Three Thought Thursday

935 Words | 4 Min 9 Sec Read

Dear Readers,

Welcome to the first edition of Dear Younger Me 2.0 (I'm not counting Monday’s announcement letter).

If you are new to this letter or haven’t been keeping up with my life (forgiven…for now), then I’ll give you a quick update:

I got a new job.

You can read more about it here.

Long story short, I went from an entry-level corporate job to an apprentice in the creator economy.

Don’t worry, Mom. It is a full-time role with benefits and the whole nine yards. Regardless, I got this really sweet role working under Ben Meer.

Learning is a massive part of my role (and the most important, IMO).

I am learning how to improve my writing and research and understand the art of audience building (among other things).

With all this in mind, I am deciding to ~pivot~ the letter to write about three thoughts I’ve had over the week. Things I’ve learned while reading, researching, having conversations with Ben, and anything else that may help you build bigger audiences, gain insight into the world of the creator economy, or get plain smarter.

Who doesn’t want that?

One more thing.

I’ll be releasing this letter every Thursday.

Why?

Well, everyone and their mother sends newsletters on Friday these days.

Why should I compete with everyone else when I can get Thursdays to myself (at least for now…)?

Also, Three Thought Thursday has a nice ring to it.

So, let’s dive into three thoughts I had this week.

A Requisite for Greatness

It was a rare cold day in Texas on December 11, 2021. Billy Oppenheimer picked up Robert Greene from a small airport. As Robert’s “grand-apprentice,” Billy took advantage of the 45-minute car ride to pick the brain of his master’s (Ryan Holiday) master. This discussion quickly shifted to one of Robert’s favorite topics: mastery. Robert told Billy how he struggled to find an apprentice as good as Ryan at mastering the apprenticeship. Billy curiously asked why no one else had met the bar Ryan had set. “Without exception, they weren’t interested in boredom. It’s a dividing line between people who are successful and people who are not.” This is excellent news. You can achieve mastery. You just have to be bored enough along the way.

How to Guarantee Success

Steven Bartlett was in the middle of a massive speaking tour when he was suddenly met with a surprise. Mairie, an aspirational 20-something-year-old, parked a van with a billboard outside the venue where Steven was speaking. What was on the billboard? A job resume. Steven ate it up. One LinkedIn message later, Mairie was invited to the corporate office to meet Steven’s team. She had pulled off an incredible feat: catching the attention of a multi-millionaire during the busiest time of his year. Steven shared this story as an example of one of the five secrets to success he had learned over his 16 years in business. Mairie was a living example of Steven’s second secret to success. A principle called The Law of Averages. This law (in baseball terms) states that if you swing a baseball bat enough times, you will eventually hit a home run. This was not Mairie’s first time trying to get Steven’s attention. She sent in resumes, applied for work, and messaged many members of his team. She swung the bat and struck out plenty of times. Steven noted that the key was that Mairie didn’t stop swinging even when she struck out. She kept swinging, and eventually, she hit her home run. Guess what? You can guarantee success based on the law of averages. You just have to swing the bat enough times to eventually hit a home run.

A Key to Great Copywriting (and why it matters)

You always have to take a stock-trading tip with a grain of salt. At least, that was the majority thinking on Wall Street in 2003 before a man named Gary came through. Gary Halbert is known today as the greatest copywriter of all time. Millions of advertisers study, model, and use his sales copy (sales copy is persuasive text convincing a reader to take a specific action). He would often share examples of copy he had written in his newsletter. In one 2003 edition, he shared a piece of sales copy that he sent to stock traders. What action was he trying to convince the stock traders to take? Subscribe to a specific finance newsletter. The results were mind-boggling. Before I share them, I need to provide some context. Conversion rate is the primary metric copywriters use to see if their writing is successful. Conversion rate measures the number of readers that act on the specific request the writer is trying to convince them to take. The industry standard is two to five percent, with outstanding copy reaching 20 percent. What was Gary’s rate for the finance copy? FORTY PERCENT. Absurd. Great copy matters because the difference between a business converting four percent vs. forty percent is massive. A business that can convert 100 times the amount of prospects compared to a competitor is the difference between a floundering mom-and-pop and a Fortune 500 business. The key to great copy is simple: tease but don’t reveal your offer, and right before you finally do, surround the offer with a great story.

Thanks for reading my three thoughts this Thursday. If you know someone who would enjoy this newsletter, could you do me a favor and share it with them? The more people reading (and subscribing), the better.

Until next Thursday,

Tommy