Writing For Money – Lukas Resheske
SUMMARY
In this episode with copywriter Lukas Resheske, he talks about how we can make money with the words that we speak, and we write. He also shares some hacks on how you can write compelling copy for your products and services.
He says that when you think about copywriting, just think about it as a conversation with a person you care about.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
The craft of writing words to make money is called copywriting.
The first thing someone should know about copywriting is that it has nothing to do with you or what you want out of that conversation.
When people try to sell something, their mindset changes and they start talking in unnatural ways.
When you think about copywriting, you need to first think about it as a conversation with a person that you care about and want the best for.
When you take away all the tactics and persuasion techniques, it comes down to wanting to have a good relationship with the person you’re communicating with.
The hack to writing compelling copy for your products or services is having the most intimate knowledge of your target market that you can have.
To get someone’s attention, start your sentence with something you typically say to get your friend’s attention.
One of the most powerful words you can use in trying to persuade anyone of anything or get them to do something for you is using the word “because.”
The word “because” is something that immediately disarms a lot of skepticism in someone’s mind.
Saying the word “because” increases your chances of getting someone to comply with what you’re asking by two or three times than just asking without any reason.
When you want to know how to answer your customer from the level of expertise you have, understand where they’re at on the level of awareness.
Pre-search is a period when you’re looking at selling a product where you’re fresh, and you don’t know what you don’t know.
Write down all types of questions that come to mind immediately when you start figuring out who’s the person you’re talking to.
TRANSCRIPTION: WRITING FOR MONEY – LUKAS RESHESKE
Kamala Chambers
We’re going to be talking about copywriting or writing for money so stay tuned.
Today, we’re here with Lukas Resheske. He is a copywriter and also mentors other copywriters. He has some pretty well-known clients including a lot of the guests we’ve had on this podcast as well as Ryan Levesque, and we’re thrilled to get into it with him.
Luis Congdon
Hey there Thriving Launchers. Let’s talk about writing for money with the words you write, the words you put into Facebook, emails, and sales letters.
Wherever you name it, your words have the potential of making you money, and that craft of writing words to make money is called copywriting. To help guide us on this subject matter, we’ve brought Lukas.
He’s somebody who writes for a various amount of very well-known marketers that will blow you away if I mention their name but let’s not brag. I’ve already done that in the introduction for Lukas. Let’s hop right in.
Lukas, are you ready to launch?
Lukas Resheske
Yeah, let’s do this. I’m happy to be on Luis. Thank you.
Luis Congdon
All right, let’s just dive in.
We want to learn how to write words that sell, words that convince, and want to be able to use as a craft in anything that we do.
Writing For Money Is Like Just Talking To Someone And Convincing Them
Luis Congdon
And guys here’s my personal belief. Anytime you write or speak, you’re probably engaging in a very high likelihood that you’re convincing on selling somebody on something.
When you want to grab certain food with friends, you’re going to try to sell them there. You write an email trying to get people to buy something, you’re selling there. We’re almost always in a state of convincing and selling.
With that being said, Lukas, what are some of the first things most people should understand when it comes to copywriting or writing for money?
Lukas Resheske
That’s an awesome question.
Writing For Money Has Nothing To Do With You
Lukas Resheske
The first thing someone should know about copywriting is that it has nothing to do with you or what you want out of that conversation.
When you’re talking with a friend, and you’re deciding where you want to eat, there’s a mutual give and take. There’s no hate where you feel and like, where do you not feel and like, and you’re respecting that person. You care about what they want and the relationship you have with them.
How People’s Mindset Changes When They’re Trying To Sell Or Writing For Money
Lukas Resheske
When people go into “copy mode” or try to sell something, their mindset changes. They start talking in ways that aren’t natural and they start communicating in ways that just feel gross and one sided.
When you think about copywriting, you need to first think about it as a conversation with a person that you care about and want the best for, because that’s going to frame everything else.
Writing For Money Is Like Having A Conversation With A Friend
Lukas Resheske
When you take away all the tactics and the persuasion techniques, and different ways that you can make people do things or compel them or anything, it comes down wanting to have a good relationship with the person you’re communicating with.
Kamala Chambers
I love what you’re saying because it can be easy to lose sight that we are here to help people, and that’s what it’s about.
Writing For Money But Also Helping People Get The Results They Want
Kamala Chambers
And so, with the copywriting or writing for money, we’re just having a conversation as a way to help someone get the results they want.
I’d love to hear if there are any magic sentences or shortcuts to being able to write good copy and make writing for money successful?
Lukas Resheske
There are tons.
Hack To Writing For Money
Lukas Resheske
There are many different shortcuts that you can have when you’re trying to write good copy, but I think the biggest hack to writing super compelling copy, especially for your products or your services, is having the most intimate knowledge of your target market that you can have.
Lukas Resheske
I don’t think that knowing your target market too much is possible. When you’re thinking about how you’re going to talk to that person you ultimately want to sell something to, and it pays to be able to write a page out of their diary, and then have them not realize that somebody else wrote it.
