725 – Email is still king: Tom interviews Scott Bywater

Episode 725 – Scott Bywater
[00:00:08] Welcome to Screw the Commute. The entrepreneurial podcast dedicated to getting you out of the car and into the money, with your host, lifelong entrepreneur and multimillionaire, Tom Antion.

[00:00:24] Hey everybody, it's Tom here with episode 725 of Screw the Commute podcast. I'm here with Scott Bywater from Wollongong, New South Wales, Australia, one of our Downunder buddies. His topic is copywriting and you regular listeners know that I've called copywriting my number one business skill in the 46 years I've been in formal business and even when I was ten years old doing side hustles, you know, writing flyers and stuff. So, so you've got to listen up to this. This is serious. And and remember, another thing I've said after making multiple eight figures with my own copywriting for myself, I still study it today because the better you get at it, the more money will pour in your front door. So make sure this is one of those must listen podcast. All right. I hope you didn't miss Episode 724. That was Daniel Martinez. He's a senior, a serial entrepreneur, got a lovely family lifestyle business. He's made for himself with a very interesting real estate method that I haven't heard before. So check that out. That's episode 724. All right, follow me on TikTok at tiktok.com/@digitalmultimillionaire. One video I've got going. I think about 650,000 views so far this this past week and got probably 250 short training videos for you. Some of them are funny, but a lot of them are training videos. So check that out and make sure you pick up a copy of our automation book.

[00:01:57] It's through the commute.com/automate free and you will thank me if you do even a portion of what's in this book. It's about a 60 to 70 page book of all the techniques I use to handle up to 60,000 customers and 150,000 subscribers without pulling my hair out and with a small staff. So check it out at scooter commute.com/automate free and then also pick up a copy of our podcast app. It's screw the commute.com/app that's app and put us on your cell phone and tablet and take us with you on the road.

[00:02:32] All right. Let's get to the main event here. Scott Bywater is a sought after marketing copywriter and the creator of the online simple email ROI system. And ROI is return on investment. And over the past 21 years, he's written for gurus and leading companies, including Kerwin, Ray Jay, Conrad Levinson of the guerrilla marketing fame. A lot of you have heard of that Mercola.com I'm not sure if they're still around or not. They they had some real governmental problems, I think, but they were one of the most prolific websites in the world. And the Learning Annex, which we kind of don't know if Scott put him out of business or not. We'll tell him. We'll let him tell you about that. So, Scott, are you ready to screw? The commute?

[00:03:21] I am 100% ready to screw Tom. I'm looking. Looking forward to this.

[00:03:25] All right. Yeah. So thanks so much for coming on. I know it's a long way to Australia, so it was a long walk for you to to get on here. But, but, but you can handle it because I understand you have joined a couple cults and you were living as a hippie for a while and now you're this big super marketing guy. What? What's all that about?

[00:03:47] Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, I mean, when I was in my, um, uh, like, late teens, I was, I guess. I guess I'm a bit of an explorer by by nature. And so, so I was very much into, like, the, I guess, yeah. Spiritual exploration and all of that sort of thing. So yeah, when I was 17, I went to a, um, I went on a, I think it was a seven day, a seven day event. And we got there and they literally the, the people who were, who were running the event, I'll call them, let's just call them the cult. They went from being nice people and you got them there and they were like really serious. And then we went somewhere in a blacked out car and had to do all sorts of strange, um, you know, strange, you know, like strange things over a period of seven days.

[00:04:40] Sacrifice any goats or anything?

[00:04:42] Yeah. No, it wasn't that. It wasn't that extreme, you know, it wasn't that extreme. I probably wasn't at a high enough level to get to. To get to the goat.

[00:04:50] Sacrificing. Yeah.

[00:04:52] Yeah. To the goat. Sacrificing side of things. So. So it was. But, yeah, think like if I knew sleep deprivation at the end of that event, I don't know how much we slept, but I would say it was, yeah, maybe five hours, five hours over seven days. And then I did, I actually did a did a lot of research into, you know, cults and sociopathic sociopathy and all of that sort of thing, which was quite, um, which was quite fascinating. And, and I think then that led, you know, like I was involved in sales and marketing for quite some time. And it led me on the, you know, on the copywriting path, which essentially, you know, in copywriting, you need to really understand psychology and, you know, the way people, the way people think. So in many ways it was an unplanned, you know, part of my, you know, part of my training kind of.

[00:05:47] Like pregnancy sometimes. Yeah. So. That's right. That's right. So, so I'm not sure how much you learn studying sociopathy because you did agree to come on this show. But but yeah, we'll put that aside. But you also went on some kind of fast and you know, I've been intermittent fasting and I did a three day fast. I've never done any really long ones but so what, what's that. What's a strange fast.

[00:06:15] Yeah. So that, that fast that was, I mean that was, that was interesting. So when I was in my late teens, I had a friend and he went on a 21 day fast. And I was he was several years older than me. And I, I admired him at the time and, and had a lot of respect for him. Yeah.

[00:06:33] You know he's dead, but that's okay. Go ahead.

[00:06:36] That's actually that is actually true. So, yeah, so. So we're laughing about. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So. So he, he, he did this. He did this fast. And it was what was called a breatharian fast at the time. So I'm going to sound crazy. Hold your breath for 20 days.

[00:06:57] Yeah.

