How to not be a broken hippie

[Barbara]

Money-making years

I want my life to be full of value to provide, full of purpose, full of energy, full of abundance.

The way I see it, money is a barrier to a value-focused life. Money is finite, a trade coin for either time or skills that are not so aligned with the value provider I want to be. But essential to walk around the material world.

Many people are stuck in a job that is meaningless to them. Work only to pay the bills. Are stuck in an endless cycle that imprisons them. I don't want that for me.

Many people have a job that fulfills them, that they feel a strong passion for, but are not free to walk away whenever. Suddenly their life depends on their passion. As better as it sounds, I don't want that for me. I don't want a cycle. 

I want to be a value provider to humanity, and I believe I can't do that as long as I'm worried about the paycheck. It could easily corrupt my motives if I was in need of money. In the future, I don't want to use my position as a recognized value provider to extract more money out of a deal. I want to be free from any preoccupation that the finitude of money carries.

With that said, I want to clarify that I don't think that money is the root of all evil, or whatever. Money-making is a skill (or a set of skills) that can be mastered just like any other. Cultivating that skill is gaining the treat of self-reliance, discipline, strategic thinking, resourcefulness, and others — integrating orange meme and the eminent manifestation of masculine principles fundamental for balanced growth. Spiral dynamics helps me understand this well, and have a deep comprehension of the need to compartmentalize life in order to reach further. 

So, the way I see it is in order to be able to not worry about money during my life, I have to 1. make money in an early period of life and then invest it in something steady and safe, 2. produce assets that run passively and 3. reduce my expenses as much as possible. 

1. For the first step, I committed myself to learn the skill of money-making for the next 3 years. I also did the math to see how much money I need to 

• Build a house (50k to 70k — my boyfriend and I are building it ourselves, paying each other half of it)
• Invest it and earn interests of 5-12%/anually to make 700-1k€/monthly to cover expenses (some groceries, gas, travel, miscellaneous).

So, I need to learn the money-making skills. What are they? In the past few months, I've built an e-commerce brand, so one that's one great focus of mine. In the next 6 months, I will read a book about a money-related topic every week. The list is not complete yet, suggestions are accepted, but so far, I have:

• Rich Dad, Poor Dad (✓)
• The Boron Letters
• The Millionaire Fastlane
• No BS Direct Marketing
• .Ogilvy on Advertising
• Efficiency — Wallstreet Journal 
• Scientific Advertising 
• This book will teach you how to write better
• Predictably Irrational 
• .Crushing It! 
• Cashvertising
• The copywriter's handbook
• The Ultimate Salesletter 

It will be a total of 24 books (minimum).

These books are about some of the money-making skills I need to learn: Marketing, direct response marketing, money and investments, time management, copywriting, sales, discipline, etc. 

I also plan to find someone in the e-commerce business that is doing well and hopefully work for them for free and learn with them. I will do this by connecting with the most people possible, via Reddit, facebook groups, discord/telegram chats, e-commerce forums, and other platforms I can find. I'll ask them to teach me and offer to work for them. 

 

2. The brand that I built will be an asset as soon as I outsource. 

During these three years, I will be attentive to these types of opportunities that arise. So far, I don't have many plans here.

 

3. For this, I plan to not pay any mortgage by building a house myself, paying it upfront. We will also build a vertical farming system (more practical and space-saving) in a greenhouse that will provide us with most of the food we need for the whole year. Vegetarians, so no problem there. Although we would still need to buy some groceries, the point of this is to have the most healthy vegetables, with no sketchy pesticides and fertilizers and the fewest living expenses. Food and shelter are the biggest ones that are possible to overcome, and as you can tell, I'm not looking forward to the material life.

It is also an idea to move to Sri Lanka for a couple of years, as soon as this pandemic calms down. The reason is that I love Sri Lanka, want to live abroad for some time, and would be aligned with the spending less thing.

 

The purpose of sharing this is not to advise or show a path. I simply wish to share this for the sake of community and maybe accountability (for me). 

This is a 3-5 years long plan. It will most certainly change since perception is limited and if perception changes, perspective widens. 

I will be sharing here book reviews type of things, insights regarding this journey, moods, etc.

 

All this life planning sometimes feels unnecessary to me. Life unfolds beautifully, these types of plans are an attempt to control its ways. But the thing is, I want to be free and be able to rely on and provide for myself, without leaning on nobody. I know I would be ok if I expected nothing, simply making the best out of what life brings, not having so many goals and wishes. But I feel it's vital to integrate the orange meme and grow gracefully from it. 

 

But even with these plans and goals in mind, I still wish to honor the chaos and uncertainty of life and be grateful for whatever unfolds. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9bzQYKm3xTA

[Barbara]

Why I choose eCommerce:

This year I finishing college. But I no longer wanted to pursue law nor get into a monthly wage-dependent job. I don't like corporate environments, I didn't want to get comfortable with always expecting a paycheck, and the most important reason was I didn't want to bury more years into something that I got pushed around to do, and that didn't mean anything to me. 

