One thing you’ll hear me talking about a lot these days…

Is the idea of the “long tail.”

For example, when it comes to what I’m doing with my content…

The way I write an email every day, post stuff on my blog and LinkedIn, make videos for YouTube, am launching a Podcast, etc…

I’m not doing any of that for an immediate transactional purpose.

Instead, I’m doing it because of the long-tail benefits these things will bring.

You see…

I love talking, teaching, and writing about copy, mindset, entrepreneurialism, marketing, etc…

And I believe that by sharing my experiences and thoughts on these topics…

I can make a really positive impact in the careers, and lives, of so many people.

So that’s my motivation…

To help people live better, fuller, richer lives…

And it’s why I do what I do.

Of course with that being said…

As an entrepreneur and a businessman…

I also really enjoy making money…

And the thing is…

I believe that over time…

By being so giving, and by providing so much value to others…

The financial “what’s in it for me” part will take care of itself.

In other words…

I feel confident that because of our relationship…

You’ll probably end up attending one of my events…

Or buying a course I put out, or a book I write…

Or joining my Copywriting Mastermind…

Or you’ll introduce me to someone who becomes a mentor…

Or we’ll enter into a business relationship together…

Or something else.

And I’m very comfortable saying that and not feeling weird about it…

Because frankly, I only put out things that are best in class…

And my only focus is on helping people to better their lives – from both a business perspective and a personal perspective too…

So why would I feel bashful or ashamed about offering those things to you?

And here’s the bigger point…

I’m completely at peace with the fact that you and I may do something together in a few weeks from now…

Or we may do something in a few years from now…

And it doesn’t really matter.

If I focused on transactions with people…

It would be exhausting…

But more importantly…

It would also be unfulfilling…

Because transactions are fleeting…

But relationships are nourishing and can last a lifetime.

—

Now I want to shift gears and talk about the idea of a “long tail” approach in a completely different context.

Check this out…

As I’ve talked about before…

For my first health supplement offers, we grossed $23MM in a single year…

And I netted a few million dollars…

But I also left several million on the table…

Because I was brand new…

And there was all this stuff about increasing profitability that I didn’t know.

Then around that same year…

I did a venture with a partner in the CBD space…

And we had $2MM in net profit snatched away from us…

After the merchant processor we were using shut down overnight (it’s a long story and one for a different email).

In the case of my first supplement offer…

It was a great experience for me, but I could have done better.

In the case of the CBD venture…

It was a shitty experience for me, because I was expecting a $1MM windfall that I never got. ($1MM = My Half of the Profit)

So why am I sharing that with you?

Well because as I was driving home from the Strip this past Sunday…

I had a realization, and it’s all about the long tail.

As anyone who has been reading my content for even a few days knows…

I have a new health supplement offer with a partner that’s doing very well…

And when I’ve done the math on it…

There’s a chance that we could net $15MM in profit from this offer in 2020.

That’s $7.5MM for my partner and $7.5MM for me…

Which would be pretty awesome.

And here’s the big realization I had:

The only reason this funnel might personally net me $7.5MM today…

When most operators would be lucky to net $3MM from it…

Is because of the mistakes I made with my first health offer – where left a bunch of money on the table…

Along with my $2MM CBD debacle – where I learned a TON of valuable lessons.

And so even though those experiences were frustrating at the time…

When I look at things over a longer horizon…

It’s like yeah, I lost out on maybe $3MM between those two things…

But because of that…

I’m now in the position to realize upwards of $7.5 MM this year.

Does that make sense?

If we stop looking at big events in our businesses or careers as isolated incidences…

And instead…

We view them as the dashes on an ever-expanding horizon…

Suddenly we realize that mistakes or losses…

Things that seemed painful at the time…

May actually be exactly what was needed to propel us further down the road…

And to realize much greater returns in the not too distant future.

—

I know this one got a little philosophical…

But it’s a really interesting concept to me.

I truly believe that shifting my mindset around this, so that:

1. I think about almost everything in relational terms, instead of transactional terms…

2. I’m more focused on the long tail effects of my actions, rather than the short-term ones…

Has made a HUGE difference in my level of effectiveness…

Led to less anxiety and clearer thinking…

And helped me to move closer to becoming the man I want to be.

—

Okay, that’s it for today.

If you have any thoughts on this subject…

Please feel free to comment and let me know.

On my end – I’m going to record some video and audio content talking about this same concept in a second…

– SPG

P.S. If you’re new to my blog, don’t worry. There will be plenty of times where I’ll talk specifically about copy or get nice and tactical. But the reality is, mindset is just as important to your success as any tricks or tips. And when I finally realized this, my life rapidly changed for the better. So I’d ask that you have an open mind to this more “meta” stuff too 🙂

P.P.S. If you know someone who would find value in posts like this one, feel free to share. Also, they can apply to join my list using this link here.

The post Want To Be Successful? Focus On The Long Tail. first appeared on Stefan Georgi.

Morning 🙂

We’re going to take a break from my series on optimizing a winning offer…

We might jump back to it later,

But I already covered a lot of the big parts in the last few blog posts…

And to be honest, I just don’t feel like writing about that topic this morning.

So, instead…

Let’s talking about the career of a freelance copywriter.

You may have heard me point this out before…

But indulge me for a second:

In 2012 I charged $149 for a sales letter.

By 2019 I was charging between $50k and $100k.

That’s a pretty remarkable rise, right?

And the question becomes…

What happened?

What made the difference?

And how was I able to increase my rates by so much, in such a limited amount of time?

Well, one of the answers…

Is that I obsessively focused on being the best at my craft.

In other words…

I operated with the belief set that if I got truly great at writing copy…

The money, the notoriety, and the opportunities would follow.

That might sound like an obvious strategy…

But I often see young copywriters who are more focused on money than they are their craft…

So, it’s worth repeating:

Put your craft first, and the money will follow.

Of course, it also helps if, once you’ve gotten good…

You find a way to make your own luck…

And there are several ways you can do that.

In fact, I actually just listed four of those ways out on Quora.

Here’s why I did that:

I’ve been messing around with Quora and trying to answer questions when I have time.

Well, this morning I found myself with a little bit of extra time…

So I hopped on and saw a question about how much you can get paid to write VSLs.

I figured that was a good one for me to answer…

And, sure enough…

Thirty minutes later I’d done a pretty in-depth breakdown of how to level up in your copywriting career.

Some of the major areas or topics I discussed included client selection, royalties, how much to charge, how to position yourself, etc…

And I think the advice is pretty damn good.

So, if you’re a freelancer (whether it’s for copy or something else)…

I’d recommend you head over to Quora and check out the full reply.

Here’s the link to it…

And, if you happen to like my answer…

Please feel free to give me a little upvote too 🙂

—

That’s it for today.

Keeping this a little bit shorter than usual…

The reason why is probably because I already wrote a 1,500 word Quora response before I even got to this blog post…

And now, I want to go drink a greens juice and read for a while before my daughter gets up.

I hope you have a great day!

– SPG

P.S. This post originally came from an email I sent to my private list. If you want to see more stuff like this from me, you can apply to join my list using this link.

