Why People Ignore Your Writing — and How to Fix It with Cole Schafer

In this episode of MarieTV, we do have some adult language. So if you do have little ones around, grab your headphones now.

Marie Forleo:

In this episode of MarieTV we do have some adult language. So if you have little ones around, grab your headphones now.

Cole Schafer:
All of our life experiences can be taken and then they can be turned into something really, really beautiful and that’s art.

Marie Forleo:
Hey, it’s Marie Forleo and you are watching MarieTV, the place to be to create a business and life you love. And today, I’ve got a very special treat for you. You know, no matter you’re a business owner, you’re a creative, you’re a professional, we all need to use our words to influence and inspire other people. And writing can be difficult sometimes. My guest today is here to show us how to do it with more heart, more impact, and a lot more creativity.

Cole Schafer runs a small creative writing shop called Honey Copy, where he works with brands of all shapes and sizes on writing words that read like poetry and sell like Ogilvy. Now off the clock, he also moonlights as a poet building a small but ravenous readership over on Instagram, where he’s got two books released of poetry and prose and a third one is coming soon. Cole, thank you so much for making the time to join us. Now, before I let you say anything, I need to say this on camera. I’ve worked with so many different people. I’ve had so many different folks contribute to different programs. Your new masterclass in The Copy Cure is phenomenal. So, thank you so much for putting so much work into that.

Cole Schafer:
You’re welcome. Thank you for the opportunity. It was a lot of fun to create.

Marie Forleo:
Yeah. Super creative. So, let’s take it back to the beginning. Because, you know, when I first learned about you through one of my dearest friends on the planet, Laura Belgray, I remember going to your site and I was like, “Damn, he is good.” Can you tell us when you started being interested in writing as a career? Because this is not what you were educated in if, if I’m not correct, right? You didn’t start out being man behind Honey Copy.

Cole Schafer:
No, no, not at all. I, so, I got into writing in kind of a strange way. I, right after graduating from the University of Southern Indiana, I went to work for this advertising agency in my hometown. And I was there for like a month, maybe two months and about, I want, I want to say six weeks in, I just kind of  started having this crisis where I was like I, I could see myself doing this for the next 10 years. And I think that that’s sometimes the trouble when you’re … for anyone, you know, who’s, who’s reasonably talented is like if you’re good at working a job somewhere, you know, you can move up and next thing you know, you’re going to be there for 10 years and you, you don’t like the job, right? You kind of can get stuck and trapped with the golden handcuffs.

And I remember sitting at my desk one day and I just had lunch. And I put on some weight since taking the job. And I felt that real visceral feeling where your belly is hanging over your belt buckle a little bit. And I’m, I’m just hating this job. And I’m looking at this exposed brick wall and I’m, and I have this really terrible thought, like, “Dang, I wouldn’t mind smacking my head against this wall just to feel something.” Because I just felt so numb.

Marie Forleo:
Oh my God.

Cole Schafer:
And I, I got up and I just walked out of the agency and it wasn’t because of my colleagues. It wasn’t because of my boss, they were all great. The agency was great, but I just wasn’t meant to be an employee somewhere. That’s just not really necessarily who I am and I’m a terrible employee or I was.

So anyways, I, I left. I wouldn’t recommend anyone to just walk out on their agency, but I emailed my boss and was like, “Hey, I’m going to come in first thing tomorrow and put in my two weeks. Sorry about earlier.” And I came in, I, I quit. We left on really good terms. And I finally decided, “You know what? I’m going to chase down this dream of making a living writing.” It had always kinda been a dream, but I never took it too seriously, but I thought, “You know, I’m 22, now’s a good time to just give this a go.” So I, so I go all in and I went and got this job working construction at just a local construction company. And the first, first day on the job, the boss gives me a pair of van keys. He points me to this beat up van. He gives me sort of a utility knife, duct tape, and writes an address down on an index card. And I think I’m going out to murder someone like I’m a hitman or something.

It was super fucked. So, I get, I get in the van and I drive off to this address. And my job is to tear out carpet in these super old apartment buildings. And this carpet is like 10 years old, right? So there’s cat piss and shit caked into the carpet fibers. And there’s, you know,  just food and it’s disgusting. And so I have to cut the carpet, roll it up, haul it out to the van, toss it in the van. And this is my life for the next year. And so I do this from 7:00 AM till I want to say 2:00 PM. And what was great about that job was that I was completely alone while doing it, so I could listen to podcasts all the entire time.

