Matt Rizvi

There’s nothing worse than writing pages of copy…

Editing video and image creatives…

And making sure your ads are in tip-top shape…

…Only to find that NONE of it converts.

That’s when it’s time to take a step back and start listening to our good friend and upcoming contributor to Steal Our Winners, Charles Kirkland.

You see, Charles has been in the online marketing industry since 1999.

He’s always on the cusp of the things that work in media buying…

Which he proved once again when he showed Rich how he tests his ads on Facebook BEFORE he builds a funnel or even has a working landing page yet.

But make no mistake, it gets results.

In fact, he used this strategy for one client and decreased their cost per acquisition from $27…

All the way down to just $5.97.

He calls it the “Post-It Method.”

Why?

Because his testing process involves just an image of a post-it note with a headline on top of it.

Zero perfection involved.

Just a plain ol’ yellow post-it note.

Which makes it a hyper-fast way to find winning ad angles and avoid high ad costs.

But don’t go running to try it just yet…

Because this is just one part of his 6-phase testing process that he shared with Rich Schefren in the upcoming issue of Steal Our Winners.

During the interview, Charles reveals…

• The 6 phases of testing he uses to find multiple winning ad angles (most marketers are doing this completely backwards)
• How to sort through Amazon reviews to find the most infuriating pain points of your target market
• The exact ad rules you MUST tell Facebook to follow if you want to find angles with the lowest cost
• The 4 types of body copy that the algorithm loves to serve users based on their certain browsing behaviors

If you want all the details, then make sure you watch the full interview inside the February issue of Steal Our Winners, which comes out this Sunday.

The deadline to sign up and reserve your issue is Saturday at 11:59pm (PT).

Don’t miss it.

Get access for just $1 right here.

Your pen pal,

Matt Rizvi

The late, great Gary Halbert once said…

“Strong copy will not overcome a weak offer, but, in many cases, a strong offer will succeed in spite of weak copy written by marketing morons!”

That still rings true today.

And if there’s anyone who’s taken that statement to heart…

It’s Caleb O’Dowd — who’s achieved a mastery in performance marketing and was mentored by Gary himself.

He even lived inside his home for some time.

So recently, when word got out that Caleb had a fool-proof formula for creating high-converting offers…

And used it to rake in half a million dollars from 1,100 people in just 12 days flat…

Rich chased him down for a segment in the upcoming issue of Steal Our Winners so he could hear it for himself.

Thankfully, Caleb held nothing back.

In fact, one of the first things he revealed, which he says is the difference between a beginner marketer and a professional marketer, is his method for deep research into his customer avatar.

He says, “This, to me, is really my secret sauce. It’s my perspective — it’s the spectacles that I put on to view the world of marketing and make money with.”

Rich was on the edge of his seat.

“The real alchemists of the game — they’re not looking to execute so quickly. What they’re looking to do is spend 80% of their time in the planning, strategizing, and researching phase.”

What continued to unfold was a complete masterclass in creating an offer that snaps prospects into action. Including…

• The fool-proof formula that creates a fast, unique, exciting, done-for-you solution that your prospects must have
• How Caleb ‘triangulates’ the 3 primary reasons for WHY your market buys. Gary Halbert forced him to do this repeatedly!
• The 18-month long marketing strategy that your competition doesn’t have, which is causing them to lose up to 85% of potential customers
• How to position your offer as the most superior alternative in the marketplace

You can get full access to this segment in the upcoming issue of Steal Our Winners.

As Rich said…

If you follow this formula, you’re basically turning your offer into an ‘intelligence test’… because only a dummy would pass on it.

Just make sure you sign up by TONIGHT at 11:59pm (ET) guarantee access to the new issue.

Your pen pal,

Matt Rizvi

Want to grow your following by 500 a day?

Then I’ve got one word for you:

Clubhouse.

You’ve probably heard a lot of people raving about it.

Basically, it’s LIVE podcasting.

But more importantly, it can feel like going to an in-person event or convention from your phone.

And to be frank…

You’d be hard pressed to find a social network that allows you to build influence as fast as this one.

In fact, Sean Vosler — who’s a copywriter, marketer, and funnel-building expert — is getting 500 new, organic followers per DAY on the platform.

And it didn’t take much effort for him to get there either.

All it took was a few of the tips he shared with Rich inside the upcoming issue of Steal Our Winners.

During the interview, Sean dropped value bombs about Clubhouse, like…

• How he’s grown past 18,000 followers on the platform — and is currently gaining 500 new, organic followers per day with a little help from its algorithm

• The backdoor method you can use to befriend club owners and increase your chances of getting on stage of the most popular clubs in any niche
  
• How Sean and other marketers are using Clubhouse to skyrocket their growth on the platform by using a group strategy dubbed the “Syndicate”

Simply put…

It’s never been easier to grow a following of people who know, like, and trust you with Clubhouse.

