Joel Erway’s Best Year Ever

Interview Transcript

Nabeel Azeez: [00:00:00]

Welcome back. We’re doing another case study interview with one of my favorite clients. And I’ll tell you why he’s one of my favorite clients in a second. But first, welcome, Joel Erway!

Joel Erway: [00:00:11]

Hey, what’s up Nabeel?

Nabeel Azeez: [00:00:13]

So for the people who don’t know you, even though you’re like a super-famous-guru, could you just tell them what you do?

Joel Erway: [00:00:20]

So I run a company called The Webinar Agency. We write mini-webinars and long-form traditional webinars for our clients, and we also run some do-it-yourself courses and coaching programs, helping experts and marketers launch high ticket courses for their businesses or personal brands.

Nabeel Azeez: [00:00:39]

And the reason why Joel is one of my favorite clients is that I love working with people whose product actually delivers on the promise because it makes it very easy to write the copy. Like, I don’t have to do much.

And then there’s another aspect of it where, like, when I know that the person I’m writing for is legit, then I can, comfortably and with full peace of mind, I can go all out and sell the shit out of their things, because I know that, this is a real thing. It helps people, it gets results and it does exactly what it says it’s going to do.

Joel Erway: [00:01:14]

Awesome, man. I appreciate that. It helps to have a rockstar like you on the team and, producing our message so it is, it’s congruent with our brand.

Nabeel Azeez: [00:01:23]

All right. So I’m just gonna, I’m just gonna ask you a few questions, about your work with us. And then, we might take a few detours along the way. So have you worked with copywriters in the past and to what extent?

Joel Erway: [00:01:39]

Yeah, we’ve worked with, I’ve actually worked with quite a few copywriters in the past, for a multitude of different projects. So what we ended up working with you on I’ve never hired anybody in the past before. So I had, you know, when we first started our engagement, the whole goal was to, it was more of a branding project. It was more of a branding project where you were going to be essentially taking over my social media content, posting daily, which is not anything that I did in the past. So you’re posting daily content and it was something that I had never done before.

So I’ve worked with copywriters to write emails before, to write webinars, to write sales copy, but nothing in terms of awareness, brand awareness or it’s like a hybrid of brand awareness slash direct response marketing. So yes, it was a new venture for me, but I have worked with copywriters in the past.

Nabeel Azeez: [00:02:32]

And then people might not know this about you, but you’re actually a damn good copywriter yourself. And one of the hard things working with you and working with some of my other clients who are actually good at copy is, like, I have to work extra hard to actually top the stuff that you can write on your own. And there’s this, there’s always this competition going on, like, why am I even writing for this guy? He can already write for himself.

Joel Erway: [00:02:57]

Yeah, it was, writing copy takes time. And I knew that if we were able to get more great content pumped out, it was going to, it was going to make a bigger impact, make bigger results. And that’s the main thing is it just takes time. Like it just takes a lot of time to sit down and think about this stuff and make sure that it’s pushing people closer to the conversion hole whenever you put out a piece of content.

And yeah, even if you’re a great copywriter, it helps to have somebody on your team who is skilled and knows direct response. And the thing I like about you, Nabeel, the most, is you get personal branding, which most people don’t get. I don’t even really get it. Like it’s an art and a skill. And that was one of the biggest lifts that I saw when we started working together.

Nabeel Azeez: [00:03:46]

Yeah. It’s one thing to write copy and it’s another thing to, you know, how they have, they have Mathematics and they have Applied Mathematics. So it’s the same thing, and I know you, that’s a nerd thing, engineers will joke about. And obviously, Joel is an engineer, which is why I made the engineering joke.

I’m going to ask you something about a particular concept that you teach because it’s going to lead to my next question. And you have this really cool concept, which I love. It’s called “Sales Over Marketing.” And could you explain a little bit about what that means?

Joel Erway: [00:04:20]

“Sales Over Marketing,” I started teaching it when I realized I was doing it backward. And so back in 2016, I was trying to grow the webinar agency, trying to get clients. And I had been learning all about marketing. I’d been learning all about digital marketing specifically. And when you learn about digital marketing, you go down a lot of rabbit holes. And marketing can really be a distractor for what you really need. Because what I didn’t really need marketing. What I needed were clients. And it didn’t, I didn’t understand the distinction between sales and marketing until, it was like, my back was up against a wall.

