[Interview] Bret Thomson: How I Went From Sleeping on Hotel Floors To Becoming Australia’s Top Copywriting Authority

Podcast – West Loh on Leverage, Automation and Outsourcing Strategies, 100% Free!

One of Australia’s premier Copywriters, Entrepreneur and Speaker. Made $125,000 in his first 5 months copywriting

Bret was selfless in this call when I asked him to share what he thought was the key ingredient that made the biggest difference for him. We spoke about his mindset evolution, and then got some specific tips on how to make any writing we do more powerful and get better results. If you’ve started with nothing, you’ll be able to relate closely to what’s Bret’s been through.

In this interview you will discover:

– How Bret went from sleeping on hotel floors to becoming Australia’s #1 Copywriting authority even though he failed english

-Bret’s Key Commitment and Focus techniques that helps him meet some of the biggest projects with impossible deadlines

-What drives Bret and how he fosters that motivation.

– Why you don’t have to be the most educated, most prepared, most researched, most professional, best branded, …or ‘most perfect’ person (to be wildly successful.

-Bret’s mindset on how to focus and persist until you are the best you can be.

-Why Good Copywriting is everything. How to get good or find someone to do it for you.

– 3 Keys to Copywriting Success that will separate you from the competition

http://www.bretthomson.com/

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Full Transcript

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West Interviews Bret Thomson

Speakers:
West: West Loh
Bret: Bret Thomson

West: Welcome to the call, folks! And today I’ve got on the line with me, Bret Thomson. Bret’s a good, personal friend of mine. And I call him the ‘Thomsonator’ simply because he does so much damage when it comes to writing sales copy. And he’s recently had a really good workshop with the Grants. If you don’t know who they are, they’re a husband and wife couple who are making serious waves online. And they come to Bret to teach their premier clients how to kick butt online. And Bret’s been mentored by one of Australia’s most respected copywriters in his own right. And he’s now working for one of Australia’s most respected direct response marketers as his primary copywriter.

I wanted to hit Bret up today for a few reasons but let’s welcome Bret to the call. Welcome, Bret!

Bret: Thanks West! I appreciate it, mate. I’m going to say too that I like to call you ‘West the Lohcomotion’ because you seem to power on in everything you do.

West: You do have a way with words, Bret. I actually really like ‘Locomotion’ a lot. I might steal that later on so I appreciate that.

I’d really seen a shift in Bret. ‘Coz, you know, we’re buddies as well as colleagues in the last couple of years. Bret has really come from humble beginnings where he was kind of searching for different areas to go from. And we’ve got some similar mentors and a lot of similar people who we interact with work-wise. With Bret, I really saw an acceleration of his results in his professional career. And in the last twelve months or so, I really wanted to tap into some of the changes or some of the unique characteristics that have characterized his acceleration. Because a lot of people, when they get online or they look into doing a new venture, they get stuck in certain areas or they try a lot of different areas and not make real progress in any one area.

So Bret, my question is…the big shift you had in the last 6-12 months, what have you identified as been—if we were to break it down—kind of the key things or characteristics that have happened to you or differences that you’ve made in your life or some of the key activities that you have done in the past that has caused this change?

Bret: Very good question. The answer to that is probably not what you’d expect and probably not what I’d expect if I was listening in on this call and waiting for an answer to come. But to answer your question—what has changed the last 6-12 months to make it happen—to be honest with you, not a lot. But change actually happened many, many, many years ago when I decided to commit myself and to become successful.

I developed a passion for personal development books, audios, CDs. I turned my car into a mobile university of success. I went from going through school without reading one single book. A year after school, I read an article that explained how alcohol affects the brain. So I decided there and then I would never, ever, ever drink again.

West: Goodness. That’s hilarious.

Bret: So the change happened many years ago.

West: So it hasn’t been an overnight thing? It hasn’t been something that you’ve done immediately. It’s been progressive. But people have only really seen the results in the last 6-12 months. But the change has been going on for awhile now.

Bret: It has. I’ve developed this attitude and beliefs and standards that I live by which tends to be uncommon in the average person—which is not too hard. But I guess what has changed—I jumped on a different horse. And I had all these different ideas. I went through so many years just chasing shiny light bulbs and whatever I thought could get me there.