[00:06:58] No, no, you don't. You actually don't eat or drink for seven days. I wouldn't I wouldn't suggest people repeat this. And then. And then you don't eat for the further 14 days. So you're literally so literally you should be dead within seven days. So it was it was an interesting belief system shift, though, because, I mean, you don't even.

[00:07:20] Drink water for seven days. Isn't that kind of death? Nothing. I thought you couldn't go. You can only go 3 or 4 days without water.

[00:07:28] That's what we're told. Yeah. Okay.

[00:07:30] Well, he made it.

[00:07:32] Yeah, but. But again, wouldn't recommend. No, no, no. I wouldn't recommend passing this advice on to your teenage to your teenage child. Um, but yeah, I did that. And I guess it's, um, I guess it's always stretching the. I've got a habit of stretching. What? Uh, going outside the box, exploring and stretching what's possible.

[00:07:54] So you did that fast after he did it?

[00:07:57] I did that fast After he did it. Yeah. Okay. So I did it. Seven days. No, no food and drink. And another 14 with no drink. So. Yeah.

[00:08:05] Did you lose any weight?

[00:08:07] I think so. I never really cared back then. Yeah.

[00:08:09] Yeah. You're a skinny guy. You don't worry about that stuff. So. So bottom line, folks, to be a really worldwide successful copywriter, you have to join at least two cults. You have to live as a hippie and fast for 21 days. There you go. So or or by his I course, later. All right. So. So, yeah, that's the only two choices you have. So. So now I was looking at researching a little bit and I noticed on the timeline you have on your website, it's very cool. It's an about on the about page. There's a timeline, folks. And in 2005, he listed I wrote my first book, Cash Flow Advertising, and got married to my beautiful wife. So you're a copywriter, But I'm not sure the order there. You should have maybe put her first. What do you think your book was more important than your marriage?

[00:09:06] Well, she. She never read the book. Right? So. So, so, so it was sort of like a revenge comment.

[00:09:12] Okay. All right.

[00:09:15] Now. Hey.

[00:09:16] Is Mercola.com still around?

[00:09:19] Yeah. Yeah, they're still.

[00:09:21] They went through some really serious times for a while, right?

[00:09:26] Well, they've been. They got knocked off Google, I think, in 2019. They've had. Yeah. They've had a lot of, um, as you said, governmental challenges. So because they, they go up against the narrative, right? Yeah, exactly.

[00:09:40] Yeah. And because myself and my girlfriend and her brother, we all depended on that for a long time for great information and not the mainstream stuff.

[00:09:50] So yeah.

[00:09:52] You can still find them if you just go to I'm pretty sure if you just go to Mercola.com because I've been writing subject lines for them for maybe 17 years, I think.

[00:10:01] Yeah, yeah.

[00:10:02] I mean, it's just yeah, it was amazing. Amazing website. I guess it got too big for its britches and then somebody.

[00:10:09] Actually got threatened. Yeah, actually got threatened if, if reading, reading between the lines. I haven't spoken to them directly. Just what I've seen publicly from the, um, from, from mikkola's emails and that sort of thing. It was sort of like you need to you, particularly during all the COVID stuff, they just couldn't keep it live. So what what they would do is they would put it out there, but then they'd have to get rid of it within 48 hours. So if you're on their email list, you'll still get all the content. But then they've got something. It's like a paid sort of subscription, which is like $5 a month or something where you, um, I forget what the what the channel is, but where you can still access that information.

[00:10:54] Well that's good, That's good. Now you've had enormous experience with lots of different companies. Do you have any experience with for profit schools?

[00:11:04] Poor profit school.

[00:11:05] For for.

[00:11:08] For profit.

[00:11:09] Schools. Yeah.

[00:11:09] Yeah. Which what you said is actually most of them end up as poor profit schools, so probably correct but yeah. Any experience with them.

[00:11:22] So so for profit. Is that like a like an education.

[00:11:25] Yes it's a paid school for like heating, air conditioning, plumbing, you know, all kinds of nursing schools. You know, these are for profit. They're not, in other words, government backed. They're or public. They're individual entrepreneurship.

[00:11:41] Things in.

[00:11:42] Interesting. Yeah. I mean, I've done a lot in the education sector. Like I work with a company called Knowledge Source over here for ten years, but they're not so much in the industries you're talking about. They're like your Yeah, how to make money out of property development.

[00:11:58] Yeah, yeah that's yeah.

[00:11:59] Stock trading but but they're a for profit company, right? They're not government government entity.

[00:12:06] Yeah. 100%. Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

[00:12:08] I ask because my school I have the only licensed dedicated internet and digital marketing school in the USA. Probably the world that's, you know specific to that topic and it's a for profit school. And so I'm always looking for ways to reach. We have students, young students that are thinking about going to regular college and then we have older people and we have business owners that want to, you know, knock down a lot of their expenses for their online presence. So I'm always looking for angles on that. But do you see any big differences in the US versus the Australian market when it comes to copywriting, other than the sum of the words you use are different than ours?

[00:12:49] Yeah, yeah. And there's minor changes, but I mean, I've been writing obviously, um, quite, quite extensively in the US as well as Australia and don't see any major difference because the whole thing is you've got to be able to, number one is the ability to enter the conversation going on in someone's mind and that really comes down to a down to a cultural thing. So I don't see Australia and us as there are cultural differences, but they're not, they're not massive. Now if I was writing for, let's say, Japan or China or those sort of cultures where I think they're are, you know, they're much different then I think it would be an issue. But Australia, us, it's pretty yeah. I've never really faced anything other than you know, I still don't really know what good old boy means, you know, like stuff like that. Yeah. All right.