So I started to work on the project I had in mind, using my life savings. I faced (and face) a lot of backlash from my parents. That was definitely the hardest part, but I'm still one lucky girl, with everything to be grateful for. 

I chose eCommerce because the way I saw it:
- Bárbara, 22
- No skills (education - 4 years "lost": law degree)

So I needed to learn new skills. I searched and chose e-commerce because of its potential for high return on time invested. And it's a set of skills like any other job would demand. I simply need to learn them. 

For that, I will:

• Read a lot of books, 
• Immerse myself in e-commerce, by connecting with people, being a part of an e-commerce store, following forums, listening to podcasts, buying courses, watching videos and reading content,
• Watch and learn from other business owners,
• Running my own store, making mistakes, and learning from experience. 

All of this work I feel it's necessary to evolve as a human being. Learning discipline is essential to living a life full of purpose and meaning. 

[Barbara]

? Rich Dad Poor Dad:

I've read this book like I read Law books. With a highlighter, post-it notes, post-it markers, a notepad on the side, a pen, and a pencil. I wanted to absorb as much as possible. I'll read all the books listed above like this.

This book is the pinnacle of the orange meme. It's light, fun, and cheeky. You get the "money-making is a game" and "the world is my oyster" vibes. 

Some of the ideas that most prominently stuck with me are:

1. The importance of financial intelligence: It doesn't matter how much money you have. If you don't have financial literature, if your income rises, expenses will follow. There are many world examples of that — people that suddenly win a lot of money but spend it with the same ease. More than learning how to make money, you should learn how to keep it. 
2. Assets and Liabilities: Robert lays this out by drawing what he calls cashflow. On one side, you have your income statement (income and expenses), and on the other, you have your balance sheet (assets and liabilities). When your salary (income) goes straight to paying your expenses, you will be poor forever. Dramatic, I know. When your salary goes first into building your assets (i.e. "minding your own business" — his expression), and you pay your expenses with assets money and not directly with salary, this is a recipe for wealth. And you do this by paying yourself first.
3. Pay yourself first: This concept triggered me at first, but I set that aside. Robert encourages you to invest in your assets and save money first and only then pay taxes, rent, and food. Even if this means not to pay taxes at all. According to him, when it's not enough for you and the government, this will put you in creative tension to come up with more ways of making money. He then advises to be responsible and not drown in debt. I think this is to be looked at as a principle and an encouragement to be bold, put yourself first. The message is that difficult situations, where you might feel trapped, are also great opportunities to come up with creative solutions.
4. Know a little bit of a lot of things: Robert is kinda against specialing when it comes to getting rich. He supports that you should combine a lot of different skills without particularly mastering none. This goes against what Leo upholds on the LP course, that you should master a subject in such a way, that you become the top 1%. I think both are reconcilable in my life. During these years, I can focus on learning a lot of different (money) skills. Later in life, when working on my LP, I can focus on specializing. I think that's where real values reside. To get so good at one subject that you can provide great, innovative insights to humanity.
5. Money without a why/reason is a prison: people's position regarding money is controlled either by fear or greed/desire. Getting a raise in a job you don't like, is often gladly taken because it can increase your spending. Being able to buy shiny things is enough of a reason for most people to want money. It's a plus if you don't have to take any risks and can expect a paycheck at the end of the month. Even if that means feeling trapped most of the time. As I understand the 9 to 5 more and more, I realize how much people are afraid to take risks. Most people work solely for money, and that might not even be a superficial thing, just money to pay the bills. Even if people try to find joy outside work, there's really not much time for that. Work takes most of your waking hours. Of course, many people aren't even aware of what other possibilities are out there. And besides, overall, the education system prepares us for hierarchies and to always follow someone's lead. So it isn't strange that the predominant way of living. Either way, the desire for money must always follow a deep and well-thought purpose. Otherwise, there will never be a stopping point, and we become money and material things hostages. 

[Barbara]

? The Boron Letters:

This is a book about Direct Response Marketing and copywriting and it's written in the 70's/80's I believe. So he focuses mainly on selling by mail. 

I feel I've learned a lot of foundational stuff about copywriting. I want to really dissect it and take as much knowledge as possible.

TOC:

1. Introduction to markets
2. How to write copy:
   a. Preparation
   b. AIDA formula
   c. Copy structure
3. Technical tips
4. Propositions
5. Believability

1. Introduction to markets

How to build a good mailing list:

A good mailing list is one that although it has only a few customers, those customers are the ones with the most probability to buy from the mail. The point would be to save money, by not sending so much mail and having a high conversion rate of people who order.
What to have in mind: Recency, Frequency, and Unit of sale of customers.

Many times, Halbert says to be a student of the markets. This is because he believes that finding a market for a product is the incorrect way to go and that you should first search a hungry/hot market and only then a product to sell them. 
His modus operandi regarding new business opportunities is: 

1. Find hot markets 
2. Find/create a product to sell them 
3. Create a direct mail (DM) promotion 
4. Make a test mailing — send 1k to 5k pieces
5. Analyze results
6. If results are positive send another 20k to 100k
7. If results are still positive send out more.