The post How much do copywriters charge for VSLs? first appeared on Stefan Georgi.

Hey, good morning 🙂

So, today’s blog post is going to be along the lines of the last few I’ve published…

However, instead of talking about a specific thing to optimize…

I’m going to talk about the broader theme of mentorship.

You see, in the context of the new offer I have…

Which is rapidly scaling to several hundred sales a day…

I’ve realized that one of my roles is to provide mentorship to my partner, Cody.

Now, when I say mentorship…

I don’t use the word with any sense of superiority…

Because that’s not what it’s about.

Cody and I are extremely good friends, and we’re also peers…

And there are plenty of things that he is WAY better than me at – including numbers, spreadsheets, processes, etc.

So, the first thing you should know about mentorship…

Is that true mentorship doesn’t have any power dynamic.

Instead…

Mentorship is about finding the right Sherpas…

Those individuals who, for a specific domain…

Have already been where you want to go.

In the case of scaling offers…

I happen to be Cody’s Sherpa…

Because while he’s flirted with 8 figures before…

I’ve taken offers to 9 figures…

And there are just a lot of things that happen between $10MM and $100MM…

That, unless you’ve experienced them before…

You simply aren’t going to be prepared for.

Here are just a few examples that are specific to our current situation:

1. Call Centers

So currently Cody isn’t using my call center for inbound.

Why?

Well, honestly he tried testing us vs. his call center two years ago…

And, at the time we weren’t very dialed in…

So he saw no reason to make the switch.

Of course, I was frustrated that my call center wasn’t better back then…

But ultimately, I wanted what was best for my friend…

So I didn’t fight when he stuck with his current provider.

And overall, his call center has done a fine job in the time since.

But now, things are a little different.

After we started scaling our offer…

It occurred to me that Cody’s call center was probably super overwhelmed.

Why?

Think about it…

For the last two years, they’ve been more or less used to the same call volume each day…

Then suddenly, there’s a brand-new product they don’t know a whole lot about…

And it’s doing 3x the volume of all of Cody’s other products combined.

Can you see how that might be a problem for his call center?

They don’t have the agents to handle the calls…

Or the product knowledge…

And most importantly, they were probably caught completely off guard.

So I realized there was just no way they were prepared for the volume here…

And pointed this out to Cody and Jeff (who we just hired to help with operations).

Jeff immediately started doing “test calls” to the call center…

And sure enough…

On average he gets put on hold for 3-4 minutes…

Then sent to voicemail.

So, why does that matter?

Well, because when customers can’t get a hold of you…

Then they can’t buy your product…

Or get answers about your product if they already bought…

That’s when chargebacks and refunds occur.

Now, we’re going to be able to fix this…

By cracking the whip at his call center to hire and train new agents…

Then watching them like a hawk.

Plus, we may use my call center for overflow too (I have a conflict of interest on this though, so trying to leave that decision to our operations director).

But, my big point is…

If I didn’t have previous experience with call centers not being able to handle scale in the past…

Or if I hadn’t seen this happen for other clients at my own call center previously, before we figured out how to handle these sorts of things…

I probably wouldn’t have brought it up.

And the problem may have continued on for months.

Leading to big spikes in chargebacks, refunds, and unhappy customers…

While we sat around scratching our heads or saying, “oh I guess it’s the offer!”

So, that’s one example…

But there are so many others.

Take the profit margin, for example…

Right now, our profit margin on this offer is 10%…

Which isn’t good…

So we’re going to fix it.

And, I know how to fix it.

It’s what I’ve written about in my last few blog posts to you.

Here’s the thing, though…

I know lots of people who scale similar types of offers…

Get to a 10% profit margin…

Then don’t know if that’s good or not…

And they run the offer for a whole year or even two years…

Thinking they are killing it…

When really, they could have made 3x to 4x as much as they did.

I made that mistake with my own health supplement company for the first two years…

And I still kick myself to this day for not realizing how much profit I was leaving on the table during that time.

I can’t do anything about the past, though…

But I can do something about the present.

Which is why I’ve been cracking the whip about getting our new upsells live…

Because those are going to increase our margins significantly.

[P.S. They were supposed to go live on Monday but didn’t, but they are going live today, thank God.]

Or, to take yet another example…

There’s inventory management.

You generally only have a limited amount of inventory, right?

Well, when you start scaling really fast…

What generally happens is that first, you’re just thrilled and excited.

You keep thinking, “oh sh*t I’m gonna be rich”…

Then suddenly, it strikes you…

With the number of sales you’re doing…

You’re gonna run out of inventory super fast!

So you call your manufacturer and you say, “hey we need more inventory NOW”…

And they tell you, “okay well we can get on it, but it’ll probably take 4-8 weeks.”

Suddenly you’re in a crunch.

You just got momentum…

But now, you’re realizing that in a matter of a few days…

Or maybe a few weeks…

You’re going to need to pause everything…

And kill your momentum until more inventory arrives.

Pausing is the enemy of scaling.

And once you kill your momentum it’s a huge pain to get it back…

Yet this happens to offer owners again-and-again.

Fortunately for us, though…

Me and Jeff (operations) recognized this issue early enough…

So we were able to figure out an inventory solution that enables us to keep running at volume without having to stop.

It’s kind of a complex solution, but it’ll work…

And there’s no way we would have pulled it off if it wasn’t for our experience.

Honestly, I could keep going here…

There’s managing merchant processing – I lost $2MM in profit two years ago when a MID shut down, I’ll tell you that story sometime…

Managing compliance – We need to consistently revise our claims to be less aggressive, while not sacrificing conversions…

Implementing analytics – it’s shocking how much better your business is when you really know your data…

Tech – load times, QA’ing, A/Bs, deployment, CRM selection, etc…

Plus, all of the stuff I’ve already been mentioning in my previous blog posts.

The point is, though…

That in the context of this offer…

I’m very thankful that I have the experience that I do…

Because it’s going to help us avoid a TON of pitfalls that otherwise would have been brutal.

In this specific context…

I get to act as a mentor to Cody…

And that’s something I’m really honored to do.

—

Remember, mentorship goes both ways…

Right now I’m considering joining a startup company in an advisory position (with equity)…

And this is something I truly believe will have a billion-dollar valuation in the next 5 years…

At least if we can execute.

I know that I can help get the company to $100MM…

But, if I do accept an advisory role…

Guess what one of the first things I’m going to do is?

I’m going to find a mentor who has taken a company from 9 figures to 10.

Fortunately, I have a few people in my network who have made that happen…

So that helps.

But, the point is…

I’m smart enough to know what I don’t know.

And I’m keenly aware that surest way to reach new heights…

Is to follow the guidance of someone who has already been where you want to go.

—

Okay, that’s it for today.

I got a pretty full and exciting day…

And feeling really grateful for all of the awesome opportunities that are in my life.

– SPG

P.S. This post originally came from an email I sent to my private list. If you want to see more stuff like this from me, you can apply to join my list using this link.

The post On Mentorship first appeared on Stefan Georgi.

Good morning!

I’m writing this to you at 6 am my time. I’m in my office already and it’s still dark out.

