Leveraging Copywriting For Profit in a Digital World with Jacob McMillen on Episode #0243

Jacob McMillen [0:00]
Hi, my name is Jacob McMillen from JacobMcMillen.com and you’re listening to EA Interviews.

Intro [0:04]
EA Interviews Episode 243 inspiration, transformation success stories and the imperfect action round seven days a week. Join Mario Fachini for today’s Expert Authority Effect Interview.

Mario Fachini [0:18]
I’m gonna lose my mind. Why isn’t this going on? We’ve been putting so much money into this and nothing’s working. Maybe we should go to this newspaper. Maybe we should do that. Have you ever seen people do that or heard that or you just run an ad campaign or you run a Facebook click campaign or some sort of ad campaign that you saw was the newest, latest and greatest hiding and trending, whatever the heck? And it didn’t work? Well. I’m gonna tell you the answer to that right now. It’s called copywriting and your messaging is probably jacked up. That’s why I’m excited to have Jacob McMillen on the show. Today, we’re gonna dive into copywriting and the importance of it. I’m gonna bring them back right after we thank our sponsor.

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Mario Fachini [1:17]
Here he is, ladies and gentlemen, Jacob McMillen. Jacob, how are you feeling today?

Jacob McMillen [1:22]
Doing great. How about you?

Mario Fachini [1:23]
I am excited to dive into copywriting because I know the importance of it. I don’t think most people do. And I want to know what you take on it?

Jacob McMillen [1:33]
Yeah, I mean, copywriting is kind of the fuel that drives online business. You know, it’s a bet if you think of the last 20 products that you bought online, at some point during that process, you read, you read some words, you read some, you know, a page, something that you read to get you to make that decision to purchase. And so it drives everything, things that we think about things that we don’t think about, it’s kind of the fuel that drives the web.

Mario Fachini [2:03]
But how important is the message? I mean, wouldn’t it be smarter to just, maybe run the same campaign on LinkedIn as we’re doing on Facebook?

Jacob McMillen [2:13]
Yeah, so I mean, copywriting at its core is all about communicating a specific message, a specific offer to each audience that you’re in front of. So every different platform, every different campaign, the wording that you’re using, the messaging needs to be a little bit different, it needs to be targeted and focused at, you know, the specific people that you’re, you’re talking to, it’s kind of like, it’s like asynchronous sales, instead of having a one to one conversation, you’re anticipating, what the person that you’re speaking to through the stream is going to be thinking and wherever, wherever you are online, wherever you’re talking, that person is going to be a little bit different. And going to need a little bit different messaging.

Mario Fachini [2:54]
But Jacob, that sounds like a lot of work, I just want to copy and paste the thing, because, you know, we already got the graphics done. We already paid the web designer, and why do we have to change all the messages?

Jacob McMillen [3:07]
Yeah, I mean, it is a lot of work. And it’s one of the reasons that copywriting is such a high demand skill, such a high demand service these days, because you know, there’s hundreds of places online that you have people that you need to speak to, and as I said, they kind of all require slightly different messaging. And we think about something like, Tiktok that’s been blown up over the last few years, five years ago, no one even knew what that was. And here it is a new platform that has new messaging requirements, and it absolutely is a lot of work.

Mario Fachini [3:38]
Well, I’m, I don’t know if I’m done teasing you just yet about it. But that is the honest to God’s truth and I wanted to play devil’s advocate, because so many people have the attitude, I’ll raise my hand first. Because the reality is, we did pay the designers, we did pay the web designers, we paid the graphics, can we just copy and paste this and be done with it? And the answer is no. But what would you say to someone who has the attitude and is wrong? To say, let’s dive into the benefits of it? Okay, it’s going to be a lot of work. It might it’s probably going to be an extra investment you didn’t account for, but what are the upsides of it? Take us through that?

