YouTube2Text

8 years of marketing advice in 70 minutes — Transcript

by Mark Builds Brands · 16,422 words · 2,331 segments · language en · Watch on YouTube

Full transcript

  1. 0:00Hey guys, Mark here. In this video I'm
  2. 0:01going to be going over eight years worth
  3. 0:03of marketing advice. I have worked 10 to
  4. 0:0514 hours every single day basically
  5. 0:07without exception over the last eight
  6. 0:08years. I've spent ends of millions of
  7. 0:10dollars on paid ads and I have made a
  8. 0:12lot of really stupid and expensive
  9. 0:14mistakes. I am making this video because
  10. 0:16I wish that somebody told me everything
  11. 0:18in this video before I ever got my toes
  12. 0:21into marketing. And just so we're clear,
  13. 0:23this is not going to be one of those
  14. 0:24videos where I say, "Oh, in order to
  15. 0:26have good marketing, you need to make a
  16. 0:27good hook." No, we all know that's
  17. 0:29surface level and you're here for
  18. 0:30something deeper. You're here for the
  19. 0:32real truth. So this video is going to be
  20. 0:34me stripping away all the noise and
  21. 0:36telling you actually what works right
  22. 0:38now with marketing. And since this is
  23. 0:39going to be a pretty meaty video, I'm
  24. 0:41going to be breaking this down into four
  25. 0:43sections. Section number one is how to
  26. 0:45think. Section number two, how to
  27. 0:47create. Section three, how to understand
  28. 0:49the math. And section number four, what
  29. 0:51I refer to as the multiplier. If you
  30. 0:54actually learn and implement everything
  31. 0:56in this video, this will be the most
  32. 0:57valuable video that you have watched all
  33. 0:59year. And just as some quick proof, in
  34. 1:00the last 30 days in just one of my
  35. 1:02brands we've done over $2 million in
  36. 1:03revenue profitably. And in just one of
  37. 1:05my ad accounts just over the last few
  38. 1:06years spent just under $4 million. Now,
  39. 1:09in order to become good at marketing,
  40. 1:10first we have to understand how to
  41. 1:11think. Because if you start to think
  42. 1:12like a marketer, you've actually already
  43. 1:14lost. Instead, you should be thinking
  44. 1:16like a mad scientist. I believe that
  45. 1:18everything in marketing boils down to
  46. 1:20one single word. And if you're able to
  47. 1:22properly understand this one single word
  48. 1:24and think through the lens of this one
  49. 1:26single word, everything else becomes
  50. 1:28substantially easier. And the one word
  51. 1:30that I'm referring to here is going to
  52. 1:31be contrast. Probably not the word that
  53. 1:34you're expecting. So let me kind of
  54. 1:35explain what I mean here. In order to
  55. 1:36become good at marketing, the best
  56. 1:39marketers are able to create the widest
  57. 1:41range of contrast. Now, when I think of
  58. 1:43the word contrast, you can think of in
  59. 1:45photography or videography, it's the
  60. 1:46ability to make something stand out from
  61. 1:49the background. To be able to stand out
  62. 1:51from the noise. A lot of times in web
  63. 1:53development this is used as well and you
  64. 1:54can see a really good example of having
  65. 1:56a good contrast ratio would be something
  66. 1:58like having black text on a white
  67. 1:59background or having white text on a
  68. 2:01black background or something like this
  69. 2:03or maybe you've seen this warm paper.
  70. 2:05All of these have very high contrast.
  71. 2:06Now, on the other hand, you have an
  72. 2:07example of low contrast where the text
  73. 2:09here is clearly not standing out
  74. 2:12whatsoever. So, every ad you create,
  75. 2:14every piece of content that you create,
  76. 2:16your job is to create the most amount of
  77. 2:18contrast in the mind of the customer.
  78. 2:20This is literally like the origin of
  79. 2:23everything because everybody's being
  80. 2:25bombarded by marketing material every
  81. 2:26single day. It's not about like creating
  82. 2:28good marketing, it's creating marketing
  83. 2:30material that is allowing you to stand
  84. 2:32out from everything else. And so, if I'm
  85. 2:34going to go and enter a new market, this
  86. 2:36is literally what I'm thinking. I'll go
  87. 2:37look at the top competitors in the
  88. 2:39space, I'll go look at top content
  89. 2:40creators in the space, I'll look at what
  90. 2:42everybody is doing, and I will ask one
  91. 2:44simple question, which is, how can I do
  92. 2:46the exact opposite? How can I see what
  93. 2:48everybody is doing, what everybody is
  94. 2:50already being bombarded with every
  95. 2:51single day, and literally do the polar
  96. 2:53opposite of just so I can create the
  97. 2:55maximum degree of contrast. This is true
  98. 2:57in every piece of marketing that you've
  99. 2:58ever, you know, interacted with. If you
  100. 3:00go and look at your email and you go
  101. 3:01look at the subject lines in the email,
  102. 3:0399% of them look the exact same and
  103. 3:06therefore they don't stand out because
  104. 3:07they they don't have any degree of
  105. 3:09contrast. The same is true with your
  106. 3:10content, the same is true with your ads,
  107. 3:12the same is true of any piece of
  108. 3:13marketing material. Your goal is to
  109. 3:15stand out and I know that sounds really
  110. 3:17pretty basic and of course easier said
  111. 3:18than done, but that's why I'm
  112. 3:19structuring this video this way because
  113. 3:21if you don't understand this and
  114. 3:22approach things in a contrarian way,
  115. 3:25you're immediately just like shooting
  116. 3:26yourself in the foot because you're just
  117. 3:27going to blend in with everybody. A lot
  118. 3:29of guys are just going to look at what
  119. 3:31the top guys are doing, you know, go
  120. 3:33look at the big big brands, you know,
  121. 3:34the Apple, the all these massive
  122. 3:36companies, and don't get me wrong,
  123. 3:37there's things to take away from them,
  124. 3:38but at the same time, most of the
  125. 3:40marketing material is being ignored in
  126. 3:42the world. Therefore, you have to be
  127. 3:44able to create a gap between what people
  128. 3:46are currently consuming and being able
  129. 3:48to do something completely different
  130. 3:50that immediately catches the attention
  131. 3:51of people. Humans are incredibly
  132. 3:53habitual creatures, whether that's an
  133. 3:55addictive habit or a good habit, like
  134. 3:57reading a book. Your job is literally to
  135. 4:00break the freaking habit that people
  136. 4:02have. If you're running ads, you have to
  137. 4:04break the habit of them scrolling. If
  138. 4:06you're sending emails, you have to break
  139. 4:07the habit of them cleaning out their
  140. 4:09inbox of all the [ __ ] promotional
  141. 4:11material that's in there. Your goal is
  142. 4:12to break the pattern. The reason why
  143. 4:14this is so important, by the way, is
  144. 4:16because almost every single niche, every
  145. 4:18single market is just chock-full of
  146. 4:20competition. People talk about blue
  147. 4:22ocean strategy and red ocean strategy,
  148. 4:23and there's validity to many of them.
  149. 4:25However, when's the last time you
  150. 4:27legitimately entered a market and there
  151. 4:28was zero competition whatsoever? At some
  152. 4:30level, you're competing against other
  153. 4:32people. And so, I think for the far, far
  154. 4:34majority of markets, with very few
  155. 4:36exceptions, you are in stage four
  156. 4:38sophistication or greater. All right?
  157. 4:41This is a concept from legendary
  158. 4:42marketer Eugene Schwartz that basically
  159. 4:44shows the stages that a market goes
  160. 4:46through from the time that there is zero
  161. 4:48competitors, literally nothing there,
  162. 4:50which would be like level one stage of
  163. 4:51sophistication, where you just make a
  164. 4:52claim, you'll do well. You know, like
  165. 4:54when I think the best industry to look
  166. 4:55at when it comes to stages of
  167. 4:57sophistication is the cigarette
  168. 4:59industry. If you go and understand your
  169. 5:01history of advertising, you can see the
  170. 5:03birth of a new market go through every
  171. 5:05single stage here, from level one all
  172. 5:06the way up to level five. When literally
  173. 5:08just put an ad on [ __ ] billboard that
  174. 5:11just says cigarettes, that's level one
  175. 5:13stage of sophistication. But,
  176. 5:14immediately, you have to then compete on
  177. 5:16claims, which would be level two. And
  178. 5:18after all the claims get bigger and
  179. 5:20bigger and bigger to the point where
  180. 5:21they're not even believable, then you
  181. 5:22move into stage three, where you have to
  182. 5:23build a mechanism. But, the point I'm
  183. 5:25making here is that there's competition
  184. 5:27in almost any market. So, you can't just
  185. 5:29come in and be average. You have to come
  186. 5:31in with the mindset of being completely
  187. 5:34different than even that the top
  188. 5:36competitor in the space, because that's
  189. 5:38how you can really create your own
  190. 5:39niche. If you guys are familiar with the
  191. 5:41book as zero to one, the whole concept
  192. 5:43of zero to one by Peter Thiel is
  193. 5:45basically, if there's this massive mega
  194. 5:47market, your goal is not to go and try
  195. 5:49to capture 100% of this mega market.
  196. 5:51It's just not even feasible. Instead,
  197. 5:53you should try to capture a smaller
  198. 5:55market and your goal ultimately with
  199. 5:56capturing the smaller market is going to
  200. 5:58be 100% market share. Your goal is
  201. 6:00monopoly. But guess what? You can't own
  202. 6:03100% of a market if there's competitors
  203. 6:05everywhere. So again, the point I'm
  204. 6:07making here is that every market to some
  205. 6:09degree has competition. So your goal is
  206. 6:11not to just resonate most with the
  207. 6:13customer. Your goal ultimately is to
  208. 6:14create the highest degree of contrast to
  209. 6:16stand out from all the [ __ ] that people
  210. 6:18are being bombarded with every single
  211. 6:20day. Because if you look like everyone
  212. 6:22else, if your marketing just looks like
  213. 6:23everybody else's, you immediately blend
  214. 6:25in. So the question you need to answer
  215. 6:26is not how do I market better? It's
  216. 6:28literally how do I look nothing like
  217. 6:31anybody else? How can I be the exact
  218. 6:32polar opposite of everybody else's
  219. 6:35already seeing? And my favorite example
  220. 6:37to use here is Sam Sulek. Sam Sulek, if
  221. 6:39you somehow haven't heard of him yet on
  222. 6:41YouTube, is one of the top fitness
  223. 6:42creators in the space. I started
  224. 6:44watching Sam's content when he had
  225. 6:46around 10,000 subscribers on his
  226. 6:48channel. And the reason that I started
  227. 6:50watching is because if you do a search
  228. 6:52on YouTube and you look for, you know,
  229. 6:54fitness content, how to get jacked,
  230. 6:56whatever, typically see all the videos
  231. 6:58look the exact same. These super highly
  232. 7:00produced thumbnails, over enthusiastic
  233. 7:03creators, you know, like the influencer
  234. 7:04voice, like they're talking like
  235. 7:06influencers. And so I know Sam probably
  236. 7:08didn't do this intentionally, but he's
  237. 7:09the perfect example of this because if
  238. 7:11you look at what everybody is doing, he
  239. 7:13did the exact opposite. Instead of super
  240. 7:15highly over produced thumbnails, he
  241. 7:16didn't have thumbnails at all. He's just
  242. 7:17using a frame of his video. If you look
  243. 7:19at the style of fitness content, which
  244. 7:21is relatively short form, you know,
  245. 7:22anywhere from like 9 to 15 minutes, he
  246. 7:25started making videos that were 30 plus
  247. 7:27minutes long. And there's so many more
  248. 7:29details here that I could go into. And
  249. 7:30this isn't just for content, by the way.
  250. 7:31This is for advertising as well.
  251. 7:33Whatever it is, you have to look at what
  252. 7:35everybody else is doing and do the exact
  253. 7:37opposite. I don't know the exact stats,
  254. 7:39but I do believe that this is one of the
  255. 7:41fastest, if not the fastest growing
  256. 7:42fitness account of all time. And And it
  257. 7:45comes down to creating the highest
  258. 7:47degree of contrast and doing the exact
  259. 7:49opposite of everybody else. Because most
  260. 7:51people, they think the reason that he's
  261. 7:53successful is just because oh, he was
  262. 7:55being authentic. Like all these, you
  263. 7:56know, fitness creators are not
  264. 7:57authentic. Sam, he's really authentic.
  265. 8:00That's like the perception, but if you
  266. 8:01dig deeper, there's actually so many
  267. 8:03things that you can pick apart. That's
  268. 8:04why I said you need to think like a mad
  269. 8:05scientist, not like a marketer. Cuz you
  270. 8:07think like a scientist, you can start to
  271. 8:09pick apart all the details that, you
  272. 8:11know, likely weren't intentional from
  273. 8:12Sam. Maybe they were. He's a smart dude.
  274. 8:14It's ultimately about creating all the
  275. 8:15different variables that are completely
  276. 8:17different from anything else that people
  277. 8:18are accustomed to seeing. The reason he
  278. 8:21was successful is his high degree of
  279. 8:23contrast, not authenticity, even though
  280. 8:25authenticity would be included in this
  281. 8:27case with the high degree of contrast.
  282. 8:29Now, a minute ago I touched on the
  283. 8:30concept of red ocean theory and blue
  284. 8:33ocean theory. And if you're not
  285. 8:34familiar, it's basically just two
  286. 8:36opposite ends of the spectrum where if
  287. 8:38you have a blue ocean over here, there's
  288. 8:40literally zero competition whatsoever.
  289. 8:42And on the right-hand side of screen, of
  290. 8:43course, you would have the red ocean
  291. 8:45where there's just competitors go lower.
  292. 8:47Like you basically are immediately
  293. 8:48stepping into bloody waters and all the
  294. 8:50profits are being competed away in the
  295. 8:52same way that you'd have like in
  296. 8:54economies of scale. If you're starting a
  297. 8:56new business, or even if you have an
  298. 8:57existing business, the way that this
  299. 8:58applies to you is I actually don't think
  300. 9:00there's a right answer here. If you have
  301. 9:02to choose between a blue ocean and a red
  302. 9:04ocean, those are both pretty shitty
  303. 9:05options, you know? Like you either have
  304. 9:07zero market demand over here. Potential
  305. 9:10The potential is off the charts, of
  306. 9:11course, but you have zero proven demand
  307. 9:13of the market, which immediately you're
  308. 9:14going to have a lot of things not go
  309. 9:16your way. As a little bonus here, one of
  310. 9:18the most fundamental rules of market of
  311. 9:20all time, taken from Eugene Schwartz, is
  312. 9:22mass desire cannot be created. It can
  313. 9:25only be transferred. So, if you're
  314. 9:27trying to like educate your market, just
  315. 9:29give up. Instead, you should channel the
  316. 9:31existing desire into your product. But
  317. 9:34anyways, back to the point. Blue ocean,
  318. 9:35of course, it sounds great in theory.