I had fun yesterday spending time with my family and watching football. In the late afternoon, though, I decided to have a couple of scotches as I took in the Packers game. Not coincidentally, I was asleep by 8 pm.

I’m feeling those scotches a little bit this morning, but because I drank a ton of water and slept for 9+ hours, it’s not that bad.

Still though, I’m reminded of the way alcohol can zap your energy…

And, I don’t think it’s any coincidence that most high performers are also very good about only drinking in moderation.

As T Boone Pickens wrote in his autobiography:

“I’ve been drunk, but never two nights in a row.”

I think that’s a pretty good rule of thumb to live by.

So much of the secret to success seems to be about discipline.

Sometimes I hate that word though, because it can imply rigidity…

But, when I really think about it…

I don’t think discipline needs to mean “not having fun.” It’s more so about having well-defined frameworks that you operate within and being committed to those frameworks no matter what.

For example, here are a few things I’m disciplined about:

I lift weights once a week. I know that’s not all that impressive, but the truth is I don’t like lifting at all. The only reason I do it is to avoid having man boobs. So it’s more of a chore than a fun thing for me. Yet despite not liking it, the last time I went a week without lifting was probably 7 or 8 years ago.

I wake up early. I don’t have a set time and I don’t believe in alarm clocks (unless it’s for a specific occasion, like an early flight). But I still get up between 4 am and 6 am every single day. It’s something I love doing.

I write these articles every day. Admittedly this is a newer discipline, but it’s one I’ve committed to fully.

I read every single day. I’m talking about books. Normally it’s before I go to bed. But sometimes it’s in the middle of the day too. Even at my office – I’ll take thirty minutes to walk away from my desk, sit down on the couch, and read a chapter or two of whatever book I’m working on. I LOVE doing this mid-day because it resets my brain and serves as a digital detox. I’m a fervent believer in the power of books.

I don’t eat bread or carb-rich foods unless I’m at a restaurant. This one might seem weird, but it makes a big difference for me.

I don’t drink at my own events. Going back to the alcohol commentary above, I really do enjoy a few adult beverages. But when I’m running or hosting an event, I don’t drink. The reason why is because I need all of my energy and I also want to be clear-headed the entire time. I’ve also started drinking a lot less at other people's events as well. For example, at T&C last year I limited myself to no more than one cocktail each day, and sure enough it was the best T&C I ever had.

Those are just a few places where I’m disciplined…

But, I’m curious about you…

Where are some places where you’re really disciplined in your life?

And where are some places where you wish you were better?

If you’ve got a second, leave a comment and let me know. I’m genuinely curious.

– SPG

P.S. Here are three places where I’d like to be more disciplined:

1. I’d like to drink even less frequently, especially during the week. I don’t get raging drunk, but I’ll have a few cocktails three-to four nights a week. I’d love to cut that down to just one-to-two times.

2. Another would be doing more hiking. I’ve gone through phases in my life where I hiked 5-7 times a week. Currently I’ll go outside and do walks around my neighborhood (a few miles), but I haven’t been on a hike in over a year. I’d like to get back into doing that.

3. Even though I don't really like lifting, there's a part of me that wants to start doing it 3-5 times a week. I feel like maybe if I committed to doing that, I'd start enjoying it more.

P.P.S. This post originally came from an email I sent to my private list. If you want to see more stuff like this from me, you can apply to join my list using this link.

The post On Hangovers, Discipline, and Habits first appeared on Stefan Georgi.

I was talking with Jeremy Reeves recently about the power of subscriptions.

During our conversation, I wrote out a pretty cool breakdown…

And I figured I’d share it with my blog readers too.

What you’re about to read is in reference to a health supplement funnel…

But the same concept can be applied to pretty much anything you’re selling.

Check it out and enjoy 🙂

When it comes to subscription revenue, here’s what I did in the past:

1. The checkout is your standard one, where they have the option to get 1, 3, or 6 bottles.
2. On that checkout page, you give them the option to subscribe and get a 10% discount.
3. When giving them that option, you explain clearly that they are enrolling in an auto-ship, and that they can cancel anytime.

When my health company did this in the past, we’d get about a 20% take rate for the subscription.

For those who subscribed…

We would not show them a 6 bottle “stock up” up-sell or a 3 bottle “last chance” down-sell…

Instead, we’d take them straight to cross-sell pages, where we sell them different products.

Now when it comes to the details of subscription billing and how it was executed, here’s what we did:

When the customer’s is rebilled is dependent upon how many bottles they took.

So if they took 6 bottles, then they get rebilled towards the end of month 6.

And here’s the SUPER IMPORTANT part:

Before the customer gets rebilled for the first time…

I would have my team send them an email AND call them…

To confirm they were good with getting rebilled.

We found that about 50% of people were good with the rebill…

But of those 50%, they tended to stick with us for a very long time after (aka, multiple rebill cycles).

And now let’s get to the fun part, where we do the math on this:

Say you're doing 100 sales a day, total.

That means 20 people are subscribing per day (20% of people check the box).

Out of that, let's say:

• 50% of those people take your 6-month option
• 30% take your 3-month option
• 20% take your 1-month option.

We know that half (10) of those people who subscribe will actually rebill.

So, this means that each day you're getting:

• 5 people who are going to rebill at a 6 bottle package (let's call it $240 in rev per person, per rebill)
• 3 people who are going to rebill at your 3 bottle package (let's call it $120 in rev per person, per rebill)
• 2 people who are going to rebill at your 1 bottle package (let's call it $59 in rev per person, per rebill).

That's an extra $1,678 in expected revenue you'll get from those customers on their FIRST billing cycle.

Realistically though, most of them will rebill more than once.

And, here’s the crazy part…

Even if they only rebill two times – we double the future expected revenue to $3,356.  

As in you're generating an extra $3,356 in expected revenue PER DAY.

Every day that you do 100 sales, and add 20 new subscribers…

That’s another $3,356 you can expect to collect in the next year (realistically it will be a lot more).

The math on this is pretty simple:

No matter if they are rebilled every 1-month, 3-months, or 6-months…

If we assume two re-billing cycles…

That means they’ll be rebilled twice in the next year.

Additional Expected Revenue Per day = $3,356….

365 Days in a Year…

That's $1,224,940 in extra revenue you are generating…

And it’s coming from just TEN customers per day!!!

Talk about the 80/20 Rule in Action (or in this case 90/10).

Plus, don’t forget…

You’re not having to pay a CPA when these customers rebill in the future.

So your costs are very modest.

At most maybe $200,000 – but probably it’s a lot lower than that.

All of which is to say that subscriptions are one of the fastest ways to become a millionaire.

A couple more notes on this:

1. I’m sure other people are better with subscription than me, but this is what I’ve done.
2. We were super transparent about our rebills when we used this model in the past, and our chargebacks did not increase AT ALL. They stayed below 1% on average.
3. No joke, I still have customers from 2017 who are on rebill today 🙂
4. Extrapolate this out to 1,000 front ends a day. Suddenly it’s $12,249,400 in additional revenue you’re getting. Realistically, your profit margin on this is probably 80% too. So you’re looking at close to $10MM in additional profit PER YEAR. That’s how you become a centimillionaire within a decade.