2. How to write copy

a. Preparation 

1º Collect all the information and material that not only inspires you but is also useful for creating copy.
2º Take hand notes of the material you gather. What to include on the notes: 

• a complete description of the product
• what the product does for the buyer: e.g if makes him more money; if it gives him more peace of mind; saves him money, etc.

3º Reread the notes, mark them as important, and rank them by relevance. 
4º Stop working on this project for a couple of days. Allow your brain to come up with creative ideas with no pressure. 

b. AIDA formula

AIDA stands for Attention, Interest, Desire, and Action. This is the backbone of DRM.

Attention:
Your DM piece/ad should spark your reader's attention, otherwise, they won't read it.

Halbert says jury make up their minds in the first half an hour of the trial. The rest is just finding a justification for the decision they made. So first impressions are really important for an ad since everything is pointless if your prospect decides not to even read your ad. 

The other thing is, people, don't like to read ads. So if the first impression is "Oh, this's an ad" your prospect will automatically ignore it (I've witnessed this). So, you have to find the sweet spot between grabbing attention and blend in. For that, you should aim to have a very digestible piece of text. More and more people are getting lazy and don't want to read anything. So a dense chunk of text won't work. Use short sentences and paragraphs, some people use emojis (I would have to test that) and keep it clean and simple.

In a copy piece, the attention grabber is usually the Headline. So, a small line, with some twist, reflective point, or irreverent statement. But that always always ties in naturally with the rest of the copy. Otherwise, if you pass a shocking message, that doesn't have anything to do with the rest, people will feel defrauded, resent your move and not read your ad.

Interest
So, the Headline is the attention grabber. Next, you need to catch your reader's interest. This is done in the first paragraphs, by sharing some interesting facts about your product, as well as its various benefits.

Desire
Now, you need to start cultivating desire. You do this by describing all the benefits that you stated before. Help them, as much as possible, to visualize them, using "picture-words", that make it extra easy for imagination. If the offer is an investment opportunity, its benefit would be more money. Here you would help them visualize the benefits of having more money (yes, that is necessary) by describing them vividly and specifically. 

Action
Then, action. The action step is basically making it as easier as it gets, for the reader to do what you want them to do. This means you would have to instruct them exactly how to order from you (if that's what you want). The simpler, the better, eliminating, as much as possible, all the unnecessary steps. And most importantly, you would have to tell them when to do it — obviously now, if they want to win X discount, otherwise they would lose it.

c. Copy structure

Here's how it should look like: 

SMALL UNEXPECTED HEADLINE
Interesting facts about the product + all its possibilities. 

• Benefits, 
• Benefits, 
• Benefits.

CTA — GO HERE NOW

3. Technical tips

• Always use simple words (Procure > Get)
• Always use short sentences and paragraphs
• Always use transition words and phrases: 

"Well, of course, here's what he said..."
"And, as a matter of fact, I first..."
"Now, naturally, we don't need..."

• Always use "picture-words". Help unleash the reader's imagination.

"And just wait until you step into the warm jacuzzi that comes with it. Man oh, Man! The feel of that shooting bubbling water against your bare skin. It's just plain heaven."
"Imagine this... Oh My! Now imagine this amazing thing... Just awesome"
Invitation to imagine > Conditioning > Express emotion
But also, this example: Instead of "Dramatically increase your sales volume" say "Make yourself a bushel of money" — easier to picture and more down to earth.

• Proper use of parentheses is important to make the text more digestible. 
• Ask questions and answer them yourself:

"Do you understand? You do? Good" 
"Did you notice that? You did? Ok, smarty"
"Can you imagine that? I know, but facts are facts"

• The very best writing goes unnoticed. You don't want the reader to go, "gosh that ad was really well written". No. You want them to order!

4. Propositions 

A proposition is your offer, the deal you're offering. 
Crazy offers are good, but only when they're followed by an explanation. Otherwise, your customer might get suspicious and lose trust in you. This also is a way to introduce scarcity and induce FOMO, if it's presented as a one-time opportunity.

5. Believability

Believability is about making your ad more credible by presenting more specific information. 

"Most car owners" > "77.6% of car owners"
"You can lose a lot of weight" > "Average reported weight loss over a 31-day period is 37.5 pounds for men and 34 for women." 

More detail, you may think it's unnecessary but often draws the reader closer to you, by making it more real and believable. 

______

Ok, I took more notes on this one because it's rather technical and I wanted to make it easy to go through it later. 

This book is made of letters that Gary wrote to his son, Bond, during his stay in prison, teaching him everything he knows about copywriting and direct response marketing. He also gives many tips about health and mental wellbeing. It's really fun to read, especially for me, cause I feel I'm being parented like I'm a boy. Gary's instruction Bond to fast one day a week, to eat vegetables, to do roadwork (jog in the morning), build muscular arms, to be kind and tough at the same time, to not be lazy, to build discipline, to not procrastinate. All of those things are crucial for me at this present moment, to cultivate discipline and be focused, so I'm glad I'm hearing/reading it. 