Jacob McMillen [4:19]
Yeah, I mean, if you think about the most successful way to sell someone, or to make a sell, it’s to sit down with someone one on one, and go through the process of talking to them, finding out what their unique needs are, what the you know, the problems that they’re trying to solve and then connect the solution of your product or service to their unique problems. And obviously for a lot of businesses in terms of the sales they’re doing, they’re wanting to scale past the requirements of one to one. If you think about if you need to have an actual live salesperson, what you need to pay them To have a one to one conversation with everyone, some business models do that. But for a lot of us, that’s way too much of an expense. So hiring a copywriter to come in and basically try to emulate that process to 500 people to 1000 people to 50,000 people, that’s drastically cheaper than having a set paying for a salesperson to go through and talk with 50,000 people. So I mean, at the end of the day, it’s sort of a, it’s a discussion of, of scale. And, you know, it absolutely can be a large cost. But I mean, when we think about it, it’s kind of about finding that balance between how granular how granular you want to be with your message, and the benefits that come from that. And you’re typically looking for, you know, a range where the segmentation gives you a return on your investment.

Mario Fachini [5:53]
I want to ask you why do you feel it’s so powerful to have that one on one, versus just throwing some mud against the wall or putting some random stuff on wherever the heck?

Jacob McMillen [6:14]
Yeah, it’s kind of wild. I mean, because I did before I got into copywriting, I was in direct one to one sales. And what’s so crazy is when you take the time to listen to someone, explain the unique challenges that they’re facing, it’s really easy to sell them, because you can basically just repeat back to them exactly what they said to you. And they’re going to be really excited about the solution. They say that they need ABC and you say, hey, I’m going to give you ABC, and here’s how I’m going to do it. And it’s just a very high rate of sales. When I when I did one sales at a 40% conversion rate, which is just, you know, that’s, that’s like for every, what three people I’m sitting down with, you know, more than two, on average are purchasing, because they basically will sell themselves, you just listen to them tell you what they need, and then say, hey, here’s how I’m going to give that to you. And so that’s why it’s so powerful is because they’re, they’re sort of selling themselves by excellent explaining exactly what they need. And so you kind of want to, when you get into copywriting, we’re trying to pull as much of that process out into the copywriting and anticipating, hey, for this group of people, they’re all going to have fairly similar needs, they’re all going to have fairly similar challenges. And so you just sort of imagine that you’re sitting in the room with that person, one to one, and explaining how you’re going to help them.

Mario Fachini [7:37]
So I want to, are you open for a challenge? Yeah, sure. So, I know a lot of people that do one on one, and I’ve done it before in the past, and it’s nice, especially if you’re at a nice restaurant. But I’ve also seen a lot of people who are very unsuccessful with it. Now, I don’t disagree that if we’re sitting down one on one, it’s probably the easiest way to sell someone without a doubt, because of what you had said. But for the people who aren’t successful with it, why do you think they’re unsuccessful with it?

Jacob McMillen [8:11]
Yeah, so I mean, there’s two factors at play. Well first of all, Product Market Fit has to be there and generally speaking, you’re not going to out persuade, you know, some, you’re going to persuade someone into product market fit. So the first step is having some level of real connection between what they need and what you’re offering. But one of the biggest mistakes that people make both in sales and in copywriting is they come in looking to sell, they come in looking to pitch their product, and in their mind, it’s all about them, it’s all about what they’re doing. And that’s the absolute worst way to sell, because, as I mentioned before, you want to let them sell themselves, you want to let them really dig into the challenges that they’re facing. And then assuming that product market fit is there, it makes it really easy to just, you know, let them explain it. And then again, like, literally just repeat back to them what they said to you. And that’s the best sales pitch you’re ever gonna have. And so it’s just, it’s very inverse of how most people think when they think of sales. And so that’s kind of why a lot of people struggle with it is they can’t get, they can’t step away from that mentality of, I need to persuade you to do something versus I need to really understand what’s challenging you, and then just connect what I’m doing to, you know, the challenge that you’re facing.