Pretty dope, right?

And if you’ve ever noticed that Justin and I spend a lot of time talking about the importance of getting your offer to scale on cold traffic…

That’s why.

100 sales a day can be life-changing…

1,000 sales a day can make you rich beyond your wildest dreams…

It’s that simple.

– SPG

P.S. If you know someone who would find value in blog posts like this one, feel free to share. Also, they can apply to join my list using this link here.

The post How 10 Customers a Day Can Make You a Millionaire In a Year first appeared on Stefan Georgi.

Greetings from the Bay Area.

Like I mentioned in yesterday’s email…

I’m in Walnut Creek for the weekend with the Copy Accelerator team…

And we’re working with a badass consultant named Jen Kem (along with her equally badass team).

Yesterday was the first of three days we’ll be spending with Jen…

And it was probably one of the most productive days I’ve had in a LONG time.

Why?

Because while Justin and I had expected to spend the day talking about event logistics and member experience…

What Jen quickly realized…

Is that before we got to that stuff.

We first needed to get clear on Copy Accelerator as a whole.

It started with Jen asking us a seemingly simple question:

“Why should someone join Copy Accelerator?”

Well to us it’s obvious, so we start to explain:

“When you join Copy Accelerator you get weekly training calls on different elements of copywriting – from writing long-form to creating better ad copy.

You also get access to our private FB Group, where you can post any copy you are working on, and we’ll review it and provide feedback.

Then there’s the Member’s Area, where you can view recordings of all the previous calls and get the video recordings from our previous event and my 2017 Copy Intensive…

Plus we have bi-weekly calls with the Tried & True Team, where an expert team reviews our members’ copy and shows them how to make it Facebook Compliant…

There’s the High Paying Copy Jobs Private FB Group, where Justin and I are consistently posting new copy gigs that come our way (and that pay anywhere from $5k to $50k for a single sales letter)…

And of course, we have our two live mastermind events each year, where we fill the room with the biggest names in direct response and give you millions of dollars worth of value from the stage.

Pretty awesome right!?”

We were expecting Jen to just agree and say “yep that’s awesome and so are YOU!”

But she didn’t do that.

Instead…

Jen said something along the lines of…

“Okay cool. What you’ve just described is a great set of features and benefits. But that still doesn’t answer why somebody should join Copy Accelerator? Or why they should even buy tickets to your upcoming event. What’s the answer to that question?”

Well, this kind of surprised me…

I was sitting there thinking that everything I’d just described was so great…

That, of course, someone would want access to it.

But I also did kind of see where Jen was going with this…

So, I decided to take a second stab at an answer…

I said…

“Well, it’s by far the best copywriting training program in the world. It’s not even close. Nobody else is teaching a systematic approach to consistently writing winning sales copy in less time. I’m sorry but they’re not. My approach (RMBC) has helped over a hundred different copywriters drastically improve their careers. It’s led to freelancers tripling their income, and businesses adding seven figures to their bottom line. I’m not always super cocky about stuff, but I am when it comes to RMBC.”

And Jen says…

“Okay great, so that’s what you teach at Copy Accelerator? That’s the reason someone joins? To learn RMBC?”

Well, not exactly.

I explain…

“We also teach upsells. Justin has a very strong system in place for that. Really, it’s a framework. And it’s ridiculously effective. Whenever people follow Justin’s framework, they increase upsell conversion rates by anywhere from 10-50%. Plus, more importantly, they get their AOVs up significantly too.

And then there’s the Ad Copy component. Justin teaches and trains our members on four different types of email creatives they should be sending. Each archetype is different, yet can help your offer to scale tremendously. And Justin and I both help our members with their Ad Copy for display platforms like FB and Native to. This is equally important because without good ads, you can’t scale your offer very much.”

Now at this point, Jen’s smiling…

And I’m really starting to get her point…

Which is that even though what we deliver is EXTREMELY valuable…

And even though virtually all of our 90+ Copy Accelerator Members are in LOVE with our program…

Our actual value proposition isn’t actually all that clear.

There’s nothing unified here…

Our whole approach is not nearly as structured as it could be…

And that’s something we need to fix.

So that’s what we spent the next several hours working on…

Until eventually, this is what we came up with:

1. Copy Accelerator and our Live Events are for hardcore Direct Response Marketers.
2. The ultimate reason people should join our mastermind, or attend one of our events, is because we give them the tools, tactics, and training they need to scale their offers on cold traffic.
3. For freelance copywriters, this means we help them to provide their clients with more winners. This is important because the more winners they write, the more money they can charge for new deals, the better level of clients they can work with, and the further their career progresses. This is how they reach the A List. It’s also how they achieve a tremendous level of financial freedom and become truly wealthy for the first time in their lives.
4. For business owners, scaling your offers on cold traffic is the ultimate pinnacle. It means tens-of-millions in revenue. Millions more in profit. Once your offer is really chugging along on cold traffic – you have the money to build amazing teams, create more amazing products, and to make the kinds of investments that lead to multi-generational wealth for your family.
5. The way we help these two groups scale their offers on cold traffic is really broken down into three parts: 1) High Converting Sales Pages, 2) Upsells, and 3) Ads.

It sounds simple, but that’s it.

With High Converting Sales Pages I’m talking about both the copy and the design. For example, my entire RMBC training falls into this category. With RMBC, you can quickly produce killer sales letters in 20% of the time it takes you right now. Plus you see how to include the right design elements on these pages to ensure they convert.

With Upsells, you’re getting Justin’s framework for increasing both conversion rates and AOVs. When your AOV is higher, you can buy more traffic. When you can buy more traffic, you can scale infinitely. When you can scale infinitely, you’re able to own your market.

With Ads, you have the actual means to do that scaling. See, with a great sales page and great upsells you can scale infinitely. But with killer ad creatives, you will scale infinitely. It’s virtually impossible not to. That’s why killer ad creatives are so vital too.

Really that’s the framework and that’s what we teach at Copy Accelerator and at our live events:

It’s a three-part system – nothing more and nothing less.

Yet while this may seem simple…

It’s impossible to overstate the results:

• For the freelance copywriters out there – if you master these three areas, you’ll never struggle for a client again. You’ll also become rich very quickly.
• For the business owners out there – when you put your copywriters into our program and we train them on these three areas, it’s like rocket fuel.

I mean just imagine it: a team of writers producing killer sales funnels for you + giving you the ads you can use to scale those funnels through the stratosphere.

That’s really the essence of what we provide…

And figuring this out…

It was a HUGE breakthrough for me and Justin.

It simplifies things a lot…

It puts everything else that we do into context.

The copy reviews we do in the FB…

The Facebook Compliance review calls we do…

The High Paying Copy Jobs Board for our members…

The Live Events like we have coming up in February…

All of the training in the Member’s Area…

These are all incredible SUPPORT mechanisms…

Things that further enable our tribe to execute on the three main areas we focus on in Copy Accelerator.

That’s it.

That’s why you join Copy Accelerator…

And it’s why you attend our live events…

Because you want the toolsets and specific systems required to produce winner-after-winner.