  319. 9:37You know, you have unlimited profits
  320. 9:39virtually, but no proven demand
  321. 9:40whatsoever. On the red side, you have
  322. 9:42the exact opposite. You have incredible
  323. 9:44demand. You have a ton of competition,
  324. 9:45but you have also a million competitors
  325. 9:48and all the profits are being competed
  326. 9:49away and you're very, very late in the
  327. 9:52stages of sophistication. And so, when
  328. 9:53I'm talking about contrast, I'm saying
  329. 9:55you need contrast not just in your
  330. 9:57marketing material, your content, your
  331. 9:58ad, etc. You also need it when you're
  332. 10:00choosing a market to sell in because I
  333. 10:03think the real sweet spot on the
  334. 10:04spectrum here is right around here. And
  335. 10:06this is what I call purple ocean theory.
  336. 10:08I didn't come up with this myself,
  337. 10:10somebody else did, but this is just how
  338. 10:11I like to think about it. Now, I
  339. 10:13actually don't think that a purple ocean
  340. 10:15something that previously exists. It's
  341. 10:16something that you have to create, you
  342. 10:18know, it's like the saying, "Oh, you
  343. 10:19need to find your passion." You don't
  344. 10:21find your passion, you create it in the
  345. 10:22same way that you create a phenomenal
  346. 10:25market, but there's a very specific way
  347. 10:27you should do it because what you're
  348. 10:28really doing is you are entering a
  349. 10:30proven market. You're going into a
  350. 10:32market where there's very clear demand,
  351. 10:33right? Let's say you're entering the
  352. 10:35market for weight loss. But, with purple
  353. 10:37ocean theory, you actually carve out a
  354. 10:39tiny segment of this market and you try
  355. 10:42to own it 100% in the same way with zero
  356. 10:45to one where you try to shoot for a
  357. 10:47monopoly. So, instead of just making a
  358. 10:48new offer and having like a supplement
  359. 10:50that helps everybody lose weight, you
  360. 10:52try to carve out something hyper
  361. 10:54specific. For example, you sell a weight
  362. 10:56loss program specifically to
  363. 10:58African-American women that are
  364. 11:00postmenopausal. You just took this
  365. 11:02massive multi-billion size of market and
  366. 11:05compressed it into something
  367. 11:06substantially smaller. But, how many
  368. 11:07companies are there that are
  369. 11:08specifically specializing in weight loss
  370. 11:11for African-American women that are
  371. 11:12postmenopausal? It's virtually none, if
  372. 11:14not none. Your goal is to find one with
  373. 11:16none so you can take these variables up
  374. 11:18here from the proven red ocean, but also
  375. 11:20be able to carve out something unique so
  376. 11:22that you can still create the high
  377. 11:23degree of contrast and you're not
  378. 11:25actually directly competing with all
  379. 11:27these red ocean [ __ ] anymore
  380. 11:28because oh, you're competing in that
  381. 11:30case with companies with billions of
  382. 11:31dollars in funding, publicly traded
  383. 11:33companies. That's a tough [ __ ] battle
  384. 11:35to win for a little guy. Instead, you
  385. 11:37enter a proven market, you carve out
  386. 11:39your own segment, and that's how you get
  387. 11:41the purple ocean. The example I like to
  388. 11:43use a lot of this is the e-commerce
  389. 11:44company called Primal Queen. Now, I know
  390. 11:46I reference this example all the time,
  391. 11:48but it is literally the most perfect
  392. 11:49example. Let me prove it to you real
  393. 11:51quick. So, you can see here, I'm on
  394. 11:52Google Trends for the search term of
  395. 11:54carnivore, which is kind of what Primal
  396. 11:57Queen is based around. It's a little bit
  397. 11:58more like animal-based stuff, but it's
  398. 11:59all kind of under the carnivore
  399. 12:01umbrella. And you can see that
  400. 12:02carnivore, it started to really, you
  401. 12:04know, pick up steam early 2022. It
  402. 12:06really peaked massive 4.5 million
  403. 12:08searches per month in January 2025. Now,
  404. 12:11again, what normal people would do,
  405. 12:13which we don't want to be normal. No,
  406. 12:14no, no, no, no. What normal people would
  407. 12:16do is they would say, "Oh, there's this
  408. 12:18massive trend popping off. I'm going to
  409. 12:19go start a carnivore supplement
  410. 12:21company." No. What Primal Queen did
  411. 12:23correctly is they saw this massive
  412. 12:25trend, they saw the potential that it
  413. 12:26had, but they were still able to carve
  414. 12:28out a specific section of the market.
  415. 12:30That being, of course, as you can see by
  416. 12:32their website, specifically beef organ
  417. 12:34supplements for women in specific stages
  418. 12:37of a woman's life, whether that's like
  419. 12:38postpartum, menopause. There just
  420. 12:41happens to be specific events in a
  421. 12:43woman's life that men don't experience,
  422. 12:44and they're able to capture that so
  423. 12:46freaking well. Another good example is
  424. 12:48there was a company that I bought from
  425. 12:50many, many years ago. I think they've
  426. 12:51since exited, but I was really into
  427. 12:53nootropics. Like, this was like 2018 for
  428. 12:55me. Holy [ __ ] this nootropic thing, I'm
  429. 12:57going to turn into Steve Jobs. This is
  430. 12:58crazy. Basically going to be on Adderall
  431. 13:0024/7. Unfortunately, that didn't end up
  432. 13:02happening, but I learned a really
  433. 13:04valuable lesson, which was they were
  434. 13:05creating nootropics specifically for
  435. 13:08entrepreneurs. Once again, taking this
  436. 13:09super proven market of nootropic
  437. 13:11supplements and tying it in to the most,
  438. 13:13you know, degenerate market that there
  439. 13:15possibly is, which is entrepreneurs. And
  440. 13:17I bought it not because it was the best
  441. 13:19nootropic. I bought it because it was
  442. 13:20very specifically for me. I'm an
  443. 13:21entrepreneur, and I want to be smarter
  444. 13:23and think better and not be quite as
  445. 13:24[ __ ] as I am. Boom, sale made. But
  446. 13:27you're not like inventing a new category
  447. 13:29here with purple ocean theory. What
  448. 13:30you're doing is taking something that's
  449. 13:32proven, you're carving out your own
  450. 13:33segment, and you're owning 100% of that
  451. 13:36segment. It doesn't have to be
  452. 13:37demographic, doesn't have to be like
  453. 13:38specifically for women or specifically
  454. 13:40for African Americans. Like, it could be
  455. 13:42for anything. It could be targeting one
  456. 13:44specific angle. Like, there's another
  457. 13:45company out there that sells pillow
  458. 13:47cases, but it's not for you to get
  459. 13:49better sleep, but so that, you know, you
  460. 13:50don't get overnight acne. And they
  461. 13:52position that as like the main reason
  462. 13:53that you have acne. You know, there's I
  463. 13:55could go down the list of all these
  464. 13:56examples. But, if you look under the
  465. 13:57hood, they're all following this purple
  466. 13:59ocean strategy. So, if you're wondering
  467. 14:00like when is the good time to get into
  468. 14:02market, as soon as people start talking
  469. 14:04about something, you can probably assume
  470. 14:06that you're too late. Now, this is
  471. 14:07especially true in marketing world. As
  472. 14:09soon as you see like, "Oh, this is the
  473. 14:10new meta. This is going to change
  474. 14:12everything. This is printing." As soon
  475. 14:14as you see that on Twitter, on YouTube,
  476. 14:16just know that people like me have been
  477. 14:17doing it for many, many months, if not
  478. 14:19years, before it ever popped up online.
  479. 14:22So, like, if you want to know how
  480. 14:23saturated something is, just wait till
  481. 14:25people start talking about it publicly
  482. 14:27on social media. That's a pretty easy
  483. 14:28litmus test for you to follow. Perfect
  484. 14:30example of this for all of the marketers
  485. 14:32on here, there was a specific type of
  486. 14:34creatives that started to get a lot of
  487. 14:36attention online, right? If I say the
  488. 14:38words, you guys will all know it. But,
  489. 14:39it's going to be these native statics,
  490. 14:41right? And if you don't know, a native
  491. 14:42static is basically, you know, like an
  492. 14:44ad that doesn't look like an ad, which
  493. 14:46is
  494. 14:47that's [ __ ] But, point being,
  495. 14:49native statics, for those that really
  496. 14:51know, have been running for decades.
  497. 14:53Like, not just like many years, like
  498. 14:54literally [ __ ] decades. There have
  499. 14:56been marketers that I know personally
  500. 14:58that have been advertising basically
  501. 14:59since the inception of the internet that
  502. 15:01have been running these ads on native ad
  503. 15:03platforms for decades. Yes. And then all
  504. 15:05of a sudden, starts blowing up, people
  505. 15:07start talking about it. And I'm sitting
  506. 15:08here like, this is nothing new
  507. 15:10whatsoever. And ironically, as soon as
  508. 15:12people start talking about it, the
  509. 15:13performance of this particular style of
  510. 15:15ads started to decline overall across
  511. 15:17many different accounts that I had seen.
  512. 15:18So, the principle and and philosophy
  513. 15:20behind these specific type of ads,
  514. 15:23whether it's like native static or like
  515. 15:24advertorials, whatever, the principle
  516. 15:26never goes away. Like the principle here
  517. 15:28is to like basically subconsciously sell
  518. 15:30people. Create content that doesn't look
  519. 15:32like people are immediately being sold
  520. 15:34to. That concept in and of itself, once
  521. 15:36again, it's nothing new, not even native
  522. 15:38statics, but the concept of, you know,
  523. 15:40trying to sell people without them
  524. 15:42notice that they're being sold, that's
  525. 15:43nothing new. In fact, I'll quickly prove
  526. 15:45it to you. If you don't know who this
  527. 15:46guy is, this is the prince of print
  528. 15:48himself, which is legendary copywriter
  529. 15:51Gary Halbert, rest in peace. And Gary
  530. 15:54was a copywriter during the direct mail
  531. 15:56period, which means what these guys
  532. 15:57would do is they would buy these lists
  533. 15:59of zip codes, they would construct a
  534. 16:01literal piece of paper sales letter,
  535. 16:03they would send it to, you know,
  536. 16:04hundreds or thousands of homes literally
  537. 16:06through the direct mail, and then maybe
  538. 16:08in a few weeks they would get some money
  539. 16:09in return, you know, which would be like
  540. 16:11a success for that particular offer.
  541. 16:13This is how like direct response
  542. 16:14marketing actually started was mostly on
  543. 16:16the direct mail industry. Well, what
  544. 16:18most people don't realize, at least the
  545. 16:19ones that are not super into direct
  546. 16:20response, is Gary had a sales letter
  547. 16:22that ran around the '60s or the '70s,
  548. 16:24which still, this is like absolutely
  549. 16:26crazy. And what he did, he realized that
  550. 16:29none of his sales letters were working.
  551. 16:31He would send them out to hundreds or or
  552. 16:32thousands or tens of thousands of homes,
  553. 16:34and then he would never end up breaking
  554. 16:35a profit and making any money. He was
  555. 16:37trying to figure out why. And then he
  556. 16:38started to observe people when they were
  557. 16:40looking at their mail. And the number
  558. 16:41one takeaway he had was where do people
  559. 16:44open their mail? They open their mail
  560. 16:45right over the recycling bin. And as
  561. 16:47they're looking through the mail, they
  562. 16:48quickly glance at it, they see is this
  563. 16:50something that's relevant or important
  564. 16:51to me, or is this a promotion? If it's
  565. 16:53relevant or important, they set aside,
  566. 16:54if not, it goes directly in the trash.
  567. 16:56That's where people even decide to open
  568. 16:59your promotion, to open your marketing
  569. 17:00material. And so immediately he realized
  570. 17:02this, he was like, if I want to have any
  571. 17:03chance at getting out of my shitty
  572. 17:05situation, he was dead [ __ ] broke. If
  573. 17:07I want to have any chance at actually
  574. 17:08making any money, I got to get people to
  575. 17:10open my freaking letter. Okay, how do I
  576. 17:11get them to open my letter? Well, I make
  577. 17:13something that doesn't look like a
  578. 17:14promotion. I make something that doesn't
  579. 17:16look like an ad. This dude, over 60
  580. 17:19[ __ ] years ago, was able to come up
  581. 17:21with this foundational principle in
  582. 17:23marketing that we now use today and have
  583. 17:25the audacity to say like, "Oh, this is
  584. 17:27>> [laughter]
  585. 17:27>> This is the new meta." No, the principle
  586. 17:29itself is timeless. Being able to create
  587. 17:31marketing content that doesn't look like
  588. 17:33marketing content is a superpower.
  589. 17:34That's the exact philosophy behind all
  590. 17:37the top-performing advertising assets
  591. 17:39that we have today. Advertorials, same
  592. 17:41exact thing. Quiz funnels, same exact
  593. 17:42thing. Native ads, same exact thing. I
  594. 17:44could go down the list one by one. It's
  595. 17:46all from people that came before us, way
  596. 17:49smarter than us. We're all pretty
  597. 17:50freaking stupid. And by the way, this
  598. 17:52was one of the most successful direct
  599. 17:54mail promotions of all time. There was a
  600. 17:55point where Gary, at the time, like in
  601. 17:57the '60s and '70s, this offer was $2.
  602. 18:00And people would mail in a check back to
  603. 18:02his house. He would hire people, and
  604. 18:03their sole job was to get the check that
  605. 18:05somebody had sent in and go cash it at
  606. 18:07the bank. He had 20 full-time employees
  607. 18:09doing this at a point in time. He was
  608. 18:11making over $100,000 per day in the '60s
  609. 18:15and '70s, which I think equates to over
  610. 18:17half a million dollars per day, off of a
  611. 18:18direct mail promotion. The scale with
  612. 18:22the constraints of supply during this
  613. 18:24time period is absolutely [ __ ]
  614. 18:26insane. But the point is, like the
  615. 18:27reason I'm rambling about this story,
  616. 18:29number one, I love Gary Halbert, and I'm
  617. 18:30proud to say it. Number two, the
  618. 18:32principle is timeless, and it's
  619. 18:33literally informing the top-performing
  620. 18:35ads, content pieces, funnels that are
  621. 18:37running right now in 2026. So, contrast
  622. 18:40is initially to get you noticed. And
  623. 18:42after you have that, of course, people
  624. 18:43don't want to feel like they're being
  625. 18:44sold to. So, being able to create
  626. 18:46material that blends in, that you're
  627. 18:48able to disguise with your marketing, is
  628. 18:50literally the exact content that's
  629. 18:51making the most amount of money for
  630. 18:53marketers around the world right now.
