S8E8 - Copywritring, AI, and more with David Deutsch
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Shawn Buttner: [00:00:00] Hey everyone! Today's guest is an expert copywriter as well as a copy and creativity coach. His copy has generated over a billion dollars of direct sales for his clients, working with big brands and companies like Procter Gamble, Merrill Lynch, American Express, and Much more. What I loved about our conversation today with David is that it touched on finding your voice as a writer, the fundamentals of copywriting in your business, or just what to notice out in the world, and has a practical example of how AI can enhance a particular touch based profession, right?
In particular, copywriting, but how it's not a replacement for people. if you are curious about copywriting for your business, or how AI can help you connect with people, or how to move people with words, then this episode is for you. So I present to you our [00:01:00] conversation with David Deutsch.
Welcome to the Meaningful Revolution podcast. Today's guest is a master copywriter, a copywriter and creativity coach and friend of the podcast, David Deutsch. David, welcome. Yeah, great to be here. Thank you. Excellent. starting off, I like to introduce people through a story and, as a, with an extensive career in copywriting, could you?
David, maybe highlight a story on why you love copywriting so much, whether it's what got you interested in it or a big moment while you've been in this career that really highlights why you love this subject.
David Deutsch: I think I love copywriting because I love learning, and there's a lot of things about copywriting, [00:02:00] writing in general, that have to do with learning.
One is all the things that you have to learn in order to do the copywriting, right? I have to learn about your business. I have to learn about the people that you sell to. if I'm writing about high blood pressure, I have to learn about how high blood pressure, how does that work? How, what is high blood pressure, right?
how does blood circulate through the body and what does it mean? And what are the different drugs and things? And. I think also when you write, you learn, right? You start to write, you go, you know what? I really don't understand whatever it is that I'm writing about. I have to learn it more. I have to think about it more deeply.
And you're thinking as you're writing. So I think I really liked that aspect of it. I love copywriting too for all the people that I've met.we're talking, right? I've met you now. You're one of the people that I've met thanks to copywriting. if I was an accountant, we would, might never have met, right?
Or I would have met less interest, no offense to accountants, but I would have met less interesting [00:03:00] people, generally speaking. But, I've gotten to meet, oh, I've gotten to meet some of my heroes, right? Jay Abraham and Dan Kennedy and John Carlton and even worked with them. and I like the delight of, I'm going off on another question, but I like the delight of just putting words together and it working when it works, when it clicks, and, I, I think,and I like when I got more into direct response, but I got away from Ad agency, Madison Avenue advertising and more into I write something, someone uses it and I can see the sales numbers, going up.
I like that too. I like numbers. I like keeping score. It's like a video game, right? Oh, look more. Oh, look, the conversion rate is going up. Oh, it's going down,
Shawn Buttner: That's amazing. Yeah. Yeah. so part of it is, so yeah, I love. Just like the learning part of having to do it in my own business, which as a small business owner, I'm not the best copywriter and maybe you'll have some [00:04:00] tips on that as we talk, but, it is such a fascinating, field from what I've put together because it's also combining like consumer psychology, it's trying to get people, I feel at its base, and maybe you could correct me on this, like copywriting is trying to get, move people into action.
whether it's to assume an identity or to go and do the thing that you're suggesting to buy the product or Wash your hands or public health message. How would you define copywriting? I guess It'd be a good question, as we start the conversation.
David Deutsch: I like your dimensionalization of it too, also, because I left out that part of, yeah, fascinating because of the psychological element involved.
You have to understand a little more about people, right? You have to observe. Why do people buy? You have to look inside yourself. Why do I buy? What makes me not buy when there's something I want? Is it because I don't trust or, and the whole behavioral psychology thing, the whole, [00:05:00] what do they call it?
behavioral science, behavioral economics,Yeah, why do people do things? they don't always act in their own best economic interest, right? They act a lot of times out of emotional things. They act out of fear. They act out of, we'll spend more, we'll spend more money to not lose money than we will to make money, right?
We care about not losing. That's basically it. things like that. so copywriting is so many things, really. it's not just the actual putting words on the page, which as a coach is something I have to get people away from because It's almost like they become people who are perfectly good persuaders away from the computer.
