Is the Hero’s Journey Dead? How to Write Winning Copy TODAY with Kulin Shah

0:01 Welcome to The Coaching Equation brought to you by Empire Partners and hosted by Ryan Lang and Brooke Bishop. Our mission is to help you build a profitable and impactful coaching business by cutting through the noise and all the expert advice to deliver tried and true actionable insights that you can deploy in your business today. Each week, we bring on expert guests, unveil cutting-edge tactics and strategies, and share the secrets and stories that we've gathered from working with the most successful coaching companies on earth. Welcome back to the Coaching Equation Podcast.

0:42 I'm your host, Ryan Lang, CEO and co-founder of Empire Partners. And in today's episode, I am joined by a good friend and colleague of mine, Kuline Shaw. And I'm so excited for this conversation because we have so much to talk about as it relates to marketing. But this episode specifically is going to be a deep dive masterclass on copywriting and... not just copywriting in general, you're going to learn how Colleen has kind of identified some of the more tried and true methods of copywriting that are no longer working. And you're going to learn a bit about his newer strategy and framework that that'll help you write copy that's not only compelling, but that your audience and your prospects can see is different right out of the gates.

1:32 This is an episode that is value jam packed. It was also a ton of fun for the two of us to get together and record this one. Buckle up and let's get after it. This is episode 48 of the Coaching Equation Podcast. Welcome back to the Coaching Equation podcast. I'm your host, Ryan Lang, CEO and co-founder of Empire Partners. And Brooke Bishop, not present today because I've got a much better looking man on screen today with a whole lot more hair. Colleen Shaw, my brother from another mother, with me today. How you doing, man? What's up, dude? How are you, man? I am great, dude. I am so excited. This is so long overdue, and it's going to be the first of, I think, many to come.

2:18 And, you know, it's funny. We've seen each other more this year, or really this year and last year, than we did in, like, the previous eight. But I think it was kind of fun to realize that it was, like, almost nine years ago that we met. Yes. True. which is kind of bananas to think about. Oh my God. I can't believe how much time has flown since, uh, that since we first met nine years ago, eight or nine years ago. Crazy. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So much has happened. So much is, has changed, but, uh, it's, it's interesting, you know, when you look back at, at, uh, that time period and, and all the people that we were with and, and, um, uh, we met at a mastermind event, uh, ironically see like people who actually run coaching companies.

3:10 Actually. Yes. We engage in masterminds and events and things like that. It's, isn't that funny? If we actually do what we teach, imagine that. Remarkable. Um, yeah, But brother, for the people, there are a lot of people that are that will listen to this episode and they will know who you are because we run in similar circles. For those that don't, I'd love for you to just give a little bit of background, first of all, on, you know, your company and also. You have such a wealth of knowledge with regard to marketing, and it goes back such a long way. I'd love you to give us a little bit of the origin story around you and marketing and especially copywriting.

3:54 Yeah, no. I started this journey probably 26 plus years ago in marketing. It was funny because when I was a kid, I was asked by an adult and I think it was like probably five or six years old. And an adult asked me, what do you want to do when you grow up? And I'm like, I want to be in marketing. And I had no idea what that meant. I was like, I want to be in branding and marketing. And actually he had no idea what that meant to me. Okay. So it was an interesting sort of exchange there. But I just, for some reason, I've always been a creative person. So, you know, ever since I've been young, I went to art school and I, you know, had sort of that background of kind of graphic design and creativity and all that stuff.

4:35 And I knew that there was a way to fit that together, but I just didn't know how. I come from an upbringing of like... You know, if I wasn't a doctor or a lawyer or something like that, I wasn't really an accomplished person. So I kind of just tabled that for a very long time. But then in kind of the mid-1990s, right when the Internet boom was happening. So I'm sort of dating myself here. I was working in consulting. I was doing like kind of brand work for like other people. I was actually working on Madison Avenue. I had clients on Madison Avenue, worked for some big brands. And this was right when the internet bubble came around. And then I decided to just go out on my own and started building websites, actually.

5:18 And... You know, did that for a while and picked up a lot of clients just through word of mouth and a lot of hustle. So I kind of learned a lot about direct response marketing, like guerrilla style direct response marketing back then, like postcards and like mailers and things like that. We used to do back in the day because what would happen inevitably was I would create a website for somebody or to create a marketing piece for somebody and then be like, OK, well, can you help me get some clients with this? And I'm like, oh boy, I could do the creative work, but I don't really know how to do the marketing part of it. So then I had to figure all that out. So then I had to figure out how to do marketing, how to figure out how to do copywriting.

5:59 I had to figure out, you know, how to put it all together. Yeah. And that was that, like I said, that was about, I started this, you know, my agency, Quantum, 26 years ago, actually this summer. And it's just been a long journey of just learning. Yeah. you know, getting better, testing, figuring things out along the way, making a lot of mistakes, quote unquote, wasting money on coaches and masterminds and all that stuff. I find it funny when people say they've wasted a lot of money on my education. I'm like, no, no, it all, it all, it all helps. But anyway, yeah. So, so here we are today.

6:41 Been doing this for a very long time. I would, I'd be the first to tell you that I don't know. nearly as much as I should or everything, but I'm always trying to learn, trying to get better. And so it's kind of in a nutshell, the short end of the journey, but I've been in this world designing websites, designing funnels, writing copy, doing creative work and all that stuff for more than a quarter of a century now. So it's been quite a ride. It's been a minute. Yeah, it's been a minute. Dude, I'd love to start here because today we're going to have so much to unpack. And today I really want to hone in and focus on copywriting because you shared something with me recently that really hit me.

7:24 And I love copywriting like you have been a student of it for a really long time. And I think you stumbled upon something that's really interesting that I want to unpack. Let me ask you this question. I mean, thinking back to the direct response marketing, I think that most people don't realize how old and art copywriting really is. And I'd love to hear from you, before we talk about what's changed, I'd love to hear from you what you believe hasn't changed about copywriting. Like, if you were to say...

8:04 your top like two or three tenets of copywriting that you believe have pretty much been true since the beginning. What would those be? Great headlines, obviously, to grab attention. I would say that would be the first thing that still remains true in copywriting. We still see it every day, you know, whether you're just scrolling through. a newsfeed or whatever it is, headlines are what's going to grab your attention, a hook. So the first thing after you read a headline, you know, kind of getting that person's attention. And I always say like a call to action or having something, having the person who's reading the copy or interacting with the marketing piece doing something.

