But I REALLY want to make sure you extract every possible money-making nugget out of that interview, so I’m also including the transcript of that call below.<\/p>\n
Enjoy!<\/p>\n
All the best,
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Caleb Osborne Teleseminar Transcription<\/strong><\/p>\n Doberman Dan:\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0Welcome to another edition of the Doberman Dan Show.\u00a0 That\u2019s for lack of a better name.\u00a0 That\u2019s what I\u2019m calling it.\u00a0 Tonight we got a really special guest.\u00a0 I\u2019ve got Caleb Osborne with me, an up and coming copywriter and direct marketer.<\/p>\n I met Caleb \u2013 let me see \u2013 when did we meet?\u00a0 We met at Gary Halvert\u2019s Root Canal seminar, right?<\/p>\n Caleb Osborne:\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0Yeah.<\/p>\n Doberman Dan:\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0Was the 2005?<\/p>\n Caleb Osborne:\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0Yeah; December of 2005.<\/p>\n Doberman Dan:\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0You were how old then at that seminar?<\/p>\n Caleb Osborne:\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0Let me think.\u00a0 I think I was 19 at that one.\u00a0 Yeah; I think that\u2019s right.<\/p>\n Doberman Dan:\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0Nineteen years old and now just within the past few years has become a very in-demand copywriter.\u00a0 One of the few copywriters that I would personally hire and not only am I just runnin\u2019 my mouth about that, but I have hired him on numerous occasions.\u00a0 So that is true.<\/p>\n Caleb Osborne \u2013 he\u2019s one of the few Doberman Dan approved copywriters and I put my money where my mouth is.\u00a0 So that\u2019s my brief introduction.<\/p>\n Before I get started Caleb, I gotta tell ya\u2019 somethin\u2019.\u00a0 I just wanna warn ya\u2019 this may be an incredibly interesting interview for view because if you hear like I\u2019m not responding or you hear me snoring, I have been having an allergy attack all day.<\/p>\n Then the lawn care guy showed up just a couple hours ago and that just made it ten times worse.\u00a0 So I took two Benadryl and I haven\u2019t eaten dinner yet.<\/p>\n So if you\u2019re talkin\u2019 and you finish a thought and you hear no response from me or snoring, the Benadryl has put me out and you\u2019re just gonna have to carry this whole call for the next 55 minutes or so.<\/p>\n Caleb Osborne:\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0Alright; fair warning.<\/p>\n Doberman Dan:\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0So anyway, that\u2019s a brief introduction and I\u2019d like you to tell everybody a little bit about your background and the stuff like that.\u00a0 Like have you actually ever had a real job or did you just get started in direct response young and then you\u2019ve never really had to work for a living like the rest of us?<\/p>\n Caleb Osborne:\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0That\u2019s a good question; good question.\u00a0 I definitely never had a career.\u00a0 I got out of high school.\u00a0 I graduated when I was 17.\u00a0 Let me think here.\u00a0 I did a couple odd jobs.\u00a0 I think I worked at Circuit City back when they were in business and only lasted a couple months.<\/p>\n Then I worked at a restaurant.\u00a0 So I was a dishwasher and then a food chef eventually pretty quickly \u2018cause that one got fired and I got to get moved up pretty quickly.\u00a0 So I had to cook a little bit.<\/p>\n Then I really got it in my head \u2013 I think I started exploring.\u00a0 Think I wanted to go to college and I saw one of the bullets \u2013 copyrighting, got me interested \u2013 one of the bullets on the back of Rich Dad Poor Dad was like how to pay for your college education with like \u2013 I don\u2019t know — $5,000.00 or something like that.\u00a0 I don\u2019t know.\u00a0 It was some interesting bullet and I don\u2019t even remember what it was, but it was on the back of this Rich Dad Poor Dad book.\u00a0 So I read that.<\/p>\n Then I got introduced to this whole world of business and there\u2019s businesses that exist and these are a whole different \u2013 I just never thought to work for myself.<\/p>\n So, I got in my head that I wanted to work for myself and the next move I made was \u2013 well I helped out my dad for a bit.\u00a0 He had a construction company so I was building decks and things like that, but during that time I was looking for a sales position, a sales job \u2018cause I discovered I needed to learn how to sell things.<\/p>\n So I found a face-to-face selling job selling in-house water treatment systems.\u00a0 They were like a couple thousand dollars and up.\u00a0 So it was really good training.\u00a0 I starved definitely for the first two months or so \u2018cause there\u2019s no salary.<\/p>\n It was just straight commission, but really, really instructive in just kind of teaching you pretty much how to deal with people and about human psychology and just the steps to making a sale and how to not be shy about asking for the money.<\/p>\n So that was kind of my background before I got into copyrighting I guess.\u00a0 So I guess after I was a salesman and I was doing that and then always reading books and kind of with the intent to use this knowledge in my business and I didn\u2019t know what kind of business I wanted \u2013 actually I did have an idea.\u00a0 I had an idea I wanted to do a web hosting business.<\/p>\n I actually spent a lot of money getting like a licensing deal to have these web sites or web hosting, professional web hosting and a company down in Georgia that would do all the web design for me.\u00a0 I was like oh, this\u2019ll be great because I won\u2019t have to do the work and all I\u2019ll have to do is sell the stuff.<\/p>\n Then that\u2019s kind of at the point when I realized I need to learn how to sell things.\u00a0 So the whole time I was learning more about selling and marketing and things like that.\u00a0 Then of course I stumbled onto things by Dan Kennedy and I made the connection as well at that time \u2013 I know I\u2019m kind of rambling here, but I\u2019ve never really thought about how the whole thing happened and some things are jumping out at me as I\u2019ve talked about them.<\/p>\n Doberman Dan:\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0That\u2019s good.\u00a0 That\u2019s what I wanted to happen in this call.\u00a0 Just to interrupt for a second, that\u2019s one thing I\u2019ve discovered by doing these teleseminars and I\u2019m really excited about doing them is \u2018cause I figured out neither of us do this for a living.<\/p>\n We don\u2019t teach for a living.\u00a0 We don\u2019t teach what we do for a living and I figured out that guys who do it, teach for a living or are gurus have this all organized and planned, but for guys like us, the more that we can talk about it and have somebody draw it out of us, the better it is.<\/p>\n We gotta bunch of stuff up in our noggin.\u00a0 We just need somebody to help us draw it out.\u00a0 So go ahead, please.<\/p>\n Caleb Osborne:\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0I think that\u2019s definitely an instructive point, too, \u2018cause the more I think about this stuff \u2013 it\u2019s funny.\u00a0 I\u2019ve been a black belt for eight, nine years or something like that and when I first started teaching it was kind of like I was like oh, I don\u2019t wanna teach.<\/p>\n I have no desire to teach people, but one of my instructors was like, \u2018Yeah; but when you teach it you really have to think through everything and you really learn it a lot better.\u2019\u00a0 So it is kind of cool.<\/p>\n So I discovered Dan Kennedy I guess.\u00a0 I stumbled onto him \u2018cause I was starting to read more about sales and the marketing stuff and that whole group of people was kind of connected.\u00a0 I made the connection that I had seen direct response marketing and stuff in action before when I was younger with Matt Fury.\u00a0 He\u2019s this guy that teaches people body weight exercises and wrestling and martial arts, conditioning information and stuff like that.<\/p>\n So I was like oh yeah, I kind of get this and this whole idea of copyrighting and marketing and everything started to come together.\u00a0 I was like oh, that\u2019s cool.<\/p>\n So I was 17 and I had just graduated.\u00a0 This is all happening really fast like during about a year.\u00a0 Then I turned 18 and I moved out of the house.\u00a0 I was trying to get this business going.\u00a0 I was still working as a salesman.<\/p>\n I also self-published a book on some Christianity stuff that I had also been reading and everything.\u00a0 I was like, oh cool, I\u2019ll use this direct response stuff to sell the book.\u00a0 So I put up my first sales letter and Google ads and things like that and was driving a little bit of traffic to it and had some modest success.<\/p>\n But I didn\u2019t really understand a lot about the whole \u2013 there\u2019s more to it than just copyrighting when it comes to running your own direct response business like cash flow and how to manage it and how to reinvest profits and things like that.<\/p>\n So I was young and kind of dumb and all that stuff.\u00a0 So I was still learning as I was going.\u00a0 I guess about that time, so I was 18-ish.\u00a0 So this went on around the same time.\u00a0 I had just started working at another sales job and I was going through training.\u00a0 That\u2019s when I saw the advertisement for Gary\u2019s \u2013 I guess it was his last seminar, wasn\u2019t it Dan?<\/p>\n Doberman Dan:\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0I believe it was.\u00a0 If it wasn\u2019t it was pretty darn close.\u00a0 He may have done one after the Root Canal seminar.\u00a0 Yeah; it was one of the last.<\/p>\n Caleb Osborne:\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0Yeah; you\u2019re right.\u00a0 I think he did one in California that was the same one.\u00a0 It was called the Root Canal seminar I think \u2013<\/p>\n Doberman Dan:\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0Yeah; that\u2019s right.\u00a0 He did.\u00a0 He did those two weekends back-to-back, which I thought he was insane for, but that\u2019s right.\u00a0 I forgot about the California one.<\/p>\n Caleb Osborne:\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0Yeah; so it was I guess one of his very last ones.\u00a0 So I went down there and along with writin\u2019 the sales letter for my Christian book and everything that I self-published, I wrote one for the web hosting business \u2018cause I was still thinking that was gonna be my main job that I was doing.<\/p>\n I went to that seminar and met some fine people like yourself, Dan.\u00a0 Then kind of interesting.\u00a0 The pitch of the seminar was you could bring a direct response project and if Gary thought it had legs, he said he knew lots of investors and he would help you market it.\u00a0 So I was like oh cool.<\/p>\n So I was just bound and determined that I was gonna get Gary\u2019s attention and that he was gonna back my product and all this.\u00a0 So I wrote that letter.\u00a0 I think I even did a dollar bill letter in the FedEx envelope and sent it to Gary\u2019s office trying to get his attention before this seminar because \u2013 I don\u2019t know if I ever told you this \u2018cause his secretary, the one that used to work for him \u2013 I believe her name was Teresa \u2013 yeah; Teresa.<\/p>\n Teresa e-mailed me back personally and gave me some advice on how to make myself stand out at the seminar to Gary.<\/p>\n Doberman Dan:\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0Yeah; Teresa rocked.\u00a0 I was really disappointed when she left her employment with Gary.\u00a0 That\u2019s cool.\u00a0 I had no idea.<\/p>\n Caleb Osborne:\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0Yeah; I almost forgot about that, but I guess I can tell it now \u2018cause she\u2019s no longer working there.\u00a0 But yeah; so she just gave me a couple of hints.\u00a0 I think she told me to get a \u2013 she did \u2013 she told me to get a baseball cap.\u00a0 She said that that way I\u2019d stand out from the crowd a little bit and to approach Gary not when everybody else swarms around him.\u00a0 Just some nice stuff for her to do.<\/p>\n I got the baseball cap.\u00a0 That was when Caleb O\u2019Dowd was being mentored by Gary.\u00a0 So I put Caleb II on the cap.\u00a0 I did it through one of the screen printing places on the internet and I got all that ready.<\/p>\n I went down there bound and determined to get him to back my project.\u00a0 I even put it all in its own envelope and everything \u2018cause it was a direct mail letter.\u00a0 So it\u2019d look just like a direct mail letter, put a live stamp on it, just like Gary had written in all his newsletters and everything.<\/p>\n Really up until that point ______________ mention, I never took any of the big home study courses on how to write copy or anything.\u00a0 It was just put together from all the free resources like Gary\u2019s newsletter.