They sit in front of the computer, write copy and they become just putting words together. Oh, I have to say what's a good headline. it has to be something and has to have a benefit and have to have this. And, whereas if they just were going to convince their spouse or [00:06:00] whoever, to go to this movie instead of that movie, they would be wonderfully persuasive and they wouldn't be thinking, should I start with a story?
Should I start with a startling? What should the headline be? They would just persuade. So I think it's that, it's persuasion. It's understanding psychology. and it's the craft of writing too, because writing is also copywriting is also writing. It's a craft of putting words together of,how did they go together?
Just like in painting, what colors go together? How do you try to get perspective? The science of perspective. And of course, these days, thanks to AI, it's also a technology. It's also understanding technology. How do I Not just how do I use my computer, how do I open a Word doc or a Google doc, but now it's how do I use this AI thing to make me a better writer?
Because the more I understand it, the more I can, the more it can help [00:07:00] me.
Shawn Buttner: I love that you brought up AI because the original, idea when we were talking over email was to talk about copywriting and how AI has changed the field. Because something I've been very passionate about is how these tools have the potential to change how we do things.
and I've, been experimenting in my business. so you've been in industry for quite some time,as an expert. How has the field of copywriting changed, maybe in the last 20 years?and then how do you see maybe AI impacting how we're actually doing copy now?
David Deutsch: Wow, that's a big question.
the past 20 years,it's always changing and it's always not changing.Steve, what's his name? The, I can't remember the head of Amazon, Jeff Bezos, was asked in an interview, tell us what five years and 10 years down the road. And he said, I'm not interested in the [00:08:00] future.
Not interested in what's going to be different in five, 10 years. He says, I'm interested in what's going to be the same, right? People are going to want. Stuff. They're going to want it quick and they're going to want it inexpensively as possible, right? And that's what I'm interested in and I'm going to continue to provide and it's the same thing with writing, with copywriting, it stays the same.
People want certain things, people respond in certain ways to certain, bandagements, to certain appeals, they want to trust before they buy.they care more about loss than about gain. all those things stay the same. the format changes, right? 20 years ago, I was doing more direct mail, right?
Sending mail. Now I still do that, but I do less of that. Now things are online and we can test faster and all sorts of things are possible. And then in terms of recently, with the whole AI thing,it changes and it [00:09:00] doesn't change, right? And some of it's, I'll start with the band, right?
there's a lot more junk out there because people are like, Oh, I can use AI to write this stuff. And then they just sent it out and they don't have the discernment to tell, it's really not that good. Because AI is great, but it's sounding good copy. But if you really know what you're doing and you really, or if you really read it carefully, maybe, you could see it's got this, soullessness that needs you to jump in there and edit it or even to go back and forth with AI and say, Hey, this is sounding a little soulless.
can you sound like someone who's passionate about the subject? Can you take on this persona? so that's the negative. the positive is it's a wonderful assistant, right? It's quick. It's almost no cost. it's tireless. [00:10:00] It's. It knows an infinite amount of stuff and just like some eager intern, right?
You say, give me 20 headlines, right? They're probably not going to be great. Maybe only one of them is good. But, if you could take that one and turn it into something good, or if it gets you, even if it gets you, even if they're all terrible, but they get you thinking in a different direction that you weren't thinking in.
that's invaluable.and it's, it's having someone to brainstorm with 24 seven.but you have to know, you have to know how to ask it the right questions.you have to know the tricks as it were, right. Even to ask AI, what should I be asking you? in order to do what I want, right? Give me a prop.
I'll even do that for you.
Shawn Buttner: Yeah, that's one of my favorite tricks for to ask me questions. I haven't, what else do you need to know to make this more clear? Like that, I get a lot of, running room with. Yeah, I [00:11:00] love the conversational.of being able to, like you said, have that like assistant or intern or that brainstorming partner to, to help you create ideas.
so I, you mentioned something when you're giving that description, a thread maybe to pull on, and that is, have you found, so I think you already answered this, but we'll address it. one of the questions I've really been asking people is how do we. Keep that like thumbprint of humanity on our work Where you don't want to just be like generate me 50 headlines and then you just pick five of them Like there's it's like you said could sound a little soulless or non conductive How do we?