And then finally, I stumbled across copywriting purely by default actually because I had a business idea which I was trying to get off the ground. It wasn’t going too well. And because I just had a determined nature, I persisted and persisted until I finally ran out of all my money. And then I had to learn marketing and copywriting skill to try and resurrect that business.

West: Wow. So you were kind of almost forced into it, in this case?

Bret: Yeah. Pretty much. I remember going to my first ever copywriting seminar which is at the Grants. And that’s, I think, when I first met you West?

West: Yeah. Could well have been.

Bret: And I remember just sitting there, walked in as a business owner. And I drained myself there. I spent my last $500 to get in there. And those two days, I did the petty job straightaway and I applied the skills into my next promotion and saw phenomenal results.

Then other people who are in my database just started seeing emails from me. And one particular marketer, he rang me up and said, “Bret, you need to stop sending me emails.”
I said, “Why is that?”
And he said, “Because I’m so busy. And every time I start reading yours, I can’t stop reading it ‘til right at the end.” And then he put sort of my mind to—‘listen, you could make some money writing for other people because there’s not many people who are very good in this area.’

Anyway, so word got out and I started writing for other people and they started getting phenomenal results as well. And then it escalated.

Once I decided to write copy, like anything, I threw myself into it. I invested the money to learn. I put in the hard hours to craft my skill.

West: Was it at that point, Bret, that you realized that that was a path you were going to go and then you just focused a hundred percent on that?

Bret: Yeah, but only on a short term. I still thought that this is a means to the end. You’ve got to understand, West, I went through school and I failed English.

West: And now you write for a living.

Bret: Yeah.

West: And get paid bucket loads to do it.

Bret: Yeah. I’ll tell you that. If my English teacher knew how much money I make and how I make my money, she would roll over in her grave.

But I threw myself into it because I thought, well, this is my primary source of income right now. So I did. I think I crammed about five years of education into six months. And I invested time and money in the very best courses to do that.

And then I went into partnership with a friend. We bought a product that we were going to market. And I said, “Here’s a great avenue where I can pour my skills into for myself instead of writing for other people.” And we took a product which everyone else in Australia was struggling to sell for $498. And I looked at the sales copy and I knew I could improve it straightaway. So I worked my magic onto the sales material and I sold the exact same product for $1,497 and I outsold everyone else by 600% across Australia. And the only thing that changed was copywriting and some creative little added value bonuses which took nothing out of my time and things like that.

West: Wow. It seems to me people are severely underestimating the power of words in marketing on a mass scale.

Bret: Absolutely. I remember sitting in the seminar and Mal Emery got up on stage and said—and this was before I knew what copywriting was because three years ago, the only way you would have met me is if you went into a nut and bolt shop in Tweed Heads—and I went to this seminar and I didn’t know what a copywriter was. And he said on stage, “What I’m going to share with you now will put more money in your bank account in the fastest amount of time than any other skill you could ever learn. I was sitting at the edge of my seat, I said, “Whatever comes out of his mouth now, I’m going to do it.” And he said, “Copywriting.” And I’m like, “Nooo.” I still wasn’t sure exactly what it was but, just cos it had ‘writing’ in it. And then he introduced Pete on stage. And now, I’m Mal Emery’s personal copywriter—which is funny—how that all came round.

West: Definitely. Because actually, Pete used to be Mal Emery’s copywriter, correct?

Bret: Yeah, that’s right. Pete has outgrown that position. He’s doing some amazing stuff…

West: On his own, yup.

Bret: Well, Mal’s always got a team of copywriters doing his behind stuff but he handpicked me out to do his personal work. And that happened 12-18 months after I first started learning.

West: Wow. That’s such a steep curve there. But as you were saying, from a mindset perspective, it had actually started many, many years before that.

Bret: Yeah, spot on. And here’s something funny, West. I’ve gone on to do some amazing stuff, and pretty often, some amazing, incredible opportunities through my copywriting. And when I tell people what’s been offered to me, they’re just in awe. And they look at me and they say, “But you seem so stable and balanced. You don’t seem very shocked.” And I said, “Well, I’m not actually shocked. I’ve been waiting for this to happen for so long and this is only just the start.” And I know that now.

West: You were expecting it to happen.

Bret: Exactly. I was expecting it to happen a lot sooner, actually.

