VMP 285: Copywriting Secrets From Cult Of Copy Leader Colin Theriot

Brandon 00:00:01  Welcome to the Veterinary Marketing Podcast, where it's all about how to attract, engage and retain clients to your vendor. Practice using digital marketing. In today's episode, we have guest that I'm very excited about. He is somebody who's definitely influenced the way that I approach marketing at time. His name is Colin Theriot and he is the founder of The Cult of Copy, which is a Facebook copywriting group. He is a Facebook copywriting guru, is what I would describe him as, but an incredibly interesting person and a really great copywriter in my opinion, but also a fantastic copy coach and able to teach specifically copywriters how to become better copywriters. So I know that a lot of people in the veterinary industry are interested in copy, because whenever I talk about it, they'll typically say, I really like it, but I'm not good at it. So I think you're going to get a lot of value. I've learned so much from Colin. I would say he's probably one of the top ten influencers in terms of, influencing me as a marketer.

Brandon 00:01:02  He is constantly posting amazing lessons inside of his Facebook groups. he's also you can go to Cult of copy.com and check out the courses and things that he has. But if you're interested in copywriting, today's episode is going to be full of great info. And, I think every veterinary practice could be benefited by having better copy. the cool thing about Collin, too, is that he's outside of the industry and he's worked with just tons of different people. So it's always good to get outside opinions and and insights, just because a lot of times when you're looking at copy or how things, how people do things, pulling from outside examples will help you to innovate. And I think that's one of the easiest ways to quickly innovate is find examples in other industries that are working and then apply it to your industry. So I hope that you enjoy today's episode. Before we begin, we just have two sponsors. Are you looking to get better SEO ranking for your riding practice. Probably everyone I know that runs a veterinary hospital would be benefited from having better local SEO.

Brandon 00:02:05  And that's why I want to give you some free tools from one of today's sponsor. It is White Spark.ca. If you go to Veterinary Marketing podcast.com/seo, that's veterinary marketing podcast.com/seo. You can sign up to get a free account to give you some amazing SEO tools. White Spark gives you everything that you need for better local SEO. If you haven't heard the episode I did with Darren Shaw, be sure to go back and look at it. He is the founder and owner of this company. It is fantastic. They have Google business profile management, local rank tracking, local citation finder, reputation builder. They even have professional SEO services if that's something that you're looking for. So go to Veterinary marketing podcast.com/seo to check out White Spark and the free tools that they have available for you. You won't be disappointed. They're really cool. let me know what you think, too. If you need help with any of that, please don't hesitate to reach out. But again, veterinary marketing podcast.com/seo. Have you ever said yourself I wish I knew where these clients were coming from? If you've ever been wondering, you know what is actually driving conversions in your practice, then I have something that I think will be great for you and that is called rail call.

Brandon 00:03:22  Rail is a fantastic tool that allows you to measure and see where your conversions are coming from, and which of the calls and call sources are driving clients into your practice. Caldwell makes it really simple to not only see where your calls are coming from, but the AI tools that they have that track and record the conversation so that you can assign outcomes to the calls is amazing. I highly suggest all of the clients that I have used Call Rail, and if you've ever wondered where my clients coming from, You can try coral out for two weeks for free. If you go to Veteran marketing podcast.com/call rail, you'll be able to try call rail for yourself and finally know where your clients. Thank you so much for being on the podcast, Colin. I really, really appreciate it. as I was mentioning to you, I wanted to have you on the podcast for years now, which is awesome to have you here. You definitely been one of the formative, internet marketing gurus and really helped to, help me with how I think about copy and offers and all kinds of cool things.

Brandon 00:04:24  Could you tell people real quick kind of your background in marketing? Because I think it's pretty unique story.