\u00a0 Really it was just Gary\u2019s newsletter at that point and anything I could pick up from Dan Kennedy or anybody and just from what I had seen by seeing these sales letters on the internet.<\/p>\n I was like oh yeah, I get it.\u00a0 It made sense with what I knew about selling to people face-to-face.\u00a0 There\u2019s a process and this step does this and this step does that.<\/p>\n So basically, yeah, I put together the sales letter just like Gary had written his newsletters and everything and the best I thought it could be.\u00a0 I think I brought four or five copies so I could give it to whoever was gonna be there and all the investors that I was expecting to be there.<\/p>\n So I went to this seminar and I guess we handed in our sales letters.\u00a0 I don\u2019t know, the second day there or something like that after Gary came back from lunch he called me up to the front of the room and told everybody, \u2018Hey, this is a good sales letter.\u00a0 Everybody should have it in their swipe file.\u2019<\/p>\n I remember thinking later.\u00a0 I was like, ya\u2019 know the reason why he liked it so much is it was just pretty much a swipe of a Gary Halbert letter.<\/p>\n Doberman Dan:\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0That\u2019s awesome.<\/p>\n Caleb Osborne:\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0Ya\u2019 know what I mean?\u00a0 \u2018Cause I think I even used it was just a classic Gary Halbert, \u2018If you want this benefit, then this\u2019 and then the regular story that Gary would have it.\u00a0 Just taking all his advice and everything \u2018cause he was pretty much my main source of education up until that point.\u00a0 So I think that\u2019s why he liked it so much.<\/p>\n Not expecting it after I went up there and I was still dead set on having this business.\u00a0 Then one guy approached me and he asked me if I was a copywriter or wrote copy for people.\u00a0 Then I was like, \u2018No.\u2019\u00a0 Then I thought about it and I remembered how much all the income claims I heard Gary and John Carlton and those guys make.\u00a0 I was like, well maybe I should say yes.<\/p>\n So then the next person that asked me I said, \u2018Sure.\u2019\u00a0 I picked up my first client there at the seminar and I followed up with him through e-mail later.\u00a0 It was one of the guys actually that did a hot seat with Gary.\u00a0 I thought I had a couple ideas of how he could improve his web site and I talked to him.\u00a0 Then we exchanged e-mails and then later on I ended up doing a project for him.<\/p>\n So that\u2019s pretty much it, man.\u00a0 That\u2019s how I got started.\u00a0 I got my first and second client at that seminar.\u00a0 The second client that was there turned in to be a real big repeat business for me for I guess the first couple years.\u00a0 I still do a little bit of work for him now.\u00a0 Not as much though \u2018cause I\u2019ve increased my prices.<\/p>\n Doberman Dan:\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0You priced yourself out of his budget, huh?<\/p>\n Caleb Osborne:\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0Yeah; exactly.\u00a0 I think he knew what he was dealing with.\u00a0 He knew I was kind of wet behind the ears.\u00a0 So he was like hey.\u00a0 He caught me in the low budget price range I guess, the entry price.<\/p>\n Doberman Dan:\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0First I remember this specifically \u2018cause at that seminar there was three people, three panelists or whatever.\u00a0 I don\u2019t know what you wanna call it; three speakers.\u00a0 It was Gary, Caleb O\u2019Dowd and me and when Gary reads something or when Gary used to read something it was pretty \u2013 Gary would immerse himself in some \u2013 he wouldn\u2019t just skim.<\/p>\n Gary would immerse himself when he read something.\u00a0 If it was good I should say.\u00a0 If he was reading something that was crappy he would skim it and it wouldn\u2019t keep his attention.<\/p>\n So your sales letter made it up there to the front where we were.\u00a0 I remember Caleb O\u2019Dowd was talking at that point and Gary started reading that.\u00a0 I\u2019m thinkin\u2019, he\u2019s not gonna read this right here while we\u2019re up front speaking.<\/p>\n I could tell \u2013 he used to get that look in his eye.\u00a0 I could tell he was drawn in by it \u2018cause he was completely oblivious to whatever was going on.\u00a0 Me and Caleb had to carry that part of the seminar for awhile while he was just immersed in your letter.<\/p>\n That\u2019s when he said \u2013 he held it up.\u00a0 He goes, \u2018Who wrote this?\u2019\u00a0 Remember that?\u00a0 He\u2019s like, \u2018Who wrote this?\u2019\u00a0 He\u2019s like, \u2018This is a really good letter.\u00a0 Everybody should have a copy of this for their swipe file.\u2019\u00a0 Which I think I still got.\u00a0 I think I still got a copy of your letter in my swipe file.<\/p>\n But a couple things I was thinking about when you were talking about how you got started.\u00a0 First of all, I\u2019m really encouraged to hear that you did have some crappy jobs like the rest of us.\u00a0 I think a lot of people would hate you if you graduated from high school and then all of a sudden just jumped into freelance copyrighting and had this great style making a lot of money.\u00a0 I\u2019d hate you if that were the case.\u00a0 I\u2019m glad \u2013<\/p>\n Caleb Osborne:\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0Yeah; you gotta pay your dues at least a little bit.<\/p>\n Doberman Dan:\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0I\u2019m glad to hear you had some crappy jobs, but I find it interesting.\u00a0 You said you had several sales jobs and it was all face-to-face stuff.\u00a0 I find it interesting how many copywriters in some way or another had a sales background.\u00a0 That really helps you hone your chops I think.\u00a0 You don\u2019t really have to be a good writer to make it as a copywriter.\u00a0 You gotta be a good salesman.\u00a0 Would you agree with that?<\/p>\n Caleb Osborne:\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0Oh yeah; definitely.\u00a0 Heck, I\u2019d say 80 percent of it is what you\u2019re saying; not how you\u2019re saying it.<\/p>\n Doberman Dan:\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0Yep; exactly.\u00a0 I didn\u2019t know that.\u00a0 I didn\u2019t know that about your sales background and stuff.<\/p>\n Caleb Osborne:\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0Yeah; it was kind of cool \u2018cause I think Gary used to give that advice in his newsletters, too.\u00a0 If you actually want to get better at copyrighting, don\u2019t study copyrighting; go sell something door-to-door for a month or whatever.<\/p>\n It\u2019s true.\u00a0 You immediately get a sense of what works and what doesn\u2019t.\u00a0 I guess it just gives you that logical framework in your mind to hang stuff on.<\/p>\n Doberman Dan:\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0Right.<\/p>\n Caleb Osborne:\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0Yeah; I guess that\u2019s how it works.<\/p>\n Doberman Dan:\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0So 19 years old basically anointed by Gary Halbert and all of a sudden that weekend after people were hitting you up to write copy for them is when you figured out like holy smokes, I guess I can make money at this, right?<\/p>\n Caleb Osborne:\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0Yeah; exactly.\u00a0 So I think I got enamored with it.\u00a0 I\u2019m still trying to turn this over in my head \u2018cause I got enamored with the whole idea of just being a copywriter because every time you hear it talked about by Gary and by Carlton and Dan Kennedy and all this stuff, you think oh man, that\u2019s a great life.\u00a0 They get paid all this money just to write these letters and you get all this fame and recognition.<\/p>\n I\u2019ve kind of always been somewhat competitive I guess.\u00a0 I used to compete in the martial arts tournaments and everything and just always somewhat competitive.\u00a0 So you want to throw your hat in the ring and get recognized and beat other copywriters and all this.<\/p>\n So I know of just let the whole web hosting idea business just go down the tubes.\u00a0 I never really did anything with it.\u00a0 I guess what I\u2019m saying now is in retrospect I kind of \u2013 maybe not necessarily the same business, but I don\u2019t know.\u00a0 I think I should have started promoting my own products a little sooner, too.<\/p>\n But at the same time, all those years were so great and so much fun.\u00a0 You can\u2019t beat the lifestyle.\u00a0 Even though you\u2019re required to work to make money, it\u2019s a pretty highly leveraged form of work.\u00a0 You can\u2019t beat the lifestyle.\u00a0 You set your own hours.\u00a0 You can do it from anywhere.\u00a0 It\u2019s pretty awesome.<\/p>\n Doberman Dan:\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0There\u2019s a bunch of times when I\u2019ve called you in the morning and it hasn\u2019t been all that early.\u00a0 Kind of like ________ early, but it has been like 9 or 10 a.m. and you\u2019re still in bed.<\/p>\n Caleb Osborne:\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0Yeah; I\u2019ll admit up until this past year really I was just totally against the idea of getting up early.\u00a0 I\u2019ve always been kind of a night owl and I was just like ya\u2019 know what?\u00a0 I\u2019m working for myself.\u00a0 There\u2019s no reason for me to get up.<\/p>\n So, I felt really like a slob if I slept in too much past 10 so I\u2019d always get up, but it was never less than double digits.\u00a0 I used to tell people don\u2019t call me unless it\u2019s double digits.<\/p>\n Doberman Dan:\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0Double digits \u2013 that\u2019s good.\u00a0 I\u2019m gonna steal that and use that by the way.\u00a0 Don\u2019t call me unless it\u2019s double digits.<\/p>\n Who was the guy from Clayton Makepeace\u2019s office that called you one morning like it wasn\u2019t all that early, but it was maybe 8 or 9 and you were still in bed and he got all pissed off \u2018cause you were still sleepin\u2019 and he had to be in the office at 7 or something.<\/p>\n Caleb Osborne:\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0Yeah; that was John Newsome.\u00a0 He called me and I picked up the phone and I was all groggy, trying to act like I wasn\u2019t sleeping.\u00a0 He was like, \u2018Are you just wakin\u2019 up?\u2019\u00a0 He\u2019s like, \u2018Damn freelancers.\u2019\u00a0 He was all upset.<\/p>\n I had talked to Clayton later and Clayton gets up early, but he said he couldn\u2019t make it into the office before John.\u00a0 I guess John was working really hard and getting in there early.<\/p>\n Doberman Dan:\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0Speaking of Clayton Makepeace, I know I\u2019m not going in order here, but after Gary\u2019s seminar, correct?\u00a0 You went to Clayton Makepeace\u2019s big seminar, right?<\/p>\n Caleb Osborne:\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0Yeah; that\u2019s chronological actually.\u00a0 I think it was the very next year, 2006, I believe.<\/p>\n Doberman Dan:\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0Okay; that\u2019s what I thought.\u00a0 I knew it was shortly after Gary\u2019s seminar.\u00a0 It was shortly after you basically got started in copyrighting.\u00a0 Then at Clayton\u2019s seminar, which I didn\u2019t make it to, which I\u2019m still kicking myself about, he had a challenge.\u00a0 There were a lot of people at that seminar by the way.\u00a0 He put out a challenge to write a promotion for a supplement and you were recognized as one of the best writers at that seminar, right?<\/p>\n Caleb Osborne:\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0Yeah; it was the same type of deal.\u00a0 There was just a real good reason to go.\u00a0 So I guess after Gary\u2019s thing I had really set my mind on yeah, I\u2019m gonna become a copywriter.\u00a0 Then Clayton had just started his newsletter.\u00a0 Everybody was just Clayton\u2019s the man.<\/p>\n This is how green I was.\u00a0 Yeah; so he put out that challenge.\u00a0 I guess the pitch was he had like a first, second, third or something like that and the first, second and third people got to work directly with him and were guaranteed a certain amount of fees.\u00a0 So the price was like $5,000.00 for the seminar.\u00a0 I guess the grand prize was guaranteed $20,000.00 in fees or something like \u2013 over time working with Clayton.<\/p>\n So I was like well yeah, that\u2019s a heck of a return on investment.\u00a0 I just gotta win this thing.\u00a0 Of course I didn\u2019t have $5,000.00.\u00a0 I\u2019ll tell that story ______________.\u00a0 So I wrote a sales letter to my mom who had just got married to her new husband.\u00a0 So I wrote a sales letter to my mom to get to borrow the $5,000.00.\u00a0 I actually had to go in person and close that one \u2018cause it was my mom.<\/p>\n Doberman Dan:\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0You\u2019re kidding.