West: But you’re there now.

Bret: Yeah. But there’s still a long way to go and I’m really enjoying the ride. But it’s really cool. The other day—this is an interesting story, West—I think it was yesterday actually, I got a phone call from Darren Stevens, who’s…

West: Yup. Men are From Mars, Women are From Venus—helped with their marketing campaign. Teaches people how to write bestsellers.

Bret: That’s right. He’s very well connected around the world. To cut the long story short, I’m promoting a seminar concept for him and he’s going to take it all around the world. And they want me to be a part of it and link me into the backend and the product and talking on stage. And they’re talking to Dan Kennedy and Jay Abraham and all those people. And they’re going to promote it through those lists and the Frank Kern list

West: That’s crazy.

Bret: Yeah, I know. And I must admit I showed a sign of weakness in my mind at that point. I thought, ‘Those guys…’ I mean, I’ve got a very high opinion of myself and vision and picture of success for myself but that scared me a little but. But I didn’t show that. I said straightaway, “Yes. Let’s do it!”

West: That’s awesome, man. Congratulations!

Bret: You’ve just got to put yourself out there and just clean up the mess later.

West: Definitely. Definitely. And we’re going to get to some of the fundamentals in the call, on the building blocks of how you got to where you want to go. And one of those was, you know, I used to call you up months ago and you’d always be under a really tight deadline and you’ll always be out working till the wee hours of the morning. And I wanted to get into your mind during those times…what was driving you and how you kept yourself going through it because for some days you didn’t even sleep, is that correct?

Bret: Yeah. This success hasn’t come by luck.

West: Yes. Yes. You worked your ass off and I can vouch for that.

Bret: Yeah. And I still do. A lot of people see me on stage and they think, ‘Oh wow,” say, “Great.” And it is. It’s fantastic. I work from home. I get to hang out with my kids during the day and my little baby who’s never known their dad to shoot off to work…

West: Well, congratulations Bret. I haven’t seen your new baby.

Bret: Yeah. That’s exciting.

I sacrifice a lot and I work hard. But to answer your question what drives me, I’ve got this deep-seated burning desire to create the ultimate lifestyle of success for myself and my family. That’s a big thing. I never lacked motivation. All I have to do is think of my boys and my little girl. And also…I don’t know if it’s personality based—I think it might be—but I always, always feel I have to do a good job for someone.

West: Even if that means not sleeping for the night.

Bret: Yeah, that’s right. I think reputation is everything. A lot of people might take shortcuts. And it’s easy to do. Even in our industry, it’s easy to take shortcuts and just cut and paste stuff. And a lot of the time I get asked to write copy with extreme deadlines from Mal, Mal sends me all these other examples that I can get inspired from. And I look at them and I just still, to this day, I never ever cut and paste anything out of anyone else’s. Everything I do is…

West: Wow. It’s from scratch.

Bret: Yup. I’ll do some of my own stuff from other industries and reword it and things like that. But now I just feel obligated to do the best job for anyone. And that’s what keeps me up all the hours of the night and missing sleep until it’s done. I just don’t want to get a bad reputation of doing a half-hearted job.

West: Yeah. And look, I can tell you now, I mean, if you mention the word Bret Thomson in the internet marketing circles or marketing circles or even colleagues, people who only have glowing word and compliments to say. So I can definitely vouch for Bret. And I’m a big fan myself. So it’s definitely something you’ve managed to establish.

So Bret, tell me about…I know how you have to stay really focused. And a lot of people listening to the call would really benefit from knowing some of your—like time management techniques. How do you allot time aside? How do you get rid of distractions? How do you really laser-focus in on the task and not let the outside world and internet and all these other things take over what you’re doing so that you reach your outcome?

Bret: A good question. And this answer might give people a lot of hope out there: If I ever, ever throw on a time management seminar, DO NOT GO. Because it’s still something I’ve got to work on.

I go through ways when I come up with systems and do things and then I’ll go back to other ways. So that’s probably not a fantastic answer for you. But at the same time it says that I’m human…

West: Yeah, yeah. And here’s the thing—you deliver on your deadlines, like, all the time. Is that correct?

Bret: Yeah. Yup.

West: So actually, whatever it is you’re doing it’s working for you.