[00:13:48] So I was just noticing it's kind of interesting. Cultural starts with the word cult.

[00:13:53] Yes. Yes, it does. Yeah.

[00:13:56] And and I think there's cults. I think there's, you know, the more the more you. It's actually a really good distinction because the more you think about that, you see that every company is, in a way its own cult like it has a certain way of of thinking because it has a culture, right? So some, some companies are like, you need to get in at seven and you need to finish at eight. And some companies are, you know, if you work past five, you're an idiot. So so it's yeah it's actually a really good distinction.

[00:14:26] So I'm clearly an idiot. Yeah.

[00:14:29] Yeah.

[00:14:32] They say an entrepreneur will work 18 hours a day to get out of work an eight hours a day for somebody else.

[00:14:38] Yeah.

[00:14:38] Yeah. Which is. Which is pretty accurate. Right.

[00:14:42] All right. So tell us about this. Now, everybody listening here knows that I am massively on email. I mean, I've had up to 150,000 subscribers in a niche market and made many, many millions of dollars with email. And and I contend that the big money by people at my level and your level and everybody else's is that with email and the only people that dispute that are the people that sell social media training, right? So social media to me is a necessary evil to get them off of their onto an email list that you control. But then just because you got the names and addresses doesn't mean you're going to make any money unless you do what you're going to tell them. So tell them about the your ROI system.

[00:15:29] Yeah, yeah, 100%. And I think it's a really good distinction because if you look at studies like from litmus.com, email marketing has a 36 to 1 return ROI, which is far, far greater than anything that that social social media offers. However, it doesn't get like it doesn't get Tom the the dopamine hits. So if you drop something on social media, you'll get like, you know, five, ten, 15, 20, 30, likes, whatever, And everyone's like and you're feeling really good and you're excited. But the problem is generally there's no money in your bank account for that.

[00:16:08] Just like that, that that video of.

[00:16:10] Mine has got 640,000 views. Not one nickel came in from that video.

[00:16:15] Wow, wow, wow. You know.

[00:16:18] That's on TikTok.

[00:16:20] It's incredible, right? Like like you're seen as a and like I've got friends who are like, massive influence, get millions of views on their on their socials. I'm like, man, you need to be putting those people onto an email.

[00:16:33] That's right. Yeah, that's absolutely right.

[00:16:36] It doesn't mean they're killing it, you know, like it's perception versus versus reality. Whereas email, I mean, I just find I did a matt Fury course years ago and just started doing an email a day and I built my business based on Based on email. Yeah. So then when then when it came to the reason I decided to create that course is obviously I know how effective email marketing is. And then when I came in, I'm like, Man, this takes away like, and when I say I, it doesn't mean you need to sound like a robot, but it takes away the two biggest things which hold people back from from writing emails. It's like if you know how to program the AI, it'll tell you what you need to write about, which is, number one, people are like, Oh, what am I going to say? All of that sort of thing. You have a you'll have a content, a massive content calendar within a very short period of time. If you know how to ask the right questions to the AI. And second, it overcomes that. I mean, you probably don't have it Tom and I don't so much have it, but the average person has a massive average business owner, particularly small business owner, because they're busy doing everything else.

[00:17:44] They have a massive like blinking cursor syndrome off and they'll sit down and it'll take them two hours to write an email. Yeah, and this is true, right? The more I talk to people, I'm like, It takes you two hours to write an email. And what the AI does is if you if you program it, we spent about 20 hours, right. Program creating a program for the AI. So it spits out what we want it to do, meaning it enters a conversation going on in our mind and actually brings when we write the content, it's very tailored to our target audience. It's not just vague generalities. Um, so yeah, so when you do that, so literally you can whip up an email within minutes and then because it's created in like it's almost like a Google doc, the way it's created, you can then go and you can add your little stories in and you can add your own personality personality to it.

[00:18:38] Well, people ask me all the time, Tom, Is AI going to replace you?

[00:18:42] And I say I.

[00:18:43] Wish it would hurry up.

[00:18:48] Because.

[00:18:49] I work too hard as it is.

[00:18:52] Yeah.

[00:18:53] I look at I look at I it's a little bit like as far as copy goes anyway, it's a little bit like having a chainsaw. Right. It does. It can speed things up, but if you don't know how to use it, you can also chop your arm off. Exactly Right. So.

[00:19:07] And you're not really.

[00:19:08] Making any cabinet, you know, nice, Fine woodworking with it, that's for sure.

[00:19:14] Yes.

[00:19:15] Yeah, exactly. Exactly. You need the skills to be able to pull that off. So.

[00:19:19] So what does what does the whole.

[00:19:20] System consist of?