Colin 00:04:29  Sure. I was, I worked on web design, and I got into, SEO and I was working at a company that sold, wedding favors and baby gifts online as an e-commerce store. And this is, like, in 2008, when you would have, like, a Yahoo store that would compete organically on Google. So as before, Amazon and Walmart let you sell your stuff through that? and this company had, like, some SEO guru guys who are, good at selling that kind of thing. Like, they had their own stores, and then they taught other people how to do it, and they started this thing called Stomper net. It was, Brad Fallon and Andy Jenkins, R.I.P. Andy, who's been passed away some time ago, but, he was a great mentor to me. But anyway, I was working at the wedding favor company, and then they did this startup, and it was hugely successful, and they kind of headhunted away people that were working, at the e-commerce stores to help out with Stomper net.

Colin 00:05:32  So, I became the chief marketing copywriter when I volunteered to help because our writer was either sick or too busy and needed a helping hand. And, Andy was like, it's pretty good. Do you like doing this? And I'm like, sure, it's easier than illegally wiring your rental house for Wi-Fi so we can work here. and, he's like, great, that's your job now. so I accidentally became a copywriter. I had no intention of doing it. No ambition to do it. so the way I got into it and studied is probably very different than anyone who was trying to do it on purpose. I had to get up to speed very quickly. We had a lot of talented marketing people there because it was like an educational sort of incubator. So we had lots of dudes who are used to, like, writing their own copy to sell their own stuff, already. So anything that I wrote had top level people being like, do it this way, not that way. Look at this.

Colin 00:06:36  Read this book. Not that one. so I don't have to do any of that, like, hand copy, 100 old sales letters, longhand on a legal pad and and do any of that. First thing I wrote sold like, 10 million bucks as a launch. And that's not because I'm that good of a writer. It's because those two guys were established in their market as influencers. We didn't call them that at the time, but that had a huge impact on the way that I write copy. Realizing that it's if the messenger matters to the recipient, the message matters less. But you can use copywriting to make that messenger matter and have a personality that they like and associate with, so that you don't have to be as good of a copywriter, because people will ask me sometimes like, what's the best email subject line? And so that it could be anything, as long as they care about who the front line is, because then they're going to open it anyway. It doesn't matter what it says.

Brandon 00:07:36  Yeah, absolutely. If Warren Buffett sent an email and it didn't have a subject line in it.

Colin 00:07:40  Right, right, right.

Brandon 00:07:41  What does he want to say to me? Yeah, totally makes sense.

Colin 00:07:45  Yeah. So so that's kind of. You said that I was influential in the way you think about copy. To me, that's what makes what I do different is that it's focused on empowering the messenger and putting the value on them, and making the recipient care about what that person has to say. Because when you do that, it's less about sneaky persuasion tactics. You can just talk straight with them. But the trick is use copywriting to make them see that person as valuable instead of trying to sell them stuff. And then it's easier to sell them.

Brandon 00:08:18  Stuff definitely. Totally makes sense. So veterinary practices in general are not great at copy. And in fact, like if you look at most veterinary hospitals, you could take all of the content from one website and just copy and paste it on the competitor right down the street.

Brandon 00:08:35  Right. And you wouldn't know except for like the names. Right? So a lot of times their positioning that they go for is like, we are compassionate, we care more. We treat your pet like family, things like that. And I generally say that this doesn't really have very much value. I mean, it's good to know that somebody cares. But then at the same time, the practice right down the street does the exact same thing, right?

Colin 00:08:57  Right. Like which veterinary practice is like, if you hate your dog, bring them here.

Brandon 00:09:05  We're gonna get the ones that are the euthanasia practices where you're going to put your dog down.

Colin 00:09:09  Right? Right. Yeah. No, that's not really, going to make you stand out for sure.

Brandon 00:09:15  Absolutely. So when you when you talk about helping to basically elevate the messenger, how much do you think a local business and obviously it's very, very niche. Right. But how much do you think a local business should focus more on customer journey, like the the expertise of the vet when essentially, like everybody really cares, generally speaking, like 80% of practices really, really care.

Brandon 00:09:42  They also do a good job. So when you think about a business like that, Where would you go with positioning and copy and things like that?

