Copywriter and Marketing Consultant, Eric Bakey, steps into the studio with Kira and Rob for the 92nd episode of The Copywriter Club Podcast. We met Eric a few months ago and got to talking about his approach to his business. It’s different than a lot of other copywriters’, so we thought it would be interesting to talk about how he works with his clients. In this interview, we cover:
• how Eric went from the army to construction to writing a book to copywriting
• why he doesn’t call himself a copywriter (even though he writes copy)
• Eric’s onboarding process and the “found money” blueprint
• the “15 minutes -> hour -> day -> long term contract” roadmap
• how he connected with Dan Kennedy (and the results for his business)
• what you need to know about packaging your services like Eric
• how he uses sketches in his customer interactions
• what he does when clients buy the “found money” blueprint
• how to set up a retainer model so you don’t get burned
• why Eric treats his copy the same way an artist treats her work
• how he turned $80 of Facebook ads into $30,000 in sales
• Eric’s book recommendation for building a steady stream of sales
• why it’s important to create a list of your best 100 clients
• what Eric’s regular work day looks like
And if that weren’t enough, we asked Eric how he uses cartoons in his business and why there are so many opportunities for copywriters today. We also sneaked in a question about his favorite tattoo (he has quite a few to choose from). Ready to hear it? Visit iTunes, Stitcher or your favorite podcast app. Or scroll down and click the play button below, where you’ll also find lots of links and a full transcript.
The people and stuff we mentioned on the show:
Strength from Within by Eric Bakey
Jocko Willink
Dan Kennedy
Renegade Millionaire
Business Model Canvas
Ultimate Sales Machine by Chet Holmes
93 Extraordinary Referral Systems by Jay Abraham
Sean D’Souza
Joe Schriefer
Ray Edwards
Kira’s website
Rob’s website
The Copywriter Club Facebook Group
Intro: Content (for now)
Outro: Gravity
Full Transcript:
Kira: What if you could hang out with seriously talented copywriters and other experts, ask them about their successes and failures, their work processes and their habits, then steal an idea or two to inspire your own work? That’s what Rob and I do every week at The Copywriter Club Podcast.
Rob: You’re invited to join the club for episode 92 as we chat with author, copywriter, and combat vet, Eric Bakey, about his long and winding road to copywriting the “Found Money” Blueprint, cartooning, writing for his niche vet-preneurs, and which of his one or two tattoos is his favorite.
Kira: Welcome, Eric.
Rob: Welcome, Eric.
Eric: Thanks for having me.
Rob: Yeah, we’re thrilled.
Kira: Yeah, great to have you. So we met you through Brian Kurtz’s Titans Masterclass. We’re both excited to hear more about your story, which is a great place to start. How did you end up as a copywriter?
Eric: Well, I joined the Army after high school, and I learned how to blow stuff up and mop floors. Neither of them are very lucrative, so I had to start all over again into construction when I got out. I was sick of working and building someone else’s empire, so I decided to write a book as an escape from the corporate world. And then I learned that the publisher, after they make the initial push for your book, they do not care about whether you sell anymore. So I had to start writing copy if I wanted to sell any books, and you have to sell a lot of books if you want to make any money. That’s how I kind of how I got started in copywriting.
Rob: So tell us a little bit about your book. If that’s the doorway to get into copywriting, why did you decide to write it? What does it cover and when you started to promote it, what are some of the things that you learned in order to make that happen?
Eric: So I was following the typical internet marketing pyramid in that I was going to use the book as a front end to my online personal training business. So the book is called Strength From Within: The Anti-Meathead Approach To Fitness. You’ve got to own your keywords, so if you type in “Anti-Meathead,” it’s number one on Amazon and Google. And it was really to support my online personal training business. It’s the fastest way to get unbelievably strong without going to the gym. And it kind of dialed in my USP after writing the book and after being book-solid as a personal trainer. But I decided that I really like growing businesses more than I like growing biceps. So I transitioned to a copywriting business exclusively.
Kira: Wow, okay. So what does your business look like today? What do you spend your time on? What services do you offer?