I was spending tens of thousands of dollars. On masterminds on coaches, on programs on ads and really not moving the needle. Everybody was talking about these different types of funnels that you should build, and they’re all marketing funnels. And when you understand that marketing is really like warming up an audience that is not ready to buy right now. And sales is speaking to high intent decision-makers, high-intent customers. If you don’t understand that distinction, then you are going to fall into the marketing trap.

This is not to say that marketing is not important, but until you’re at a certain stage in business like you really shouldn’t be focused on “marketing.” Right? You shouldn’t be focused, this is my belief, you shouldn’t be focused on educating an audience that is not yet ready to buy because the more education you have to do, the more it’s going to cost you to acquire a customer.

And until you realize, I learned this from the Ultimate Sales Machine, Chet Holmes has this concept called the “Buyer’s Pyramid.” There’s three to 10% of your market that’s ready to buy right now. Right now. And if you are able to craft a message to speak to them and generate customers, now, those are sales activities, that’s sales-related activities. And that is really what many people should be focusing on. Everybody should be focusing on.

Focusing on it on a daily basis, but what 95% of the marketplace does right now if you’re struggling to get clients, we’re all focusing on marketing, which is warming up the other 90% of your market who’s not ready to make a decision right now. And what I said before is the more education that you have to do for your audience, the higher your cost per customer acquisition. And that’s directly tied to how much you’re going to spend on ads. It’s going to tie to how much you’re gonna spend on your time educating that prospect, talking to people who are not ready to buy right now.

And, that’s why I focus on sales before marketing. And focusing on sales before marketing, focusing on sales means developing your offers and making sure that you have an offer that people actually want to buy, you want them to say yes to. And so that’s really ultimately where we came down with the concept of the Power Offer, which is getting people to raise their hands. “Hey, I want that. I’m interested in having a conversation, a yes or no conversation right now.” And when you get that dialed in and you get people to say yes, then you can start working on your marketing-related activities. But until you get that Power Offer dialed in, you really shouldn’t be focused on any sort of marketing.

Nabeel Azeez: [00:07:36]

And if I understand you correctly, depending on where you are in your business, things like daily content marketing and posting every day on social media, aren’t a priority. So, which leads me to my next question, why did you decide to start on this project of trying to post daily on social media? Why did you decide to hire that out? And also, after you answer that, why did you decide to go with us?

Joel Erway: [00:08:05]

Yep. I was honestly at the point of when I brought you on, I don’t know if it was January, February of this year. I think we worked together, we’re working together for about 10 or 11 months so far. Maybe you can correct me, I can’t remember the exact timeline, but it’s been a while. When I brought you on we were in a shift of, number one, I had an idea that I had a pretty warm audience that just needed to see more of me.

I knew I had a following. I knew I had people that, probably would buy from me if they just heard from me more regularly. And at the time I wanted to start building a team and, it was an activity that I was ready to experiment with. And, we have a fellow mutual connection, Mike Mark, who is a client of yours.

He had been posting something or somehow he mentioned how his business doubled or grew quickly once he hired you. And it was really a, it’s because I trusted Mike, I’ve worked with him in the past and I saw the content that he was being, that he was putting out,
which was being written by you, and I liked it. It was somewhat edgy, but not super direct response, but still brought people closer to the hole. And so when I reached out to him, he was like, yeah, Nabeel is great. We had this conversation, I’m like, all right, let’s, I’m never going to be posting daily.

That’s just not in my bandwidth. It’s not in my capacity. Let’s give it a shot and let’s see what happens. And it was an experiment that I was looking forward to testing and we knocked it out of the park and I had you ultimately take on other side projects like sales letters and emails. And, it was a great experience.

Nabeel Azeez: [00:09:44]

And, I think we started working together in March if I remember correctly. So walk me through, what did your business look like in the three months before we started working together? So like Q1 of 2020. And then, how did it look, what were some of the changes that you saw three months after we started working together, for example.

Joel Erway: [00:10:06]

So before we were working together, it was more, okay, let’s just keep throwing stuff at the wall and see what sticks, which is my brand. It’s like how I’ve designed my education side of my business.

And I’m not a very systematic type of person and it fits my lifestyle. I really designed this to be more of a lifestyle business. But in the first part of 2020, I wanted to, I really wanted to grow a team and I wanted to, I wanted to start to put processes and I wanted to start to put core elements in place that can be repeatable.

