TCC Podcast #313: Meaningful Differentiation: How to Stand Out in a Crowded Market with Todd Brown

On the 313th episode of The Copywriter Club Podcast, Todd Brown makes an entrance on the show. Todd is an expert marketer with over 15 years of experience and in this episode, you’ll find out how he went from making $8.50 an hour as an overworked employee to creating a sought-after marketing approach other experts utilize in their own direct response marketing campaigns. The conversation goes a little like this: Where Todd got his start in the direct response marketing industry. What he learned about discipline as a bodybuilder and how he carries it into his everyday life and business. The importance of consistency and why it wins every time. His perspective on discipline and how anyone can add it to their toolkit. The double-edged sword of hiring a team. His shift from marketer to entrepreneur and how it changed the game for his business growth. What is marketing really? How to use Todd’s E-5 method for marketing campaigns and to grow a thriving copywriting business. Two ways to bulletproof your copywriting business and NOT become a commodity. The easy way to compete against AI software. Can you create a valuable USP in a saturated market? Why you should interrogate your own processes and how to justify it to your audience. How to be seen as the genius in the room by solving problems. An inside look at (THE) Todd Brown’s life + a handy book recommendation. Business and life lessons he’s taken from fatherhood with two daughters. The only swipe file you’ll need for the rest of your career. Do not hesitate to press play on this episode. The people and stuff we mentioned on the show: The Copywriter Think Tank Kira’s website Rob’s website Get Todd's Swipe file Todd's website The Copywriter Club Facebook Group The Copywriter Underground Free month of Brain.FM Episode 24 with Roy Furr Our episode on Roy Furr's podcast Full Transcript:   Rob:  What does it take to become a truly great marketer? How do you learn the skills you need to serve your clients in a way that helps them grow? And when do you step beyond the role of copywriter and take on the title and role of entrepreneur? Our guest for today’s episode of The Copywriter Club Podcast is expert marketer Todd Brown. Over the past decade and a half, Todd has become the go-to expert for creating flourishing direct-response businesses. Todd is one of our mentors and we’ve learned a ton from him and his team. And every time we talk, we walk away with ideas and insights to implement in our business. What he shared in this interview will do the same for you. It’s a little longer than our usual, but Todd shared so many good insights. Do not skip this episode. Kira Hug:  So let's kick it off. How did you end up as The Todd Brown? How did you get here? Todd Brown:  I mean, first of all, I don't know if I would say I'm "The" anything. Let me be crystal clear about that. But it’s so interesting. First of all, I knew nothing about marketing or selling. I never liked selling, I was never really good at selling. But I was working for a health club company in central New Jersey, and through good luck, I guess I was promoted in this company. This company, they owned health clubs in New Jersey, that were all about 40,000 square feet, these big facilities, really beautiful architecture. They did something really special back then.  The company was growing very quickly. Actually, an interesting little gem was the owner of the company, I like to say that he was like my Steve Jobs, he was brutal to work for but I learned so much. I don't believe that I would be where I am today, if it wasn't for the experience, seeing how this guy looked at the numbers and was relentless with production and all that. Anyway, what was interesting was that prior to the gym business, he was one of the first people to lease computers.  This was when computers were expensive and big companies would lease them. And so he was leasing companies to like Avis rental and like all the airports and whatnot. And so he sold the company for 30-some-odd million dollars. The company that purchased it from him, a company based out of Italy, ran it into the ground in 12 months. Crazy right? He then was able to reacquire the team without having to buy it back, built it up again, and sold it for another 20-some-odd million dollars. So he took that kind of very business savvy you know, aggressive kind of mindset and brought it to the health club industry. So I'm now working for this health club. I started out making $8.50 an hour. I graduated from college. I graduated from college with a degree in nutrition, and then I ended up making $8.50 an hour working for this company, and through good luck, was promoted and eventually was made VP of the personal training department. So now, at this time, I had several facilities, a team eventually of 75 trainers, 7 managers, and 2 directors. We're selling personal training. And I ended up getting this postcard in the mail, this oversized postcard all yellow-black text, front to back, with what I know today is copy. Never seen anything like this in my life, right? I was like, what is this?  