Mario Fachini [9:33]
Should you pre qualify them?

Jacob McMillen [9:37]
I mean, to some extent, it kind of depends on the marketing campaign that you’re doing. Yhen we talk when we connect that to copywriting, for example, you know, you’re looking to get targeted traffic to the page that you’re doing your copywriting on, but kind of in that vein, you’re going to be writing copy to the people who are a good fit, not the people who aren’t aren’t a good fit. So sometimes it’s okay, if the wrong people are coming, and they’re not responding to it, that’s okay, because we’re looking for the right people to respond to it.

Mario Fachini [10:09]
So we’re going from one on one to, let’s say, one to 51 to 101 to 500, or 1000, when you can narrow that down, is there any limit you can’t scale it to?

Jacob McMillen [10:23]
I mean, I would say it just comes down to, you know, when you identify the core challenges that your product solves, and the core benefits that your product provides it really just comes down to how, how big of a group are experiencing any one of those challenges. So when we’re talking about certain products like, if you’re selling a mattress, and you’re just looking to help people get a good night’s sleep, I mean your target market is anyone who can reasonably afford the price of matches you’re selling, it could be 10s of millions, hundreds of millions of people. Whereas if you’re talking about, you know, how to get more revenue from your e-commerce marketing funnel? Well, you know, the group of people who are having email marketing struggles for their e-commerce stores is drastically smaller. So it kind of just comes down to the size of the segment, you’ve identified, the core challenges core benefits with.

Mario Fachini [11:22]
How do you identify that core segment?

Jacob McMillen [11:26]
So there’s no shortcut. It’s just understanding your target market. And that’s where in the past, I’ve done when I’ve been wanting to do copywriting, for a larger audience, I still won’t skip the one to one calls, the one to one conversations to really dig in, and try to understand my target market, what they’re really experiencing, as a general rule, as a copywriter, any client I’m working with, they have a whole sales team that’s done or a customer service team, even that’s done one to one calls. And so we’re, we’re just looking to hear what the customers have already told us? And how can we incorporate that into what we’re saying back to the customers it’s basically that same process of the one to one conversation just extended over kind of a broader, more disjointed online experience that we’re trying to take from being broader and disjointed and make it real succinct, and really straightforward?

Mario Fachini [12:22]
What sample size do you need to work with the one on one? So if someone who doesn’t have a sales team or a large one, I should say if it’s like, a sales team of five to 25, versus a big company with hundreds? How many case studies, if you will? Or how many people do you think you should have? Are we talking about a sample of 50 100 500? Before you start seeing the patterns? To go, hey, here’s the top 10 things that people keep talking about?

Jacob McMillen [12:53]
Yeah, so I mean, it kind of comes down, it’s less about what is statistically the right answer and more about what can your budget afford? Because, you know, for a lot of budgets that people put into copywriting, they can’t afford to pay for the copywriter to sit down with 10 people, let alone 50. So it’s kind of like you want to kind of look for the pieces in a most efficient way possible, which is going to be like more survey type data more that type of feedback across a broad range, because you do, you do have to be careful of, you know, if you only if you only talk to five people, and that’s all you do, you might run into the physician where those five people what mattered to them isn’t representative, the whole group, so you kind of want to pair, you know, maybe a handful of one to one conversations that let you go deeper, with a broader set of more simple, easier, less expensive to get data. And so if you can combine those two things, that usually puts you in a good spot? And yeah, so I would say, if you can get 50 to 100 bits of replies from real people using your product or thinking about using your product, and then have a conversation with like five people that’s usually going to work for most people. And obviously, if you’re investing $100,000 into a funnel, and you’re planning to run 5 million and ad spend through it, you’re going to be a little bit more aggressive with that. But that’s not applicable most people,

Mario Fachini [14:20]
what would you say to someone who is in that situation where they’re going to put 5 million on the ad spend and have 100 grand for the funnel? What percentage do you think they should allocate to making sure there’s nothing wrong with it, and they have all the data because again, I know people in both of those situations, and I’ve seen both of them do really good and I’ve seen both of them do really bad?