And after we started working together, we were now posting daily. The number one thing that happened was, that you can’t really measure, is word-of-mouth and referrals and organic leads and sales came in like crazy. I had been, lots of people were reaching out to me saying they loved my content.

They love the stuff that I was putting out. I had guys like, big-name podcasts like Mike Dillard, Roland Frasier, Anik Singal, these are all guys that reached out to me and asked me to be on their podcast because they were seeing my content and they were loving my concepts.

And so that’s the type of stuff that really stands out. And we were able to take, like, the best hits of what we created over the past six months, we would turn them into ads, like more brand awareness ads, like funny ads, you created a few memes that have just caught fire.

I’ll never forget it. It was recently, like, within the past month, you created that, the Power Offer meme ad with the cat bobbing his head. We turned that into an ad for my powerofferworkshop.com. And I’ve seen people swipe that. I’ve seen, it gets incredible engagement. And, and we also have people telling us that, like we are abusing cats, which I have no idea how they think that we’re abusing cats with that.

But, it’s hysterical. The first time it came, cause I had, at one point I gave you approval just to post whatever you write, so I didn’t have to approve it anymore. It came across my feed and I remember as soon as it, it got me to stop and I’m like,” Holy shit, that’s my ad.” Or that’s my post.

I laughed so hard. And that’s the type of stuff that gets people’s attention. I’ve had other big-name gurus, see that ad. And like they said, it was the ad of the year. “This wins the best ad of 2020.” So that stuff is the stuff that, like, is very unique.

Meaning, like, you can’t teach that. You can’t teach somebody to create memes around your personal brand. Maybe you can, I’m sure you could teach anything. But, that’s the type of stuff that I was really impressed with. And that kept my brand top of mind and really got the attention of a lot of people.

Nabeel Azeez: [00:12:48]

Awesome. I’m so glad it’s doing so well. We actually created a bunch of memes for you. In fact, you, just so the audience knows, we’re in Slack and Joel is “I need you to make five to 10 more of these memes for me.” And it was like a legit, like, deliverable I had to do for you.

Following on from that, so when we initially started working together, it was just like we, we said, okay, we’re just going to do the daily content, but then we ended up doing a lot more stuff as well together. And you mentioned a few of them, we did, we’ve written sales pages together.

We’ve tried to optimize your checkout pages. We’ve done email sequences. We took over your, the show notes for your blog and the email marketing for that. And then we also started writing ads for you and doing creatives like the memes and things like that.

Joel Erway: [00:13:35]

Yeah, it’s crazy, like, when you start telling me everything that I had you do, cause I just forget. As a business owner, it’s okay, it goes out, like it’s in your head, you delegate it and it’s gone, but yeah, you have, you’ve done a lot.

You were doing a lot, you are doing a lot for us. And, sorry, I just wanted to say that, I didn’t realize how much you were, you had been doing, but I, but yeah.

Nabeel Azeez: [00:13:57]

And we relaunched your highticketcourses.com website with a full redesign.

Joel Erway: [00:14:02]

Yep. Not even relaunched. Launched it. I didn’t have it beforehand.

Nabeel Azeez: [00:14:07]

Yeah. And those are the kinds of things that, I mean, I can’t speak for every single copywriter in the world, but there’s a lot of copywriters who wouldn’t be able to pull that many different kinds of projects off while working for a client. Most of the time, there’s this thing we have with copywriters about – or anybody that’s a service provider that offers services – like the idea of scope creep.

And there’s a lot of copywriters who are really protective of, these are the deliverables that I’m, that I said I’m going to give you, and this is what you get. But the way I’m thinking is, and the reason why I go, like, I offered to do all of these extra things for you, the way I’m thinking is that I’m, I want you to be a client of mine, like forever. So that little bit of extra stuff that I do, and it’s not all the time. It’s once every other month I might have to do something.

And that little bit of extra things that I have to do, like, the LTV of the client goes from six months to a year to 18 months to 24 months. And then you can’t really, you can’t really put a price on that and you can’t calculate that, in terms of this, these are the deliverables and this is what you get.

Joel Erway: [00:15:14]

A hundred percent.

Nabeel Azeez: [00:15:16]

All right. So, what were some of the concerns or uncertainties you had before deciding to work with us, to be your, essentially your voice online and for your personal brand?