But they were offering a home study course on how to market and sell personal training services. It was really designed for the independent trainer, but I was like, man, this sounds awesome. I don't know what the heck I'm doing here, like I'm winging it. And so I went to my boss, it was like a few $100 I'm like, hey, is it cool if I expense this? And he was like, yeah. So I got this thing in the mail, to show you how long ago this was, this is going to date me a bit. But to show you how long ago this was that this thing showed up. It's a two-three-ring binder. It's got cassette tapes, it's got like a diskette. Like it’s this whole thing, I became enamored This is my first introduction to direct response marketing to long-form copy.  I never knew anything about it. I thought that like advertising and marketing is the, same thing. I thought it was like Home Depot, Pepsi, you know, like that sort of stuff. I became enamored and blown away. I dove into this thing, couldn't get enough of it. Ended up ironically picking up the phone and calling the creator of the thing. Somehow I tracked him down, and called the creator of the thing, and said, Who did you learn from? Right? He mentioned these two names Gary Halbert, and Dan Kennedy. That became the never-ending pursuit of everything that I could get my hands on from those guys. Of course, in the spirit of transparency, I probably should write down a very large additional check at some point since I bought everything off of eBay.  VHS tapes and the whole lot. I couldn't get enough of this. And so I started to implement what it is that I was learning both in that course and through the stuff that I was learning from Dan and Gary. And I had to kind of maneuver it a little bit to fit in the health club. But my department took off. And then eventually, I don't remember, call it a year later or 15 months later, my department is the poster child in this club, in this company. I'm now a rock in the house. I'm struggling around like I'm the man in this facility.  We're doing 3 million bucks a year in personal training sales. And then I said, you know what, let me see if I could use what it is that I applied in the health club. Let me see if I could teach it to somebody else, to other to other folks. I didn't want to do anything in the health club business in the personal training field, because I felt like it would be a conflict of interest with my boss. I just didn't want to do that. And so I decided to help massage therapists. It's a group that we kind of work within the health clubs. And so I created my own kind of home study version, very similar to what I received back then first thing and then that was the beginning of my journey.  I didn't know how to put up a webpage. There was no WordPress, there was no ClickFunnels, there was none of that. Everything had to be done on Microsoft FrontPage, or Dreamweaver. My aim at the time was to make 1000 bucks a month, like if I can make 1000 bucks a month that I could just blow on whatever nonsense, I'm loving life, right? Like, I'll be loving life. And it was a little bit of a test for me, like could I apply? Could I take what it is that I was learning in this one setting and apply it somewhere else. And so I would say that maybe, I don't remember exactly, this is going way back now, but maybe a year and a half later, that little business is matching what it is that I'm making from the health club company.  And at that time, I was doing pretty well in my role. And so that kind of led to when I decided, let me work with chiropractors since I felt like chiropractors had more money and could spend more money. And to kind of wrap this up without giving you the gory details in between, right around that time, a buddy of mine who you might recognize his name, his name is Chris Brisson. He is the founder of Call Loop today. He's the founder of Salesmsg. He's a great SaaS entrepreneur today.  He had given me access to all the tech things like the automated teleseminar,  auto teleseminar, I think it was called, he had given me all these things, because I had given him some advice on his business. And so one day, I was like, what can I do for you man, you have given me so much, I just feel terrible. I feel like I'm just taking in this relationship and not giving anything back. And he was like, you know, look, would you jump on and share with my audience, like the marketing stuff that you're doing. And at the time, we had a campaign that was generating like $24 a lead. So for every lead that we generated, we generated $24 in revenue. So I was like, Sure, man, let me get on. I'd love to do that. Got on,