Want to make your copy better? More persuasive? More conversion-oriented? The way to do it may be understanding the psychology of your reader. In the 381st episode of The Copywriter Club Podcast, Kira and Rob talk with copywriter Csaba Borzasi who explained how he uses psychology to make his copy better. And maybe more importantly, Csaba also explained how he uses a scorecard during his prospecting calls that helps him close almost 100% of his prospects. This is definitely one you’ll want to stick around for.
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Full Transcript:
Rob Marsh: When many of us start out as copywriters, we’re interested in the words. How do we organize them so that they sound right or so that they sound better? Which words should we use to communicate this benefit or this feature? Or which phrase will make the best call to action? But after a while, we tend to become less interested in the exact words, although they are still important, and we still do get a lot of joy out of writing them. And we become more interested in the psychology behind the words. We start asking questions like, which emotions should my reader be feeling as they read this? What beliefs do I need to shift? What do they need to know or think or feel in order to take the next step?
Hi, I’m Rob Marsh, one of the founders of The Copywriter Club, and on Today’s episode of The Copywriter Club Podcast, my co-founder, Kira Hug, and I interviewed Csaba Borzasi, a copywriter with extensive training in applied psychology and plenty of experience helping shift beliefs and with writing emotional copy.
Csaba shared how psychology applies to what we write every day. He also shared his process for diagnosing his client’s business problems that virtually guarantees that they’re going to ask for his help on a project. And by the way, this single bit of advice that he gives, this insight could be worth thousands of dollars in new work for you in the coming year. So you’re definitely going to want to make a note of it.
Finally, we talked about why his welcome sequence is nine months long. There’s some good stuff in this episode, so get out your notepad and your pen because you are going to want to take some notes.
Now, this is when I normally jump in to tell you all about The Copywriter Underground, all the copywriting business trainings that are in there, the monthly coaching calls, the weekly copy critiques, the community. If you’ve been listening to the podcast for very long, you’ve heard me mention all of those things over and over, and yet you still haven’t jumped in. Don’t wait any longer. If you’ve got plans to grow your business in 2024, visit thecopyrighterclub.com/TCU and find out more about this vibrant community of copywriters who are working hard to do the same thing that you want to do. And now let’s go to our interview with Csaba.
Kira Hug: All right. So Csaba, let’s kick off with your story. How did you end up as a copywriter?
Csaba Borzasi: Yeah, so great to be here. Thanks for inviting me. Well, I was basically born and raised in in the Transylvania region of Romania. So but I’m not a vampire, I promise. But as an ethnic Hungarian, actually. So it was a totally different culture compared to what you might consider conducive to becoming a copywriter, especially in English, especially on the U.S. market. Right. So basically, I like I always liked to read. I was always a little kind of like a black sheep in my family because they don’t even speak English, unfortunately. And they were always telling me, like, why are you learning English? Like, where are you going to use English? And I was like, no, no, no. But I can get better information this way. So I always loved getting information.
And then during my studies, I studied psychology, first business, then psychology. And then I landed a job at IBM, which was like the typical corporate job that everybody complains about. So I kind of, I think I’ve been there for more than a year, one and a half years or something. And then I felt like this isn’t for me. Then I became a direct salesperson for a wealth management company, a supposedly prestigious wealth management company, but turned out it was kind of a scam. Well, not necessarily a scam, but they were still ripping people off with stuff and there was lots of dodgy things going on.
So then I had a friend who was already doing copywriting, on Upwork and he said like, Csaba, you like psychology and I know that you like to read a lot, you like communication and persuasion and just studying it, so I think this could be a natural fit for you because you could combine marketing and business and psychology and I was like, but aren’t copywriters supposed to like do legal stuff, you know? the typical thing that some people think. And then he kind of showed it to me, like how it works and how he’s landing clients on Upwork.
And I was like, well, that’s pretty cool. So I gave myself two weeks to actually get as much info as possible on the topic and then start landing a client. And I think after like three weeks, I had my first client, which was a sex shop. So I really learned the concept of writing desire building bullets for all sorts of weird thingies. And that’s a story.