Colin 00:09:51  generally what I do is I put clients through a four step process, and I have an acronym for it because I like to do that kind of thing. People think it's clever. so, so, the one I use for client differentiation, it's called dust. Dust. And the first thing we do is we want to make you different from everybody else in the area. And the trick is, most people think that when you describe yourself, how are you different? But the trick is it's way easier to be different if you make everybody else look the same, usually in a negative way. So I'm not saying you got a bad mouth your competitors by name, but if you can talk about what other vets do, that's not great and you do it differently, you almost don't even have to say you do it differently, because people make this presumption that if you're complaining about something negative in your field, you must be the opposite of it.

Colin 00:10:51  Because why would you complain about something that you yourself do? So if there's something like like a typical one in almost any industry, they treat you like a number. We treat you like family. That would be an example of figuring out what is the commonality that all the other guys are doing. That's just not the best way to do it. And maybe it's just a sake for the sake of convenience. It's cost effectiveness. Whatever the case is, step one is differentiate by making everybody else look the same, because then it's easier for you to stand apart if you put them all in the same box. Now you just have to say, I'm different than that box. You don't have to have a whole checklist of differentiators. So that's step one. Step two is unique, and one of my biggest pet peeves in copy is when people talk about I'm the most unique or this is more unique than that. That's inaccurate. Unique means one of one, one of a kind. There's no levels of uniqueness.

Colin 00:11:51  Either you're unique or you're not. It's like being dead. There's no degrees of deadness. You're either dead or you're alive. It's a binary unique means, one of a kind. So what is it about you that none of your other competitors have? It could be anything like, in my own work promoting myself, I talk about my, extremely rural Cajun upbringing on the southern bayous of Louisiana. That is something other copywriters don't have, and if they do, it overlaps with other things that are different about me. Like, I'm I'm, nerdy in a way where I'm into old comic books and vintage video games, and I collect old science fiction and fantasy paperbacks prior to 1990. Anything after 1990, I don't want. These are things that I talk about and I connect it to what my work is. I use metaphors like an example is 30 Marketing Lessons you can learn from playing Super Mario Brothers. It sounds stupid, but anybody who is my age and into the things that I am connects with it.

Colin 00:12:57  And it's not completely unique marketing lessons. It's just presented in an interesting way that is unique to me. So you can find that uniqueness by overlaps, that sort of, if you think of it like a Venn diagram, I have this background and this story and this educational experience and this hobby. Those things overlap. And there's a little area in the middle where I'm unique. I'm the only guy who has that combination of stuff. And just by telling stories and relating it to your business, it creates that perception. And this is, something you see a lot in fiction where they're trying to create a character, so they give them a unique background. This guy's a detective, but he's from the middle of nowhere, you know? Or he's raised on a ranch in Montana, so that colors everything he does. That would be an example. So that's unique. D u s a special special has to do with your offer. It pertains to your offer. So we talked about your competition. We talk about you as unique.

Colin 00:14:03  How are your offers special. And what I mean by that is every offer you make should be different than the off the street, off the shelf regular price that you can get all the time. It seems counterintuitive because people are like, well, if every offer is special, then like there's no standard offer. And I'm like, correct, there shouldn't be. That's for regular people. The person buying from you right now, they're special. They want to feel special. So you make them a special offer. if you're a vet, I presume there's all kind of seasonal things you can do. There's add on packages, you know. if you get your regular checkup, I know the one down the street from me has a sign that they'll do, like a free dental if you come in for your regular service or things like that. Right. So always be thinking of what you can do to make it feel like what you're offering. Actively offering is special in that it's not the usual thing. If you came in off the street and said, hey, I want this, you could get it, but this is different and that's why I'm bothering you about it.