8:47 That's basic direct response marketing. So there's brand building marketing, which is, you know... Coca-Cola and, you know, Apple and all these companies just putting out brand and billboards and things like that. That doesn't really relate too much to a trackable outcome, return on investment. And then there's and then there's direct response marketing, which is I'm putting out an ad. I'm getting somebody to click on that ad or read the article or, you know, back in the day it was read the newspaper or whatever that was or watch a P90X commercial or whatever that was. And then I'm having them buy something. Right. And so, but I still think that. Now, between all that, there's a lot that's changed to some extent, but, you know, a great headline, a great hook and a great call to action, I feel, is still something that everybody should learn how to do.

9:39 And then, you know, sandwiched in between all that is an amazing offer. And if you can get those components correct. you're pretty much, you're almost there. I mean, you've got a lot. You're probably in good shape. You're in good shape. Yeah, for sure. Yeah. I love that you spotlight that. And also the idea that you think everybody needs to learn this. I agree with you. I think that this is one of those things in business. It's kind of funny because... I feel like in working with as many business owners, I don't know if you find this to be true as well. So tell me if you agree or disagree. But in working with as many business owners as Brooke and I have over the years now, I would say that the two top things that people are trying to offload as fast as is humanly possible is sales and marketing.

10:32 Which is the two things that they need to focus on most. Right. Literally out of anything, because if you don't have marketing and you don't have sales, you don't have a business. And those are the things. And the reason why they do that is because it's, first of all, it's not something that can be learned very quickly. It takes time and effort. And I think a lot of people are just not comfortable with being uncomfortable. And, um, but the payoff is when you learn how to do those two things, you could pretty much, uh, you know, I was just thinking about this the other day, man. I was like, you know what? It's taken me this long to realize that business is actually not that complicated.

11:13 Yeah. I used to I used to think so true, really hard. And like, I got to like, you know, I got to like burn the midnight oil. It's pitching and catching. Right. It's just literally go, go, you know, find leads, nurture leads, turn leads into clients like and just rinse and repeat. And pretty much that's how literally every business scales. Yeah. And I think a lot of people make it complicated and then they shy away from the things that are actually the things that are going to make them successful. And I think you and I have both kind of discovered in our journey as being an entrepreneur is those are the two things that we actually double down on more than anything, you know, like sales and marketing.

11:55 My first job out of college was selling cars. And my mom, you know, my parents were like, wait a minute, you just went to college. Why are you selling cars? I'm like, because this is a skill that I'm going to have for the rest of my life. You know, I guess I learned how to sell and then I was selling mortgages for a while. And and so that and then learning how to market and putting those two things together, you know, it creates an unbeatable force. So, yeah, I think a lot of people just shy away from it because, you know, it's a skill that you need to learn. But guess what? Business is a bunch of skills that you need to go. 100%. Yeah, I totally agree. And I think that, you know, there are two things about that that I would mention.

12:35 Number one, both of them are revenue generating activities. And it's one of the things that we've learned, you know, in some cases the hard way over time is that, you know, Those are the first things that you wanna master and the last things that you want to offload are your revenue generating activities. And I think the other piece about that is that when you talk about sales and marketing, they are both skills of influence. And when you want if you want to create something extraordinary, your ability to influence others is paramount. If you cannot do that, it makes no difference how good you are, how good your service is, how good your product is.

13:18 It will either a never see the light of day or it will underachieve for forever if you can't master those two things. 100%. It's funny. I actually, I kind of laugh about this a lot. You know, I have been in this business for a very long time and, you know, doing design work and all that. People always ask me how much a logo costs, but they never ask me like, how much does it cost to like write a sales page? Like, how much people do that? Like, who cares about the color of your logo? Like, they're so like even new business, like a lot of new business owners, especially they're so fixated on the color of their brand and what their logo looks like and all that other stuff. And yes, that stuff is I'm not saying it's not important, but the focus is in the wrong place.

13:59 It's nobody really ever asked me, hey. Like, what's going to take for me to actually generate leads and like actually create sales for my business and pay my bills and and help people? Like, isn't that why we're in this business? So it's quite funny how how how that sort of works out. Such a major is such a major misperception. I do want to ask you something, too, on that before we move forward with a conversation on on copywriting. I'm wondering from your vantage point, when you see people, especially at the beginning, let's just start there. For the people that are at the beginning, they're in, let's just say, the first year of running their business, and they come to you and say, hey, okay, I want and need to build a website, or I need a logo, or I need some design, I need some visual brand.

14:52 If they, How much do you think someone gets, if you can estimate in some way, shape, or form, how much does it hold someone back to have that misplaced focus? Like, if they're spending their time and their energy and their money on a visual brand and a logo and all of that stuff, and basically not paying attention to the needle movers, like... their sales page copy and their CTAs and their hooks and their headlines. What is, what's the consequence of that in your mind for a newer business owner? Wasted time and wasted opportunity, I would say. You know, like, so the stuff that you just mentioned is important, but it's not critical.

15:37 It's like one of those things where you do it, you get it out of the way. And you should be able to do it pretty quickly. And then you need to focus on getting clients. Now, here's the good news or bad news, depending on how you want to look at this. you're going to change things a gazillion times. Like I've changed looks and feels and copy and all this stuff. Like if you think that what you're going to do today is going to be the, what's going to be relevant in a year from now, two years from now, five years from now, whatever that is, you're wrong. And the fact is, is that the point is, is that just get the best version that you can out and start going out there and getting, you know, and getting clients.

16:19 And I think it goes back to, man, like what I feel like is a lot of people just sort of swim around in the in the world of comfort, in the world of just kind of. You know, this is not hard, like picking colors for my white and for my website or choosing what my logo should be. So I'm just going to stick in this place for a little while for six months, for a year, for like, you know, because this is comfortable for me. Instead of saying, you know, like, it's hard for me to get on a sales call. It's hard for me to talk to strangers. It's hard for me to write copy. It's hard for me to put, you know, put out Facebook, you know, start Facebook ads or spend money on ads or whatever. But all those hard things are the things that actually move the needle and build a business. All of the other things, like the color of your brand and the messaging and all that, although important.

