Copywriters Podcast

Today’s show is for every talented copywriter stuck in the feast-or-famine cycle of business and would much rather get paid well, to reflect the enormous value their copy is bringing to their clients. We have a very special returning champion on the show today, Dr. Harlan Kilstein. He has just released a book called Value-Based Copywriting. Originally presented in a $997 seminar, this material has changed the lives and of course careers of some very fortunate copywriters. This book solves the problem faced by thousands of copywriters–not getting paid for what their work is worth. Harlan is a renowned entrepreneur and copywriting expert known for his innovative approaches in marketing, mindset, and personal development. With decades of experience at the intersection of psychology, persuasion, and business strategy, Harlan has built a reputation for helping individuals and companies unlock explosive growth through compelling communication and breakthrough thinking. He’s also a former educator with a docto

Life must have been at least a little frustrating for our Old Master on today’s show. His name was Walter Weir. He was a very active and successful copywriter and advertising professor, but he must have constantly run into resistance along the way, since so many of his ideas were ahead of their time. Walter Weir was born in 1909 and he died in 1996. He published a couple of books which are nearly impossible to find today. Maybe the publisher, my old employer McGraw-Hill, took them out of print quickly because the ideas were so far ahead of their time that they didn’t sell very well. I don’t know. What I do know is I was fascinated by his ideas. Here are 5 takeaways from an exploration of Weir’s writings and thinking, from today’s show: 1. Write copy that you truly believe, because people can feel it when you don’t. When you don’t believe it, your reader won’t either. And if your reader doesn’t believe it, they won’t buy. 2. Use words that people can FEEL as well as merely understand. Forget about clev

If you’re involved in copywriting in any way, you know right now we’re at an inflection point. Things have been changing fast over the last two years, and show no signs of slowing down. People who hire copywriters tell me it’s harder than ever to find a good one… yet people who write copy for a living, many of them, tell me it’s really hard to find good-paying work. There’s clearly a disconnect. AI has a lot to do with it. The very definition of what a copywriter is, and what a copywriter does, seems very much in flux. Today I want to suggest five copywriting goals for 2026. These are based on how I was able to help my own mentoring clients solve problems and develop their marketability over the past 12 months. I work with established copywriters and business owners who use direct response, and what I helped them with on a very personal, customized basis would be a good idea for most everyone who listens to this podcast. Links: Copywriting Mentoring: https://garfinkelcoaching.com Persuasive storytell

It takes a lot of courage and a lot of confidence to do what our special guest today has done… and that’s fire all his clients and start an email-based business. But Alin Dragu did just that, and he’s here to tell us about it. He’s the best-selling author of the book Meaningful Marketing, he spent 5 years as direct of marketing at one of the fastest growing churches in the US, and 3 years as the VP of growth at a Christian marketing agency. Alin is definitely a copywriter’s copywriter. He’s obsessed with reading novels and old fiction letters. And he admits he’s secretly obsessed with luxury watches, something Nathan’s a collector of as well. Finally, in case you end up taking Alin to dinner, which probably wouldn’t be a bad idea, you should know he says he’s never refused a steak, ever in his life. Now, here’s what we asked him: 1. So Alin, could you give us a quick tour of what you do? 2. I’m very interested in your S-L-O framework that you use to write all your emails. Could you walk us through that

Last fall, our returning champion Glenn Fisher and his business partner Nick O’Connor teamed up with mega financial publisher Marketwise for a bold experiment: Offer FREE training in financial copywriting to 12 people who competed for the spots. There were 500 people applied. Of the 12 who were selected, Glenn says, four were offered jobs… and two are being mentored by financial copywriting legend Mike Palmer. You know, in many stupid businesses, when something works, the business immediately stops doing it and decides to try something else. Lucky for you, Marketwise is anything but a stupid business. They know a good thing when they see it. So they decided to keep working with Glenn and Nick and run more programs through 2026. And Glenn’s back on the show to tell us what they learned and what’s next… and how you might be one of the lucky 12 in a future cohort! Links: Financial Copy U: https://www.financialcopyu.com/ The Fix, Glenn’s and Nick’s other program: https://thefixcopywriting.com/ Download

