The Non-Obvious Alchemy of Success

Back in 1 FM, I laid out the “Golden Triangle” for anyone starting a career writing online. The APEX of that triangle is a service offer. Now, to make a service offer successful, you need to get comfortable charging good money. The problem is most writers are WAY OFF when it comes to pricing.

Wait, let me be more precise:

They price themselves fairly for the work they do in the market. But they are WAY OFF in estimating the size and value of the problems they are capable of solving with good writing. And there’s another reason writers struggle as freelancers.

First, some context:

In the 2014 movie The Gambler, John Goodman’s character Frank is dishing out some hard-earned wisdom to degenerate dicer Mark Bennett:

“You get up two and a half million dollars, any a**hole in the world knows what to do. You get a house with a 25-year roof, an indestructible Jap-economy shitbox, you put the rest into the system at three to five percent to pay your taxes and that’s your base, get me? That’s your fortress of f***ing solitude.”

I like that phrase, fortress of solitude.

As a writer, your service offer is your fortress of solitude.

But – and this may surprise you – it’s not all about the money.

It’s about honing your skills, growing a reputation and getting a look under the hood of bigger business. It’s about accumulating experience, collecting testimonials and nurturing confidence. It’s about rubbing shoulders with knowledge and intellect, finding mentors and absorbing wisdom.

Yes, your personal brand matters in the long term.

But . . .

If your only aim is to grow a Twitter audience, you’ll soon learn the difference between attention and transformation.

The way you are going to make your first $10,000 writing online is not selling 400 ebooks. It’s providing a service.

Use your service skill as a discovery mechanism for your first product.

The PROCESS of providing a service forces you to work out what problems people are struggling with.

The EXPERIENCE of solving these problems smooths the way for you to create a product that can scale.

This is the difference between hypothesis and reality. This is the difference between “Will it sell?” and “This will sell.” It also gives you two things money can’t buy:

PROOF & AUTHORITY

Ironically, the reason people want to skip straight to selling ebooks is they’re scared of selling in real life.

And here’s an even DEEPER reason . . .

This is the important bit:

The “meat and potatoes” . . .

Copywriting and Sales are complimentary – but different – skillsets.

Copywriter and Salesman are two different characters.

Two DIVERGENT psychological profiles.

Copywriter: introverted, likes tinkering and editing, researching and drafting, going for wild and wistful stomps under the sky and coming back to his desk clutching the words he needs to uncork the matrix.

Salesman: extroverted, always hunting, sharking and closing, upfront, competitive, confident, resilient, performance and commission driven. The beating heart of all business, whether you appreciate the stereotype or not.

These are two different people, but to thrive as a freelancer?

You have to get in bed with them both.

P.S.P. French

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​P.S.P. If you’re enjoying these memos, please take a moment to get your name up in lights on my website by leaving a quick review. Also, I’ve turned ON Gumroad’s PPP (purchasing power parity) option for my products. This offers customers in lower-cost-of-living areas the same product for a lower price.

Just getting started?

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Whether you’re already taking freelance jobs or just beginning to dream…

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How to Write Better Copy

I have written for magazines, tech startups, and 19 private clients, but never once have I meditated on how I write. But people kept asking me, so I bookmarked a doc and said to myself I’ll add to it over time if . . .

1/ I have something original to say or
2/ I learn something that proves to be valuable.

This week, I opened the doc and decided to punch it up.

Here’s the result.

One piece of context: respect and success as a copywriter (which is the quickest way to get paid as a writer) come not from the technical quality of your writing but from how you position yourself and the results you get for other people.

That said…

1. Benefit + Curiosity is the only copywriting formula worth remembering.
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2. People are more interested in why something is wrong than why it is right.

3. Chicago Style Manual > Cashvertising

4. Rough day? Read Bukowski.

5. It’s OK to start a sentence with ‘but.’
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6. The most powerful form of persuasion is genuine compassion.
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7. Re-read sales pages for products you’ve bought. Unpack your own belief systems and pain points. Geeky, but obvious benefits.
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8. If you’ve wedged yourself in with a deadline (it happens), the quick way out to a “good” headline is to ask:

a) What problem do they have?
b) What one thing matters most to them?
c) What desire are they trying to satisfy?