Colin 00:15:13  That's why I'm emailing you or sending you a flyer in the mail putting a note on the sign. It's not the regular thing, it's special. And then finally, the T is for tribal. How are you a member of the same community as the people you're talking to? How are you part of a family or heard, just, what is it you have in common with that audience that brings you together? Now, the stuff you talked about, caring about animals, having the proper credentials. Those are things that put you in the tribe of vets. What puts you in the tribe of the community you serve? That's where things like how long you've been in business in the area come in, what other community things you're involved with. That's why it's useful for you to, like, support the local softball team. As an example, if you can put your name on the sign and even tell your your email list, hey, we're sponsoring the team. They're doing good this year. Come out and see them and support them.

Colin 00:16:19  We don't get anything from it. We just love those kids. That shows that you are in the community as a member as opposed to I'm a vet and I do this for the community, if that makes sense. Sure.

Brandon 00:16:35  Does that does that tribal? also relate to like segments within the audience to like. People that treat their dogs like children, for example. Like.

Colin 00:16:46  Yes, yes, that is correct. So not.

Brandon 00:16:49  Not.

Colin 00:16:50  Right. I was speaking to like local community because that is obviously a geographically based business. But within that, like for example, our cat goes to the Cat Clinic of Roswell, where I live in Georgia, they only do cats and the guy is nuts about cats. He literally talks to cats like he meows at them in very specific ways that are weird if you don't know him. And, doctor Ray, again, to talk about tribe, he wears a giant paper mache, cat head and plays drums like, there's, street fairs during the summer where his cat clinic is.

Colin 00:17:31  So he pulls out his drum set and sits out there in a cat costume and tears it up on the drums. That's really cool. It has nothing to do with being a veterinarian, but he's there in the community, participating outside of the cat clinic. And then when you go inside the cat clinic, there's, you know, cat trees everywhere. There's cats who live there that they take care of, that wander around. It's very, if you're a cat person, you 100% immediately can tell that this is this guy is a cat guy. It's not just like he got into it as a business niche. He. He's a cat freak. You know, it's just what what what he's into. so using that as an example, he he and he's not a client of mine. This is just observational. He he follows the four letters. He's different. Everyone else is the same. He's different. He's unique. what? He offers a special. And he's showing people how he's part of the tribe, he's part of the community, not just a service provider selling things, but he's a participant in everyday life in the area.

Brandon 00:18:44  Definitely. So you mentioned, special offers. And I think offer creation is one aspect that's pretty challenging. Veterinarians don't like to do discounting in general, but I think that they could look at things in terms of bundling or even breaking down an offer of like all of the things that are included in making it seem special. for businesses in general, how many offers do you think that they should have, like kind of in the hopper, ready to go at any point in time?

Colin 00:19:16  Not really knowing anything specifically about the veterinary business. I think of it like like the people I work with and, and me personally, we sell information and I think of it in terms of expense, like the most expensive package that you can get. That's everything for the person who's just like, tell me how to write the one check, and then we're done for however long. So that's the most expensive side. And then there's like the cheapest one is like stuff, you know, like I guess if you, you bought like your, your pet food through your vet or medicine subscription or something like that.

Colin 00:19:55  Yeah. so thinking of it as a spectrum of price points, you do like the major, most expensive thing quarterly, for example, and then the next thing monthly. And then like the cheap stuff you can just have available all the time, like check out our web store at the footer of every email. So it's the kind of thing where offer something every single time you're messaging them. But it can be very soft offer just making it known that you're available. like, my simplest soft offer is. Let's do a consultation. Right. So one hour of my time available anytime. That's for sale as a standard thing. Anytime I do. Like if you check me out anywhere, you know, I'm available for hire for that. It will point you to that. Yeah. the number of offers it. You want to make it so that you can communicate. I think any business you want to communicate with people every day. Now, I don't typically deal with regional businesses that may be that might be annoying to your customers, but maybe the best customer available in your area is the one who wants you to email them every day because that's how much they love their pet or whatever.

