SPI 623: Copywriting Simplified — How to Write the Words That Convert with Stefan Georgi

SPI 623: Copywriting Simplified—How to Write the Words That Convert with Stefan Georgi

Stefan Georgi: A rookie mistake people make early on is they sort of get the 1950s, 1960s madmen voice in their head where they start to, like, they think that they have to make it sound like an advertisement. “And indeed you will be astounded as you—” And it’s like nobody actually talks that way, right? So, this is an ad.

It’s, like, if you’re conversational, then they can become more comfortable with you. Now they can put their guard down a little bit and be more receptive to your messaging. So, be conversational. it’ll be way better, it’ll do way better too.

Pat Flynn: Of all the skills required to become a successful entrepreneur, I think a skill that’s often, it’s not underrated, I think we all know that this is important, but I think we are very scared of it because it feels like it takes a certain level of expertise or a lot of education in order to get to that point where it’s finally working.

What am I talking about? I’m talking about copywriting. Not copyrighting like, you know, patents and intellectual property. I’m talking about copywriting, the words that you choose to use on your page. To help a person on the other end do something or make a decision or to open up their mind to something. Like copywriting, the words you put on a sales page in an email, the script that you’re writing for your video. This is so important and we’re all very scared of it. I am too. But today we have an expert on, Stefan Georgi, who is somebody who’s helped people earn over a billion dollars in total with the words that he’s written on their pages, is here today to break it down and make it easy for us.

And, I’m recording this intro after the interview, this may be one of the most helpful episodes for you if you are just getting started with business, but especially if you have a business and you’re selling something, you have a sales page up and it’s just not quite hitting the mark yet. We’re gonna talk about a number of different things to help you take what you have and make it better and help you convert more.

We also have an amazing free resource that Stefan offers here as well, which I’ll talk about at the end. This is session 623 of the Smart Passive Income Podcast, Stefan Georgi. Hope you enjoy it.

Announcer: Welcome to the Smart Passive Income Podcast, where it’s all about working hard now, so you can sit back and reap the benefits later. And now your host, he’s still waiting for the Cybertruck. Pat Flynn.

Pat Flynn: Stefan, welcome to the Smart Passive Income Podcast.

Thanks for joining me today.

Stefan Georgi: Yeah, thanks for having me, Pat. Glad to be here.

Pat Flynn: Now, I know you as a very prolific copywriter and we’re gonna get into how one might get into copywriting, whether they hire somebody else in the future, what to look out for, or how to get started on their own, to choose the right words to, you know, make the biggest impact.

But I’d love to know a little bit about your background. How did you get into becoming this like well known and renowned copywriter.

Stefan Georgi: I did not plan on being a copywriter. It really started by chance. I was in 2011 working at an outdoor school in Marble Falls, Texas, which is essentially like an outdoor ed type of place.

A guy, like a Harvard MBA like investment banker guy, basically bought his childhood summer camp after making some money, turned it into like a summer camp. Well, it kept it as a summer camp during the summer and then during the winter, fall and spring is like a like an outdoor red school.

So I went there as a instructor. I was making like $200 a week living in a double wide trailer. Had a roommate, had other trailer mates, and it was actually one of the happiest times of my life because prior to that I’d been a bit of an unguided missile. I’d done phone sales, door to door sales.

Tried to get a job at Enterprise rental car five different times and they would never hire me. The whole story there. Yeah. And so I thought that’s what I was gonna do. And then my dad ended getting diagnosed with cancer in the May of 2011, I went back to San Diego where I’m from to kind of help him and help my mom and everything.

He passed away in October of 2011, and in December of 2011, I went to Las Vegas to blow off steam and whatever. And I was playing poker. I was in a poker room and a girl walked into the room and I saw her and I joked to my poker table. Oh, I hope she gets seated with us. If you’re played at a casino poker, they don’t, you don’t get to pick your table.

You go see a host, they sort of look at all the tables, see, try and keep them balanced. So they assign you to a table. But she ended up getting seated at the table and somebody asked her what she did for a living. She said, I’m a writer. I wanted to talk to her cause I thought she was attractive. So I said, Hey, you know, what kind of a writer are you?

And she said, I’m a copywriter. And I was like, Wow, copywriter. That’s so cool. And I pulled out my iPhone one or whatever it was back then. And under the table I Googled what’s a copywriter? Because I had no idea, but that was my very first introduction to copywriting and I could obviously expand on the story from there.

Pat Flynn: Yeah, that’s cool. So, so when you learned what copywrite what, what did you think it was? Cause I think a lot of people have that, like we’ve heard of this word copywriting, but what did you think it was and what is it actually based on, your expertise now that you’ve learned?

Stefan Georgi: I thought, I honestly did, I really didn’t know when I, when I Googled it there, there’s people think about copyrighting with.