\u00a0 I never knew that.\u00a0 This is all news to me.\u00a0 Did you really?\u00a0 Did you really write a sales letter to your mom?<\/p>\n Caleb Osborne:\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0I really did.\u00a0 It\u2019s funny.\u00a0 Some of this stuff I don\u2019t really want to tell or I feel weird about telling \u2018cause it\u2019s almost embarrassing.\u00a0 So I was still struggling \u2018cause I had clients and everything, but like I said I was living by myself and I was just hard headed about not getting roommates or anything like that.\u00a0 So I was spending a lot every month.\u00a0 So I wasn\u2019t doing really good at all, but I was learning and I was doing what I wanted to do so I was like pretty much independent I guess.<\/p>\n But then the seminar came along.\u00a0 I\u2019m like man, I need $5,000.00; I don\u2019t have $5,000.00.\u00a0 So yeah, I wrote this sales letter.\u00a0 I can\u2019t even remember the headline.\u00a0 I bet I\u2019ve got it on my other computer.\u00a0 I could probably find it, but it was pretty funny.<\/p>\n Of course the pitch was \u2018Give me $5,000.00 and I\u2019ll pay it back to you over time.\u2019\u00a0 Or something like that, \u2018with these guaranteed fees that I know I\u2019m gonna win.\u00a0 Even if I do really poorly I\u2019ll get third place and you\u2019re still covered.\u2019\u00a0 So it was a pretty good sales job for a sales letter.<\/p>\n I went in person and her new husband actually loaned me the money to go.\u00a0 So I got to go to Clayton\u2019s event.\u00a0 So I went there and I was all set on winning first place and knew I was gonna win.\u00a0 The same type of just determination I had when I went to Gary\u2019s seminar I guess and willing to go out on a limb.<\/p>\n I don\u2019t know.\u00a0 There\u2019s a lot of points in my copyrighting career or business career or anything where I\u2019m not afraid to \u2013 I don\u2019t know.\u00a0 I guess when you\u2019ve been pretty down towards the bottom you really know that it\u2019s nothing to really be scared of \u2018cause you\u2019re like ah, so I got no money.\u00a0 Ya\u2019 know what I mean?<\/p>\n Doberman Dan:\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0Yeah; I know exactly what you\u2019re saying.\u00a0 Yeah; when you got no money and you\u2019re broke what\u2019s the worst that can happen.<\/p>\n Caleb Osborne:\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0Yeah; what\u2019s the down side.\u00a0 When you get to a certain point and you can see the very next step is off the cliff, you\u2019re like oh, it\u2019s not so far down.\u00a0 So you\u2019re willing to kind of risk everything.<\/p>\n If you really want something too, that\u2019s the other thing.\u00a0 It\u2019s like if you\u2019re really driven and you know exactly what you want then that\u2019s what you go for.<\/p>\n Doberman Dan:\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0Now there were at Clayton\u2019s seminar there was a bunch of people there.\u00a0 That was a big seminar, wasn\u2019t it?<\/p>\n Caleb Osborne:\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0Yeah; that was.\u00a0 All the top direct response guys were there.<\/p>\n Doberman Dan:\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0All the top guys.\u00a0 Guys going to learn about direct marketing and copyrighting from Clayton Makepeace, the guys in the audience attending are guys like John Carlton, Gary Halbert.\u00a0 I\u2019m probably missing a few.\u00a0 David Deutsch I imagine.\u00a0 Wasn\u2019t he there?<\/p>\n Caleb Osborne:\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0Yeah; Deutsch was there along with Carlton and I had just \u2013<\/p>\n Doberman Dan:\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0Carline Anglade Cole. right?<\/p>\n Caleb Osborne:\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0Yeah; Carline was there.\u00a0 Kent Komae was there.\u00a0 Let\u2019s see.\u00a0 What\u2019s her name?\u00a0 Chris \u2013 I\u2019m pronouncing her name wrong.\u00a0 Chris Schwalm?<\/p>\n Doberman Dan:\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0Schwalm; yeah Schwalm is the last name.\u00a0 I\u2019m blanking out on \u2013<\/p>\n Caleb Osborne:\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0Yeah; ______ had just written the $10 million letter for Agora.\u00a0 He was one of the marketing directors or copy chiefs or something for that.\u00a0 He was about to go out on his own, but he\u2019d just put together this letter that brought in $10 million for Agora.\u00a0 Greg \u2013<\/p>\n Doberman Dan:\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0So guys at this seminar, the A list guys, the top of the top at this seminar and still in spite of that, after you\u2019d only been doing that a little over a year or so or couple years, you still wrote one of the best letters there of all the attendees at the seminar.<\/p>\n Caleb Osborne:\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0Yeah; I\u2019ll qualify that by just saying that I kind of highly doubt that guys like David Deutsch or Carlton or any of those guys entered that contest \u2018cause it was an optional contest.\u00a0 I don\u2019t know that they didn\u2019t for a fact, but I doubt it just because I don\u2019t know why they would want to \u2018cause they already knew Clayton I guess.<\/p>\n Doberman Dan:\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0But just to have Clayton Makepeace \u2013 if Clayton Makepeace just patted me on the back and said, \u2018Hey, that was a fairly decent letter you wrote.\u2019\u00a0 I\u2019d be like, oh my God, Clayton Makepeace thinks I\u2019m semi- — I\u2019d be freakin\u2019 out to be anointed by a guy like that, and you were after just writing copy professionally for really only a year.<\/p>\n Caleb Osborne:\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0Yeah; I don\u2019t even think it was a whole year.\u00a0 If I\u2019m correct and it was in 2006 it wasn\u2019t a whole year.\u00a0 I\u2019ll say two things about that.\u00a0 One was I was so green that I didn\u2019t even know what a magalog was \u2018cause the only sales letters I\u2019d seen were Gary Halbert\u2019s and stuff like that.<\/p>\n So when we got this assignment for that supplement I wrote it just like a regular punch in the face sales letter.\u00a0 Then I saw the guy that won first place and the guy that won second place it was more of a magalog thing.\u00a0 I remember the first time I saw a magalog it was \u2013 \u2018cause I\u2019d been hearing about Clayton.\u00a0 I was reading his newsletters.\u00a0 I was like man, this guy\u2019s good and I finally got a hold of one of his promotions.\u00a0 I was like what the heck is this thing.\u00a0 This isn\u2019t a sales letter.\u00a0 I didn\u2019t know what it was.<\/p>\n Oh, the other thing I wanna do is I wanna give a shout out to Caleb O\u2019Dowd though because he helped me out.\u00a0 I sent him that letter to critique before I sent it in \u2018cause I\u2019d stayed in touch with him after Gary\u2019s seminar when I met him down there \u2018cause he had written I guess a supplement.\u00a0 He had his own supplement business so he was pretty familiar with that market, but he definitely gave me some hard hitting advice and sent me on the right path.\u00a0 So he was a big help.<\/p>\n But yeah; I wrote the letter and got it out there and really wanted to win first place, but through that the guys that won first and second place became good friends with and Clayton encouraged all the copywriters there, the best thing you could do is to create your own little what he called a crit circle where you just critique each other\u2019s copy that you\u2019re working on.\u00a0 Then that way you\u2019re constantly learning from each other and seeing what everybody else is doing and you basically get twice as good twice as fast and all that.\u00a0 I thought that was a great idea.<\/p>\n So of course I buddied up with the two guys that won first and second place and we formed our little critique circle.\u00a0 Along with Tony Flores who was there.\u00a0 I guess he had just started working with Clayton at that point.\u00a0 So we kept in touch through e-mail that way.<\/p>\n Doberman Dan:\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0Did you wind up meeting anybody that turned into a client down the road from Clayton\u2019s seminar?<\/p>\n Caleb Osborne:\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0Ya\u2019 know, no.\u00a0 There was a lot of big direct response companies there.\u00a0 Agora was there, Health Resources, all those guys.\u00a0 I followed up with pretty much all of them through e-mail and direct mail to a couple of them.\u00a0 Those companies are so big they do a lot of newer copywriters.<\/p>\n I actually got \u2013 I forget which company it was, but it was one of the big ones.\u00a0 I had sent them a sample package and followed up a couple times.\u00a0 I finally got them on the phone and he was looking over my samples.\u00a0 He was like, \u2018Oh, this is good and what not, but let me just tell you how it works.\u2019<\/p>\n He\u2019s like, \u2018A customer acquisition piece costs so much money to mail that pretty much the only people that work on the customer acquisition pieces are guys that have been in the industry for 10-20 years at least.\u00a0 You\u2019d start basically writing newsletter inserts and even that you don\u2019t do until — you\u2019re usually a copy cub for a couple years.\u2019<\/p>\n So none of those really did turn into jobs I don\u2019t think.\u00a0 Ah, no.\u00a0 I take that back.\u00a0 Ralph Charlton was there; Ralph Charlton from Target Focus Training or he was working with Target Focus Training primarily as this company.\u00a0 We ended up doing some work together later on down the road.<\/p>\n So yeah; I don\u2019t know the kind of questions people were asking before this call, but if people are wondering about things that build your business I would definitely recommend seminars and just go and network your butt off and meet people \u2018cause if someone\u2019s searching for a copywriter, or if someone\u2019s searching for any professional business, if you know somebody personally it\u2019s always a huge jump ahead in line.<\/p>\n Doberman Dan:\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0Yeah; I agree.\u00a0 A few years ago, I forget what seminar it was, but I was talking with Scott Haines, Mongo.\u00a0 Gary always called him Mongo.\u00a0 Another copywriter who mentored under Gary.\u00a0 We were talking about this about seminars and both he and I did not want to travel to the seminar.\u00a0 It\u2019s just inconvenient to travel, but then he kind of gave me a slap in the head, slaps me back to reality \u2018cause back then I still was taking clients.<\/p>\n He\u2019s like, \u2018Dan\u2019 he goes, he starts asking me about seminars I went to and I told him.\u00a0 I was listing some of the ones I\u2019ve been to and he goes, \u2018Has there been any seminar that you\u2019ve ever gone to that somehow or another you didn\u2019t make money from it.\u00a0 It was either by making contacts with people there that turned into copy jobs or consulting jobs or you picked up some tip that you could use to make more money, has there been even one of all the seminars where you went to where you didn\u2019t make money from it?\u2019<\/p>\n I thought about it.\u00a0 I thought no, not a one.\u00a0 Every single seminar I\u2019ve been to, even the crappy ones.\u00a0 I\u2019ve been to some crappy seminars which were these low priced things for like $500.00, $600.00, $800.00 that were nothin\u2019 but pitch fests the entire weekend; hardly any content, but I still made money from them because of the contacts I made there.<\/p>\n So I think incredibly that\u2019s a really valuable point you bring up is going to seminars.\u00a0 You can probably send out packets or portfolios.\u00a0 You can probably send out hundreds and still have more success actually goin\u2019 to these seminars and meeting people in person.\u00a0 Meeting them in person is I don\u2019t know.\u00a0 It\u2019s always turned out to me to be the best way to go and that sounds like how it\u2019s worked out for you, too.<\/p>\n Caleb Osborne:\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0Yeah; definitely.\u00a0 No doubt.\u00a0 Like you said, if it isn\u2019t a direct job maybe it turns into a job in the future or just you meet somebody and it\u2019s like our relationship.\u00a0 Even if you had never hired me to do anything I\u2019ve learned so much from you and hopefully I\u2019ve helped you out a lot of times.\u00a0 You always meet somebody that turns out to be really important later on down the road.<\/p>\n I\u2019ll say that\u2019s a good motivation to go to seminars.\u00a0 Just networking in general.\u00a0 I gotta say networking is probably one of the bigger keys to my success, but don\u2019t be the guy that\u2019s always trying to get stuff from somebody.<\/p>\n I\u2019ll share this.\u00a0 This is kind of embarrassing, but I got home from Clayton\u2019s seminar and actually it was up in D.C. and I live in Virginia.