Copywriters Podcast

Life must have been at least a little frustrating for our Old Master on today’s show. His name was Walter Weir. He was a very active and successful copywriter and advertising professor, but he must have constantly run into resistance along the way, since so many of his ideas were ahead of their time.

Walter Weir was born in 1909 and he died in 1996. He published a couple of books which are nearly impossible to find today. Maybe the publisher, my old employer McGraw-Hill, took them out of print quickly because the ideas were so far ahead of their time that they didn’t sell very well.

I don’t know. What I do know is I was fascinated by his ideas.

Here are 5 takeaways from an exploration of Weir’s writings and thinking, from today’s show:
1. Write copy that you truly believe, because people can feel it when you don’t.

When you don’t believe it, your reader won’t either. And if your reader doesn’t believe it, they won’t buy.

2. Use words that people can FEEL as well as merely understand.

Forget about clever word-plays. Say stuff they can feel in their bones.

3. If you’ve got a group going over the copy, write the copy yourself. By yourself. Just you.

While a committee can review, only one voice can lead.

4. Forget about features and benefits. Instead, present a description of something someone would feel good about using.

People don’t tend to buy just to HAVE something. They buy to FEEL something.

5. Cut everything that doesn’t sound like something a real person would actually say.

Because unless it sounds like a human, it won’t reach one.
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If you’re involved in copywriting in any way, you know right now we’re at an inflection point.

Things have been changing fast over the last two years, and show no signs of slowing down.

People who hire copywriters tell me it’s harder than ever to find a good one… yet people who write copy for a living, many of them, tell me it’s really hard to find good-paying work.

There’s clearly a disconnect. AI has a lot to do with it.

The very definition of what a copywriter is, and what a copywriter does, seems very much in flux.

Today I want to suggest five copywriting goals for 2026. These are based on how I was able to help my own mentoring clients solve problems and develop their marketability over the past 12 months.

I work with established copywriters and business owners who use direct response, and what I helped them with on a very personal, customized basis would be a good idea for most everyone who listens to this podcast.

Links:

Copywriting Mentoring: https://garfinkelcoaching.com

Persuasive storytelling: The Persuasion Story Code
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CFD2KXNQhttps://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CFD2KXNQ
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It takes a lot of courage and a lot of confidence to do what our special guest today has done… and that’s fire all his clients and start an email-based business.

But Alin Dragu did just that, and he’s here to tell us about it.

He’s the best-selling author of the book Meaningful Marketing, he spent 5 years as direct of marketing at one of the fastest growing churches in the US, and 3 years as the VP of growth at a Christian marketing agency.

Alin is definitely a copywriter’s copywriter. He’s obsessed with reading novels and old fiction letters. And he admits he’s secretly obsessed with luxury watches, something Nathan’s a collector of as well.

Finally, in case you end up taking Alin to dinner, which probably wouldn’t be a bad idea, you should know he says he’s never refused a steak, ever in his life.

Now, here’s what we asked him:

1. So Alin, could you give us a quick tour of what you do?

2. I’m very interested in your S-L-O framework that you use to write all your emails. Could you walk us through that?

3. So as I understand it, your funnel works something like this:

- you make youtube videos that promote your lead magnets

- when people get the lead magnets, of course they opt-into your list

- every day you send one, and I quote, “very entertaining story” while also plugging one of your products

- and you get sales every day.

I was wondering if we could go through one of those stories and you could break it down for us–like, say, the “I spent $613 on coffee” story? And talk about what makes a great story?

4. You are in a very email-list-dependent business. How do you deal with the issues that come with that, like trolls, unsubscribes, and delivering content every day?

5. You need to come up with a new idea every day. How do you do that without running up against burnout?

6. OK, you do something a lot of people are afraid to do. It’s something Nathan and I strongly recommend, though. Tell us how you sell in every email and get people to keep opening the next email?

7. So tell us about who your list is for and how someone can join.

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Link to get on Alin’s list:

https://alindragu.com/
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Last fall, our returning champion Glenn Fisher and his business partner Nick O’Connor teamed up with mega financial publisher Marketwise for a bold experiment:

Offer FREE training in financial copywriting to 12 people who competed for the spots. There were 500 people applied. Of the 12 who were selected, Glenn says, four were offered jobs… and two are being mentored by financial copywriting legend Mike Palmer.

You know, in many stupid businesses, when something works, the business immediately stops doing it and decides to try something else.

Lucky for you, Marketwise is anything but a stupid business. They know a good thing when they see it.

So they decided to keep working with Glenn and Nick and run more programs through 2026.

And Glenn’s back on the show to tell us what they learned and what’s next… and how you might be one of the lucky 12 in a future cohort!

Links:

Financial Copy U: https://www.financialcopyu.com/

The Fix, Glenn’s and Nick’s other program: https://thefixcopywriting.com/

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So a lot of people are building their brand by pouring tons of money into traffic… A/B testing… tracking every click… but deep down, you feel that something’s not landing.

It’s almost like you wonder if you’re coming across as desperate, rather than confident.

Maybe it’s time to take a look at a cherished assumption in online marketing:

Namely, that more information and more volume equals more authority.

Not really, says our own Nathan Fraser. He’s given me an advance peek at his new book, The Signal. I was so excited by the refreshing ideas he has in there that I wanted him to talk about it on today’s show… and he agreed.

Look. Nathan says you should stop begging the algorithm and start commanding attention. And he has some proven ideas on how to do that.

Which he’ll share with us today.

Here are the questions I asked him:

1. In your book, you say, “Marketing that begs for attention becomes noise. Marketing grounded in conviction becomes signal.”

What do you mean by this, and how can someone make sure their marketing has minimum noise and maximum signal?

2. You talk about the Pratfall Effect and how not coming across as “perfect,” or trying to, actually bonds a business with its customers better than trying to appear cool and flawless. How does this work?

3. I love what you say about overexplaining–that it indicates insecurity and this repels rather than attracts the right people. Could you talk about that?

4. So there are two philosophies I’ve seen these days: Omnipresence, where you show up everywhere all the time, and being very selective and making it difficult to get access to you. You’re in favor of the second approach. Why do you feel that way?

5. Your advice for building an attractive signal that draws the right customers to you is to “select, not sell.” What does this look like?

6. You identify five buyer beliefs in a very interesting chapter called “Belief is the Real Funnel.” This is so different from what anyone else I have heard says. I notice that in the five-step funnel you outline, Apple somehow got the first belief to become part of the popular culture.
Could you go through these beliefs and make some suggestions about how to create them in an actual funnel?

7. You write "Identity closes deals long before logic ever enters the room." How do you determine how your product changes your prospect’s sense of identity?

Get your copy of The Signal at https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0G5FGMH21

Visit Nathan's site at CultishContent.comd.]]>