C o p y r i g h t i n g, like a legal copyright. And there’s still people today who I, I talk to about copywriting and I, I try to make that distinction and they’re like, Yeah, I get it. You know, I have a friend who has a lot of documents and I’m like, This is different. So copywriting is really writing ads.

And then the type of copywriting that, that I do specifically is direct response copywriting which is where you’re writing ads where you want the. Prospective consumer to respond directly to the ad, and it could be to click the button and buy now. It could be put in your email address and opt in. It could be to pick up the phone and call 1-800, whatever, and place your order, whatever it is you want, the, the prospect the prospective consumer or customer to, to respond to your advertising.

That’s direct response. And then I marry that with something called emotional response, which we can get into in a bit as well. So it’s really just writing ads though of the simplest level and people actually pay really well for it. It’s kind of a superpower. Every business needs it. I’m sure some of the people listening today are struggle with their ads and, and it makes a huge difference between good ads and bad ads.

I have a friend who is in the financial service, helps bookkeepers and accounts who are sort of freelancers to grow their business, and I just, she has about a million dollars a year and I basically helped her for a landing page to increase the conversions by like 808% recently, and it was really just because we changed the copy.

So it’s wow, what can happen, right? That’s that, that took her from, she was losing money trying to run Facebook ads and couldn’t scale and grow to where now she’s making money with her, those same ads and can very quickly scale to from 1 million to 5 million and beyond. So it’s amazing for every one listening, whether you wanna be a copywriter or not.

And then also, yeah, as a business owner it can really help to, to move the needle for you. So it’s pretty, pretty incredible.

Pat Flynn: Yeah. We all have an understanding that the words that we choose are really important, but I think that puts so much pressure on us that we sometimes freeze and we don’t release that page, or we don’t create the landing page, or we don’t send that email because we just don’t even know what to say.

So let’s start from the beginning. Like how would a person who is maybe just getting started with business or has a business, but it’s just not scaling, you know, your client, but before they started working with you, for example. Like, where do we even begin? Like are there any exercises or research that we need to do to just like, know what words to then say?

Stefan Georgi: I think the, the biggest thing when you begin, obviously there, there are plenty of free resources, which sounds like a lame answer, but you know, there are like, there’s, there’s YouTube videos, there’s, you know, like, so getting a a basic understanding is really not that hard. It’s just, it’s just kind of spending time to research.

But then really the, the best thing is like, look at competitors in your space who are having success already. And then look at what their marketing advertising materials look like, whether that’s emails, Facebook ads, their website, their, you know, landing page, which can be a special page on the website, right where send customers to. Really, like if you start studying that and honestly like maybe you could get it transcribed on rev.com. If it’s like a video, you could just sort of type up like a copy of it. And if you start looking at a lot of marketing material and collateral, and especially in your industry and for people who are doing well, you’ll start to see patterns that are happening. And I think that’s the biggest thing is, is you need to become like a detective a little bit and look at, Okay, you know, it’s interesting. They’re always kind of saying this stuff like, like, because a lot of curiosity in the beginning, a lot of the time or it’s very emotional in the beginning.

They’re telling a story before they start to sell. And so really looking at these commonalities, obviously I can share some kind of stuff around how to write good copy on, on this episode as well and I’m happy to, but, but yeah, first and foremost, looking at at competitors and seeing what they’re doing is actually a good place to start.

Pat Flynn: That, that makes a lot of sense. I know there are a lot of like old school marketers who would look at ads and newspapers and magazines and such to sort of like just understand how those things are structured. How formulaic is this, is this. Madlibs where you could literally just change the words out? Or is there a little bit more to it than that?

Stefan Georgi: It is pretty formulaic. It, it kind of, most ads, especially direct response oriented ads, kind of follow a pretty similar structure. So there’s the lead or the opening, which is where you’re really trying to call out your prospects pain point as it relates to whatever you’re gonna, your product is, and how your products should hopefully help them solve that pain point.

Right, so you’re kind of calling out that pain point. You’re promising them a solution. You are usually teasing that there’s something unique about the solution you’re gonna give now, now and again. Usually you’re not actually telling them about your product here you’re actually just telling ’em about a solution.

Hey, in like the next few seconds, I’m gonna share a breakthrough solution that can help you to X, Y, Z, and as little as five days from now, even if you don’t have any experience, even if you don’t have a lot of money to invest, whatever it is, right? So we’re teasing it really, the opening of an ad is really just often an advertisement for the rest of the ad, which sounds funny, but it’s true, like because people have very short attention spans. We’re we’re competing, you know, there’s the attention economy, we’re we’re competing for attention against not just other ads, but Netflix and Facebook and Instagram and push notifications and a million other things happening. So really those first few seconds need to really pull the prospect in. And, and the best way we do that is by connecting with them and, and making them feel understood. So that’s what we kind of call it their pain point. And hey, like, you know, maybe you’re struggling from this and you feel like that you’re frustrated because of X, Y, and Z. Well, again, teasing the solution, making it a little bit unique.

