking to grow my team over
the long term.
What I'm really looking for isfor one supremely talented
junior who's got some experienceand a lot of upside to come
live in this area with me, workat least a few days a week, um,
in person and just soak up, youknow whatever mad ramblings I

(54:32):
have to share.
I'm approaching 50.
I have a lot of ramblings.
My ramblings are flowing over,so I think that just comes with
age.
Hopefully some of them areuseful.
But yeah, I want somebody.
I need somebody actually fortwo reasons like really just to
help me force multiply my ideas,and I do miss teaching and
coaching.
And you don't really get to dothat with your senior guys
because they've already kind ofthey figured it out and they

(54:54):
have their own styles, kind of,they figured it out and they
have their own styles.
Why would I miss them?
But I'm also thinking about thefuture.
Like, how do we grow like Iwant?
My dream has always been tofind the next me or the next
better than me would be evenbetter, um, and I found a couple
of those guys in my career.
I'm extremely excited to workwith them and help develop them
and I'm proud of them and but Ialso they're also extremely
useful to me along the way.

(55:14):
They put some money in mypocket as a copy chief as well,
of course.
But, yeah, I'd love to havesomebody local or somebody who
can move here and spend at leasta year or two, and the way I
want to get into that is maybelike do a one-off contract with
a few people, if there are anycandidates.
We work together on a project,we see how it goes and then, if

(55:35):
it goes really well and we hitit off on the right foot, then
we can talk details about whatcomes next for next year.
So, uh, I'd love it and thankyou for helping me put that
message out there, because it'simportant.
I'm not like this is not aclass.
I can't hire a whole class likeI did in the past.
I don't have the bandwidth.
But the right guy or gal, who,uh, who wants to step up and
show me what they got, I'm allears I mean, that's a like.

Speaker 1 (55:56):
Anyone who's listening, who is serious about
like moving into the copy inthis industry in a real serious
way, like that's, has toseriously consider that, just
because that's a career makingkind of experience.
Um for sure, because you know,I think about like the like we
were talking earlier, like the,the intangible things that you
learn working in person withsomebody who's working, the, the

(56:17):
way that you get to see,especially with someone like you
as a chief, working with lotsof different promos and ideas
and lots of different gurus,you're going to get into the
business in all kinds ofinteresting ways and learn
things you wouldn't learn justfrom like studying copy by
itself, relationship buildingwith people in the industry,
like there's nothing morevaluable outside of your skills
than your network when it comesto your career, and like

(56:40):
building an actual network ofpeople in the industry that way,
like it's just invaluable.
So anyone who's serious aboutthe industry, who's listening,
who's maybe thinking like hey,I'd love to do this, like I
would say, reach out to Patrick,how would somebody do that?

Speaker 2 (56:55):
Oh, people at the Agora dot com.
So my first initial last namepeople of a at the Agoracom.
So yeah, I'll be.
I'll be looking, I'll bechecking those emails, we'll see
who's out there.
I know, I know there's a lot oftalent in your audience and
it's just a question of who'sgot the guts to do what you did
when you were younger to go workwith Clayton.
You know it makes all thedifference in the world and I
got that it is a big risk andespecially if you have a family,

(57:18):
I mean it's even harder, butit's got to be in person.
That's the only way to do it.
You can't do this remote whenyou're starting out, and I
that's.
That's what I got out of Palmerwhen I went to Stansbury back
in 2011,.
I planted myself right next tohim.
I listened to everyconversation he had.
I took advantage of everyopportunity to have him look
over my copy and absorbed asmuch as I could of his wisdom
and brilliance.
So and it's worked out well.

(57:39):
I can't imagine not havingaccess to him at that point in
my life.
You know, it was just like he'san incredible guy and
copywriter.
So it's just.
He's trained infinite likeseemingly infinite number of
pros.
So that's really the best wayto learn.
It's not from a course, it's notfrom a book.
It's from being in the trencheswith a chief who cares, who's
going to shower you withattention and you're going to
work your ass off to help them.

(58:00):
You know, and you help eachother and, uh, that's the only
way I've seen it work in thisbusiness.
That's that you either all youeither go all the way or you
don't go at all.
You know like you go all in orriders will make that sacrifice
and and go, and people havemoved to war zones like

(58:20):
Baltimore, you know like foryears, just to get exposed to
all these talented copywriterswho are there and uh, it's, but
it was worth it.
You know like nobody died andeverybody came out richer and
happier.
You know so, and Charlotte'slovely, so I don't know, it's
very mild winter, lower cost ofliving in.

Speaker 1 (58:36):
Florida yeah there you go.
Thanks for the endorsement.
No, it is.
It's a great town, great foodtown, great beaches.
It's just a great town for real, awesome.
Well, thanks, man.
This is always great to talk toyou.
Anyone who's listening payattention.

(58:56):
Maybe give Patrick an email ifyou're a copywriter.
Uh and yeah thanks, man.

Speaker 2 (59:04):
That was fun, john, always great to talk to you.
I enjoy these chats, I'm.
We should definitely keep themup once or twice a year.
Bare minimum, I appreciate it.
Thanks, all right, take care.
All right, man, bye.