Bret: Yeah. And if I have to stay up ‘til early hours in the morning to get that done, until I’m happy with it, that’s fine.

West: Because, you know, we’re talking extreme deadline. We’re talking like one day seminar having a full sales page written overnight—you were telling me about Mal Emery’s little project.

Bret: Yeah. The Mal Emery Live War & Recession Boot Camp. It was actually worst of that…Mal has a program which is called The Million Dollar Makeovers where a business owner can get all his marketing campaign written up and done for you. And that takes a couple of writers about two or three weeks to get that back and forth, and the research and things like that. So Mal puts on these seminars and said, “As a prize, we’ll pick someone from the crowd, we’ll interview them onstage and then we’ll get Bret to write a copy overnight and deliver it to you the next day.” And he goes, “Bret you know we can pick someone from an industry you’ve written before and blah blah…” And I took on the challenge and I’ve done six of those. And basically, they pull someone on the stage, we interview them and I’ll write their sales—like long-form sales—which could be anywhere between 10, 14, 16 pages.

West: And this is really compelling stuff. It’s not stuff that you just pull from other places. It’s all from you and it’s all based on the copywriting principles that you preach.

Bret: The first one I did in Brisbane… I’ll tell you what I did first. I did a full long-page sales letter for the website. I adapted that so it can be an offline sales letter. I did three cover letters and a lead generation ad, a full advertorial—a full-page ad, and a full page editorial which we call a tear sheet. I did a 1-800 phone script and also autoresponder emails. Now I did that pretty much in 24 hours from scratch.

West: That is insane.

Bret: It is insane. And here’s what’s really surprising and I’m quite proud of. The first one I did, Mal got a copy of it, he was so impressed with it he emailed it to all the other copywriters and he said, “From now on, when you do your Million Dollar Makeovers, it needs to be at this standard.”

West: Wow.

Bret: So they’ve been doing it for years, a lot of them have been writing longer than I have known about copywriting, and now it has to be a template.

So I’ve done six of those and some of them have been my best work. So how do I do it? For me, I break up my project into bite-sized chunks. And this is what I teach in my—I’ve got a product called the—7 Hours Sales Letter. And this is how the product came about. I developed a system where I could write a long-form sales letter in 7 hours or less. The way I did it is, I dedicated some time slots to certain components of the sales letter; because all the sales letter is, is just pieces of copy that’s just glued together and flows.

West: Yah…that appeals to different emotions and follows a structure.

Bret: That’s right. So I dedicate an hour on headlines, an hour on bullet points, and two hours on the offer and things like that. I got through all of that copy by doing that.

West: Amazing. So your seminar where you teach people that system has come about as a result of loads of experience where you try to streamline the process?

Bret: Yeah. It’s a great example of saying ‘yes’ first and thinking about the consequences later…exactly what I did with Darren Stevens.

West: But the thing is, you’ve actually got it down to such a fine art where you can help people get to the same result in much less time than it would if they actually tried to nut it out themselves.

Bret: Yeah, you’re right. That was very exciting, when I wrote my first ever workshop—two days. And prior to that, I was always in the crowd listening. I think I had about 130 people. It was jam-packed. They pretty much all had laptops facing me. And I was working with Andrew and Daryl. And Daryl was a big part of this. And at the start I said, “Who in the room believes or has a lot of self-doubt and think it’s possible that they’re going to write a sales letter in 7 hours?” And a sea of hands went up. I said, “Excellent!” And three days later, they all finished it and the test results were bouncing off the wall. It was incredible.

West: That’s awesome. Very, very cool.

So obviously, trying to pack this call with a much content as possible, would you be able to give us the essence of the 7 Hour Sales Letter in a couple of minutes?

Bret: Sure. Basically, I can give you an overview of how I break it up but there are systems inside these chunks of time which make that possible. Well, here’s the thing…in a standard—when I write copy, believe it or not, but I’ll spend between eighty to ninety percent (80%-90%) of my time researching and ten to twenty percent (10%-20%) writing. Because one thing I’m recognized for more than anything—even over and above my writing ability—is coming up with the big idea, the big hook and the twist that makes their businesses jump off the page and separate them from everyone else. So that comes from research and understanding the client. So the 7 Hours Sales Letter doesn’t start at the research. You have to have already done that—that’s the key. So when it’s time to actually write—mind you, before I take on a big client, I wouldn’t do a 7 Hours. I’d spend a lot more time. This is for anyone who wants to do it in 7 Hours. I say that to cover myself in case any clients are listening.