Colin 00:21:19  even if you're not emailing every day having content of some kind like just a blog about what you do and this can be it doesn't have to be an endless hamster wheel of creation You like? I have a I call it a great loop of content that's a year long and all of it is evergreen. It's frequent enough that it looks like I talk about my area of expertise all the time, continuously, but the the path is long enough to where even if you read what I write every single day, by the time it loops back around, you've read so much more that it's not going to be like, oh, this again, you know what I mean? so you have that that's let me back up. That's kind of what the internet requires for you to have visibility is constant engagement. Yeah. within that frame offers at least once a week something special, an excuse to contact people and say, hey, get plugged back in, spend some money with us, we'll take care of you. So having a special weekly deal of some kind, I think it's probably the sweet spot, definitely, because then you have because then you have an excuse.

Colin 00:22:34  That's one of the reasons why you want a special offer is because it's self-justifying. Why are you emailing me today to buy the same thing I can get any day of the week? Well, you can. You can only get it now. It's special. That's why I'm bothering you this week. It's only available this week.

Brandon 00:22:52  Definitely. And most veterinary practices don't do email at all. Wow. Like a it's a huge potential. Pretty crazy. And if they do it maybe once a month and then there's actually no call to action in the emails that they send. Oh my gosh. So they'll send an email and then won't even be like a phone number in there to call to set up an appointment.

Colin 00:23:12  Yeah, I, I, I had a client one time that was they were very embarrassed because they were like, this ad isn't working. What can we do? And I'm like, well, what is it you want people to do? And they're like, oh, we want our phone to ring.

Colin 00:23:24  I'm like, well, you should probably put your phone number on it. And then they're, you know. Crickets.

Brandon 00:23:29  That's exactly like, what do you want them to do from this email? They're like, well, read it. And then they said, okay, is that all because you don't have a website, right. Right.

Colin 00:23:37  That, that that brings up a good point because like a lot of regular people don't think about it, but like don't bother anyone unless you have something for them to do and that you should always have something for them to do. So I was talking about a baseline offer before. Even if I'm going to email you to share, like a tip about copywriting, I'm going to put the contact info in there and say, hey, if you want to talk about your copy, reach out. Here's how to do it. You know, there should always be a call to action and everything that you send, even if it's just to keep in touch. And the fear people have is like, oh, well, people are going to unsubscribe.

Colin 00:24:19  And I say, what did you want their email address for? If they don't want to receive offers from you? What, like There's no reason to have that contact information.

Brandon 00:24:28  If it doesn't help you.

Colin 00:24:31  Right? Right. So yeah, you you only want the email addresses of people who will read your emails and do what you ask them to do, which is respond to your offers. I don't know what's possible within the realm of veterinary stuff. There's bundling, like you said, but I don't know if you could say like, here's what the annual cost of pet care is. What if we divide it up monthly and you just pay a low monthly thing and you come in whenever, that's a possibility. just looking at what your competitors offer and offering something different. Just an alternative, but a meaningful difference. Like if you don't like that for this reason, we'll do it this way. Sure.

Brandon 00:25:17  Definitely. Well, I think so. A lot of the private practices that listen here, they're competing against corporate groups and corporate practices.

Brandon 00:25:26  And so I think that different that you mentioned is putting I think, you know, talking about you're treated like a number to a huge faceless corporation that's looking at you as at a profit. As a profit center. Right. Right. And I think people dislike that kind of approach in general, like most don't like Megacorp that are, you know, trying to extract revenue.

Colin 00:25:49  Yeah, yeah. Faceless corporation, a machine, a service that's like a vending machine. Everybody gets the exact same thing. Obviously you're different. Your pets are different. You might even have two pets, and they're certainly not identical animals to each other. There's the comparison to make is like you can get a cheeseburger to McDonald's, but is it as good as the cheeseburger at the local diner where the guy knows your order, which is unique to you, and he makes it that way every time. You don't have to walk up to a kiosk or to drive through and try to explain it to a different person every single day, because they have a rotating staff of people, you know, different things like that.

Colin 00:26:34  So that's a good example of looking at how to paint the competition with a brush of negative paint. You know how to.

Brandon 00:26:46  Say it though.