17:04 And it's sort of the kind of the foundation of your business. But it's like if I built a house, right? And I laid the foundation. And then I'm like, oh, we're done. So, you know, and then like never even build the house, you know, just like it's done at the foundation. You know, could you imagine that in the middle of a neighborhood? Like it's just a house with just a foundation. So, yeah, I mean, it's just like... you got to start building like everybody else so that you actually fit in the neighborhood. Right. So, yeah. Yeah. So it's important. I don't want to I don't want to not say that it's not, but it's not the end all be all. And I think a lot of entrepreneurs and business people starting out, they just they spend a lot of time doing the busy work because it's comfortable.

17:47 Yeah. And then. They wonder why, you know, the needle doesn't move. The best entrepreneurs I've ever been around, I don't know if this is the case for you, but I can tell you more. Well, I wouldn't say the best entrepreneurs. I would say the most successful business people and entrepreneurs that I've been around are the ones who just literally get stuff done. They don't spend a lot of time kind of like thinking about things. They're just like. Scientific thing. Yeah. And then it's funny because I'd be looking at that person. I'm like, wait a minute. I'm a hundred times smarter than this person. But guess what? Guess what? Intelligence has nothing to do or like your IQ has literally nothing to do with like whether or not you're going to be successful in business or not. Yeah. But like I've seen tons of business people out there that are just doers.

18:31 They just make a decision, get it done, move forward, on to the next decision. And these are the people that build successful businesses. And it's the ones that the super smart ones, the ones that sort of analyze every decision and sit there in this rut of like analysis paralysis that literally stay stuck for years. And I'm going to say this because... That was me. And until I stopped doing that, it was, I was almost stuck in business. But then I was like, you know what? We got to, we got to just make decisions. We got to move fast. We got to like break things. We got to like, um, give, figure things out as we go along is literally when my, the success, when I started getting the success that I've always wanted.

19:12 So, um, that's a big mistake that I think a lot of, you know, young entrepreneurs are people that are just starting out and sort of building their business they make. I agree with that 100%. And I think that I, so I want to spotlight a couple of things really quickly, because I think this is important. Coming from somebody who runs an agency who is absolutely incredible at visual design says, yeah. Do the harder thing first, get amazing copy, create amazing hooks, understand people's problem, understand your customer, be influential. And then, um, and not to say that it's not important, but I think that's really, those are, those are, those are key words coming from somebody who, who runs a business that is not, not that that's all that you guys do, but it's a huge part of what you guys do and you guys do it really, really, really well.

20:05 Yeah. Yeah. I use the example of a movie is never going to be made without the script being written first. Yes. If the words don't jump off on you on the page, it doesn't matter how great the visuals are. As a Star Wars fan, you and I are both Star Wars fans, right? Yep. Yeah. Yeah. 1, 2, and 3 were really bad, right? Because the stories were bad. 4, 5, and 6 were the original Star Wars were really, really good because the stories got you into the world. And the visuals and all that sort of painted the picture. But if you didn't have that sort of, that tension with all the characters in the Star Wars movies... we wouldn't be drawn into it. Right. And that's why one, two and three failed.

20:45 Cause it was just a lot of like special effects, but the stories were really bad. And so that they didn't do as well. Then you look at seven, eight, nine, when they're like, okay, wait, we got to rewrite these stories to make them, you know, to make them really kind of grab the audience and bring them in. It really sort of showed the difference. So I always use that as an example of like, if, If I don't write a great story, in other words, for a business, write great copy or understand what my marketing is or whatever. Who really cares? Like, if your logo looks great or, you know, you have a beautiful website, all that stuff enhances a great story. It doesn't replace a great message or a great story. What I'm hearing you say is beware of Jar Jar Binks.

21:28 Yes. That's what I mean. I'm the only ever-worst character ever. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. Strangle that guy. Gee. I mean. Oh, man. I mean, look, I mean, we can all look back at it today and be like. Of course. It's kind of funny, but like, it was so funny how I'm going to be on. This is a tandem here. You know, like, you know how I love my, like, Corksicle cups, you know, with the Star Wars. Yes. Yes. Yes. And so I always buy like the characters that are like the like, you know, like like Kylo Ren or like Darth Vader. Like I always buy like the, you know, the dark characters like a polarizing polar. Yeah, I love those characters. Right. And, you know, my wife was going to get me one for my birthday birthday a couple like a week or two.

22:11 And she's like. well there's like uh c-3po and there's like chewbacca and i'm like wow i don't want c-3po like give me like the the dark characters those are the cool ones right so yeah i would have had more darth maul and less jar jar binks uh and uh in the originals in the one two and three or one um yeah tough I love it. I love it. You know, so let's keep rolling on this idea of the script and copy. I asked you kind of what you felt were the core tenets that really haven't changed over time. So let me ask you this question, dude. I mean, what...

22:51 What is what has changed? What you know, we over the last several years, I'll make a little bit of a blanket statement in that I think that most of the a lot of the mainstream world, especially people that are not necessarily looking to create, but looking to model. in copywriting, especially when we're talking about websites and things of that nature, have really gone, have really been heavy into like the hero's journey and, you know, right. And Donald, you know, Donald Miller's framework, you know, all of that stuff, I think has, you know, story brand, all of that has kind of been front and center for the last, I feel like And you said something to me that really piqued my interest about a month and a half ago, which was that you really believe there had been a major shift.

23:54 What's the shift and why, if it's not, why is that not working anymore? Well, so let's kind of backtrack this here. So, you know, obviously I work with a lot of clients these days that are on my agency side that are working. You know, there are pretty successful coaches. So I would say like a couple million dollars plus in revenue are the ones that come to me, you know, four or five million dollars in revenue. And they come to me and they say, look, the brand's kind of stale and I need sort of a, you know, I need to take this to the next level. And what I've been doing to get me here is not working anymore. And so, you know, over the last few years, I've been sort of really kind of diving into copy and copywriting and storytelling more than anything, because copywriting is essentially just storytelling, right?

24:39 Yep. And the hero's journey, like, it's funny. We just referenced Star Wars, actually. Yeah. Literally, George Lucas rewrote Star Wars to kind of fit within the hero's journey after he kind of read some stuff with Joseph Campbell, which was, you know, he wrote a book about sort of the hero's journey. And. You know, that's worked or that's that kind of storytelling framework has been around for even before that. And copywriters and marketers have used that framework for a long time. But it's also been overused to the extent of like you can kind of sniff it out and you know it's coming. Right.