But I’ll spend an hour writing headlines. Typically, when I write a headline for a sales letter I’d write a 100-150 or more. Even if I think the third or fourth is it, I’ll keep on writing because I still amaze myself at what comes up at different angles, different twists and things like that. So I have a big brain dump of headlines.

The next thing I do is spend an hour writing bullet points. And there are templates and methods which can help people get that skill quite quickly.

And then I’ll spend two hours on the offer. And a lot of the time, I might actually write the offer before the bullet points because some of the bullet points would come from the offer. But the offer includes how you introduce the price, and how you structure what you’re offering, what bonuses you’re going to throw in, what kind of guarantee you’re going to offer, how you’re going to add some urgency or scarcity and things like that. So the offer is the engine room of the sales letter. So basically, I spend a couple of hours on that.

Then I’ll spend a couple of hours writing the body of the copy, which is the introduction… and there are techniques and templates to teach people how to do that.

West: Kind of building up the problem and, you know…

Bret: Yeah, exactly. Building up the problem.

West: Aggravating it, as Andrew and Daryl would say.

Bret: Yeah, that’s right. That’s a form that we follow, which is: problem, aggravate, solve, prove, call of action. And that’s the basic formula which we run by. But with the 7 Hours Sales Letter, it’s a lot more in-depth than that. We write 2 hours for the body because in the body, we have to do the intro, the problem, introducing the price, introducing the product and then the close as well. And the P.S’s. So we put a couple of hours on that.

And the last hour is graphics and layout. And that’s, again, winding back the clock from all the recognition and praises I got, the layout and graphic and design of my sales were commented probably more than anything else. And also the conversational copy but that’s another subject. But I mean, you can be the best copywriter in the world but if it looks messy and it looks ugly, then people aren’t going to stay on the page and read it. If they don’t stay on the page and read, they might not actually get to the call of action and order. So those are my tips on how to make that flow really well and look attractive.

West: Yeah, that’s a great little summary of what you teach, Bret. And obviously, each stage you teach in much more detail in your 7 Hour Sales Letter workshop.

But when people come to you and then you see them trying to attempt to write sales letters, I know a lot of them don’t want to become copywriters but to have that skill is certainly going to be beneficial for their business, what kind of mistakes do you see people making—the biggest mistakes—when they try and follow your system and try to write sales letters on their own?

Bret: Well number one, weak headlines. Ted Nicholas—who’s run probably more direct mail ads than anyone else in the world—he’s tested exactly the same full page ads in the same magazines just a month or two apart and all he did was change the headline. And he got twenty more responses by changing the headline. So that’s twenty two more orders and anything else just by changing the headlines. So again, a lot of people can have a fantastic copy and body but if you don’t catch their attention and draw them in and get them to want more then all your good work and the body is just lost. So that’s one big mistake.

West: I can see why you spend so much time writing headlines.

Bret: Yeah. It’s critical, absolutely critical. With a good headline, you can pretty much have them nearly sold just from that.

Another thing is not having identified who their target market is; they’re just writing to everyone.

West: Yes. Like a general blanket.

Bret: Yeah. And by doing that they’re not communicating to their ideal client and it’s just a wishy-washy message. And they’ll only get very small response. They’re just boring people.

West: And this is absolutely critical in any business, would you say, Bret, any market? That when people try and market their products, services or whatever it is…no one has that one product that can fit everybody. And so you need to really decide who it is that is your market and really pull on their heartstrings.

Bret: Yeah, exactly. Again, that all comes down to the research part. That’s what separates an average copywriter to a pro copywriter. The guys who are considered as pro copywriters, we know how important it is to research. I could research for—like before—up to two weeks, of just studying and I’ll interview people, I’ll go to forums, get surveys done and just get inside the mind of the clients.

West: It’s almost as if you are… You know, I’m a big movie fan. And when you see exceptional roles in movies, you look back at how they prepared and you see the kind of things that they’ve done—the actor or the actress has done—in order to prepare for that role. And many times I’ve actually gone and hung out with experts, hung out with people who are doing what they want to do in order to best represent that. And this sounds very parallel to what they do.