\u00a0 So I\u2019d get up in the morning at like 5 or whatever I had to do to get up there, try to beat the traffic and get up there before the seminar started \u2018cause I couldn\u2019t afford the money to stay at the hotel.\u00a0 It was at a really nice hotel.\u00a0 The Renaissance Hotel here in D.C.<\/p>\n I was so broke and I was spending my money on all this stuff and my electric went out during the seminar.\u00a0 So I came home and the electric was out for the two nights of the seminar.<\/p>\n Oh, what was I saying that for?\u00a0 Yeah; because even though I was in I guess you could call a desperate situation, I definitely needed work and I was definitely driven to meet people and everything and get jobs and things like that.<\/p>\n Actually caring about the people you meet and just being a genuinely nice person, I don\u2019t know, I guess maybe it came natural to me just because I\u2019d done a lot of sales stuff and you schmooze with people, but really I think it\u2019s just \u2018cause I like to think I\u2019m kind of a nice guy.\u00a0 Normally if you something nice for somebody it normally just feels good anyways and its\u2019 nice to help people out and everything, but I think that\u2019s a big part of it.<\/p>\n People can sense when you\u2019re not being real and if you\u2019re just a real person and a nice person and cool about sharing whatever knowledge you have or whatever help you have, not so much just looking out for number one, looking out for yourself, then that goes a long way.<\/p>\n Doberman Dan:\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0Good advice.\u00a0 There\u2019s actually a couple lessons I think people really need to learn from how you tracked me down.\u00a0 First of all, fill in the gaps.\u00a0 I\u2019ll tell the story.\u00a0 You fill in the gaps, but shortly after we met at Gary\u2019s Root Canal seminar I get an e-mail from you.\u00a0 Of course I remembered you.<\/p>\n But I get an e-mail from you.\u00a0 I was gonna say I may have saved it, but this was back before G-Mail so it wasn\u2019t so easy to save e-mails then, but you basically e-mailed me a really complete plan of starting a membership site in one of the niches that I work in.<\/p>\n It was really thorough, man.\u00a0 It was basically the whole business plan.\u00a0 Here\u2019s how you start.\u00a0 Here\u2019s how you can build the content.\u00a0 Here\u2019s some other businesses or sites that are doing the same.\u00a0 I suggest you charge this.\u00a0 You could start by promoting it to your list this way and basically gave me a complete idea to make some more money in a niche I was already in.<\/p>\n Then on top of that, you offered to work with me on that idea.\u00a0 I blew you off for a long time, didn\u2019t I?<\/p>\n Caleb Osborne:\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0We\u2019ve known each other for so long it seems like that I kind of forget how it all \u2013 you\u2019re right.\u00a0 Pretty much that\u2019s exactly how it went.<\/p>\n You were nice about it.\u00a0 You didn\u2019t really blow me off so much, but I think \u2013 I think it finally turned out.\u00a0 You knew the type of people in your market and that was the type of product that those type of people were readily consuming.\u00a0 I think you had done something like it before so we kind of scrapped the idea eventually.\u00a0 I know I must have followed up with you at times.<\/p>\n Doberman Dan:\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0You did.\u00a0 If I would have known you were gonna be so successful I should have saved those e-mails so I could show those to people like here.\u00a0 I\u2019d like to show you these e-mails when Caleb Osborne was a nobody.<\/p>\n Yeah; actually you were really persis \u2013 I did blow you off for a long time in a nice way, but I never really hired you for anything or we didn\u2019t do any joint ventures together.\u00a0 It\u2019s just every so often I got a real nice e-mail from you, never hounding me for JVing with me or having me hire you, but every so often I\u2019d get an e-mail or you\u2019d forward me a web site.\u00a0 \u2018Hey, check out what these guys are doin\u2019.\u00a0 They\u2019re also in your niche.\u2019<\/p>\n Persistence breaks down resistance, man. After a time, I just was thinking man oh man, this guy is just not gonna give up until we do something together and I don\u2019t remember \u2013 I honestly don\u2019t remember the first project we worked on, but I\u2019m assuming that\u2019s one of your success secrets for getting clients from people you meet at the seminar.\u00a0 Just maintaining contact with them and actually giving them information to help them, right?<\/p>\n Caleb Osborne:\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0Yeah; I\u2019ve never really thought through it, but I guess that\u2019s kind of how it is.\u00a0 I think my mindset at the time was like well, I guess we\u2019re not really gonna work on anything, but I\u2019ll stay in contact with him.\u00a0 Just whenever I came across anything, like you said, that I thought could help you \u2018cause I remember that.\u00a0 I remember a couple times I\u2019d see something that I thought might help you out and I forwarded it over.<\/p>\n I know I\u2019ve done that with some other people, too.\u00a0 Yeah; it was just be nice to people, even if it doesn\u2019t turn out to be something.\u00a0 I\u2019m pretty spiritual so I always think that everything happens for a reason.\u00a0 I don\u2019t want to say that the wrong way.\u00a0 I don\u2019t want it to seem like you\u2019re doing good things to try to get good things, but you never know who knows somebody or how people are going to connect in your life or throughout your life.<\/p>\n Doberman Dan:\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0Exactly ______________ there.<\/p>\n Caleb Osborne:\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0Yeah; we could have never done anything together, but you may have off hand mentioned it to somebody, like \u2018Oh, you\u2019re looking for a copywriter?\u00a0 Well there\u2019s this new kid that keeps hounding me.\u00a0 Why don\u2019t you go talk to him.\u2019\u00a0 Then that could have turned into something ya\u2019 know what I mean?<\/p>\n Doberman Dan:\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0And that\u2019s exactly what\u2019s happened, too, as a result of you keeping in touch with me and being persistent, but not bugging me; just constantly maintaining contact.\u00a0 You\u2019ve gotten work from other people that are also in my network, too, right?<\/p>\n Caleb Osborne:\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0Yeah; definitely.\u00a0 The way to think about it I guess is ya\u2019 know how everybody tells you to build an e-mail list and send out good content and then don\u2019t really pitch your stuff too much and build a relationship with people?<\/p>\n Doberman Dan:\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0Exactly.<\/p>\n Caleb Osborne:\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0I think that\u2019s what it is and it\u2019s that process gets multiplied times like a thousand when you actually personally have met somebody and talked with them.\u00a0 Once you\u2019re over 21 and you have beers with them at the bar and everything at seminars.\u00a0 I think that process just gets kind of multiplied and just being nice to people and when you think of something nice for somebody \u2018cause really it takes nothing to \u2013<\/p>\n Once you talk to somebody and like, oh, you\u2019re in that niche or this is what you\u2019re doing, this is what you\u2019re working with, if you stumble across something on the internet \u2013 I don\u2019t know about other people, but at least for most of us copywriters and marketing minded people, you\u2019re always looking at things in a marketing mindset.<\/p>\n So when you stumble across something in that niche and you\u2019re like oh, that was that person\u2019s niche and then like oh, well that would probably help them; oh, I\u2019ll give them that idea.\u00a0 So you just send it off then.\u00a0 It\u2019s like oh, maybe they can do something with it<\/p>\n So you\u2019re just generally, whenever the idea strikes you and take that couple seconds to help somebody out and you never know really what\u2019s going to happen with it.<\/p>\n Doberman Dan:\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0So what really basically launched your career and got you your first clients was goin\u2019 to seminars and then just keeping in touch with those people and following up to maintain relationships.<\/p>\n Caleb Osborne:\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0Yes, sir.\u00a0 Pretty much networking both through live seminars and that was back when Michel Fortin had his copywriter\u2019s board.\u00a0 I don\u2019t think I participated a whole lot on there, but I kind of PMd some people, some guys that were already established copywriters and talked to them and eventually developed relationships with them in the same way.<\/p>\n Even though never meeting those people face-to-face, just trying to be a generally nice guy.\u00a0 Like we had Ben Settle on the call the other day.\u00a0 He reminded me, but I had sent him a bunch of stuff back when I was first starting out.\u00a0 Yeah; I can still remember.\u00a0 I sent him a couple things, like I remember him talking about audio for his web site.\u00a0 Then I came across some free flash audio software or something and I was like oh yeah, I bet Ben could use this.\u00a0 I\u2019d send him stuff.\u00a0 It was all cool.<\/p>\n You be nice to people and network and you never know where that stuff\u2019s gonna go.<\/p>\n Doberman Dan:\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0That\u2019s cool.\u00a0 There\u2019s one other thing I want to ask you about and then I\u2019d like to get into some of these questions.\u00a0 We\u2019ve got a bunch of questions from people on the call or they\u2019re listening in on the web cast I guess.<\/p>\n I\u2019m still jealous about this.\u00a0 You got featured in an article in Clayton Makepeace\u2019s web site, the Makepeace Total Package, didn\u2019t ya\u2019?<\/p>\n Caleb Osborne:\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0Yeah; I sure did.<\/p>\n Doberman Dan:\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0How did that come about?<\/p>\n Caleb Osborne:\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0The same way.\u00a0 John Newsome was the guy that won first place, but he was working directly with Clayton.\u00a0 He moved down there to their offices and everything.\u00a0 At that time I was really still gung-ho about being a copywriter and working with those guys in any way that I could.\u00a0 John just was like what\u2019s good for me is good for you \u2018cause we had stayed in contact with the crit circle and everything.<\/p>\n So he\u2019s like, \u2018Don\u2019t worry.\u00a0 This\u2019ll help you out, too.\u2019\u00a0 When the time came he had a column I guess in that e-zine.\u00a0 He interviewed me for it.\u00a0 So that\u2019s how that happened.<\/p>\n Doberman Dan:\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0Yeah; that\u2019s credibility out the wazoo, man.\u00a0 If I were you I\u2019d be using that all the time.\u00a0 I\u2019d be e-mailing the link to everybody on my list to that interview that you did for Clayton Makepeace\u2019s site.<\/p>\n Caleb Osborne:\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0No doubt.\u00a0 Yeah; I put it up \u2013 once I finally put up a web site for myself and my services, I put it just on the about page.\u00a0 I was like, I\u2019m lazy one.\u00a0 I don\u2019t really want to write an about page.\u00a0 Two, this is pretty much the best \u2013 \u2018cause it had pretty much everything we talked about here; just not as in detail.\u00a0 So there was plenty of about stuff.<\/p>\n Doberman Dan:\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0I want to talk with you in a minute about getting started in copyrighting.\u00a0 I especially want to talk with you about what to charge \u2018cause that\u2019s a question I get a lot, but let\u2019s get into some of these reader questions if you don\u2019t mind and we can talk about other stuff after that.<\/p>\n John in Macon, Georgia is asking, \u2018What is the quickest way to ramp up your skills?\u00a0 What is the quickest way to ramp up your self-confidence in your abilities and what is the quickest way to move into making a good living as a copywriter?\u2019<\/p>\n Let\u2019s take the first one there.\u00a0 What\u2019s the quickest way to ramp up your skills?<\/p>\n Caleb Osborne:\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0Skills, definitely the quickest way would probably be to learn how to sell.\u00a0 Go get a sales job part-time or something like that and just get into that visceral process of selling stuff face-to-face to people.<\/p>\n In addition to that, I\u2019d say the other thing that really helped when I was first starting out, read everything that you come across; all the sales letters, study all the techniques.<\/p>\n Like I said, I never took a how-to copy course.