Joel Erway: [00:15:31]

Probably the same concerns that most people have when they hire a copywriter. First is ROI, right? How am I going to, how is this gonna turn into an ROI for us, right? Because I knew it was gonna be more of a brand project. I’ve never hired a brand copywriter before.

It’s always been, Hey, write a sales page for me, write a webinar for me. You can get a pretty good idea if it’s converting or not early on, cause it’s directly sales-driven. So this was my first kind of brand-driven copywriter that I’ve worked with. And so that was the main concern was, hey, am I going to get an ROI?

And I had to go in it, not really, knowing that I wasn’t going to be able to measure the ROI and I was going to measure it based on what other people were saying. And that was a very clear indicator. I had a lot of people reach out to me saying. Hey, man. I love the content that you’re putting out.

That was how I knew we were doing a good job and I was able to supercharge it by taking those best hits, the best-performing ones, and run retargeting ads, just brand awareness ads. And, our clientele that we were attracting went up because when you attract people that have been in your world a lot longer, they trust you more.

And, It just becomes a better experience. And so we had that ROI there and it was noticeable. And, but that was the main concern that had is, am I going to get an ROI? But I knew that I wasn’t going to look at that. At least in the short term, like the first three to four months, I wasn’t going to worry about that.

Or I told myself I wasn’t going to worry about it. I needed to wait long-term to see how this was going to play out.

Nabeel Azeez: [00:17:10]

And just to clarify or add to that. It wasn’t like all of the, was it like all of the work that we were doing had an indirect result or did you see, like, a direct impact in terms of, okay, we posted this and then a bunch of sales came in or we posted, we did, like, a few emails or some posts and we got some direct leads from that.

Joel Erway: [00:17:30]

Yeah, at one point we got into a routine where I think every Wednesday was our offer day. So it was like Monday through Sunday, every day, except Wednesday was going to be, promote a podcast or do brand-driven stuff. But we made a decision that every Wednesday we were going to make some sort of offer whether it was going to be for my low ticket stuff, whether it was going to be to speak with us about agency services.

Once we started doing that it became a little bit more cyclical and repeatable. Okay, cool, like, we usually get a little bit of a spike on Wednesday with sales or with leads coming in. And when we implemented that, yes, we had more predictability and we definitely saw a spike, but I did that because I needed to see, okay, like how is it that I can, how can I determine when we get a result or when we can start to measure this. Rather than just doing random posts all the time, we put a system together. And that really helped once it was that every Wednesday type deal.

Nabeel Azeez: [00:18:27]

And then I think you’re absolutely right. It’s, I guess virtually impossible to measure because you don’t know how long someone’s been in your sphere of influence before they decide that, okay, this is the post that is going to get me to act.

Joel Erway: [00:18:39]

Yup. Yup. Yeah, and I needed that just from a managerial standpoint because I wasn’t reviewing the posts before they went out. And so a lot of times I wouldn’t even see the posts. And Until I said, okay, every Wednesday, that’s when our we’re going to have one of our offer posts go out.

That’s when I saw, okay, great, we’d always have a spike on Wednesdays of whatever we are promoting. Yeah.

Nabeel Azeez: [00:19:03]

And then the beautiful thing about doing those offer posts for you, speaking as somebody who’s writing for you is that I was just using your Power Offer so it was super easy to do.

And like I already knew that this is the offer that you have, that we’re selling. And I know it works and this is how it gets delivered. And I didn’t have to, I didn’t have to overthink it. It was just like a regular, everyday post. I just have to promote it because Joel being Joel and you being who you are, like, people just ate it up.

Yep. And speaking of a low ticket, actually, I think your powerofferworkshop.com is our first control. Like the first, actual, long-form sales letter control that we’ve written and it’s generating cold traffic sales.

Joel Erway: [00:19:47]

It is, yeah. We’ve been running cold traffic to it for, I don’t know, four or five months now and we’re running traffic to it right now. It’s worked really well for us. We’ve been ROI positive and, you rewrote the checkout page for me, which is live and that’s outperforming. So the checkout page has outperformed, I don’t know the exact numbers, but it has outperformed the previous version. And, yeah, it was, that Power Offer Workshop is doing very well.

And what’s funny, the lead or the headline that you wrote for me for the Power Offer Workshop, I was like vehemently against it. And that’s not in a bad way. I was like, it was more like that headline is not going to work. And any business owner, anyone with copy experience needs to check their ego at the door.