Bret: Yeah, that’s a good analogy. That’s just spot on. I mean basically, our job is to become sales detectives. And that’s coined from John Carlton. He’s one of the greatest copywriters alive. And that’s pretty much what we do: we’re detectives and we find out what the hot buttons are and what the objections are, then we get busy and…

West: And start pushing them.

Bret: Yeah. So that’s one key thing.

And again, another big mistake is the layout. I guess—I wouldn’t say I’m lucky but—I naturally have a good flair for graphics and layout because I wanted to be a graphic artist when I was in school but that didn’t happen. Some people, they can look at something, and it can look like a dog’s breakfast—they don’t see it; they can’t see it’s ugly.

West: It’s a bit like there’s a stray in American Idol, people who sing and think that they’re awesome and they just can’t sing at all.

Bret: That is so true.

West: And delusional, I call it.

Bret: And here’s a tip for everyone. If your graphics and layout is presentably nice and looks well, you can actually get away with writing sub-average copy because you’ll get more people reading. But again, if you’re a fantastic writer but the layout looks crap, then…

West: Yeah, it’s going to put people off.

Bret: Yeah. So that’s another big mistake. So that’s why now, when I give people critiques—anyone who’s part of my monthly membership program—I’ll give them critiques and it only takes about ten minutes and I can just punch holes quickly than anything else and I’ll tell them to go to a graphic artist and say, “Can you make my sales letter to look like this?” And you’d want to try to find a graphic artist who has had some experience in direct response marketing.

West: That’s a really good tip, definitely a good tip for the listeners out there. And myself, when I blog a page and it’s kind of not presented very well, it’s really a hard, arduous task to read on even if you like the writing and even if you want the product. And on the other hand, if it’s peppered with lots of multimedia—for me anyway—and the colors are nice and neutral and not too loud, then I’ll stick around and see what they’ve got to offer.

Bret: Yeah, exactly. But again, a lot of people—you said writing, doing print ads—they’ll spend heaps of money with a graphic artist to make their ad look pretty and nice with logos and pictures, but that’s a different story. That doesn’t work. I mean basically, if you’ve got a message to get across, you need to put the word in there to compel them to take action. You don’t want to waste space.

West: Especially in such a short—you know, people who are looking at advertising, in publications where they’ve only got little space, you want the words to do the damage. You don’t want to be branding yourself, putting your big logo there and stuff like that. I can never understand why people do that.

Bret: Well they do it because that’s what everyone else does. It’s called ‘Me Too’ marketing. What people don’t realize—and if they thought about it for a half a second, it makes sense but—when people open up newspapers, it’s estimated that people stay on a page about 3 seconds and then flip over. So what do you think they’re doing in those 3 seconds?

West: Scanning.

Bret: Yeah, they’re just looking at headlines.

West: Yup. For stuff that will catch their eye.

Bret: Yeah. And people don’t pick up a newspaper or buy the newspaper and say, “I’m going to try and look for some advertisements or I’ll just see what I can buy,” right? The mindset that people have when they read a newspaper or magazine is ‘what can I get out of this?’ They want to be informed and things like that. Whereas the people who advertise, they’ve got the same mindset. They put their ads in and say, “What can I get out of this?” So you’ve got a GET mindset facing another GET mindset and they just clash. But if the advertisers have, ‘What can I give,’ then you’ll make some connections.

West: It makes a difference. Absolutely. And that separates the top 1%-2% of results in any given publication. One or two percent will draw all the traffic and get all the responses. And the rest—the ‘Me Too’ marketing ones—just pay the publication and not get any results from it.

Bret: Yeah, exactly. And here’s another quick tip on the subject: most people skim over advertising because they’re not looking to go through newspapers or magazines looking for ads. It’s different if you go in the yellow pages because you’re specifically looking for something.

So if you really want to get effective with your offline marketing and you want to make your ads look like stories or articles, you want to disguise them so they don’t look any thing like an ad.

West: Like a report. Almost.

Bret: Exactly. So when I design advertorial, I’ll look at the publications and I’ll try and use the same font headline, same color, the same columns—everything—I’ll try and make it look like the newspaper has written it. And if you have a really compelling headline that pulls them in…

West: I actually can vouch for falling for one of those the other day. I was reading a golf magazine and I ended up reading this article about this golf club that was made from materials from a tank and had this crazy titanium blend. And I was reading it and then halfway through, I thought, ‘Shit. This is an ad.’ But I really wanted the product. It had already caught me.

