Everyone on 𝕏 loves to say “writing” is the most important skill.

And I get it.

Because when you look at it…

Tweets? Writing.

Newsletters? Writing.

YouTube scripts? Writing.

On the face of it, writing really does seem to be the most important skill. 

But here’s the thing:

They’re only 50% right.

Because there’s one skill that’s more important than writing.

One skill that reigns supreme.

One skill that stands head and shoulders above the rest and will earn you a fuck ton more money than “writing” ever will.

And I’ll illustrate what this skill is with some examples...

J.K. Rowling, J.R. Tolkein and C.S. Lewis would be nothing without this...

Think of all the books and stories you read as a kid.

Harry Potter.

The Chronicles of Narnia.

Lord of the Rings (Two Towers is still undisputedly the best, IMO).

These were all amazing books, no doubt.

But why were you reading them in the first place?

What pulled you in?

What convinced you to pick the book off the shelf, open it up and actually find out what was in the Chamber of Secrets?

Because you could write the most amazing story, build the most amazing product, or have the best possible course in the world, but it’s utterly worthless if you can’t convince people to pick it up in the first place.

So, you see, while writing certainly is a valuable skill to learn, there’s one which comes before it.

What is this “meta” skill, you ask?

Why it’s…

Copywriting.

And if you don’t know the difference between writing and copywriting, let me quickly explain it to you…

Writing is Harry, Hermione, Ron and their fight against Voldemort.

Copywriting is what convinced you to dive into the world of Hogwarts in the first place.

It’s the words on the cover.

The words on the billboards you see as you walk down the street. 

The words on the Hogwarts Lego set you had as a kid which was outrageously expensive AND YET someone still bought it for you anyway.   

Copywriting is the words OUTSIDE the book that allowed JK Rowling to turn the words INSIDE her books into a billion dollar empire.

That’s what copywriting does.

And that’s why:

Learning copywriting must be your number ONE priority right now.

(And that's what I'm going to help you do later on in this post...)

Because copywriting doesn’t just allow you to sell books.

Copywriting allows you to sell ANYTHING.

It teaches you to get inside your audiences mind, understand every crevice of their psychology - their pains, their problems, all their burning desires in life - and then perfectly position your product or service as the solution to them.

You’ll be able to sell a condom to a nun.

You'll be able to sell Captain Hook a second glove.

For fuck’s sake, if you get really good (and learn to quack), you’ll probably even be able to sling an umbrella to a duck.

If you can master copywriting, then landing high ticket clients will get 100x easier.

And the best part?

You don’t even need to be a good writer to be a good copywriter.

In fact, despite its name, copywriting has very little to do with writing at all.

Instead, copywriting is about research.

Getting inside your reader's head.

Finding out what they’re struggling with.

Understanding what your customer is thinking, feeling, and experiencing on a day-to-day basis so you can target their pain points and sell them a solution.

If you can use Google, have even a basic understanding of human psychology and aren’t afraid to use a little imagination (being an arrogant SOB doesn't hurt either), then you have everything you already need to be a good copywriter.

Now, I don’t want to just make this email about how amazing copywriting is.

I want to give you some actionable steps to start learning it.

So, below I’ve given you a “30 Day Copywriting Crash Course”.

And, just so you know what’s possible:

5 months ago I didn’t even know what copywriting was.

And yet, in the last 3 months alone, I’ve netted over $25k in PROFIT from copywriting.

So you really are only a few short months away from completely changing your life.

Right.

Let’s dive in.

Your 30 Day Copywriting Crash Course

Phase 1: Immersion (Days 1-10)

I’m a huge fan of immersion when it comes to learning copy.

That’s why for the next 10 days you’re going to eat, sleep and breathe copy.

Pick up the 3 best direct response (copywriting) books of all time:

1. The Boron Letters, by Gary Halbert
2. Scientific Advertising, by Claude Hopkins
3. Ultimate Sales Letter, by Dan Kennedy

Then, here’s what you’re going to do.

Read one chapter of The Boron Letters.

Read one chapter of Scientific Advertising.

Read one chapter of Ultimate Sales Letter.

And then rinse, repeat that entire process until you’ve consumed all 3 books.

Why not read each book one after the other?

Because by constantly flicking between books, you’ll be constantly exposing your brain to different copywriting techniques. And writing good copy - copy that ACTUALLY gets people to buy - is all about novelty. Connecting seemingly unrelated ideas and then using this to stimulate dopamine in your readers’ brain that then convinces them to buy.

Next, we need something to sell…

Phase 2: Productization (Days 11-17)

Look at your market.

Find a product that’s already selling.

And then create your own version of this.

Ideally, this should be something you can whip together in a matter of days and doesn’t require much fulfillment on the backend.

This could be an:

1. E-Book
2. Digital course
3. Bunch of private YouTube tutorials

Whatever. 

Create something valuable but which is also super easy to pull together.

Slap a low price tag on it ($29 seems to be the going rate…)

And then it’s time to start putting your copywriting skills to the test…

Phase 3: Sharpening your knife (Days 17-21)

It’s not enough to simply create the product.