[00:19:22] Yes. So essentially like in, in like there's, there's five modules. So in module one, we really deep dive into understanding the target market. So we go through the fears, the pains, the desires, beliefs, finding out what your why is, finding out what your unique selling proposition, all of this sort of thing. So we can then program the AI because you've got to I like the saying I once heard it. You've got to earn the right to grow a business. Yeah. Meaning you've got to get all the systems in place. You can't just, you know, you've got to do things, do things properly. So what we're doing is we're setting the foundations so that you earn the right to actually be able to create AI. So in the second module, the second and third modules aren't about AI at all. They're about, yeah, how do we actually close the sale of the email? So the, the second module is all about how do we create the right landing, the right landing pages. So we actually set up money, money box calls and we don't end up sort of like the Australian soccer team where you get it into the box all the time and you you can never thread it through the, you know, the two upright posts. So, so that's the second. The third module is all about how do we actually do open loop offers, which is what you see in TV series all the time so that, so that we actually get people to make the click and we have the curiosity factor which makes that happen. And then the fourth module, we, we go right into the AI, you know, so now we've, we've really earned the right, we've set the foundation and we start we go into, okay, how do you actually, you know, write the, you know, write the AI. And then in the fifth module we go into subject lines and how we actually turn things into into subject lines and the content calendar So you can whip up, you know, you could whip up a year's worth of emails in a day or two using the, you know, using the AI format.

[00:21:19] Yeah. And so a couple couple.

[00:21:22] Of things there on the last point that you just made, you still got to be a little bit careful with the doing stuff too far in advance. This one of my students was used a term, something like a get yourself a flood of business in his subject line, just when a major, major hurricane hit New Orleans. And oh man, did people like skewer him thinking that he was playing off of the all the damage and destruction?

[00:21:53] So you never know what's around the corner, right? Particularly particularly today. You know, it could be one. It could be one day to the next. So, yeah, yeah. 100%. 100%. Yeah. And I think you could, you know, you can, you know, like you don't have to just monitor.

[00:22:11] A little bit, you know, and.

[00:22:13] And just don't set it and forget it and forget all about it. So give them some tips on subject lines that I tell people. If you don't if your subject line doesn't get him to open it, nothing else matters. Nothing. Because everything downstream, you could have the best product in the world, the kick ass sales letter. But if they don't open that email, it's it's done.

[00:22:37] Yeah, yeah. No, absolutely. And and I've created literally thousands of, of, of subject lines and seeing the split test results and that sort of thing over the last 17 years or so. What are some.

[00:22:49] Of the big picture.

[00:22:50] Tips you have?

[00:22:52] Yeah. So so I mean, one of them probably the most powerful, powerful tip that as a small business owner, you can incorporate. So there's one there's one word and it's a four letter word, which is the one I would suggest using whenever possible. And the reason this four letter word is so powerful is because it creates curiosity. And essentially curiosity is what gets your emails. You know, get what? What gets things open. So so for example, Tom, if I if I said, you know, the the number one secret to growing a business is to work hard. Yeah. That's not a very exciting headline. No, you listen to it and you like you've given you've given it away in the. Yeah. In the headline. But then I could, I could dive deeper and I could say this is the number one secret to growing your business. And that's, that's that's much better right? That's better. That's got curiosity then I could say this is the number one way to grow your as an example, you know to grow your adult learning center. And all of a sudden that's that's that's getting more that's getting more and more specific. So we're going, Yeah. So we're pulling it to the specificity. So what what it is, it's a balance of between specificity and curiosity. And if you bring those two together, you get a really, you know, a really powerful headline. So I don't know, can you throw a maybe a business, a business at me and I'll I'll I'll I'll brainstorm a headline. Yes.

[00:24:33] Family protection Dogs.

[00:24:36] Family. So these are dogs You buy that? Protect your family? Yep.

[00:24:40] Oh, wow. That's one of.

[00:24:41] My side businesses. Yeah.

[00:24:43] Oh, wow. That's cool. That's cool. So. So this is the best way you. Yeah, this is the best way to protect your family from burglars.

[00:24:54] Got it. Now, now.

[00:24:55] Now, the you mentioned a four letter word is is best. Is that the word you're talking about or what's the four letter one?

[00:25:02] Best actually isn't a bad word, but the best the four letter word, which most people don't guess. Right. And I discovered it. I actually stumbled across it because I'm doing them. I'm seeing the split test and I'm seeing this this four letter word come out all the time. And the reason I don't just come out and say it is because it actually demonstrates how powerful the four letter word is. And I was using it right throughout that. Those examples and the four letter word is this. Because what this does is it doesn't tell you what it is, but it incites the curiosity. And it's also not hypey. Right? It's not hypey at all. And one of the things I found later is that buzzsumo and you can you can Google this, you know, if you look up buzzsumo best headlines, they put the I in, I think it was over, you know, Facebook headlines or LinkedIn or or something like that. And they found that and I saw this in like a lot of the word this in a lot of their their best headlines like one of their one of their favorite that I remember is this will make you you know so this will make you is very powerful because it suggests there's no effort. It's curiosity plus it suggests there's no effort on your on your on your on your path. So, yeah, this will protect your family from burglars. You don't even have to tell him his dogs. And it it automatically goes, oh, how to do that. And that's perfect. If I mean it's perfect if, if a suburb has just had a burglary.

[00:26:32] Right, right, right. Yeah.

[00:26:34] That that hits a mark. Right. Time enters a conversation in their mind and we'll and we'll get some great attention. Yeah.