9. When you’ve got time to write 10+ headlines, make the first one Ben Settle’s go-to:

What it is . . .
What it does . . .
What it does for you . . .

Then try and beat that.

10. Vibe check: don’t write the way you talk, write the way your prospect talks. If they’re loose with screamers (!) and thumbs up emojis, that’s a cross you’ll have to bare.

11. When interviewing a customer, you need to ask “Why?” three times before you get the answer worth using in your copy.

12. Lots of business owners already have great ideas but don’t know how to communicate them.

13. One way to deal with objections is FAQ style. The superior skill is turning them into benefit-driven subheads.

14. Get methodical when you read your copy out loud. Ask yourself if anything sounds too “C-U-B-A”

– Confusing
– Unbelievable
– Boring
– Awkward
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15. Powerful verbs trump powerful words.

16. Be wary of ‘of’: often an opportunity to tighten phrasing.

17. Engage the five senses.

18. Use flashbacks.

19. Random analogies are great.

20. The word ‘very’ is as useful as a sled in a sauna.

21. The unique mechanism for brilliance is hard work.

22. Write for clarity. You can write to a 5th-grade level on Hemingway App and still confuse people.

23. A forgotten tactic is “just write.” No ideating. No prepping the page. No diddling with your avatar notes. Take the stabilizers off and freestyle. If editing is about killing your darlings, writing is about summoning them.

24. The best way to talk about new things is with new language.

25. You can name and claim old or common ideas with uncommon phrasing. When I ghostwrite, I read everything the client has written. I pull out the words, phrases, metaphors, and analogies that make them unique. Lots of ghostwriters do this. It’s an obvious starting point. But I’m the first to call it a Lexicon Extraction.

And finally . . .

I encourage you to question all of these. Some are tips, others are tenets, but you must decide which are which. Create your own techniques, draw your own outlines. Mix mine with yours, but build your own toolbox.

One of my all-time favorite philosophies, from Marcelo Garcia, 5x Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu World Champion:

“If you’re studying my game, you’re entering my game. And I’ll be better at it than you.”

P.S.P. French

Just getting started?

​🌀How to Teleport Through Twitter: I’m not going to shill you a Twitter growth guide because, frankly, you’re cooler than that. What I can offer you are instructions for how to apply copywriting’s BIG IDEA to your account. Get 3 years of study in 3 minutes.

Whether you’re already taking freelance jobs or just beginning to dream…

🔑Freelance Copywriting Master Key: This course is about earning a free-roaming living by writing from a laptop. If you want a career as an independent and handsomely paid copywriter, this is your next step. Join 147 others inside now.

The Economics of Escape Velocity

Have you ever tried reading a personal finance blog? They’re a dry lunch, so let me save you the trouble. Here’s all those hundreds of thousands of pinched nickels and earnest paragraphs in just seven words:

Earn more, spend less, invest the difference.

That’s money as simple PHYSICS. Interest rates and digits on spreadsheets. But if the rules are so simple… why does money elude most people? Remember, the premise and promise of these memos is:

Reality-based knowledge delivered as practical, tactical advice.

So instead of meandering off on an esoteric rant…

I’ll show you.

The Dollar’s Two Faces

Let’s see if you can hold two opposing ideas in your head at the same time.

1. Money is fickle
2. Money demands respect

That is money as PSYCHOLOGY.

Appreciate the difference? Now let me be honest: I’m not where I want to be. I only traded in my 9-5 three years ago. But I am getting closer every day and that has something to do with what I am about to teach you.

I’m only going to write about this topic ONCE.

Ready?

Money is fickle.
Like a spoilt cat. It goes where the value is.

​Money demands respect.
Again, a spoilt cat. If you disrespect it, it WILL LEAVE you.