But if you want in on the action, make sure you check out Rich’s interview with Sean inside the February issue of Steal Our Winners.

It comes out this Sunday.

…Which means you’ve gotta enroll by Saturday at midnight (PT) to guarantee that you get the new issue.

Click here for the full details.

Your pen pal,

Matt Rizvi

The writing is on the wall…

Fans LOVE it when you livestream.

Not only does it allow your tribe to know you better on a personal level… but it also makes it easier for you to understand their deepest problems and desires.

(Which are critical to helping them as customers.)

For example…

Every Tuesday at 2pm (ET) and Thursday at 6pm (ET), Rich hosts a 2-hour livestream on Facebook. And as a result, he gets to engage the folks on this list who “vibe” with him the most.

Not only does this consult make a positive impact on their business…

But we’ve also built a decent-sized Facebook ad-audience based on the folks who watch Rich’s livestreams (also known as a “PlayThru” audience).

And we’ve found that this audience generates lower CPAs and higher LTVs than other audiences we’ve tested our ads against.

Point being…

If you want your audience to KNOW… LIKE… and TRUST you…

Then livestreaming is a great place to start.

Just one problem…

Not everyone is good at talking on camera LIVE.

And that’s where Molly Mahoney comes in.

She’s a “Camera Confidence Coach,” digital growth strategist, Mama, and owner of The Prepared Performer.

But most importantly…

She’s Rich’s go-to Facebook Live Expert.

Seriously. Before Rich started his weekly livestreams, he called up Molly for advice on the best way to get started.

And since then, livestreams have become Rich’s favorite social medial strategy.

Now normally, you’ve gotta pay Molly thousands (or be bookmarked in her rolodex like Rich) in order to discover her best livestreaming strategies.

But this Thursday, February 25th, she’s hosting a FREE Facebook Live Masterclass called: Attract Your Ideal Client With Live Video.

And during the call, she’s spilling the beans on her best livestreaming ideas.

Are you in?

Molly’s giving away all the secrets of how to feel more confident and create real results with your videos.

You just gotta click here to sign up.

Your pen pal,

Matt Rizvi

I have a confession to make:

I can get pretty into stuff sometimes.

In fact, I often catch myself browsing the Interwebz for hours, searching for the next new “thing” I want to buy:

New clothes… new sneakers… a new mid-engine Corvette… a new house in a new city… or most recently, a new desktop computer so I can play all the new video games in VR at max resolution with zero lag (even though I never play video games anymore).

This habit is nothing new.

And on the surface, it’s easy to label as “materialistic.”

But what I eventually discovered is that my problem is a whole lot different than that.

In fact, it’s actually a symptom of a much more common issue:

Procrastination.

You see, I often waste time buying shyte on Amazon — not because I desperately need it — but because the activity offers an easy escape from the hard work at hand.

“Buying socks is a lot easier than building a business.” I rationalize to myself.

And almost every time, I wind up with the same results…

When I indulge in these impulses to buy new things, it feels good for maybe a week or two (especially BEFORE the item has even arrived as I’m waiting for it in anticipation). But then, the dopamine rush wears off. This “thing” doesn’t feel so new anymore. And I start to regret trading this temporary thrill for a permanent dent in my bank account.

My point is:

Buying more stuff doesn’t make me any happier than I am right now.

I have a good life.

And I know deep down that I won’t be any happier “once _______ happens,” or “when I can finally afford to buy_______.”

Sure, it would be nice to live in a 50,000 square-foot mansion, drive super cars, and own more Hawaiian real estate than Mark Zuckerberg.

But day dreaming about how “happy” I’ll be when I finally get these things won’t move me closer to my goals.

And it won’t make me enjoy life any deeper.

Instead, I’ll be so busy thinking about the future that I won’t savor the present.

And if you can’t do that, then what’s the point of it all?

Anyways…

If your experience with resistance is similar, then ask yourself next time you’re shopping online:

“Do I really need this? Or am I just procrastinating?”

The answer may surprise you.

Your pen pal,

Matt Rizvi

Need to hire a copywriter?

(Or want to get hired?)

Then listen close, because this decision can have a major impact on your business.

Choose right and you can enjoy years of fresh offers, new customers, and a growing stream of sales.

But choose wrong and you could be doomed with a copywriter that struggles to produce… ignores deadlines… writes non-compliant copy (that gets your biz in hot water)… repeats mistakes over and over… and at best, breaks even on the money and time you invest in them.

Now, as someone who’s spent the majority of their career in the copywriting trenches — as well as training, recruiting, and hiring copywriters — I’ve given this topic considerable thought.