  631. 18:54The takeaway here, disguise your
  632. 18:56marketing. I know this sounds like
  633. 18:57almost contradictory to contrast because
  634. 19:00uh you want to get attention, but you
  635. 19:01also want to disguise it. It is a
  636. 19:02balance to be had, but these are not
  637. 19:04mutually exclusive. You're able to get
  638. 19:06people's attention and also disguise it
  639. 19:08as something that is not promotional. If
  640. 19:09you can do those two things, if you take
  641. 19:11nothing away from this video moving
  642. 19:12forward, these two things principally
  643. 19:14are going to make you a lot of money.
  644. 19:16Now, before we move on kind of to the
  645. 19:17tactical section of this video, the
  646. 19:19final piece in understanding how to
  647. 19:21think is to understand my universal
  648. 19:23truths. Now, about 6 months ago, I
  649. 19:25started to write down what I believe to
  650. 19:27be my core principles when it came to
  651. 19:29marketing. I was actually writing them
  652. 19:31down pen and paper because I was like,
  653. 19:33if I were to die tomorrow, what would be
  654. 19:35like the main things that I would tell
  655. 19:37new marketer that they really need to
  656. 19:39know how to think in order to be as
  657. 19:41successful as possible. And there's a
  658. 19:42few things on that list. And these are
  659. 19:44actually rules that I enforce on my team
  660. 19:46across all of my companies that I run
  661. 19:48right now. All right, rule number one,
  662. 19:49no clean hands. This is my favorite one.
  663. 19:51What do I mean by this? No clean hands.
  664. 19:53If you want to get good at marketing, I
  665. 19:55genuinely believe the best way is going
  666. 19:57to be experience, right? You can watch
  667. 19:58this video, it'll be an amazing first
  668. 20:00step, but eventually you got to run some
  669. 20:01ads, you got to make some content, you
  670. 20:02got to start getting some [ __ ]
  671. 20:03customers into your business. And that's
  672. 20:05not a pretty process most of the time.
  673. 20:07Those first initial customers that you
  674. 20:09acquire, especially if you're early on
  675. 20:10in your journey, it's difficult.
  676. 20:12Difficult to convince people, random
  677. 20:13strangers on the internet, to give you
  678. 20:14money, you know, who would have thought?
  679. 20:16And so this rule is called no clean
  680. 20:17hands because your goal is to get your
  681. 20:19hands [ __ ] dirty. If you're trying to
  682. 20:21be one of those entrepreneurs that's
  683. 20:22like, oh, I'm going to like hire this
  684. 20:23person to do everything for me. It's not
  685. 20:25a good use of my time. I should be
  686. 20:27focusing more leverage stuff. Well, I
  687. 20:29learned something from studying a lot of
  688. 20:31startups when I was younger. And one of
  689. 20:32the rules that I learned is in order to
  690. 20:34scale, you have to do things that don't
  691. 20:36scale, especially in the beginning. So
  692. 20:38what that means is you are creating a
  693. 20:41lot of [ __ ] ads yourself. You are
  694. 20:43writing a lot of [ __ ] copy yourself.
  695. 20:45You are creating a lot of [ __ ]
  696. 20:47content yourself. It's going to be
  697. 20:48manual, it's going to feel annoying,
  698. 20:49going to feel like there's better ways
  699. 20:51to do this, but this process is one of
  700. 20:54the best ways for you to self-learn and
  701. 20:55actually get really freakishly good. I
  702. 20:57would not be the marketer that I am now
  703. 20:59if I just tried to like outsource
  704. 21:01everything that required an ounce of
  705. 21:03effort. The reason that I'm so good cuz
  706. 21:05I love being in the [ __ ] trenches,
  707. 21:08man. I never want to get out of the
  708. 21:10day-to-day. I don't want to have a
  709. 21:11business that just runs autopilot. Okay,
  710. 21:13that sounds pretty good, actually, but I
  711. 21:15don't want to do that anyways, because
  712. 21:17I'm stubborn. And the real truth is if
  713. 21:20you want to get freakishly good at
  714. 21:21something, you have to do it a shitload
  715. 21:23of times, okay? And you have to start
  716. 21:25with something that doesn't scale if you
  717. 21:27want to scale. So, get your hands dirty,
  718. 21:28start making [ __ ] get inside the ad
  719. 21:30account, start posting a million pieces
  720. 21:31of content, whatever it is for you, just
  721. 21:33get [ __ ] active, because that's how
  722. 21:35you get your reps in. That's how you get
  723. 21:37your 10,000 hours in and become an
  724. 21:39ultimate master at what you do. Rule
  725. 21:40number two is money loves speed. I am
  726. 21:44also completely psychotic about moving
  727. 21:46quickly. I've had a lot of people work
  728. 21:47for me. It doesn't always work out, and
  729. 21:49many of the times when I talk to people
  730. 21:51after they leave my company, I was like,
  731. 21:53"Why do you think we are where we are?
  732. 21:55You know, we're growing really quickly.
  733. 21:57What is it about us that's different
  734. 21:58from everybody else?" And I get the same
  735. 22:00response every time, which is just "You
  736. 22:02guys move freakishly fast." So, the
  737. 22:04point here is really to reduce the
  738. 22:06amount of time it takes for you to get
  739. 22:08data and get feedback. The faster and
  740. 22:10shorter and tighter that you can make
  741. 22:12your feedback loop, the faster you're
  742. 22:13going to see results and actually start
  743. 22:15making some money. So, for example, if
  744. 22:16we have an idea for, you know, a new ad,
  745. 22:19we test it, and it starts actually
  746. 22:20getting some results, we test the thing
  747. 22:22and we get data. If I see that that ad,
  748. 22:24that particular ad in this case, is
  749. 22:26getting results, is getting super
  750. 22:28profitable, low CPA, etc., I start
  751. 22:30making iterations of that ad halfway
  752. 22:33through the day. I don't like to just
  753. 22:35like throw stuff out and just like sit
  754. 22:37back and relax. No, if I see a few small
  755. 22:39positive indicators initially, as long
  756. 22:41as there's like significant data, we are
  757. 22:43immediately moving and iterating on
  758. 22:45that. And if you think this like sounds
  759. 22:47complex, we learned this [ __ ] in
  760. 22:49freaking middle school, if not
  761. 22:50elementary school. This is literally
  762. 22:52just us applying the scientific method,
  763. 22:54but squeezing the time that it takes to
  764. 22:56get results and start to iterate to as
  765. 22:58small of a period time as possible,
  766. 23:00right? We ask a question, we make a
  767. 23:02hypothesis, we start to construct the
  768. 23:04test, we experiment, we get conclusions,
  769. 23:06then we immediately start over and start
  770. 23:07hypothesizing once again. It's just a
  771. 23:09scientific method, it's nothing new,
  772. 23:11right? You make an observation,
  773. 23:12hypothesis, you build it, test it, get
  774. 23:14the data, and immediately start to move
  775. 23:17and iterate on it. This is so
  776. 23:18underrated, guys. I can't even tell you
  777. 23:20because most people are slow as [ __ ]
  778. 23:23They're so [ __ ] slow. A lot of
  779. 23:24companies out there are corporate, they
  780. 23:26move at the speed of snails. Especially
  781. 23:28if you're younger, you have a massive
  782. 23:30massive advantage when it comes to
  783. 23:31speed. Lean the [ __ ] into it. Rule
  784. 23:33number three is to assume nothing. As
  785. 23:35entrepreneurs, a lot of times we think
  786. 23:37that we know what's going to convert
  787. 23:38better, that we know that this offer is
  788. 23:40going to do better, this ad looks
  789. 23:42better, therefore it's going to do
  790. 23:43better. All of those are assumptions.
  791. 23:44The only thing that is real is data.
  792. 23:46Anything before you get data is an
  793. 23:49assumption and should be left at the
  794. 23:50[ __ ] door. Don't assume that your
  795. 23:52funnel is good. Don't assume your
  796. 23:53creatives are good. Don't just like test
  797. 23:55stuff because you like it. You don't
  798. 23:57know your customers as well as you
  799. 23:59probably think you do. You don't know
  800. 24:00what is going to convert nearly as well
  801. 24:03as what you probably think will. And
  802. 24:05anybody that has run ads for a long time
  803. 24:07knows this to be true and a lot of the
  804. 24:09[ __ ] times the ads that end up being
  805. 24:11the most profitable, making the most
  806. 24:13amount of money, guess what? They're
  807. 24:14[ __ ] ugly. They look like [ __ ] and
  808. 24:17eventually you kind of step back and
  809. 24:18you're like, I can't even believe that
  810. 24:20this ad has spent so much profitable ad
  811. 24:22spend over the last year. Like it's just
  812. 24:24mind-boggling. But data is data. Data
  813. 24:27does not lie to you. It always tells you
  814. 24:29the truth of what is happening in
  815. 24:31reality, as long as you're looking at
  816. 24:32the right data, of course. So, assume
  817. 24:33nothing. Test all your assumptions. Like
  818. 24:35the only time that you can have
  819. 24:36something be true if you test it and you
  820. 24:38have data to back it up. Rule number
  821. 24:39four, comparison is theft. You've
  822. 24:42probably heard the saying, comparison is
  823. 24:44the thief of joy. And I think that
  824. 24:46comparison is a double-edged sword
  825. 24:47because in my opinion, I think
  826. 24:49comparison can be incredibly motivating.
  827. 24:51However, if you're a beginner, you don't
  828. 24:53have any results underneath your belt.
  829. 24:54You're not making any [ __ ] money,
  830. 24:56which means if you're constantly
  831. 24:57comparing yourself to people that are,
  832. 24:59you know, on a different journey than
  833. 25:00you, which is everybody, by the way, and
  834. 25:02you're looking at all the money that
  835. 25:03they are making, you're immediately
  836. 25:05going to start to feel really [ __ ]
  837. 25:06[ __ ] about yourself. You're going to
  838. 25:07feel like you're doing everything wrong,
  839. 25:09they're doing better than you, they're
  840. 25:11smarter than you, and you're just a
  841. 25:12stupid [ __ ] And look, I'm saying this
  842. 25:14from experience. There's a point in time
  843. 25:16where I had lost almost $9,000 starting
  844. 25:19my first business. I actually was doing
  845. 25:20drop shipping, and I tested 50 products.
  846. 25:23Every single one of them failed. And
  847. 25:25that means I did research, I found a
  848. 25:26product, I built a store, I wrote the
  849. 25:28copy, built the ads, I ran the ads, I
  850. 25:30spent money, and lost money 50 [ __ ]
  851. 25:32times in a row. Can you believe that? 50
  852. 25:34times in a row. And guess what? That
  853. 25:37maybe was inevitable for me, but I'll
  854. 25:39tell you what wasn't inevitable, what
  855. 25:40was completely avoidable, was me feeling
  856. 25:43like [ __ ] every time that I would test
  857. 25:44something, because I'd look at other
  858. 25:46people that I knew I was smarter than.
  859. 25:48You know, I see some of these guys that
  860. 25:49are making a lot of money, and there is
  861. 25:50some element of luck to it, but me
  862. 25:52comparing myself to that person did
  863. 25:54nothing. It just made me feel like [ __ ]
  864. 25:56It didn't motivate me at all. It just
  865. 25:57made me feel like a [ __ ] [ __ ]
  866. 25:59Listen to me. Stay in your lane, okay?
  867. 26:01You're on a different journey than every
  868. 26:03single human out there, and I truly
  869. 26:05believe whatever your belief is about,
  870. 26:07whether that's you believe in God, you
  871. 26:09believe in the universe, you believe in
  872. 26:11universal consciousness, I don't really
  873. 26:12care, but I do believe that whatever you
  874. 26:14believe, the timing in life is always
  875. 26:17perfect. However, you can't always see
  876. 26:19that. If you're eating [ __ ] day in and
  877. 26:21day out, losing money on your business,
  878. 26:22you can't see that in the next 3 months
  879. 26:24you're going to make more money than
  880. 26:26you've ever made in your life. That
  881. 26:27exact situation I just said, by the way,
  882. 26:28happened to me. Like I went from losing
  883. 26:30money, $9,000 for around 9 months
  884. 26:33straight, to making all of it back, and
  885. 26:35then multiples of it in the span of like
  886. 26:382 or 3 months. I remember opening my
  887. 26:39bank account, and it was the most amount
  888. 26:41of money that I'd ever seen. It was like
  889. 26:42$20,000. It wasn't a lot of money, but I
  890. 26:45saw it, and I was like, "Holy [ __ ] 2
  891. 26:47months ago I was incredibly [ __ ]
  892. 26:48broke, and I was not in a good place."
  893. 26:50All right, I'll just put it that way.
  894. 26:51And then, like, that's how quick things
  895. 26:53can change. So, don't compare yourself
  896. 26:55to the journey of others. It's just not
  897. 26:57worth it. The timing is always there.
  898. 26:58You just have to trust the process. Last
  899. 27:00but not least, out of this how to think
  900. 27:02section, rule number five, you have to
  901. 27:03break the rules. First, you have to
  902. 27:05understand what the rules are, and that
  903. 27:07kind of earns you the right to be able
  904. 27:08to break that. Like I said, you're not
  905. 27:10trying to think like a marketer, all
  906. 27:11right? That's too rigid, and most
  907. 27:13marketers suck. So, your goal is to
  908. 27:15think like a mad scientist, which means,
  909. 27:17basically, test [ __ ] everything. No
  910. 27:19matter how silly or stupid you think it
  911. 27:22sounds, you should try to test as many
  912. 27:24variables as you possibly can. And the
  913. 27:26reality is, like, most of the rules
  914. 27:28about marketing was just invented by
  915. 27:30somebody just like you and me, just a
  916. 27:32regular dude who saw something that
  917. 27:34worked, it worked for him, and that was
  918. 27:35like multiple decades ago. And then,
  919. 27:37everybody just continued to believe it,
  920. 27:39and nobody and nobody took a step back
  921. 27:40and said, "Hey, is that actually true?