If you want money to come to you, provide value to other people.

If you want money to stay with you, be a good steward.

Take notes, Mr. Montana.

Money as Happiness

The most common denominator of happiness is a feeling of CONTROL. This trumps your money, trophies, toys and prestige. And something the bloggers do get right:

Control – or good stewardship – of money comes from living within your means. I don’t give two hoots what you spend your money on and I’m not saying you need to survive on tomato soup and Malboros.

But if you want to tell a good story with your money, if you want to use it for good and convince other people’s money to come and hang out next to yours…

Then you need to know your numbers.

The Economics of Escape Velocity

The place you want to get to with your money, the place where you have “lift off…” is where for every month or year you work, you can “buy” yourself that time again in exchange. After working for one month, you have enough cash to not work for a month. Not that you’ll want to stop necessarily – but again – this is about control.

Here’s the launchpad equation.

(Post-Tax Income – Living Expenses – Debt Payments) / Living Expenses

For example, in my first year as a freelance copywriter, I made $107k. Not bad? But after 30% tax, that’s $74,900. And my living expenses added up to $45,400 (no debt though.) So $74,900 minus $45,400 is $29,500. That gives us the top number of the equation.

$29,500 divided by living expenses of $45,400 equals a total of 0.64.

$74,900 – $45,400 – 0
—————————–
$45,400

That means that even though I was pleased to earn 6 figures in my first year freelancing…

I did not have escape velocity of 1.0.

To hit it, I would have needed to either:

Drop my living expenses from $45,400 to $29,500 ($2,458 a month) while income stayed the same.

Raise my post-tax income from $74,900 to $90,800 ($7,566 a month) while expenses stayed the same.

The third option is a bit of both.

There is only so much you can reduce your expenses before life becomes miserable. But there is no ceiling to how much you can earn, so that’s a better game to concentrate on.

You’re Probably Undercharging

Making more money requires a certain level of aggression combined with the right actions in the marketplace.

Don’t worry, I’ll get into all that during our time together.

In fact, there’s a whole group of people (millions of them) for whom the price of what you’re selling is irrelevant.

What they want is energy.

See you next week.

P.S.P. French

Whether you’re already taking freelance jobs or just beginning to dream…

🔑 Freelance Copywriting Master Key: This course is about earning a free-roaming living by writing from a laptop. If you want a career as an independent and handsomely paid copywriter, this is your next step. Get inside now.

The Golden Triangle of Online Writing

This Christmas sat in well-worn chairs next to a crackling flame and tending to a glass of Laphroaig single malt whisky, I came very close – for what would have been the first time in my life – to beating my father at chess.

Dad is 78 but he’s still as sharp as ever. He played chess competitively as a young man. He fought his way back into the game and it ended in a draw. Beethoven’s 7th symphony danced in the background. Dad prefers it to the 5th.

In those delicate moments when dad was “on the ropes”, on the other side of the board I had my own struggle. I realized you can only beat your dad at chess for the first time ONCE. I asked myself, deep down, if I really WANTED to beat him at all.

Because some things are better left as they are. Other things need adjusting. This is the beauty of a new day or week or month. And a new year? That’s the HARD RESET. A full reboot. Here’s mine.

I write.
I write… for clients.
I write… in other people’s voices.
I write… at the whim and pleasure of other people’s businesses.

But I don’t write enough under my own name. So in 2023 these “French Memo” broadcasts and my commitment to publishing 39 of them this year is a public way of fixing that. What are YOU going to gain by reading them?

How to leverage the written word for fun and profit.

Look, I’m a profit-first kind of guy. But never at the expense of autonomy, free-time, family, fitness, travel, and all that good stuff. Here’s a strange paradox:

1… There’s SO MUCH work and opportunity out there for competent writers

2… I know a lot of competent writers and most of them are BROKE.

Not because they lack technical skill.
Not because they have productivity issues.
Not because of the inevitability of ChatGPT.

Because they lack reality-based knowledge.

