“Dude, I found this new thing, it’s called Facebook marketing, we can make MILLIONS!”
That’s what my friend told me right before I was about to graduate college. You see, 3 years ago I had no idea what I wanted to do for a career. College graduation was coming up and my parents were stressing me out with what path I would choose.
“Zach, I found a cool job here. Zach you should talk to Bill, he may be able to hook you up with a job. Zach, look at this job.”
Tired of their messages, I wanted to block them from communication. I knew they wanted to help me, but frankly, I didn’t want a job… For some reason, I had this knack to do something more than a job, to become something great. To be something special.
One lucky day, I happened to catch my friend Joel on his computer listening to this dude with dark hair and glasses. He filmed himself in front of a Lamborghini and kept repeating the word ‘Knowledge.’
Curious I asked, “What are you up to man?”
“Dude, I found a way to get thousands of dollars a month by managing people’s Facebook page.” He responded.
…and that was the beginning of my rabbit hole of entrepreneurship. Through the countless success stories, the freedom, the cars, the travel. I wanted to be like them. So I decided to move forward, tell my parents that I’m not taking the traditional route and start making “more money in a month than they did in a year.”
I thought life was going to be so easy… Well, as the saying goes, “If it were easy everyone would be doing it.” And off I was, in the middle of the business jungle, with ZERO skills.
I told my parents I would be rich with my digital marketing agency…Yet I knew nothing: Copywriting, email marketing, sales pages, social media strategy, google ads, video editing, wow.
I took on clients knowing none of these skills… (Thank god I worked for free). And to be honest, I didn’t know it would be this hard. I thought all I had to do was post a few pictures to their facebook page and write a little text. But no, marketing is a confusing puzzle with countless ways of putting the puzzle together.
I had no idea where to start. Being overwhelmed, I tried to learn everything at once (big mistake). I bought books, courses, watched videos, you name it. I thought I was getting better at marketing but, was I really? I didn’t know the core skills, the fundamentals, the STRUCTURE that makes a marketer successful.
…And it showed in my clients’ results.
As I learned more, I took on more and more clients. But I couldn’t keep them because they didn’t see REVENUE. It sucked. I lost confidence in my service, my marketing, and in myself…
So I started looking for answers. Maybe I’m not choosing the right person to listen to. So, about 9 months ago, I told my parents that if this entrepreneur thing doesn’t work by 2021… I will go get a job and do “the traditional route.”
That same week I stumbled across this video on my YouTube feed. It was from this guy named Dan Lok. I had no idea who he was but for some reason, this guy resonated with me (probably because he reminds me of a relative). But he said something in this video that stuck with me to this day:
“You are broke because you don’t have a high income skill.”
A high income skill? What is that? I knew deep down that I had to master a skill… but none of the courses I bought or mentors I watched, told me to focus on ONE, High-Income skill. I was so scatter-brained with wanting to learn everything, I realized I didn’t become good at one.
So I pivoted my strategy and listened to him. His first high income skill was copywriting, so I thought “monkey see, monkey do.” So I dove deep into the ocean of copywriting — Taking various cheap courses, joining Facebook groups, watching YouTube videos, reading articles.
I was still lost on how to write good copy, until about 6 months ago… I stumbled onto another video of his where he said he would find proven advertisements, and hand-copy them. Word for word, EVERY DAY. Yes, with pen and paper and no typing on the computer. It was non-negotiable. So, having the “monkey see, monkey do” mindset, I decided to do the same.
I wrote about 10 pages of advertisements every day. What I learned from doing this has been life changing…
So today, I want to walk you through the benefits I learned from Dan’s special ‘hand-copy’ exercise. I’ll cover the core of why copywriting is the key to making online sales for your business. And what online skills you may be focusing on that can waste your time… And money. Plus, how you can follow my footsteps so you can make more than $5,000 / month extra for your business.
Let’s dive in and get started…
Every single week, I talk to business owners who do not have a consistent way of earning revenue for their business. They have no idea how to build an online presence or generate sales online. I typically see them spending lots of time and money making their website ‘attractive.’ Or creating content with NO strategy towards revenue. This will produce no return on investment and they will lose valuable time and money. Which can drive any business owner crazy.
If you’re an entrepreneur who is struggling to generate more revenue for your business, this may be one of the most important blog posts you ever read. I say that because taking the advice that you’re about to read and closely modeling this can be the drastic difference between failure and a REVENUE-GENERATING MACHINE.
