Brian Kurtz 15:02
You know, the whole you coined the phrase, which I give you credit for, it was like, copyright copywriting. It’s not copywriting. It’s copy thinking, you said.
David Deutsch 15:12
Yeah. So it’s those kinds of things. It’s going out and talking to people about a product, right? You learn so much if you you know you’re working for, you know a product, you know some kind of a product, and you go out and talk to people, and you try to tell them what you would tell them in the copy when you write it, and you see they look bored, or they ask you certain questions, and then you can incorporate answers to those questions in your copy. But sometimes it takes a while. It’s like, you know, oh, this doesn’t really interest people.
Oh, they don’t really understand this. I thought they would understand it when I said, you know, that there’s a connection between, you know, your hormones and weight loss or something, I see, I’ve got to explain it in a little more depth, or something, you know, whatever it is, you know, don’t just sit there and write. And because when people write, they get into this kind of writerly frame of mind, right? They’re kind of like, they’re like, they’re writing a book report, you know, and it takes on an academic sort of tone. And so they say things that they would never say to people if they were just sitting across from them like we are now, and just talking to them.
Brian Kurtz 16:21
So I’ve got some questions, so I’m going to take some of those. Okay, Josh Monen.
Josh Monen 16:29
David, thanks for being here. Appreciate it.
David Deutsch 16:31
Oh, pleasure. Hi, Josh.
Josh Monen 16:33
Hi. So I’ve been a copywriter for 10 years, and I focus on financial copy and getting copywriters always trying to get better at my craft. And now you got me thinking about it because my question was gonna be, what you know, writing practices do you recommend? And as I’m hearing you talk and just starting to think, you know, my question is, how do I become more effective at what I do? And you know, what practices have you implemented over the years?
David Deutsch 17:00
What’s your biggest challenge right now, in terms of writing? What do you feel?
Josh Monen 17:07
I think the biggest challenge is just knowing. I don’t, I don’t really know my market at a super deep level. You know, I’m not a 55 year old man who trades all day. So I’m actually thinking, why don’t I become a trader? You know? Because I’m like, and I was wondering what you would think about that, like, Would it be good to become, you know, I can’t become older, but I could. I could really immerse myself. And I do have a desire to learn how to trade and stuff like that, but I’m just, I’m trying to figure out how to get even more into the mind of my prospect.
David Deutsch 17:37
I would, absolutely, I would trade, and I would trade with money, yeah. I mean, it doesn’t have to be a lot, but I would see what it feels like to lose money, and I would see what it feels like to hit the jackpot. So when you talk about that, you’re talking about real stuff, right? And it’s got the granular detail, right? You’re not just saying, Oh, it’s so exciting when you get a lot of money, but you could say it’s so exciting when you see on the screen that number in the right hand corner, right under gains, click. You know what I mean?
Brian Kurtz 18:12
Like, like, you’ll have that adrenaline rush, and you’ll be able to write to it from emotion, basically, right?
David Deutsch 18:18
And you’ll have the emotion behind it, like how you want to go tell someone about it maybe, right? That feeling of you just want to go tell someone you know, or whatever it is there, it could be emotions that you haven’t even thought that one might have when that happens.
Brian Kurtz 18:37
I mean, that was one of the things that we would do at the boardroom, where not some of our copywriters. I don’t know if you ever, if you ever did this with us, David, but we had, we all, we all got on customer service calls and complaint calls, and we listened in to hear, like hearing a real person talking about your product or what you’re offering. There’s no replacement for that.
David Deutsch 18:59
Yeah, I would spend a day in customer service. Yes, get recordings, yes, of customer service calls. You’ll be shocked. I think, yeah, you’ll be shocked.
Brian Kurtz 19:12
You’ll come up with ideas too.
David Deutsch 19:14
Because we think that people have a level of understanding that they don’t have when it comes over, that’s one of the main things you’ll find.
Brian Kurtz 19:27
Wow, these, you know, that’s why the Hemingway, you know, Hemingway is, is a good use of software to help you with that, because we, you know, and whenever I talk about that, I had a Facebook Post about using smaller words. It was about, you know, grammar is overrated, from Gene Schwartz, but people were like, slamming me on Facebook. It’s like, Oh, you don’t want to write to the lowest common denominator. Why do you have to dumb everything down? Well, you know, better than anybody, David, you have to dumb everything down because, I’m not going to say people are dumb, but because you. People, as you just said, people don’t know as much as you think they know.