Jacob McMillen [14:45]
Yeah. So when we talk about bigger budgets like that, what I’m essentially going to say is that the first draft is a guess. There is no way to perfectly predict based on even direct customer feedback, how that initial draft is going to perform. So what you want to do is you want to spend some time to give it your best shot on it but then you’re looking to iterate very quickly, what the benefit of all that ad spend is, we can very quickly run 10,000 people through a page, and then sit, figure out exactly where they’re responding how they’re engaging with that page and make adjustments, make an adjustment, run another 10,000, through make an adjustment, ultimately, it’s not important that we’re profitable on the first, $100,000, when we’re talking about a 5 million spend, what we really care about is being profitable at the end of that spend.

Mario Fachini [15:39]
When you’re talking about seeing how they interact with the page, you’re referring to, like the analytics, the heat maps, the click throughs, the pixels and all that stuff.

Jacob McMillen [15:47]
Exactly, the the more spend, we’re doing the the more granular we want to be with analyzing how people are engaging with every part of that page, because then it’s like, if we see that, hey, people are scrolling through the first third, and then we’re losing half our visitors on after a few seconds, then that means we need to do a lot of work on that first part of the page. Whereas if they are getting all the way down to the end, then just not converting that suggests another, another issue, maybe we’re not resonating with the challenges correctly, or we kind of pick the wrong benefits to focus on or we haven’t put enough, social proof or trust risk reversal into the copy. And so it just kind ofthe the more the more we can analyze, then it just allows us to more specifically tackle bottlenecks in the final.

Mario Fachini [16:37]
Expert Authority World. What we’re talking about here is the tracking on the page, the pixels, the analytics, there’s many other episodes of EA Interviews with SEO, specific funnels, conversions, all that it’s so voluminous, we’re not going to dive deeper into it here. But it’s so important because if your messaging isn’t right, they’re probably not even going to click, but if they once you do get them clicking, if you have no idea what they’re doing, or how they’re doing it, or how often you lose them also. So back to copywriting. How did you get into it?

Jacob McMillen [17:14]
Yeah, so I did, actually did door to door sales in college, to pay my way through school, good. I’m getting out. I got an accounting degree, the only thing I knew getting out of college was that I did not want to be an accountant. So I was like, okay, no,

Mario Fachini [17:31]
Why not?

Jacob McMillen [17:33]
Great investment. Right.

Mario Fachini [17:35]
Why would you want to be an accountant?

Jacob McMillen [17:39]
I think the big thing with accounting was I was looking at the career path, and I was like, my mentality was, I’m happy to hustle and put the time in during my 20s, even my 30s but by the time I get kind of up the ladder, I want to be able to scale back my work a bit, and let that hustle pay off for me. And when I looked at accounting, kind of particularly like a big four route where a lot of the you know, a lot of the money is, you know, the higher up you go, the more you work, the partners, they’re hustling more than the interns. So it’s like for a lot of senses, it was just kind of like yeah, I didn’t want to pick a career where I worked more the further I got. So I kind of discovered online marketing. I was like, hey, this is kind of the opposite. You put the hustle in to build some of these recurring revenue assets early and then, they work for you as you get older.

Mario Fachini [18:31]
Absolutely.

Jacob McMillen [18:34]
So I got into where I was. I first came into the online marketing world through SEO, and about a year into my journey there, I discovered copywriting and I was like, hey, this is everything I loved about direct sales minus everything I hated about direct sales. I was like this kind of feels like it’s for me I you know, I I had never been like a writing hobbyist when I was always a pretty decent writer and enjoyed the process of it. So it just felt like the right career for me and I dove in and you know, eight years later, here I am.