Like, in fact, it’s something you’ve heard of before, like let’s do weight loss, right? That has something to do with, with starvation, diets or calorie and calorie out, or keto or intimate fasting or anything else you’ve ever heard of before. It’s not a supplement. And yet in the next, like you could lose three pounds of stubborn belly fat in the next seven days while having more energy, waking up feeling fresh and, and bushy eyed ready to take on the day.

And you may even notice your skin starts to glow more too, right? So suddenly you’re like, Oh my God. So what is it? Right? I’m curious cuz it’s not these things. It’s gotta be something unique and there’s this, this promise happening. And then really just like teasing them in curiosity, curiosity and emotion and the, and the lead is really where it goes.

So it might be like, and that may seem hard to believe now, In fact, I felt the same way, especially when I was 225 pounds and my marriage ended after I caught my husband cheating on me. Or I, or I was 220 pounds and I nearly died after a heart attack that my doctor said was caused by my weight, made me collapse in front of my kid at her school.

Whatever it was like, and, and so now, Oh. What was going on with that? There’s an emotional like thing going on and so you might think, Okay, is this like an ad? Like, like a, people think about print ads, but let’s, I’m thinking more digital, but, but even so that doesn’t mean now you have to spend the next two hours telling the story.

You know? It could be like, cuz the next part if that’s the opening is like the background where it’s like, hey, my name is Stefan and depending on how the ad goes, like I used to be like you, I used to struggle with this thing. Then I found the real reason why I was struggling, which I’ll explain to you and the unique solution and then we get into the actual like product, what it is, we start to sell it. That’s a very basic way. There’s, there’s a little more nuance, but, but structurally it’s really that opening little background story on, on yourself or your brand or the founder or the spokesperson. Little explanation of why the prospect has been struggling to get, not to solve their problem, and then how, you know, there’s a new solution that can, can solve it for them, and then the actual solution and then telling them to buy. So hopefully that wasn’t a fire hose for people. I know that was a lot. It’s, it is similar like that structure again and again, whether we’re talking about a little Facebook ad, YouTube, ad, in email, all kinds of stuff.

Pat Flynn: Yeah, I mean, it, it just sounds like you can’t just go out and say, Buy my product. You have to have some sort of way to, A, capture people’s attention. B, relate to them in some way. Like you said, that’s why you said like, Hey, you’re probably like me and I, I used that a lot. I didn’t even know I was doing that when I was doing it, but I think that’s why a lot of people resonate with my brand because I just shared what I was going through and the struggles that I was going through.

And of course people naturally wanna know how you, on the other side of that, how did you, how did you get through that? The other thing I noticed when you were talking was you a couple times you mentioned like within a certain number of days or within a certain time period. Is that important to think about, especially for capturing attention?

Cuz you said, you know, we are in the attention economy and I think a lot of people worry that things are gonna take too long or too, or too overwhelming. Is that a strategy that works really well when trying to capture people’s attention? Is mentioning just, Hey, this isn’t gonna take as long as you might think?

Stefan Georgi: Yeah, generally like specificity is important. And so that can be specificity around your product or a timeframe where people can expect to see some kind of improvement, whatever it may be. Obviously the faster and easier you can make it seem without lying or being unethical, the better, right? And it’s sort of like sell people what they want, give them what they need, all that kind of stuff.

So there are limits to that where if you’re talking about weight loss, you can’t say, Hey, lose like 30 pounds in the next 20 days, right? There’s sort of FTC stuff like, same thing with like income. Hey, you’re gonna make $10,000 in the next month. You have to be careful, but as much as you can reasonably put in sort of like a timeframe to at least start getting results, start getting momentum.

Cause that’s the biggest thing, people it’s not always about like the, the end tool need the end result. It’s like they wanna at least feel like they’re moving towards something and they wanna feel like they have momentum and, and, and that they’re accomplishing

Pat Flynn: The other thing I, I noticed that you mentioned was, and I talk about this a lot and this is why I wanna home in on it, it’s, you literally call out the objections that they have and you sort of like flip it, right?

Even if you can’t do this, or even if you’ve never done this before, it’s something that’s possible. How do you discover what those, like in your research when working with a client, for example, how, how do you go about discovering what those objections really are? Cause I, I’ve learned that the more that you can nail kind of the story that a person’s telling themselves as they’re reading a sales page or an ad and then you flip it on its head, the easier it is to sort of convert that person down the road. So how, how do you go about finding out what those objections really are?

Stefan Georgi: Yeah, it’s a great question. So I’ve got a list of about like 21 research questions that I ask, but we don’t need to go through all of them.

