The Business Owner’s Copywriting Mentoring Program
“David, thanks to you, I’ve written copy for sales letters and websites that have generated millions in revenue for my businesses. You are one of a kind!”
-Peter Van L. Brady, One-Touch Lending, Laguna Hills, CA
You might not think you’ll ever be able to accomplish what Peter did, but keep reading, because most of my clients never imagined what was possible until they had worked with me in my Mentorship Program.
You’ve probably heard of my controversial friend Joe Vitale–author, self-help guru, and media celebrity.
Here’s what you may not have thought of:
Fundamentally, Joe is a business owner. And almost every business owner had cash flow issues at some point in the growth of their business.
Including Joe.
Listen as he tells about when he did:
“I hired David to help me, and just one copywriting strategy he developed was directly responsible for raising $50,000 cash in only 48 hours. I’ve never forgotten that, and never will.”
— Dr. Joe Vitale
Now Joe is a world-class copywriter, and you might think this example was a fluke.
I assure you, it’s not.
Another example: A friend of mine who now runs a multi-million-dollar self-defense business (selling products and home-study courses) tells about his first day on the job, as a rookie, many years ago.
It was a Monday. My friend walks into work. The business owner gathers the team together and announces that he needs to raise $50,000 (pure coincidence that the number is the same), by the end of the week… and then maps out a step-by-step plan.
The team gets to work and implements the plan.
Friday: My friend’s jaw practically drops to the floor when the business owner congratulates the team. Because $50,000 in new sales are now sitting in the bank.
Almost like the business owner “ordered it up.”
And that’s stunning!
But there’s the beauty of being a business owner with copywriting skills:
Once you have these skills, you can write yourself a check–with sales you generate from your ads–just about anytime you want.
You can get a new customer… a few new customers… even a boatload of new customers… practically at will!
That’s a good “check-writing” ability, isn’t it?
There is a problem, though. A paradox
As a business owner, you are in the best—and worst—possible positions to write your own advertising copy.
Best: Because you know your product, and your customers, better than anyone else. You live with what you sell, and who you sell to, day in and day out.
Worst: Because, as a business owner, you simply have to see everything from your own point of view. At least, as a starting point. So it’s really tough to mentally step out of your own shoes, and walk a mile in your customers’ shoes.
And—let’s face it—you need to be able to “mentally stand in your customer’s shoes” to write ads that pull (or to recognize that quality when others write ads for you).
Now, why is it so tough to look at what you’re selling through the eyes of your customer?
A very talented friend of mine has also written ads that have made millions. And he’s a successful serial entrepreneur to boot. He’s nailed the reason:
“It’s hard to see the picture when you’re in the frame.”
But, it is possible to do this. And, it pays off, big time!
Please understand. I am not promising that the day we start working together, you will generate $50,000 in cash within a few days. I’ve helped people raise less money… and raise far more, too. Time frames range from days to weeks to months.
But… if you are a business owner already familiar with direct response advertising… what you learn right away in the mentoring program can produce astonishingly quick results. Here’s a recent example:
“After just a few coaching sessions with David I feel like another person. My new insurance business venture is booming (we are getting more leads than we can handle, so we had to hire two new employees), and the copy I wrote with David’s help for a new info-product is converting better than anything I ever wrote myself.
I’ve been writing copy for my own businesses for the last 7 years, so I thought I knew a thing or two. But David taught me to dig deeper into the minds of my prospects and look at copywriting from another angle. It’s at a point where David’s coaching is basically paying for itself—and we aren’t even half-way through the program. David completely changed my way of looking at copywriting.”
-Stefan Gajic, Entrepreneur, Belgrade, Serbia
So now, let’s say you’re not like Peter Van L. Brady, or Joe Vitale, or Stefan Gajic.
In this way: Suppose “writing your own ads” on a regular basis is pretty low on your priority list.
The mentoring program can still be of immense value to you..
Because…
Even If You NEVER Intend To Become
The Copywriter for Your Own Business…
… you DON’T want to blindly delegate all your marketing to others, including the writing of your ads—without ever learning how to do these things yourself.
Let me give you an example–something you may have experienced once or twice before.
You know that awful feeling you get when a copywriter, or an ad agency, or a marketing consultant, comes to you with a “brilliant” promotional idea… and you really have no objective basis for deciding if it’s good or not?
Knowing what to do and how to do it, avoids that feeling completely!
You see, sometimes it’s better to be able to do everything yourself and then not do it all yourself.
Because once you really know the reality of what works and what doesn’t, you can quickly size up other people… their skills… their ideas… and, most important for what we’re talking about here, their copy.
Better than not knowing and being at the mercy of a long parade of charlatans, incompetents, and outright thieves.
Former clients of mine who don’t write that much copy themselves admit what they learned is still worth a lot, because…
… they still have among the most valuable skills every business needs. They know how to write ads that bring in new leads. They know how to close sales with the written word.
Knowing what to do and what not to do – and having the confidence to realize you’re making the right decisions – is worth a lot all by itself.
And all that stems from one of the most elusive skills of all: knowing how to see what you’re selling from your customer’s point of view, rather than from your own.
I can help you develop that skill, and make it permanent.
Who The Business Owner Copywriting Mentoring Program Is For —
And Who It’s Not For
This program is NOT for you if…
If you are interested in learning “about” copywriting, but it’s not a top priority for you to develop your skills as a lasting asset for your business, then this mentoring program is probably not for you. There are many fine books and courses, including mine, which can satisfy your curiosity and thirst for knowledge.
And if you are so busy that you won’t be able to put in at least a few focused hours a week just on copy, that’s another red flag that this won’t be a good fit. You’ve got to be able to make the time and dig in.
But if you are the kind of person who is willing to do whatever it takes to reach a goal you really want… and mastering copywriting is an important goal for you… then this may well be just what you are looking for.