So a lot of people are building their brand by pouring tons of money into traffic… A/B testing… tracking every click… but deep down, you feel that something’s not landing. It’s almost like you wonder if you’re coming across as desperate, rather than confident. Maybe it’s time to take a look at a cherished assumption in online marketing: Namely, that more information and more volume equals more authority. Not really, says our own Nathan Fraser. He’s given me an advance peek at his new book, The Signal. I was so excited by the refreshing ideas he has in there that I wanted him to talk about it on today’s show… and he agreed. Look. Nathan says you should stop begging the algorithm and start commanding attention. And he has some proven ideas on how to do that. Which he’ll share with us today. Here are the questions I asked him: 1. In your book, you say, “Marketing that begs for attention becomes noise. Marketing grounded in conviction becomes signal.” What do you mean by this, and how can someone make s

What was discovered and perfected over 100 years ago, that is one of the most important marketing strategies online today? We have a special Old Masters Series show today. It’s a hybrid between marketing discoveries of the early 1900s, and top moneymakers of 2025. Our old Master is Claude Hopkins. Most people don’t realize that there’s a strong connection between two of the most important principles he wrote about and used – sampling, and demonstration – and what makes for an effective lead magnet in today’s world. For this episode, I went back into two of his most important books, Scientific Advertising and My Life in Advertising. We’ll talk about those first. There are tons of gems in there and these books are well worth reading many times, which I have done myself. So we’re going to focus on a narrow slice of the wisdom on today’s hybrid Old Masters Series show. And then, we’ll catapult into 2025 to see how those ideas have evolved. My Life in Advertising/Scientific Advertising, by Claude Hopkins

Our returning champion today, Dr. Doug Pew, is well known in two different worlds: The world of high-powered copywriting for online course creators, where he has done many six and seven figure launches. And the other world where Doug is known is that of music. He is a composer whose work was actually performed at Carnegie Hall! And he wrote an opera that was performed at the Kennedy Center. Those worlds overlap in certain ways sometimes for Doug, and that’s what we’re going to talk about today. He’s written copy for music businesses like Creative Piano Academy, Lauren Bateman Guitar, Become A Bassist, and J209, an a cappella singing group, who he helped grow their Instagram following to over 15,000 in a couple of months. Most of his work for these businesses has been to create sales, and, as you might expect, selling students into an online music instruction business is different in some ways than other types of copywriting. Yet the differences are fascinating, and they may help you with your own copy, e

Do you have an imaginary friend? Whether you do or not, today we’re going to talk about why a particular imaginary friend can solve one of the biggest problems copywriters are having today. And that problem is, your copy’s not connecting with the right target group of prospects. So your conversions are way lower than you’d like them to be. Now, the perfect solution to that would be to have a real-live focus group of honest, unflinching prospects available to you 24/7. People you could ask about their problems, their fears, their hopes, their dreams. But… sorry. You can’t. However, what we’re going to talk about today is the next best thing. And the good news is, you can build this imaginary friend pretty easily from real-world data. So you get the equivalent of your 24/7 focus group, but it’s not high-maintenance. In fact, it doesn’t require any care and feeding at all. Download.

Ever spend hours, just waiting for the “perfect time” to start writing? Maybe first you decide to do a guided visualization. Or answer a few emails. Could be that there’s that perfect song that always gets your juices flowing… or a motivational youtube video you love… Well… Here’s a tip: Don’t wait and don’t find an excuse to do something else. Just start. I know it sounds crazy. Maybe impossible. But here’s the thing: When you’re not writing, it almost never “feels like” the right time to start writing. And, as it turns out, it’s nearly always better to write something bad than to write nothing at all. As the great Gary Halbert said, “Motion is better than meditation.” That is what we’ll talk about today. Download.