And frankly, the things I look for in a budding copy star are not what you’d expect…

Because for me, it comes down to 2 factors:

What I can teach… and what I can’t teach.

I CAN teach “creativity” and how to identify big ideas (and early on, I can simply feed them to the copywriters). I can teach how to write well and how to write fast. I can teach copywriting structure and theory.

But what I can’t teach are the intangibles.

I can’t teach work ethic… or attention to detail… or motivation.

So when I’m testing out a copywriter, I want to make sure they do the little things…

• Do they go the extra mile in their research (i.e. get on the phone with the client, read existing copy, search through testimonials, test the product, etc.)? Or do they make hyperbolic, unspecific claims… or worse, simply make up facts?
  
• Do they follow your instructions the first time? Or do they repeat the same mistakes over and over again?
  
• Do they seek feedback early in the process and often? Or do they wait until the very end to get your thoughts on the copy?
  
• Do they hit their deadlines… or even deliver their copy early? Or do they chronically miss deadlines… ask for extensions… and then still deviler shoddy work?

Anywho…

Those are the big questions I ask when evaluating potential copywriters.

They may not be a magic bullet for everyone (for instance, if you — or someone on your team — doesn’t have the skillset to train copywriters).

But they’re the key things I look for.

And I recommend you do the same.

Your pen pal,

Matt Rizvi

Don’t get it twisted…

I’m more than willing to spend BIG buckeroos on ads.

But before I do, there’s 3 specific questions I need to answer:

QUESTION #1: What exactly do I want from this campaign?

First, I’ve gotta define what my ideal result would look like. For example, is the purpose of this campaign to generate qualified leads? Sales? Or perhaps a specific type of engagement?

QUESTION #2: What ad channels will I use?

Next, I have to decide which channel I’m going to advertise on. Will my traffic come from Facebook ads… Youtube ads… native… paid search… email drops… or a combination of sources? But whatever I pick, the channel should make sense for my ultimate campaign goal.

QUESTION #3: What’s the fastest and easiest path to get it done?

Lastly, what are the steps I need to build into my marketing campaign to achieve my objective on the ad medium I chose? Don’t overthink this one. Instead, I like to map out my “minimum viable funnel” and get it launched ASAP. Then I can start testing and making improvements based on the results.

Alright, now it’s your turn to ask these questions and see if you’re ready to run ads on cold traffic.

And if you are…

Then make sure you tune in tomorrow at 1pm ET (10am PT) for a free training session with my good friend, Kim Walsh Phillips. On the call, she’s going to reveal the exact strategy she used to generate $2.73 million in revenue by building her audience from cold traffic.

So if you’re looking for a simple system that enables anyone to generate high-quality leads that literally pay for themself, then make sure you register here right away.

Your pen pal,

Matt Rizvi

P.S. If you don’t know Kim, she’s the leading direct-response social media marketer behind the biggest names out there – including Dan Kennedy, Rich Schefren and Kevin “Mr. Wonderful” O’Leary from Shark Tank.

And on this training she’s promised to share with you her exact strategy for quickly growing an audience, building a list and generating customers…that pays while it works.

Click here to register for this free masterclass now.

In yesterday’s morning meeting with the team at Strategic Profits, Rich stopped everything (as he’s prone to do with his ADD) and gave me a new directive…

“You’ve got to watch the interview I just recorded with Walter Burch,” he said.

“You should watch it too, Jack (who’s our copywriter). The call was about Youtube ads but what he shared applies to every form of advertising going forward.”

In short:

Walter — who’s helped deliver targeted campaigns for more than 200 national clients including eBay, Orbitz, BestBuy.com, Overstock.com, Staples, and Target — revealed that there’s a paradigm shift happening in marketing.

And after burning through over $400K in Youtube ads, he discovered that the common copywriting approach of the past doesn’t work anymore.

You can’t just TEASE your prospects with value.

Open loops that simply promise an eventual payoff, like…

“In a minute I’m going to show you…”

“Do you want to…”

“What if you could…”

…Aren’t converting like they used to!

Plain and painfully simple.

Instead, you’ve got to follow the exact opposite approach and lead with VALUE (but not in the conventional sense of giving away the farm for free).

Frankly, it requires a bit of nuance and goes against the instincts of many marketers.

But Walter has boiled it down to a brain-dead-simple process that he refers to as “taste vs. tease.”

And you can get all the details inside Walter’s interview featured in the upcoming issue of Steal Our Winners.

This big release is this Sunday.

So if you want to get it, you’ve gotta sign up to Steal Our Winners by Saturday at midnight.

You won’t want to miss it.