And I, that’s the thing that you can give your audience whenever it actually gives them the whole, all the whole list. Which is great.

Pat Flynn: Oh, that’d be super valuable. Thank you. What, what’s like maybe one or two that we could, we could talk about a little bit?

Stefan Georgi: There’s a good quote from, from Jim Quick who’s like a really smart guy and, and, and really some of your artists probably knows he is.

Pat Flynn: He works with like Marvel and stuff. I like Jim. He’s cool.

Stefan Georgi: He’s a really cool dude. He said human beings are not logical. We’re biological. So going back first and foremost, why we need typically not talk about the product right away is we wanna speak to the heart first and the the brain second, if you look, they’ve done research on this where essentially if, if the part of your brain that’s responsible for processing emotions is, is severely damaged, then you can’t make decisions like literally decisions are, are emotionally driven, more than logically driven.

So we need to like connect with our prospect emotionally first, and then get the heart so bought in that it then goes and uses logic to, to convince the brain. That’s a good idea. Right. So you’re like, Hey, look, brain. But now, so a mistake people make is they try to leave those stats all the time, and this is gonna tie into research, but it’s like, are you tired of like you’re dead on job and feeling like you don’t have a, a path forward and, and you’d love to make a good income while also enjoying more freedom?

Well, you’re not alone. In fact, it’s a survey said that 500,000 people and the state of Texas also feel the same way and one in every three Americans, and they start, people start going to stats that they, but the, the prospect doesn’t care about one in three Americans or 500,000 or 15 million, right? They care about them.

So that’s why we wanna speak to them. And then research is how we do that. So like, some of the questions I’ll look at are, you know, what are the prospects, hopes and dreams, victories and failures, things, things like that when it comes to try to solve the problem that we’re solving for. Also, what other products have they used and what was their experience like?

What did they like and, and dislike? Really, we want their, their emotional relationship to both the problem and the, the solutions they’ve attempted. And the easiest place that I found, not just the easiest, but by far the best is actually like forums. Cause there’s, there’s online forums for like, everything, right?

And so if you, you could search weight loss forum, golf forum, investing forum, real estate forum, you know, everything you can imagine. And what you find is like, there’s these like forum thread. Where people tend to really overshare. So I first discovered this when, like I was looking, our, our, our cat had like a folks like an eye infection and I Googled, you know, whatever, like cat’s eye pink, like the pink eye.

And it was like a form, but people. We’ll be telling these stories of like, Well, I’ve got two cats. I’ve got Fluffy and Butterball and Fluffy’s are rascal and is one years old and Butterball is seven. I first, And it’s like this, like, you know, like a scroll of information about this person in their life.

And at the very end it’s like, yeah, it’s pinkeye, right? But people are like, just have to share like so much stuff. And I was like, Man, you know, this is actually really interesting. So if you start searching for that stuff, For whatever, as it relates to whatever your market is and what you’re, you’re selling.

Or by the way, even if you’re, if you’re, you can do this for your clients, right? If you’re trying to acquire clients, if you have a, a freelancing business or whatever it is. And you see them vetting their frustrations, what they hope for all that. You can basically copy and paste that, that language from like the forums and then have like a document.

And then when you go to a write, you can start using those lines and putting them into your copy. And not only doesn’t make it easier to write the copy, but like they feel so understood cuz it’s like, oh my gosh, they’re. Like how it’s like they’re speaking my soul. It’s like they’re, I would say that exact same thing.

How does he or she are they like, how do they know that I’m going through this? And it’s like, you basically, cuz you, you sp on them, you did intel. I call like, it’s kind of ethical appropriation, but it’s really, you know, extremely powerful tactic.

Pat Flynn: It’s, the forums are great. Google searches for forums is really easy to do. Facebook groups and LinkedIn groups, places like that. People do overshare on those platforms because they’re with their people. Right? Right. And then you have other people who then come in and answer, who also share their story, and then you just have this amazing thing. So that’s, I love that solution because I usually tell people like, Go find where your audience is and have a conversation with them.

But that’s like a very, that’s hard to do, especially for a more introverted person. It is the best way to get that information. But like you said, like those things are already there online and people are talking about them. So I, I love that solution. And when you talked about, you know, getting into the emotion of it and the fact that people will often include these data points that really don’t relate to a person.

You know, the first time I heard about something like that was with a organization called Charity Water. And Charity Water is is a beautiful organization. They help bring water to people who do not have easy access to it. But I remember somebody telling a story about how they used to do their marketing and they would really go into the data because the data was there and data is powerful.

But then they started to go into like the individual stories. Here is a single child who wakes up every day, thirsty. And then they started like focusing on that, and that’s what people really connected with. And so when they do their fundraisers now and such, those are the kinds of messages that they focus on because you are now understanding the person that you are affecting.