Colin 00:26:46  Right? Exactly. And it's just it's it's about what you want and how you see yourself. So thinking of it from that point of view, if you respect yourself enough to not get treated that way and certainly not have your your beloved pets treated that way, that's what we're here for.

Brandon 00:27:08  Definitely. And I, I like what you say about offers. And I think that that is one thing that the more offers you make, the more you're going to make. And yes.

Colin 00:27:17  I tell people all the time the if you want to make more money, make more offers to more people more often. And you will. You will always make more money. And what another perspective is like. The point of an offer is to collect people who respond to offers. So like a lot of times in my business with information, people will think, I got to gather an audience and then sell them things, use the offer to grow the audience.

Colin 00:27:45  So like I have a community, I started the the the point of joining the community was to get a discount on the offer I was making. If you were a member of the community, you got it for cheaper. That's an example of what I mean. Like, there's no reason to be in my circle and ask for contact unless you already want to buy something from me and I'm giving you a special deal otherwise. Like, I mean, we can be friends without you having to join my community. You don't have to give me your email address if you don't want to receive offers from me, but if you give it to me, I'm going to email you every day and try to sell you something that you're going to like. Because why would you even be on the list? The only reason to join the list is to get more of this stuff.

Brandon 00:28:29  Exactly. I think that's a really good way to to think about it. And also the content you create is I like I look forward to seeing it, and I know that there's going to be an offer in it and that's okay.

Brandon 00:28:39  And so I think that the content that you make is really good at segmenting, but also creating kind of anticipation for like the offer that's coming up in general. So when you're creating content, do you start with the offer in mind and then you're like, okay, this is what I want to sell today, or this is the content that's on my mind. What offer works?

Colin 00:29:00  Yeah. So yes. So planning out your offer calendar is important because then it makes the content easy because you know what's coming up that you're going to sell. And I tell people to presume everything you're selling is a solution to a problem if you know what the problem is, you can speak to it in advance and giving people content that makes them think about that problem. Put it in the front of their mind. Open their ideas to maybe wrinkles and complications that they didn't think of. And then when you make your offer at the end of the week, it's an offering of a relief. It's not interrupting content with a commercial that is annoying.

Colin 00:29:48  It's giving people the release valve of oh my gosh, I had been thinking about this problem. Now I can do something about it. And the nature of the human mind is that they don't think about how you set them up to think about that problem, because teaching people about a problem in a way where you're like, here's some things to avoid. Here's some signs to look for. Here's things you may run into as problems if you try to solve it yourself. Those feel altruistic. But then when you come along and like, here's the easy way to do it, just bring it to me and I'll solve it for you. It's, you know, a sigh of relief. Your checklist is suddenly down to one instead of I gotta remember all these things, but it feels valuable to tell people what to avoid and what to look out for and problems they they might catch early. That certainly is valuable. It feels like you're giving them benefit without asking for anything in return. And then all you do is show up and say, look, I can solve this problem for you easily and definitely.

Brandon 00:30:57  I think I learned that from you was specifically, if you can describe the problem enough, people assume you're going to have the solution. So yeah, that way you're like, is this you? Do you have all of these problem symptoms? And if you say here is a solution, they're going to think that that is the right one. You just yes. And that's their problem.

Colin 00:31:16  And another thing with content is we talked about how you always want to be positioning yourself as a person of value, because then your offers are easy to make because people want to work with you. They want you to be the one to give them that solution. A very simple trick is frame everything that you're offering to people as, as stemming from your knowledge. Meaning I gain this through experience working. So instead of just saying, here's something to look out for signals that your dog might have fleas say people come in, they bring their dogs, they've chewed holes in their fur. They're, you know, gnawing themselves raw.