So I had this reframing in my mind, where at first I thought, “You know, I have this college degree and I’m tearing out carpet for, for a living.” But then I kind of reframed. And I was like, “You know what? This is kind of like me getting paid $15 an hour cash to get my MBA while listening to all of these amazing minds on these podcasts.” So it was Tim Ferriss and it was Sophia Amoruso and Seth Godin. And, you know, I’m 22, tearing out carpet, listening to these people and one day, somewhere along there, Laura Belgray comes on to, to one of these podcasts. And I think it was the Rick Moretti podcast. I don’t know if I’m getting his last name correct. But I heard her and this was sort of the first time I kind of had this enlightening moment where I thought, “Wait, there’s this whole genre of writing in advertising where you can completely get paid to do it.”

And even though I had been working at an agency, you know I was doing more like account stuff. So I wasn’t super familiar with copywriting. And, and that was kind of the moment where I realized, “Okay. Wait, people can make a living doing this.” But anyways, a month goes by as I’m working in this construction company and, and my old advertising agency has to do a makeover on their building. And they don’t do this to be malicious. They don’t even know I’m working at this construction company, but they hire my construction company to tear out the carpet in their agency. So like a month later, I’m in my agency tearing out carpet next to my, my ex-colleagues. And I’m in work boots and a cutoff and I’m covered in dust and I’m sweating. And it was just a really, you know, humbling experience. I kind of had to right there double down and say, “Hey, is this something I really want to do?” And, and thankfully I stuck with it, but that was, that was kind of my journey into, into writing copy.

Marie Forleo:
And how long ago was that Cole?

Cole Schafer:
So I started when I was 22. So I’m 27 now. So five, five years ago.

Marie Forleo:
You’ve made incredible progress in five years. Really, that’s amazing.

Cole Schafer:
Thank you.

Marie Forleo:
Really, really good.

Cole Schafer:
Yeah. I’ve definitely been sprinting.

Marie Forleo:
Well, you’re, you’re excellent at it. So let’s dive into some of the meat around this, because again, we’ve got so many creatives, business owners, writers in our audience. And specifically when it comes to copywriting, you know, I’m, I’m a big believer that no matter what you do in the world, that you have to understand how to use words effectively, especially in the modern age. If you want to inspire people to do something that you’d like them to do, that’s both in their best interest and yours. It could be something as simple as saying yes to a dinner party. It could be, you know, donating. It can be a job interview. There could be a million different things, even outside of just traditional sales. What’s the difference from your point of view between creative writing and copywriting and why do you feel that it’s so important that you make that distinction before you sit down to write? Because I know you also obviously wrote, write poetry too.

Cole Schafer:
Yeah, sure. So, creative, creative writing versus copywriting. When you, when you pick up let’s say like a, a novel by Ernest Hemingway or J.K. Rowling, by the end of that book they want to tell you a really good story and they want to entertain you, but there’s not a goal or a specific action that they’re hoping you do after having read that book. Right? I mean, you don’t read Harry Potter and go out and buy a wand or a, or a wizard hat, right? You just read it and it’s a really good story and you might turn into a raving fan, but that’s just kind of all it is. Whereas with copywriting, you, to be a good copywriter, anytime you sit down to write, you have to have an action in mind that you want the reader to do after having read whatever you had written, right?

And a lot of times that’s where I see copywriters screw up is there’s never that call to action at the end of it all. They might write a long blog post or write a long email or whatever, and you get to the bottom of it and you’re kind of scratching your head. Like, what did you, what do you want me to do?

Marie Forleo:
Yep.

Cole Schafer:
And so as a copywriter, anytime you sit down, you have to … before you write anything, you have to ask yourself, “What is it I want this person to do after reading this? You know, do I want them to subscribe to my newsletter? Do I want them to buy my product or service? Do I want them to leave a review on my podcast?” And then when you kind of start from the end action, you can kind of work your way back and decide how you want to go about writing whatever piece you’re writing to get them to do that thing. So copywriting is action whereas writing, I think is more so sharing ideas and stories and, and entertainment.

