My honest thoughts on AI copy

There are 2 major problems with AI copy.

They can both be solved...

If you know what you're doing.

The first problem with AI copy is that people just don't want to read it.

If people know they're reading something written with AI, they check out.

The second problem is that AI is still worse than the best human copywriters.

It doesn't REALLY understand how to craft a good sales message, because it has no empathy.

You can solve both those problems by putting in some human work.

When I write copy for my clients, AI does the bulk of the writing...

But I'll research email ideas to give it the best prompt I can.

(A lot of copywriting comes down to having good "ideas" for emails. The email itself has to tap into your audience's fears, hopes, dreams, pains, et cetera. If it doesn't, it doesn't matter how well it's written.)

Once I have an email idea, I'll come up with a prompt and feed it to one of my trained GPT's.

The AI will write a "first draft".

The first draft will suck, no matter how good the prompt and the GPT is.

So I rewrite it to do 2 things:

Sound less like an AI wrote it...

And connect to the audience's buying triggers better.

Reframing

In 2022, one of my clients told me about an interesting A/B test he did.

He said he tested copy that tells people something new...

Versus copy that tells people something they already believe.

The copy that tells people what they already believe won by a landslide.

So for the past 3 years I've been writing copy that way:

Telling people what they already want to hear...

And then connecting it to a sales pitch.

I thought this was a universal law of human nature.

But now, I think the real story might be more nuanced.

I'm reading a book right now called The Challenger Sale.

It basically says that in complex B2B sales, it's better to tell the client something they don't know.

The book has a bulletproof study to back this up.

The best salespeople are "teachers" who reframe how their customers see the world.

They present new information, instead of just being yes-men.

This effect only shows up in complex sales.

When the customer knows how to buy what they're buying, it doesn't help to "teach".

When the customer doesn't know how to buy what they're buying, teaching makes a world of difference.

Which approach will work better for you?

It depends on a) your audience and b) what you sell.

My client who told me to just tell people what they already knew sold supplements to old ladies.

Maybe old ladies don't want to think that hard about their health... they just want to take a magic pill and feel better.

But if you're selling coaching packages to smart entrepreneurs, they know how difficult their problems are to solve.

They're less looking for a "magic pill" and more looking for genuine business advice.

So they want to see you as a trusted advisor, not just a provider.

So... can you win more sales by telling your audience something new?

Work-life balance

Everyone is trying to sell you a course about how to make gazillions of dollars working just 10 hours a week.

Is that real?

I was wondering whether "work-life balance" as an entrepreneur was a myth.

So I asked r/entrepreneur ....

Of the successful entrepreneurs who responded, all of them said that they spent 50+ hours per week building their business for at least 18 months when they first started.

But now, many of them have far better work-life balance than they would if they were working a 9-to-5.

Others said that they could stop working so hard if they wanted to (or if they had learned how to properly delegate sooner).

And some have sold their company entirely.

The same pattern shows up in the successful people I know personally.

They all "paid the price" in the beginning by working their butt off... much harder than you'd work at a 9-to-5.

Some of those people still work their butts off... but because they want to.

Others work 2-4 hours per day, and spend the rest of their time doing whatever they feel like.

So if you're a complete beginner...

Know that success doesn't come easy.

You have to pay the price.

Anyone who tells you otherwise is just trying to sell you a course.

If you're an experienced entrepreneur already...

And you've found product-market fit, you have an audience, and you're making solid money already...

Build your business around the life that you want.

-Theo