25:19 I gave like we were at the event in Orlando like a month ago and I gave the example of. Uh, like, you know, if, if you had a character in a movie and, uh, he had a unique set of skills and his daughter gets kidnapped, what do you think is going to happen at the end of the movie? Right. What's going to happen at the end of the movie? And everybody's like, well, he's going to save his daughter. I'm like, that's the hero's journey basically. And still, it's still being used in movies. So anyway, um, so over the last few years, I've kind of been helping my clients and I realized like, look, there has to be a different approach to copywriting or something that we can test against the hero's journey. Yeah. And so I started digging deep. And one of the things that people know about me is that I'm a movie buff.

26:01 You know, I quote movies all the time. Yep. But also, I was sitting here, I'm like, why are some of these movies, like, just movies that are just, wow. They just, you watch them like The Sixth Sense, right? And you're just like, were any Tarantino movie that I was a huge fan? Yep. And I'm just like, ah, why did that work? Like, that wasn't a hero's journey, right? So, like, what was that? And then I started digging a little bit deeper and a little bit deeper. And I kind of stumbled upon like a way of writing or storytelling that goes back to Japan like a thousand years ago, like even more than that. So the hero's journey kind of like if you look at the hero's journey, it sort of works around pain and conflict.

26:42 Right. So if you look at Luke Skywalker, you know, his whole sort of origin story and then the pain and the conflict and then, you know, you know, fighting his father and all this other stuff. Whereas Japanese storytelling works more around like discovery and contrast. Right. So kind of kind of taking you along and then shifting a perspective. Like if you ever notice, like like I would say, like The Sixth Sense, the movie, right? That movie like literally builds up and then the last five minutes it's over. Right. It's just like you watch the whole movie and then you're like, holy shit. And then like all of a sudden, like it just unravels and you're like, what the hell just happened? Right. Whoa. Yeah. First time I saw them, the movie theater, I'm like, wait, what?

27:24 He's dead. So anyway, so I started kind of looking into that and I started then kind of creating my own or like writing my own way of writing copy. And I came up with a framework called Rise. which is more based on sort of an Eastern sort of way of writing. Okay. If I was reading it, I would know like, hey, this is like an Eastern way of writing or whatever. It's just a framework of storytelling. Sure. And started testing it on our clients, started testing it on sales pages, started testing it for our own as well. And it started converting and it started working really well. So I was like, hmm, maybe we're onto something here. And so I've started using it more and more and more and testing it.

28:06 I think the point that I would say is that, you know, like... You know, people say like, oh, yeah, I would say I wouldn't say like the hero's journey is dead because people are going to continue to use it. So we can't really kill something that people are just going to because they don't know any different. Right. So maybe it's going to be our job to get to get them to understand what the rice storytelling framework is. But I would say that the more you use it, the less. effective it becomes because like i just said i just gave you two lines of a movie and you knew exactly what was going to happen so today these days if somebody reads copy and they kind of know where it's going to go yeah well here here here's come here the pitch is coming the agitate section of the copy is coming uh you know like oh i know what this is going to be people just stop reading it They stop interacting with it and it just kills conversion.

28:58 So, you know, I think I said something like predictability kills emotional connection. That's right. That down. Say that one more time. Predictability kills emotional connection. I love that. People buy on emotion. Right. You know, people don't buy on logic. They buy on emotion. Right. So when I buy on emotion, justifying logic. Exactly. So if you're reading something and you're like, I've seen this a hundred times before. That's why I like that's why, you know, we've lived through this. You know, there was automated webinars were huge, like a webinar that kind of had like sort of an NLP angle to it, you know, like shifting perspectives and all that other stuff. for a while, but then it doesn't work.

29:39 It's not as effective anymore because everybody starts starting. Right. So that was really the kind of the genesis of the journey. I just named two great bands there. You did. Genesis of journey. Damn. Damn. Yeah, I did that in one sentence. So I think, you know, that was sort of why I got to that point. And then I've been testing it and it's been working. We unveiled a part of it at the event that we had in Orlando. People loved it. I'm just finishing up my frameworks on that and a book to come soon with that about how this works and how to use it. But yeah, it's been, you know, I've been pretty. But again, it's not something I made up.

30:21 It's just something that I've kind of. noticed and it's not being used and sort of kind of updated it for copywriting in today's day and age. It's like, again, but the formulas have been around for thousands of years, for over a thousand years. Shows on Netflix, movies that we all love, they kind of use that same storytelling arc. We need to kind of educate people on this way of doing it. How to do it. Yeah. You know, a couple of thoughts on this. I mean, the best thing, the best things, number one, are born out of X is no longer working right.

31:03 What's a different way? Yes. And in a lot of cases, I think one of the things that I really appreciate about what you're saying is that this isn't about better. necessarily. It is about differentiation and the fact that, especially when you think about it this way, you know, when you think about the hero's journey, we saw it in movies, right? And we became familiar with the idea in movies to the point where we could almost predict things until crazy people like, you know, M. Night Chmumumumumumumumumumumumumumumumumumumumumumumumumumumumumumumumumumumumumumumumumumumumumumumumumumumumumumumumumumumumumumumumumumumumumumumumumumumumumumumumumumumumumumumumumumumumumumumumumumumumumumumumumumumumumumumumumumumumumumumumumumumumumumumumumumumumumumumumumumumumumumumumumumumumumumumumumumumumumumumumumumumumumumumumumumumumumumumumumumumumumumumumumumumumumumumumumumumumumumumumumumumumumumumumumumumumumumumumumumum You know, I think that the, you know, then we though we get into what became copywriting and the way that long form sales pages started to evolve and really painting the picture of the pain and what somebody is going through and relating to them.

32:12 And then it's like, oh, then there's the dream and then they get to win, you know. And I agree with you 100% that the familiarity at this point, we've seen it. I can tell you one thing, dude. I don't know about you. And granted, to some degree, we're hyper aware of these things. I can get like one paragraph into a sales page and be like, yeah, I know where this is going. Because people are just using the same formula over and over again. Yeah, it's the same thing. And again, you know, these young whippersnappers out there, the young marketers out there, they just want to take the shortest route. they don't actually want to do the hard work of like actually studying copywriting. I mean, I would say they'll call them, but the majority of them want to find a tactic and then say, hey, look, I discovered this tactic, which, by the way, you didn't discover it.