If you’re a freelancer and you do this…your career changes overnight…

If you’re a business owner and you get your team doing this…your business is transformed in the blink of an eye…

It’s that simple.

—

I hope you can understand why I view this as such an important revelation.

It’s all about clarity. By being clearer on the objective of Copy Accelerator – we can now be even more intentional in the decisions we make when running the mastermind…

Along with the ways, we approach our training.

It’s a framework to filter everything through…

Plus, it’s an easier message to communicate to both our current members and future members.

Just read this part below and tell me it’s not much clearer than what I originally wrote up above:

1. You should join Copy Accelerator if you want to consistently create winning sales funnels that can scale on cold traffic.

2. In order to consistently scale funnels on cold traffic, there are three areas where you need to achieve mastery: 1) High Converting Sales Pages, 2) Upsells, and 3) Ads.

3. Copy Accelerator systematically trains you on how to achieve mastery in each of those three areas.

4. And in addition to trainings, we provide you with an unparalleled level of support. This includes personal reviews and feedback on your funnels, assistance with getting new clients, personalized trainings on network compliance, expert speakers at our events, and a vast library of training videos and resources.

It’s pretty damn clear now right?

—

Alright that’s it for today.

I’m in my hotel room currently…

And after I send this email I’ll be catching up on some work.

Then at around 9:30 am PST Justin and I are going to be meeting up to shoot some videos…

And after that me, Justin, Brooks, and Blake will be heading back to Jen’s office for Day 2.

I’m really excited to refine our value proposition even more…and to start digging into the specifics of our upcoming event.

– SPG

P.S. If you want to achieve mastery and start consistently creating killer offers that can scale on cold traffic…

Then you should be at our next mastermind from February 26^th – 28^th in Las Vegas.

Every speaker we have…

Every topic that’s being covered…

And every single tactic that will be shared…

Will immediately be tied back to achieving mastery in one of the three areas I mentioned in this email.

High Converting Sales Pages

I’ll be giving you some new resources on RMBC and providing numerous on-page split-tests that increase conversions dramatically.

And Chris Haddad will be giving you the secrets to writing highly emotional sales copy that hooks prospects faster than a wide-mouthed-bass.

Upsells

Jay Deiboldt is going to be doing a master class on this subject. He routinely gets 40-50% upsell conversion rates on his pages.

I’m also pretty sure Justin will probably jump in towards the end of Jay’s talk and chime in too.

That’ll be like watching Michelangelo and Leonardo Da Vinci talking about painting.

Plus, Marc Stockman and Jeff Radich will be sharing how they increase AOVs by $40+ on their funnels. These are the same secrets that have allowed them to scale to over 1,000 customers per day and create a company that’s currently flirting heavily with nine-figures in annual revenue.

Ads

Tyler Bramlett will be talking about how he acquires thousands of paying customers per day via email.

Jason Kutasi will be sharing the Ad strategies that have allowed him to spend nine-figures on Facebook in the past few years.

And Matt Harmon will be revealing the simple framework he uses to crush Native ads better than almost anyone else.

The lineup is STACKED…

And here’s a link you can use to apply for a ticket.

P.P.S.This post originally came from an email I sent to my private list. If you want to see more stuff like this from me, you can apply to join my list using this link.

The post Yesterday I Had a Massive Breakthrough first appeared on Stefan Georgi.

At the start of the previous decade, I was in Pensacola, Florida.

Well, that’s where I spent most of my time…

Though on New Year’s Eve I was in Park City, Utah, at a party with my parents and their friends…

Telling everyone that I was going to law school after I graduated from college.

That was the plan.

I’d taken the LSAT, applied to several law schools, and been accepted at the University of Miami.

It seemed like a perfect fit because I loved the tropical climate of South Florida…

And, being a lawyer – that was prestigious.

Lawyers made lots of money…

So, despite having been a bit “lost” for stretches of my life since turning 18…

(attended CU Boulder for a semester then dropped out, worked a stretch of minimum wage jobs, struggled with both a weed and cocaine addiction, started a music company with raised capital and failed, decided I missed learning and enrolled in Junior College, transferred to UWF, reconnected with nature, discovered philosophy, finally found my place)…

It looked like I’d end up being a respectable member of society after all.

Internally though, I was having my doubts.

I graduated from college in May, of 2010.

And, by June…

I’d written the University of Miami to tell them I wasn’t going to be attending.

Why?

I knew in my heart that I’d be going to law school for all the wrong reasons.

I’d be doing it because being a lawyer “sounded” impressive…

And because they made lots of money…

But I’d probably be miserable.

Especially with the insanely long hours…

And the fact that I just wasn’t all that interested in law.

I also knew there was a good chance I’d drop out of law school before finishing…

And the idea of taking on another $150,000 in debt…

For something, I wasn’t that passionate about…

It wasn’t a risk I wanted to take.

So, I didn’t go.

And, for a time, it seemed like a questionable decision.

I couldn’t find any jobs in Pensacola…

So I ended up working on a failed congressional campaign in Houma, Louisiana…

But left before Election Day.

When the leadership decided we needed to spend less time out in the community…

And more time cold-calling Cajuns to see who they were voting for…

Which meant using an autodialer to make 200-300 phone calls a day from a stuffy room with little AC or natural light.

When I quit, I was told by the campaign director that I would never work in politics again.

But I didn’t care.

And I drove from Houma directly back to San Diego…

Where I moved in with mom and dad…

And started looking for work.

After that happened…

There was a stretch of time where I worked as a promotional model/brand ambassador…

Which I actually did really enjoy…

Except, it wasn’t permanent.

You'd get good pay for a few days, but then the event was over…

And you were back to scrambling for your next gig.

This was followed by my time working at a for-profit, online college…

Where I’d cold call people and try to get them to take on massive amounts of debt to pursue a worthless degree…

Which also didn't feel very good…

Because I knew that, statistically…

Over 80% of the people who I convinced to enroll in the college…

Wouldn’t end up completing their degree program and would just be saddled in debt.

There were stretches of depression…

Then, one of the happiest times of my life.

The four months I spent living in a double-wide trailer in Marble Falls, Texas…

Teaching kids about nature at a place called The Outdoor School.

That was followed by my dad’s cancer diagnosis, death, and more depression…

And then, a fateful trip to Las Vegas after my dad died…

Where I sat down to a poker table…

Met Laura Catella…
And found out what copywriting was for the first time.

Many of you have heard the story by now.

Someone asked her what she did for a living…

She said, “I’m a writer”…

I asked, “what kind of writer?”…

She said, “I’m a copywriter”…

And I said, “that’s awesome.” Then, pulled out my phone and Googled “what’s a copywriter,” because I had no idea.

That was the beginning of a major turning point in my life.

But, it didn’t happen overnight.

First, there was one last corporate job, this one back in South Florida.

Me working on several business ideas that didn’t take off…

And then, me finally trying out “this copywriting thing” for myself…

And realizing people would actually pay me to write for them.

That was the “A-HA!” moment.

And I quit my corporate job less than 30 days after that.