Versus a million people go without water every day. It’s like we can’t even fathom what that actually means. So when telling a story, how do you best in copywriting tell that story when you’re trying to make a sale eventually. Storytelling I know is very powerful, but storytelling with the purpose of conversion is something that I don’t have a ton of experience with.

What, what are some recommendations you have for pulling those stories out and, and presenting them in a, in a way that, you know, ethically converts somebody?

Stefan Georgi: So I think one thing is wanting to like always keep the end in mind. It’s like, why are you telling this story? Right? And you’re telling the story to ultimately get them to make a, a purchasing decision or maybe say an opt-in decision or some kind of to, to take an action. So remember the purpose of, of the story. That sounds simple, but you do see sometimes people start to meander and go on, You forget . Yeah. Here. And, and it’s like, Right. Keep it fairly succinct.

The second really key element. We mentioned before, and that you do naturally is relating it back to the reader regularly. So I use the, the phrase or acronym WIIFM. So like, what’s in it for me? And what’s it for me is not, you know, me or you, but it’s like the, the reader or the viewer the person interacting with, with the content or copy.

And this, by the way, goes for not just direct response copy, but even when you’re creating content and stuff like, yeah, like telling stories about you in your life is very powerful, but you wanna relate it back to the reader. So it can be as simple as little phrases like maybe you can relate. Have you ever felt that way?

Maybe you’ve experienced something similar before. Does that sound familiar? Well, that’s how it was for me, right? So just stopping to check in periodically with like the, the reader and that conversational tone. And that’s actually another important element is being conversational. There’s exceptions, like if you’re hardcore b2b, I get it, you’re not gonna write quite that way.

I do actually think even there, so. B2B writing could be less dry. People just get so scared because it’s B2 B, but it’s like you’re still talking to human beings who have emotions and have their lives going on. But yeah, we’re really just relating it back regularly. And then the story should be reflective.

So you’ll see that sometimes where somebody might have a really powerful emotional story where like, like in the, you know, I’ve done a lot of stuff in the health space. I’ll use that as an example. Maybe somebody selling a, I don’t know, some kinda shake, like a meal replacement shake. But then they have the story about how they got diagnosed with cancer or their mom did and they. Start telling the story, which could be like, it could be relevant if like, I had cancer and I wasn’t hungry and I started eating shakes and like are using these shakes and there’s only thing I keep down. Thank God the cancer went to remission. In fact, after a couple of years I was so healthy, I started to put on weight.

I thought back to the shakes and how the shakes helped me. Like it could be a story that is relevant there, but sometimes it’s like they just sort of use this emotional story, but it’s like that most people will connect, Most people aren’t gonna buy a, like a meal replacement shake because of cancer.

Right. As, as awful as it is. And it is amazing. It is that this person overcame their cancer and went to remission. It’s like that doesn’t actually connect. So it needs to be a story that is kind of the vast majority of your market can, can see themselves in that story versus a story that maybe is like, if your story’s about you were an overseas operative doing all this crazy stuff.

You’re like a Navy Seal Commander and you’re selling a self-defense thing. Unless you can bring it back to like the local level of like, And then I thought I knew it all, but my dad got mugged and I realized people need to know who aren’t Navy seals need to know how to defend themselves. Right. So then again, the story, but you bring it back to that local level.

Cause it was just like, I’m a Navy seal, I’m a teacher of my Navy seal, you know, Kungfu karate hand to hand stuff. You’re like, well you’re a Navy Seal. I don’t know if I can do that. But just an immediate level of, of skeptic. So being really conscious of how the story relates to the, the prospect is, is very important too.

Pat Flynn: That’s a really, really good point. I think a lot of the listers know that they have some sort of expertise or experience to share, but we don’t think about how that might be perceived. We have this like curs of knowledge. When we know something, it’s hard to sort of understand what’s like, not to know that.

And I love that Navy Seal example because that is exactly how a lot of people have approached it. And, and it’s, it’s all about me, The Navy Seal and look what I do. Look at my credentials. Now buy for me. Versus, I remember one of my favorite sales pages I bought when I was doing flag football with my friends. I was looking online cuz I was, I mean, you’re looking at me right now.

I’m not the size of like a football player, but I’m a kicker. I played soccer. So the punter is a very underrated portion of flag football, but very important. And so I wanted to be the best punter in the league. And so I looked online to try to find punting material, like how to punt a football. I landed on the sales page from an ex-professional NFL punter, and the whole page was, All about what learning punting would do for me, like how I could become this star of the team, even though I’m just a punter, right? Hey, you’re probably just this punter, You’re probably skinny. You’re not, you know, and, and like they were talking to like people in college and me like, who was just on a rec league. And it’s just like totally like I envisioned getting like fist bumps for my team because I had a good punt and they were able to win the game because of me versus, Hey, I’m this NFL punter I have, I kicked this many punts within the 10 yard line.