As copywriters or creatives or writers, use it as a tool to assist that rather than a crutch,
David Deutsch: Or [00:12:00] what's that? There's an old saying, and I think, Ogilvy quoted it maybe at one point. to not use it as a drunk uses a lamppost for support rather than illumination. So,that's, you're right.
That's the question. And it's, there are different stages, right? There's the initial stage, right? What do you tell it in the beginning? Do you give it human stories? Hey, AI, I want you to do this and here's my experience with it. Maybe please incorporate that. I give it, uh,at the same time, I believe in conversations with AI and iterations, a good, nothing like a good prompt and giving it good information to start with is part of the art.
And then as you say, the conversation with it, right? Oh, could you make this a little more emotional? Could you, here's a story maybe to incorporate into there. so that's the middle part. And then the end part, don't just take what it gives you and cut and paste it. And, put it in [00:13:00] your copy document, right?
Like really edit that. Let it go through you. Let it go through your humanness. and maybe even one of the things, guy named Dan Rosenthal taught me is even about revising copy. That's not from AI. He said, never cut and paste, said, always retype because If you cut and paste, you'll, if you don't cut and paste, you'll put nuance into it that wouldn't be there if you just cut and pasted it.
He said, even if there's a price change, don't just retype all the copy because there'll be parts where a different price is going to make you say something a little differently. You're not going to say, Oh, it's so inexpensive because the price went up, or, that's a heavy handed example, just little things that may change.
And it's the same thing with AI copy, don't just cut and paste it, look at it and, type it in, right? Then you're going to make [00:14:00] little subtle changes to it. I make a lot of changes to it, right? I would never use it as it comes.so anyway, that's one trick is don't. Don't cut and paste,
Shawn Buttner: retype it.
I love that. I'm also curious then as you are processing this as someone that has an eye and a lot of experience with copywriting, what are you looking for? I guess it would be probably the same if you had an intern or an associate, a junior level copywriter who's just starting out in their career, or AI, an AI response, like what are you looking for in copy that can tell, give you like a initial like quality read, like this is okay, this could be better, or This is something that's a jumping off point for a different idea.
David Deutsch: Yeah. Um,to some extent it's just how you feel about it. And I think really good [00:15:00] copywriters maybe aren't necessarily really good copywriters because they can write really good copy. I think they have a better perception of what bad copy is. It's like listening to music. You go, Oh, that was out of tune.
really good musicians and here it's out of tune, right? That was the wrong note that doesn't belong. And it's the same thing with writing. You hear, Oh, that's not, that's incongruous. That doesn't make sense in relation to what just happened or, you know how AI will sometimes I saw something the other day and it said something about a, come to our party.
and enjoy the vibrant, event. It was actually an event. Come to our event and enjoy the vibrant atmosphere. And you could tell it was AI, because no one's going to talk about their event and say, we're going to have a very vibrant atmosphere, right? It's, you can't even, almost, I can't even say why, but it's just yeah, it's not quite the right word that someone would use.
And sometimes it'll get a little flowery, which I guess [00:16:00] that is too, the vibrant atmosphere, the scrumptious food and drink, right? No one's going to say that, even if you are great copywriters, no, you're not going to say the scrumptious food and drink, you're just going to say we have the hot, delicious food, and beverages,you want to be able to react to the copy as a human.
Cause again, that's your competitive advantage over AI is you can react to it as a human. AI can react to it as, okay, I've read 8 million pieces of copy like this. I know what words generally come after what words I see. What words here come after what words the algorithm says it's off here and it's off here and blah, blah, blah.
But it can't respond to it on that emotional level, right? It can only say, yeah, this kind of sounds like the kind of thing humans respond [00:17:00] to. And, if you read, great,novels or something, the opening of great novels, right?a Moby Dick, or a, Catcher in the Rye, orlike that rant that Catcher in the Rye opens with, I forget.
I'm sick of this crap that I get from that, blah, blah, blah, blah. AI wouldn't have the same appeal, I think, to generation after generation as that, cry from the heart, which Salinger really probably lived when he was growing up and ranting against the falseness. of the fifties where he was, that he was growing up in.