Rob Marsh: You’ve given us a lot. Yeah, exactly. Lots of options here. So before we jump into any of the history, there are a lot of people who want to be copywriters who do not start out speaking English. And America, Britain, Australia, they tend to be the biggest opportunities, the biggest markets for copywriting. So how did you bridge that gap? Obviously, you knew English before you started as a copywriter, which certainly helps. But what advice would you give to copywriters who are not necessarily native English speakers so they can polish that language so that it doesn’t show up, you know, the way that it often does and puts them at a disadvantage?
Csaba Borzasi: Sure, that’s a great question. Well, obviously, the better you are at English, the better it is and the easier it is to land clients, especially nowadays when clients are, I think, used to zoom calls or interviews or, you know, stuff like that. But ultimately, I think if you can convey that you’re easy to work with, you know what you’re doing, and you’re just you can solve a problem for a client. They just give you money and you solve their problem. And you start small. You are kind of like, you don’t have a big ego. I think it doesn’t necessarily matter that much, especially if you maybe bundle something else with just pure copywriting. Maybe you do email list management or something. Maybe you do the button pushing part. Maybe you set up sequences. Maybe you do A-B tests on landing pages or something like that. I think these things are relatively easy to learn and can give you like a one-two punch when it comes to landing those clients and them seeing you as more than just a vendor.
Kira Hug: So you gave yourself two weeks to land your first client when you sat down and you’re like, I’m going to be a copywriter. What were you doing during those two weeks specifically to then land that client?
Csaba Borzasi: So I mentioned that before this, I was working at a job as like a salesperson for a wealth management company and their whole pipeline of commissions. I was working based on commission. Everything took like three to four, maybe even sometimes five months. So for me, landing an appointment and generating a sale for them, it took like five months for me to actually get paid. And when I got laid off from there, they didn’t pay any commission. So I had lots of deals in the pipeline and it was just, that’s it, like we’re not going to pay you anything. And it was, I don’t know, like more than $10,000, which was a lot of money for me at that point, a lot of money.
So I basically had like one month savings. And that’s why I felt the natural urgency to do something, like I cannot just mess around with this. I have to make it work. So for two days, I started Googling. I went to YouTube. I tried to consume every piece of free, sometimes even paid, like lower priced information that I could. Fortunately, I didn’t land on like Dan Lok or, you know, someone like that who was selling copywriting at that time. But I landed, I found the Ben Savenga bullets, for example. I found the Boron letters. I found some stuff from John Carlton. Surprisingly enough, I found a Clayton Makepieces blog. And obviously, I realized that this is huge. I have to focus on one thing there.
And then I think I already had a knack for selling because, as I said, I was a direct salesperson before that. I was making like 50 cold calls per day, which I hated. But still, I mean, it gives you like a natural way to persuade people. And yeah, I think I was also fortunate enough a little bit because I, that friend that I mentioned in the beginning, he also gave me some templates like outreach templates and how to write your proposals. It still took some time and manual labor, but yeah, two, two, three weeks. And I was, you know, ready.
Rob Marsh: And since we’re talking about that first client, which was the sex shop, tell us a little bit about that experience and what it takes to, obviously, a sex shop has items for sale that are not necessarily boring, but you may have to talk around some things in order to sell them. So tell us about that experience and how you made the products attractive and turned that into additional assignments down the line.
Csaba Borzasi: As I said, one of the first things I read was Bencivenga Bullets, and the whole concept of bullets was new to me. So I started Googling, like, what are bullets? What are fascinations? And then I realized, oh, if you can write these desire-building bullets, they’re relatively useful everywhere, especially if you’re writing product descriptions. So what I did is that I got a bunch of products that I was supposed to write copy for, but instead of just giving the same boring description or something like that, like what most e-com businesses do, I wrote a little, like a three, four line. overview which was kind of like a unique selling proposition statement in a sense and then I wrote bullets and I added like five bullets for each of them.