David Deutsch 20:09
That’s true, but it’s also that they’re not paying as much attention. Yes, I like to think they are. We think they have nothing better to do than read our promotion. Yeah, and they can’t wait to get off so they’re not like concentrating on it with their full focus,
Brian Kurtz 20:25
Yes, yes. Good point.
David Deutsch 20:27
You know, there’s an exception to anything I mean, as ginger knows Jim Rutz wrote to people’s highest intelligence, but, but he wrote in a way that you could understand what he meant easily. Yes, right? He used big words. He used big concepts, you know, but it was, it was, it just went down so easily. It was just so you couldn’t stop, you know, reading Jim’s copy. It was fascinating. It came to light. It had drama. It had, you know, he would talk about, he would bring in history, he would bring in McDonald’s. He would bring in, you know. He wrote to the simple he wrote to the simple genius. That’s a great way to put it, yeah. He wrote to the simple genius in people.
Brian Kurtz 21:19
That made them feel good, which made them order. Nicole. Nicole, Hi, how are you doing? Go ahead Nicole.
Nicole 21:26
Okay, thanks. Yeah. So, um, David, I’m going to be doing some customer interviews for a new project that I’m working on, and we’ve talked a little bit about this in our conversation, but I was wondering if you could maybe take us through, like, how you actually approach interviews with customers? Like, what do you ask? And you have a process, great question.
David Deutsch 21:48
Some of that is, I ask about their day, right? I want to know the context right of how they use a product. And I want to know the context of their life. I also want to know if they use the product because you said their customers, right? Like, how did you like it, what was their process? What was their journey? Like, they found out about it, they were skeptical. This convinced them. They tried it. When they tried it. This thing really convinced them that it worked. These were the results that they had over time. This is how they are where they are now, because that is a great thing to know about, because in your copy, you can then kind of take people on that journey, right? Yeah, you can help them understand. You know, in a month, you should feel it.
You know, in a week you’ll start to feel a tingle in your left leg, right? That’s how you know it’s working. In two weeks, you’ll start to, you know, all your belly fat will disappear, right? And you know, in three weeks you’ll be out in your bikini at the beach. You know, whatever it is, right? You could take them through that, that is the journey that they’ll have. So it’s and also, of course, it helps you to know how to convince people. When you see how people got convinced, and when you hear like, what was like, like, what made you want to try it? What were your objections? What were you concerned about? So you’ll see it was a factor. Was, was, was I don’t, I didn’t want it to have any bad ingredients. And it was, is it, was it a factor? Or was that not a factor? We like to think it is, when we have a product with no bad stuff in it, but then sometimes you talk to people and like, they don’t care, right? It’s like, yeah, so it’s got no fillers, or it’s got no this, or it’s got no that, you know.
I guess that’s nice, or you find out they passionately care, like, yeah, I want to know that it’s gluten free and dairy free, and I want to know that it’s got no fillers, and I want to know that it’s not made in China. And I want to know this, and I want to know that. I mean, that’s stuff you gotta know as a writer, right? Sometimes, I think too, whether you’re talking to customers or you’re talking to a client, because client interviews are great, like people that actually sell the thing or have talked to customers, right? Is to really push right, to really like, okay, but what’s behind that? What’s behind that, what’s behind that, right? Yeah, um, to get at their real, you know, feelings. What else? What else? What else? Right, so many times I’ve talked to a client and they didn’t, there was nothing interesting that they had to say to me, right? Like, I don’t know it was invented by some guy in a lab. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
And I’m like, this, this, this, this. And then it turns out, wait, there is, like, John Carlton with the one legged golfer. Right? Now, there’s nothing interesting about this, right? There’s not just this. Some guy invented this golf thing, and so we’re marketing it. Just go write the copy, John. So John’s like, Yeah, but what about what else? What else is it? Who was it like? Who invented it? What was he? What was the process either? Well, there was one weird thing. I don’t know something about the guy that invented it. He was watching this one legged golfer, golf, and so he learned something about how to hit the stroke in the right way because of the one legged golfer. But that’s not important. Like, that was, like, the whole basis for the best selling, you know, ad in golf ever, right? Was a one legged golfer.