  922. 27:42Are we actually just blindly following
  923. 27:43what this dude that is now dead said
  924. 27:45like 25 [ __ ] years ago?" Your goal
  925. 27:47here is ultimately contrarian thinking.
  926. 27:50You don't want to be like everybody
  927. 27:51else, right? You don't want to be making
  928. 27:52the money as everybody else. You don't
  929. 27:53want to live the life as everybody else.
  930. 27:55So, why are you thinking like everybody
  931. 27:57else? If you think differently, then the
  932. 27:58world will change around you. That's
  933. 28:00true both metaphysically and also when
  934. 28:02it comes to marketing. Don't trap
  935. 28:04yourself to think in a box, all right?
  936. 28:05This is also really good for your ego,
  937. 28:07because, like, if you think you're so
  938. 28:08[ __ ] good, and you test something
  939. 28:10that was completely against what you
  940. 28:11believed that ends up working, you're
  941. 28:12like, "Oh, [ __ ] maybe I don't know
  942. 28:14everything." So, that's how to think.
  943. 28:15Now, thinking doesn't get you any
  944. 28:17results. Thinking doesn't make you any
  945. 28:19money. Action does. talk about section
  946. 28:21two, which is how to create. Now, when
  947. 28:23it comes to creating stuff, two main
  948. 28:24things that you're going to be creating
  949. 28:25that is a foundation of all marketing
  950. 28:27success, which is copy and creative.
  951. 28:29There could be a lot more, but just for
  952. 28:30simplicity purposes, these are the two
  953. 28:32that I'm going to be using. Copy is, of
  954. 28:34course, the words that you write. The
  955. 28:35creative is the visual assets that you
  956. 28:37create surrounding that copy. Now, I was
  957. 28:39lucky enough to have some really good
  958. 28:41copywriting mentors in my career, and
  959. 28:42actually learned how to write copy
  960. 28:44before AI, so I understand all the
  961. 28:46fundamentals, and I've written multiple
  962. 28:47successful ads, VSLs, emails, everything
  963. 28:49before AI was even introduced into the
  964. 28:52world right around Chat GPT era. So, I'm
  965. 28:54a little bit biased, but I genuinely
  966. 28:55believe that the foundation of all of
  967. 28:58your marketing success comes down to
  968. 29:00your copy. To me, this is a biased
  969. 29:02video, you know, you clicked on it, not
  970. 29:03me, you know.
  971. 29:04>> [laughter]
  972. 29:04>> Copy is the foundation of everything. I
  973. 29:06legitimately believe if you write better
  974. 29:07copy than anybody else, you will destroy
  975. 29:09them long term. Now, I need to make a
  976. 29:11really important distinction here
  977. 29:12because some of you guys may not have
  978. 29:14run ads or, you know, be familiar with
  979. 29:16running ads. There's a very important
  980. 29:17distinction, which is that copy is not
  981. 29:20the same as content. In fact, I would
  982. 29:22actually view them on opposite ends of
  983. 29:24the spectrum. If you think of a spectrum
  984. 29:25being like from direct response, you
  985. 29:27know, which would be like over here, to
  986. 29:29brand, this is exactly how it would
  987. 29:31look. Copy would be way over here on
  988. 29:32direct response, content would be over
  989. 29:33here on brand. The purpose of content is
  990. 29:36to get engagement, to get likes, to get
  991. 29:38clicks, is to get views. It is not to
  992. 29:40get sales. Copy, on the other hand, its
  993. 29:42sole job is to get sales. And they are
  994. 29:45not the same thing. My favorite thing to
  995. 29:46say about this is, if you look at the
  996. 29:48people that are the best at getting the
  997. 29:50attention, are they the best at
  998. 29:52converting that attention? No. I know
  999. 29:54some people with incredibly small
  1000. 29:56audiences, like under 10,000 followers,
  1001. 29:58if you combine all the platforms
  1002. 29:59together, and they're making more
  1003. 30:01[ __ ] money than me. Why? Because they
  1004. 30:03have incredible copy. that in order to
  1005. 30:05get conversions at a really, really high
  1006. 30:07level, really high conversion rate, you
  1007. 30:09have to understand the principles and
  1008. 30:11fundamentals of direct response copy.
  1009. 30:12There's also a notable dude in the
  1010. 30:14space, Peter Kell, amazing copywriter,
  1011. 30:17who tested this multiple times himself,
  1012. 30:19where he would basically try to create
  1013. 30:21these phenomenal VSLs, it was actually
  1014. 30:22just content. It wasn't like copy that
  1015. 30:24was written for conversions, it was
  1016. 30:25content. Every single one of them
  1017. 30:26bombed. Every single one. And so, that
  1018. 30:28was not my personal experience, but I
  1019. 30:30try to learn from the experience of
  1020. 30:31others. Copy is king. And that's why
  1021. 30:33most content creators are broke, because
  1022. 30:35they have no idea to write copy. But,
  1023. 30:37they're good at getting views, so I
  1024. 30:38guess that's freaking cool. And I think
  1025. 30:40any copywriter, you know, you're like,
  1026. 30:41"Okay, my copy is king. Like, how do I
  1027. 30:43write good copy?" This is not going to
  1028. 30:44be a copywriting video. This is more
  1029. 30:46principle-based, but the foundation of
  1030. 30:49copy, as any good copywriter knows, is
  1031. 30:51simply going to be your research. Your
  1032. 30:53goal is to understand your customers
  1033. 30:55better than they know themselves.
  1034. 30:57Fortunately for you, AI has made this
  1035. 30:59wickedly easy to get incredible,
  1036. 31:03deep-sided research about your
  1037. 31:05customers. It can be done in a span of
  1038. 31:07like 30 minutes now with deep research
  1039. 31:09tools and and AI gentle workflow, which
  1040. 31:10I'll touch on a bit later. But, your
  1041. 31:12goal from the research is to extract as
  1042. 31:14much gold as possible so that you can,
  1043. 31:16number one, speak the language of your
  1044. 31:18customer, which is something called VOC,
  1045. 31:20voice of customer. A lot of people write
  1046. 31:22copy for them. You're not writing copy
  1047. 31:24for you. You're writing copy for your
  1048. 31:25customer. Use their language. Use their
  1049. 31:28phraseology. Speak the way that they
  1050. 31:30would speak. I believe that copy is like
  1051. 31:32learning a different language. It's
  1052. 31:33very, very foreign, oftentimes very
  1053. 31:35counterintuitive if you've been raised
  1054. 31:37to write, you know, the way that English
  1055. 31:40class teaches you to write or college
  1056. 31:41classes teach you to write. I would
  1057. 31:42never hire a copywriter who like has an
  1058. 31:45English degree or like a journalism
  1059. 31:46degree. Jesus Christ, would that be a
  1060. 31:48[ __ ] mess. I remember before AI, all
  1061. 31:50the best copywriters that I knew would
  1062. 31:52always say like 80% of your time should
  1063. 31:54be spent on research. The next like 5%
  1064. 31:58is actually writing the copy, which is
  1065. 31:59the easy part. And then the extra 15% is
  1066. 32:02chiefing the copy. And chiefing is
  1067. 32:03simply the process of reviewing your
  1068. 32:05copy through the lens of your customer
  1069. 32:07and also through the lens of a
  1070. 32:08copywriter. Now, one of the most
  1071. 32:09foundational things in all of
  1072. 32:11copywriting, I already said one, which
  1073. 32:13is the stages of awareness and the law
  1074. 32:15of mass desire. Number two or three,
  1075. 32:16whatever I'm on, is going to be the
  1076. 32:17stages of awareness. Now, stages of
  1077. 32:19awareness is every customer in your
  1078. 32:21market is at a different stage. Some
  1079. 32:23people are completely unaware, which
  1080. 32:25would be this section right here, where
  1081. 32:27they're not even aware of the problem
  1082. 32:29that they have. And then, of course,
  1083. 32:30problem aware, solution aware, product
  1084. 32:31aware, most aware. I don't think I have
  1085. 32:33to explain it. This is relatively
  1086. 32:34straightforward, but point being, when
  1087. 32:36you're writing your copy, you want to be
  1088. 32:38writing to a specific stage of awareness
  1089. 32:40because as soon as you start mixing the
  1090. 32:42stages, you're not talking to just one
  1091. 32:44person, you're talking to multiple. And
  1092. 32:46that's the whole crux of the issue with
  1093. 32:47copywriting. Like, you want to be
  1094. 32:48writing your copy as if you're speaking
  1095. 32:50directly to one very hyper-specific
  1096. 32:52person. Now, you can take somebody from
  1097. 32:54problem-aware to solution-aware to
  1098. 32:56product-aware, but you can't try to talk
  1099. 32:58to somebody who is unaware or
  1100. 33:00problem-aware in the same way that you
  1101. 33:02talk to somebody who is solution-aware
  1102. 33:04or product-aware. It's just not going to
  1103. 33:06work. But, the deeper layer of this is,
  1104. 33:09of course, you want to write to a
  1105. 33:10specific stage of awareness, but you
  1106. 33:12also want to write to a specific level
  1107. 33:14of consciousness. And this is one of
  1108. 33:16those things that I never really heard
  1109. 33:17marketers really talk about at all until
  1110. 33:20I decided to kind of link them myself.
  1111. 33:21But, once you start kind of diving into
  1112. 33:23the whole quantum physics, metaphysics,
  1113. 33:25you start to understand that there's
  1114. 33:26layers deeper than just our own biology
  1115. 33:29that we don't understand very well, but
  1116. 33:31a small group of people have started to
  1117. 33:33understand. And that would be something
  1118. 33:34such as your map of consciousness. By
  1119. 33:36the way, obviously developed by David
  1120. 33:37Hawkins, amazing, amazing author. Go
  1121. 33:39read all of his books. But, Dr. David
  1122. 33:41Hawkins was able to understand that
  1123. 33:43every single person is calibrating at a
  1124. 33:44specific level of consciousness. And
  1125. 33:46your goal, when it comes to writing
  1126. 33:47copy, kind of like a three-step process.
  1127. 33:49Number one is to always meet them where
  1128. 33:51they are. So, imagine if, you know,
  1129. 33:53you're an English speaker and somebody
  1130. 33:54comes up to you and just starts speaking
  1131. 33:55a completely foreign language. You're
  1132. 33:57going to have no idea what they're
  1133. 33:58saying, obviously. You're not going to
  1134. 33:59get anything. It's like they're just
  1135. 34:00speaking gibberish to you. Well, the
  1136. 34:02same is true with meeting them at their
  1137. 34:04level of awareness and meeting them at
  1138. 34:05the specific level of consciousness. And
  1139. 34:07it sounds a little woo-woo, but it
  1140. 34:08should be resonating at a specific
  1141. 34:09frequency that resonates with where the
  1142. 34:11customer is at right now. So, for
  1143. 34:13example, I believe that the best way to
  1144. 34:15write really, really good copy is meet
  1145. 34:17them where they're at, of course. But,
  1146. 34:18then second, like let's say you meet
  1147. 34:20them at, you know, the level of fear,
  1148. 34:22just as an example, right? Calibrating
  1149. 34:23at 100 on the energetic log. As soon as
  1150. 34:26you meet them there, your goal is to
  1151. 34:27raise their consciousness. So, you don't
  1152. 34:29want to just keep all of your copy in
  1153. 34:31their current state because if you do
  1154. 34:33that, then they're never going to feel
  1155. 34:34the aspiration to get to a higher state
  1156. 34:36of consciousness through solving their
  1157. 34:38problem through the use of your product.
  1158. 34:40So, your goal is to raise their level of
  1159. 34:42consciousness into something like
  1160. 34:43courage, neutrality, willingness, etc.
  1161. 34:45Of course, you're never going to get to
  1162. 34:46enlightenment, but you know, your goal
  1163. 34:48is to raise the level so that they can
  1164. 34:50feel what it would be like to actually
  1165. 34:52have this particular problem solved. If
  1166. 34:55you look at the level of fear as an
  1167. 34:56example, think of the survival niche.
  1168. 34:59What is kind of the core emotion that is
  1169. 35:00being dominated there? I would say not
  1170. 35:02the core emotion, the core level of
  1171. 35:04consciousness that's being dominated is
  1172. 35:05fear, right? People are afraid of
  1173. 35:07something that's going to happen in the
  1174. 35:08future. And so, that's why you can meet
  1175. 35:10them there, bring them to a higher
  1176. 35:12level, and then immediately you want to
  1177. 35:14bring them back down. Now, the reason
  1178. 35:16you do this, and I know this is going to
  1179. 35:17sound like kind of crazy, but this is
  1180. 35:19legitimately how I write copy and how I
  1181. 35:21think of advertising in general, is if
  1182. 35:23this is kind of their their level of
  1183. 35:24energy, their level of consciousness,
  1184. 35:26and this is time, what you want to do,
  1185. 35:28of course, is, you know, meet them where
  1186. 35:29they are, bring them up that high level,
  1187. 35:31and then bring them back down to their
  1188. 35:33original level. The reason that you
  1189. 35:34bring them back down is simply because
  1190. 35:36your goal ultimately is to create the
  1191. 35:38highest what I call emotional delta.
  1192. 35:40When you create a massive emotional gap
  1193. 35:43in somebody and they feel that, like
  1194. 35:45they feel where they are, where they
  1195. 35:46could have been, and then they're
  1196. 35:47brought back down to where they are,
  1197. 35:49that is when you can get people to take
  1198. 35:50action and ultimately buy your product
  1199. 35:52at an incredibly high rate. I think the
  1200. 35:54best example of this is, you know, a lot
  1201. 35:56of successful entrepreneurs, they got
  1202. 35:58really, really rich and then they lost
  1203. 36:00and then they got rich again. What hurt
  1204. 36:01worse? Was it the time that they were
  1205. 36:03initially broke, like for example, over
  1206. 36:05here, or was it the time that they were
  1207. 36:07broke for the second time? I believe
  1208. 36:09that it was the time that they were
  1209. 36:10broke for the second time. The reason
  1210. 36:11why is because they now know what it
  1211. 36:13feels like to be rich. Initially, they
  1212. 36:15didn't. They were just broke. But once
  1213. 36:17you know how good it can feel to have
  1214. 36:19your problem solved and you're still
  1215. 36:20brought back down to the base level,
  1216. 36:22that's when truly incredible things can
  1217. 36:24happen in your copy and in your
  1218. 36:25advertising. And so, this should all be
  1219. 36:27extracted from the research that you do.