[00:26:41] Now we call that the zeigarnik technique because the lady that kind of invented the principle of the human mind was a Russian psychologist, Bluma Zeigarnik. And she she discovered that the trait of the human mind cannot stand unfulfilled curiosity. And that's exactly what you're talking about there. In fact, when we used to do printed sales letters in a book, almost like a real long sales letter, we never ended a sentence at the bottom of the page. It always went to the next page so that they had nobody could stand not finishing that sentence. And it got him to turn the page. And so little things like that are so powerful.

[00:27:24] And it's the same with your emails, right? Like, and if we look at like TV shows, every TV show does this, you know, you go like if you're if you're watching a morning show, it's like, come back after the break and we'll introduce you to a somersaulting donkey who catches chocolate bars. You know, exactly. Like, oh, I've got to come back after the break.

[00:27:45] Yeah, it it happened to me one time. I was getting ready to speak in Los Angeles and I'm putting my tie on, getting ready and on the TV, it's the news came on and it said, guess who Britney Spears will tell you? Britney Spears kissed will tell you in the next segment. And I've had two major TV news directors in my courses, and they said, oh, we just lie to you. It ain't coming till the end of the show. But so I'm I'm sitting there thinking, put my tie on. I'm thinking, I don't care about Britney Spears. And then I'm thinking, But I wonder who it was, you know? And I ended up waiting till the end of the show. Almost got late to go down. That's how powerful that is.

[00:28:25] Uh, it's incredibly. It's incredibly powerful. And and it's why, like, even at the end of the of the emails is having a to the next email which is exactly what they do on mean if you watch any like TV series. Right it always ends on this you know.

[00:28:43] Yeah it's a cliffhanger.

[00:28:44] They call it.

[00:28:45] Cliffhanger. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. It ends on this cliffhanger. And you got to you got to come back tomorrow or or forward through to the next channel Now that we've got Netflix or the next next show now that we've got Netflix. But yeah, it keeps you constantly on the on the hook Now it.

[00:29:02] Also increases your click through rate because same you know so I usually or many times I use it twice in an email the subject line to get you to open and then inside the body to get you to click through and really increases the click through rate because and sometimes I'll experiment with putting all the details in the email, but usually the click through rate skyrockets when you put a curiosity technique in there.

[00:29:31] Yeah, yeah. And think you can do it three ways. You do it in the subject line for the click and then in the to get them to read the next, the next email. Yeah.

[00:29:41] If you have a series coming.

[00:29:42] Yeah.

[00:29:43] Yeah, yeah. And the thing I, the thing I think I've always found it powerful like you can open the email and say okay today we're going to show you you know the secret to stop you know to stop burglaries happening to your home and you give like a really useful, useful tip. Um, but then at the end of it, you say something like, Yeah, but that's just one thing that you can do. The, the actual most powerful. Find out the actual, most powerful thing you can do, which will and then you insert like three benefits, click here and then it's like, oh yeah, but, but at the same stage you're giving them some quality information so that the next time they'll click on the next email. And that I think that's really powerful because what, what the studies have shown is the number one thing that people look at in an email isn't even the subject line, it's the name of the person sending it.

[00:30:38] Oh, that's yeah, that's the number one thing that'll get you deleted instantly if they don't recognize you for sure.

[00:30:43] Yeah.

[00:30:44] Yeah, absolutely.

[00:30:45] Now, you know, the, the curiosity thing even works backwards and I do it on every episode of this podcast. So I said what this episode is about, but I also said, I hope you didn't miss this other episode and this guy's got this really cool technique, real estate that I never heard before, and then I shut up and moved on. So, so we get people that missed some episodes to go back and pick up back episodes doing that. So yeah, it's so, so powerful.

[00:31:17] So that's actually really clever. Yeah. And I think you can apply the same thing to email as well. Like, you know, here's the email I sent the other day and link him to a blog post or something.

[00:31:28] Yeah, yeah. So it can go all different directions for sure. One of the things we do in email to get a better quality email address is we do an e-course as the ethical bribe, you know, freebie rather than just a one time download because that way and we remind them putting your best email address so you don't miss parts of the course. So so we get a better quality email because a lot of people just use throwaway emails to grab freebies and, and then they never check them again.

[00:31:59] Yeah, that's. That's clever. Do you find how do you find the opt in on the free course versus just the the free report?

[00:32:06] Much better.

[00:32:06] Yeah. It's higher quality email. That's for me anyway. It's because everybody, everybody has to test. You know, if a guy like me or you says this is the way it has to be, put your wallet in your pocket and run because your market will tell you which worked for your offer, your your audience, your, you know, your product, whatever it is, service they will tell you. So that's why. So go ahead and go into a little bit because you've done enormous amounts of split testing way more than me. Tell him about how important that is.

[00:32:39] Yeah. Mean. Mean. The thing that really hit me with with split testing was early on, I think I watched a eamon Pagan video. Yeah. And one of the things he, he it was one part of his course and he said who here split tests and think only three people in the. Yeah. Split tests a lot and only three people in the audience would have put their hand up and he says, what size of business do you have? What size of business do you have? What size business do you have? And they all had like multi-million dollar enterprises. And it's probably, you know, particularly if you're getting, you know, strong, decent amounts of of traffic, it's probably the, the easiest, simplest thing you can do to boost your, you know, to boost your, you know, to boost your bottom line. Yeah. I mean, the guy.

[00:33:25] The guy.