Like it doesn’t matter how good you are. You have no idea how it’s gonna perform until you get eyeballs on it. And so the headline is “Give me 3 hours and I’ll show you…” I can’t remember it, but it’s the idea, “Give me three hours and I’ll give you XYZ.” And I’m like, ah, like I just hate the idea of “give me three hours,” because I would never buy it. It’s ’cause you’re exchanging time. But we ran it and it converted.

And what’s funny is I’ve seen guys like Justin Goff, and a couple of other like well-known copywriters, I’ve never, I haven’t talked to them about this, but I’ve seen them reuse that lead and I’ve run a ton of paid traffic to it, so I know people have seen it. And I’ve had a lot of big-name gurus buy the workshop. So I know it’s being seen, but I’ve seen a lot of people mimic that, give me X, Y, and Z, and I’ll give you, I’ll give you, whatever the promised result is. And so I can’t say for certain that they’re seeing that because of me, but I’ve seen a lot of people mimic that, mimic that lead.

It works. It’s working well for us. And, Yeah, it was, it was something that I didn’t think was going to work. I’m like, I didn’t like it until I started making money from it. Now I love it, so…

Nabeel Azeez: [00:21:45]

Yeah, a little bit of Inside Baseball here. So I learned that headline formula from Neville Medhora who runs copywritingcourse.com.

But then later on, as I, as I understood or studied more copywriting, I realized that it’s actually a swipe of David Ogilvy’s Rolls Royce headline. And it’s just something about the specificity of, like, the number in the front and the specific outcome or the specific benefit that’s happening.

And also, I think the reason why three hours might be working is that it’s not 60 hours. It’s not eight weeks. It’s not, like, I don’t have to go through 50 modules of videos to figure out this Power Offer. It’s just a three-hour workshop. And then I sit there, I go through it, and then immediately I can post on Facebook and get clients.

Joel Erway: [00:22:39]

Yeah. I’m hoping, to be honest, man, I’m hoping, the Power Offer framework becomes like a control. Like an Ogilvy control, like one of these headline controls and, it’s funny because I see so many people using it and that power opera workshop has done, it’s done so well for our brand.

Not just monetarily, but like just raising our brand to a status level. Hey, you need to go check out Joel’s stuff. Like word of mouth is through the roof. We have people who want to promote it as an affiliate. So yeah, it’s been, it’s been great. And that sales page has worked really well.

Nabeel Azeez: [00:23:12]

And that’s absolutely true because anytime someone asked me to critique their coffee, their copy, not their coffee. Anytime someone asked me to critique their copy and I find the offer is weak, I say, I just tell them, the offer is weak. Please go to powerofferworkshop.com. It’s $37 bucks. Get it, go through it. And fix your offer because that’s the thing that’s gonna make the difference.

Joel Erway: [00:23:32]

Yep.

Nabeel Azeez: [00:23:33]

So I don’t know how many people I’ve told that to. Like, it’s a good benefit because it saves me time as well. All right, so now, it’s not all been like, what is the “Roses and…” What is the phrase? “Something roses.”

Joel Erway: [00:23:47]

Candy canes, and rainbows.

Nabeel Azeez: [00:23:49]

Okay. Exactly. So what were some of the challenges that you face working with us? And I know I’m not always the easiest person to work with.

Joel Erway: [00:23:58]

You’re just an asshole. I’m just kidding. Working with any copywriter, especially somebody who is willing to push the boundaries and push the edge, like, which you’ve told me a few times, Hey, I want to push the, push the boundaries and, because that’s what, when you play on the edges, that’s what brings your most ideal clients closer to you, and repels the people that you don’t want to work with.

So there were a couple of times where we had some edgy posts that went out there that probably crossed the line of what I’m comfortable doing in terms of brand marketing. And so that was really it, is, but you have to have somebody on your team who’s, who understands that.
it’s not necessarily a con. You have to, I would challenge any business owner to create that type of content to push the edge, to push the boundary. there was one post in particular that, I remember I took down, I only took it down because we had revealed names, which I wasn’t comfortable with. I think the story was fine, but we revealed names and I took a down.

Or I just, I didn’t take it down, but I muted it or I made it, so it was only visible by me. But, it had a tremendously positive engagement. And that’s what happens. Like when you tell those stories that hit the, that are on the edge, it gets the attention, it’s juicy, and it brings people closer to you. And all the stuff, all the comments that I read were, they were bringing people closer to me.