But, it still wasn’t all roses from there…

There were times where I’d have to pawn musical instruments or my Xbox to pay rent…

Tons of mistakes I made (starting an agency then becoming trapped in it)…

Laura and I both doing shady shit behind each other’s backs…

And just more growing up that needed to happen.

Finally, things started to click in 2014 when I began writing for the guys at Lion’s Publishing full-time.

It was only then that I knew I’d developed competency and a skill-set that would ensure I’d never be broke again.

And after that, there was a health supplement company that went from $0 to $23MM in two years…

Several other successful brands I partnered in…

Then more recently, Copy Accelerator with Justin Goff…

Creating this email list…

Starting to teach more…

Marrying Laura…

And the birth of our beautiful daughter, Eden Rose.

Plus more mistakes too.

Don’t think the mistakes stopped after 2014 LOL…

I've continued to make plenty…

Including the affiliate network, I created in 2017, thinking I was genius…

And that's cost me at least $1.5 MM between 2017-2019.

I'll give you a whole email about that damned affiliate network at some point…

But, the point is…

It's been quite the decade.

And I guess I'm just feeling sentimental and wanted to write about it.

I also want to make the point that nothing is permanent…

And while it can feel like things aren’t moving in the right direction, or like you’re stuck…

The truth is that change is the only constant.

A single year can be impactful…

But a decade?

You’re virtually guaranteed not to be the same person at the end of a decade as you were at the start.

And, for me personally…

I’m so thankful for the last decade.

Even with all of the ups and downs…

Because this last decade is where I finally became a fully realized human being…

Where I went from an unguided missile…

To a mission-driven man.

Of course, I'll still continue to evolve…

I have no doubt that there will be numerous lessons I'll need to learn in the new decade as well – some easy but some hard and painful…

And, I can tell you that there are still plenty of areas in my life where I want to improve too.

But I’m entering this decade with a profound sense of confidence…

Along with an unbridled optimism…

And for that, I’m incredibly grateful.

– SPG

P.S. This post originally came from an email I sent to my private list. If you want to see more stuff like this from me, you can apply to join my list using this link.

The post Reflections on the Last Decade first appeared on Stefan Georgi.

Below are three of my favorite books I read in 2019. I was originally going to make this list longer, but I woke up kind of late, and I’ve only got a few minutes until I need to get Eden out of bed.

Perhaps I’ll do a part-two at some point…

But for now, enjoy 🙂

1. A Moveable Feast by Ernest Hemingway

I love reading Hemingway. Usually, it’s in the spring, the first time I’m laying outside by a pool or a body of water. Then for the next one to two months, I’ll be on a Hemingway bender, either reading stuff for the first time, re-reading past works, or reading biographies about him.

Hemingway’s prose is the only where, as soon as I start reading it, I want to quit everything else and become a romantically alcoholic writer who puts his life in constant danger, court disaster, and chronicles each moment of his slow-motion march towards tragedy.

So, yeah – I read some Hemingway in 2019 🙂

2. Post War: A Hi

story of Europe Since 1945 by Tony Judt

I received postwar as a gift several years ago. In 2019, I finally picked it up and decided to give it a read.

It’s long, and I’m not recommending it to most people…

But it is worth reading a chapter from this book titled The Age of Affluence.

Because it describes how rapidly society and technology changed in the 1960s and 1970s…

And understanding these changes help us make a lot more sense of the world we live in today.

Here’s just one example:

The rise of television was predicted to mean the death of cinema. Instead, it evolved into its own distinct medium. And, one of the most interesting things about the rise of TV is that it led to a much stronger sense of national identity.

Why? Because until then, you had all of these people living in isolated towns, or on farms, etc. As such, they identified more with their local neighbors or family than with “the state” at large.

But when television began reaching everyone’s home, this changed. People were suddenly bombarded by these programs that all promoted a similar concept of what it means to be French, or German, or Italian, etc.

So television increased cultural cohesion and decreased isolation…

Because suddenly, a farmer in Marseille knew and cared about what was happening to farmers in (on the other side of the country).

TV also made cultures more homogenous, and less diverse, though.

Because you had everyone starting to view and conform to the same images, visuals, dress, modes of speech, etc.

3. Skin in the Game: Hidden Asymmetries in Daily Life by Nassim Taleb

Taleb is one of my favorite authors/thinkers. I’ve read pretty much everything he puts out and will continue to do so.

The basic concept of Skin in the Game is: When we remove risk from life, it’s generally for the worse.

Here are a few examples of this in action…

Bureaucrats, policy makers, and intellectuals who design policies that sound good in theory, but that lead to disastrous consequences.

For example, when think-tankers or Thomas Friedman advocate for foreign intervention by the U.S. in another country. They want to liberate oppressed people and spread democracy. But what ends up happening is often the opposite. These policies often lead to brutal new dictatorships, mass death, poverty, prostitution, and modern-day slave markets. It’s terrible – but the policymakers who advocated for the regime change aren’t themselves affected. They have no downside to their irresponsible policies. No skin in the game. And the world suffers for it.

In business transactions.

If someone is selling you something in a one-time transaction, they don’t necessarily have a large incentive to be forthright or honest. Why? Well, since they're not going to interact with you again in the future, they may lie or manipulate to make the sale. After all, what’s their downside to not doing that?

It’s for this reason that Taleb believes tort law and America’s sue-happy culture are actually good things. They help to protect against the downside and make risk more shared (symmetrical).

And, to add my own two cents – this is why we go so hard on the guarantee in our direct response offers. We want the prospect to know that we share their risk.

The relationship between a multinational corporation and employee.

This is asymmetrical. The employee thinks they have job stability, but they also have a ton of risk. The longer they are with the company, the more indebted to the company they are. For example, when IBM had to start laying off its “lifers” in the 1990s, those employees were shocked to find that nobody else wanted to hire them. The times had passed many of them by, and they went from a prestigious and cushy 6-figure job to a state of long-term unemployment. They had to go back and learn brand new skills, at great cost in terms of both resources and time.

(An addendum to this one – Taleb asserts that the most risk-immune type of employee is salespeople because they are the most like mercenaries for hire. Freelancers are also in a less fragile position than employees because they are not dependent upon a single hand to be fed. So if you’re a freelancer or contractor, it’s in your best interest to remain one. If you’re a corporation, it’s in your best interest to turn freelancers and contractors into employees. There’s an interesting tension here.)

The fact that small minorities drive society-wide change. I don’t mean minority in the ethnic sense. I’m talking about how minority preferences often trump the majority’s. Why? The minority normally cares more about certain issues, while the majority cares less. And because it’s usually easy for the majority to incorporate the minorities preferences, that’s what happens.

I know this one seems kind of weird, so let me give you an example:

Look at how so many consumer-packaged-goods (aka foods at the supermarket) are organic and/or non-GMO.

It’s only a small percentage of consumers who care about those things. But that small minority will only buy products that meet their criteria.

Conversely, because the majority doesn’t care, they’ll also buy products that are organic or non-GMO.

And, because the cost to produce organic and non-GMO foods has become so low that it’s pretty much a non-factor…

It makes much more sense for a CPG company to just make as many things organic and non-GMO as possible…

Because then, they get the business of both the minority and the majority at the same time.