[00:33:25] That taught me from his first sales letter, first draft to his final after split testing everything on earth. I mean, he's this guy was a fanatic. He split test the drop shadow on the edge of the sales. I mean, this guy is crazy, but his his final sales letter was sold 19 times as much as his first one. Most small business people pat themselves on the back if they even get one sales letter done, you know? So, yeah, it's extremely, extremely powerful. And in the old days it used to take months to do a split test with direct mail. But now with online stuff you can in a matter of hours, you can have a split test done.

[00:34:07] Yeah. Yeah. I had a client where I must have done that for them for 6 or 12 months. And it was just a split test here, split test there, you know, add a few testimonials and see what difference that made and and then change the opening, see what impact that made and all of that. And, and like they weren't always massive changes like massive results like it wasn't like one adding a few headlines doubled the results but it might have given a 15% bump or a 7% bump or an 18% bump. And that compounded if you're getting a lot of traffic is a massive impact on your on your ROI. Yeah.

[00:34:44] So and on and on.

[00:34:47] Evergreen products over a period of years, it can add up to enormous amounts of money.

[00:34:53] Yeah. Yeah. 100%. 100%. So I would, I'd encourage anyone like having a just and it doesn't need to be that complex. It's just like, okay, we're going to do one split. You set up an SOP, we're going to do one split test a month and tell them what an SOP is. Oh, sorry, standard operating procedure. So so which is basically just document exactly what you do to do a to do a split test. Yeah.

[00:35:20] Because if you forget, you.

[00:35:21] Wasted the whole thing, you forget what you changed.

[00:35:24] Yeah.

[00:35:25] Because I only started to do standard operating procedures properly in the last 12 months. And even if you're just doing them yourself, like, the whole idea is you. You do it, and then you can get your team to do everything. And and it's all standardized and that sort of thing. But even if you're just doing it yourself, you'd be amazed. Something you did a month ago, you've forgotten when you go back to do it. So it it lowers, lowers a cognitive cognitive load. And I think for split testing, I mean, you do it and you just say, okay, the first Tuesday of every month I am going to do a split test. And this is a process that that I follow. And then you just you just do it. And if you're getting decent traffic, I think it's a I mean, I can't see how you would you would ever lose over the long term if you follow that approach. Yeah.

[00:36:12] Especially if you're.

[00:36:12] Doing minor changes but but it's you just people have to realize they just can't trust what they think as the marketer the the, the, the market is always going to tell you. So for instance, this other guy that was one of my early mentors, he had this beautiful testimonial down near his call to action and it was really nice. So he thought, you know, if I move this up near the top and that'll suck them in deeper to read the rest of the letter. So he moved it up to the top and result and his conversion went down by 35%. And so he moved it back to the bottom and it went back up to normal. So you just you can't you have to just try and trust the numbers, not your gut feeling most of the time.

[00:37:01] Yeah. Yeah. Well. Well, it's like. It's like a science, right? And just like science, a science is never actually settled, right? So you. You go and you go, Okay, I've got this amazing, you know, like this amazing, uh, sales page, for instance, or whatever it is, webinar funnel or whatever you've got in place. But and you go and then you think, Oh, you know what? If I change it with this offer, it's going to kill it. And I did that once and I didn't split test it and it sunk my results. And then I changed it back and the results went back up again. So it's, it's very, very. Yeah. So, so the answer is, as you said, just whatever you do, split, test it, measure the results because you don't. Yeah. Only the market knows what's right or wrong. Yeah. And really no matter how much experience we've got, we just we just don't know how much how the market is going to respond. Yeah.

[00:37:58] This guy, this guy said, you know, online sales is just a simple math problem. He said, you do something and count the results and then you do something else and count the results. Whichever one gets more results do that. You know, it's pretty simple.

[00:38:18] Yeah.

[00:38:19] And even if you do a split test and it drops, right, if you're monitoring that, you know, pretty soon. Okay, results. Results drop by 15%. We switch it back and you might lose, you know, you might lose money over, let's say, a four week period or a two week period or whatever. But if they jump by 15%, well, then you can leverage that over a 12 months, 24, 36 month period over that period of time. So it changes everything.

[00:38:48] Yeah, the upside.

[00:38:49] Is way more important. But but one thing people have to understand is they have to not just count clicks. See, there's there's click trackers out there that will tell you, okay, more people clicked on this than clicked on that, but they don't track them all the way through to see if the person bought. So you could have a click that 500 people clicked and nobody buys and you could have another thing that 20 people clicked and ten people purchased. So you can't just go with click trackers. It has to be actual split testing stuff that tracks them all the way through to see if they bought stuff.

[00:39:25] Yeah, Yeah. And you see that, You see that often where it's, it's sort of short term testing or. Or probably lazy testing. Right. Oh that one got a this percent better click through rate. Yeah that's good. But does you know does that equate to the bottom line. Yeah.

[00:39:42] And see the problem.

[00:39:44] With that is if they if they kept the one that got 500 clicks but no sales because they say oh 500 clicks and and they could only afford like one ad they would throw away the good ad and keep the bad ad right. Because they didn't know that the other ad was bringing the customers. So very, very important. What what do you use to do your split testing?

[00:40:07] Yeah, So, so, so in terms of. Yeah, in terms of split testing, one of the things I've done with, I mean, probably the most split testing I've done is with the, with the subject lines where I, where I do with a client who has a list of about 2 million people and they will come back and they will basically say, you know, this got this many, you know, this, got this many results, this got this many results, this got this many results. And you can actually see, you know, which words, which subject lines, all of that sort of thing is actually getting, you know, by far and above the best, you know, the best return on, you know, return on investment. So you.