Your pen pal,

Matt Rizvi

When it comes to online business noobies who’re eager to burn the boats… quit their 9-5… and set out on the perilous path of entrepreneurship… I hear the same story over and over again.

Often they want to:

(A) Sell a product or service they’ve never sold
(B) Teach a skill they’ve yet to master
(C) Target prospects they don’t understand
(D) Enter a market where they have zero credibility
(E) All of the above

Now, if you only suffer from one of the above, you can probably make the leap.

For example…

When I started selling courses on copywriting a couple years ago, that was something I had never sold before.

However, at that point, copywriting was a skill that I had been practicing for half a decade. I knew the prospects intimately because I used to be one of them. And I had a decent amount of credibility because I cut my teeth writing copy at Agora and had achieved a successful career as a freelancer.

As a result, I didn’t fall on my face.

But the less and less experience you have in your new venture… the more likely it is to fail.

And that’s why I’m always skeptical when people ask:

“If you had to start all over again, what would you do?”

Because if you’re truely starting from ground ZERO, failure is almost certain — no matter what strategy you’ve got up your sleeve.

…At least, that’s what I thought for a long time.

But recently I was listening to an interview with Rich and Seth Greene that made me question this wisdom.

Now, for those of you who don’t know Seth, he’s the co-host of the Sharkpreneur Podcast with Kevin Harrington, a 3x Marketer Of The Year nominee, and a legendary direct-response marketer.

And during the start of the interview, he made an audacious promise:

“We’re here to talk about how you can build a cult of 50 evangelists who will go out and promote your business, your marketing, your message, your company, [and] your brand to the world every week for a year,” he said.

And boy did he deliver.

During the call, he revealed his 5-step approach for doing exactly that — even if you have zero experience… zero credibility… and a tiny budget to get started.

In other words…

Starting from ground ZERO.

In fact, Seth was so confident in his approach that he even conducted a real-life experiment where he used this strategy to jump into a brand-new niche and create a successful business in just 90 days.

I was shocked.

It rocked my long-held beliefs.

And now I know that if I had to start all over again, THIS is what I do.

And you can discover the same approach when you check out Seth’s interview inside the February issue of Steal Our Winners, which comes out this Sunday.

So if you want access, make sure you sign up by Saturday at midnight.

Clock’s ticking.

Your pen pal,

Matt Rizvi

At Strategic Profits, we teach people how to grow their businesses online with courses, memberships, ebooks, whitepapers, and coaching.

In other words…

We sell information.

And as a result, there’s one asset that’s more critical to our success than anything else.

It’s not the website.

…My gigabit Internet connection.

…Or even our products.

Sure those are important. And it would be pretty darn hard to succeed without them.

But even more critical are the components that create those assets, leverage them, and turn them into profits.

I’m talking about people.

They’re the most valuable part of our business.

But here’s the problem…

Hiring the right people is waaaayyy more difficult than it looks.

“Hire slow, fire fast,” the maxim goes.

And it’s 1,000% true.

But you also have to consider the order that you fill positions.

Is it the right time to hire a copywriter? An executive assistant? A media buyer?

It all depends.

So to help me make these decisions, I look to a VERY different business for advice:

The National Football League.

Because just like my business, a football team is only as good as its staff.

It’s the ultimate people business.

And what you’ll notice about championship-caliber organizations that seemingly go to the playoffs every year, is that they have a very similar process for building their teams.

Usually they follow these 2 rules:

RULE #1: Build Through The Draft

Great organizations are very selective about spending big money on free agent players who’re already established. Instead, their top players are often drafted straight out of college and groomed within the organization.

Not only does this allow the team to save money with rookie contracts, but their players start as blank slates that can be easily molded, taught their system, and indoctrinated into the culture of the organization.

RULE #2: Draft The Best Player Available

The other thing that top football teams do when building through the draft, is that they don’t draft players according to their needs. Instead, they draft the best player available.

So even if they’re stacked at wide receiver, they’ll still draft another one if that’s the best player on the board when it’s time to make their pick.

Now here’s what these two approaches look like when hiring at an info business…

Take Agora for example.

For many years, they’ve done these 2 things really well with copywriters:

1. The best businesses within Agora built their copy teams by training rookie writers with potential, not by hiring top-tier freelancers (they do that on occasion, but most Agora copywriters start in-house).
   
2. If a talented Agora copywriter decided to leave their company, the competing Agora businesses would quickly make them an offer — even if their copy team was already loaded with rockstars.

Point being…

Great talent is hard to retain.

But it’s even harder to find.

So if you can groom talent in-house, you’ve got a strong competitive advantage.

And if you’ve found someone who’s excellent at their job and understands your business, do whatever it takes to keep them.

They’re your #1 asset.

Your pen pal,

Matt Rizvi