[Barbara]

? Efficiency:

Well, this book triggered me so much I simply stop reading it. 
I know, I know. Not so cool. I read half of it and really tried pushing through resistance, but I eventually gave up. It went too much against my own belief system and started doubting its usefulness for me. Uh. I thought I was more open-minded than this. Here's my lesson.

This book is about becoming more efficient. Either time, money, or physical efficiency. It's basically teaching you how to be a goal-achieving machine. It's written by Wall Street playboys and you can really get a look at what those people are (in my opinion, a bunch of douches). 
In the beginning, I felt like this book was like a cup of coffee (or a line of coke). I felt adrenaline all over, only because of the way they wrote. That itself triggered me a little because I feel that rush is a negative manifestation of masculine energy and the orange stage. It leads to stress and burnout, losing touch with the waves and gifts of life. 
So first they talk about physical efficiency. How you should exercise, what types of exercises, the measures your body should have, what type of clothing you should wear, how much money you should spend on it... It was male-oriented tho, but that actually didn't bore me. Most of this financial literature is written for males, broadcasting masculine energy and I'm fine with it. 
Then they talked about time, and you know, it was so alienated from my reality and sounded like toxic grind culture. Put simply and with flaws, you should work all day, every day, no breaks for millionaires. 

Then money, and I'm going to share something that really did it for me. I don't want to give it over importance, but it's a kind of an insight. At some point, they were talking about university and how it's usually overpriced considering that nowadays everything is online (which I agree). But then, they went on and said to go learn about everything except anything humanities-related, that was pointless. And I see why they felt it was pointless if your goal is to become a millionaire and all you care about is numbers and investments. But I truly think they're wrong. History, for example, is one of the most important subjects to have a greater comprehension of the world. Otherwise, all your views will be myopic, since you're walking around like you're the first human on earth. History is cyclic because humans all steam from the same phycological principles. The content might change, but structurally, history "repeats" itself with all its nuanced manifestations. I say repeat for a lack of a better word. I don't believe it's blatant repetition, more like a structural approximation. 
All of this to say that I think overall the book lacked perspective, and of course, I wasn't better as I couldn't take the discomfort of trying to learn from something so antagonistic from where I'm standing.

[Barbara]

? Ogilvy on Advertising:

This book for sure has some gems but it's a bit outdated and useless for the purpose I'm reading it.

Regardless, here's what I learned:

Advertising that sells:

• Appeal: it's what makes people want to read your ad. Your copy might be great, but if your appeal sucks, everything is useless. The appeal has to be inviting.
• Study the product and advertise the facts: the first thing you should do when doing an advertisement is deeply study the product first. Ads with facts sell better than empty ones — no hot air and no adjectives. 
• Positioning: positioning, although its meaning is controversial among marketers, broadly means "what the product does and who is it for"

EX: Dove soap. The positioning could be, 
Soap for men with dirty hands, OR, Soap for women with dry skin.

Once you study the product, you can plan which positioning you want your product to have. Sometimes positioning makes the product and not so much the product itself.

• Repeat your winners.
• Brand identity is crucial for advertising. Brand identity is its personality (name, packaging, price, style of advertising, nature of the product itself).

Lessons of DRM:

• Long copy works best.
• Beautiful advertising might not be the one that sells.
• Adding a form of urgency increases sales:

EX: Limited Edition 
Limited supply 
Last time at this price 
Special price for promptness

• The print advertising that works best is:

Image > Headline > Copy
It's the natural eye scan, and we should make it easy for people to quickly scan your ad. 

[Raptorsin7]

@Barbara Hey I once learned from a guy who said this book

 https://www.amazon.ca/16-Word-Sales-LetterTM-multi-million-dollar-possible/dp/1088742785/ref=sr_1_1?gclid=EAIaIQobChMIlaeCzYvw9QIVRW1vBB2ewA-LEAAYASAAEgKvx_D_BwE&hvadid=386471077122&hvdev=c&hvlocphy=9001531&hvnetw=g&hvqmt=e&hvrand=11220371476457291718&hvtargid=kwd-820539156683&hydadcr=26080_9772485&keywords=the+16+word+sales+letter&qid=1644322756&sr=8-1

Is the most practical book on how to learn copy writing. He told me most resources are very technical and unnecessarily complicated. 

If you want to learn copy writing I highly recommend that book above.

[Barbara]

? No BS Guide to Direct Response Social Media Marketing:

This book is so great. I learned so so much. Sometimes I don't even realize how much I've actually learned and changed since I took this path. And this book definitely contributed to that. 

I'm actually writing this one week later. This past two weeks I've only read one book. I started freelancing and got a bit lazy so took me longer. The problem is that I'm missing a book this month. Today, Friday, I'm focusing on taking the final notes from this book, and on the weekend I'll try to speed read my way to 4 books a month.