Bret: That’s fantastic.

West: So this is direct response marketing in full flight.

Bret: Yeah. Here’s another similar story but to do with headlines and how powerful headlines can be with curiosity. I was at a hotel in Sydney and there was a magazine on the table. And one of the subheads on the front page—because all the front cover of the magazine is just a series of headlines—one of them was ‘What Ben Affleck thinks about rugby league.’ And I thought…I just wanted to know what does a Hollywood legend thought of rugby league. So I picked up the magazine, found the article and it was a 3-page article. And again, it was Ben Affleck, Russell Crowe and rugby league or something like that. So I started reading it. And I read all the way to the end. And the second to the last paragraph was only a couple of sentences, it said, “We heard Russell Crowe brought you to a rugby league game. What did you think of it?” And he said, “Oh, it looked fun but I didn’t quite get it.”

West: That was it.

Bret: That was it. And I went, “You little ripper.” It was fantastic. I said I love getting suckered in, you know. They got me to read the whole thing and that’s all it was.

West: So it’s achieved its outcome—it got you to pick it up and read it. So curiosity is obviously one of the elements that you use in drawing people in to write.

Bret: Yeah, that’s right. And some of my best headlines have been curiosity-based. But there is a risk for the people who are very skilled in this area because a lot of people try and be cute and fancy for the sake of being cute and fancy but they don’t work.

West: So there’s a lot of testing with you guys, too, isn’t it?

Bret: Yeah.

West: So Bret, tell me, with people who are looking to, say, outsource a copywriter—because I know you teach people a lot of the main skills; and I think it’s actually essential to know at least the fundamentals of how a copywriting sells and how it works—but what do you tell people when they say, “Look Bret, I think copywriting’s great but I just want to pay someone to do it for me and focus on other stuff.”

Bret: That’s fine. I still occasionally take on personal clients so I can recommend them to other clients. But I think you made a good point, mate. It’s a great skill to have even if you’re not going to write copy, just so you can actually identify good or bad copy straightaway. That skill, it can really alter your income so dramatically. It’s unbelievable. So it’s a skill which can pay you for a lifetime. And it doesn’t matter what industry you’re in. It doesn’t matter who your market is. It’s just that powerful.

West: Definitely. So for those people who don’t want to actually write themselves, they need to be able to know when they see a good one, know when they see a bad one so that when they’re working with a copywriter, they can kind of point them in the right direction and really support them.

Bret: That’s right. Because there are a lot of copywriters out there but none of them are emotional direct response trained.

West: Yes. And there’s a big difference isn’t there, Bret?

Bret: Oh, poles apart. It’s just two different worlds. And so I learned the art of emotional direct response marketing. You really want to have that skill because a lot of people, they might try and find a copywriter on Elance, oDesk…

West: Who were probably in academics their whole life.

Bret: That’s right. And so you only get what you pay for. And Mal has a saying which I’ve carried through, which is, “To invest in a great emotional direct response copywriter, you should have the attitude of ‘pay once and cry once and get on with it.’” Because to get someone at a high level, you’re going to have to put your hand in the pocket and pay the big bucks. And you can never cry about it but—Pay once. Cry once. Get on with it.

West: And it’ll pay you back many times over if you decided wisely and your product is reflective of a good product.

Bret: Absolutely. And the good thing is it can pay you forever and a day. And that’s what Mal jokes to everyone, saying how it pays him truckloads of money for writing copy. And compared to what everyone else makes in copy out there, he really does pay me truckloads of money when I write copy. But he tells people openly that, “Bret doesn’t cost me money. He makes me money.”

West: Yup. That’s such a shift in mindset, isn’t it? From what most people are thinking? And that’s why he’s on top of the food chain.

Bret: Exactly. Yup. Not by accident.

West: Different mindset. Wow, that’s awesome.

Alright Bret, people are probably really interested in learning how to—if they want to learn the basic fundamentals of copywriting or even just to learn how to deal with a copywriter—I know you have a program that assists people on how to do that. So why don’t you tell us a bit about how it came about and where do people need to go if they want to become a part of it.

