Today marks issue number 300 of the Conversion Alchemy Journal.
Hopefully I’ve shared some cool ideas and useful tactics along the way (btw, you can find the entire archive on my site).
But to me it’s been an invaluable lesson in perseverance and progress on my journey to self mastery.
One of the biggest lessons I’ve learned along the years and that helped me shortcut my way into copywriting from a completely different field, was something simple, yet often overlooked.
Doing the work upfront.
Or as author, blogger, and now Netflix star, Ramit Sethi calls it, “front-loading the work”.
Ramit was and still is one of my very first virtual mentors in the online work space.
I still remember my work trip to Mexico in between programming one robot and the other, looking at my phone every 5 minutes because I wanted to buy his business building course.
That sales page was one of the first signs that copywriting can truly be powerful. I then ended up buying that course, and for a whopping $2k.
But aside from that, I got a big lesson in approaching life and people with his front-loading the work principle.
In their Facebook group for members, you could ask questions and they’d get back to you, Ramit too sometimes!
But… and it’s a big BUT, they had a rule.
Actually an entire template for how to ask questions.
It went something like this:
- Introduce your business/idea and provide context
- Ask one clear question
- Provide alternatives you think might work as solutions
- Share your thoughts on which of the alternatives you’d pick and why
- Ask for their opinion
It’s a simple process, but a lot of people in this era of information overload, take it for granted.
Especially the part about providing alternative solutions and thinking about the one you’d opt for. That to me is doing the work upfront. And it’s the single best way to ask for help from mentors, or in general.
People are used to getting whatever they want, without any effort. But it’s draining on others and on you. It sucks self-reliance out of you.
It’s a lesson I’m reminded of every day, even when working with ChatGPT for how absurd it might sound.
After all isn’t it designed to have you NOT do the work?
Actually what you learn when you start using AI intensively, is that your work, the human part, is what gets you good results. You might not have to do “as much” work, but you still have to put in good work upfront if you want to get great results.
So my point and reminder today, as I reflect on these past 300 Monday to Friday issues of the newsletter is…
When you do the work upfront you shortcut your way to your goal. The hardest part is remembering it and facing the work head on. Knowing everything will be downhill from there.
It’s the single best way to find mentors, partners, friends, clients and get stuff done.
Reason why I value research so much in every single copywriting project. That’s front-loading the work and when done well, it’s the secret sauce to higher conversions.
If you need help or want to bounce ideas off, let’s hop on a call.
Quote and reflection of the day:
“So many accomplished people just coast. They wish they could still be somebody and not just talk about the past. There is much more to life than being the greatest at one thing”
- Arnold Schwarzenegger, Total Recall
Don’t shy away from ambition. Most often the reason why you can’t envision a better future, is that you feel you either don’t have what it takes or have already got your slice of the pie. You can have more, but you need to take it yourself or ask for it. Both require stepping out of your accepted normal.
Awesome newsletter corner
Speaking of doing the work upfront, it’s not easy. Luckily some good folks help out a bit and let us use their own insights to build on top of them. Today’s newsletter shoutout goes to Show Your Horns, a weekly newsletter on gaining the competitive advantage in tech with strategy, smarts, or a sheer punk rock attitude. Check it out.