Like all this stuff that probably is true, right? It wasn’t even about this person at all. It was about, it was about what the course and a few videos would do for me. And I did buy that course and I did become a pretty good punter and I still have a good kick today, which is really cool. So, So it worked.

You know, I, I, I love that thought and I, and I think we could all go back to our sales pages, our emails, even our opt-in landing pages to just see how are we making this about them versus how are we making this about me? And, and it’s, it’s very easy to talk about us. It’s harder to relate that back to, to the person.

So I appreciate that a lot. That’s really, really valuable. I also like what you said about, making it conversational. I found that to, to help a lot on sales pages that I’ve attempted to write. Matt on my team does a much better job, but making it more conversational, even saying things like, What’s up?

Or, Hey, yo, it’s Pat here again. Like, I don’t know why. Maybe it’s because when we were in school, we were taught to write like the five paragraph essay that was so structured and formalized that we just don’t think it’s okay to write like that, especially when there’s like dollar values tied to it. But, It’s all about relationships, right?

It seems, And understanding who your prospect is.

Stefan Georgi: Yeah. Let me just to add to that, cause I think that’s some mistake people make early on is they sort of get the 1950s, 1960s madmen voice in their head where they start to, like, they think that they have to make it sound like an advertisement. You know, so they’re sort of like and indeed you will be astounded as you, and it’s like nobody actually talks that way, right?

And so they’re gonna notice us an ad, but you don’t have to like beat them over the head. Like, This is an ad. I’m selling something to you. I’m, you know, this is an ad. It’s like, if you’re conversational, then they can become more comfortable with you. Now they can put their guard down a little bit and be more receptive to your messaging. So just like that’s a, a common rookie mistake that is a pet peeve of mine. And cuz us even some good copywriters try to do it because they, But I thought about that cause you talked about when there’s money involved, people suddenly think because they’re writing an an ad now or writing copy that it needs to sound like some, like, like an, like an ad, like they envision from, you know, a TV show or like a, some, some classic like magazine ad, but be conversational. You’ll be way better, You’ll do way better too.

Pat Flynn: Thank you for that. Yeah. How do you practice copywriting? What’s a good way to, to just, you know, get better at it?

Stefan Georgi: So the, the classic answer people give that I, I don’t fully is to like hand write copy. Like find copy you like and hand write it.

Pat Flynn: Why is that? Why is that the answer?

Stefan Georgi: The answer is like, cuz you’re looking at it and then you know, when you physically write something with your hand, like on pen and paper, the synapses in your brain, the neuroplasticity. Ah, okay. I think studying a lot of copy is, is valuable, but, and maybe even typing up, like, you know, like, like stuff like typing notes or typing up sections that you think is good, but, but I really think more important than that is, looking for commonalities.

Kind of like going through and dissecting the copy, like seeing what they’re doing these different places, making notes, looking at several pieces, seeing where you keep seeing reoccurring themes or patterns. And then really just practicing. So if you wanna write emails, you know, pick a brand that you like, whether if you have your own company, great.

Even if you don’t go pick a brand you like. Look at some of their emails they send out that you’re getting and then try to write some for on your own. Who cares if you know you’re gonna, if you’re a freelancer, then you can by the way, take those and send them to the company and be like, Hey, I’m a freelancer.

I really love your stuff. Wrote some emails for you. Check them out. So then suddenly, you can use that as a prospecting tool. It’s part of your portfolio, all that. But even if you’re like a business owner, maybe you don’t feel like you, it is hard to think about writing for your own product or service because you’re so in it.

Like you’re so wrapped up in all of it and you’re in the day to day and, and immersed in it. But for some brand you really like, just may have fun with it. You know, just pick one and try writing an email or a landing page or whatever. And. A lot of it is just that practice and getting reps in and that, that’s a pretty big thing.

Pat Flynn: Do you think using platforms like social media, which has a little bit more forgiveness and it’s a little bit more just kind of at that moment and then it’s gone kind of thing, is that, say for example, I wanna practice like getting people interested in the story I have to tell. Like would using something like Twitter or Instagram to tell that story be a good way to sort of gauge and, and practice?

Stefan Georgi: Yeah, that is, that’s a good, good suggestion. I’ve been doing like a reel on my Instagram almost every day and I have like a massive follow line. I’ve got maybe 85,000, 90,000 followers currently at the time I, this recording plan on growing it a lot. But you know, the reel are great. I get like three to 10,000 views and every now and then one pops off and gets like 45,000 views or whatever.

I’m, I’m thinking about copywriting principles. Cause I usually come in with like, okay, I’m gonna try to teach something, but then I’m like, how do I open, What’s my opening line? How do I, am I gonna grab their attention? How do I relate it back to them? How so? I’m actually think so even for me, like doing, and, and you have to keep it to under 90 seconds, right?