Marie Forleo:
Beginning with the end in mind, I feel like it’s one of the most important principles in life to be quite honest with you for a lot of things, especially if you are in a domain where you need to produce a result or make money, even deciding what to do beginning with the end in mind. And it sounds so simple, but I think for many of us, especially if you’re not particularly experienced or copywriting is new for you, it can be one of those anchor principles that helps you work so much faster and makes it so much more effective, whatever it is you’re producing. I love that.

Let’s talk about pleasure and pain. The two Ps of motivation. Let’s talk about what the difference is and why it’s so important to use both. And then I have a follow-up question around something I’ve heard so much in my career, 20 years working with business people, especially big-hearted business people who kind of shy away from the pain aspect of it. So, I’m super curious to hear your perspective.

Cole Schafer:
Yeah. So there, I mean, there are countless books and courses and webinars on this idea of the psychology of selling. And there’s hundreds of principles out there. I think for the vast majority of people who aren’t pursuing a career necessarily in copywriting, or even if you are, I think that becomes a little bit too woo-hoo for me. And from, from doing this for, for a while, I’ve realized that people buy for one of two reasons and it can just be broken down into two simple buckets. And that’s either they buy a product or service to move, or service to move closer to pleasure or they buy a product or service to move further away from pain. Any other reason to me is just kind of BS. I think that’s the only reason people, people buy, buy, buy anything. And so to give you an example, let’s say today, I was still at that agency and I’d gotten a promotion and I was really excited and I called my significant other.

And we talked about, you know, going out to dinner, you know, tonight, right? And on the way home, I buy a $75 bottle of wine, which doesn’t really make a lot of sense because probably a $30 or $40 bottle of wine is of the same quality, but I buy it anyways and that’s to move closer to pleasure to kind of celebrate this, this win for the two of us. Right? And then we go out to dinner and we spend $150 at dinner. And again, that’s a purchase that’s moving us closer to pleasure. We drink a bunch of wine, we get drunk. And the next morning we both wake up with hangovers. There’s no Advil in the house. So I have to run to CVS and pick up Advil. That purchase is to move her and I further away from pain. Then on the way to work, my tire goes out and I have to get a tow truck to tow me. That purchase is moving me further away from pain.

And I’ve just found that almost every single product or service I’ve seen falls into one of those two buckets. And sometimes like you’re really lucky and you have a product or service that falls into both of them, right? And, and I think that’s the best of both worlds, but it seems like marketers tend to like to market towards a pleasure. But if you can market in such a way where you can tell people you have a solution that moves them further away from pain, that, that can be extremely effective. And it doesn’t always have to be salesy and hacky. I’ll give you an example in my own life. I use FreshBooks because I’m a freelancer.

And about a year into freelancing, I just realized I’m, I’m spending so much time whipping up invoices and sending them out and then following up with people. And I started seeing these ads for FreshBooks and they were doing a really good job of just marketing towards that pain. You’re a one man band,  you know, you, you, you need some help, right? How many hours are you spending just, just trying to get paid? What’s, what’s your hour worth? And they did a really good job of marketing strictly towards this pain point. And I’ve been using them ever since. So, I, I think as long as you fall into one of those buckets, it’s worth trying to market to, to either/or.

Marie Forleo:
I feel like it’s such a demonstration too of empathy and compassion, because every human being on the planet has pain. Every human being on the planet gets frustrated. And one of the things I often like to express to people is you’re not being a fearmongerer or being manipulative in some type of negative way to tell the truth about the pain or the frustration that is actually present in someone’s life. They actually feel seen. When you were describing that feeling of being a one man band, right, and going like, “Oh my God, how much time am I wasting with all these invoices all over the place?” And their copy spoke directly into a conversation that you probably had in your head 50 times before signing up for FreshBooks. And so, I just think it’s one of the most effective things possible.

There’s this example that I’ve talked about. I remember when I first got my puppy, the vet was like, “Oh, you should really get this flea shampoo that prevents your puppy from getting fleas.” I’m like, “My puppy is not going to get fleas.”

Cole Schafer:
Right.

Marie Forleo:
“I’m not hanging out with any other puppies. There’s no place.” And then, wouldn’t you know it, at the beach, my puppy got some fleas, and I got real motivated to get that shampoo, because I was in extraordinary pain.

Cole Schafer:
Yeah.