Mario Fachini [19:11]
Wow, congrats. I never wanted to be an accountant. But I failed English seven times. So writing was never, ever at the forefront of my mind until I did my first book. And then I’m like, okay, I see why this has been around 1000s of years. And the more and more I got into it, I actually enjoy writing now. And because for me, it’s delivering the message. This is another medium. And this is one of the things I teach with the expert authority effect. This is because you need to know your market in your message. But this is a medium, whether we’re an audio video, in person, out of person, whatever, I don’t even know. You know, I said years ago when we start using holograms for marketing, it doesn’t matter. You can still have cool new technology. And that’s why it’s kind of making fun of it at the beginning. Because, you know, I’ve heard it too, they’re like, you know, and I tell my author clients I go, we need to get your messaging succinct, because when they’re reading your book, when we publish your business book, that might be the only interaction with you, they get, you better make darn sure that it’s on point. So I’ve done a full 180 with the whole writing and everything. And I’ve also come to find copywriting it’s a lot of fun, because you can just look at stuff and it’s like, Cool funnel, sure you spent 10s of 1000s on that, and they see your ads and check the Facebook ads library. See, you’re doing a lot here. But you’re messaging trash.

Jacob McMillen [20:45]
I love that you brought that up, because going from failing English class to publishing multiple books, it’s like, the people, our concept of what writing is in school is so different from what it actually is in a business and a marketing context. Because it’s like, you’re sort of just like in an English class, the goal is all…

Mario Fachini [21:08]
You’re sleeping in English class as what you’re doing.

Jacob McMillen [21:12]
Yeah, exactly. And then you get into kind of the real world and writing in the real world is all about, like you said, all about communicating a message. And like accomplishing an objective, it’s very strategic. It’s not sort of vague what you’re trying to accomplish. It’s very specific. And so a lot of people who did not enjoy writing in school actually find their writing legs out in the business world. And it’s amazing.

Mario Fachini [21:38]
Yeah, and also say this to the difference of having to write an essay on what’s the diameter of under the chair, it’s like, who cares? versus, hey, let’s test this out for a week, we could go from a 5x profit to an 8x. Yeah, that might be worth 12 minutes.

Jacob McMillen [21:54]
Exactly.

Mario Fachini [21:55]
So I think we’ve made a strong enough case for people, they should be caring about copywriting. Couple more things, I want to ask you, if someone’s never, okay, if someone’s never done this in their life, where should they be starting? And I know, we talked about knowing your market in this, but what would you say is a tangible thing? Like, should they go to the website first? Should they go to something physical? Should they go to their books? Should they go to what if they’re authors, speakers, where’s one place that they can, where would you say is the easiest for them to see the biggest change right now?

Jacob McMillen [22:30]
I think probably framework, understanding a copywriting framework looking up, you know, established proven frameworks, just like when you learn sales, you learn to walk the prospect through an intentional set of ideas. And it’s the same with copywriting, understanding what we think about like, going back to English class, you look at a blank page and think I need to write something and it’s overwhelming, but if you have…

Mario Fachini [23:02]
Or draw something.

Jacob McMillen [23:04]
Or draw exactly, but if you come in, and you know exactly how I’m going to do this, then this, then this, then this, then it’s much simpler. It’s just about thinking, okay, what do I need to say in section one? What do I need to say in Section 2, 3, 4? So just kind of finding a copywriting framework and you can even Google a copywriting framework.

Mario Fachini [23:23]
What’s one of your favorite frameworks? And what’s the first step of it?

Jacob McMillen [23:28]
So I mean, when we talk about the ads example, earlier, we have the AIDA framework, a i d a, which is attention, interest, desire and action. And so essentially, there, we’re just thinking, hey, what’s, in this first bit, we need to say something that really grabs people’s attention, like typically not and, you know, in 2020 2021, we’re talking about Facebook ads, really, when you say paid ads, that’s kind of the flywheel for most businesses. So, when we talk about the data framework, we’re looking at, hey, we need to catch someone’s attention in a crowded noisy space right off the bat.