Cause that’s the, the platform. So, so things like that are actually really great I think for practicing cuz so many people will create that content, but they’re not at all intentional about, So if you sort of practiced some of these copywriting concepts, if you’re doing, you know, video content, things of that nature, Yeah, I think it could be really powerful.

Pat Flynn: Yeah, actually reels and shorts would be really good to practice cuz you, you’d be able to tell really quickly if something is, you know, hitting the mark or not. And, and actually I, I’m thinking about a lot of the. The tiktoks that I enjoy and you know, will watch, especially like the longer ones. Most of them either or both connect with me and my life in some way and are telling a story.

I don’t know why I haven’t been consciously watching those with, you know, copywriting in mind, but I, but I probably should. Where can people go to just see what those reels are from you and, and like, where can they follow you on Instagram?

Stefan Georgi: Yeah, so it’s just at @StefanGeorgi.

Pat Flynn: Sweet. We’ll have links in the show notes and such. And, and you had mentioned offering something to the audience as far as like a list of questions and stuff you can ask their audience for research and, and things like that. Where, where might they be able to go get that?

Stefan Georgi: Cool. Yeah, so for that it created, I have a whole copywriting course called the RMBC Method, and it’s great. It’s like the flagship copywriting course, but. The research part is applicable to everybody. Whether you want to be a copywriter, whether you just wanna sell more this research module is extremely powerful.

That’s the first part, R in RMBC. So I just basically took that module and I’m gonna give it to your listeners for, for free. They just go to SPG.fun/research, and it’s got a little opt in page. You put your email address in and you’ll get this module from my thousand dollars course and it’s, it’s meaty.

It’s, it’s not like so much meat that you’re not gonna go through it, but it’s like not crappy little pdf, so I’m pretty proud of it so people can, if you’re interested, feel free to to go check that out. Yeah.

Pat Flynn: Thank you, really appreciate it. SPG.fun/research will give you access to that. Awesome. You still have a few more minutes to chat a little bit?

Stefan Georgi: Yeah, absolutely. Let’s, let’s do it.

Pat Flynn: I love this conversation. So I’m thinking about the entrepreneur who is, they have a product for sale, a course for example, or maybe a coaching program or may maybe they’re even an agency of sorts and they. have minimal success, right? We wanna help them scale and grow. They have a sales page already. What is the best way to go into material that you already have and then improve it? Cause I know sometimes people go, This is crap. I’m gonna overhaul the whole thing. Some people want to pick just little parts and and split tests and things like that.

What is your approach for taking somebody who has something going on that’s. Going in the way they wanted to and improving it.

Stefan Georgi: A lot of the time, from a pure copy standpoint, it’s usually focusing on the opening. So like the headline and, and the lead, because the most eyeballs are gonna be on that part if we look at it, if there’s a sales funnel.

But even your copy is a funnel. So look at for people who aren’t watching the video, like in the inverted triangle, right? So it’s wider at the top, and. When someone clicks on an ad, goes to that landing page, the most eyeballs are gonna be at the very top. And then as they keep going, more and more eyeballs are dropping off.

The triangle is becoming more and more narrow. So focusing on your messaging, there is always the biggest needle mover from a pure copy perspective. The other really big one, and there’s, there’s many, but another really big one is just clarity of your offer. That’s very common. So my friend I mentioned at the beginning, who.

Has the, the business helping bookkeepers and accounts to, you know, grow their, their freelancing sort of side hustles, whatever. The offer it was like a low ticket. So I think there’s like $5, let’s say essentially what it was, the seven magic posts that anybody can take any financial professional can take, put on a social media and use it to starting high quality clients.

And so then if you go into it, there’s sort of these different types of, of posts and there’s like some training behind it. But really it’s like, Hey, copy and paste my seven magic posts and make little tweaks and then, you know, you can start getting more clients for your business. I know I use them. I’m not running a million dollar plus accounting business, whatever.

So that’s what it was. The page was like, you know, discover my secret method that can help you to more clients and blah, blah, blah. And then like, it was like all these bullet points that were like, how to position yourself as an authority in your market, How to authentically connect with prospective customers.

Pat Flynn: Sounds so like things that come across all the time. Yeah.

Stefan Georgi: It’s like vague, right? It’s like, it’s like, well, like, discover this secret. Like, I’m like, I don’t, The copy wasn’t bad. Like the person was clearly a good writer, but it just wasn’t a very clear value proposition.

So on one hand you have this where it’s like, I don’t really know what I’m getting. The other hand, what I did with her is like, Get my seven magic posts for social media that can help you bring three to five high quality clients. Even if you’re pressed for time an introvert, hate putting yourself out there on social media.