[00:40:49] Design the.

[00:40:50] Thing and then they it's there. They have to implement it with their software and stuff.

[00:40:55] Yeah. So they're implementing it on their end with their software and seeing the seeing that and they will measure. They probably don't, they don't give us data anyway, but they will give us data on open rate and then they'll give us data on the people who clicked on the specific, you know, on the specific link. But we don't get the data on whether they get the data on sales or not. I'm not sure, but we don't get the data on sales. But I'm sure. I'm sure they do. Yeah. Um, and that's, that's been very, very insightful over the years just to see exactly, you know, exactly how they, how they do that.

[00:41:34] Yeah. So yeah.

[00:41:35] With us, we use a thing I've been promoting for 20 years and use myself Kickstart Cart, which is a shopping cart email system. Everything is combined and it's got a split testing module that takes me ten minutes to show somebody how to use it and it can mean millions of dollars to them over time. Just, you know, you just put sales letter A sales letter B, and the first person goes to sales letter A second goes to B, and it alternates them and and tracks them all the way to see if they bought or not. You know, So very it's not hard to do what we're talking about, folks. That's what I'm getting to.

[00:42:12] So.

[00:42:12] And how deep does it go Kickstart cart like can you tell like it tracks them right through to the sales process. Can it track can it track which emails they clicked on? Like, let's say I've been on your email sequence for a period of time and I've can it say, Oh, they clicked on these five emails and this impacted it and that sort of thing.

[00:42:33] You could Yeah, it's.

[00:42:35] It's a fairly inexpensive.

[00:42:37] System.

[00:42:38] Well, it's a fairly inexpensive system. I mean, there's places like we used to call Infusionsoft, you know, that's, you know, $400 a month or something and thousands of dollars for training. That's more sophisticated. But mine will do 90% of it for a fourth of the price. And a simple, you know, a mere mortal can operate it, you know, So it would be a little harder to set up, but still way, way cheaper and less risky. So so it's a bargain basement, super powerful shopping system.

[00:43:10] Yeah, that that's what you want.

[00:43:13] Yeah. Yeah.

[00:43:13] Because one of the big problems I see with all the people I help is that, you know, they overspend on stuff, you know, they don't know any better. And and people, all these sales organizations will sell you anything. And, you know, you don't even know if you need it or not. All right. We got to take a brief sponsor break. When we come back, we'll ask Scott what's a typical day looks like for him and his business? And he's got a pretty cool freebie for you. And he'll tell you about his course. So, folks, about 25 years ago or so, I kind of turned the Internet marketing guru world on its head and that people at my level were charging 50 or 100 grand up front to tell you what they knew about Internet marketing. And I knew a lot of these guys, they'd be they'd be hiding out in Wollongong or Wollongong if you if you gave them 50 grand and they'd never help you. So I said, yeah, I'm going to make them mad, but I'm going to take care of small business people. So I charged about a 10% of that as an entry fee, and then I tied my success to your success. So for me to get my 50 grand, you have to net 200 grand. Well, people kind of like this, and they knew I wouldn't disappear on them. And here I am 25 years later, sitting here helping people.

[00:44:26] We've had 1800 high level students and tens of thousands of people in the seminars. And it's the most the longest running, most unique, most powerful and successful Internet and digital marketing program ever. Mentor program ever. And I have no trouble saying that because I dare people to put their program up against mine and they won't do it because they'd be embarrassed because I'm a crazy fanatic. I accidentally threw a telephone seminar on Thanksgiving one time. I didn't I didn't notice it was Thanksgiving. Made 4000 bucks that night for all the people that didn't want to see their uncle screaming at the football teams on TV. So it's all one on one. We don't do any group stuff here. I don't want to lump you in with people more advanced or less advanced. You have an immersion weekend in this giant retreat center here in Virginia Beach. You actually live in the house with me. And we have a TV studio next door where we shoot your marketing videos for you. And we also get a scholarship to our school, which you can either use yourself or gift to somebody. Now, I'm a college graduate and I believe in education, but when I went to college, you actually learned something. Nowadays, I guess you do learn how to protest. That's about it. And then you have giant debt and you have you're qualified to compete for jobs at the coffee shop.

[00:45:49] So that's not the way my school is. You have an actual highly in-demand, marketable skill. So check it out at GreatInternetMarketingTraining.com for my mentor program. And if you just want the school straight away or just be a great legacy gift for a child or grandchild, it's one of the best things you could ever give them. Check it out at IMTCva.org.

[00:46:15] All right, let's get back to the main event. We got Scott Bywater here and he's a really highly credentialed copywriter, which everybody knows that that's, you know, it's so important. If there was one skill in my entire career, that's the most important. This is it. And it's not just written stuff. I mean, I think Scott will agree with this. When you learn the techniques of copywriting, it invades all your writing and your videos and your when you talk on the phone because and you don't have to be a big jerk about it. I mean, you can have real pushy copy and you can have very subtle copies. So, so I hope you agree with that. Scott Um, but yeah, go ahead and tell him what's a typical day look like for you? Do you get up early? Do you have a morning routine? You know, do you work out what do you eat? What's what's it like for your your lifestyle business?

