{"id":4804,"date":"2017-11-10T16:25:45","date_gmt":"2017-11-10T16:25:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/conversiongods.com\/the-lazy-mans-way-what-joe-karbo-taught-me\/"},"modified":"2021-02-23T17:30:18","modified_gmt":"2021-02-23T17:30:18","slug":"the-lazy-mans-way-what-joe-karbo-taught-me","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/conversiongods.com\/the-lazy-mans-way-what-joe-karbo-taught-me\/","title":{"rendered":"The Lazy Man’s Way (What Joe Karbo Taught Me)"},"content":{"rendered":"

About 7 years ago, I discovered a copywriting principle so powerful it makes AIDA look like the 100-year old has been it is.<\/span><\/p>\n

Let me ask you a question.<\/span><\/p>\n

Have you ever just sat there and gawked at the beauty of a piece of copy?<\/b><\/p>\n

I’m not talking about design, I\u2019m talking specifically about <\/span>the words<\/span>.<\/span><\/p>\n

For me, it was Joe Karbo\u2019s <\/span>Lazy Man\u2019s Way to Riches.<\/b><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

That was a beauty.<\/span><\/p>\n

I mean there are definitely many others, but Joe\u2019s full page ad kicked off my love affair with copywriting.<\/span><\/p>\n

He was the catalyst. I\u2019d say to myself…<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIf he could write THAT and make millions, surely lowly I…\u201d<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

You get the picture.<\/span><\/p>\n

Which brings me to my point.<\/span><\/p>\n

I\u2019m sure others can back me up, if you\u2019ve ever seen the product Joe was selling, then you know it wasn\u2019t the greatest. <\/span><\/p>\n

And that\u2019s being kind about it.<\/span><\/p>\n

The truth of the matter is\u2026<\/span><\/p>\n

It sucked.<\/strong><\/p>\n

As I recall, there was only two pages in the book that had any real value.<\/span><\/p>\n

One was copy he wrote as a love letter to his wife. Totally blew me away.<\/span><\/p>\n

The other was copy he used to sell a green Cadillac. I still remember it.<\/span><\/p>\n

(It was BRILLIANT. And I\u2019ve used the same exact strategy many times since.)<\/span><\/p>\n

But Joe was right. <\/span><\/p>\n

His little book that only cost fifty cents to publish, made me millions for myself, clients and partners.<\/span><\/p>\n

Now the masters of copywriting will tell you that to write great copy, <\/span>you need a great product<\/span>.<\/span><\/p>\n

Gary Bencivenga at his \u201c100\u201d seminar was particularly emphatic about it.<\/span><\/p>\n

Yet I totally disagree.<\/b><\/p>\n

Many times when I land a client, <\/span>I don\u2019t even have the product to work with to evaluate.<\/b><\/p>\n

And even when I do, many times <\/span>it sucks worse than Joe\u2019s book<\/span>.<\/span><\/p>\n

No, a great product is definitely inspiring, but <\/span>it\u2019s not a necessity.<\/span><\/p>\n

The reason why I say you don\u2019t need a great product, is because…<\/span><\/p>\n

People DO NOT fall in love the product, or even its features and benefits.<\/span><\/p>\n

No. <\/span>People fall in love with THE COPY first.<\/b><\/p>\n

What they\u2019re buying is:<\/span><\/p>\n

THE COPY.<\/b><\/p>\n

They\u2019re not putting their trust in the product. <\/span><\/p>\n

They\u2019re putting their trust, faith and belief in <\/span>THE COPY.<\/b><\/p>\n

It\u2019s not the product that gets them to part with their money, <\/b>it\u2019s THE COPY<\/b>.<\/b><\/p>\n

When you work in hyper-competitive markets with hundred of different products that all look the same, you quickly realize <\/span>the quality of the writing is what immediately differentiates you.<\/span><\/p>\n

Spend some time analyzing the competitive on ClickBank and you\u2019ll see.<\/span><\/p>\n

Copy is what people are really buying.<\/b><\/p>\n

And this is why marketers like Agora is so insistent on amazing copy–almost to a fault.<\/span><\/p>\n

And if you look at the big time marketers today, I won\u2019t name names, you\u2019ll discover the majority of their initial products sucked.<\/span><\/p>\n

Yet they made a go of it, didn\u2019t they?<\/b><\/p>\n

In fact, I recently wrote a promotion for a 2 and a half page \u201cproduct\u201d.<\/span><\/p>\n

The copy? 24 pages. Yes, 24 pages to sell a 2+ page product.<\/span><\/p>\n

Amazingly, the offer sold out in 15 minutes against a small list of 1000.<\/span><\/p>\n

What\u2019s more is that there have been zero refunds.<\/span><\/p>\n

(I once heard Joe saying he had few refunds as well.)<\/span><\/p>\n

The copy kickstarts the \u201cfirst impression cognitive bias\u201d. It sets the stage.<\/span><\/p>\n

This is why <\/span>the smartest marketers write the copy first, AND THEN the develop the product.<\/b><\/p>\n

In fact, one of my copywriting partners on my team REFUSES to look at client products.<\/span><\/p>\n

Remember how Eugene Schwartz used to take a highlighter to an book or something to pull out the best stuff?<\/span><\/p>\n

I still do that. But my partner refuses. <\/span><\/p>\n

He says most of the infoproducts depress him because they could be so much better. They take the wind out of his inspirational sails.<\/span><\/p>\n

So he writes the copy based upon HIS research. He finds out what customers in the market REALLY want.<\/span><\/p>\n

Unlike most <\/span><\/p>\n

And I must say his copy is EONS better than the product. <\/span><\/p>\n

So much so, the client falls crazy in love with it.<\/span><\/p>\n

I\u2019m not kidding.<\/span><\/p>\n

Here\u2019s his secret: As long as he DOESN\u2019T have a peek at the product, he\u2019s able to write without the limitations and restrictions normally imposed.<\/span><\/p>\n

He can \u201cunleash\u201d and write pretty much whatever he wants. (Of course, he has morals.)<\/span><\/p>\n

Here\u2019s the thing: <\/span><\/p>\n

The client is usually so impressed with the copy they often go back <\/span>and add to the product<\/b>, filling in the missing components until the product matches the copy bullet for bullet.<\/span><\/p>\n

My goal of this email today is to reorient your thinking.<\/span><\/p>\n

Perhaps to get you to appreciate why it\u2019s important to put so much muscle into your copy.<\/span><\/p>\n

–Matt<\/span><\/p>\n

P.S.<\/b> What\u2019s your favorite piece of copy? Leave a comment and tell me about it, ok?<\/span><\/p>\n

We can geek out on copy together.<\/span><\/p>\n

P.P.S.<\/strong> Here\u2019s Joe\u2019s copy in all its glory:<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

About 7 years ago, I discovered a copywriting principle so powerful it makes AIDA look like the 100-year old has been it is. Let me ask you a question. Have you ever just sat there and gawked at the beauty of a piece of copy? I’m not talking about design, I\u2019m talking specifically about the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":4805,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[63],"tags":[],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/conversiongods.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4804"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/conversiongods.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/conversiongods.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/conversiongods.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/conversiongods.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4804"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/conversiongods.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4804\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/conversiongods.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4805"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/conversiongods.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4804"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/conversiongods.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4804"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/conversiongods.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4804"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}