So I'd say the first thing is right to react to it as a human. Then you can get technical, right? Go, Oh, is this sentence, do these sentences go together? How does it sound? Does this have punch? Is it flat? Is it soulless?learn what makes soulless copy.Why is copy soulless? a lot of times copy is soulless just [00:18:00] because it doesn't come from a person.
That was another thing I learned from Dan Rosenthal, was that there's a difference between saying, something like, you can get a disc, when you go to, Disney World, did you know that you can get a secret pass that enables you to bypass the line and get a discount, for the travel thing we were doing, as opposed to, I have a friend and every time he goes to Disneyland, what he does is, that's there's a human talking there now.
And that's even that kind of makes a difference, right? So it could be you talking about a friend. but it's coming from a person. It's about a person, whereas AI can be very, third person, not having a point of view because it's, programmed to not have too much of a point of view, to not be controversial, to be, and again, since it's trained [00:19:00] on a million things, it can't help but be a kind of a least common dominant.
What is that? Lowest common denominator. Dish. average, of all these things, the good things, the bad things, the mediocre things. It's taken them all and homogenized them into something that sounds the way. And I think that's part of the danger going on a little rant here, but. Part of the danger of AI is it's so good at sounding meaningful, profound, or sounding like the sort of thing that you want to write about generally sounds.
Yeah,
Shawn Buttner: I definitely agree with that, which is why I asked the question, like, how could you pick out good copy or not? as someone that had a career in like tech and like putting code through it and trying to figure out like, is this good code? And it's really [00:20:00] great for encapsulated ideas, but when you start to relate ideas together, I found You can get into kind of trouble because it's very, like you said, generic and, I think people need to remember that it's also a con, conglomeration of everything that has been put into it and doesn't cover anything new.
So,it doesn't have any new ideas that can combine and maybe give you a, me, a generalized version of something. Yeah, I definitely agree with the danger of it's watered down, and you really need to be paying attention to the output and questioning it. I think that's the main skill here is how do you question the output of these tools?
in a way that helps you get the result that you want.
David Deutsch: I think the other thing too here is voice, right? What does it mean when something has a [00:21:00] voice, right? So read Hunter Thompson, right? Read Norman Mailer, read Tom Wolf, the people that have a distinctive voice.and try to find what your voice is, right?
Because AI doesn't really have a voice. It's not going to write like Hunter Thompson. And I'm not saying you should either because you'd have to take a lot,you want to have that because people like that.They like reading stuff by people with a strong voice that sound okay, this is, that person.
Shawn Buttner: I guess the question then becomes, how do you, and I'm, this is like the big philosophical question. How do you find your voice? Because, as someone that like, likes to play music and I've written music and I'm not really great at it.where do you find that perspective or that, that thing that's uniquely you, or how do you trust in [00:22:00] your own voice?
Maybe that's another side of that question. Yeah.
David Deutsch: Yeah. I think you play around with it. You experiment with it. you free write, I think a lot of people never allow themselves the opportunity to write uninhibitively, right? So maybe try writing, I'm not gonna do anything with this, like morning pages, that sparks thing, right?
I'm not gonna do anything with this, never gonna show it to anyone, never gonna read it again, but I want to just see what if I wrote in,
I guess the thing is too, that we have a lot of different voices in ourselves. We're really many different people. We're angry people, right? You can be Jim Cramer and be angry all the time, and he's probably funny sometimes, and he's probably not angry sometimes. But his voice on his show, and I presume in his writing, is an angry, railing against things kind of voice.
So maybe try railing for a while. What are you angry about? What are you upset about, right? Try being [00:23:00] funny.try being humble. Try being You know, like James Altucher. Try being more, transparent than you would like to be. Like, what if I were just transparent? What if I was just an open wound?
What if I just wrote, what if I wrote only about stuff I don't really feel comfortable writing about?that's what Altucher does, and he's very I don't know, it's only, but he does that. And that's why people love reading him because he'll be like, yeah, I hate writing about my failures. Okay. I've been writing about a failure.