32:59 It's been around for a long time. From form. And then they're going to try to sell it to everybody, right? This is whether it's, you know, let's do a three day challenge or let's do this. Guys, I mean, anybody that's listening to this, let me just kind of tell you this. human behavior has never changed, right? So it's not like you're going to do something different and break a mold. Whatever was old is new again. And so if you see a tactic, it's something that was already used as just wrapped in a different wrapper. Yeah. And so, you know, At the end of the day, this is just understanding selling to other people. It's just about understanding human psychology and relating to people and, you know, and giving them what they need, what they want.

33:41 I love when I love that you when you talk about something old is new again. For some reason, it immediately took me back. I remember when when Beverly Hills 90210 came out, was popular to talk about dating ourselves. And it was being said. And I remember I remember my dad like walking through the living room one day and like seeing Jason Priestley and Luke Perry, you know, in like jeans and the white all James Dean, you know, jeans, white T-shirt, the sideburns, you know, and going, my God, I did that come back. Yes. And it sure as hell did.

34:21 Yeah. Yeah. 80s and 90s. Kids nowadays are like listening to like the stuff that we listen to. And I'm like, I know. And I'm like, and I'm like, yes, because it's pretty good. Pretty good. So let me ask you this question. I first of all, in terms of rise, I what what does it stand for? Help us with that. So we have a concept. So it's a four part, it's a four part formula for writing, writing great copy. So it's, and it's actually, it's an acronym. So rise. So the R in rise stands for relate.

35:01 So basically in the relate part of the copy, you want to like an establish and a connection with the audience. By addressing a common struggle. So the way that I talk about it is, look, I've been in your shoes before. Right. I know where you are. That empathy and sort of creating that connection. Great word. Allows you to then build, you know, build, build to the point of like, you know. we'll get to the point of, you know, kind of revealing your offer. But the first part is really important about relating to, to the reader or, you know, who was watching or the piece of content. The second part is the I. So the, the R is relate. The I is to illustrate. So this is really the part of the storytelling or the copywriting where you want to kind of use examples.

35:47 You know, they could be examples that you've done, you've had, or examples that they might've had to kind of illustrate the, your point and develop the story, right? So you've related to them. Now you want to illustrate sort of, this is what this means, right? The S stands for shift. And that's really about shifting a perspective. So I'll give you an example. When we were in Orlando, I spoke about how, you know, the hero's journey is being overused. I kind of painted a picture and I sort of talked about all the movies that are sort of using hero's journey. And then I said, I got into my discovery of. of tarantino and shamalan and the way they write and the way their films and are made and then i and then i tied that back i tied that all to japanese storytelling right and that was the shift the shift wasn't shamalan and and um tarantino and their movies the shift actually happened when it was uh when i introduced something that nobody had ever heard about which was where did this come from so If you're doing that for your own business, what's something like a shift that you can, a perspective that you could shift that somebody has been doing in your industry for a very long time that's kind of overused?

37:02 And how can we sort of shift? Like, I don't know, keto diets don't work or whatever. There you go. Yep. And then the empower is really just a, it's just a kind of a subtle walk into the sales pitch, right? It's, hey. You build up the story, you build up the connection. We sort of shift perspectives during this entire kind of story building arc. And then you kind of empower them to say, listen, if this made sense to you, you know, and this is something that you want to know more about or whatever, then, you know, book a call, buy my product, yada, yada, yada. So, by the way, if you notice, I still use what we talked about like 10 minutes ago, 15 minutes ago.

37:46 There's a hook. There's a hook. There's a call to action. There's a build of the story. It's just not, I'm not going to the pain. I'm not going to like regular problem agitate copy is like problem agitate solve copy is like, you're really bad. You're suffering a lot. You have a lot of problems. And by the way, if you don't solve these problems, things are going to get worse. This is what's going to happen. And I'm going to just drill you down and like just grind you completely down and then say, oh, by the way, I have a great solution that's going to take you out of that pain. Yeah. That's where like people, like you just said, when you read copy like that, you know where it's going. You're like, okay, there's literally no, whoever wrote that copy or whoever's trying to market whatever product they're trying to do. There's literally nothing original.

38:28 And it's just keep it so many times. You just not do it. So, so it's just relate, illustrate, shift and empower. Those are the, that's what ride stands for. I love that. And if you I think you pretty much just highlighted it, but I want to give a clear differentiator. So if you were to say, like. There is what do you feel like is one. clear differentiator between the way that we've been doing it for a while now and and this way obviously the framework in and of itself is is different than the hero's journey but if there were kind of one clear differentiator and here here's where i'd love to go like what is what is the difference in the way that we're going to influence somebody right so what we just talked about in hero's journey is, is, is sort of centered around pain and conflict.

39:27 Right. Yep. And the rise framework or kind of a new perspective on writing is more about sort of leading them through, through a journey of discovery and contrasting. Love that word. You know, it's, so it's, it's, you know, you know me, I'm, I'm a huge student of, of luxury and luxury branding and luxury sort of positioning and all that. They don't need to kind of tell you how bad and poor you are before you buy the Rolls Royce. So true. Right? They don't do that. They elevate you. So true. Yeah. It's aspirational, right? Even Apple products. Wait, like Apple products are aspirational. They don't even talk about price, dude.

40:08 People don't need. Like an iPhone costs $10 to make. Yeah. Like they sell them for $1,000, right? So they're only like, and people probably, a lot of people still know that, but still buy it anyway, because it's a connection to, hey, this is a status symbol, right? So the price becomes secondary. And so- I also find that there is a disconnect, especially like when people are trying to sell high ticket or luxury, that they have to go to pain and conflict. Because anybody who is a power buyer or a premium buyer or somebody that buys that, they want aspiration. They don't want pain and conflict. And so, yeah. So the biggest, I would say the biggest distinction is that if you're looking to sell something or even if you're looking to raise your prices or you want to sell something that you know is.

40:58 it's got a lot of value to it. Then, then the hero's journey sort of framework of, you know, I had a lot of pain and then I, and then I met my mentor and then my mentor taught me this and now I'm teaching you and, and all that other stuff is, is a very long way to get to the end result, which is, is getting the client to work with you. So you want to talk more to their aspirations and, and who they want to be as opposed to who they've been, you know, that doesn't really kind of help. So, I love that. I, and I want to ask you a question to play devil's advocate here. If we know that people are either running away from pain or towards pleasure and, and generally speaking, we all, we all will do both at some point or another, but we have a, we typically have a tendency to do more of one or the other.