What if you found you were sitting on tons of money that you didn’t even know about? It sounds like the beginning of a new Netflix series, right? But this happened in real life to our returning champion, Agency owner and entrepreneur Cath Rehorn. She will be the first to admit that numbers are not her. She’s a words and people person, not a data ninja. But she developed a conversation with ChatGPT to get it to review her Stripe data, even though, as she also admits, at first she really didn’t have any idea what she was doing. And she realized that with minimum effort–like, mainly, sending out a few emails–she could add 54,000 British pounds, or about $70,000 US, to her revenues every year. And with only a little more effort, she reckoned, she could bring in even more. Her thought process and how she tackled a clumsy problem with such persistence and humor should be of interest, and possibly very valuable, to anyone who runs a business and even does a pretty bad job of keeping track of their numbers. Y

Our very special guest today is Angus Fletcher, professor of story science at Ohio State’s Project Narrative. His research has been called “life-changing” by Brené Brown and “mind blowing” by Malcolm Gladwell; has been endorsed by psychologists, neuroscientists, and doctors such as Martin Seligman and Antonio Damasio; and has been supported by institutions ranging from the National Science Foundation to the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. In 2023, he was awarded the Commendation Medal by the U.S. Army for his “groundbreaking research” with U.S. Army Special Operations into primal intelligence. His latest book is called Primal Intelligence: You Are Smarter Than You Know. There are very few books or writers who have affected me as much as Angus and this book have. In the few weeks since I have read it, my coaching has changed. My thoughts about intuition, imagination and emotion have changed. I’ve watched close to 20 videos featuring Angus on youtube… and I don’t typically ever watch that many

A lot of people struggle with email marketing. Today’s special guest, Tom Ruwitch, has been at it for a quarter of a century… and he’s discovered some pretty interesting things about using stories to sell, as well. In 2001, Tom founded an email marketing business called MarketVolt. This was very early in the online business revolution. His company licensed their software to businesses worldwide, and used it themselves as part of a full-service agency. He sold the business in 2019. In 2021, Tom launched Implementum, a marketing platform that creates strategy, done-for-you custom campaigns, and provides training. We’ll talk about that, but first we’re going to talk about his impressive and very useful new book, Story Power Marketing. His simple and practical approach puts storytelling in marketing within the reach of just about anyone, whether you consider yourself a storyteller or not. Links: Story Power Marketing: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1964046335 Get a free copy at https://yourgiftfromtom.com/dav

As we record this in mid-October, the world has without a doubt gone absolutely bonkers over AI. People are making all kinds of extreme predictions: Some see a heaven on Earth in a future with AI, and others confidently predict unmitigated disaster. But how many of these people are talking from actual in-the-trenches experience? Who can take the long view based on what they’ve actually done and seen… and an informed view of what’s possible for the future? I personally know only one person who fills that bill, and he’s our returning champion. He’s Sam Woods, our very special guest today. Sam has been in the game for nine years, while most of us haven’t been there half as long. In fact, when it comes to AI and copywriting, I don’t know of anyone who’s been in it longer than Sam has. He got started with machine learning in 2016 and generative AI in 2019. He was a pioneer in prompt engineering for AI copywriting, and marketing. Sam has advised Fortune 1,000 companies and teams across the world, as well as a

Our guest today does something I’ve been looking for in a guest on this podcast for a long time–he helps beginning copywriters get started and become success. Matthew Volkwyn is a coach, copywriter, marketer and entrepreneur. He doesn’t just talk the talk; he walks the walk. Matt has helped dozens of business coaches rapidly grow their own businesses with email marketing, a he’s built three six-figure businesses of his own. I invited Matt on after he had me as a guest on his podcast, and I found out he coaches beginning copywriters, which I don’t do myself, since my clients are more experienced copywriters and business owners who use copy. I suggested he come on and we have a nuts and bolts conversation about coaching copywriters, and he readily agreed. Matthew’s links: Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/matthewjvolkwyn Copy Systems: https://www.skool.com/copysystems/about Copy Dojo: https://www.copydojo.com/ Download.