Marie Forleo:
And pain is one of the biggest motivators. But I love those examples. And thank you for sharing that. I think it’s probably useful exercise, right? For everyone listening, no matter what you are looking to market, whatever you’re writing about for yourself or your business would be a great exercise to just make a list. What’s all the pleasure that this particular prospect may want to move towards and what’s all the pain that they might have in their life right now? Would you agree?

Cole Schafer:
Yeah, I agree. And I also think to your point, it’s unrealistic to think we’re going to live lives that are strictly pleasurable, right?

Marie Forleo:
Yes.

Cole Schafer:
So if you are a brand that says “Hey, I’m never going to market towards someone’s pain points.” I just, I just feel like it’s unrealistic. I recently adopted a, a nine-month-old pit bull. Her name’s June, and it has been such an eye-opening experience. And I’m just astonished at how … like I’ll go to the vet and cough up a four or $500 vet bill. And I’m not really thinking twice about it. And, whereas if I were to go out and spend that on myself, I would … it’d have to be a pretty legitimate purchase. Whereas with her, I don’t even think twice about it, but it’s strictly because I’m moving myself and her further away from pain. You know?

Marie Forleo:
Yes.

Cole Schafer:
And that was probably like the flea thing. You know? And so, yeah, I agree with you completely. Its, Its, It just doesn’t make sense to only market towards pleasure. You’d be missing out on half of, half of life’s issues, you know?

Marie Forleo:
Yep. So in your Copy Cure masterclass, which again is frigging awesome. I love how you went deep around this idea of hook sentences. Can you tell us what a hook sentence is and why it is so vital to remember when you want to write effective copy?

Cole Schafer:
Sure. So, and again, I think copywriters approach this terminology separate, but a hook sentence for me is anything that is the opening headline, the subject line, the, the, the title of a blog post. And it, it can even be like the first sentence of an article, right? But the reason these things are so important is that if you can’t get someone to click on something or to read the first sentence of something, the likelihood of getting them to read the rest of it is just preposterous. And so, where I point readers to, to learn about hook sentences is actually in fiction and in novels. Because when you think about it if you can get someone to pick a book off a shelf, read the first sentence, and then commit to reading 200,000 words, you know, you have some serious skills with hook sentences and first sentences.

So, I, I think it is the most important aspect of writing copy, because they kind of function like billboards in miniature for, for the work you’ve created. So, I, I definitely have gone about curating them but, and I can share some of those, but before I get into that, one thing I just wanted to say was kind of how people should be approaching writing these. And so, I, I recommend people do sort of the, the 20% rule. And so if you’re going to spend five hours writing a sales page, I think that an hour of those five hours needs to be spent writing the headlines of that sales page, essentially like that hook sentence that brings the reader into the actual, into the actual work. And so, set a timer and let’s just say it’s an hour and you just start trying to write down as many headlines as you possibly can. And, and I’m not the only one that recommends this. I mean, Buzzfeed, which is a huge media company, they, they have all of their writers do this. They have them write 15 to 25 of these every single time they turn in a story, and they found that they aren’t getting just 10 to 15% increases in, in click throughs, but they’re actually getting as much as 500%. So, it’s, it’s, it’s really, really crazy.

So yeah, follow the 20% rule, but I’m so obsessed with hook sentences that I actually just have an ongoing list that I’ve curated. And I’ll just give you some examples. So Octavia Butler, who is widely considered the greatest sci-fi writer of all time and she’s since passed, but in her book, Kindred, she wrote, “I lost my arm on my last trip home.” And that’s the first sentence of that novel. In Gravity’s Rainbow by Thomas Pynchon, he wrote “A screaming comes across the sky.” In The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood, “We slept in what once had been the gymnasium.” Catch-22, Joseph Heller, “It was love at first sight.” Martian by Andy Weir, I believe is how it’s pronounced. “I’m pretty much fucked,” was the first sentence.

Ernest Hemingway’s The Old Man and the Sea, “He was an old man who fished alone in a skiff in the gulf stream and he had gone 84 days now without taking a fish.” So that’s a great example of he wrote this hook sentence and you’re immediately forced to read the next hundred sentences because you want to know like, is he going to catch a fish on the 85th day? Right? Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen, “It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife.” That’s stunning, right? Because now you’re, you read that and you think, “Okay, this is going to be a love story.” So I think that so much can be told in a first sentence and/or a hook sentence. And yeah, it’s just, it’s just like a really magical place to do some cool stuff with copy.