  1220. 36:29I literally built these documents that I
  1221. 36:31think have now gone relatively viral in
  1222. 36:34my small little corner of the internet
  1223. 36:35called the foundational docs. And you
  1224. 36:37know, I call them the foundational docs
  1225. 36:39for a very specific reasons cuz it's
  1226. 36:40foundational for you to write really
  1227. 36:42good copy to have really good research.
  1228. 36:44And if you fill out this SOP, it's
  1229. 36:46literally copy and paste into AI to get
  1230. 36:48everything that you need to get deep
  1231. 36:50deep psychographic emotional research
  1232. 36:53out of your customers and it's all done
  1233. 36:55with AI and like under 30 minutes. If
  1234. 36:57you want to access to this, just DM me
  1235. 36:58the word foundation on Instagram. It's
  1236. 37:00@markbuildsbrands. Just DM me that word
  1237. 37:02and I'll send it over to you for free.
  1238. 37:03Now, the final piece on copy and
  1239. 37:05research that I want to say is research,
  1240. 37:07obviously, if you haven't gotten it by
  1241. 37:09now, it's pretty freaking important. But
  1242. 37:10most of the research that people do is
  1243. 37:12on these Reddit forums, it's on Facebook
  1244. 37:14groups, it's on, you know, TikTok, it's
  1245. 37:16on Instagram. But what about the best
  1246. 37:18source of research that you could ever
  1247. 37:20have? The best source of research is the
  1248. 37:22words directly from your own customers.
  1249. 37:25And the reality is, unfortunately, the
  1250. 37:28large majority of entrepreneurs,
  1251. 37:29especially in the e-commerce space,
  1252. 37:31they'll never speak with their
  1253. 37:32customers. You'll never understand the
  1254. 37:34true emotions and issues that they're
  1255. 37:36experiencing if you never talk to them.
  1256. 37:37This is the best research you could ever
  1257. 37:39possibly have. Like, [ __ ] a forum, you
  1258. 37:42have your customers. Speak to them.
  1259. 37:44That's kind of like the beauty of being
  1260. 37:45an entrepreneur, too. Like, you're
  1261. 37:46creating this thing, you're helping
  1262. 37:48people, you know, improve their lives.
  1263. 37:49Why would you not speak to them? You'll
  1264. 37:51be able to create better products, but
  1265. 37:52you'll also be able to create better
  1266. 37:53marketing. This is a true story. I have
  1267. 37:55a team of mine that is calling our
  1268. 37:57customers and I listen to many of the
  1269. 37:59transcripts all the time. And there was
  1270. 38:01this one very specific phrase that one
  1271. 38:03of my customers used to describe the
  1272. 38:05issue that they were having. And I took
  1273. 38:07that very very specific phrase, word for
  1274. 38:09word, I used it as a hook on one of my
  1275. 38:11ads and it ended up becoming one of the
  1276. 38:13most profitable ads in my entire ad
  1277. 38:14account. That is the value of getting
  1278. 38:16customer research. And this isn't like
  1279. 38:18public forum stuff, no. Speak to your
  1280. 38:20customers. You'll get some of the best
  1281. 38:22research, some of the best hook ideas,
  1282. 38:23some of the best inspiration you could
  1283. 38:24ever have. Now, speaking of hooks, let's
  1284. 38:27talk about hooks, okay? We all know that
  1285. 38:29the first of anything is the most
  1286. 38:31important in marketing. If you're
  1287. 38:33writing a video ad, the first 3 to 5
  1288. 38:35seconds is the most important, right?
  1289. 38:36What we call the hook. If you're writing
  1290. 38:38an email, it's going to be the subject
  1291. 38:40line. If you're writing a sales letter,
  1292. 38:41it's going to be the headline. Or if
  1293. 38:42you're making regular content, it's
  1294. 38:44going to be the hook as well. And
  1295. 38:46ultimately, this is where you should be
  1296. 38:48spending 90% of your time. Like
  1297. 38:50literally, 90% of your time. Because if
  1298. 38:52you don't get people hooked in
  1299. 38:54initially, you're never going to have
  1300. 38:55them. And so, there's a good framework
  1301. 38:57by legendary copywriter Chris Adod.
  1302. 38:59Shout out to this dude. He had a
  1303. 39:01framework within copy called the pig
  1304. 39:03framework, which is punch in the gut.
  1305. 39:04And he was using it specifically in the
  1306. 39:06eyes of opening a VSL with the lead or
  1307. 39:09with an ad, but I think this is actually
  1308. 39:11pretty true in marketing in general. A
  1309. 39:14lot of times, you do want to come with
  1310. 39:15that first sentence, that first piece of
  1311. 39:17copy, and your goal is to make it
  1312. 39:20[ __ ] punch. Like I would be
  1313. 39:21reviewing, you know, some of my
  1314. 39:22copywriters work back in the day. I
  1315. 39:24don't really have copywriters anymore
  1316. 39:26because of AI, but when I was, the piece
  1317. 39:28of feedback that I would always give is
  1318. 39:29like we just have to make this punch
  1319. 39:31harder. Like that was like word for word
  1320. 39:32what I'd repeat time and time again,
  1321. 39:34like we have to make this punch harder.
  1322. 39:35And it would always be like the subject
  1323. 39:37line or the hook or the headline. It has
  1324. 39:39to be so vivid, so visceral, so
  1325. 39:41emotional that it almost just feels like
  1326. 39:43a punch in the gut, either in a good way
  1327. 39:44or a bad way. And one of the biggest
  1328. 39:46mistakes I see people make when it comes
  1329. 39:48to we'll just call it the hook, but it's
  1330. 39:49like the first of anything, they try to
  1331. 39:51be clever. They try to impress people
  1332. 39:53with their copy. And one of my greatest
  1333. 39:55copy might writing mentors that I've had
  1334. 39:57in my journey, she would always repeat
  1335. 39:58the same thing, which is that you always
  1336. 40:00want to prioritize clarity over
  1337. 40:03cleverness. Clarity is going to win
  1338. 40:05every single day of the week. In fact,
  1339. 40:07that's literally a step in my copy
  1340. 40:09chiefing process is to make sure
  1341. 40:11everything is crystal [ __ ] clear. And
  1342. 40:13a lot of times, that can be as simple as
  1343. 40:15bring your copy down to a fifth grade
  1344. 40:17reading level. or if you want to be even
  1345. 40:19a little bit extra, you know, an
  1346. 40:20eighth-grade reading level. I probably
  1347. 40:22would not ever go beyond an eighth-grade
  1348. 40:23reading level. But, that's a step in the
  1349. 40:25process because, I mean, most people are
  1350. 40:27not able to understand copy that's
  1351. 40:30written at a higher level than eighth
  1352. 40:32grade. They're not even that they're
  1353. 40:32able to understand it. Maybe they can,
  1354. 40:34but it's not going to resonate with them
  1355. 40:35as deeply. You want to speak clearly.
  1356. 40:37You want to clarify your thoughts, your
  1357. 40:39copy as clearly as possible, not try to
  1358. 40:41impress them with these super cool
  1359. 40:42copywriting tactics and techniques. A
  1360. 40:44lot of times, copy that is doesn't sound
  1361. 40:47super impressive, but it's just so clear
  1362. 40:49and so direct converts better than the
  1363. 40:51super duper indirect clever direct
  1364. 40:53response on steroids kind of copy. And I
  1365. 40:56want to take a second to talk
  1366. 40:57specifically about, you know, the hook
  1367. 40:59of a video because I believe that the
  1368. 41:00hook is actually kind of made up of
  1369. 41:02three total parts. You have the copy of
  1370. 41:05the hook, which is the first like one or
  1371. 41:07two sentences that you're writing. You
  1372. 41:08have the audio, and then you also have,
  1373. 41:10of course, the video, which we'll call
  1374. 41:13the scroll stopper. So, the beautiful
  1375. 41:15part about this is the hook of an ad,
  1376. 41:17like if this entire thing is a hook,
  1377. 41:19there's actually three different
  1378. 41:20ingredients that you have to leverage.
  1379. 41:21If I had to give them weight, I would
  1380. 41:23say that roughly the copy is going to be
  1381. 41:25about 80%. The next 15% is going to be
  1382. 41:28the scroll stopper, and the final 5%
  1383. 41:30will be the audio. Maybe the audio's
  1384. 41:31like voiceover, maybe it's music, maybe
  1385. 41:33it's AI voiceover, real voiceover, you
  1386. 41:35get the idea. But, you should be using
  1387. 41:37all these together. You know, one of the
  1388. 41:39frameworks that I use for scroll
  1389. 41:40stoppers is to find the clips that you
  1390. 41:42would watch and you would have to
  1391. 41:44verbally say out loud, "What the [ __ ]
  1392. 41:46did I just watch?" Like, that's the
  1393. 41:48emotion, that's the phrase that you're
  1394. 41:49trying to get somebody to say if you saw
  1395. 41:51the hook. Like, if you went up to your
  1396. 41:52mom and you have your scroll stop on in
  1397. 41:54front of you, you're like, "Mom, check
  1398. 41:55this out." And she watches it and she's
  1399. 41:57like, "What the [ __ ] was that?" You're
  1400. 41:58like, "Perfect." And then you go throw
  1401. 42:00it in your ads manager because that's
  1402. 42:01going to be the best performing scroll
  1403. 42:02stopper that you have. That is what you
  1404. 42:04want out of a really, really good scroll
  1405. 42:06stopper. Now, the copy, of course, I
  1406. 42:07already kind of touched on, and the
  1407. 42:09audio, you know, simple voiceover
  1408. 42:10typically does the trick. If you want to
  1409. 42:11be a little extra, you know, go with AI.
  1410. 42:14You know, it's ultimately up to you, but
  1411. 42:15it's the smallest needle mover, so we
  1412. 42:16don't really need to talk about it too
  1413. 42:18much. So, you kind of know how hooks
  1414. 42:19work. You understand all the
  1415. 42:20ingredients. Now, where do you like get
  1416. 42:22inspiration from? I want to take a
  1417. 42:23second to actually talk about swiping.
  1418. 42:25If you don't know what swiping is, it's
  1419. 42:27simply the act of looking at copy that
  1420. 42:29is already performing and basically
  1421. 42:31rewriting it for your specific niche or
  1422. 42:34market or whatever. This is super duper
  1423. 42:36important, okay? Do not swipe blindly.
  1424. 42:39Do not swipe blindly. What I mean by
  1425. 42:41that is I very, very rarely will swipe
  1426. 42:45ads like one-to-one. When I'm swiping
  1427. 42:47ads, I'm not taking the copy. What I'm
  1428. 42:49doing is I'm actually swiping the
  1429. 42:51philosophy. All [ __ ] aside, I think
  1430. 42:54this is one of the reasons that I've
  1431. 42:55been able to be pretty good and and
  1432. 42:57successful with writing ads and writing
  1433. 42:59copy in general because if you swipe,
  1434. 43:01you never [ __ ] learn anything. Like
  1435. 43:02you're just taking something that's
  1436. 43:03already working, you change a few words,
  1437. 43:05like boom, you're good. Don't get me
  1438. 43:06wrong, it can work a little bit, but
  1439. 43:08what you should really be doing to learn
  1440. 43:10how to run really, really good ads and
  1441. 43:12you're like you're in this for the long
  1442. 43:13term. You're like, I want to be a
  1443. 43:14phenomenal marketer. I just want to be
  1444. 43:15an absolute savage. Like I can write
  1445. 43:17anything and make money. If that's you,
  1446. 43:19swipe philosophy. And what I mean by
  1447. 43:21that, when you're looking at an ad, what
  1448. 43:22you're really trying to break it down to
  1449. 43:24is a frameworks of why it was
  1450. 43:26successful, not the copy itself. Because
  1451. 43:28if you swipe the philosophy, you can
  1452. 43:30extract a framework that you can apply
  1453. 43:32to anything. You can apply that to any
  1454. 43:34ad, any niche. It basically just goes in
  1455. 43:36your massive like memory bank. That's
  1456. 43:38supposed to be a brain. Uh it's into
  1457. 43:40your brain in massive memory bank of
  1458. 43:42things that can help you write really,
  1459. 43:43really good ads in the future. And if
  1460. 43:45you're really a G, you can throw all
  1461. 43:46those philosophies and all of those
  1462. 43:48frameworks into AI and you'll just be
  1463. 43:51able to create like millions of
  1464. 43:53different variations that are all really
  1465. 43:54good without having to rely on just like
  1466. 43:56directly copying one-to-one what
  1467. 43:58somebody else is doing. So, if you can
  1468. 44:00understand the underlying psychological
  1469. 44:02principles that are really at play, you
  1470. 44:04basically develop principles first
  1471. 44:06thinking, which means you can apply it
  1472. 44:07to anything. If you just swipe, it's
  1473. 44:09like basically like the equivalent of
  1474. 44:10like building a pump and dump drop
  1475. 44:12shipping store. Like you make a little
  1476. 44:14bit of profit, and then you end up
  1477. 44:15losing most of it, and then you end up
  1478. 44:16chasing the next shiny object versus
  1479. 44:18building a brand, where you have
  1480. 44:19something long-term that pays you every
  1481. 44:21single month. It's much more consistent.
  1482. 44:22You're not reliant on like hopping
  1483. 44:24trends. If you swipe, it's going to work
  1484. 44:26until it doesn't. Then what? Then you
  1485. 44:28have to move on and try to swipe the
  1486. 44:29next thing again and again and again.
  1487. 44:30Learn how to think, okay? Build your own
  1488. 44:33mental pipeline of philosophies that
  1489. 44:35you've attracted from ads, because
  1490. 44:36you'll get better at diagnosing your
  1491. 44:38own, but you'll also just write better
  1492. 44:39copy long-term. Next, let's say you got
  1493. 44:41your copy, you got your creatives made.
  1494. 44:43I want to talk about how you can
  1495. 44:45maximize your chance of success through
  1496. 44:47removing unknown variables. So, anytime
  1497. 44:49that you launch something new, whether
  1498. 44:50that's a new business, new product, new
  1499. 44:51ad, whatever, there's all these
  1500. 44:53unknowns. There's all these variables
  1501. 44:54that are affecting how profitable that
  1502. 44:56ad is going to be. Among them, you have
  1503. 44:58something like the media buying.
  1504. 45:00Basically, how are you actually
  1505. 45:01launching your ads? Yes, that does
  1506. 45:03affect how profitable it's going to be.