A Warning:
Some folks will glance over this article quickly and not read all the finer details. That would be a mistake. I’m about to break down a copywriting framework that may seem overly simple. But if you put these frameworks into practice, you will be getting results in no time. You could waste a lot of time trying to learn a bunch of these techniques on your own. Or you can follow these frameworks, implement them into your business and generate A TON of more revenue. Imagine how you would feel when you are able to effectively sell online for the rest of your life. Being able to make money while you sleep, to spend more time with your friends and family, to have more freedom.
The beauty of this copywriting framework that I’m about to teach you is that it’s simple. (More on that as we get into the latter part of this post).
Before we get started on the frameworks of great copy. I should talk about some of the most popular online skills that I see entrepreneurs pay for or waste time to learn. They “wish” and “hope” that these skills will magically generate revenue for them. But, they are overrated skills for making money.
Let’s cover these 2 most overrated skills:
1. Custom Website Building
I see entrepreneurs make this mistake all the time. They put so much emphasis on making their website look pretty and nice. They forget the fundamental aspect of why they are putting one together in the first place. To make sales or to get leads. A pretty or attractive website will not get you sales. It will only lead to frustration once you realize how much time and money you put into it for minimal results.
So, how do you get your website to generate sales or leads? Good copy! It’s the most fundamental skill that you must learn BEFORE you build a website.
2. Facebook Ad Management
You’ve probably seen many success stories from businesses using Facebook ads. You know, the guys on the beach with their laptop preaching about how you can do it too with Facebook ads. So you decide to learn it or hire people for your ad campaign. And it doesn’t work. Or even worse, your account gets banned. It’s like you threw money down the drain.
Can it make you a lot of money like the ‘laptop lifestyle’ guys said? Absolutely! It can be a cash cow for your business, but you have to understand what to write to get people’s attention. And that’s copy!
Don’t get me wrong, these skills can be good to have and can make you a ton of money. But they’re useless if you don’t have the fundamental skill that makes it all work. Copywriting.
That said, let’s dig into this fundamental skill that makes it all work — the copy. I will go over my step-by-step framework of what I learned hand-writing copy for 6 months.
A 10k foot overview:
1. Write good writing. The easiest way to get good at writing is to write good advertisements. I have a bookmark folder of great advertisements I add to my collection. If you don’t want to hand copy them, you can also use them as a template for your writing. I like to go to swiped.co, adbeat.com, and the Facebook Ads Library to find proven advertisements to model.
2. Speak in your ideal customer’s voice. The best copywriters speak in a voice that resonates with their audience. Who are your best customers? What are their deepest desires? What are their pains? If you’re writing resonates with them, they are more likely to buy.
3. Great copy has irresistible offers. How can you offer more value that allows the customer to use the product easier? Take time to look at your competition, what are they offering? Then create an offer that makes you unique in the market. Something your competitors are not doing. This doesn’t always have to be more stuff, it can also be a pricing offer like “try before you buy” or “free trial.”
4. Confident guarantees. You’re probably well aware of 30 day money-back guarantees. Well, that’s only the baseline. Great copywriters take time to craft their guarantees. They research what the customer is skeptical about, and BOOM, give them more. Yes, some people may take advantage of your guarantee but you’ll end up with a lot more customers. I guarantee it!
5. Attention Grabbing Headlines. Headlines are the most important part of your copywriting. It is the first thing that can grab the attention of your reader. It should NOT try and sell your reader but draw them towards wanting to read the rest of your advertisement.
6. Bullet points to get the reader more curious and intrigued. List out all your features and benefits for your product. Then create bullet points that stress the benefits in your offer. The bullet points should get your reader more fascinated about your product.
7. Great copy has credibility sprinkled all over the copy. These are not only written testimonials. They can be videos, quotes, screenshots, awards, statistics, before & after pics, industry experts. Anything you can show off that prove your case, do it.
8. Clear call to action. Saying exactly what the reader has to do next — To book a call, buy a product, set an appointment, etc.
9. Prompt the reader to take action NOW by adding scarcity. Think of creative ways to add scarcity even if you have lots of products available. It doesn’t always have to be “Only 2 left” or “5 days left to buy.” It can be something like “get in before everybody finds out about this secret.” Find genuine and honest ways to add in scarcity.
Over the past 6 months, Dan Lok’s ‘Hand-copy technique’ has changed my life in the way I see advertising. Think of these 9 frameworks as the fundamentals to start writing effective advertisements. Whether it be emails, sales pages, social media posts, ads, or chatbots.
If you need any help at all with copywriting, click this link and message me any concerns you are having. I would love to talk.