Colin 00:31:57  They're itching, they're scratching. And maybe the stuff you get from the pet store is not working. Here's, what I recommend to them. It could be the exact same thing you were going to say as a generic list of tips. But now you framed it as this is the thing that's happening in my clinic that I deal with and I help people with. So the same thing for me as a copywriter, as an example, I wouldn't say, here's the tip on how to write a headline. I would say I had a client came to me, he wanted to test ten different headlines for every email. I don't usually write that many. So here's a formula I came up with to whip up a bunch really quickly that you can use any time that happens to you. Now, all of a sudden the context of that message is different. I'm included in the fact that people come to me with their problems, and I solve those problems, and I share those solutions with people who are paying attention to me.

Colin 00:32:49  It's unsaid, but it's there. It's inescapable that that's part of the message. So just doing that, framing everything you share as coming from your your work experience or reporting on your work, helping the pets of the community makes it easy to to present yourself as the person that's there and available for that kind of help.

Brandon 00:33:14  Absolutely. Yeah. And I think that's way better than. Yeah. Exactly. If you said and you in practice they have these examples coming through the door all the time. So if they said, hey, this pet owner brought this dog in, take a look at its teeth. It had terrible breath. This is what they were complaining about. This was the symptoms versus here's ten dental tips that you can use to keep your dog's breath fresh. You know when exactly and problem solver exactly.

Colin 00:33:39  And you can see how that story just telling it from that point of view of a story does a lot of that dusty acronym, because it's showing what's unique about you and how you're handling this.

Colin 00:33:53  It shows that you're giving special care. It shows that you're you're part of the local tribe of pet owners. it makes it so that you don't have to sit there and think of content. You almost can just report on what's happening and share what you did through the course of your work that day, and how that might be helpful to other pet owners. There's your content that's covered, and it automatically sells you as a practitioner because you're telling stories from the proverbial trenches. Yeah.

Brandon 00:34:27  And those those come in all the time and they are dealing with these, these issues. And so if it's relevant specifically to the types of offers that they want to be making, then they should be doing that. Yeah. So, I guess we, you know, we have to be respectful of time and things. And so there's a million other questions that I want to ask you, but when it comes to local businesses in particular, what do you think the the biggest or biggest adjustment that they could make to get more out of their either content or copy, that you think is something that they should be doing based on, you know, your conversations that you have all the time with people.

Colin 00:35:06  Yeah, I think I think the biggest one Is really what I just shared about always framing anything you want to share with people as an anecdote that that comes from your work. Because what happens is information, especially on the internet, is abundant and contradictory and free. Therefore it's worthless. It's not connected to a source that you trust, but when you share your information and you frame it, you let people know. I talked to a client earlier today and saw their animal, and this is what they issue was, or this is something we see every year. I've been in business in this town for ten years. Every year at this time, this is something we see pick up, you know, ticks or whatever. Yeah.

Brandon 00:35:53  Or heartworm.

Colin 00:35:54  Right, right. Just just bringing that and framing it as coming from your experience frames it as knowledge. And knowledge is the combination of information plus experience. So it shows that you are actively applying this information. It has a source. It's been tested. It's been validated.

Colin 00:36:14  So now what you're sharing with them isn't just an article off of, you know, heads.org or whatever about this particular issue with an author whose name you don't recognize. It's local guy in the area talking about how this happens in this region at this time of year. You can expect that now all of a sudden, that information is knowledge. It comes from a person who knows it instead of just randomly off the internet somewhere, like an article on medium. So doing that is definitely going to help you stand out against things like like corporate vets, because they're not going to associate that that personal experiential angle of I'm out here doing this work myself. Me. Here's my name. just doing that will make you stand out and apart from other people. customers also love it if you like show off their pets. So sometimes when you tell the story, you can ask, hey, can I put this in our newsletter? I would love to if you don't want your name in it, you don't have to.

Colin 00:37:21  But that ties in to asking for a testimonial, bringing testimonials. That is huge and a local regional business. When people know it's like, hey, I know that guy, or that's my neighbor, or I see that person walking that dog, you know, bringing that element into it, involving yourself as a character automatically turns all your content into a story. And people like stories more than they like info.

Brandon 00:37:50  Yeah. Yes.