I love hearing about your failures, man. I'm so sick of hearing about people's successes. And I learned so much from what how you failed. I love it. give us more of that and, find what you enjoy, what connects to you? I think a lot of times, oh boy, this is a whole sidetrack, but a lot of times genius.
is just people found a way of doing something that worked for them. Like Jackson [00:24:00] Pollock. He was probably, he was a mediocre painter. One day he tried painting and just splattering the paint on the canvas. And for some reason that worked for him. He was able to do it in a random way.
Cause it's really hard to randomly throw stuff around the campus, around the canvas, and he was able to do it in a way that, just expressed energy. There's so much, and people are to this day fascinated by his paintings and they sell for hundreds of millions of dollars, the big ones.I think a lot of times people are like, they're over here, but their genius is over here.
I remember Descartes once said,the reason that I am Descartes and a great philosopher is One day I decided whenever I read something, I will be able to express the ideas as well as or better than the person that wrote those ideas. And he said, that is how I became a great writer and a great philosopher.
So again, [00:25:00] you're, It's just, it's a matter of finding a way of doing something that works for you, right? And it's the same thing with voice. what voice works for you? What, where do you feel, where do you feel comfortable?
Shawn Buttner: Right on. Yeah. As you're talking about this, I'm hearing maybe, cause I've also heard this in terms of creativity that, that sometimes, volume.
Can help you figure out where your voice or our genius really is, and I think that's to paraphrase what you're saying is try a bunch of different thingsand see what sticks. I'm curious, do you, have you seen that in your career as a copywriter outside of the AI stuff? Do you think it's about trying things and is it about also?
Trying to find high quality examples to think about, to [00:26:00] emulate and copy.
David Deutsch: Yeah. Oh, I think it's about both. I think the high quality examples give you fodder, give you patterns that can,how do I use that pattern?That's all intelligence is, right? It's just reproducing patterns. That's why intelligence tests are, this shape.
Okay, now this shape. What shape comes next? Because I want you to, I want to see if you could see that pattern that was over here and apply it over here. And that's the same thing with copywriting. You look at a great piece of copy and you try to see, it's like the, they laughed when I played, when I started, but I laughed when I sat down at the piano.
But when I started to play dot, and people take that and they say, okay, pattern is they laughed when this, but this, right? And no, that's not really the pattern. The pattern is more, redemption, right? The underlying pattern is this idea that of being laughed at, of being scorned, [00:27:00] of not being appreciated, and then a transformation happening.
It's not about that exact word of they laughed when, right? And once you learn to see patterns in things, you say, okay, this is what this person did. This is what this ad did. How can I do that? How can I use that pattern for this? Or you just try them on and see if it fits. Does this pattern fit?
Does this pattern fit? This pattern? Oh, look what happened when I used that pattern.
Shawn Buttner: It all comes back to pattern recognition,
David Deutsch: Yeah, it really does, because otherwise you're always reinventing the wheel. to some extent. And it's hard to see underlying patterns. People see superficial and then they get a template and they copy that template and everything sounds alike.
And right. I was once like you and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And, but it's not your fault. the real, the real problem is this, and it's just the same template over and over again. And people [00:28:00] start to recognize it. They know what's coming. And then you're dead, right?
Because the worst thing is to be predictable. No one's going to stick around for predictability. If I know the outcome of the game, I'm not going to watch it.True. Yeah.
Shawn Buttner: So how do you then recognize these patterns and still have that element of surprise, Because that seems to be maybe where the art lies in, some of the copywriting.
David Deutsch: I think an interesting thing, I'm really fascinated by movies, maybe partly because I love to watch them, but also because I think screenwriting is something that every copywriter should study, because screenwriters know how to show and not tell,they know how to tell a story, they know how to keep us interested, as it moves along, and I think you see that most, maybe especially with movies in terms of, [00:29:00] reproducing patterns, right?
this isn't a movie, but, the Flintstones was really the, the Honeymooners in the stone. The Jetsons was the Flintstones in the modern age. And there's probably other examples too, but they were all unique and wonderful TV programs, but they all had the exact same template, right?
Husband and wife, they fight in a good natured way. They, the husband is always coming up with schemes to do things that have to be unraveled. and the same thing with movies, right? Like,Star Wars is a Western and outer space.That's how you do that. That's how you make it interesting. And it's the same thing with copywriting.