So let's start.
Inicial nice quotes: "The only thing you need to be successful is resilience." "When testing a campaign only let profit change your mind, and not so many opinions or doubts." "Results rule. Don't kill yourself working. If it's not getting you results, don't do it" Typical beginning of an orange book. Important tho.

So, Direct Response Marketing is a branch of Marketing that focuses on trackable and measurable results. One of Dan's biggest tips, same as Halbert's, is to make sure we're always talking to highly interested, highly motivated, very appropriate prospects for what it is that we have to offer people, who will have a high level of interest the moment we show up. 

The Basics of Effective Marketing

There will always be an offer — Your social media marketing always needs to have an offer, telling your ideal prospects exactly what to do and why they want to do it right now. An offer that the appropriate prospect or customer for you can't refuse. 

There will be a reason to respond right now — there must be urgency and not be something they're interested in but can do later. 

There will be clear instructions — You must walk your prospect through the exact steps you want them to take to make the sale. 

There will be tracking and measurement — In order to have real profits in your marketing, you are no longer going to permit advertising made without direct and accurate tracking, measurement, and accountability. 

There will be a Follow-up — if you invest 1000$ in an ad campaign and get 50 phone calls, each one costs you 20$. If you burn a 20$ bill you will feel a lot of FOMO. So if you don't do anything with even 1 of those calls, it's just like burning a 20$ bill. 

Results rule — don't let anyone confuse you. No opinions count. Test and see your results. Only change your mind based on results. 

Branding

In Social Media, all of your posts should have the goal of sales, not branding. Again, all of your posts should be developed with the goal of selling, 15% of the time. Meaning, your posts should be cultivating interest and need in the pain your product relieves when you make your pitch. So money should only be spent on driving leads and sales and not on post engagement or building likes. ROI over-popularity. 

But, it shouldn't be invested directly into brand-building. And even so, brand building is not name-brand identity and recognition for yourself and your small business. But built around a prime market and audience. Brand Identity is also not about images, slogans, logos, and colors schemes. Is about ideas first and representation of ideas second. So, WHO is your business for? WHAT do you want to be known for, by WHO? HOW can you represent, symbolize and memorably summarize that. And remember, is better to have 500 raving fans than 10000 tepid followers. 

Magnetic Leads

• Best lead magnets are:
• Guides
•  Who's book,
• Step-by-step blueprint
• Ebook
• Gift certificate/discount code
• Video series
• Checklist
• Event tickets
• Webinar registrations
• Contests. 

FOR MORE ON EACH ONE PAGES 76 TO 88.
The optimization of lead ads is done every day, narrowing your audience by testing different interests.

Facebook Ads

Always make the message about them and not about you. Why they should care, and why they should respond right now. 

Write a headline that addresses the "you" and be willing to be controversial, make it clear why they should be paying attention - i.e. Forget Wallstreet! Bank in yourself.

Speak to your perfect prospect. Know who fits in that category and don't try to please everybody. 

Apply Ogilvy's ad layout that is the most logical for your quick eye scanning. Create a short headline and utilize Open Loop (the description under the image) to put the text that runs off the pages, enticing the readers to click on the rest of the content. Also, this should be the exact same copy that you would see on the landing page (ad congruency).

Use a picture of a human smiling at the camera with a redshirt. Also show the reward, like a photo of the free report, coupon, video, or wtv they'll get if they click on the ad. Make it clear for your audience what they would get if they click on your ad while making sure to fall into FB's guidelines of no more than 20% of text in your ad image. 

Finish with a clear CTA. Tell them exactly what you want them to do.

Google Reviews

Very important. Utilizing Pareto's Principle here's a checklist to easily set up Google reviews: 
SEE PAGE 106
Never use negative Keywords as your business can rank for negative terms and you suffer a loss of credibility among potential customers.

Email Marketing

Once you get your prospects to opt in what's the best thing to do with them? Email marketing must be your answer. 

Best practices: 
Provide Real Value in your emails. If your customers don't want to receive emails from you it's probably because you're making these messages about yourself and not about them. Write for your perfect prospect — your target market.

SUBJECT LINES

Your subject lines have to be about your prospect, enticing them to open the message and read more. A great way to do this is to make it personal. Just like "Hey Barbara, I'm doing this cool thing on Thursday. Love for you to check it out" or "Hey if you want to know how to do this click here". If you're adding a video or pictures on the body of the email you can also put this on the subject line. Like [video] or [pictures].

BODY

Do not write boring emails. If you talk about you you you, people will stop reading. You have to be entertaining, engaging, and invite curiosity. A personal story is normally very engaging as well as the use of a general personal tone instead of getting all corporate and formal. Too often the focus of the email is selling your products. People never buy a product for itself, no matter how great it is. People buy good feelings, status, utility, pain solvers. So that's what you should be selling. Step into your ideal prospect shoes and sell them what they really want. 

You also want to go beyond emails, using other channels like targeted broadcasting, newsletters, etc. Use a CTA in your email. 

P.S STRATEGY

You can use P.S. to introduce a secondary offer or a bonus topic or a teaser for future emails. This would work best for follow-up emails like to introduce what tomorrow's email is going to be about. It is great to get people used to reading all the way down to the bottom of your email.