\u00a0 I just read a lot of sales letters, read all the free information on Gary Halbert\u2019s site and on Clayton Makepeace\u2019s site when his stuff started coming out, but more importantly I actually did what Gary said and that was to handwrite out some sales letters.\u00a0 I did that with a couple of \u2013 I think it was a couple of Gary\u2019s letters and I think it was one of Caleb O\u2019Dowd\u2019s letters that he first put out \u2018cause Gary was just raving about it in his newsletter.\u00a0 I was like oh, let\u2019s get his name to start with.<\/p>\n So I actually hand wrote out a lot of sales letters.\u00a0 I think that really helps getting that process into your memory.\u00a0 So that\u2019s one of the best ways to quickly ramp up your skills \u2013<\/p>\n Doberman Dan:\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0I agree.<\/p>\n Caleb Osborne:\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0Yeah; to make it easier for people, just read a lot and do it a lot, write a lot.\u00a0 You gotta be writing \u2013<\/p>\n Doberman Dan:\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0Writers write.<\/p>\n Caleb Osborne:\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0Yeah; exactly.\u00a0 Writers write.\u00a0 If you\u2019re not writing you\u2019re just joking.\u00a0 You\u2019re kidding yourself.\u00a0 Get started doing something.\u00a0 Write fake sales letters for fake projects or like a dream project that you would want to start if you had a business or something like that or Clayton recommends that when you get a mailing in the mail how would you knock it off and try to beat it, make it better.<\/p>\n Find a product that really gets you fired up and write a sales letter for it.\u00a0 I don\u2019t think I did that \u2018cause I had my own little projects going on so I was already writing sales letters.\u00a0 So that\u2019s the thing.\u00a0 I did something.\u00a0 I started writing.\u00a0 I just started writing sales letters as soon as I understood halfway the concept.<\/p>\n You\u2019re never gonna be good the first time you step up to the plate, ya\u2019 know what I mean?\u00a0 I\u2019m reading a book right now.\u00a0 It\u2019s called Talent is Overrated.\u00a0 Basically they\u2019ve discovered in the last couple years that they can\u2019t really find any scientific evidence for talent.\u00a0 Most people that are considered geniuses are born geniuses.\u00a0 They just have this divine spark of inspiration and stuff.<\/p>\n When you put it together all these people have just trained for years and then by the time they get noticed people just think it\u2019s an overnight success and it\u2019s really not.\u00a0 They actually point out like a ten-year rule, for even like the \u2013 it\u2019s crazy \u2013 like the Beatles.\u00a0 I guess Paul McCartney and the other dude had been working together in that band for ten years before they had their really big album that was a success.<\/p>\n Mozart most people think was like a child genius when it came to playing music, but his father was actually like a really famous musician that specialized in teaching children, had just written a book on how to teach children music and pretty much put Mozart through intensive training since he was like three years old.<\/p>\n Tiger Woods was trained since he was like three years old.\u00a0 So all these people that see success early in life have actually still been training.<\/p>\n So my point is just that if you\u2019re not doing something you\u2019re never gonna get better.\u00a0 You gotta put to work what you\u2019re learning as you\u2019re learning it.<\/p>\n Doberman Dan:\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0That\u2019s true and the serendipity of that is if you want to get started as a copywriter and you\u2019re writing everyday \u2013 let\u2019s say you get a direct mail promotion in the mail and you decide ya\u2019 know what, I think I could do better than this.<\/p>\n So you write that promotion.\u00a0 Even though it\u2019s not a real thing, well, ya\u2019 know what?\u00a0 You\u2019re starting a portfolio.\u00a0 At least you\u2019ve got samples of your work now, too.<\/p>\n Caleb Osborne:\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0Yeah; since the rest of this question is how to make money with it, I\u2019ll put it altogether.\u00a0 What I wish I had done is I wish I had started a blog as soon as I got involved in copyrighting and it\u2019s just starting writing post after post.\u00a0 Write one article a day.<\/p>\n If you get up in the morning, Monday through Friday, write one article a day.\u00a0 If you\u2019re a real bad ass you can do it seven days a week, but I like to take the weekends off.\u00a0 Write one article a day Monday through Friday and put it up on your blog about the stuff you\u2019re reading about.<\/p>\n Like as you\u2019re learning about headlines write a blog post about what makes for a good headline.\u00a0 Then when you get these promotions and you want to tear them apart or you think you could do better, you could just do a post about that.\u00a0 Be like okay, I got this promotion in the mail.\u00a0 Here\u2019s what I think they did wrong, here\u2019s why, here\u2019s the principle that I think they could have done better on and here\u2019s how I would have rewrote it.<\/p>\n If you stuff like that, number one, you\u2019re writing.\u00a0 So you\u2019re getting better at the skill of writing.\u00a0 Number two, you\u2019re displaying your authority and like expert status to everybody in the world, anybody that might hire you.<\/p>\n Number three, there\u2019s really not that many great copyrighting blogs out there that have a lot of good content, especially not updated a lot.<\/p>\n Number four, you could really easily within a couple months have your own book if you plan it out right.\u00a0 If you make an outline about a simple book of how to write copy that sells or how to make more sales from your web site, whatever you\u2019re specializing in or you want to specialize.\u00a0 Most of the work I think now a days in online.<\/p>\n So you step up to the higher ranks if you choose to do that and do it with some direct mail companies and you write a post for each of the chapters.\u00a0 You do a couple posts for each chapter and just kind of outline it on a piece of paper.\u00a0 Then go ahead and write it in a daily format piecemeal.<\/p>\n Then you got a book and then you give that book away when people come to your web site in exchange for their e-mail address.\u00a0 Then you follow-up with them.\u00a0 Just your basic direct marketing principles and action, but if you do it this way then you\u2019re accomplishing a ton of things.<\/p>\n You\u2019re getting good at the skill that you want to get good at fast, you\u2019re practicing, you\u2019re displaying your expert status, you\u2019re creating a product.\u00a0 You could create a product you could sell.\u00a0 That same process can work.<\/p>\n Then through that blog the networking principle we were talking about now, I just e-mailed people before \u2018cause there was the copywriter\u2019s board, it was a forum where a lot of the copywriters hung out on, but that\u2019s not there anymore.\u00a0 I think there\u2019s one that got replaced.<\/p>\n There\u2019s other internet marketing forums, but even if you go and participate in those forums, if you put a link back to your blog there and then you comment on other copywriters and marketers\u2019 blog posts and things like that, you\u2019ll pretty quickly get known around the internet.<\/p>\n Dan, since you converted your site over to a blog you\u2019ve seen more traffic, right?<\/p>\n Doberman Dan:\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0Oh yeah; quite a bit more.\u00a0 Google likes it a whole lot better now.<\/p>\n Caleb Osborne:\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0And you really haven\u2019t done any cross linking or gone and commenting on people\u2019s blog and really tried to get people back to your site either, have you?<\/p>\n Doberman Dan:\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0I\u2019ve done none of that.\u00a0 I should, but I\u2019ve done none of it.\u00a0 All I\u2019ve done is just put \u2013 well, recently now that I\u2019ve gotten more involved with it is start putting more content up regularly.<\/p>\n Caleb Osborne:\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0Right; so imagine if you\u2019re just getting started and you really want to set yourself apart, just do that.\u00a0 Be the guy that works harder than everybody else.\u00a0 That\u2019s what I would recommend.\u00a0 You\u2019re gonna make yourself better in the process.<\/p>\n Doberman Dan:\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0Good advice.\u00a0 Another question from Bernardo in Denver.\u00a0 \u2018How do you get new clients that have never heard of your name before?\u00a0 Do you start with a direct mail campaign?\u00a0 How does your portfolio fit in and when would you show it to them?\u2019<\/p>\n So, how do you get new clients, we pretty much talked about the best way to get new clients.<\/p>\n How does your portfolio fit in?\u00a0 When do you show it?\u00a0 Yeah; how important would you say is it to have a portfolio of work to present to a potential client?<\/p>\n Caleb Osborne:\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0I\u2019d say that\u2019s pretty important.\u00a0 It\u2019s really cool if you can get some actual results.\u00a0 Once that happens it makes it a lot easier, but even still just having, like we talked about, your own little portfolio of even \u2018fake sales letters\u2019.\u00a0 It would still be good.<\/p>\n Definitely if you do the blog route that I was telling you, your whole blog is a portfolio.\u00a0 You\u2019ve demonstrated your expert status.\u00a0 Nobody\u2019s really gonna question it at that point.<\/p>\n But for now and I forget to do this sometimes \u2018cause I\u2019ll get introductions made from people I\u2019ve worked with or whatever and I just kind of forget to sell myself or whatever, but yeah, definitely before you get into any discussions about really working together \u2013 this is just part of the stuff I learned from face-to-face selling \u2013 if you\u2019re gonna be selling your services to somebody you don\u2019t want the objection when you\u2019re ready to close to be, \u2018Oh, do you have any work I can see that you\u2019ve done?\u2019<\/p>\n So just like in a sales letter before you ask for the order you\u2019re gonna share some testimonials, right.\u00a0 So, definitely once if someone talks to you or you call somebody or e-mailed them or whatever, from a cold approach I guess, if you talk to them and they\u2019re like, \u2018Hey, actually yeah, I have been looking for a copywriter.\u2019\u00a0 \u2018Oh cool.\u00a0 Well I\u2019m available this time next week to chat, but here\u2019s the samples that are posted here on my blog.\u00a0 You can go check it out.\u00a0 This is a sample page.\u2019<\/p>\n I have a web site now, a \u2018blog\u2019 but I got one post on there, one article that I felt squirrely one day and I put up, but other than that I got one article and I got that about page with the interview I did for the total package and I have an opt in form.\u00a0 Once you opt in there\u2019s my samples and that\u2019s it.<\/p>\n I\u2019m not recommending that to people.\u00a0 I\u2019m just saying that\u2019s pretty much all I do is when I talk to people I\u2019m like, \u2018Yeah, well we\u2019ll chat about that a little bit.\u00a0 Here\u2019s my free \u2013 call me.\u2019\u00a0 Get them to call you.\u00a0 That usually positions you better.\u00a0 That\u2019s just a small thing.\u00a0 It\u2019s not really that important.<\/p>\n Then just be like, \u2018Check out my samples page before we talk and that way you get an idea of what I do or what you\u2019re working with.\u2019<\/p>\n If they\u2019re people that understand what a copywriter is then they\u2019re most likely gonna be able to recognize good copy from bad copy.\u00a0 So that\u2019s always good if you have some good samples.<\/p>\n Doberman Dan:\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0That\u2019s true.\u00a0 A question from Scott in Newfoundland.\u00a0 Wow.\u00a0 I have subscribers from all over the world that I didn\u2019t even know about.\u00a0 We kind of already covered this, but let me ask it anyway.\u00a0 See if it provokes any new thoughts.\u00a0 \u2018What\u2019s your best tip or two for a starting copywriter to begin making the big bucks?\u2019<\/p>\n Caleb Osborne:\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0One, okay; I\u2019ll give you two good tips and these are mistakes I see that I made.\u00a0 One is don\u2019t be afraid to work.\u00a0 I\u2019ve always been really kind of protective of my lifestyle.\u00a0 So there\u2019s a lot of things I could have done like for instance, the whole blog thing that I was telling you to do that I didn\u2019t do in the beginning because I saw it as just a lot of work and extra work.\u00a0 To get up every day, write an article just was something I was like aw, that\u2019ll take awhile, but daily actions really add up quick.\u00a0 It\u2019s pretty amazing.<\/p>\n Gary Bencivenga wrote an article one time about that how if you just try to improve yourself one percent each week.