This is just a simple example of how the minority often changes the rules for the majority.

But Taleb also shows how this same concept can also be applied to revolutions, laws, and culture, too.

Here are a few more honorable mentions:

The Cart That Changed the World: The Career of Sylvan N. Goldman
This is a biography of the man who invented the shopping cart. It’s amazing and there are some incredible marketing lessons inside. I’m going to share more insights on this book at some point.

21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership
This is a re-read. I read it every few years. One of the best books on leadership ever written.

Trillion Dollar Coach: The Leadership Playbook of Silicon Valley’s Bill Campbell

This book is kind of folky and anecdotal. But it’s amazing that Bill Campbell was the coach or mentor to pretty much every major CEO in Silicone Valley: Steve Jobs, the founders of Google, Mark Zuckerberg, Tim Cook, Jeff Bezos, Ben Horrowitz, Marc Anderson, etc.

He was so beloved by his pupils that they wrote this book about him after he died. And by “they” I mean Eric Schmidt (former CEO of Google), along with Jonathan Rosenberg and Alan Eagle (also from Google).

I mean, talk about influence, right? The influence of Bill Campbell exerted is breathtaking.
—
K, that’s it.

Eden is now awake and eating breakfast.

In a little bit, Laura and I are taking her to the Air and Space Museum in Balboa Park. We’re meeting my sister and her two boys there, so should be a lot of fun.

Later today we’re seeing one of Laura’s friends who lives near our AirBNB.

I hope you all have an awesome day!

– SPG

P.S. This post originally came from an email I sent to my private list. If you want to see more stuff like this from me, you can apply to join my list using this link.

The post 3 Books I Read Last Year (and What I Learned From Them) first appeared on Stefan Georgi.

Some of you may know that I was a philosophy major in college…👨‍🎓

But I doubt you know the reason why.

It’s because of a guy named Bobby Johnson.

You see, when I transferred to the University of West Florida in 2008…

I was originally a Political Science Major…

And I was completely content with that decision – I thought politics and government were super interesting.

During that first semester though…

I elected to take an Intro to Ethics course…

And Bobby was the professor.

Bobby was this skinny, shaggy haired kid…

He was only 26 at the time.

And honestly, he looked like he should be a student in the class, not the teacher.👨‍🏫

It was a fairly large class, with a lot of freshmen in it…

And during the very first class…

One of the freshmen – a girl who couldn’t have been much more than 18 – asked Bobby why anyone should study philosophy?

“Well for me, it’s because I’m no longer afraid to die”…

That’s how Bobby responded.

And while yeah, I know it sounds dramatic…

It also caught my attention…

Because I’d never really heard someone talk about death like that before…

Especially not in a way that showed complete peace and acceptance.

So, that moment really stood out…

But, that’s not the reason why I switched to philosophy.

The switch happened when, a month or so into the semester…

I was outside the library, smoking cigarettes with some friends…

And Bobby Johnson came walking by.

He joined us (didn’t smoke, but sat down) and we all talked…

And then at some point it was just me and him, and he goes, “so what’s your deal?”

Well, I had no idea how to answer that…

But I started by telling him that I’m from California…

And I remember him responding with:

“Oh, so that’s why you have good taste in music!”

I'm not 100% sure why he said that – I think he must have been looking through my iPod or something…

And I don’t remember exactly how the rest of the conversation went…

But I do know that Bobby made a pretty impassioned plea for me to study philosophy…

And, at the end of the semester, I made the switch.

So, why am I sharing this with you?

Well, a few reasons…

I think that studying philosophy has helped me to be a better copywriter.

Because it’s all about logical arguments (Want to improve your copy? Read Plato/Socrates – it’s easily digestible dialogue with razor-sharp logical arguments) …

But, it’s also about “weird” arguments and thinking outside the box.

It’s also about trying to find concrete ways to explain very abstract concepts…

Which comes in handy when you’re trying to make mitochondria or autophagy sound interesting to people.

More importantly than that though…

Because I chose to study philosophy…

I basically got to spend two years examining myself, who I really was, and why I did the things I did…

And I spent dozens of hours each week…

Meditating and writing about “big” topics like love, eternity, God, morality, and death.

I think that really helped me in 2011…

When my dad was diagnosed with cancer…

And died five months after.

It was an awful experience…

But because I had spent so much time thinking about the inevitability of death…

And how we only have a finite amount of time on this earth…

It made the diagnosis and death of my father less shocking.

Not easier…

But I wasn’t blindsided.

And, I think if you can get to a place where you're comfortable with the idea of death…

It can make a big impact in your life too.

Because here’s the cold hard truth:

We’re all going to die.

Every single one of us.

And every person we love.

So, we can either accept that fact…

And use it to empower ourselves and others…

By trying to savor every moment of this life…

By trying to spread love to every person we encounter…

By living big, bold, and fully…

Or, we can live in fear and denial.

We can pretend death doesn’t exist…

We can tell ourselves NOT to enjoy anything today, because there’s some undefined time in the distant future where we’ll actually ALLOW ourselves to be happy…

We can slave away in jobs we hate, stay stuck in relationships with people we don't love, and continue to hide our true nature from the world because we’re afraid…

Or, we can view life as a beautiful and thrilling journey, one that we’re grateful to be a part of.

It’s really an either/or situation.

Either you embrace the inevitability of death, and you make the most of the time you’ve got…

Or you don’t, and you die surprised and disappointed.

So, knowing that you have this choice…

Why the F**K would pick option “b”?

Man…

Honestly, as I’m writing this…

I have to be real with you:

It’s been a while since I thought this way…

Since I’ve pondered my own mortality.

Or since I’ve remembered that my eventual death is one of the greatest gifts I have in this life.

There's no better motivator than knowing the cosmic stopwatch will eventually hit 0:00…

It’s a motivator not just to “accomplish” great things…

But to ENJOY as many moments as you can too.

Because it could all be over in the blink of an eye.

That’s how it was for Bobby Johnson.

You see, during my two years at the University of West Florida, we grew pretty close…

I’d take whatever classes he taught…

But I’d also go over to his house for potlucks and get-togethers.

These would inevitably end with all of us on Bobby’s patio at 2 am…

Drinking beer and talking about the meaning of life.

As we grew closer, I learned that Bobby had cystic fibrosis…

And while it didn’t seem to be affecting Bobby a lot at the time…

Sure enough, in 2014…

Bobby passed away due to complications from his disease.

I wasn’t expecting the news…

Because to be honest, we hadn’t talked much since I left UWF…

But when I first heard of Bobby’s passing…

As heartbroken as I was…

I also couldn’t help but think back to that first class, on my first day at UWF…

When Bobby told that girl that he was no longer afraid to die.

And it made me smile.

Suddenly, that comment from Bobby made a lot more sense to me…

Because while no one in the class knew it…

Bobby knew it:

He would almost certainly die at a very young age…

And so, he used philosophy to come to terms with that reality.

To be at peace with his life and his death.

And it worked.

Bobby was hands-down one of the happiest guys I ever knew.