  1507. 45:04You have the creative itself, which is
  1508. 45:06going to be, you know, the biggest
  1509. 45:08variable of all, and ironically the one
  1510. 45:09that you can't change. You have the copy
  1511. 45:11associated with that creative. You have
  1512. 45:13the product that you're actually
  1513. 45:15selling. You have the entire market. You
  1514. 45:17have the Facebook algorithm. You know,
  1515. 45:19maybe it's just a poor day on the algo,
  1516. 45:22and everybody is experiencing it, and
  1517. 45:23that could be the reason that an ad ends
  1518. 45:25up not being successful. This is a small
  1519. 45:27list of six things that I have on my
  1520. 45:28screen right now, guys. I could probably
  1521. 45:30jot down like 30 or 40 different
  1522. 45:32variables. The reason why I'm talking
  1523. 45:34about this is because you want to remove
  1524. 45:35everything that's potentially in your
  1525. 45:37way of getting results and minimize the
  1526. 45:39variables that are going to be affecting
  1527. 45:41your success. The one that I see most
  1528. 45:43commonly violated is people will try to
  1529. 45:46launch products with a product that is
  1530. 45:47not even proven to sell. Like especially
  1531. 45:49in early stage e-com, this was super
  1532. 45:52duper big. You know, finding the unicorn
  1533. 45:54winning product. Nobody else has sold it
  1534. 45:56before. You're the first one. As soon as
  1535. 45:57you start pushing traffic to it, you are
  1536. 45:59printing. Well, the only problem with
  1537. 46:02that is amongst all the other variables,
  1538. 46:04your ads, your media buying, your copy,
  1539. 46:06your hook, your scroll stopper, like
  1540. 46:08everything that goes into that ad
  1541. 46:10actually being successful, now you added
  1542. 46:11an additional one, which you don't know
  1543. 46:13if anybody actually wants your [ __ ]
  1544. 46:15product, all right? So, after all that
  1545. 46:17work that you just did, you decided to
  1546. 46:19sell something that wasn't proven. Why?
  1547. 46:21There's already so many other things you
  1548. 46:22have to worry about. Again, this is a
  1549. 46:24non-exhaustive list. There's so many
  1550. 46:26things that can be added here, and
  1551. 46:28you're going to add more variables like
  1552. 46:30testing something that isn't proven?
  1553. 46:32Really? I'll tell you right now, the
  1554. 46:33most successful marketers that I know,
  1555. 46:35they're like feening for proven market.
  1556. 46:38They want to go into where people are
  1557. 46:39already buying [ __ ] And if you try to
  1558. 46:42be this unicorn selling a product that's
  1559. 46:44never been sold before, maybe you make
  1560. 46:46it, you know, maybe you end up being
  1561. 46:47massively successful and you can come
  1562. 46:48back and slap me in the face if you want
  1563. 46:50to, but for the majority of people,
  1564. 46:51there's no need, there's no reason.
  1565. 46:53There's already so much [ __ ] you have to
  1566. 46:55deal with. Don't add additional
  1567. 46:56variables, remove them all, remove every
  1568. 46:58unknown variable that's affecting your
  1569. 47:00success, okay? Success is not a game of
  1570. 47:02addition, it's a game of subtraction.
  1571. 47:04Remove all the [ __ ] and the
  1572. 47:05successful find you. Now, the last piece
  1573. 47:07until we move on to the economics is
  1574. 47:09going to be the concept of ugly ads
  1575. 47:11equals pretty profits. Aesthetics in the
  1576. 47:14eyes of marketing is incredibly [ __ ]
  1577. 47:16overrated, especially when it comes to
  1578. 47:18paid advertising. What looks best most
  1579. 47:21often is not what converts, and that's
  1580. 47:22another reason why most content creators
  1581. 47:24are broke is because they try to make
  1582. 47:25their ads look like [ __ ] cinematic
  1583. 47:28masterpieces. And you know what? Every
  1584. 47:30once in a while, they do actually work,
  1585. 47:32but as I said previously, the most
  1586. 47:33successful ads that I have ever written
  1587. 47:36in my entire life look like [ __ ] These
  1588. 47:39are the ones that spend the most that
  1589. 47:40are the most profitable, simply because
  1590. 47:42they're clear. Like, it's not that like
  1591. 47:44there's a direct proportion between like
  1592. 47:46how ugly an ad is and how much money
  1593. 47:49that ad is going to make you. No, it's
  1594. 47:50more so stop optimizing for aesthetics,
  1595. 47:52start optimizing for clarity, as I said
  1596. 47:55before. That's really the secret of the
  1597. 47:56find behind these ugly ads. Maybe they
  1598. 47:58don't look great, but god damn is the
  1599. 47:59copy good. But god damn is it [ __ ]
  1600. 48:02clear what they're trying to get across.
  1601. 48:04All right, moving on to one of my
  1602. 48:05favorite pieces, part three is going to
  1603. 48:07be all about economics. Now, I've
  1604. 48:09actually never heard the economics of a
  1605. 48:11business really explained in this way,
  1606. 48:12but I actually think economics can be
  1607. 48:14broken down into three main sectors.
  1608. 48:16First, you have the economics of your
  1609. 48:18ads. I'm going to be using paid
  1610. 48:20advertising mostly as an example here,
  1611. 48:21by the way. You have the economics of
  1612. 48:23the ads themselves, you have the
  1613. 48:24economics of your funnel, and lastly,
  1614. 48:26you have the economics of your back end.
  1615. 48:28Which for simplicity purposes, we'll
  1616. 48:30basically say everything that happens
  1617. 48:31after you acquire that first customer,
  1618. 48:33that first customer purchase. So, let's
  1619. 48:35first talk about the economics of your
  1620. 48:37ads. This is going to be all of your
  1621. 48:39soft metrics, right? This is going to be
  1622. 48:40your ad spend, this is going to be your
  1623. 48:42CPMs, which is your cost to reach a
  1624. 48:45thousand impressions, this is going to
  1625. 48:46be your CPC, this is going to be your
  1626. 48:48CTR. It's going to be all the soft
  1627. 48:50metrics that you want to add on here.
  1628. 48:51Now, your goal, if I had to put it into
  1629. 48:53one sentence, is to get the lowest cost
  1630. 48:56of traffic, the cheapest of traffic cost
  1631. 48:58that you possibly can with the highest
  1632. 49:00quality. All right, I can't just say you
  1633. 49:02want to have the cheapest traffic known
  1634. 49:04to man, because if you do, you're just
  1635. 49:05going to start running ads in India and
  1636. 49:07see that you have 50 cent CPMs and your
  1637. 49:09CPC doesn't even register, it's below
  1638. 49:11one cent, and nobody [ __ ] buys from
  1639. 49:13you. So, it's not only about how much
  1640. 49:15inexpensive the traffic is, it's also
  1641. 49:16about how qualified that traffic is for
  1642. 49:19your offer. I don't care if you're doing
  1643. 49:20e-com, affiliate, high ticket, this is
  1644. 49:22true regardless. And then, you have the
  1645. 49:25economics of your funnel. And your goal
  1646. 49:27here ultimately is, once again, a
  1647. 49:29two-sided coin. Your goal is to get the
  1648. 49:31highest number of conversions, which
  1649. 49:33we'll just say is sales in this case,
  1650. 49:35with the highest average order value per
  1651. 49:38sale. Now, this is kind of where it gets
  1652. 49:40into debatable territory, cuz some
  1653. 49:42people say that it's not good to have a
  1654. 49:43high AOV and you should instead rely on
  1655. 49:45the LTV play of multiple, you know,
  1656. 49:47rebills and purchases on the back end.
  1657. 49:48But, me personally, I think you can have
  1658. 49:50both. I think that you can have high AOV
  1659. 49:52front end and still have really solid
  1660. 49:54repeat purchase rate and LTV. But, long
  1661. 49:56story short, the goal of your funnel is
  1662. 49:57to convert as many people as humanly
  1663. 49:59possible at the highest amount and
  1664. 50:01extract as much cash as possible that
  1665. 50:03you can from each customer that comes
  1666. 50:05through, which is your AOV, your average
  1667. 50:07order value. There's another legendary
  1668. 50:09marketer I want to shout out, Dan
  1669. 50:10Kennedy, who said, "The guy that can
  1670. 50:12spend the most to acquire a customer
  1671. 50:15wins." And I'll tell you something, it's
  1672. 50:16a lot easier to be able to spend more on
  1673. 50:19ads if you collect more money from every
  1674. 50:21customer than everybody else, cuz that
  1675. 50:23means you have more cash, more profit at
  1676. 50:25the end of the day to reinvest back into
  1677. 50:27your ad. That means that you can scale
  1678. 50:29faster, you can scale with better
  1679. 50:30margins, because look, I'll give you a
  1680. 50:32really quick example. Let's say that me
  1681. 50:34and my competitor both are selling the
  1682. 50:36same product, right? This is me and this
  1683. 50:38is my competitor. We're both paying $50
  1684. 50:41to acquire a customer, right? That is
  1685. 50:43our CAC, right? Our customer acquisition
  1686. 50:45cost. The only difference is every
  1687. 50:48customer that he buys is worth let's say
  1688. 50:50$80. And every customer that I buy, I'll
  1689. 50:52be very conservative here, is worth
  1690. 50:54$100. The only difference here is a
  1691. 50:57measly $20 in margin, right? Doesn't
  1692. 50:59really seem like a whole lot, but what
  1693. 51:01this really means is I can spend an
  1694. 51:04additional $20 to acquire a customer.
  1695. 51:06And so, in the eyes of Facebook, in the
  1696. 51:09eyes of, you know, advertising
  1697. 51:10algorithms, if I have an additional $20
  1698. 51:13to spend, what that really means is
  1699. 51:15instead of having to spend $50, I can
  1700. 51:17now spend up to $70 to acquire a
  1701. 51:19customer, whereas my competitor can only
  1702. 51:20spend 50. So, I can outbid my
  1703. 51:23competitors because I can afford to
  1704. 51:26spend more to acquire a single customer.
  1705. 51:27Because acquiring a customer is the hard
  1706. 51:29part. Once you have a customer, you can
  1707. 51:31resell them, you have their email, you
  1708. 51:33have their phone number, you have their
  1709. 51:33data, you can do whatever you want with
  1710. 51:35this customer at this point. Like, the
  1711. 51:36hard work is done, the customer has been
  1712. 51:38acquired. And as I said, the business I
  1713. 51:40can spend the most to acquire a customer
  1714. 51:42is the one that will win. So, if you
  1715. 51:44maximize your average order value, that
  1716. 51:46by definition means, as long as your
  1717. 51:48margins are in place that you can spend
  1718. 51:49more to acquire each additional
  1719. 51:51consecutive customer, substantially more
  1720. 51:53than your competitors, you're going to
  1721. 51:54destroy your competition cuz you can
  1722. 51:55afford more to acquire a customer. So,
  1723. 51:57that is your funnel economics. And then
  1724. 51:59lastly, we have your back-end economics,
  1725. 52:01which as I said is essentially
  1726. 52:02everything that happens after that first
  1727. 52:05initial visit through the funnel is
  1728. 52:06complete. This is where you see your
  1729. 52:08repeat purchase rate. This is where a
  1730. 52:10lot of people build subscriptions into
  1731. 52:11their business. They build MRR, ARR, all
  1732. 52:14that good stuff. The goal here is very,
  1733. 52:16very simple, which instead of having two
  1734. 52:18variables, there's only one. Your goal
  1735. 52:19is to maximize your LTV, right? Your
  1736. 52:21customer lifetime value. That is the
  1737. 52:23total amount of cash that you collect
  1738. 52:26from each customer on average. So,
  1739. 52:28somebody buys a $100 product from you
  1740. 52:30once, that means your AOV is 100, but
  1741. 52:32your LTV is also 100. But, maybe in, you
  1742. 52:36know, two or three months, your customer
  1743. 52:37comes back and buys that same $100
  1744. 52:39product once again. Now, the LTV is 200,
  1745. 52:42but your AOV is still at 100. So, just
  1746. 52:45so you understand what LTV actually is.
  1747. 52:46That's pretty simple, but that's what it
  1748. 52:48is. LTV is where the real money is. If
  1749. 52:50you look at any business that has been
  1750. 52:51able to scale very successfully, very
  1751. 52:53profitably, even go public, it's simply
  1752. 52:55because they have mastered LTV. They
  1753. 52:57mastered retention. They've mastered the
  1754. 52:59repeat purchase rate. If we look in the
  1755. 53:01eyes of the low-ticket world, which
  1756. 53:02would be like e-com, low-ticket info,
  1757. 53:04you know, low-ticket SaaS as an example,
  1758. 53:06the play there is typically
  1759. 53:08subscriptions. So, acquiring a customer
  1760. 53:10not just has a one-time purchase, but
  1761. 53:11having them rebuild every 30, 60, 90
  1762. 53:13days. Supplement companies most recently
  1763. 53:15have switched to this model. Like, if
  1764. 53:17you go look at a big supplement company
  1765. 53:19and you go to their actual website, like
  1766. 53:20not on Amazon, you go to their website,
  1767. 53:22most of them are going to try to be
  1768. 53:23forcing you into a subscription because
  1769. 53:26they know their numbers, they know their
  1770. 53:27economics, and they want to have
  1771. 53:28customers coming back from them and
  1772. 53:30buying repeatedly cuz they know customer
  1773. 53:32acquisition costs are only going to
  1774. 53:34increase. Like, a lot of people think
  1775. 53:35that when you start to scale a business,
  1776. 53:37start to scale up your ad spend, that
  1777. 53:38everything gets easier, everything gets
  1778. 53:40worse. Your customer acquisition cost
  1779. 53:41goes up, you have to inject more
  1780. 53:43creatives into the account. It becomes
  1781. 53:45more difficult, or maybe not more
  1782. 53:47difficult. It's just the challenges
  1783. 53:48become different is probably a better
  1784. 53:49way to put it. Now, on the other hand,
  1785. 53:51if you're in like a high-ticket
  1786. 53:52business, for example, the way that you
  1787. 53:54would build your LTV is typically
  1788. 53:56through current, you know, high-ticket
  1789. 53:57subscriptions. It's a little bit more
  1790. 53:59rare, but often times it's through
  1791. 54:00ascensions. If you have If you have like
  1792. 54:02a 5K program that you're selling, and as
  1793. 54:04soon as people, you know, finish like a
  1794. 54:053-month 5K program, then they're going
  1795. 54:07to be upsold into a 10K program, right?