It's what do you, what flesh do you put on those bones?
Is
David Deutsch: it unique and different, right? What are you telling me about whatever it is? Blood pressure that I never heard before. What are you telling me about being coached, right? That I never wore [00:30:00] about it. Oh, that's an insight. I didn't know coaches also did that, that they're working with me on a different level, whatever it is, right?
if you can just keep being new and keep being relevant and keep, and keep talking about the prospect in a little left turn. But people are always interested in themselves, right? If you tell me about David Deutsch, I could keep, the old, I think it was Ogilvy that quoted someone saying, nobody reads, he said, nobody reads one copy.
Ogilvy said, I can, the story is that somebody said, I can make you read 500 pages. And the guy says, how? And he says, all I have to do is say these 500 pages are all about you. It's your life. It's amazing. I'm reading it and it's the same thing as long as you're talking about me and what I want and my dreams and my fears and how I can defeat my enemies and, accomplish the things I want and prove wrong the people that doubted me, and understand myself [00:31:00] better.
then I'm, I forget what you said, but in terms of making the copy relevant, right? That even within a template of, this is the opening and it's a pattern interrupt. And then we talk about the problem and then we talk about the real problem. Then we talk about the solution. Even within that, if you're always talking about me, I'm glued to the page.
Shawn Buttner: And see the. Golden rule, right? Like the most interesting word in the English or in any language is your name, right? So Cool. I Love that. it actually is adjacent to another question of what are like common pitfalls In the creative process,losing sight of the person you're trying to grab the attention of, right?
The prospect, the client, not, being obvious, so there's not like a surprise, you like see the pattern coming, I [00:32:00] don't know how many times if you've ever had a sales pitch or someone trying to persuade you and you're like, Okay, you're just setting up the thing that you're going to ask before and I'm like, You're not hitting the mark.
I really don't want to be here right now or whatever. Are there any other, kind of things to look out for when you are analyzing or creating copy either with a tool or in a group or by yourself?
David Deutsch: I think it all comes back to losing private side of the person that you're talking to. Because if you.
Lose that, you lose everything. If you have that, you have everything, right? You don't talk about things that are relevant. You'll talk about them. You'll see where it's boring because you're, you've got them in sight. You see their board, right? So that's really the art is to always be.apart from your copy and looking at it as a prospect would look at it.
even I think the biggest thing in a way is falling in love [00:33:00] with your first idea or falling in love with an idea. Oh, okay. I got a way to write this copy and that there's another idea. That's where you talked about volume, right? If I would come up with 10 more ideas, I would have another one, but. Damn it, this copy has to get written and I'm in a hurry and so I'm going to go with this idea.
Got it.
Shawn Buttner: Okay, falling in love with your ideas, losing sight of the prospects, are there,
maybe another kind of adjacent question, Like, when you are writing copy, or brainstorming for an idea, are you thinking of different like psychological things to, to, I don't want to call it like a checklist. Maybe it's not, maybe it's more of an intuition. I feel like you have to be very empathetic when you're in that space of creating, and maybe you could talk about that too, but like, how are you thinking about the psychology Put together a sales [00:34:00] letter or a webpage or something like that.
David Deutsch: Yeah, that's a good question. I think, a lot of it's intuitive. And again, if you're keeping the prospect in mind, you're intuitively doing psychological things, just like we all do, right? Trying to convince our spouse to go to one restaurant or another, we're going to employ some psychological things.
We're going to know, okay, they like romantic settings, therefore I'm going to highlight that it's a very romantic setting, but I think that it's almost, to some extent, it's a go back afterwards and say, okay, did I don't, sounds very manipulative to say, did I employ these psychological tactics? But, so it's a little more, I think it's a little more like a court case, right? Did I present my case in the most powerful way possible?
did I, and it's, it's a jury, so it's gotta be, it's gotta be, there's gotta be an emotionality [00:35:00] to it, right? Can't just can't do facts because juries aren't always moved by facts. Uh,did I just prove my case with it? But beyond a reasonable doubt, what am I missing? did I connect everything in a logical way?
where would 12, men or women, where would they find fault in the argument? Why would they, convict my client instead of letting him go free?so I think that's just as important as the writing is what you do after the writing, how you look at it in an objective way.
did I really prove that case? And did I move people? is there enough emotion in
it? my client could be wrongly convicted. I've got to stir them up a little bit about that. That's a serious thing, right? Someone could lose their life or spend their life in prison. if I don't, so I [00:36:00] can't just be, okay, there are five logical reasons why you should not convict my client. it's gotta be like, don't send this innocent man to prison.