I hadn’t thought of Bobby in a few years…

But he came up last night when Laura and I were at dinner.

And I wanted to write and share this with you…

Because by sharing the lessons I learned, thanks to Bobby…

It’s a way to ensure that he continues to have an impact on people’s lives…

And that his spirit lives on.

Hope you guys have an incredible day 🙂

-SPG

P.S. This post originally came from an email I sent to my private list. If you want to see more stuff like this from me, you can apply to join my list using this link.

The post I’m No Longer Afraid to Die first appeared on Stefan Georgi.

Recently, I had lunch with my friend, Jason, and his business partner, Jon.  

Jason started running traffic to my Holy Land Health offers back in early 2016, and for a while, he was by far my biggest affiliate.

But, what’s funny is that for close to a year, I didn’t actually know Jason’s identity. 

Instead, both me and my team at Holy Land Health only knew Jason as “1345,” because that was his sub ID on the affiliate network we were running with.

That changed in February of 2017 when Steven Patton, who was with the aforementioned network (Ad Health), introduced us directly. 

I give Steven a lot of credit for this, because at that point in my career with affiliates I didn’t really know as much as I do today. 

In other words…

I was fine running blind with a network, and I didn’t realize that I should be cultivating direct relationships with the actual affiliates (instead of just the networks). 

Steven helped change my thinking on this.

Especially because he felt like, given the amount of volume we were running together (millions of dollars), me and ol’ 1345 should be connected directly. That way if 1345 (aka Jason) needed changes made to pages, he could come straight to my team. 

After meeting in person for the first time, in a suite at T&C in February of 2017…

Jason continued to run traffic to the HLH offers for another six months or so…

And ultimately we did over $10MM in revenue together on HLH alone 

Then, when I wound down Holy Land Health in the summer of 2017…

Jason and I maintained a good relationship. 

He and his partner, Jon, came to my copy intensive in Vegas in 2018.

He’ll still occasionally run an offer that I bring him…

And sometimes, we just connect on Skype to talk business and catch up.  

When we had lunch yesterday, it was the first time I’d seen Jason in close to a year.

It was a really nice time.

None of us (Jason/Jon/Me) had any agenda…

It was more just a bunch of war buddies catching up.

The conversation hit on a wide range of topics including:  

• The crazy stuff my call center is doing and how with rising ad costs, it’s more vital than ever to sell more to your existing customers 
• The next big frontiers of media buying (Jon says YouTube, Jason says ConnectedTV)…
• The Copy Accelerator Mastermind (Jason and Jon may come to our event in February and be on our Media Buying Panel)…
• The best places to live in San Diego…

Plus lots more…

And, throughout our whole conversation…

The one thing that really stood out to me… 

Was that no matter how “permanent” things seem at the time…

They almost always change. 

For example…

We talked about a guy I’ll call GC. 

He’s an affiliate who ran several million dollars’ worths of CBD traffic for me and a partner 2017, then freaked out because he thought maybe he’d go to jail for selling drugs (he didn’t LOL). 

The guy’s a total beast, though…

And today he spends his time building up eComm brands…

And has a connected TV Company that he’s pushing towards a large exit. 

We talked about Jason Akatiff. 

Akatiff owns an affiliate network called A4D, and he’s very much an OG in our space. 

It was cool hearing how Akatiff has really found his passion for building up eComm brands and scaling them. His affiliate network is still chugging along, but Akatiff doesn’t put most of his focus there. Instead, he’s really enjoying the product development side of things.  

Jason then asked me about an ex-partner in some health businesses named Dane. 

I told him how Dane and his new partner are doing extremely well with their health offers. They’ve dialed in their numbers, figured out how to be profitable at scale, and are chugging along. 

Next, we talked about Nick, Vince, and Kevin from VShred and Sculpt Nation. 

These guys came up because we were talking about how so many people say they’re going to build a real brand, but never actually do.   

Well, Nick and the gang have actually pulled it off. 

Now they have a nine-figure brand that is just exploding.

So, these guys are a great example of how building something “real” can be much more rewarding than just doing a “money grab.” 

Then there’s Steven Patton, the guy who is responsible for introducing me and Jason in the first place. 

Jason told me about how Patton is making a transition from his current role and shifting gears. He’s sick of the CPA game, and he wants to pivot to CPM and email stuff. I don’t blame Steven – the guy’s been doing CPA for a long time and burnout happens. 

Plus, we talked about Jason himself.  

When I first met Jason, he was running a media buying team that was focused on running offers on the big ad networks.

Two years ago, he started a publishing company that creates and sells children’s books. It’s called Puppy Dogs and Ice Cream, and it’s a multi-million-dollar book empire that most of us have never heard of. 

This is now by far the main focus of Jason and his team. They still run a few offers here and there, but about 90% of their time goes towards growing their book company. 

They have tons of SKUs, and Jason recently sent my daughter, Eden, a huge bundle of their books in the mail, which she loved.

I’m also really happy for Jason because it’s obvious he truly loves this business. 

Honestly, that’s just a fraction of what we talked about.

But, the reason I felt inspired to write this email to you today is because our conversation reminded me of a simple but profound fact:

Everyone and everything changes over time…

And that’s important to remember for at least three big reasons: 

1. Don’t define people by what they’re doing at any given moment in time. It’s smarter to have a flexible mental model of people. To understand that just because they are doing “X” today, doesn’t mean they won’t be doing “Y” tomorrow. 

2. Tangentially, this is why relationships and networks are so important. And why I go out of my way to have relationships with everyone I meet, no matter if they are “big” or “small” in their industry, and no matter if we seem to have nothing in common. Just because that’s the case today, doesn’t mean there won’t be some incredible synergy a few years down the road. 

3. It’s helpful to remember that change is a constant in your own life too. And to embrace that. This is valid regardless of whether you’re crushing it right now, or you’re in a personal hell. In both cases, there’s going to be an “endpoint.” That doesn’t mean you can’t keep crushing it, but it does mean whatever you’re doing will eventually change. And it’s really helpful to remember this when you’re going through a rough spot. No matter how “stuck” you feel – the truth is that your hardship will ultimately pass. 

I feel like there’s a lot more I could write about all of this…

But the sun is just coming up over the Pacific ocean, and I want to watch. 

Then, I’m going to be waking up Eden and spending a bit of morning time with her. 

And at around 9 am, I’ll be heading to the “day office” I rented at a Regus that’s just down the street to get some work done. 

Workwise, here are my biggest objectives for the day: 

• Work on a sales letter I’m doing for a client (want to be at least 50% done with the copy)…
• Take care of a few things for Copy Accelerator…
• Have an hour-long Zoom call with the leadership of my call center to discuss 2020 strategy.  

Then this afternoon, we’ll be taking Eden to my mom’s house (aka grandma’s), where she’ll be spending the night. 

And this evening, Laura and I have a dinner date, which I’m really excited about. 

So it should be a busy day! 

-SPG

P.S. This post originally came from an email I sent to my private list. If you want to see more stuff like this from me, you can apply to join my list using this link.

The post Lunch With a Multi-Million-Dollar Affiliate (My Big Realization) first appeared on Stefan Georgi.