  1796. 54:10That's how a lot of high-ticket
  1797. 54:11businesses are going to be functioning
  1798. 54:12there. And so, if you piece all of this
  1799. 54:14together, what is really the full goal
  1800. 54:16with all of this with the entire
  1801. 54:17economics playbook? Well, if we piece it
  1802. 54:19together one by one, the first thing
  1803. 54:21that you want to do on the ad side, of
  1804. 54:22course, is have cheap, qualified
  1805. 54:24traffic. Then, once you push them
  1806. 54:25through your funnel, of course, you want
  1807. 54:26to have max conversions that you
  1808. 54:28possibly can at the highest average
  1809. 54:30order value that you possibly can. And
  1810. 54:32then, of course, number three is going
  1811. 54:34to be the back end, which is going to be
  1812. 54:35increasing your LTV through
  1813. 54:37subscription, through ascension,
  1814. 54:38whatever is applicable to you. Now, if
  1815. 54:40we zoom out and we put all these pieces
  1816. 54:42together, what you're really aiming to
  1817. 54:43do is have a really high ratio of LTV to
  1818. 54:47CAC, right? Cuz that's how much money
  1819. 54:49you're collecting from each customer in
  1820. 54:51the history of your business compared to
  1821. 54:53how much you're spending to acquire said
  1822. 54:54customer. This is like one of the most
  1823. 54:57basic baseline measurements of how
  1824. 55:00healthy your business really is. And
  1825. 55:01then, don't get me wrong, this depends a
  1826. 55:03lot on your business. Like high-ticket
  1827. 55:05has completely different KPIs from like
  1828. 55:06e-com or affiliate or anything like
  1829. 55:09that. So, I would say as a bare minimum,
  1830. 55:11you want to be looking at a 3:1 ratio.
  1831. 55:13If you're running high-ticket, I'd shoot
  1832. 55:15closer for like a 7:10, 10:1 ratio LTV
  1833. 55:18to CAC. But, that means that if I have
  1834. 55:20an LTV on average of $300, that I
  1835. 55:23shouldn't be spending more than $100 to
  1836. 55:26acquire each customer, right? Pretty
  1837. 55:27straightforward. Now, if you can't tell
  1838. 55:30this far into this section, data is
  1839. 55:32king. It is incredibly, incredibly
  1840. 55:34important to know your numbers like the
  1841. 55:35back of your hand, all right, I went
  1842. 55:37over some pretty elementary numbers in
  1843. 55:39this particular video because many of
  1844. 55:40you guys may not even have a business,
  1845. 55:42you know, but the numbers go incredibly
  1846. 55:44deep and you need to have perfect
  1847. 55:46perfect 20/20 clarity on all of your
  1848. 55:49numbers in your business. I know that
  1849. 55:50sounds like a no-brainer, but most of
  1850. 55:52you aren't doing it. The real issue that
  1851. 55:54I see here for the majority of people,
  1852. 55:56most marketers, most entrepreneurs are
  1853. 55:57completely flying blind in the ad
  1854. 55:59account because they think that all the
  1855. 56:01data in the ad account is 100% correct,
  1856. 56:04which post iOS 14 is just not true. A
  1857. 56:06lot of times there's either under
  1858. 56:08reporting, over reporting, under
  1859. 56:10attribution, over attribution of
  1860. 56:12anywhere from like on the low side 5 to
  1861. 56:1410% on the high side to like 30 to 50%.
  1862. 56:17Even a new iOS update that came out this
  1863. 56:19year adjusted the landing page views and
  1864. 56:21the content views so that it was
  1865. 56:23completely inaccurate. That's why having
  1866. 56:25attribution tools such as Triple Whale,
  1867. 56:27you know, for e-com, Highrise, Wicked
  1868. 56:28Reports, WeTrack, having something where
  1869. 56:31you can actually know with 100%
  1870. 56:32certainty customer actually bought
  1871. 56:34something here is really really
  1872. 56:35important, or else guess what's going to
  1873. 56:36happen? You're going to start to
  1874. 56:38optimize in your ad account around
  1875. 56:40shitty ads, ads that are actually losing
  1876. 56:42you money. And you're going to tell
  1877. 56:42Facebook, "Hey, go spend on all those
  1878. 56:45shitty ads." Of course, you're not going
  1879. 56:46to do well. You're not going to be
  1880. 56:47making a lot of money. So, having
  1881. 56:48clarity on your data is incredibly
  1882. 56:50important. I'm psychotic about my data.
  1883. 56:51Anybody that knows me knows that's
  1884. 56:53[ __ ] true. Now, you know how I said
  1885. 56:55when it comes to scaling everything gets
  1886. 56:57worse. So, the way that I like to
  1887. 56:59explain that is the concept of entropy,
  1888. 57:01which I believe is actually originally a
  1889. 57:03concept from physics and basically the
  1890. 57:06understanding that the universe is
  1891. 57:08always moving away from order and
  1892. 57:10towards chaos. And I think with business
  1893. 57:12it's the exact same thing. And the only
  1894. 57:14thing that actually slows down the rate
  1895. 57:16of entropy is literally just injecting
  1896. 57:19energy into the system. And what I mean
  1897. 57:21by that is the only way for you to scale
  1898. 57:24and not have everything break
  1899. 57:25simultaneously is for you to work harder
  1900. 57:28or work smarter. And I say smarter as
  1901. 57:31well because injecting energy, you only
  1902. 57:32have so many hours in the day. Right,
  1903. 57:34eventually if you start scaling your
  1904. 57:35business like seven-figure months to
  1905. 57:37eight-figure months, you won't be able
  1906. 57:38to do everything yourself. So, either
  1907. 57:40using AI systems, which is a form of
  1908. 57:42energy, or hiring new team members,
  1909. 57:44human capital, that's also a form of
  1910. 57:46energy. It's the only way to make sure
  1911. 57:48that things don't break as you scale. I
  1912. 57:50know it sounds like super duper
  1913. 57:52fundamental like obviously, I make more
  1914. 57:53money, I need to like hire people and
  1915. 57:55build systems, blah blah blah. But
  1916. 57:56again, most people don't do it. They
  1917. 57:58just like sit back, click buttons and
  1918. 58:00expect things to stay the same forever.
  1919. 58:01Everything dies at some point, right?
  1920. 58:03What comes up must come down. Maybe
  1921. 58:05that's a winning ad that you put all of
  1922. 58:07your, you know, ad budget in it, dies,
  1923. 58:09now you have nothing. You have nothing
  1924. 58:10behind it. Maybe it's a winning copy,
  1925. 58:12winning offer, winning whatever.
  1926. 58:14Everything that is created and has life
  1927. 58:16eventually is going to die. This is a
  1928. 58:18fundamental law of the universe. This
  1929. 58:20entropy is quite literally the second
  1930. 58:22law of thermodynamics. Things in an open
  1931. 58:24system always move towards disorder,
  1932. 58:27towards chaos. And this is also why it's
  1933. 58:30super duper helpful to have business
  1934. 58:31partners that are always able to find
  1935. 58:33things and see things that you can't.
  1936. 58:35You can't see everything in your
  1937. 58:36business. And so, if you have somebody
  1938. 58:37that's always able to like poke holes in
  1939. 58:39what you're doing, that's actually a
  1940. 58:40really, really good thing because
  1941. 58:42they're helping you. They're doing you a
  1942. 58:43favor by finding things that are an
  1943. 58:45issue before they completely blow up in
  1944. 58:46your face. That's one of those instances
  1945. 58:48of injecting energy into the system. So,
  1946. 58:50like I said, in order to inject energy,
  1947. 58:53there's really kind of three ways to do
  1948. 58:54it. The first is just to do it yourself,
  1949. 58:57to work more [ __ ] hours in a day,
  1950. 58:59which again, you only have so many.
  1951. 59:00Number two is to recruit human capital
  1952. 59:03in the form of of team members, of
  1953. 59:05employees. And then number three is in
  1954. 59:06the form of systems and AI. That's quite
  1955. 59:09literally all that you can do to make
  1956. 59:10sure that when you have things working,
  1957. 59:12start to scale, that everything doesn't
  1958. 59:13fall apart at the same [ __ ] time.
  1959. 59:15Again, speaking from experience here.
  1960. 59:16One of the most important sections in
  1961. 59:18this data, you know, economics portion
  1962. 59:20of this video is going to be your
  1963. 59:22ability to identify constraints. Now,
  1964. 59:25whenever you start scaling your
  1965. 59:26business, whether that's with paid ads,
  1966. 59:28with organic marketing, you want to
  1967. 59:30picture your business basically as a
  1968. 59:32hose. And we all know, these hose ain't
  1969. 59:34loyal. No, seriously, your hose looks a
  1970. 59:37little something like this. There's
  1971. 59:38these tiny little little bends, little
  1972. 59:40creeks in the hose. And those, you know,
  1973. 59:43little creeks are constraints. And if
  1974. 59:45you want the hose to flow freely, where
  1975. 59:48this is all the sales and all the
  1976. 59:49customers, and this is all of your lead
  1977. 59:51flow and all your traffic, then you have
  1978. 59:52to get really [ __ ] good at
  1979. 59:54identifying the constraints and solving
  1980. 59:56them. Once again, this sounds super
  1981. 59:58duper fundamental, but let me give you a
  1982. 59:59really good example, okay? Every single
  1983. 1:00:01Monday inside of BBA, I have people that
  1984. 1:00:04are asking me about the numbers in the
  1985. 1:00:05business. I literally have them fill out
  1986. 1:00:06a form with all of their numbers, so I
  1987. 1:00:08can give them the best advice possible.
  1988. 1:00:10And one of the things that I see very
  1989. 1:00:12commonly is all of the ad metrics look
  1990. 1:00:14fantastic, right? When we looked at the
  1991. 1:00:16economic section above, CPC was great,
  1992. 1:00:18CPM's fantastic, CTR phenomenal. But
  1993. 1:00:22then we look at the funnel, we look at
  1994. 1:00:23the conversion rate, we see it's very
  1995. 1:00:25low. That's not a constraint. That is an
  1996. 1:00:27indicator of a constraint. Because what
  1997. 1:00:29does a conversion rate tell you?
  1998. 1:00:31Conversion rate simply tells you that
  1999. 1:00:32people are getting to your funnel and
  2000. 1:00:34they're not buying. It doesn't tell you
  2001. 1:00:35why. So, that's why going really, really
  2002. 1:00:37deep in understanding the drop-off from
  2003. 1:00:39one funnel step to another and having
  2004. 1:00:40KPIs for all of them is so important.
  2005. 1:00:43You know, in one example, I saw that the
  2006. 1:00:45drop-off specifically, let's say like on
  2007. 1:00:47the checkout page of, you know, one of
  2008. 1:00:49my students' funnels, was super, super
  2009. 1:00:51high. Like people were dropping off like
  2010. 1:00:52crazy. Guess what had happened? This
  2011. 1:00:54dude didn't have his payment processor
  2012. 1:00:55set up. That's [ __ ] crazy. Honestly,
  2013. 1:00:57that should be its own section. Before
  2014. 1:00:58you launch anything, try to break it.
  2015. 1:01:00Like that that that is such an important
  2016. 1:01:03rule. Like you shouldn't just QC things,
  2017. 1:01:05which is like quality control. You
  2018. 1:01:06shouldn't just QC it. Try to [ __ ]
  2019. 1:01:08break it before you launch it, because
  2020. 1:01:10if you don't, your customers will. Like
  2021. 1:01:11the amount of people that are launching
  2022. 1:01:12funnels and they're not even testing
  2023. 1:01:14them themselves is honestly insane. But
  2024. 1:01:16anyways, back to the point. You have to
  2025. 1:01:17get really [ __ ] good at identifying
  2026. 1:01:19constraints. Maybe it's an ad side
  2027. 1:01:21constraint like having a super elevated
  2028. 1:01:23CPC. Maybe it's a funnel constraint,
  2029. 1:01:25like having a super elevated DVR. Maybe
  2030. 1:01:28it is, you know, a a back end issue
  2031. 1:01:30where your LTV is equal to your AOV,
  2032. 1:01:33which means your repeat purchase rate is
  2033. 1:01:35exactly zero. If you zoom out 30,000 ft
  2034. 1:01:38view and you have full clarity on all
  2035. 1:01:39your numbers, all your metrics, then the
  2036. 1:01:41data should be telling you exactly what
  2037. 1:01:43to do. You just identify the constraint,
  2038. 1:01:45you focus on that, and then all of a
  2039. 1:01:47sudden the water starts flowing freely
  2040. 1:01:49through the hose and you start making a
  2041. 1:01:50lot of money. And the last piece here
  2042. 1:01:52before we move on to final section of
  2043. 1:01:54this video is going to be about
  2044. 1:01:55intuition. Most of you cons don't have
  2045. 1:01:58it. And I'm actually talking to myself
  2046. 1:02:00as well. I don't think that you have
  2047. 1:02:02intuition as a marketer. I know that
  2048. 1:02:04sounds crazy, but hear me out. I think
  2049. 1:02:07what you actually have accumulated, if
  2050. 1:02:08like for example, I put in my 10,000
  2051. 1:02:10hours. I think I'm closer to 20,000
  2052. 1:02:12hours in general marketing land in terms
  2053. 1:02:14of how much I've worked over the years.
  2054. 1:02:16What people call intuition is literally
  2055. 1:02:18just a pattern of testing so many things
  2056. 1:02:21and observing so much data over so many
  2057. 1:02:24years. Like I can look at an ad and
  2058. 1:02:26generally feel that it's going to do
  2059. 1:02:28good or it's going to do bad. But that's
  2060. 1:02:30not because I have intuition. That's
  2061. 1:02:31because I've put in so many [ __ ]
  2062. 1:02:34hours, so many data points connected in
  2063. 1:02:36my brain that I can say, yes, I have
  2064. 1:02:37confidence in that or no, I don't have
  2065. 1:02:39confidence in that, it's probably not
  2066. 1:02:40going to work. And guess what? Even
  2067. 1:02:41then, after all this all these [ __ ]
  2068. 1:02:43years that I've worked, guess what? I'm
  2069. 1:02:45still [ __ ] still wrong all the
  2070. 1:02:47[ __ ] time. This would be the
  2071. 1:02:49thumbnail of the video. I'm still
  2072. 1:02:50[ __ ] wrong. And that's after all the
  2073. 1:02:52hours that I've put in. And people way
  2074. 1:02:53smarter than me that have 50,000 hours,
  2075. 1:02:55guess what? They're also wrong all the
  2076. 1:02:57time, too. So, there's a lot of
  2077. 1:02:59beginners that I see, they start to
  2078. 1:03:00like, you know, research a new product
  2079. 1:03:02that they want to test. They're like,
  2080. 1:03:03oh, I think this one's going to do
  2081. 1:03:04really good. I can just feel it. I'm
  2082. 1:03:05like, you can't feel [ __ ] man. You have
  2083. 1:03:07no idea all the variables that go into
  2084. 1:03:10play. What you're feeling is a cognitive
  2085. 1:03:12bias convincing you that you actually
  2086. 1:03:15think that something's that's work when
  2087. 1:03:16you have nothing to really back that.