You also need:

1. A sales page
2. Traffic

Sales page comes first.

Traffic comes second.

I recommend using Gumroad if this is your first ever sales page, but if you have your own site then that’s even better.

And if you don’t know how to write a sales page, here’s a quick outline based on a course to sell a product designed to get ghostwriters their first client in the next 30 days (I just made this up btw):

Call-out: Who are you trying to sell to?

“ATTENTION: Aspiring ghostwriters. You're about to everything you need to…”

Headline: The BIG BENEFIT someone gets when they buy your product

“Land your first ghostwriting client in the next 30 days.”

(Picture this in big, bold letters slapping your reader in the face as soon as they click on your sales page).

Lead: Explain in (slightly) more detail what the product will do for this person

“Can’t land a ghostwriting client to save your life? Been there. That’s why I created [some cool name for the course I can’t be assed to come up with this morning]. And it’s going to give you everything you need to land your first ghostwriting client in the next 30 days.”

Social proof: Testimonials, case studies, reviews from people who have bought the product

“Here’s just a few of the things people are already saying about it…

[Stack a big fat wedge of testimonials and screenshots here to show the product works]”

Fascinations: List out all the big “eye-catching” benefits inside the product

1. The ONE key problem with your offer that’s stopping you from landing your first client right now (this is why 99% of people fail at ghostwriting)
2. My 5-step process to turn strangers on the internet into ghostwriting clients in under 48 hours (it’s simpler than you think…) 
3. Yada, yada, yada…

Unique mechanism: Why is your product different to all the others? What makes getting results with your product inevitable?

“Most courses simply dump a bunch of information on you and expect you to work things out for yourself. But [insert cool course name] does things differently… [explain]”

Price reveal: Leave this until near the end so you can stack up the value in people’s mind first

I think you can work this part out for yourself…

Guarantee [optional]: What happens if they don’t like the product?

“Not completely satisfied with the course after 30 days? You’ll get a full refund - no questions asked.”

I pretty much always offer guarantees because I’m confident in my products / services and it helps increase conversion rates. But it’s not a requirement.

FAQs: Address any lingering doubts people will have before buying

“What happens after I pay? Do I need to be a good writer already? Blah blah blah…”

CTA: Finally, remind people to actually BUY your product

Make this crystal clear and highlight the benefit while you do so.

For example:

Bad CTA : “Buy the course”

Good CTA: “Gimme that first client NOW!”

(Imagine these on a button linked to a checkout page)

My disclaimer: The above is just a starting point. There’s no way I can cover how to write every type of sales page, the difference between warm and cold traffic, awareness levels etc etc. within a single email. I also don’t care if the terminology above is “correct”. Focus on semantics, not nomenclature.

Do your research and whip together an initial page using the above to get started.

It doesn’t have to be perfect.

Just get something up and running.

We’ll handle the “optimising” later.

Now, you need some traffic…

Phase 4: Eyeballs, eyeballs, eyeballs (Day 21 and onwards)

Get as many eyeballs on your page as possible.

The quicker you do this, the quicker you will learn if the copy you wrote is any good (it will either sell, or it won’t).

Push your product on Twitter.

Pitch it to your email list.

Ram it down people’s throats and start gathering conversion rate data (i.e. number of sales divided by number of page visits).

After a few days, you’ll have a benchmark conversion rate.

Finally, it’s time to refine…

Phase 5: Iterate, Iterate, Iterate (Day 21 and onwards)

Look at the conversion rate you’re currently getting.

Then, change ONE key component of the page.

I recommend starting with the headline because this will have the biggest impact.

Change the headline to something you think could perform better.

Leave it there for a few days.

Look at the new conversion rate.

If it’s increased, keep the new headline.

If it’s decreased, revert.

Then, test out a new one.

Repeat this process until you’re completely out of ideas and can’t get the conversion rate any higher.

Then move on to a different section of the page.

The social proof you’re using probably has the next biggest impact so I recommend that.

(Yes, I know you can split test more efficiently than this. I’m not going into that here. This is a blog post, not full course). 

Work your way through every part of the page until you have a well-oiled cog that’s generating sales for you every single day.

This will take some time (especially if you’ve never done it before).

But it’s the quickest and most reliable way to start learning copy in the REAL world.

I cannot understate how valuable the steps I’ve outlined above are.

If you can build a $29 product, you can build a high-ticket service.

And if you can convince people to buy a $29 product, you can convince them to buy a high-ticket service.

The principles are the same.

You just need a good testing ground.

Feel free to ignore all of the advice in this email - this is your journey, your business and your life after all.

But for those of you who do decide to take action, you'll be amazed at how much easier selling your high ticket offer becomes once you’ve learned the fundamentals of writing good copy - and that’s where the real dolla dolla comes in.

Right.

Thursday morning ramble over.

Talk soon,

Harry

PS. I built a $10k/month personal brand in under 4 months.

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