Effective Email Tips:

• Never assume you know best so split-test everything and test A TON of variations on small batches before sending out the winning message to their list of millions. 
• The more personal the subject line the best. Sometimes just a "Hey" or "I'm Sorry" works well.
• Do not have your emails coming from an organization, but from a person. Not Feng Serena, but Barbara or Sara. 
• Research shows that sending more messages does not have negative consequences but the opposite. Just test it. 

MOM strategy

Structure your marketing and sales funnel as the following:
Magnet > Opt-in > Monetize (MOM)

This is for cold audiences. You'll create a great trusting relationship with customers, by nurturing them in all these different stages. It goes like this:

Create an ad that leads to a blog post that has an opt-in to the mailing list and convert them with effective email.

You might not require an opt-in tho, by:

• Create an ad that drives people to a magnet, like a free report;
• Create an ad targeting those people who visited the landing page but didn't opt-in;
• And separately create an ad targeting those who do opt-in.

Take into consideration tho the increased mistrust of online brands and always aim to nurture before asking for opt-in, by turning cold audiences into warm audiences. 

!! If your ad campaign objective is conversions only, your CPC will be higher and your sales will get affected, if existent.

Target Market 

Figure out who's your perfect client:

• Where are they from?
• How do they act?
• What do they read?
• How much do they earn?
• What do they do for fun?
• What is it about you that resonates with them?
• Who's that person, where to find them and what they really want that only you can provide?

Testing strategies

1. Track conversions, not clicks.
2. Set up target market demographics so you're always testing one thing at a time. 
3. Strat split-testing the demographic and then use the best performing demographic in the rest of the tests.
4. For the ad image testing, try changing the coloring of the ad and test different wording. 
5. Test with CTA and no CTA.

Edited February 8, 2022 by Barbara

[Barbara]

What's up world. 

Feb 2022 looking good. I started working, I'm doing freelancing for a Norwegian client that has a couple of one-product stores. My position is Product Owner and I'm responsible for everything product-related. It's great for experience, as I'm in contact with a lot of suppliers. I'm sure I'll be able to apply this in my own business. 

All these books I'm reading build up so much creative tension within me. I freaking love to read so much. And creating these book summaries is great for me to go about the book a second time and have easy-to-read material for the rest of my life. And it's kinda valuable for anyone interested, so I'm sharing them online. 

I also started to learn woodworking. It's so much fun and relaxing. I love it. If you want a little wooden box made with love just pm me 

Edited February 8, 2022 by Barbara

[Barbara]

@Raptorsin7 That's great! I'll take a look, thank you.

Found the free pdf if you want to keep it! This website is great actually. Has every book you can imagine, for free, in various formats https://book4you.org/book/6764704/e6f121

[Barbara]

?This book will teach you how to write better:

This book is short and sweet.

First Big Copy Lesson: No one cares about you. People only care about themselves. If you go only talk about you and your business people will not care.
EX: "Welcome to Ace Tenis Coaching. We are dedicated to serving our customers. We have been focusing on quality services for years and have dedicated staff to help fulfill your tennis needs. Our team is focused on quality coaching and delivering great training. We aim to serve our customers' needs."

Boring. I immediately shut off and retain 0 information.

"Every amateur tennis player has the exact same problem with their tennis swing:

They don't bend their elbow at the proper angle for their height.

Sounds simple, but we see it every day.. chances are you bend your elbow incorrectly also, and we're going to show you how to hit the ball harder simply by changing the bend of your elbow.
This little body hack will let you:

• Hit the ball harder, without swinging harder.
• Hit the "sweet spot" of the ball on each swing.
• Increase the speed of your serve by 20%.

All these improvements come from simply bending your elbow in a slightly different position!
This is just the first thing we teach you at Ace Tennis Coaching. Our advanced training will improve your game beyond what you thought possible.
Our professional coaches have helped over 800 people like you take their tennis game from amateur to professional. 
We'll spot all the small things you're doing wrong and work with you individually to correct them and crush adversaries.
Come by for an analysis of how you can improve your tennis swing. It only takes 20 min, and we'll identify all the tweaks you can make in your game that will take you to the next level."

Lovely. I'm going to make an analysis now. 

Every amateur tennis player has the exact same problem with their tennis swing: TARGET: AMATEUR PLAYERS THAT ALREADY PLAY TENNIS AT LEAST ONCE
They don't bend their elbow at the proper angle for their height.
ATTENTION GRABBER USING A PAIN POINT

Sounds simple, but we see it every day (INTERESTING FACT)... Chances are you bend your elbow incorrectly also, and we're going to show you how to hit the ball harder simply by changing the bend of your elbow. WHY YOU NEED US
This little body hack will let you:

• Hit the ball harder, without swinging harder. FACT N1
• Hit the "sweet spot" of the ball on each swing. FACT N2
• Increase the speed of your serve by 20%. FACT N3

INTERESTED YET?
All these improvements come from simply bending your elbow in a slightly different position! 
This is just the first thing we teach you at Ace Tennis Coaching. Our advanced training will improve your game beyond what you thought possible (BENEFIT N1). BROADENING THE TARGET BY REFERRING TO ADVANCED PROGRAMS FOR ADVANCED PLAYERS.