And I was at a point where I didn’t want to review every single post because you were creating posts every single day. So it’s okay, at the time, I just, I gave you full reign, like great go, go post. And It was really just that one time where I saw the post and was, oh, okay. I’m not comfortable with this message.

And so I took it down, but, I would follow up that comment with saying it performed well, but it was, we just, everyone needs to be able to find that edge, find that line of where you’re willing to go because it does, it is extremely effective in bringing your close, your ideal clients closer to you.

There’s only so much bland stuff that you can put out there. And you don’t want to put that much stuff out there. I mean, Dan Henry is an excellent example. Brilliant marketer, respect him tremendously. And he puts out a lot of edgy content because that’s his brand and, he has a raving fan base.

And so you have to find your voice and you have to also find your edge. And so you’ll cross the line a couple of times. And you’ll, you know, maybe you have to figure out how to cover your tracks, but, that only means that you’re doing good work.

Nabeel Azeez: [00:26:42]

And I have to say, and I told this to Mike as well. I have clients that I work with that like on the scale of pedantry, like on a 1 to 10, I have some clients that are like a “nine” or “10.” I’ve worked with people like that. And I have some clients that are like a “two” or “three.” You’re much on, far on the lower end of the spectrum.

You were so easy to work with. Partly because you couldn’t be, like, you just didn’t have the time, or you couldn’t be, you weren’t really interested in looking at all the posts. So just, let’s go ahead and do it, which is fine by me. And then the only time that, and it happens with some of the other clients too, who give me the freedom and the leeway, we’re going to make mistakes.

Like no copywriter is going to get it right 100% of the time. Especially if they actually care about writing, like, good shit for the client that is actually gonna make an impact. So, like, most of the time, and me, I’m a little bit more on the aggressive side, so I tend to push the boundaries a little bit more.

But that’s where like the client has to come in and say, okay, listen, we don’t want to do this. And then just one time telling us, like, telling the copywriter one time is enough and then going forward you’ll just make the adjustment and you’ll keep going from there.

Joel Erway: [00:27:55]

Yep. A hundred percent.

Nabeel Azeez: [00:27:58]

So what’s been, I know we mentioned it sporadically and spread out over the course of the discussion, but what has been, if you could summarize, what has been the impact to your business over the nine months that we’ve been working together, either directly or indirectly?

Joel Erway: [00:28:11]

It’s been great. So I’m one of these entrepreneurs that jumps from project to project and, so I’m probably, like self-admittedly, probably one of the worst clients to work with. Like, I know you are trying to put me up on this huge pedestal. You say I’m awesome to work with, but I know it can be difficult cause I don’t I’m entrepreneurial ADD, jumping from project to project.

But I will say this was our best year, revenue-wise, ever. And we increased revenue probably by, about 50 or 60%, year-over-year. And we had huge jumps in revenue from May, June, July, August, and I think September, were all record months, every single month. Like, we broke a new record every single month.

And, a lot of that was due to referral work and referral work is a direct response to nailing your brand awareness and your brand marketing. Yes, you have to do great work to get referrals. But a lot of people who were saying, Hey, I love your content. And they were not coming through one of our paid traffic funnels.

They were coming from, follow me on social media, following me via email, et cetera. Five record-breaking months in a row, like four or five record-breaking months in a row. I can’t remember exactly what it was, but it was at least four. I think it was five. And a lot of that was when we weren’t spending a whole lot of money on paid traffic.

There you go. That’s probably as best of an indicator as I can tell you. We weren’t really running our long-form webinar ads, which is a driver of our course sales. Our agency has just gone through the roof during those months. And a lot of that was due to everyone’s talking about us brand awareness was at an all-time high.

And, yeah, so a hundred percent, that was, you were a big part in that.

Nabeel Azeez: [00:29:59]

And as much as I’d like to take 100% of the credit, Joel, actually, built a phenomenal team around him. He hired a client success coach. He hired a high ticket salesperson who is absolutely crushing it on the calls.

So I’m pretty sure that had a lot to do with it as well. And also he launched his coaching program which, like, overnight, with a Google doc and a 10-minute live stream brought in well over six figures in revenue. And I didn’t write any of the copy for that promotion. I can’t take all of the credit.