Brian Kurtz 25:21
It was like, it was a talk. It was a throwaway, in a way, on the internet, it was a throwaway, right? Because you were going deeper and deeper. In fact, Chris Mason had put together, we did this breakthrough advertising bootcamp, this two week bootcamp, and Chris Mason put together a worksheet, what, what was, what’s the exact wording, Chris, it was like, so what
Chris Mason 25:44
Was it about desire?
Brian Kurtz 25:47
Yeah, but it was about, like the fill in the blank. So then what?
Chris Mason 25:52
Right, yeah. So it was your state, like, the top level, surface level desire. And then you start asking, in the voice of the prospect, I have this desire so I can do what, or so I can become what. And then it’s very similar to just asking why, over and over to you drill down right to what, what they really
Brian Kurtz 26:13
have that desire for, right? And then you’ll get, like, the first you maybe even get when you get to the frustration point. That’s when they’re going to give you the goal, right? They’re going to just say, they’re going to say something offhand, and that’s going to be the key to the entire, the entire and I’ll be the king keys to the kingdom, right there.
David Deutsch 26:31
You know, sometimes you want to do that sort of thing in your head too, right? You can’t always interview prospects. And you’ve got to be able, you’ve got to be a bit of a method actor, like you got to get in someone’s shoes. You have to be able to ask yourself, right? Okay, I want to make money and options. Why do I want to make money in options? Well, I guess I want to make money in options, so I’ll have a big pile of money. Why do I want a big pile of money? Well, I don’t know. I guess to buy some of the things that money can buy. Well, why do I? Why do you want to buy those things? Well, some of the things I want to buy because I like them and they’re nice to have, but also kind of, I guess, if I really think about it, I want to impress people, right?
I want to be a big shot. I want to, I want to look good, you know. Why do you want to look good? Well, it’s important to me, right? And I also want to have money from, you know, my family to be able to provide for them. Why do you want to do that? Well, because it makes me feel good about myself when I do that, right? Like it makes me feel like I have a purpose in life when I’m taking care of my family, right? So you, in your own head, can get to this, and then, in a way, when you’re writing copy, it comes out as and that means, right, you can make a lot of money, and that means you’ll be able to provide for your family, and that means you’ll be really happy, because providing for your family is a really nice feeling.
Brian Kurtz 27:49
Yeah, that’s brilliant. Chris, when we do the I don’t know if you did this, I wasn’t on all the calls, but in the in the in the boot camp, basically, make sure that they use that exercise on both prospects and themselves, that that’s really, that’s an important distinction, and you’re going to get different things. from both. Yep,
David Deutsch 28:08
Yeah. I mean, you can, you can put yourself in the prospect shoes, but it really takes a sort of, it’s like, embarrassing, right? It’s like, when you have to rehearse a presentation and you’re not really giving the presentation, and it just feels awkward. Yeah, you know, it’s like you really have to just sit quietly and just think about, what is it like to go through a day when you just lost your job and you don’t have enough money and you’re looking for some kind of second income?
Or what is it like to have arthritis? What is it like for your wrist to hurt? And every time you go to turn a doorknob, Oh, that hurts. Because I’m turning a doorknob, I’m unscrewing a jar. Oh, that hurts, right? Someone goes to shake hands with you. Oh, that hurts, right? What is that like? Like, you could do that, but, but you have to really take the time to do it. I know for myself, a lot of times I’m anxious to just write the damn copy and get it over with. But whenever I do take the time to do that, it makes writing the damn copy so much easier and quicker, because I now have things to really write about.
Brian Kurtz 29:14
And then you don’t have to be anxious about writing the copy. You can be eager about it, right, right?
Outro 29:25
Thanks for listening to the Timeless Marketing Podcast with Brian Kurtz. Visit briankurtz.net, and click podcast at the top of the page for a full transcript and show notes. If you’re interested in working with Brian personally inside of Titans Xcelerator, go to Briankurtz.net/help to see how Titans can help you grow and scale your business. That’s B-R-I-A-N Kurtz [dot] net [slash] help.