You might have heard that phrase before like “You want to be able to write a page out of their diary.” but the second part of that is that they can’t be able to recognize that somebody else wrote it.
Writing For Money By Grabbing Someone’s Attention First
Lukas Resheske
If you’re going to start off the sentence or get some hack just to get someone’s attention, then it’s something like you would normally get attention for a friend.
You would say something like, “Hey, I want to show you something.” or, “Hey, I saw that you were interested in this. I have something cool to show you.” Even that type of simple language is enough to grab someone’s attention. You get them to focus on you. That’s enough for you to go into something else like if you’re trying to invite them to an event or sell a product you want them to buy, or anything like that.
It’s all about grabbing their attention first, and then intriguing them to stay in that conversation longer.
Hopefully, that was accurate enough or would you want something hyper-specific?
Kamala Chambers
I think that was fantastic and you guys, know me. I love to go specific, and I’d love to hear more of the phrase “so that.”
Writing For Money With “So That”
Lukas Resheske
Sure.
One of the things I’ll bring out is a principle that’s in the book Influence by Robert Cialdini, and Influence is one of those seminal like you have to read this if you want to persuade type books.
Kamala Chambers
“You do this so that you can have these results,” “So that you can experience even more results.” I know that’s kind of one little hack that you can use in copywriting and writing for money, but yeah, I’d love to hear from you some of those specific phrases that can break things open for copywriting.
How Powerful “Because” Is For Writing For Money
Lukas Resheske
One of the most powerful words you can use in trying to persuade anyone of anything or get them to do something for you is using the word “because” instead of saying “so what” or “How to grab their attention” or “Nine secret tricks” or “free.” There are a lot of words that you hear about.
Lukas Resheske
If you come up and say to someone, “Hey, can I butt in line?” most of the time, they’re going to say “No.” But if you come to someone and just say the word “Hey, can I butt in line because I need to get there faster?” it increases your chances of getting someone to comply with what you’re asking by two or three times than just asking regularly without any reason.
How Writing For Money Can Be Done By Taking Away Skepticism
Lukas Resheske
If you can incorporate the word “because” or the principle that it has behind it into any sales message, you’re going to automatically take down that skepticism that most people have when you’re trying to communicate with them. “Because” would be a great word to try to incorporate.
Luis Congdon
You want to use the word because it makes you more influential. I love that. There I am applying the lesson already guys.
Here’s something I think a lot of Thriving Launchers are struggling with. It’s something I struggle with, and that is the difference between being an expert and being a consumer.
Know The Difference Between Being An Expert And A Consumer So Writing For Money Can Be Done
Luis Congdon
If you’re an expert health coach, you know that people should eat healthier. You know that they should bring in some mindfulness into their life, but the challenge that you have is you know why because of the science and because of the clients that you’ve had.
But the way I might talk about it, I’m thinking, “Well, maybe I need some mindfulness. Maybe I need to focus on the food I’m eating, but I’m not going to use as a non-consumer or non-expert of that product, but a high potential client. I’m not going to use that same language or that same way to articulate what’s happening.
And so, it’s like two doctors talking to each other about why somebody needs a heart transplant compared to someone who needs a heart transplant. They’re going to say, “Well, if I don’t get it, I’m going to die, and this is what’s going to happen,” and it’s going to be very general terms.
Get Into The Minds Of Potential Clients For Writing For Money
Luis Congdon
I’m curious. What are some ways that we can get into the mind of our potential customers and our potential prospects? So we’re using their language or describing things the way that they would, and we can get out of our way as an expert because that’s detrimental.
We hear ourselves often when we talk as experts and not in a way that consumers would.
Lukas Resheske
That’s an awesome question.
Writing For Money – Starting At Level One
Lukas Resheske
There are five levels of a customer’s awareness when it comes to your product or your service, and that is for the product you’ve launched or product you’re thinking about launching. The product is the starting point, and then there are five levels that a consumer or customer for that product can be at.
If you start at level one, that someone who already knows you, likes you, trusts you, and follows you, they are very aware not only of you as an expert, but also of what you teach, any other products you’ve sold, anything like that.
Writing For Money By Build An Audience
Lukas Resheske
If you have a Facebook following, if you have a podcast, if you have an email list, if you have products you’ve sold before, all of those types, those people who follow you religiously, they know how you talk.
They’ll recognize terms you use, or you’ve utilized in the past or that you spoke about other people using. Those are people who will maybe respond better to your ideas as an expert.
One of the hacks there is if you can increase the number of individuals who listen to you, it becomes a lot easier to sell them things because you don’t have to shift your language as much.
If you can increase the number of individuals who listen to you, it becomes a lot easier to sell them things because you don’t have to shift your language as much.
Writing For Money By Going Into Solution Awareness
Lukas Resheske
An expert hack would be building an audience of some sort, but you can move beyond that Level One awareness and start going into what’s called ‘solution awareness.’ Those are the audience segment of someone who might be able to buy your product that are already actively looking for some solution to a problem they have that also correlates with whatever your product does.