Mario Fachini [24:04]
And you’re talking about, like a headline.

Jacob McMillen [24:07]
Yeah, I mean, headline is a huge part of ADA, it could connect into like, the visual creative as well, or the first sentence or two, you see like he’s spent some time on LinkedIn, you see a lot of these posts where they like, intentionally leave a gap. So you have to click to like, open it up. So that he was about that curiosity hook in that first bit of the post, it’s kind of that same idea, you want to stop people with curiosity, with saying something outlandish, when whatever it is that gets them to stop. That’s what’s important, and then from there, you need to very quickly translate attention into genuine interest. And because they’re not, they’re not going to stay forever, just based on curiosity. So you have to, you know, you have to transition that into, having a core message that they’re interested in and that’s usually storytelling is usually how you do that, people are always interested in stories and then you know, In that story, you want to create desire for whatever the action is that you’re wanting to motivate, whatever the cell is to get them to get that click, you want to use the story to generate desire for what you’re talking about. And then at the end of the day, attention, desire and interest don’t mean anything if we can’t get the action. So at the end of the day, we’re looking for that direct action of the click through, the sign up purchase, whatever it is.

Mario Fachini [25:29]
And that is so important. Thank you for explaining that in detail. Because I find a lot of people see this and they hear it and everyone knows what a headline is. And if you don’t, you need to like to listen to every episode of the show. But you need to know what the headline is and go through this and we see it, we’re inundated with people all day and people, I’d say the biggest thing they have is they think it’s not working on Facebook, let me go to LinkedIn, let me go to YouTube. And they’re switching the medium, they never even look at the message over here. And they sure as heck don’t know their market. So to your point of, you got to get people to click, they also have to be the right person. So what are some ways you would say to intentionally repel and I know this might be weird for an expert authority world listening going? Okay, so you’re telling me to create an ad that gets people to click, and I’m going to spend money to get them rejected? Why is that so important?

Jacob McMillen [26:28]
Yeah, so I mean, there’s sort of two elements to that with ads, there’s the targeting, and then the messaging and so the targeting does need to be more specific, when we talk about the messaging, you can’t, you can’t really give a powerful message that resonates with a specific segment without, you know, in most cases, alienating other people, you know, if I’m, if I’m talking to 100 people, and what I’m saying is interesting to all 100 of them, if we’re just talking about Iraq, a random segment of people, it’s probably not going to be very powerful, very targeted at the person.

Mario Fachini [27:03]
It is not compelling at all.

Jacob McMillen [27:05]
Exactly. And so yeah, it’s less about looking to repel anyone and more about looking to make it so specific, that anyone who’s not your target market just would have no interest whatsoever, they just like, they’d look at it and be like, I can’t, I don’t want that, you know. So it’s kind of like if we’re talking about, say, you know, my audience, I want to talk to writers, like I help writers earn more. And so you know, if I’m delivering a message that’s general, about freelancing in general, to where someone who’s a designer, say, is interested in my message, I’m doing it wrong, you know, because even though there’s a lot of overlap, like I want to speak to writers specifically, I don’t have anything to offer designers. I’m not a designer, you know, even though they’re freelancers as well. And I talked to a lot of freelance writers. If my messaging appeals to designers, I’m screwing up, so I need to make it more targeted. And it’s kind of it’s a little bit counterintuitive, because a lot of people think, you know, I tend to think broad and tend to think I want to appeal to more people, but you don’t, you know, you want to appeal to this specific segment that you’re looking to help or sell to.

Mario Fachini [28:16]
That’s powerful. And I’m glad you touched on that. Because too many people are talking broad. If you’re talking to everyone you talk to no one.

Jacob McMillen [28:26]
Yeah.

Mario Fachini [28:27]
How do you get there? It’s a loaded question. But that’s why I’m having fun unpacking it with you. Once you tell us about some of your success stories, what’s the biggest transformation you’ve had from one of your clients?