Marie Forleo:
It’s also really fun too. I love collecting my swipe files and great copy. I just, I get so excited anytime I’m reading anything and I catch a phrase, a headline, a turn of something where it just evokes some kind of emotion. And it’s probably one of the best ways to train yourself. Laura and I joke about this. We call it headline consciousness. Once you … and it could be hook sentence consciousness to lend it right over where once you’re aware of it, it’s almost like your reticular activating system. You’re going to start to look for excellent hook sentences everywhere.

Cole Schafer:
Exactly.

Marie Forleo:
Advertisements, magazines, novels, plays, anywhere where you’re able to read someone else’s work and, and you’ll begin to identify for yourself why you’re bored out of your brain and you don’t continue, or how you get hooked in and continue reading page after page after page. It’s really awesome.

Cole Schafer:
Yeah. It’s like a, it’s, it’s almost like when you are in the market to buy a car and all of a sudden, like you might be buying a yellow Volkswagen Beetle or whatever or Bug and you just start seeing them all over the place whereas previously you didn’t see them at all. You know?

Marie Forleo:
That’s exactly right. You didn’t see the magic happening behind whatever it was. I think that’s so much of copywriting too, is giving yourself a chance to deconstruct. I often like to see in my own world, I’ve been obsessed with infomercials since I was a little kid. I love being in the experience of superb, artful marketing. And anytime I go to buy something and I whip out my credit card, I actually try and go back, not just for, okay, whatever this thing is that I really needed for my life. But how did they get me? How did they hook me?

Cole Schafer:
Yeah.

Marie Forleo:
What was the construction of the messaging? What was the email? What was the imagery like? I want to know how they put it together, because if it worked on me, there’s probably a lesson, because I love this stuff so much, that would be instructive to help me even be better at my craft.

Speaking of craft, you shared an idea on Instagram, Cole, you said “Make do, then make better later.” I’ve seen so many folks endlessly tweak their copy and it never actually sees the light of day. They’re just working on it again and again. Can you talk a little bit more about this notion of make do then make better later and why it’s important as copywriters?

Cole Schafer:
Sure. So I think, not just for copywriters, but really anyone pursuing any sort of creative endeavor. You … and Ira Glass has touched on this before, but you get into that creative medium, because you have really, really good taste, right? Before I ever knew how to write, I had, I had good taste. You know? I had read Hemingway and Steinbeck and Woolf and some of these really amazing writers. And I found that when I was first starting to write, I was really discouraging myself because I, you know, you read, you read something by Hemingway and then you write your first short story or your first article or your first email and, you know, the taste you have is for like level 10 out of 10 and your skill is at level 1 out of 10. And I think for a lot of times, these, these, these budding creatives and, and writers, they, they have that, that taste and when they see they aren’t matching it, they get really, really discouraged, because they are literally trying to be perfect. And so I … one thing that really helped me with sort of this perfection paralysis is, is exactly the line you just said is like make do and then make better.

When I wrote my first book of poetry and prose, One Minute, Please? I, I remember taking forever to create a cover. And I was working with a designer and going through multiple revisions and it, and it was taking so long. And finally, I just said, “You know what? I’m just going to settle for this one cover,” because I didn’t need a cover to be hung up in a museum. I really just needed a cover to house my manuscript so I could put it out into the world and show myself that I was capable of writing a book. It didn’t need to be a perfect cover. And a year later, I’m looking at it and it sold pretty well. And now I’m like, “Oh my God, this is so pretentious. It’s me on the cover shirtless and I look like an asshole and I hate this cover.”

And, and now, I’m making it better. I’m revising it. I’ve hired another graphic designer to come back through and still give it a really cool, edgy, mysterious vibe, but not necessarily looking like some soft porn shit. So, that’s, that’s kind of the, the, the approach I try to take with all my work in that I just try to make, and I try to create, and I try to remove the pressure, realizing that in a year or two years, I can always come back and, and try to make whatever I had created better. And, and it’s, it’s helped me immensely. And, I don’t know, I hope it helps others too.