Eric: When people ask me what I do, I tell them I’m a combat imagineer. And they go, “What does that mean?”
Kira: What does that ...
Eric: And so I ask people, “Do you know how much you can spend in order to acquire your best customers?” And of course they don’t, typically. So then again, I create problems for people, and I’m an ethical troublemaker. And so I kind of just play with people a little bit, and they find out that ... “Wow, I need somebody like you on my team.” So I get people ... Mostly a direct marketing consultant for insider lingo, but most consultants are not really all that effective. So I decided to not call myself a copywriter or sell my widget, but to make something a league of my own. A little bit difficult.
Kira: No, I like that. So why don’t you call yourself a copywriter? Because you’re definitely writing copy. So what’s the reasoning behind that?
Eric: I will write copy. I write a lot of copy. But often, the businesses are not ready for copy. They come to me for copy, but they’re not really ready for it. I have a whole four-module process before I ever even write copy for somebody that allows them to scale without spending a cent on advertising. Being a copywriter, I would love to get them to the point where they’re ready to write me a big, fat check for copywriting and royalties and all that, but we need to get them dialed into their most effective before they ever spend a cent on copywriting or advertising or anything like that. I hopefully build them up to a point where hiring me to write copy is a no-brainer.
Rob: Yeah, I’m really intrigued by how you work with your clients and your process for it. Would you be able to walk us through like what does a typical engagement with you look like? Where does the customer come from and how do you go through those four modules until you get to the point where you are either writing copy or you are doing some other kind of consulting with them where you’re earning real money?
Eric: So I definitely am earning real money on the rip. I wanted to figure out how to get paid for my research phase and how to make research sexy for the clients I work with because nobody really wants to do that, and it’s really what you need to do in order to write effective copy. So I’ll talk to anybody for 15 minutes, and I want to make the 15-minute call not a strategy session, so I called it a triage call where I help them stop hemorrhaging cash from whatever their marketing is doing. I mean, marketing is a matter of survival, and I’ve just kind of dialed in the words that I know people ... That get their attention. And that’s copywriting, that’s sales scripting. So I will talk to anybody for 15 minutes. If they seem like a good fit, then I do my hour-long process, which is really they’re on the hook for an hour, but it’s a half a day of consulting. If they like my Found Money Blueprint, I don’t know whether that can help them or not, but I can deliver them a one-page strategic plan to find cash.
If they want my help to go get it, then they can hire me for a day. And then during the day, we outline the entire communications strategy, and sometimes that involves writing copy, and sometimes it doesn’t. And they have teams that want to write their copy, and I can chief some of their stuff, and we kind of go from there. If they want me after the day, they can put me on retainer or write copy. It’s kind of up to the client.
Rob: And are those the four modules, starting with the triage call and then stepping through? Or are the four modules you mentioned something different?
Eric: Yeah, it was 15 minutes will get you an hour. An hour will get you a day. A day will get you a month, and each one of those modules is a month. About after four to six months, then I can start writing copy for you.
Rob: Okay. Interesting. Yeah, so lots of questions about this, but I want to go back to your combat vet experience before we leave that altogether because obviously most people who serve in the armed forces, that becomes a really big part of them. I think that is a part of who you serve at least in some of your copywriting business. What did you take from your experience in the military that informs what you do today in your copywriting business?
Eric: So I was really afraid to look at my background and apply it to copywriting. It was until I got pushed by Jocko Willink ... He actually wrote a book called Extreme Ownership. And he started doing these musters, and he called me out at one of these musters. He actually wrote the book describing the heroism of my specific unit.
Kira: Oh, wow.
Eric: And we all look up to the Navy Seals because that’s what you see on Hollywood, and they really are badass. The level of training, they’re the 1% of the 1% top tier. So whenever you go into a bar or hang out with guys or whatever, it’s like, “Yeah, I was in the military.” It always leads to some questions that I don’t really feel like answering. So I never really wanted to lead with it especially as I create this new identity as a copywriter. I never really wanted to lead with the military thing.