\u00a0 That\u2019s a really easy thing to do; one percent each week.\u00a0 Most people fail when they try to improve themselves because they try to get better overnight and it\u2019s really hard to do that if at all, but if you can improve one percent a week you\u2019re almost 100 percent better by the end of the year.\u00a0 You\u2019re 50 percent better.\u00a0 So you\u2019ve almost doubled your skills in just a year.<\/p>\n So the same thing goes for the working stuff.\u00a0 Don\u2019t be afraid to work.\u00a0 The little things really add up like that.\u00a0 One person I admire who did do this is Ben Settle really did a good job.\u00a0 We\u2019ve talked to him a couple times and he was like \u2018Yeah, when I had no work I\u2019d write like three or four articles a day and post them up on web sites and put them on my site.\u2019\u00a0 It\u2019s like yeah, that\u2019s what I should have done.<\/p>\n So that\u2019s number one.\u00a0 Don\u2019t be afraid to work.\u00a0 And what goes along with that is say yes to more opportunities than you think you can deal with.<\/p>\n What I mean by that is I kind of strayed away from anything where I thought I\u2019d have a lot of commitment to do or I thought I\u2019d be committing myself to too many different things \u2018cause what happens is a lot of stuff\u00a0 — Tim Ferris wrote about this in his book The Four Hour Work Week.\u00a0 Your work expands to fill the time you allot for it, right.<\/p>\n So if you\u2019re really super busy and you have a lot of things on your plate you\u2019re gonna get things done before deadlines and you\u2019re gonna pretty much easily make your deadlines and things like that.<\/p>\n But what I did a lot of times was I didn\u2019t hustle and didn\u2019t \u2013 part of me not promoting myself as much as I should have \u2018cause I was like, well I\u2019m workin\u2019 on this right now.\u00a0 I can\u2019t really take on anything else or somebody\u2019d be like hey, I\u2019m not really lookin\u2019 for a one-time shot, but can we work on a long-term basis; I\u2019m kinda lookin\u2019 for someone like that.\u00a0 I\u2019d be like, \u2018No.\u2019<\/p>\n Really those long-term contracts can be really good for you and really valuable if you embrace them.\u00a0 Even though I was super committed to working with Clayton Makepeace when I first started that journey and went to his conference and everything, about a year later after that whole thing, right before they opened up in their newsletter to advertise for new writers to come down there and be a copy cub in Clayton\u2019s crew down there, I got offered the job through e-mail through the people I knew there.\u00a0 I turned it down because I was like well, it\u2019s a salary position.\u00a0 I was kind of looking for that overnight success thing still.<\/p>\n I was like it\u2019s a salary position, I\u2019d have to move and I\u2019d really be workin\u2019 a lot.\u00a0 I wouldn\u2019t be gettin\u2019 up at 10 in the morning anymore.\u00a0 I don\u2019t regret that now because there\u2019s amazing things that happened in my life around that same time so I know it was definitely the right choice that I stayed, but I know that that type of mindset of being kind of afraid of work and you kinda\u2019 get sold \u2013 I guess I\u2019m just bein\u2019 honest here \u2013 a lot of people get sold on this whole idea of what\u2019s the AWAI letter?\u00a0 Like retire this year and make more money than doctors or somethin\u2019.<\/p>\n Doberman Dan:\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0Yeah; exactly.<\/p>\n Caleb Osborne:\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0So everybody gets sold on this idea of well, you\u2019re just gonna work a few hours a day and everything and really, the best hustle and they work hard and they\u2019re smart about what they do.\u00a0 Guys that really did well when they first started out and really hustled and worked it like it was a real business, like Ben Settle and ray Edwards did a real good job building a list and things like that and establishing themselves as experts.\u00a0 That\u2019s what I recommend to anybody.\u00a0 Not to do what I did.<\/p>\n Doberman Dan:\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0No; that\u2019s good advice.\u00a0 You\u2019ve already navigated the mine field so to speak so you can lead the way and help people avoid the same mistakes you did.<\/p>\n I wanna talk real quick about something kind of related to Scott\u2019s question.\u00a0 He asked what\u2019s the best tip for starting copywriters to begin making the big bucks.<\/p>\n I wanna talk about fee schedules.\u00a0 Your fees are a lot more than when you first started, but when you first started you weren\u2019t commanding the big fees at all were ya\u2019?<\/p>\n Caleb Osborne:\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0No; not at all.<\/p>\n Doberman Dan:\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0Were you doing like John Carlton said?\u00a0 Just the shameless whore, just taking any work just to get the experience?<\/p>\n Caleb Osborne:\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0Yeah; basically, shameless whore; yeah, exactly.\u00a0 And I should have been even more shameless is what I\u2019m saying \u2018cause I guess when I started out I think my first client $2,000.00 and then the second client was only $1,500.00 a letter or something like that.\u00a0 I\u2019m saying only now and I don\u2019t know if that seems like a lot to people or it seems like very little.<\/p>\n But compared to I had this big concept of what a copywriter makes and how much I should charge.\u00a0 So it seemed a little at the time, but again if I had hustled and really gone out of my way to get a bunch of those, even if you just whore the heck out of yourself and there\u2019s work out there for you if you go looking for it.<\/p>\n At those prices, you don\u2019t have to really worry about the whole oh, I wanna position myself as this copywriter whose got tons of work and is in demand and everything.\u00a0 At those prices you can cold approach most businesses that would work with you for those prices I think are pretty reasonable.\u00a0 There\u2019s different ways you could maybe work out the fee schedule.<\/p>\n I would definitely say I never really wrote anything for free.\u00a0 Some people talk about doing I guess spec work, but yeah, I definitely don\u2019t agree with writing anything for free.<\/p>\n I\u2019ll tell you what I did do.\u00a0 The first ______ I had, how I got that $2,000.00 was he had already spent $6,000.00 on another copywriter and the copy just was horrible and it bombed and it just wasn\u2019t good at all.\u00a0 So he was really weary about hiring another writer.<\/p>\n What I really wanted was the $5,000.00, $10,000.00 whatever that other copywriters charge.\u00a0 So I made him an offer.\u00a0 It\u2019s funny how \u2013 I forget the saying, but it\u2019s like inexperience is \u2013 I don\u2019t know \u2013 something to do with cockiness and inexperience, but I was like, \u2018Yeah, ya\u2019 know what?\u00a0 I\u2019ll tell ya\u2019 what.\u00a0 You pay me this amount, $2,000.00 for this letter and if it doesn\u2019t convert it at 1 percent then I\u2019ll pay you the money back.\u2019\u00a0 We talked about \u2013 what\u2019s that?<\/p>\n Doberman Dan:\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0I\u2019m sorry.\u00a0 That\u2019s pretty gutsy.<\/p>\n Caleb Osborne:\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0Yeah; it was really gutsy, kinda\u2019 ballsy, but I was really confident that I could \u2013 I definitely knew I could do better than the letter he already had and I was just really confident that \u2013 he\u2019d done a lot of research so he had a ton of research on this and knew the market really well.\u00a0 I was like, \u2018Yeah man, I could knock this out of the park.\u2019<\/p>\n I guess we worked it out.\u00a0 I think in the actual contract I would pay him back on a monthly fee if it didn\u2019t work for so many months.\u00a0 So it would be something I could actually do and it was a viable thing.\u00a0 I wasn\u2019t just talking.<\/p>\n If you ever make a deal like that, don\u2019t promise specific percentage points.\u00a0 Promise like profitability or something like that because that letter I wrote for him, actually it pulled, through Google Ad Words, he had like a basic and deluxe version and the copy was good enough to sell \u2013 if people read it, it sold the deluxe version which was like 100 and some bucks.\u00a0 It sold enough of those that it was actually profitable.\u00a0 I think it was only like half a percent or something like that.<\/p>\n So the actual conversion rate wasn\u2019t where it was, but it was profitable.\u00a0 It was making this guy money.\u00a0 We both were really stuck on this mindset of oh, like a letter should convert at a certain percent when really I guess you can correct me if I\u2019m wrong, Dan, but I think profitability is a more important metric than the percent of something converts that.<\/p>\n Doberman Dan:\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0I wholeheartedly agree.\u00a0 I couldn\u2019t care if it was .000000001 percent.\u00a0 If I\u2019m making money I really don\u2019t care about percentage.<\/p>\n Caleb Osborne:\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0Yeah; it\u2019s kind of embarrassing sometimes.\u00a0 You\u2019re like, \u2018Oh, I\u2019m a professional copywriter, but hey, that\u2019s making me money, that product.\u2019<\/p>\n Yeah; so if you ever do a deal like that do it on some other factor other than percentage points \u2018cause that gets kind of screwy depending on sources of traffic and all that stuff.\u00a0 There\u2019s a lot of factors with that.<\/p>\n But anyway, so yeah, you can do a lot of things if you\u2019re gusty and you think you can really just knock the pants off something.\u00a0 You could make a risk free offer like that.<\/p>\n I think you can probably start at that fee schedule.\u00a0 I know a lot of copywriters that start at that fee schedule.\u00a0 I wouldn\u2019t go much below that.\u00a0 To really do a good job and you wanna do a great job with your first client because I\u2019d say 80 percent of my work has been repeat clients.\u00a0 If you do a good job people are gonna come back and plus, you\u2019re gonna have results in your portfolio now.<\/p>\n So you definitely wanna knock it out of the park and if you\u2019re only getting paid 500 bucks or somethin\u2019, I don\u2019t know about you, but it\u2019s hard to put a lot of time into something if I\u2019m only getting paid a couple hundred bucks for it.<\/p>\n So get enough for the job to where you can actually \u2013 it\u2019s gonna make you work for it, it\u2019s gonna make you focused and hopefully when you\u2019re just starting out you got that really burning desire anyways where you\u2019re really excited about your first job and all that.\u00a0 So it should take care of itself, but yeah, that\u2019s my advice for that I guess.\u00a0 Did I answer that question or go off on a tangent?<\/p>\n Doberman Dan:\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0No, that\u2019s good.\u00a0 Let me ask you.\u00a0 We\u2019re a little bit over time.\u00a0 Can you stick around like maybe 15-20 more minutes \u2018cause a bunch of questions have come in.<\/p>\n Caleb Osborne:\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0Okay; yeah, sure.\u00a0 Let\u2019s do it.<\/p>\n Doberman Dan:\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0If anybody needs to jump off the call I understand.\u00a0 We said, I believe, or maybe I didn\u2019t.\u00a0 I thought I said it\u2019d be an hour call or maybe I didn\u2019t put a time limit on it, but there\u2019s so many questions that came in I\u2019d like to cover those and I got some questions for ya\u2019 too.\u00a0 So if you don\u2019t mind stickin\u2019 around a little while longer.<\/p>\n Caleb Osborne:\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0Alright.<\/p>\n Doberman Dan:\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0What was I gonna say?\u00a0 Oh yeah.\u00a0 A lot of guys hear about Gary Halbert would charge 15 grand for a sales letter to write copy, the big guys, Clayton Makepeace, Bencivenga would charge 25, 30 grand or more plus a piece of the action.\u00a0 So I think a lot of young guys think they\u2019re gonna start in this business and start commanding those high fees, but like you said, take any work you can get at first.\u00a0 Price it so it\u2019s enough that it\u2019s gonna make you work.<\/p>\n If you under price yourself, I\u2019ve found this out too, the hard way, you almost resent the client and you resent the work and I don\u2019t think you do your best either.\u00a0 Subconsciously maybe.\u00a0 It may be subconscious, but it\u2019s like hey, this blows.<\/p>\n When it\u2019s all said and done I\u2019m only gonna make five, six bucks an hour because I charged too little.\u00a0 I think subconsciously you don\u2019t do the best job that you could, but in all honesty a guy starting out is not gonna be getting 10 or 15 grand for a sales letter.<\/p>\n Caleb Osborne:\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0No.