41:55 in sort of the new way of doing things. If the old way, and really it was, the old way really was, I'm gonna go heavy on the pain because my belief is that's the biggest driver of behavior change is I wanna get out of pain. So... why the shift? And do we risk leaving something? Do we risk leaving people behind if we don't go deeper on the pain? Or tell me if there's something I'm missing. Well, I mean, again, I always try to look at what brands that know what they're doing are doing.

42:39 And the successful brands out there don't talk about... They talk about aspiration, you know, even so. So like I mentioned Apple, I mentioned the luxury brands out there that are aspirational. So I don't I see there's enough evidence around me and around all of us to see that not using a pain based approach to selling is works. Yeah. I mean, we see it everywhere. Right. So and yeah, I mean, obviously, these are big brands. But even when Apple was a small brand, they weren't using they were still being aspirational to their audience. Right. They were still kind of being, hey, that's that's something that I want to attain or that's something that I want to gravitate towards.

43:21 So I just think that I feel like what's happened in the marketing world and what's happened, especially in the Internet marketing world of the digital marketing world is like. here's something we have. Let's just go run with it and let's go teach everybody. Cause it's really easy to do. But it's like, there was no thought put into this. There was no like, there was no like deep thinking about like, okay, how did we get to here? And so people just follow because, and then by the way, when it doesn't work and by the, and also I would say Ryan is that we have so much evidence around us now, especially with coaches that come to us that need help of like, Hey, our stuff is not working. Yeah. The webinar that I was doing before is not working. My sales copy that I was doing for my product was not working.

44:02 The VSL is not working. Well, it's because everybody's doing the same thing. And now the funny thing is, is that if you were even advertising, let's say you were at, let's say you had a VSL for your business, your coaching business, and you're advertising on Facebook. Well, guess what Facebook does? They're going to now send you they're going to send your audience the 10 other people that are doing the same thing. So and if everybody's copy is the same thing, which it probably is because they're using problem agitates all work or hero's journey or some pain, you know, pain based marketing. Now, how am I going to distinguish if I'm a consumer? How am I distinguishing between these 10 brands? I'm probably going to be like, well, let me just look at the price then because they're all saying the same thing. So maybe I'll just who's the cheapest, right?

44:45 Not who's the best. Who's the best? So when you so when you start when you start inviting pain based marketing into your world, you're going in a downward spiral of like race to the bottom of who's the cheapest. When you're aspirational, Rolls always can charge whatever the hell they want. Truth. People buy Rolex all the time. Apple can charge $1,200 for a phone, which is basically just a camera with a calendar and some phone functionality on it. It's a $1,000 camera. It's a $1,200 camera, right? It's a $1,200 12 megapixel camera is basically what an iPhone is. And then you got to buy the, the, the, the dongles and change all the things. Cause you know, the accessories, cause that's where they make their money. But, um, so that's what I would say. It's like, um, it's a downward spiral, but if you go aspirational, you get to set the tone, you get to set the rules and you get to play by your own rules.

45:34 And that's why, again, we keep talking about these luxury brands, but that's why, you know, Hermes and Bentley and Rolls-Royce and Apple and Ritz Carlton or whatever, um, They don't compete on that level. So that's what we want to get our clients to do. And that's what we want to get coaches to aspire to do. You know, I love this. And as we're having this conversation, I'm really just kind of thinking on the Apple thing. And I think one of the things that Apple did and still does so brilliantly was they have created an identity for their customers. Their customers have an identity.

46:15 And what's really interesting about this, this is unbelievably powerful when we think about this because there is Apple, And then there is the entirety of the PC world that dukes it out day in and day out between Acer and HP, you know, and and in Microsoft Surface and all of the things. And it literally is a race to the bottom of like, how cheaply can we make a computer? And if we make one even that that even gets close to. to a Mac machine. People start to freak out. Yet when you go buy a Mac, if you're a Mac person, like I don't even fucking think about it.

46:57 I don't ever think about it. I'm just like, oh, if I'm ready for a new MacBook, I just decide the specs that I get, that I'm getting, and that's what I go buy. Period. And they can deliver to your house in like three hours. So that's even better. So yeah. And, you know, the funny thing is, dude, is like, you know, I can go on for days about Apple, but like if you always walk by their store in the mall, it's packed. It's always busy. You know what? Most of those people are not going to buy anything. True. A small percentage of people that actually buy those products, a lot of them are just there to kind of become part of the aspiration. They will eventually. And Apple's so smart that they understand, like, having people, like, just, you know, mess around with their tablets or, you know, their iPads and their computers and their headphones and all that stuff.

47:39 I've laughed so many times walking through a mall and seeing, I don't even think Microsoft stores exist anymore, but they would literally be empty. There was nobody in there. Yeah. And then you would walk by an Apple store and there would be people outside, like holding people back to get in the store because we're like, wait, it's too, there's so many people in here. They understand that. They understand the aspiration of the brand. And like you just said, when I'm ready for my iPhone or I'm ready for my new iMac or whatever, whatever it is, I'm not going to, I'm just going to buy it. That's, that's just the way it is. So. And again, I haven't had to have a they haven't had to have a, you know, a five shifts webinar to to to, you know, to convince me to buy it.

48:20 They haven't had to, you know, get down into my pain about like, you know, all the things that are going on in my life. They hadn't had to do any of that stuff to get me to walk into that store and be like, here's fifteen hundred dollars for a. you know, for something that you could get for maybe half the price through Microsoft or Acer or Dell or whatever, you know, so. Yep. One of the things that I want to spotlight, too, that you said you use this word and I love it for a number of different reasons. And it's it's discovery. you know, one of the things that in the past, one of the reasons that, and why Colleen is talking about, like you talk about kind of the, you know, problem agitates solving, kind of that being the easy approach to copywriting, more approachable, less thought involved, that kind of thing.

49:11 The reason is that, Like we can, if we know anything about our customer, describing the pain and getting them to nod their head and go, yes, I'm having that pain, is really not that hard. If you can't do that, you're in really big trouble. But the thing is when we think about when we think about a true process of discovery, the reason that pain works so well is that people can easily associate to it. And the thing though that's really interesting is that so often one of the reasons that it works so well is that they don't know what's possible for them or they've been stuck in the pain for so long that they don't know what's actually available and who they could become if they did make that shift in perspective, the S in your rise formula.