Bret: Basically, how it came about is over the two years—when I was in the trenches—I would have spent close to a hundred thousand dollars ($100,000) on my education.

West: I know for a fact that’s not an exaggeration.

Bret: And here’s the big distinction about it. It wasn’t all on copywriting. There’s marketing too…because to be a great copywriter, you must first be a great marketer. You can be a great marketer and you can be a crap copywriter. A lot of people depend on you to come up with the hook, the angle, the twist and the big idea.

I know the average person can’t really commit to put themselves on a warp speed education track that I put myself on. So what I’ve done, I’ve broken everything up that I’ve learned and still learning into little bite-sized chunks, into a $49/month membership site.

West: Awesome. Now compared to what you pay for a copywriter, that’s really almost nothing. Why don’t we give an estimation for people who don’t know how much a good copywriter costs to write a long-form sales letter? What kind of ballpark are we talking, Bret? Ten grand? Twenty?

Bret: I’ve never actually written just a sales letter. I generally do autoresponder emails, pre launch emails, offline/online combination, lead generation ads, Google ads, the whole lot. It’s hard to answer but I wouldn’t look at anything unless it was $15,000 or above right now. And then you can go and be put on a retainer as well.

West: To get a percentage of. So people are getting pretty much the information that you use to do it for $49 a month.

Bret: Yeah, that’s so low. It’s just ridiculous. But I actually quite like it. Because here’s the funny thing—you’ll laugh at this—but I not only give them every single week an email, an eclass, and they’re strategically laid out in order of what you need to get good at in specific sequence, but I also give them templates, a couple of 300 or 400 headlines which they can be inspired from, they’ve got hundreds of examples of openings, guarantees, offers, bullet points—all these things that’s a part of the membership which they can use if they have to write them.

West: So they basically get an entire toolbox to pull from that has caused you tons of money and a lot of time to put together…at their fingertips.

Bret: Yeah. And get this—I have to stop this soon; I just don’t know when because I’m going to get busy but—I offer everyone ten minute critiques on the phone with me. People are jumping at this. Basically, they’ve got me for ten minutes, they’ll show me their sales letter or ad or whatever and I’ll just go through it and blow holes faster than a machine gun.

West: Faster than Clint Eastwood.

Bret: Yeah. And that alone—I mean—what I say to people, if I’m ever talking to someone, “If you don’t think I can make you $49 in a month, Man, we shouldn’t even be talking.” Like seriously. Some of the advice I’ve given people are just going to make them so much money. So I don’t know how long I can keep on doing these critiques for. I might have to space them out but I really have a lot of fun doing it. And I get a real buzz from making a difference in people’s lives. It just drives me. I’ll be honest with you, I thought, maybe I’ll put these free critiques on just at the start to get people in. But the feedback I’ve been getting, it just keeps me going and I just love it. So I schedule it into my week all the time. And yeah, I’m creating quite a big following from this membership site. It’s very good.

West: That’s sensational, Grant. And you know what? I think you also have quite a lot of free information if they actually go to your membership site page just to take a look, is that correct?

Bret: Yeah, that’s right.

West: You shower people with value just on your free page.

Bret: A lot of people approach me and say, “Bret, how did you get so good so fast?” And for awhile I didn’t know because all I did was what I was taught and I didn’t know how to answer that. But when I really boiled it down, I identified five key things that made all the difference for me. And I’ve shared all those five things on my free content page.

West: Cool. So mate, what’s the URL, because I’m actually going to go there right now and have another look?

Bret: It’s www.thecopywritingsystem.com.

West: Great. Alright. That’s been an awesome call, Bret. I’ve learned tons talking to you today—and I do every time I speak with you. But it’s been a pleasure having you. And thanks for sharing with us so many great tips about copywriting and writing. And if there’s anything that I think people need to learn from the call today, apart from all the great copywriting tips, is the importance of words in their business’ profitability. And many people just kind of do a lot of what Bret called the ‘Me Too’ marketing and don’t really excel from the crowd. And therefore, they get average results.

So I want to thank Bret for his time and for really, really pointing that out for me. So Bret, thanks for your time!

Bret: Yeah, West. I appreciate it, mate. I love talking to you. So thanks again.

West: Cheers!