In the three decades I’ve been coaching business owners, I’ve found the most successful clients…
- are creative business thinkers,
- have a good ability to “rebound” when the going gets tough, and
- are action-oriented. They have high standards, but they are not perfectionists. (People who know that “ready” comes after “perfect,” only in the dictionary!)
The Business Owner’s Mentoring Program is a highly practical and personalized. The focus is to learn by writing and using copy in the business you have now. At least as a first step.
“In the past, I was terrified of writing copy. I thought I would do it in a way that would reflect badly on me and my business. With David’s help, I found a new confidence in myself and my writing. This confidence really paid off for me last fall, when I sent out 71 email messages and filled a 15-person conference, just with the responses from the email alone. That accounted for $22,425 of additional income for my business, thanks to my new ability to write persuasive copy.”
— Sarah Victory, Owner, The Victory Company
Note: Being an experienced business owner who’s also a great copywriter gives you an excellent additional way to make money – in some cases, huge sums of money.
By writing copy for other businesses.
But if that’s something you would like to do, put it on your list after you’ve raked in a lot of cash with copy for your own business first!
The Team Solution: When You’re the
“The Leader of the Band”
Mark Ling, Owner, Unica Publications
Organizations that count on direct response advertising sometimes hire groups of copywriters to bring in the business.
A special service I offer involves working with a business owner’s copywriting team–sometimes with each member one-on-one, and sometimes in a group setting.
- Mark Ling (seen above) is a New Zealand-based entrepreneur. Mark owns several businesses, including Unica Publications, a highly profitable Internet publisher of personal growth and relationship-advice products.I’ve mentored three of Mark’s staff writers extensively. One of them wrote a video sales letter that hit #2 on all of Clickbank (a multi-billion-dollar web store used by producers of digital content).
- “Big Mike” Straumietis co-founded and runs Advanced Nutrients, a worldwide hydroponics company with customers in dozens of countries. He initially hired me to help him write his own copy (and I can’t think of a client who worked harder, or reached the world-class copywriter level, more impressively than he did). But then he asked me to start mentoring staff writers as well, and gradually Mike “installed” an all-encompassing direct-response copywriting mindset and culture into the entire company. He attributes $5 million in added profits to the work we did together.
- Agora Financial (AF) is a large division of leading newsletter publisher Agora, Inc. AF has retained me for years to work with individual copywriters; to give in-person and webinar presentations; and to participate online in small-group and large-group copy critique sessions, at least once a week.
I’ve also helped business owners expand their start-ups into much larger companies. Here’s one example:
“David Garfinkel’s advice and coaching was absolutely crucial in taking a business I was running out of my home and turning it into a company currently valued at $15 million. Because of the strategies David helped me develop, we’ve created partnerships with Rick Frishman, Mark Victor Hansen, Bob Proctor and Jay Conrad Levinson… and that’s only a partial list. David’s one of the few business advisors I can recommend with complete confidence.”
-David L. Hancock, Founder, Morgan James Publishing, New York
What’s Included In The Business Owner’s Copywriting Mentoring Program?
An important part of the program is fairly structured. We use proprietary methods I’ve developed over the course of 30 years to instill the direct marketing mindset into how you look at everything. The methods deliver results as quickly and easily as humanly possible.
The main way this part of the program works is with short drills that give you a mastery of direct marketing fundamentals.
This is the part that will require two or three hours a week of focused time.
It’s not complicated. But it does require your full attention. And some clients have seen almost immediate payoffs just from this part of the mentoring program alone.
Details on the other parts of the program:
I work with each client over the course of a year, on the phone. Two confidential sessions, twice a month.
A large part of mentoring is customized, where we work on specific active parts of your marketing. Some clients get detailed help improving entire sales funnels to pull maximum profits out of every portion.
I also work with clients to discover–and monetize–short term “cash surge” opportunities. I assure you there are plenty; the trick is to find the easiest ones that will ethically bring in the greatest amounts of cash, the most quickly.
And, we also look at strategy. Not abstract, from-30,000-feet stuff, either.
Instead, we uncover and organize long-term practical ways to make your business more of what you want it to be.
Whether that’s…
- A largely automated, hands-off revenue generator (cash comes in “automatically”)
- An asset you will sell for top dollar one day (having a complete, high-ROI marketing system in place goes a long way to making a business salable)
- An organization you want to keep building and growing…or any number of other things.
One thing I’ve learned over the years is that everyone’s different, and that includes business owners (of course).
So a lot of what we work on depends on what’s most important to you: short-term and long-term.
Finally, let me share something with you from a copywriting legend and business owner, who also works with other business owners:
“Over my career, I’ve had some of the best marketing minds of our generation on speed dial — Gary Halbert, Jay Abraham, Dan Kennedy, Brian Kurtz, Joe Sugarman… they all picked up when I called.
“So, with these brilliant dudes in the mix… wanna know who I called FIRST last time I had a marketing idea that needed to be examined, torn apart, and rebuilt? I called Garf. Cuz the dude knows his stuff — including a vast knowledge of the history of our business (direct response, marketing, advertising in general), has deep experience in multiple fields, with a huge menu of past clients, and has compiled a staggering record of success up the yin-yang.
“Where experience and brilliance intersect, you find the guys you need to listen to. For my money, that’s Garfinkel.”
-John Carlton
Legendary copywriter and business owner: partner in Platinum Mastermind Group and Simple Writing System online learning platform
Disclosure: John and his business partner Stan Dahl invited me to be a co-moderator of the Platinum Group, which I am currently doing every few months.
Well… now you have a pretty good idea of what my mentoring program is about.
If you would like to apply for the Business Owner’s Copywriting Mentoring Program, please click here to fill out the application.