Jacob McMillen [28:40]
Yeah, so one of the things that I’ve been most focused on over the last few years is content that brings in real customers, blog content, that’s not just offering value to people that is actually getting them to engage with the brand sign up, come through, and then sell on the back end through the funnel. And so my most recent client, you know, in about nine months, just through really targeted blog content that, like we said, was not appealing to any old person running a business, but in this case, appealing to people who are looking to do consulting specifically. And in nine months we were doing $415,000 net profit on a brand new website, brand new blog, just because again, we went targeted, we went in depth, and we kept it focused specifically on the readers. And then on one of my own businesses this last year, doing taking the same concept going, you know, going specifically to people who are writers and helping writers earn more, went from zero to 22,000 per month and 15 months, again, because I wasn’t speaking to everyone, speaking to those specific people really finding out doing the one on one call even when it wasn’t profitable to me to spend an hour talking with someone, but it was in the long term, really understanding what are they going through? What are the things that aren’t being solved for them, translated to being able to really resonate with that audience over the long term.

Mario Fachini [30:18]
Those are excellent case studies. And if anyone’s trying to do the math, that comes out to about 50 grand extra a month, which is not horrible for changing. Please don’t be insulted by changing a few words around and I know, it’s more complex than that. We just talked about that. But what I mean, it’s like that, essentially, that’s what it comes down to? Do we just increase profit tenfold? By changing some words around? So would you say, it’s worth doing?

Jacob McMillen [30:52]
Yes, absolutely. It’s kind of one of those things where, if you can’t deliver a clear message, you’re never going to, no matter how valuable, what you’re doing is you’re never really going to be able to communicate that value. And when it comes to writing, in particular, some people just really struggle to translate their thoughts into words. And if that’s you there’s a massive market of copywriters out there ready and willing to help you at a wide variety of price points just like there’s a, there’s a huge market that you can tap into. And if you’re on the boat, where it’s not a struggle, you can translate your thoughts into words pretty pretty well, then learning those frameworks, learning the techniques, to really make your message clear, to really focus on the right things in the right order. It’s absolutely going to increase your earnings and your business virtually overnight. And then as you get better and better over time even more.

Mario Fachini [31:52]
If that doesn’t excite you, then I don’t know what would, especially if you’re in business, so thank you for sharing that. We have the wheel of whatever. Now before we thank our sponsor, and come back for the imperfect action round, what’s the deal with this? What’s the question you’re going to get? You see it right there? No, because there’s nothing on there and make these up on the fly. That’s okay, spin. I still need to get the clicker. Working on it shows work in progress just like me. Okay, so here’s your question. Who is a copywriter you would love to have dinner with and why? alive or not? That’s a good one.

Jacob McMillen [32:44]
That’s a good one. Yeah. I mean..

Mario Fachini [32:48]
Aim to please.

Jacob McMillen [32:50]
The Godfather of copywriting is Ogilvy so I mean like, you got to say that, right…

Mario Fachini [32:57]
You don’t have to. I was kind of wondering if you were I had it down to two.

Jacob McMillen [33:02]
Someone else. Yeah, I mean, absolutely him. Thinking maybe, maybe someone more modern. I don’t know if you’re familiar with Ramit Sethi. But he’s the guy I fall for. I love his copy. He wouldn’t really refer to himself as a copywriter by trade. But I’ve always really appreciated his copy and the branding that he weaves into his copy. So it’d be fun to sit down and talk with him about business and copy and all that jazz.

Mario Fachini [33:38]
Well, the good news is he still lives so you can, yeah, and all I’m ever doing on the show is looking for honest answers. There’s no wrong ones. And it’s interesting, because there’s so many good copywriters out there, but certain ones focus on different avenues. And I tell people this all the time, just like with marketers, or just like with coaches, or just like with whatever, it’s like, there’s so many good people nowadays, find the one that you resonate with the most you might, you know, here’s 10 people, they’re all good. They’re all qualified, but maybe you just like their personality better? I’ve said it to my authors before, they’re like, why would anyone want a book on this? There’s 58 others. I go, Yeah, but they’re not from you and your perspective and your experience.