So going back to the markets like objections, right? And then it was, the original had like 20 bullets, so we had like four bullets. So was like, get the post, like the post will help you click here about, And so literally went from, you know, converting at like one point. Whatever, like 3% to like national is over 10%, which is like a massive increase.

Right? And, and, but, and then nothing else changed in the, like the funnel. It was just like being clear on the value. So, so I bring that up. Cause I think for a lot of people they might have a great product, but they’re trying to do too much. Sometimes you’re actually trying to say too much. You’re trying to, sometimes it’s, it’s a curse.

The curse of bells and whistles, which I just made up, but I love it. I’m gonna use it again. And future podcast. I’m totally gonna just like, Right. Cause like there’s so many bells and whistles maybe for your, your cool product or service that you need to, like, I gotta tell ’em about all of it.

Right? And it’s like, you don’t really, like, you wanna look at. What’s the core thing that your pro service does that can help them, and how can you explain that to them in the simplest way possible? So that’s a really, really powerful one.

Pat Flynn: Curse of bells and whistles, bro. That is fantastic. That is so true though.

Stefan Georgi: And I’m gonna write it down. I’ve got my, my remarkable. Yeah.

Pat Flynn: We often say feature creep is what is what we, we call that often, especially in like the software space, but cursive bells and whistles, that that’s like a book that’s about to be written or, or at least a lead man. That’s, That’s great. Yeah. Step, I mean, we could talk for hours about all these things, but I think people have to the point of let’s just give ’em what they need and then go with it.

Like I think we have plenty of stuff here. For the audience to listen to, to take action on. And I’m sure there are gonna be a few people in the audience who are like, you know, I don’t have the time and I wanna figure out like, how might I find somebody to do this if you might be available? Or where can people go to potentially get access to your work as an expert in this space?

Stefan Georgi: Absolutely. So yeah, for those of who go to the SPG.fun/research, you’ll get onto my, my email list as part of the deal, you know, getting the module, you can literally reply those emails. I read every reply to my email. So if you do that, you just reply and say, Hey Stefan, what’s up? I’m generally not personally for hire anymore.

I’ll do random like kind of passion projects. Like I just wrote a full page ad for USA Today for a friend who’s, who’s got like a big launch going on. So like random things like that. But I’ve got a mastermind, full of incredible copywriters so I can match you to a copywriter that fits your budget and your need and help you figure out what that is.

If you email me or I’ve got, you know, some other options where we do some, so. Funnel economics and and copywriting stuff for percents of revenue or equity deals. DM me on Instagram too. I look at all my dms, so I’m pretty, at this point, I’m pretty accessible. I can’t know, who knows in a couple years, but yeah.

Pat Flynn: Right. Cool man. Well thank you so much for coming on the show. I appreciate you. One more time, SPG.fun/research to go get that from Stefan right now. Thank you for your time and thanks for helping us out today.

Stefan Georgi: Yeah, thank you, Pat. Really appreciate it. And thanks for everyone who, who listened.

Hopefully you got some value from it.

Pat Flynn: All right. I hope you enjoyed that interview with Stefan. You can again find him and his free resource, SPG.fun/research. And if you wanna get the links to his social media and some other resources that we talked about today, SmartPassiveIncome.com/session623.

Again, SmartPassiveIncome.com/session623. Stefan thank you so much. This was incredibly valuable and helpful, especially even for me as somebody who is always creating new things and wants to best represent what those things can do for people and do it in a legit manner. And I like that we talked about doing this for authentic reasons.

I think that’s sort of obvious here, but we need to continue to mention that because this is very powerful stuff. If you nail copywriting that is a power that does come with a lot of responsibility, right? So I hope that the tips that Stefan offered today and some other research stuff that he’s gonna give you at that free gift is gonna help you in the future.

And thank you again, Stefan, for coming on. Thank you for listen all the way through. I appreciate you. Now, one of my favorite ways to practice copywriting is to actually share my sales pages, share my emails with other people like my mastermind group to see what their reaction is to gauge a little bit of a response if you are looking for access to different people where you can share things like that.

I highly recommend you check out SPI Pro or our SPI Learner communities. These are communities of people just like you that you can come in and share resources with and get some valuable feedback from. If you go to SmartPassiveIncome.com/community, you’ll see the different options that we have available for you to join our community and join forces with other people just like you.

SmartPassiveIncome.com/community. Thank you so much. I appreciate you and I look forward to serving you in the next episode, coming up very shortly. Hit that subscribe button so you don’t miss out on it. Peace out and I’ll see you the next one.

Thanks for listening to the Smart Passive Income Podcast at SmartPassiveIncome.com. I’m your host Pat Flynn. Our senior producer is Sara Jane Hess. Our series producer is David Grabowski. And our executive producer is Matt Gartland. Sound editing by Duncan Brown. The Smart Passive Income Podcast is a production of SPI Media. We’ll catch you in the next session.