Marie Forleo:
A hundred percent. We have a, a mantra, progress not perfection, that we talk about constantly, both in B-School and The Copy Cure and anything that I teach. And in Everything is Figureoutable, I was talking about this notion of minding the gap between your ambition and your ability. There’s always going to be a gap there. And just for me, that notion, progress not perfection, progress not perfection. I think it’s one of the best things about working in the ways that we work now is the fact that, you know, even The Copy Cure is a program. We’ve evolved it since it first came out in 2015. We’re in 2021 at the moment. It is so much better. And it was awesome to begin with, but it was like we learned so much and we saw so many new things from having people go through like, “Oh, here’s how we could help even more. Oh, wow. People are getting stuck here, let’s create this. Oh, let’s have these other masterclasses.” So, I love that notion of just making do and then making it better later. Cole, you’re fantastic. Is there anything that you want to say to creatives out there before we wrap up today?

Cole Schafer:
Yeah. I have, so I have, I’ve another sort of motto that I try to live by, and I, I couldn’t tell you where I’d read it for the first time, but it’s this phrase and it’s just, it’s all material. And I try to live by that at all times. So like before coming on to this podcast, right, which is clearly a really big podcast and I want it to be in the right mindset. I’m, I’m doing some client work and my dog comes in from outside because I’m currently traveling in Florida. I’m starting in Pensacola and going down to the Keys. But my dog comes in from outside of this Airbnb I’m staying at. And she, she throws up on the floor and she throws up a, like a worm. And the worm starts moving on the tile floor.

And I’m, I’m literally watching this and I have a super sick stomach. So, I’m, I’m, I’m holding her collar, she’s throwing up, to guide her onto the tile so she doesn’t puke on the carpet, right?

Marie Forleo:
Yep.

Cole Schafer:
Because it’s not my carpet. And I feel just ridiculous as I’m doing this. And then there’s this worm that’s moving. So it looks like an alien. And then … so now I’m taking a picture of this worm because it doesn’t look like an earthworm. And then I find out it’s a roundworm because I’m Googling roundworms. And so, I, I’m like literally an hour before this podcast, I’m freaking out because I’m thinking, “Okay, my dog has parasites.” And, and so anyways, like shit hits the fan constantly in our lives. And sometimes it happens right before our big moments. I mean, Steven Pressfield talks about this with this idea of resistance.

Marie Forleo:
Yes.

Cole Schafer:
It sort of hits us right when we’re about to like breakthrough. And that had happened literally an hour before this, and I have to go crate her up so she doesn’t throw up any more. Then I have to go on a three mile run to get my head back in the right space. And something that really helps me in these moments is just that phrase, it’s all material. The good, the bad, the ugly. And for creatives, the biggest blessing. And when I say creatives, it can be an entrepreneur, a marketer, a writer, someone who, who does pottery. It’s this idea that all of our life experiences can be taken and then they can be turned into something really, really beautiful and that’s art.

And it, it helps me when I’m in a bad breakup or had a really bad client experience or my dog threw up a parasite on the floor. It just makes me realize, “Okay, if I can view this as an opportunity to recycle it into something beautiful, my day can suck a lot less when, when, when, when shit happens.” So yeah, I would just say approach life with that concept of it’s all material, the good, the bad, the ugly.

Marie Forleo:
Cole Schafer, you are fantastic. I am so honored that you are one of our masterclass teachers. You’re wonderful. Thanks for taking the time today. I hope your pup, her stomach, and her whole system gets good and well, and really appreciate you.

Cole Schafer:
Thank you.

Marie Forleo:
Isn’t Cole amazing? I think he’s wonderful. Now, Cole and I would love to hear from you. What’s the biggest insight that you are taking away from today’s episode and most importantly, how are you going to put that insight into action in your business or in your life starting right now? As always, the best conversations happen over at the fantastic land of marieforleo.com. So head on over there and leave a comment now. And if you’re not yet subscribed, you best become an MF Insider because I send amazing emails every single Tuesday.

Last but not least, if you want to learn more from Cole, myself, our other incredible masterclass teachers, you need to come join us in The Copy Cure. It is amazing. You can learn more at thecopycure.com. Now until next time, stay on your game and keep going for your dreams, because the world really does need that very special gift that only you have. Thank you so much for tuning in and I’ll catch you next time.