Joel Erway: [00:30:30]

No, as I said before, that was for the coaching program, but our agency revenue, which I’d say you were more directly aligned with the agency side, we definitely hit record months because of the agency stuff. Yeah, it’s a combination of everything, but.

Nabeel Azeez: [00:30:47]

That was the only thing that I wanted to sell, because I know it’s, it’s like, it’s a massive investment. And then if I could sell two, even one of those like you’re in ROI for the month on our retainer. So that was the only thing I cared about selling. It’s like, I gotta sell this agency offer. Yeah. All right.

So last question. Fun discussion. Thank you so much for your time. What would you say to someone who is considering delegating their copywriting? Either they want organic content or they want somebody to write their emails, or whatever it is, but they’re having trouble letting go. Like they’re afraid of giving up control and they’re afraid of, you know, trusting a copywriter with their voice and their brand.

Joel Erway: [00:31:28]

What I will say is that if they are specifically looking at working with you, number one, they should be committed to building their personal brand or company brand. They should be committed to brand marketing. You are a direct response marketer who also understands brand marketing, which is a very unique skillset. And if we can educate more people on the importance of that and the difficulty in being able to do that successfully and consistently hiring you would be a no brainer.

So what somebody needs to really focus on is yes, they need to be willing to let go. Most entrepreneur, or successful, I don’t want to say entrepreneurs, a successful business owner will not have that issue. I don’t even call myself a business owner. I’m more of an entrepreneur because I’m lifestyle focused.

And as I’ve self-admitted before I jump from project to project to project, If a business owner is considering this, they’re not gonna have any issue letting go. But they also have to understand the tremendous ROI that can happen when you have somebody who can develop edgy content that is on brand and knows how to, how to attract that ideal customer.

Never in a million years, would I have thought memes would work for my audience, but. You threw a couple out there and they just fucking crushed it. And I’m like, that’s awesome. That’s something that my creative brain never would have considered. You also created some, I call them identity posts for my audience, which I’ve run successfully, and you wrote a couple of ads for us that crushed it.

Like we developed the whole unique hook of the four-by-four lifestyle based on one of your posts that you wrote for me, which was “I work four hours a day, four days a week,” which is totally true. But I never really talked about it. I don’t know why I never really talked about it, like, intently. You turned it into an ad. And the feedback on that has been positive. Like I get so many people that say they follow my stuff because they want that four-by-four lifestyle.

And working with a copywriter who knows how to extract ideas, will do exactly what I just talked about. They will listen to you, because you listen to all my content, and they will identify the triggers that are, which, this is exactly what I do for my clients, they will identify the potential triggers that sound sexy that the expert will just glaze over because they’re not listening in the eyes of their potential audience. So they will pick out those key trigger points, those sexy hooks, and turn it into content that will bring more of your audience closer to you.

So yes, it’s all about letting go, but I don’t want to minimize the value that you bring by just saying, “Oh yeah, you get a copywriter who will handle it for you.” It’s way more than that. It’s the hooks and the ideas that really move the needle in creating consistently winning sales copy or ads or identity posts. That’s what I really, like, that’s the value that I extracted from our, from what you’ve done for us.

Nabeel Azeez: [00:34:29]

Yeah, it’s really easy when the client is actually legit. So, there’s not that much to do. It just writes itself, almost, and really that’s exactly what it is. I’m not, I’m not trying to be humble or anything. I know I’m actually pretty good. But I don’t write anything from scratch. All I’m doing is, rephrasing the stuff that I’ve heard you say, or you’ve said to me directly or stuff that we’ve talked about. And that’s how I pretty much handle all of my clients.

Joel Erway: [00:34:56]

But honestly, that’s what a great copywriter will do. If you have to create stuff from scratch, then probably your client’s not worth their weight in gold. And you’re like building a brand from scratch, right? It has to be coming from them in their words. And you’re taking that and explaining in a way that like number one, you’re listening to the ideas that you know will hit, or you think will hit, and you’re extracting the gold from them and putting it out there.

That’s what a great copywriter or content writer will do.

Nabeel Azeez: [00:35:22]

Beautiful. All right, so, that’s all of the questions that I have for you. Thank you so much for your time. I really appreciate it. And I’m really looking forward to us, continuing to work together in the future. Thank you, Joel. And thank you to everybody who watched or listened.