50:12 And that's one of the reasons that I love this because in truth, We're all looking to discover. We're all looking to find what's actually possible. We've just formulated beliefs from our experiences about what's real, what's not, what's possible, what's not, that kind of thing. And I love what you're talking about because it's such a powerful shift. To be, you know, to be influenced to all of a sudden go, oh, and it's you don't even have to, by the way, you don't even have to convince them that they can become the person yet. Yes. It's just merely the idea that that is available to them is a huge shift and something that I think draws a lot of people at.

51:00 Yeah. I mean, I think as, as, you know, as coaches and I'll use that word lightly for myself, but as coaches and as marketers and as mentors to other business owners, we always want to see the best in them. Right. Like it doesn't like, I, I, I understand where you've been, but for me, it's like, okay, where are we taking you? Like, where, where, where are we going with this? I acknowledge that you've had a pass and you've had struggles. We all have. Um, but yeah. I would rather talk and I would rather spend my time saying, okay, that's fine. We're here now. So where are we taking this? Like, what's the aspiration? Where do we, where do we want to go with this? That to me is a much more powerful frame and an easier way to lead people than to kind of dive in.

51:46 And by the way, you and I have been this, I just kind of, this is real quick, but yeah. You and I have actually been in masterminds where we've actually seen people have offers where the offer is all based around pain. Yeah. And not only does it, not only does it attract a certain type of coaching client, a certain type of client, the business owner is miserable. Right. Cause they're having to go through this. So true. Right. And it's like, and look, I'm sure there's, there's a place for this, right? There is a place. Yeah, of course. But what I'm saying, and you have to be really good. We know some people that are good at just sort of blocking it out and being like, okay, I can get somebody to their, you know, to their trauma or whatever, and I can get them out of it.

52:30 And so that might be their personality. But for a lot of people, it might not be. And then now you're in this sort of death spiral of having a business where you don't like your clients, you know, and you're physically and mentally drained all the time because... Because, you know, it's kind of you're not speaking to people's aspirations. You just keep going back into the well of, you know, despair and pain and all that other stuff. And you keep digging that up every day. It's like it's not a it's not a fun way to live or coach or run a business. So I agree. I agree 100 percent. Um, man, well, bro, this, I, I love the, I love the shift in perspective. I think this is so incredibly timely. Um, and thank you for sharing all of this today.

53:14 I, I, I, you referenced a couple of times our event in Orlando and, uh, that was unbelievable. Your presentation on this, uh, at the event was, was a game changer for people. We got to workshop it. It was incredible. It was amazing. And I'll just say this. A couple of people have asked me, I'm wearing this hat with this totally different logo than my normal hat. And there are a couple of people that have asked. There you go. Yeah, you are. A couple of people that have asked me about it. So I just want to say that I'm super excited to be working together. And we are officially working together.

53:56 Colleen and Deepika run Quantum. Quantum. We have combined forces to create a mastermind unlike any other that's out there right now called Quantum Empire. If you want to check it out and see what it's all about, you can go to quantumempire.io. And in fact, speaking of events, I just want to mention, by the way, that Uh, you're going to be, uh, at our upcoming event in Vail, which is coming up June 5th through the 7th. Uh, which by the way, I mean, you're listening to this right now and you've never been to Vail in the summertime. Um, I haven't. Dude, I'm totally. It's going to be, you're going to be, it's, it's incredible.

54:37 It's going to be amazing. But we've got that coming up. And if you want to know more about that, it's really simple. I just threw out the URL for Quantum Empire. You can check out the event at quantum empire dot IO forward slash event quantum empire dot IO forward slash event and check out everything that we're going to be doing in Vail. We're in a spot where if you want to get in on it, you're going to need to get in on it pretty quickly. But you can still do it as of the release of this episode. So with all that said, man, I'm so excited.

55:20 I can't wait to do this more often. Like, I think you and I could could just sit here for hours and hours and hours. Half of the time, maybe just entertaining each other. What do you two do? Yeah, I mean, do you want to write? I guess we're wrapping it up. It's fine. But I mean, I would love to color a little bit about why this all happened and why we're doing this together. If you want. Yeah. So let's listen. It's my fucking podcast, Colleen. I can do whatever I want. We could just stretch this out for another hour if you want. Do we even have a film? All right. So, no, I think the beautiful thing was, is that, you know, Ryan and Brooke and Vanessa had a, you know, they're running their coaching business.

56:06 Empire Partners. And, you know, we've been kind of loosely working together for the last few years and just sort of helping each other's clients and sending each other clients back and forth. And, you know, my wife and I, Deepika, have been have been involved in our agency for, you know, me. I started it 25 years ago, 25 plus years ago. Deepika's been there for 10 plus years. And what we realize is. is that in our space and the coaching industry, if I wanted to have a place where I wanted to go and say, look, I don't like, I just want to come to one place where I feel part of an amazing community, but I also have the resources, whether it's technology, whether it's branding, whether it's marketing, whether it's sales, whether it's leadership, whether it's operations, whatever that is, there's nothing like that, that exists anywhere.

56:52 Um, and, and so Ryan and I started talking about this, you know, having, general conversations after kind of working together and just you know handing off clients and all that and ryan came to me and said hey dude what about like kind of maybe formally doing some some work together and i said yeah that sounds pretty cool uh and the funny thing is is that we actually guys had an event in in colorado that we missed was over the winter time of last year and then we said you know what if we're going to work together It might be a good idea because I know you, I've known you for many, many years and I've known Vanessa, you know, just sort of here and there, but I've never really met Brooke.

57:33 I've known a lot or heard a lot about Brooke, but never knew him personally. I said, why don't you guys come to Florida in January? We live, we have a home here in Florida. So I said, why don't you guys come here and hang out? And the whole purpose, and I think Ryan and I, you and I both knew what we were trying to do there, which was, can we play well together? Yeah. Sure. And I think it was funny because the other ones were getting frustrated that we weren't getting into the work part of it. Like I'm actually like the business planning part of it. But I think I knew what you were up to and I knew what I definitely wanted to get out of this. And I would just say that the three days that we were together, I mean, it was like three days. Long lost friends reunited and just hanging out and laughing and goofing around.