Colin 00:37:52  That that I think is the main thing. And it's really just that's all it is, is bringing in the, aspect of personal experience. And then the last one, I'll say you were we were talking about what to include in every message. Always asking for engagement is a great way to promote the fact that you're there and you're present, and you're available to do whatever work they might need. So any time you send an email, ask them to write you back. Anytime you make a post on your website. If there's comments available, ask them to comment. If you post on social.

Colin 00:38:30  Same thing. What do you think? Open it up, create a conversation and then engage with them if they participate in that conversation. But again, the reason you're doing that is because it shows you're available and present. And that, again, is something that makes you stand apart. The fact that, you care about what they have to say, you are there to answer questions. people will answer questions are asking to be sold. So inviting that opportunity, showing that you are involved and engaged. It works even for me. I'm not a regional business, but people are surprised when I tell you and my daily emails write me back and then I respond to it, which apparently not a lot of people in my field do. Yes it is. It is really me. It is my real email address. I'm the guy on the other end of it. It's not just broadcasting into nothingness. I'm trying to have this conversation with you. Because if you're the kind of person that cares about this stuff, that will talk about it with me all day, you're an ideal customer.

Colin 00:39:36  And I don't know that. Veterinary medicine is the same way, but by you being the guy talking about it constantly, that's the hallmark of an expert of a master practitioner is like, I can talk about this all day, every day, and anytime you need me, I'm here talking about it, ready to help you.

Brandon 00:39:58  Absolutely. And I think that does illustrate that you care. Right, which they're trying to differentiate on, that they really do care.

Colin 00:40:04  Yeah, it's one thing to say you care, but showing it by being like, hey, let me know what you think. And then when they get back to you, you're like, oh yeah, let's talk about it real quick.

Brandon 00:40:12  Yeah. Just reply to this email. That's what emails for is replying. But people use it like a megaphone, right? They just want to shout into the void and not get anything back.

Colin 00:40:20  My my.

Brandon 00:40:21  My stuff.

Colin 00:40:21  One of my biggest pet peeves is when they call it an email blast. I'm like, no one wants a blast.

Colin 00:40:26  Like that doesn't sound fun when you're on the receiving end of a blast because. Like, it's just. Yeah, like, let's blast people in the face with this email. I don't think they're gonna like that. I think I think you should just ask them some stuff, maybe instead of a blast.

Brandon 00:40:46  I like that approach a lot. Where can people get where's the best place for people to get your wisdom?

Colin 00:40:51  cult of copy. Com I have a blog post every day you can get on my email list, which is the same blog post, but has, sort of, exclusive tips. Now we'll tell you my my audience is copywriter. So it's copywriting stuff for copywriters, but it's not super jargony or anything. Try it out, see if you like it. maybe you'll get into it. I know, several people who are copywriters in their own business who got to like it so much they got into writing copy for other people, even their own competitors, which is kind of weird, but I'm all for turning your competitors into customers.

Colin 00:41:32  If everybody's imitating you, that means you're the master, right? So, all that to say, if you want to learn more about copywriting, like I said, it's not it's not strictly for laypeople. It's not like, hey, beginners. But, if you want to learn more about what I do and how I do it. Cult of copy. Com and you can subscribe or just read the blog, see if it's free.

Brandon 00:41:55  It's good stuff. I definitely suggest people reach out to you. And, Maybe you, the people, will recognize some of the copy tricks that I've used, especially in offers for my extremely intelligent audience. Yeah, yeah.

Colin 00:42:10  I mean, there's there's I hear a lot of times, hey, I saw, I started following you and everything that you teach how to do. I see you doing it. And I'm like, yeah, that's literally the whole point. Yeah.

Brandon 00:42:23  Exactly. So I can't recommend you enough. Everybody got a cult of copy. Com. you have a really great Facebook group too.

Brandon 00:42:29  And, Yeah. I appreciate your time so much. Call and thank you.

Colin 00:42:33  Well, thank thank you for having me. And, I hate to rush, but let me know if you have any follow up.

Brandon 00:42:38  Thank you. All right.

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