  2088. 1:03:18That's not intuition, that's you trying
  2089. 1:03:20to get lucky. It's different. I do
  2090. 1:03:21believe in intuition, like separate from
  2091. 1:03:23marketing. I believe it's like a real
  2092. 1:03:24thing and I believe it can be improved
  2093. 1:03:26upon, but in regards to marketing and
  2094. 1:03:28like, "Oh, I just have intuition that
  2095. 1:03:29this is going to work." No.
  2096. 1:03:31>> [laughter]
  2097. 1:03:31>> What you have is you've accumulated a
  2098. 1:03:33[ __ ] ton of data in your brain and
  2099. 1:03:34you're using that to inform whether
  2100. 1:03:36something is going to be successful.
  2101. 1:03:37That's not intuition. And this is just
  2102. 1:03:39especially, especially true with
  2103. 1:03:41beginners. I don't know why you guys
  2104. 1:03:43feel entitled to like knowing [ __ ]
  2105. 1:03:45before you've done [ __ ] It's It's It'll
  2106. 1:03:47never make sense to me. Get your 10,000
  2107. 1:03:49hours first and then we can have a
  2108. 1:03:51conversation about intuition. All right,
  2109. 1:03:52and here we are, the final portion of
  2110. 1:03:54the video about what I call the
  2111. 1:03:56multiplier. If I was making this video 5
  2112. 1:03:58years ago, this wouldn't even be a
  2113. 1:04:00section of the video, but this is so
  2114. 1:04:01important that I had to make it its own
  2115. 1:04:03section. And if you haven't kind of
  2116. 1:04:05figured out what the multiplier is by
  2117. 1:04:07now, I'll tell you. Everything that I've
  2118. 1:04:08walked you through so far up until this
  2119. 1:04:10point in the video, from how to think to
  2120. 1:04:13the creative, to the math and the
  2121. 1:04:15economics, it's all multiplied by one
  2122. 1:04:18very specific thing, which of course is
  2123. 1:04:20AI. The only issue here is most people,
  2124. 1:04:23probably including you watching this
  2125. 1:04:24video, you view AI in the wrong way. You
  2126. 1:04:26just view it as a way for you to like
  2127. 1:04:28make more creatives or to like write
  2128. 1:04:30more copy. And yes, it can do those
  2129. 1:04:32things and it can do those things
  2130. 1:04:33really, really well if you know how to
  2131. 1:04:35use it. But AI touches everything, every
  2132. 1:04:39single metric that I was showing you
  2133. 1:04:41guys up above in the economic section,
  2134. 1:04:43AI can either optimize or improve in
  2135. 1:04:46some way every single little metric
  2136. 1:04:49there. And by the way, this isn't
  2137. 1:04:50something that's going to be like, "Oh,
  2138. 1:04:52AI is going to totally change things."
  2139. 1:04:53It is changing things. It is here and
  2140. 1:04:56it's only going to get [ __ ] crazier.
  2141. 1:04:58So, if you're not obsessing about AI
  2142. 1:05:00now, you're [ __ ] late and you need to
  2143. 1:05:02catch up. Like you need to have a
  2144. 1:05:03legitimate sense of urgency. Every day I
  2145. 1:05:05wake up, I'm obsessing about AI. Every
  2146. 1:05:07day I wake up, I feel behind. I spend 5
  2147. 1:05:10[ __ ] minutes on AI Twitter and I feel
  2148. 1:05:12behind. And that's coming from somebody
  2149. 1:05:13who is already experimenting with AI
  2150. 1:05:16like every single day all the time. So,
  2151. 1:05:19I'm not going to make this a whole
  2152. 1:05:20section of like all the ways that you
  2153. 1:05:21can utilize AI because that would be a
  2154. 1:05:23[ __ ] 30-hour long video that I'd have
  2155. 1:05:26to put together. But, I will give you
  2156. 1:05:27guys one very small thing that has
  2157. 1:05:29provided me with a lot of value. So, as
  2158. 1:05:31I said previously, copy is the
  2159. 1:05:32foundation of marketing and research is
  2160. 1:05:34the foundation of copy. And the best way
  2161. 1:05:36to get research is directly from your
  2162. 1:05:37customers. Well, what if you don't have
  2163. 1:05:39any customers yet? Or what if you're not
  2164. 1:05:40able to call your customer for whatever
  2165. 1:05:42reason that that may be? Well, you can
  2166. 1:05:44create them with AI. So, what you'll do
  2167. 1:05:46is you follow that same foundational
  2168. 1:05:48Docs process that I mentioned
  2169. 1:05:49previously. You'll build out all of
  2170. 1:05:51these and you can basically build a tiny
  2171. 1:05:53bot with AI where you can actually have
  2172. 1:05:56a prompt where it teaches the particular
  2173. 1:05:58AI that you're going to act in
  2174. 1:06:00accordance as if this is all your
  2175. 1:06:01beliefs. And then you upload all your
  2176. 1:06:02research, all your data, everything. And
  2177. 1:06:04then, what you're going to do is you're
  2178. 1:06:05going to put in your AirPods, you're
  2179. 1:06:06going to go for a walk, and you're going
  2180. 1:06:08to have a conversation with your AI
  2181. 1:06:10customer. And I've done this for
  2182. 1:06:11multiple brands many times and every
  2183. 1:06:14single time I say, "Damn, I should be
  2184. 1:06:16doing this more often." because you can
  2185. 1:06:18get such valuable insights and
  2186. 1:06:20understand your customer at such a
  2187. 1:06:22deeper level. And the cool part is you
  2188. 1:06:23can even create avatars for this. Like
  2189. 1:06:25maybe one customer bought for one very
  2190. 1:06:27specific reason like from one angle and
  2191. 1:06:29you create an avatar for that. And
  2192. 1:06:30another one with a separate angle and
  2193. 1:06:32you have that and you can talk with all
  2194. 1:06:33of them together. I'm telling you like
  2195. 1:06:35understanding your customer is super
  2196. 1:06:36duper underrated. I think the biggest
  2197. 1:06:38evidence of how important AI is is the
  2198. 1:06:41update that we got recently from
  2199. 1:06:42Facebook, Meta, and Andromeda. This was
  2200. 1:06:44an ad algorithm update that was launched
  2201. 1:06:47largely due to the fact that we had such
  2202. 1:06:50a massive influx of AI advertising
  2203. 1:06:52content flooding [snorts] the Facebook
  2204. 1:06:54ads platform that they literally had to
  2205. 1:06:56build a new way to sort through all the
  2206. 1:06:59content because the old system wasn't
  2207. 1:07:00working as well. That's not the only
  2208. 1:07:02reason Andromeda was built but that is
  2209. 1:07:03one of the main reasons and it's also
  2210. 1:07:05using AI to be able to better sort
  2211. 1:07:08through all the ads. I do have a video
  2212. 1:07:09on Andromeda somewhere on my channel, so
  2213. 1:07:11you guys can go check it out if you want
  2214. 1:07:13to see the specifics. But if one of the
  2215. 1:07:14largest multi-billion-dollar companies
  2216. 1:07:17in the United States had to completely
  2217. 1:07:18update their ad algorithm just because
  2218. 1:07:20there was so much AI content. This was
  2219. 1:07:22last year, mind you. Like it's only
  2220. 1:07:24getting crazier. This isn't like, "Oh,
  2221. 1:07:26this is going to happen in the future."
  2222. 1:07:27No, we are here. Like it's in full
  2223. 1:07:30effect right now. So, when I was saying
  2224. 1:07:31that the majority of people are, you
  2225. 1:07:33know, kind of viewing AI in the wrong
  2226. 1:07:36way and they're viewing it inside of a
  2227. 1:07:37closed box. Most people still think that
  2228. 1:07:39AI just equals ChatGPT. And ChatGPT is
  2229. 1:07:42simply an LLM, and that's kind of like,
  2230. 1:07:44I guess you could say that that's like
  2231. 1:07:45level one of using AI. That would be
  2232. 1:07:48like using LLMs like ChatGPT, Claude,
  2233. 1:07:50etc. Level two would be you step up to
  2234. 1:07:52use workflows. Think of like the origin
  2235. 1:07:55of N8N, where it's kind of like agentic,
  2236. 1:07:58but it's also not very good. You know,
  2237. 1:08:01like think of this like last year, early
  2238. 1:08:03last year. Step three would be now you
  2239. 1:08:05have actual agents, which is kind of
  2240. 1:08:07main era that we're in right now, right?
  2241. 1:08:09If you look at a company like Anthropic
  2242. 1:08:10and all the [ __ ] that they're doing
  2243. 1:08:12inside of Claude with Claude code, with
  2244. 1:08:14co-work, and holy [ __ ] they're
  2245. 1:08:15launching so much stuff. It's actually
  2246. 1:08:16insane. But this is where you can have
  2247. 1:08:19an autonomous agent do tasks for you, go
  2248. 1:08:22through, you know, multi-level
  2249. 1:08:23reasoning, and be able to send you
  2250. 1:08:25stuff, you know, very, very quickly.
  2251. 1:08:27After that, we would enter kind of stage
  2252. 1:08:29four, which would be agentic, which is
  2253. 1:08:31simply series of agents all working
  2254. 1:08:33together for one common goal. And the
  2255. 1:08:35fifth level, of course, is AGI, which is
  2256. 1:08:38artificial general intelligence, which
  2257. 1:08:40is ironically the scariest one of all.
  2258. 1:08:42Now, if I think of like where we are
  2259. 1:08:44right now, most of you are here. Like
  2260. 1:08:46truthfully, most of you are still here.
  2261. 1:08:48Maybe a few of you are, you know, kind
  2262. 1:08:50of here. Probably about nobody's here,
  2263. 1:08:52and we haven't even gotten to this point
  2264. 1:08:54yet right now. And so, one thing that I
  2265. 1:08:56want to say about all of this is you
  2266. 1:08:58have to continue to push your education
  2267. 1:09:00of AI. Nobody else is going to do it for
  2268. 1:09:02you, and if you don't, you're going to
  2269. 1:09:03be left behind very, very quickly
  2270. 1:09:05because one thing about AI, with all
  2271. 1:09:07major technologies, this one is just
  2272. 1:09:09developing at such an insane rate
  2273. 1:09:11because of the nature of the technology
  2274. 1:09:12itself, but there is very much so a
  2275. 1:09:15window of opportunity right now. Going
  2276. 1:09:17on a year of me saying this, and I still
  2277. 1:09:19believe it to be 100% true. There's
  2278. 1:09:21going to be a window of opportunity
  2279. 1:09:22where stupid people like you and me are
  2280. 1:09:25able to figure out how to use this
  2281. 1:09:26technology in order to make money. Then,
  2282. 1:09:28it's going to be rolled out to the
  2283. 1:09:30masses, and we're actually going to see
  2284. 1:09:31mass adoption. And the faster that
  2285. 1:09:33people catch on to this technology, the
  2286. 1:09:35faster the window of opportunity closes.
  2287. 1:09:37Now, thankfully, most people are pretty
  2288. 1:09:38[ __ ] slow. So, we do have a
  2289. 1:09:40legitimate window of opportunity, but
  2290. 1:09:42it's not going to be here forever. Like,
  2291. 1:09:44can you guys even think of what AI is
  2292. 1:09:46going to be looking like in 5 years?
  2293. 1:09:48We'll probably, if not definitely,
  2294. 1:09:50already be at AGI in another 5 years.
  2295. 1:09:52Who knows what online business is even
  2296. 1:09:54going to look like at that point. It's
  2297. 1:09:56insane to even fathom. So, the window of
  2298. 1:09:58opportunity is right now, and it's
  2299. 1:10:00getting smaller every single day.
  2300. 1:10:02Fortunately for you, the barrier to
  2301. 1:10:03entry is getting lowered every single
  2302. 1:10:05day because more and more people are
  2303. 1:10:07having access to some of the most
  2304. 1:10:08powerful technology that's ever been
  2305. 1:10:10built in the history of mankind. So,
  2306. 1:10:12this is an amazing time to be alive. Do
  2307. 1:10:14not, you know, misinterpret what I'm
  2308. 1:10:15saying. This is the greatest time in
  2309. 1:10:17history to ever [ __ ] be alive. Be
  2310. 1:10:19more bullish on AI because crazier [ __ ]
  2311. 1:10:21is around the corner, and if you figure
  2312. 1:10:22out how to use it before anybody else,
  2313. 1:10:24you have a legitimate window of
  2314. 1:10:25opportunity to make a stupid amount of
  2315. 1:10:27money before anybody else figures out
  2316. 1:10:29how to do it, too. And that's the end of
  2317. 1:10:30the video. I mean, I taught you how to
  2318. 1:10:31think, I taught you how to create, how
  2319. 1:10:33to understand the economics and the
  2320. 1:10:35math, and how to multiply everything.
  2321. 1:10:37So, I mentioned it a little bit earlier,
  2322. 1:10:39but I do have a mentorship program
  2323. 1:10:40called Brand Builders Academy. If you're
  2324. 1:10:42interested in scaling a brand with
  2325. 1:10:44e-commerce specifically using AI, that
  2326. 1:10:46is where you need to be. If you want to
  2327. 1:10:47apply, click the first link in the
  2328. 1:10:49description. Other than that, guys, this
  2329. 1:10:50was a monster. Thank you so much for
  2330. 1:10:51watching if you made it this far. See
  2331. 1:10:53you all in the next one. Peace.

About this transcript

This page contains the full transcript of 8 years of marketing advice in 70 minutes by Mark Builds Brands, generated from the public captions YouTube serves with the video. The transcript has 16,422 words across 2,331 segments, with the original timestamps preserved so you can click any line to jump to that moment in the embedded player.

What you can do with it

Use the transcript to take notes, quote the speaker, build a study guide, generate a summary with ChatGPT or Claude via the YouTube Summary tool, or export it as a timed subtitle file with YouTube to SRT. You can also re-open it in the transcriber to choose a caption track available on the video.

Free YouTube transcript tool

YouTube2Text is a free YouTube transcript generator — no signup, no daily limit. Paste any YouTube link and get the full transcript instantly, with timestamps, click-to-jump, caption language selection, AI prompts for ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini, and exports to TXT, SRT, VTT, or Markdown.