58:18 But we're also when it comes time to get serious, we get serious and we get to work. Yep. And so from that, we had to actually like make a beeline fast sprint towards the event, which I think was like in three weeks after that. It was pretty fast. It's a launch brand to get a site up to, to do all this stuff to work. And, and I, I gotta say, man, like having the five of us work together, um, where it's, it's kind of like, and I've referenced this a lot, like we're in a band where everybody kind of knows their lane and they do their thing. And then we kind of make amazing music together is, is, um, is really fun to be a part of. Uh, cause it doesn't, it doesn't feel like work.

58:58 Uh, it feels like it just happens fun and like. And and and doing cool things and thinking of new things to do and and it all and the best part about all of this, I'll say, dude. is that we always come back to how does this serve our clients? How does this serve members of our community? That has been the central focus. And to be around a couple of people, you know, a bunch of other people that are heart-centered in the true essence of the word, because we always, we always end almost every conversation with like, how does this move our clients forward? How does this move us being able to serve more people forward? And that being sort of the... you know, the thread that goes through the entire kind of team and the company culture and all that is pretty freaking awesome.

59:43 So anyway, yeah. So we joke around with Ryan because we call him the Pied Piper, but he has been able to assemble a pretty fun team. And it's like I was just watching the documentary of the Eagles, the band, not the football team. Oh, my God. That's my favorite band. You know that. They were a band in favor of a football team, so I'm good in both ways. But yeah, I was just watching it, and the part when Joe Walsh actually ends up joining, and how they just went to another level. Skyrocket. Skyrocket, yeah, because now everybody knew their lanes, and everybody knew what they did. So I was like, so Brooke's probably the drummer, because he's kind of the glue.

1:00:26 Vanessa's probably bass. Typic his keyboards. You're the lead singer and I would be the lead guitarist. Well said. Well said. And what's cool is that, you know, like similar to the Eagles, when you look at you and I and Brooke, it's like we've got a three-part harmony. There are so many things that each of us is capable of doing that the other can also do. we also just double down on the things that were, you know, uh, that, that were strongest at. And I love that. I, it's such a great analogy. And I think also one of the things that I'll mention since we're on the, you know, since we are talking about why we started in the first place, um, um, I think, you know, one of the things that's most important to me is the way that the way that we're able to serve our clients is different than anything that exists right now.

1:01:22 And it's primarily because of the fact that we we we took two things that were that were really good by themselves on an island. and put them together to formulate something that's truly holistic. So that's, you know, when I've said this to you, and since we're on the topic, I'll just share it here. You know, that was really the, what drove me initially to figure out if we could pull this off was, you know, I remember, Having a conversation when I came out of my oil and gas business, I took, you know, I took about a year to kind of figure out what the hell I was going to do with myself.

1:02:03 And sometimes I still, you know, go like, wow, why didn't I take the blue pill? But yeah. In that time, I had the opportunity. I was kind of exploring, and I had the opportunity to talk to a guy who was in health and fitness, and he ran a very successful business in the Santa Barbara area. And his shop basically was a facility where... You came and you paid a membership fee. And inside of the facility, as part of your membership fee, you had your medical doctor, your functional medical doctor, your massage therapist, your personal trainer, your like, you know, upstairs head therapist.

1:02:48 Everybody was under one roof. And here was the magic piece of the puzzle. They all talk to each other. Yes. Yes. And what was magic to me when I was listening to this guy talk about his business was that when you think about health in general and you're listening to this right now, you'll definitely relate to this. How many times have you gone to your doctor and your doctor tells you one thing and then your personal trainer is like, yeah, no, don't do that. You know? Right. Yeah. Or vice versa. You know, we have this happen all the time. Our practitioners don't talk to each other. And we've seen this, you and I, in business.

1:03:29 This is in any business, but especially in the coaching industry. what people have a tendency to do is because they're not experts in copywriting, or sales, or marketing in general, or operations, they go off and they get siloed help. And then they have pieces of their business that are not talking to each other. They go out and get a quote unquote marketing expert that pays no attention to the sales process. Those two don't mesh well or vice versa. And then the results are always muddy and the business owner is left wondering why. And what I think is so special about what we've created here is that the foundation is completely different than anything else I've ever seen because we actually address each area of the person's business and we talk about it, novel concept, and you get in line and decide what's gonna be best for the client and have communication and then bring in another amazing part of our team, Mike Farrell, who helps out with strategy and go, okay, this is what the team is thinking based on everything.

1:04:38 you know, let's make a plan for your next quarter. And then we go off and have success. And that there's just nothing that fires me up or excites me more than that part of what we're doing. 100%. Yep. We're building something that we're... We're building something that doesn't exist. And I will venture to say, like the band, the Eagles, you can't, you can't top those guys. They just were very unique in the way that they approach things. And so like, let's, you know, our hope and our goal is to build something truly unique and that really serves people. And I think that's the reason why we're all doing this is because we have just seen so many people struggle with pieces of a solution. And then kind of give up or get frustrated or whatever. And so, you know, our intention while we're building this of, you know, having all of these pieces work together, but also.

1:05:26 Then using using all of our knowledge to help our our clients and our members, you know, get the success that they want to get is that's that's definitely that's pretty cool. That's pretty awesome. Yeah. I completely agree, dude. Well, brother, I am excited for the journey ahead. We've just gotten started, but already built so much. And I'm very excited for the journey ahead. I'm excited for the people that are going to experience it. I'm excited to be working with you and Deepika and just the five of us together is truly a dream team. And it's... I will just say for my part, man, this is like I've been in businesses that make money and are not fun.

1:06:08 And it's not to say that there aren't going to be tough moments or tough conversations. There will be. There already have been. But this is fun. And part of it is because you guys are not just... incredibly talented and brilliant human beings and great at what you do, but you are such quality people, um, and people that I'm honored to call friend. And that is very, very special to me. I want to say thank you to you and honor you. And, um, uh, and thank you for being here today. This is, again, this will be the first of many. and uh yeah we'll do it again and we'll do it more so uh with all that said we're gonna put a bow on this baby uh just circling back if you want to know more about quantum empire just go to quantum empire.io if you want to learn more about our incredible event coming up in veil june 5th through the 7th quantum empire.io forward slash event thank you for listening to this episode of the coaching equation podcast until next time be well Thank you for listening to this episode of The Coaching Equation.

1:07:12 Please hit subscribe wherever you listen to your podcasts. And if you got value out of this episode, we would be so grateful if you would share it out with a friend and leave us a review on iTunes or your favorite platform. To learn more about Empire Partners or to inquire about working with Ryan and Brooke, please visit www.empirepartners.io forward slash go.