\u00a0 And I\u2019ll tell you something about that that might help people is a lot of people think that maybe \u2013 Makepeace and Ben Zavenga, they probably got paid 25 grand or whatever to do a package, but those are still \u2013 okay; here\u2019s the thing.<\/p>\n You hear about this and they\u2019re charging all these fees and everything.\u00a0 A lot of that\u2019s for packages, like in direct mail world it\u2019s a full package, which is the sales letters, I guess a brochure normally and an order form and the copy that goes on the outer envelope.\u00a0 So it\u2019s still a package.\u00a0 So it\u2019s more than one piece of copy.<\/p>\n I don\u2019t know if people already know this or I was dumb and didn\u2019t realize it.\u00a0 And on the online world, too, when you hear about these gurus and they\u2019re charging all this money, the way you can get your prices up is okay, so you do a package meal, right.<\/p>\n So the letter\u2019s gonna cost the client a thousand bucks, plus, well let me write you a squeeze page, too.\u00a0 So that\u2019ll be another 500 bucks and then, oh, I don\u2019t know.\u00a0 Auto responder e-mails; that\u2019s another 25 dollars an e-mail and you need at least 7 of those \u2018cause studies prove you need at least 7 contacts, preferably more before somebody makes a purchase decision, right.<\/p>\n So you put together this package for the client and then you can present higher fees even when you\u2019re just starting out.\u00a0 Also, gives you some leveraging, too, \u2018cause if you\u2019ve ever been in sales and you\u2019re at the close and you\u2019re dropping the price, you don\u2019t drop the price for no reason, right.<\/p>\n One of the things we used to do is you\u2019d be like, \u2018Well, we really can\u2019t do much better than this, but I\u2019ll tell you what.\u00a0 If you let us put the sign in your yard that advertises to your neighbors that we\u2019re doing this job for you, then we can give you our advertising discount, which is this.\u2019<\/p>\n So you always take away something in order to drop price to close the deal or whatever.\u00a0 So that way they can be like, \u2018No, that\u2019s too high.\u2019\u00a0 You\u2019ll be like, \u2018Okay, well I\u2019ll tell ya\u2019 what.\u00a0 We can take away the e-mails.\u00a0 If I could do this would you be willing to go ahead and get this started or would that work out for you\u2019 whatever.\u00a0 That\u2019s another way to do it.<\/p>\n If you\u2019re even hoping to see any bigger fees and if those first fees I was telling you about are really, you\u2019re discouraged about starting out, that\u2019s something I\u2019ve learned is doing packages, especially now \u2013 this just came to me.<\/p>\n A lot of stuff I\u2019ve done lately is like product launch stuff, right.\u00a0 So Jeff Walker has this great product launch formula.\u00a0 Just like sales copyrighting and sales, if you\u2019ve seen it done to you enough times you should viscerally understand the process and how to do it.<\/p>\n It\u2019s good to get a $2,000.00 course, but you don\u2019t even need it if you\u2019ve seen it enough times and we\u2019ve all been through enough product launches.\u00a0 You could put together a product launch with your copyrighting skills.<\/p>\n If you really wanna get your fees up, I\u2019ve never done it, but you could offer to write the reports that go out with it and everything.\u00a0 I know some copywriters do that as well.\u00a0 Like the free giveaways they give out and then the scripts for the videos.\u00a0 I\u2019ve written a few video scripts and things like that, but that\u2019s definitely more stuff you can put on your plate.<\/p>\n That goes along with the not being afraid to work type thing.\u00a0 If you really hustle you can definitely make some money in this business right away right when you\u2019re starting out.<\/p>\n Doberman Dan:\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0That\u2019s excellent advice about bundling out the other services.\u00a0 Okay, you\u2019ll get the sales copy, but I can do the squeeze page, I can do the auto responder.\u00a0 That\u2019s excellent advice for a new copywriter.<\/p>\n Caleb Osborne:\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0Yeah; I\u2019ll say this too.\u00a0 You and me both know when you\u2019re running your own projects, the sales letter is what?\u00a0 Like I don\u2019t know.\u00a0 I\u2019m not gonna say.\u00a0 It\u2019s a very small percentage of the overall success of your marketing campaign, right.<\/p>\n So if the click starts at a Google Ad Words ad, why don\u2019t you write the Google Ad Words ad for the client, too, because he\u2019s gonna be judging your copy on whether it works, right, but you don\u2019t know if he landed on one of those web sites that says 29.99 and we\u2019ll send a million visitors to your web site by tomorrow.<\/p>\n Those __________ already clicked through the web site.\u00a0 It\u2019s like, \u2018Oh man, your sales letter didn\u2019t convert for nothin\u2019.\u00a0 I sent a million clicks to this web site.\u2019\u00a0\u00a0 This is a way of helping somebody out while also putting more work on your plate and getting to make more money and be like, \u2018I\u2019ll do the Google Ad Words ad for ya\u2019, I\u2019ll do the squeeze page, auto responder, sales letter and I\u2019ll do the follow-up e-mails, maybe even the customer e-mails for up sells or something like that.<\/p>\n If you study marketing then you know all the ways that you could add money to a business and profit to a business so you can offer all the different ways.\u00a0 Your clients will appreciate it.\u00a0 Don\u2019t be afraid to bring it up because you\u2019re showing them how to make more money.<\/p>\n You get two types of clients.\u00a0 You get the guys that have no clue what they\u2019re doing and they\u2019re just starting out and you\u2019ve gotta kind of lead them through everything.<\/p>\n Then you get the guys that are already running like million dollars businesses or couple hundred grand a year or whatever and they come to you like, \u2018Alright, I know I need to be doing this, I know I need to be doing this, but my problem is time.\u00a0 So can you do this for me.\u2019\u00a0 Both of those people are gonna love it when you bring up extra stuff.<\/p>\n Doberman Dan:\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0That advice is worth a lot of money to copywriters right there.\u00a0 That\u2019s extremely valuable advice.\u00a0 Plus you said you\u2019re basically kind of taking all the steps you can to ensure the success of your copy.<\/p>\n If you\u2019re writing the whole process from the guy\u2019s Google Ad Words, you\u2019re writing everything for the whole process from them coming in the top of the funnel there at the Google Ad Words, the sales landing page, all the follow-up stuff.\u00a0 That\u2019s really good advice.<\/p>\n I never thought of it that way \u2018cause if you just get hired to write the letter, well maybe the letter could possibly just knock it out of the ballpark, but his Google Ad Words suck and they\u2019re bringing in crappy unqualified traffic.\u00a0 So excellent advice.<\/p>\n Not only excellent advice for helping copywriters make more money, but also to ensure your success and maybe you can present it to the client in that exact way that \u2018Look, I want this to be successful.\u00a0 If I just write your landing page I can\u2019t really 100 percent guarantee this is gonna succeed, but if I do this from the Google Ad Words to all the follow-up auto responders, we found that we get an X percent better conversion.<\/p>\n So yes, Mr. Prospect, I understand that it\u2019s more than you wanted to budget for just your sales letter or your landing page, but by doing it this way and having me write all these services for you, we\u2019re guaranteeing the success of the project.\u2019<\/p>\n Caleb Osborne:\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0Yeah; exactly.\u00a0 If it\u2019s a guy that\u2019s already got a successful business and he\u2019s looking for you to help make it better, then it can become an ongoing relationship, too.\u00a0 You\u2019re gonna be like, \u2018Okay, well just get back to me.\u00a0 We\u2019re tracking everything.\u00a0 Let\u2019s figure out what\u2019s breaking down in the process.\u2019<\/p>\n Then at that point it\u2019s just \u2018So we\u2019re getting people to buy it, but we\u2019re not getting enough traffic.\u00a0 Okay; maybe we need to tweak the Ad Words ad to open up the funnel a little more, get more people in there\u2019 or \u2018We\u2019re getting so much traffic it\u2019s converting poorly now and it\u2019s not as profit \u2013 okay, let\u2019s tighten up the Ad Words ad.\u2019<\/p>\n So it\u2019s different parts of the process that you could work on after the initial sale with him and he\u2019ll appreciate it too because you care about the success of the project.<\/p>\n If you\u2019re just honest about all this stuff \u2018cause this is truth, like a big part of the process is everything that happens before the sale, before they land on your landing page.\u00a0 So if you\u2019re honest about all this and you\u2019re honest about \u2018Oh, I could quote you a really low price, but it\u2019s not really gonna be worth my time and I don\u2019t think it\u2019s gonna give you the best measure of success or chance of success.\u2019\u00a0 They\u2019ll be like, \u2018Well that sounds pretty logical.\u2019<\/p>\n Then you can just help each other out and make good money.<\/p>\n Doberman Dan:\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0That\u2019s great advice.\u00a0 That tip right there is worth a lot of money to any copywriter.\u00a0 Hey, let\u2019s go through a few more of these questions.<\/p>\n Byron in the UK is really late.\u00a0 I think they\u2019re like five hours ahead of us or six hours ahead of Eastern Standard Time.\u00a0 It\u2019s 9:21 Eastern Standard Time in the U.S.\u00a0 I think he\u2019s staying up really late.\u00a0 So that\u2019s for being on the call, Byron.<\/p>\n He asks, \u2018Is video script about to be the new copy standard for the web?\u2019\u00a0 I know you write for a lot of really big online marketers so what\u2019s your take on that?\u00a0 You\u2019ve written some video scripts so what\u2019s your take on that?\u00a0 Is that an up and coming thing for copywriters?<\/p>\n Caleb Osborne:\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0Yeah; I think it\u2019s one of those things you should get good at.\u00a0 It\u2019s never gonna replace text on the web I don\u2019t think, at least not in the foreseeable future, like close future.\u00a0 There\u2019s a lot of reasons why, but I just don\u2019t see it replacing text at any point soon.<\/p>\n I haven\u2019t done extensive testing on it, but one time I remember I put a video on one of my landing pages and I was driving traffic to it and I was split testing it against a landing page without the video and the one without the video pulled the same.<\/p>\n So, sometimes it doesn\u2019t even help.\u00a0 I think it\u2019s definitely something to get good at.\u00a0 Actually I think I stumbled on a dude\u2019s site the other day.\u00a0 He presented himself solely as a video sales letter writer.\u00a0 He had a little video sales letter on his home page.\u00a0 Actually, no, I think he had a sales letter underneath his video.<\/p>\n But yeah, I think it\u2019s important.\u00a0 A lot of the gurus are using it because there\u2019s a lot of things like with the product launch process.\u00a0 A lot of times the prospects are so sold they\u2019re not even reading the whole sales letter.\u00a0 They\u2019re going straight to the order form, but there\u2019s many different personality types of people and certain people will read every word of a sales letter twice and print it out and think about the decision and this and that.<\/p>\n Then there\u2019s other people that skim through the headline.\u00a0 They\u2019re like, \u2018Okay, this is one of them sales letter things.\u00a0 Let me scroll \u2013 oh, okay, there\u2019s a price, okay.\u2019\u00a0 Then they click the button.\u00a0 Or someone will just look for an order button, click it, go look at the price and like, \u2018Okay, I think I\u2019ll skim through the sales letter now.\u2019<\/p>\n So you\u2019ve got all types of different people so I think video\u2019s good in that respect because kinesthetic people that respond to touch more and we can\u2019t touch people through the internet yet, but we got visuals and auditories and things like that.\u00a0 So it\u2019s definitely a good component.\u00a0 I don\u2019t think it\u2019s a cure all for anything yet, but it\u2019s definitely something to become skilled at and add it to your repertoire.<\/p>\n If you\u2019re not just another copywriter, but you\u2019re a copywriter who also does product launches, who specializes in video scripts and things like that, then you\u2019re gonna do better.\u00a0 You have more to offer a client, just like we were talking about before, than someone that just writes sales letters.<\/p>\n Doberman Dan:\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0Yep; good point.