Why? You don't put that on your conscience. Yeah. Let him think about that in the jury room.
Shawn Buttner: Yeah. That speaks to me, having, a big chunk of my career in like software engineering and programming. It's very much, in my business, trying to get out of here are the five things that this is going to do for you.
without addressing how it's going to help you any of the emotionality behind what that does for you. So I definitely don't make that case.
David Deutsch: I think ultimately people want, they don't want stuff. They don't want a software program. They don't want a book. They don't want a newsletter. They don't want a course.
They don't want coaching. They want transformation.They want to be different. They want to be the [00:37:00] person that they were meant to be. obviously with what you do, that's even more pronounced. It's literally to help them do that. I think anything that they buy, right? They want to be, they don't want the stuff they want, what the stuff will transform them into it and in their own eyes or in the eyes of others, right?
So you don't want to be selling stuff you want to be selling. what they can become and this stuff that you're trying to sell them. It's just a means to that end, but people get a little caught up in, and there's, one hour tapes, and there's all these workbooks and there's, look at all this stuff, right?
And people are like, Oh, stop. I gotta listen to eight hours of tape. I gotta read, big stuff. Get out of here. Yeah. Making me do all this extra work for. [00:38:00] Yeah,that's all just a means to an end, right? What they want is that journey to get to where they want to be. And they want you to help them on that journey.
And yeah, if they have to listen to some videos and that's fine and it's good to know they're in there, but it's supportive to the main contention, which is you will be closer to what and who you want to be. after you do this. Yeah. you know that, right? people don't,probably some do, but people don't use you as a coach because they want to be on the phone with you for an hour every week.
I'd like
Shawn Buttner: to, I'd love to think that, but
David Deutsch: it is pleasant to just get to talk about yourself for an hour a week, it's ultimately, that's not why they do it. When they're done, they are transformed. After each session, they're more inspired, they're a different person, and at the end of however long,they're different, they're high performing now, which is what [00:39:00] they want to be.
Shawn Buttner: Oh, absolutely, yeah, it's more of the, yeah, it's that change of, at the end of that experience, I'm doing more of what I want to do in my life, or I've started that business, or made that big life change in a career or whatever, it's not about the actual. Coaching process, right? So awesome. so I've picked up in this conversation to seem to,you love movies.
You've mentioned books, all sorts of other copywriters. I'm curious, do you have as a copywriting and writing coach, do you havewhat would be your, top three or five, inspirations for writing? what really, you think is beautiful or just as close to perfect as it could be when it comes to putting words together?
David Deutsch: Oh, gosh. Um,
in terms of copywriting, it's Gary Halbert's [00:40:00] writing, it's Gary Bensevenger's writing, John Carlton's writing. Just some of the classics like Claude Hopkins, John Capels, people like that. writer writing,I like really interesting books, fiction. people like Tom Clancy, and some of the people who have continued the Tom Clancy books.
They always suck me in. I'm always like, I think I'm just going to read the first couple of pages and see if I like it. And, and then sure enough, I'm sucked into the whole thing again. Or, John Grisham,such a simple writer in some ways, but writes so clearly and so interestingly.
And, of course, a lot of what we do is storytelling.A lot of what we do in copywriting, a lot of what we do in coaching is telling stories.poetry, I find very inspiring. I think all copywriters should read poetry because it teaches you how to [00:41:00] say things in very few words, how to put emotion into things.
the Bible. the King's James Bible is so amazing with stories and the emotion and the musicality and beauty of the language. if you ever see a translation of the, not a translation because it's in English, if you look at the King James version of something and then you look at like the, I don't know what it's called, the common Bible or something like that, right?