Maybe they don’t know about your product, or they know about it, but they don’t know what it does necessarily. Maybe they understand the concept of your product like coaching.
If you sell coaching and someone is looking for a coach to help them with something or if you’re a personal trainer, and someone is looking for a personal trainer to help them with their fitness, that’s a solution, aware person.
Writing For Money – Problem Awareness
Lukas Resheske
That person is going to have different questions and concerns, and awareness around the product or the service you’re trying to sell. If you move beyond that, you go into ‘problem awareness.’ That’s level three.
The problem is when someone is in a state of awareness that is acutely painful to them. They are in a situation where they’ve experienced some problem, and now, they are either experiencing that problem actively or starting their search for solutions. It’s an interesting distinction between those two levels of awareness.
Writing For Money – Understand Where You’re Customer Is On Awareness Level
Lukas Resheske
But when you’re talking about how to bring your answer down from the level of expertise that you have into where your client is at, the first step is to understand where they’re at on that level of awareness, because you’re going to talk to each one differently.
So, real quick;
Level One: They’re aware of you.
Level Two is a solution aware, or they’re aware the solution is available.
Level Three is problem aware. They’re aware of their acute problem.
Level Four is ‘desire aware.’ They have some ephemeral feeling in their being that they want to do something.
Level Five is entirely unaware. They’re still technically a prospect, but they’re unaware that they even have a desire or a problem.
Pre-Searching For Writing For Money
Lukas Resheske
Once you selected that level of awareness, and you’ve identified which market you want to talk to, one of the things I do is doing a concept called ‘pre-search.’ It’s what happens before research, which is what everybody says you need to do when you start looking into a market and how to communicate with it.
Pre-search is a period when you’re looking at selling a product, even your product where instead of being colored by your own experiences or the amount of research you’ve already done, it’s a time where you’re fresh. It’s a time where you don’t know what you don’t know. You don’t know what’s in the marketplace or anything like that.
Writing Every Single Possible Question For Writing For Money
Lukas Resheske
You take that state of mind, and you just start writing every single possible question or objection or idea that comes to mind when you’re thinking about the type of person you’re talking to.
Let’s say I want to speak to a solution aware person. I know that I want to sell personal training at some point. I want to get one-on-one clients for my training service, and I’m looking for people who are searching for personal trainers.
Before I go and look at forums or Facebook groups or other coaches or other people selling personal training, I’m just going to start writing in a document all the questions I think this person has and the questions I have about this person.
The questions can be:
- Who looks for personal training?
- What types of people pay the most for personal training? Where do people go for personal training in my local area?
- How often do they stay with the clients they work with?
- What kind of results do they get?
- What kind results they expect?
- What supplements are they’re taking?
- How old are they?
- What’s their gender?
Writing For Money And Translating Your Expertise To Your Market
Lukas Resheske
All types of questions that come to mind immediately when you start thinking about talking or figuring out who this person has to be captured.
You have to write every single one of those things down because that’s going to guide every piece of research you look for, and every message that you’re going to write from then on once you’ve picked that level of awareness.
That’s how you take your expertise as a personal trainer and translate it into whatever type of market that you’re about to talk to.
Luis Congdon
I love that.
Thriving Launchers, here’s the take away for me, is that a lot of us, we’re wrapped up in being experts that we put ourselves in the position of ourselves going out and hiring a trainer.
What Lukas did well is he got us to think about where in the buying process is your ideal client or the person that you’re marketing to.
Talking To Each Person Differently For Writing For Money
Luis Congdon
If you write a blog article, are you talking to somebody that knows all the terms and the reasons why they should be buying? Are you talking to someone that’s thinking “I should get fit but I don’t know why.”? And if that’s the person you’re talking to, then you need to speak to him in a very different way than you would.
If this is a physical trainer who’s been injured a few times and they know they should have a coach because it decreases the likelihood of injury whereas, this is a person who hasn’t gone to the gym before, but maybe he’s thinking about it. However, they’re not sure why they should do it. They’ve had the thoughts, and that changes many different things.
Thriving Launchers, we barely scratched the surface in our 15 minutes with Lukas. We’ve touched this subject before with Todd Brown, who talks about this. We’ve discussed it a little bit with Russell Brunson, and various other guests.
Guys, we encourage to go to the website. Check out deeper into this stuff because marketing, copywriting, and writing for money isn’t a simple overnight thing. But if you just take to heart some of the things Lukas advised you on today, you’ll have one solid takeaway.
Writing For Money Takeaway
Luis Congdon
My takeaway is to think about where in the process of education is this person that I’m speaking with? Are they new to podcasting? Do they know that they should even have a podcast? Have they podcasted before? Those are all different kinds of people, and that means I’m going to speak to them in a very different way.
Thriving Launchers, I’m not sure what your takeaway is, but I hope you got something out of today’s episode on writing for money, and we’ll catch you on the next one. Until then, keep thriving you all.