Our professional coaches have helped over 800 people like you take their tennis game from amateur to professional (BENEFIT N2). CONCRETE NUMBER OF CUSTOMERS. HELPS BUILD SOCIAL PROOF. SPECIFICITY CREATE TRUST.

We'll spot all the small things you're doing wrong and work with you individually to correct them and crush adversaries (BENEFIT N3).

THREE EASY-TO-READ AND DIGEST PARAGRAPHS ABOUT US. REAL CONCRETE VALUE THEY CAN PROVIDE. 

Come by for an analysis of how you can improve your tennis swing. It only takes 20 min, and we'll identify all the tweaks you can make in your game that will take you to the next level. CTA AND BENEFIT N4.

So, 

• Attention Graber using a pain point,
• Why you need us and some interesting facts + bullet list of more facts,
• About us that focuses on how we can help YOU. Concreteness and specificity win,
• Benefits,
• CTA

Remember to let people know the benefits they're gonna get!

Casual Copy 

We've established people don't care about you, they only care about themselves. So the first angle you should present is the problem your product solves for them. And then, what also matters is the way you present it. 
No one likes to read a boring chunk of text. Do you know how to turn any subject into something immediately boring?
To get all corporate and impersonal. If you do this no matter if your topic is very interesting. No one is going to read it and the message will not be spread.
Casual Copy is the biggest secret to engaging people. The way you turn every copy into casual writing is to write like you're talking with a close friend, eating lunch and you're explaining to him what you’re trying to sell, without boring him.

Try these simple steps to make copy more casual: 

1. Grab your phone, or anything to record your voice. Start recording.
2. Pretend you’re in that same booth having dinner with your friend.
3. In your own words, between friends, explain to him why what you’re selling is so amazing.
4. Stop recording, and transcribe exactly what you wrote. Err’s and Umm’s included. 
5. What you wrote is probably already a lot more clear than genericboring-copy. You can take-n-grab the parts that sound interesting, and cut the boring parts.

But don't write too wacky. The point of your copy is to get the reader to take action. Don’t use jokes SO often that they disrupt the effectiveness of the message, making it useless. If an email is useless and annoying it is called Spam, and people will unsubscribe from it. 

Ultimately ask yourself: Is this adding people's knowledge? Am I helping them get through this by adding this in?

How to capt people's attention?

People respond to what is New, Novel, or Helpful.

• NEW: Being “new” wears off quickly. Can’t always depend on this. 
• NOVEL: You can dress like a clown at a business conference which will get you attention, but it might not give you the right attention. Attention is good, but only if it results in buyers. 
• HELPFUL: If you’re helpful to people, they’ll want to listen to you, they’ll want to subscribe to you, and they’ll want to pay for your services.

AIDA Formula

Use this formula when writing to someone (if it’s a group of people, pretend it’s just one person).

Attention
Grab their attention in this section. This will get them to at least read what you have to say.

Interest 
Interest them with interesting facts about it. You have their attention already, so get them to slide deeper down the slope by getting them genuinely interested in what you’ve gotta say. Tell them interesting facts and interesting things it can do. 

Desire 
Make them under-their-own-will want to either buy your product or take whatever action you want them to. Show them what life could be like with this. Tell them how much faster a problem would be solved with this. Show them how someone’s life was greatly improved by it, and how they can have the same results. 

Action 
Get them to go and buy it! Or click a link. Or take whatever step you want them to. Tell them when and how to do it. Also tell them what will happen after they do it. Hold them by the hand and describe how everything will work.

Headlines

Easy headline formula: [End result customer wants] + [Specific time period] + [Address the objections]

EX: 

• [triple the conversions on your ecommerce store] + [in 3 days] + [or I’ll refund your money] 
• [wipe away your debt] + [before your tax return is due] + [so the IRS won’t call]
• Or, reverse [I’ll refund your money for this conference] + [if you don’t get 7 real estate leads in one week]

The “Three Lenses” for headlines:

Competitive: This an aggressive headline that shows people “how to beat others”. 
Ex: “Download and steal all your competitor's profitable keywords.” 

Benefit Driven: This simply shows the benefits of what your product/article/service does. Testimonials also work well here. 

Ex: “Within 2 weeks you’ll be playing your favorite Beatles song on the guitar!” 
“I couldn’t believe after only 2 weeks I was playing guitar at the Christmas party!” 

Inspirational: Shows that “even you” can do something. Paints a picture of the user getting some benefit from your product/service. 
“You can teach your children to read by the age of 2 just by following these DVD’s....all from your home.” 