And they’re distracted by so many opportunities… (not all of them to do with writing) … that surplus becomes a constraint.

And that’s why it’s such a wasted opportunity that most newsletters are all sizzle and no sausage.

All ‘what’ and no ‘how’.
All tease, no PRESTIGE.

My guarantee to you is that when you open my newsletters you’ll close them 5 MINUTES LATER with a tactical, practical takeaway for your writing business. Yes, I’ll pitch offers every now and again. But I promise the memos will serve you independently of the offers.

So here’s today’s takeaway.

The Only 3 Moneymakers You Need For a Profitable Online Writing Business (In Order)

1… Service Offer: Life would have been much more simple (and far less stressful) for me if I’d built a focused service offer from the off. I got distracted writing blog posts, tweeting platitudes and tangoing with the promise of other random and regrettable things that had nothing to do with securing a favorable words-to-money exchange rate.

2… Email List: Start a list, build a list and keep it warm. Email lists are about retaining – for as long as you’re in the game – a slice of the value you create. Because they provide compound interest on your efforts, not starting a list sooner is the #1 regret of many creators out there.

3… Digital Products: When I first started on Twitter, I wanted to sell something ASAP. What I should have been concentrating on was my service offer. This was before I even got into copywriting in a serious way. But something strange happened. I took some advice to write an ebook about the most recent thing I had explored how to do, which was sleep properly. I stuck Sleep Like a Lion on Gumroad, it made about ~$500 and still sells the occasional copy even though I never promote it (the copy is hilarious btw.)

I got DMs from people saying THANK YOU! They loved it! What was I going to write next?! The game is this: always be learning and taking notes. Talk on social about the things you’ve learned that interest you the most. When people show up in your DMs asking you questions, it’s time to sell.

This is the golden triangle.

P.S.P. French

Whether you’re already taking freelance jobs or just beginning to dream…

🔑 Freelance Copywriting Master Key: This course contains everything I know about earning a free-roaming living by writing from a laptop. If you want a career as an independent and handsomely paid copywriter, this is your next step. Get inside now.

The Secret of the World’s Highest-Paid Copywriter

A few months ago, I was reading an interview with Dan Kennedy, the highest-paid copywriter working in the world today.

The man is prolific.

But he’s not a prolific copywriter because he’s got a big team working for him or because he uses his reputation to bring in client work which he then farms out to minions.

He doesn’t even have internet access at home.

-->> Unlock Productivity

The real reason Dan earns more than anyone else is because he can write faster than anyone else.

This means he can take on more projects, write more books, produce more newsletters, develop more home study courses… as well as manage a 7-figure consulting business.

But HOW does he do this?

Dan wrote a book called My Unfinished Business.

Here’s a quote:

“If you can’t control your thoughts and manage your mind, you can’t control or manage your time.”

Dan Kennedy

In other words, you need to be able to focus.

Focus is at a premium these days.

Facebook, Twitter (Now X), and Instagram have the best behavioral scientists in the world on their payroll.

They are incentivized to PROGRAM addiction and distraction into the software you use every day.

So to succeed in this world, you have to fight back.

And in your fight against the evil tech overlords, I am going to give you one tip.

One thing that I have been using to help me get more done than I ever have before.

And in much less time.

And it’s something that you can start using as early as TODAY.

It gives me extra productivity, creative energy, and concentration.

Not to mention a beautiful boost in mood, sense of well-being, and motivation.

Before I tell you what it is….

You should know that I only recommend products that have actually CHANGED MY LIFE.

It’s an app called Brain FM.

You get a 2-week FREE trial.

After that, it’s 7 bucks a month. And if you can’t use that $7 investment in your focus to earn yourself another $70, $700, or even $7000 a month, then you’re doing this whole online business thing wrong.

There’s no affiliate link.

I’m not making money here.

This is a PURE recommendation.

Just tap it into Google and away you go. 

If you want to read some more thoughts on focus on productivity, I've put them together here.

P.S.P French