\u00a0 Just one more thing to add to your repertoire.\u00a0 Somebody wants to know \u2013 Nick in Lakeville wants to know \u2018Do you write in Microsoft Word or what program do you write in?\u2019<\/p>\n Caleb Osborne:\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0Yeah; I do Word and then I copy everything over to Dream Weaver and design all the sales letters in there.<\/p>\n Doberman Dan:\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0When you\u2019re submitting copy to a client is Microsoft Word pretty much the standard that everybody wants the file sent as?<\/p>\n Caleb Osborne:\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0Oh; yeah.\u00a0 There\u2019s another good question.\u00a0 That\u2019s another thing as like an additional service.\u00a0 I almost always layout the sales letters in html format and upload them on my web site so that \u2013 David Ogleby talked about this or at least I heard a quote that he talked about this.\u00a0 I didn\u2019t read any of his books yet.\u00a0 Although I\u2019m gonna get to it.\u00a0 I swear.\u00a0 That whenever he presented an ad to the client, he didn\u2019t just give them an ad.\u00a0 He\u2019d put it in a mock-up of the newspaper or whatever so they get the full impact of it.<\/p>\n So if it\u2019s gonna be an online sales letter and you have the skills and they\u2019re gonna lay it out on the web, in addition that\u2019s something else you\u2019re adding value to the sales letter so you can tack that onto the price.\u00a0 Then if you\u2019re having to sell the job or if they\u2019re kind of iffy-washy, like \u2018Okay, well I\u2019ll take away the web design and that\u2019ll knock such and such off your price and I can just deliver it to you in Microsoft Word format and you can get a guy off e-lance to design it or whatever.\u2019<\/p>\n But Mr. Client, I do specialize in direct response design and impactful layout and this and that, if you have that skill, which isn\u2019t hard to learn.\u00a0 Sales letters are very basic html.\u00a0 If you just poke around the web and see what people are doing you\u2019ll pick it up pretty quickly.<\/p>\n Doberman Dan:\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0That\u2019s good advice.\u00a0 If you don\u2019t have that skill you could always find somebody who does.\u00a0 When you include that in your price, just price that extra service of delivering the copy formatted as a web page.\u00a0 Just figure in the price of what you know you\u2019re gonna have to pay somebody to do it and add that on.<\/p>\n Caleb Osborne:\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0Yeah; there\u2019s e-lance.\u00a0 There\u2019s a lot of people there.\u00a0 Other than e-lance there\u2019s people in the Philippines you can hire for \u2013 well you can hire full-time for really cheap, like under $1,000.00 a month, like 600 bucks or even like $200.00 if you do it directly with those people if you can find them.<\/p>\n But yeah, you could always just be like, \u2018Okay, it\u2019s $600.00 for the actual web design, but you\u2019re paying 200 to a guy on e-lance so you profit 400.\u00a0 So it\u2019s almost like just having another product.<\/p>\n Doberman Dan:\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0Exactly.\u00a0 Darrell in Spokane, Washington wants to know, \u2018Where can we get a copy of Caleb\u2019s first letter, the one Halbert said we should swipe?\u2019\u00a0 Do you still have that\/<\/p>\n Caleb Osborne:\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0Yeah; I think it\u2019s still up on my samples page.<\/p>\n Doberman Dan:\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0What\u2019s your web site?<\/p>\n Caleb Osborne:\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0Calebosborneconsulting.com.\u00a0 Then go ahead and opt in and then that\u2019ll bring you to the samples page.\u00a0 Don\u2019t worry.\u00a0 I think I have one auto responder message to tell you the truth \u2018cause that\u2019s the one that points to the samples, but right after you confirm it\u2019ll send you to the samples page.\u00a0 It\u2019s the one \u2013 what the heck is it.\u00a0 Dollar bill letter or something like that is the title of it, but I think I put in parentheses, \u2018This is the one Gary Halbert said was really good.\u2019<\/p>\n When you look at it you\u2019ll see why Gary liked it.\u00a0 It was totally his type of letter.\u00a0 Like just totally swiped from Gary.<\/p>\n Doberman Dan:\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0Calebosborneconsulting.com and Osborne is spelled O-S-B-O-R-N-E, right?<\/p>\n Caleb Osborne:\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0Correct; yeah, there\u2019s no U.\u00a0 Me and Ozzie Osbourne differ in that respect.<\/p>\n Doberman Dan:\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0We got a bunch of questions.\u00a0 We covered the main ones \u2018cause a lot of them are duplicates.\u00a0 One, I\u2019ve gotten a bunch \u2013 I know this is gonna be hard to answer, but Andrew in Los Angeles.\u00a0 \u2018I\u2019m just starting out.\u00a0 How much should I charge for various types of copy, i.e. sales letter, brochure, web page?\u2019\u00a0 Do you have any kind of guidelines you can share with us about that?<\/p>\n Caleb Osborne:\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0I really don\u2019t.\u00a0 A sales letter is pretty in-depth so even when I was starting out I don\u2019t think I would have done it for less than 1,000, if you\u2019re really timid about pricing stuff.<\/p>\n Brochures, I don\u2019t know.\u00a0 I guess in the hundreds.\u00a0 I don\u2019t really do a lot of brochures or anything like that.\u00a0 Yeah; but I mean it\u2019s kind of just seeing what you can get I guess.\u00a0 In talking to a client you can find out where they are, but don\u2019t get timid, too.\u00a0 State your price \u2018cause you can always negotiate, but state what you\u2019d like to get out of it.<\/p>\n That\u2019s probably just a good guideline.\u00a0 Just be confident and state what you wanna get out of it, why it\u2019s worth that amount and then have a back-up plan about like we were talking about, \u2018Okay, I can take away this or that.\u00a0 Well if you can refer me to five of your friends\u2019 or something like that.\u00a0 I don\u2019t know.\u00a0 \u2018Then I could give you a discount\u2019 something like that.\u00a0 I\u2019m not sure.<\/p>\n Doberman Dan:\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0That advice would have saved me a lot of heartache when I first started taking clients that don\u2019t just present the price of writing the sales letter.\u00a0 Present all the other services, too and it gives you points to negotiate on.\u00a0 \u2018Well, okay, this total package price is out of your budget.\u00a0 I can appreciate that.\u00a0 So we\u2019ll take off the Google Ad Word.\u00a0 We\u2019ll take off the auto responder series.\u2019\u00a0 Blah, blah, blah.<\/p>\n \u2018We\u2019re down to this and that and now we\u2019re within your budget, Mr. Prospect.\u2019\u00a0 I wish I would have known that when I was doing client work.<\/p>\n Caleb Osborne:\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0Yeah; no doubt, right.\u00a0 I just discovered it the last couple years or so, but yeah, it\u2019s definitely good.<\/p>\n That goes the other way, too.\u00a0 If you\u2019ve already gotten work from somebody or you\u2019re about to get work or maybe they\u2019re already sold on doing a sales letter, then you can always up sell them, too.\u00a0 Just like in a department store.\u00a0 If you go in to buy $100.00 suit, it\u2019s nothin\u2019 to pick up the $20.00 pair of socks and the $50.00 tie because it seems small in comparison to the big item.\u00a0 So you can always offer additional things.<\/p>\n Doberman Dan:\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0That\u2019s right.\u00a0 Hey, we\u2019ve gone over time.\u00a0 There\u2019s just one more thing I wanna ask you about.<\/p>\n Caleb Osborne:\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0Sure.<\/p>\n Doberman Dan:\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0You aren\u2019t just solely a freelance copywriter for clients.\u00a0 You\u2019ve taken what you\u2019ve learned and you do your own projects, too.\u00a0 Do you have any advice about that or any guidelines?<\/p>\n Caleb Osborne:\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0Yeah; let\u2019s see.\u00a0 Do it as soon as possible.\u00a0 Find a niche you like or you think you could do well in or if you\u2019re really set on being a copywriter, maybe the internet marketing education type niche, even if you\u2019re just writing books about yourself and you sell them for like nine bucks or something like that about how to write copy and things like that.\u00a0 That\u2019s still positioning you as somebody who\u2019s written some books and you can sell them and maybe you\u2019ll make a couple bucks here and there.<\/p>\n But yeah, get started doing something, some of your own products.\u00a0 It\u2019ll help you appreciate from both sides of the equation, what you would look for if you were gonna hire a copywriter.\u00a0 It\u2019ll help you appreciate the whole process.<\/p>\n Maybe some of the things you read in books really doesn\u2019t test out in the real world.\u00a0 You can offer additional experiences to your client that you wouldn\u2019t have ever known if you never were selling your own products.<\/p>\n I just believe overall it\u2019s a better model.\u00a0 Here\u2019s the thing.\u00a0 Okay.\u00a0 Say you charge 2,000, $3,000.00 to a client and you write this letter and you put weeks into it and hours into it and so much skull sweat and it\u2019s absolutely the best thing you got and you give it to \u2018em and he\u2019s like, \u2018Oh yeah, this is awesome.\u2019<\/p>\n He turns around the next week and he makes six figures with it.\u00a0 You only gotta do that a couple times before you start questioning you\u2019re making good money, but you question what side of the equation you should be on.\u00a0 Ya\u2019 know what I mean?\u00a0 So it\u2019s definitely better to be on that other side of the equation and be making yourself wealthy as well.<\/p>\n It\u2019s one of the things too that copyrighting is highly leveraged out, like you\u2019re making good money, but you still have to work.\u00a0 You\u2019re still trading dollars for hours.\u00a0 So anything you can do to put yourself in a position where the work you do once pays you forever is a good thing to do.<\/p>\n Doberman Dan:\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0Excellent advice.\u00a0 Hey, I really appreciate you being on the call tonight.\u00a0 Got a lot of questions and a lot of positive feedback from people listening in on the webcast.\u00a0 So thanks a lot.\u00a0 There\u2019s still a lot of stuff we didn\u2019t get to cover so hopefully you\u2019ll be up to doing another one sometime soon.<\/p>\n Caleb Osborne:\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0Okay; yeah.\u00a0 Anything for you buddy.<\/p>\n Doberman Dan:\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0Appreciate it.\u00a0 Give out your web site again if people wanna get more information about you or if they\u2019re interested in hiring a copywriter.<\/p>\n Caleb Osborne:\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0Okay.\u00a0 It\u2019s Caleb, C-A-L-E-B, and Osborne, O-S-B-O-R-N-E and that\u2019s consulting, C-O-N-S-U-L-T-I-N-G. com.\u00a0 Calebosborneconsulting.com. Yeah; you can get all the scoop there and sign up through the little opt in form and get access to the samples.<\/p>\n I probably will not hit you up with the next product launch, but no problems.<\/p>\n Doberman Dan:\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0Alright.\u00a0 Hey, thanks a lot.\u00a0 There\u2019s some ideas, like I said, in my promotion for the teleseminar, you\u2019re one of my few go-to guys and somebody I always bounce ideas off of.\u00a0 There\u2019s actually an idea I do wanna bounce off of ya\u2019, but we went a little longer than I said we would tonight so I\u2019ll give you a ring tomorrow and we can catch up about that.<\/p>\n Caleb Osborne:\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0Okay; sounds good, man.<\/p>\n Doberman Dan:\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0Thanks again Caleb, I appreciate it.<\/p>\n Caleb Osborne:\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0You\u2019re welcome Dan.\u00a0 Goodnight everybody.<\/p>\n Doberman Dan:\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0Good night.<\/p>\n Caleb Osborne:\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0Bye.<\/p>\n [End of Audio]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Dear Friend, The other day I interviewed the young up and coming copywriter\/kitchen table entrepreneur, Caleb Osborne. He shared a ton of hot money-making tips that any business owner or copywriter can use to make a big stack of “Benjamins”. You can listen to it or download the MP3 here. But I REALLY want to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-604","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-uncategorized"},"yoast_head":"\n