Jacob McMillen [34:24]
So true.

Mario Fachini [34:27]
I mean, I have many episodes where it’s similar topics, but the guests are night and day differences, so it’s like…

Jacob McMillen [34:36]
Absolutely.

Mario Fachini [34:37]
Choose the one you like the best. So thank you for the answer. We are going to thank the sponsor, and we’re going to come back to the imperfect action round.

Sponsor – Free Business Book Publishing Course [34:44]
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Mario Fachini [36:15]
And we are back with the Imperfect Action Round. Jacob, are you ready to take imperfect action?

Jacob McMillen [36:21]
Let’s do it.

Mario Fachini [36:23]
The first question I have for you and these are 60 second or less answers is what is the fastest path to the profits?

Jacob McMillen [36:30]
Clarity, clarity, clarity, clarity, giving your message delivering your message of value with clear, clear words making it easy to understand.

Mario Fachini [36:42]
Very good. Number two, what is the biggest problem you see your prospects making and the fastest way for them to fix it?

Jacob McMillen [36:51]
The opposite of that. So basically focusing on themselves focusing on, you know, some really vague, overly broad presentation of value instead of being real clear, trying too hard to persuade, trying too hard to sell instead of just, you know, clearly addressing the challenges and the benefits and focusing there.

Mario Fachini [37:14]
Number three, what is the best way to maximize customer lifetime value?

Jacob McMillen [37:23]
Oh, so I think consistency and your messaging and holding true to the vision that brought them there in the first place. So often what they get to three months in is sort of disconnected from what brings them into the first place. So just staying consistent, staying on brand and value focused with your message through ongoing is what keeps people around.

Mario Fachini [37:48]
Very good. What are some books you’d recommend to the expert authority world that have made a difference in your life.

Jacob McMillen [37:56]
So I really like Made to Stick. It’s one of those books that kind of cuts through to the idea of messaging that actually stays with people, and just makes it really practical. It applies to copywriting, but applies to you know, business building and messaging in general. And so that’d be probably the number one.

Mario Fachini [38:20]
Excellent. Where would you like people to learn more?

Jacob McMillen [38:25]
If you go to my website, JacobMcmillen.com I have over 175,000 words of free content published, I do a weekly 10 minute podcast on Mondays where we talk about writing, marketing and freelancing. And then lots of some interesting free courses that you can get as well. So if you want to learn more, head there.

Mario Fachini [38:47]
Excellent. Well, thank you so much for sharing. I got a lot out of it and had a lot of fun in the process. So thank you.

Jacob McMillen [38:54]
Thanks for having me. Mario’s blast.

Mario Fachini [38:57]
Alright, Expert Authority World. We have another great episode here today. I’ll see you tomorrow. Have a great day. God bless.

Sponsor – Free Business Book Publishing Course [39:05]
You’re already an expert. But have you transformed your expertise into a tangible asset that will generate unqualified leads while increasing profit for you 24 Seven? And if so, how well are you promoting it? With the expert authority effect publishing method it’s easier and faster than ever. Visit freebusinessbookpublishingcourse.com today to learn the seven steps to publish and promote your nonfiction lead and profit generating business book in eight weeks. Visit freebusinessbookpublishingcourse.com to get started now, once again, that’s freebusinessbookpublishingcourse.com.

www.EAInterviews.com [39:38]
Hey, thanks for listening to today’s episode. I hope you got a lot out of it. I know I sure did. If you haven’t done so already, I invite you to subscribe to the show. And also be sure to check out EAInterviews.com for complete show notes, the full interview video experience links to the resources we mentioned in more. Have a blessed day and I’ll see you tomorrow.