[00:47:06] Yeah, great, great, great question. Tom So my typical day, basically I wake up at 530. Now, I used to I've recently done Craig Valentine's. Uh, I think he calls it the I don't know whether he calls it the Miracle Morning or it's about how to set up, set up your morning. So I used to go and do the, you know, the meditation, the exercise, all that sort of thing straight off the bat. But now what I do is I basically get up and I get that most important thing done before literally looking to do to get that done before 730, uh, from 730 to 9 is when I now do, you know, I'll go out and I'll do my yeah, I'll do my exercise, I'll do my meditation, have the cold shower, all of that sort of thing. And then I'll go back for, for round two. And so round in round two it's, it, it really depends. I mean if I've got meetings I'll be doing them, but I try and keep the mornings as much as possible really focused on my, you know, my focus work. So that'll generally be, you know, client copy and that's that sort of thing. Between that 9 a.m. and lunchtime, they don't have, they don't have lunch. I typically, I work from home, so I like to get out during lunch and I'll go down the Botanic Gardens, have a go, have a coffee.

[00:48:26] Two years ago, I think it was two years ago about that. And so I'll go down there, have a turmeric latte, walk around. I'm a big believer in grounding sunshine, all of that sort of thing. So I try and integrate that into my day as as much as possible and also do a bit of I sunning. I don't know if you ever heard of that Tom, but basically, basically I read a book from a guy. I don't have the name of the book handy. Um, but he was like, like legally blind, right? And he reversed it. So and one of the strategies he's got a number of strategies, but one of them was he recommended was to look up at the sun, but with your eyes closed. And so I've started to do that. And from I haven't had it tested, but I believe my eyesight is has improved considerably since I did that. So try and integrate all of these all of these stack as many habits into my day as much as possible. Just because if you do that then you're, you know, like like I'm selling essentially I'm selling my mind, right? So I need to keep my mind sharp, which makes it a much a much more valuable, you know, a valuable asset.

[00:49:36] So the exercise, the, you know, the the grounding, the all of those, you know, the cold showers, all of that sort of thing. I look at myself as a bit of a as a bit of an athlete in terms of in terms of of doing that. And then really the afternoon is probably in the afternoon will will lag a little bit like in terms of energy levels and that sort of thing. So that's when I prefer to have, you know, my meetings and that sort of thing where I don't need to be quite as sharp as when I'm writing like the high level, high level copy, and then I'll close off the day with a I've got a, a standard operating procedure again to close off the day where I'll set up my next day, including, you know, I'll schedule it into like into, into a calendar, set the priorities and as well as that, I'll, I'll, you know reply to any emails and try to get my inbox to as close to inbox zero as as possible. And then from there I generally go to the gym with my son. If he's if he's doing the gym that day, relax, go to bed and repeat the cycle all over again.

[00:50:46] There you go.

[00:50:46] Well, you got it down, man. I'll tell you. So. So tell them about You said you had a freebie for them.

[00:50:52] Yeah, yeah. So.

[00:50:53] So if you're interested in the in doing emails with I, I've got something called the ultimate writing cheat sheet. And within that cheat sheet you're going to find you have five jack in the box openers designed to grab your reader's attention and draw them into your message. Five solution prompts which get to the heart of what you're trying to say and show the reader how you can solve their specific problems. And three powerful commands to write compelling subject lines that actually boost your open rates. And if you go to simple email.com/ai, you'll be able to download that free of charge and you'll be amazed once you start using this, how quickly you can start to whip up emails. Beautiful. Beautiful. So it's simpleemailroi.com/ai. That'll be in the show notes and tell them about your your super course.

[00:51:53] Yeah. So so the super which we touched on earlier with the, you know, with the five, you know, the five modules is and what this is, is it basically shows you how to write really compelling emails via AI and to write them super fast like you'll, you'll, you'll be able to write them literally within a matter of minutes but also be able to add your personality in because you don't want to sound, you know, like a robot, but it'll give you the structure and it'll help overcome the two problems. Number one problem is I don't know what to write about. You'll be able to create. You'll never have this problem again once you know how to use AI in the right way. And number two, you know, I'm staring at a blinking cursor and I just don't know what to write. So it's going to overcome those problems, but also make your emails super unique and super tailored to your target market. So you're entering the conversation, going on in their mind and you'll find that course at simpleemailROI.com.

[00:52:54] Yeah. So that would just not have the forward slash AI on the end folks and yeah. And the only thing you got to worry about is like that one reporter his I fell in love with him, tried to get him to leave his wife. Did you read about that?

[00:53:10] So be careful.

[00:53:14] The future is going to be is going to be interesting. Right. With all that, you know, the meta and the all of the things that are that are happening at the moment. Yeah.

[00:53:23] So the disclaimer, if you get divorced over this episode, it's not Scott's or my fault.

[00:53:29] Yes, that's right. Well, thanks so much.

[00:53:33] For coming on, man.

[00:53:34] Yeah, no, it's been it's been a lot of fun. Tom. I've. I've had a great time. And there was some. Some. Yeah, you've asked some great questions and. Yeah, Thanks. Thanks. Thanks so much for having me.

[00:53:44] Yeah, no problem.

[00:53:45] So folks hit simpleemailroi.com. You can check out the big course and then put a slash AI for that freebie. All right we'll catch everybody on the next episode. See you later.