Real example:

“Hassle-free WordPress hosting”. But now let’s run it through our “three lenses”: 

• Competitive: "86% faster than regular Wordpress.....means more pageviews and better SEO" 
• Benefit Driven: (this one is simply using a testimonial): "My site loads ridiculously fast, my pageviews are up, and my business is seeing the results!" 
• Inspirational: "Even non-computer nerds can have a Wordpress site, with zero technical hassle" Using those “lenses” as a framework will help you crank out completely different headlines quickly

Know your market

Who's the composite average customer you’re trying to sell to? 

• Gender 
• Age
• Matrial status 
• Kids or no kids
• Consuming habits
• Whats their day like
• Biggest fear
• Profession
• Yearly income 
• How can you help them 

Imagine you're trying to sell high-end golf equipment. Your ideal customer is Bob. Male, white for 17 years, married with 2 kids, watches CNN, business owner, between 40 and 65, a dentist has his own dental practice, makes about 280k/year, and owns a home in a gated community with a golf course. 
Imagine what his problems are. Imagine what his goals are. Imagine his desires.
For example, since he’s a business owner and a dentist, he’s likely an A-type personality person that’s really competitive. What do competitive people want? To win and beat their friends!
With this knowledge, you can try to appeal to Robert’s deep desire to gain an advantage over his friends.

Long or Short Copy

It depends on what you’re selling. If it’s a difficult or expensive product, then longer is better. If it’s a simple and cheap product, then short is fine.
Long copy but as long it’s not long-winded. Now if you can convince someone to take an action quickly, then fine. Imagine signup for like this: 

"I will send you an email with a healthy breakfast recipe, every morning at 4am.
This will help you eat better, have more energy, and hopefully lose some weight. Just signup for your email address here." (You can add more info)

But most importantly, make it simple and easy to read.

If you read something, and it requires “extra cycles” in your brain to process that information, scrap it. Get straight to the real point so everyone is crystal clear on the message.

Edited February 10, 2022 by Barbara

[Raptorsin7]

On 2/8/2022 at 4:41 AM, Barbara said:

@Raptorsin7 That's great! I'll take a look, thank you.

Found the free pdf if you want to keep it! This website is great actually. Has every book you can imagine, for free, in various formats https://book4you.org/book/6764704/e6f121

Sweet, I'll check out that website too. Thanks (:

[Barbara]

How to find a solid product/market:

Market criteria:

• Passionate
• People in this market identify with it
• Has a problem/pain
• High-income people

This criterion is pretty straightforward, but here are a couple of examples:

1. Neck pain work from home market 
2. Women with knee pain market

Example #1: People who have neck pain and work from home.

• Is it niched? yeah. 
• Do they have a problem? yeah.
• So why not choose this market?
• Simple: No passion. Not something they identify with. When it comes to building a brand resonation is huge.

This market doesn't identify with the fact that they work from home. It's not something they would put in their IG bio. Building a brand and a story around a market that lacks passion and identity will be tough.

 

Example #2: Women with knee pain market

• Is it niched? yeahhh kinda?
• Do they have a problem? yeah.

So why not this market either?

The same concepts apply to this example, but the main difference here is this: often when people want to niche down they take a route that isn't necessarily helpful. 

They begin with a problem: Knee pain > Then they begin choosing characteristics that narrow down their audience without adding any benefit.

Demographics usually won't make a difference unless it's something they identify with. Instead, choose a passionate, concrete niche. 

Of course, people make tons of money in the markets I said I wouldn't choose, so there is an opportunity, but is it the best opportunity? 

Now how would I go about finding a market I would go after?

1. Take a notebook out and literally just think of all the things people are passionate about. I promise you can think of at least 50.
2. If you really can't think of 50 you can use google and search for passions. Research what problems these groups of people face. Talk to people in the market and ask about their issues (youtube, google, reddit, watch interviews.)
3. Find what these people are already buying to solve their issues.

After step 3, you begin to plan how you'll create a better business than people who are already successfully selling that product. Do their ads suck? how about their offer? branding? site?

Find the opportunity. Improve everything. Be a better business than the business that's doing well.

If you find a business that sucks and is making a killing, you've potentially struck a goldmine.

Find the market. Find the problems. Find what they're already buying to solve that problem. Improve everything that competitors are doing. Find your own edge in your ads, content, brand, etc.

(via: ecom cowboy twitter)

 

BTW: The title of this journal has a spelling mistake. I meant "How to not be a broke hippie" 
If someone knows how to change this, pls help 

Edited February 17, 2022 by Barbara

[Barbara]

Writing this ^ took me 1 freaking hour. 

I'm constantly finding things to get distracted and postponing what I'm doing. I've been procrastinating with ecom related stuff like hell these last 2 months. And it makes me feel bad.

But I just realized... why didn't I see this before... I'm backlashed as shit. Just like my last meditation retreat. I pushed it too much and then felt so much repulse for spiritual stuff.

But the most important thing... I got over it!! I stopped my practice for a couple of months, but then I got back at it, I was stronger than ever and have a solid practice up until today. So I'll get over this low and be stronger!

My plan is to identify what I gotta do, pick a small task at a time, and show up every day.

 

Edited February 17, 2022 by Barbara