Like a modern version of it. It'll be like, the King James being let he was out without sin cast the first stone and the modern one will be like, You know unless you're perfect. You shouldn't call other people not perfect or something
Like you see okay. Wow, that was beautiful the way they took it and made it like a tangible picture, right? If you're not perfect, don't accuse other people of not being perfect. There's no picture there. I can't see that. Whereas let he who is [00:42:00] without sin cast the first stone that I could see that I can see people throwing stones at each other.
I could see hesitating. so you learn from that Shakespeare. My God, he could pack so much into so few words. And, so yeah, those sorts of things really inspired me and make me like, yeah, I'm a writer,
copy writer, but I'm in the tradition of Shakespeare, the King James Bible and John Grisham and Tom Clancy, by golly.
So I get old. about, because it is magic, right? We take these 20, 26 letters, we take 10, 000 words, whatever our vocabulary is, and we arrange them together and magical things happen. we get people to do things. we people get the word out there about their business. We change people's lives.
Give them information,
Shawn Buttner: yeah, you know the [00:43:00] it's the infinite combination infinite possibilities type thing But yeah, it's amazing that words Can have such an impact in people's lives? Yeah and you don't even realize like I'm not sure if you've ever had the experience of going to a different a place where they don't speak English And you can't read any of the signs around you and how maddening that is slowly over time, you know,and yeah, just how,
David Deutsch: go ahead.
Yeah, I'll just tell you to realize how much communication is going on. You don't think about it until it's not, because it's not in English. Yeah,
Shawn Buttner: we're so saturated in it that, yeah, you don't realize it. Um,this has been a fantastic conversation. I asked this question before we start wrapping up, but, is there anything else about copywriting or AI that you wanted to talk about that we didn't get to [00:44:00] today?
David Deutsch: No, I think we pretty much got pretty,circled around until we, we touched on everything. copywriting again, find your inner persuader. I think that's the main thing with people is they write from a different place than they talk. And I don't mean like conversationally, just, people say things on in copy that they would never say to someone in person, new killer program, let you tell your competition.
And really, would you persuade someone like that in person? would you tell that to your mother? you wouldn't bullshit your mother. Why are you trying to bullshit people on the page like you think they're not smart enough to see that, right?yeah, just, find your humanness and with AI, use it.
don't let it use you. and keep experimenting with it because it's just going to get smarter and it's just going to get better and better at doing stuff. So I think the more you can just get in the habit of using it,get it to plan your next [00:45:00] vacation.
if you've got to do something, how can I get AI to take a first draft at this or to do this? Let's just see what happens. Cause. Otherwise, you're going to, we'll be left behind if we're not, doing, because it's going to start getting incorporated everywhere for better or worse, it's going to start, but there are, there are things that it does, And like with everything, though, just remember there are pitfalls, right? It's like with anti lock brakes, what they find is in a way they do just as much harm as good. Because people think, oh, I got anti lock brakes, I can just drive on ice, and they kill themselves. Wait a minute, you're defeating the whole purpose.
It's like that with AI. It's oh, I got AI. I can, just cut and paste it right into the, no, you can't,
Shawn Buttner: or you can, but the risks are great.
David Deutsch: Road, metaphorically speaking.
Shawn Buttner: Yeah. I love that metaphor to wrap us up. if the good folks [00:46:00] want to learn about your coaching for copy or creative writing, or learn a little bit more about you, where would be the best place to follow you or to look you up, David?
David Deutsch: that would be at, speakingofwriting. com. And there's a couple of reports. There's one report on copywriting and there's one free report on creativity. Get information about, my courses and things, get on my e letter. And there's free stuff there, so head on over to speakingofwriting. com.
Shawn Buttner: Okay, awesome. We'll put that in the show notes for y'all, so check those out. David, we appreciate you being on today and sharing your expertise and your presence. this is super fascinating. I have, two pages of notes here, too. But yeah, it was an absolute pleasure.
David Deutsch: Yes, same here. I enjoyed talking with you.
Shawn Buttner: Awesome. Alright, with that, we'll see you guys. in the next episode of The Meaningful Revolution, [00:47:00] and take care.