Have you ever been in a meeting where people are brainstorming ideas, and each idea is more idiotic and off-target than the last one? It has happened to all of us. And if you’re an experienced copywriter, sometimes it’s hard to bite your tongue. Because the cheerful but inexperienced leader of the meeting has announced a rule: “There are no bad ideas!” Well, yes there are. In that meeting, you just heard a whole pile of them. I can almost guarantee what the problem was. There are several steps, including a crucial step, that everyone in the meeting never took. Falling in love with uninformed, aimless creativity is one of the biggest causes of wasted advertising dollars imaginable. And I’m going to tell you that missing piece, that missing step. I can’t promise that everyone in the next meeting will take it ahead of time. But if they do, I promise you’ll get much better ideas, even if you’re the only copywriter there. Books: Applied Imagination, by Alex Osborn https://www.amazon.com/dp/B009CXTZ8

Legendary NY Yankee Yogi Berra said it best: “It’s tough to make predictions, especially about the future.” He’s right, you know. But there’s one important exception, and I don’t blame Yogi because, as talented a player and a coach as he was, Yogi wasn’t a copywriter. So he didn’t know about the important exception we’ll talk about today: showing your prospect a compelling future. Not every copywriter does this, but if you don’t, you’re missing out… on conversions. And even if you do, we’re going to talk about a better way to show a compelling future than most people are currently using. If you like the stories on today’s show and you’d like to find out about a lot more, that will really power up your copy, let me invite you to check out my book The Persuasion Story Code. It’s on Amazon and we’ll put a link in the show notes. The Persuasion Story Code https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CFD2KXNQ Download.

A little over a month ago we did a last-minute podcast about an audacious experiment our special guest today, Nick O’Connor, did with Glenn Fisher and the financial publishing giant Marketwise: Glenn told us how they put together a special program called Financial Copy U, which would train 12 copywriters ABSOLUTELY FREE on how to write copy for financial publishers. With the understanding that some graduates might be offered full-fledged copywriting jobs on the spot, depending, of course, how they did in the training. Now that Financial Copy U is in full swing, we asked Nick to tell us more about what he and Glenn did and are doing right now. Seeing as there’s not enough other solid training for financial copywriting going on right now, at least that I know of, I realize Nick has a lot of valuable information for us. Among his many impressive accomplishments, Nick was Head of Copy and Publisher for Agora’s financial imprint in the UK, Southbank Investment Research. Today, as well as co-founding The Fix,

It’s the sure-fire strategy that makes you overconfident. It looks like this: The copy’s loud. Aggressive. Alpha-male on a double dose of adderall. It’s practically SCREAMING at you to buy. And you know what? Sometimes it works. But not most of the time. Especially these days. Hyper-aggressive copy is just a huge risk you don’t want to take. And here’s why: While it’s true that pressure might trigger an action, it almost never creates belief. And belief is what you need to MAKE the sale… and KEEP the sale. My co-host Nathan is going to lead us out of the land of testosterone intoxication and into an exciting new world, of calmly and irreversibly creating BELIEF in your copy… so pressure isn’t necessary. Because when they believe… they buy. Find out more about Nathan's approach at https://cultishcontent.com/ Download.

Today we take a deep dive into the part of copywriting that people talk about all the time. And even though people talk about this all the time, most of them don’t really understand it. That is, psychology. Not the kind of psychology you experience in a therapist’s office—although there’s a little bit of overlap. Not what you’ll find in brightly colored grid of buyer personas. Not mindset. No, we’re talking about the psychology that has to do with how people really behave. What actually makes them respond. This is the kind of psychology that proves out over and over again, through unforgiving tests in the marketplace. We’ll call it “copywriting psychology.” It’s the psychology behind copy that converts. And here’s the thing: It’s not always polite. It may not even be pleasant. And sometimes, it’s offensive to the way people look at the world. But copywriting psychology is not trying to win a popularity contest. Instead, it’s trying to answer a very serious, and sometimes uncomfortable, question. That