Of course nowadays looking back those bullets are pretty like they’re not my best work ever especially since they’re like mega like they’re everything is pushed up to the limit, right? And I think a lot of beginner copywriters think the same way. It’s like, oh, Bullets have to be this big, amazing whiz-bang thing, and you have to sound like a bro, and you have to be super… huge promises. But still, they worked. So my client kept sending me more work. He kept paying me. And then I started landing more and more clients. I landed a watch brand. I helped him with the Kickstarter campaign. I landed some self-development people. I landed the guy who was selling photography services. So I started writing emails for him.
Then I landed some VSLs for like a manifestation course. So all sorts of different products and niches and audiences. And it was really exciting because each time I felt like, wow, I have to learn something new. Like I have to really change what I feel and believe about the world in order to be able to write copy for this.
Kira Hug: So what year roughly was this time when you were getting started as a copywriter?
Csaba Borzasi: It was 2017.
Kira Hug: Yes. Okay, 2017. And going back to what you shared about feeling like a black sheep, I think you said in your family or a community. I wonder if there’s certain ways that has helped you build your copywriting business and your skill set as a copywriter. Can you pinpoint any ways that that has showed up in your career so far?
Csaba Borzasi: Wow, that’s a great question. So I think growing up in rural Romania as an ethnic Hungarian, being discriminated against, and my whole family, nobody, even in my extended family was ever a business person. They were all, well, basically peasants, but I mean this in a good way, or manual laborers. My parents were engineers, to be fair, but before them, nobody even did intellectual type of work for anything. And that culture was very, like, obviously, lots of things were imprinted on me that made it harder to become a freelancer or to become a business owner later on. Because, for example, and, you know, Romania was part of the Soviet Union and there was this famous dictator called Nicolae Ceaușescu in Romania. So he had a very brutal secret police and It wasn’t like North Korea, but it was pretty bad.
So my parents, for example, they were socialized so that, you know, you have to be average. You cannot stand out because that’s dangerous. And that’s the thing that they constantly kept telling me. It’s like, don’t try to stand out. Be average. Be great. Don’t try to be unique. Don’t try to be loud. Don’t try to have like a voice or something. just, you know, fit in somewhere and just be invisible, which is great when it comes to 1970s Romania, but not so great in 2017 when you’re trying to brand yourself or when you’re trying to, you know, do all the things that are needed to better sell something. So this was the negative part.
But on the flip side, I learned lots of soft skills that I think were definitely a competitive advantage later on. things like the value of hard work, things like being a good conscientious person in a sense, things like having humility, things like being more patient than others, things like willing to go Let’s just call it under the client for a while in the beginning. And just deliver the best work I can, always deliver on time. Even before I read the pro code from John Carlton, which is like, you should do what you promised and deliver it on time and deliver it how you actually promised.
Even before that, I instinctively had the urge to do this. And I think this was definitely a competitive advantage because my competition were other copywriters who were flaky and who never, who disappeared. And I also like, you know, I’ve been in a reverse role when I hired copywriters or some other people who helped me with something later on. And I realized like, wow, it’s really hard to hire someone who’s decent and good and just, you know, doesn’t disappear.
Kira Hug: Yeah, I love that. And I, I guess as a follow up, how have you helped yourself stand out what you’ve done? And if you check out your YouTube channel, you clearly stand out and how you market yourself. But to go from, you know, what you were talking about what you shared about just London being visible and how you were raised to someone who is showing up in such a big way, like what helped you move from A to B?
Csaba Borzasi: To be honest, I had to do a lot of deep work on this. These things were ingrained in my core personality. I basically had to go to therapy to change some of these things. I participated in lots of other self-development things like group sessions and psychodrama. all sorts of other things which are considered therapy, but it’s not like the typical type of therapy that most people think, so that you go to a psychologist and you talk, like body work or a birthing therapy or something like that. So I was always into self-development, to be fair, but this definitely helped a lot.
And also my then girlfriend, now wife, is a psychologist, is a therapist, and we could really talk a lot about these things. So I always had an affinity for psychology, but more like the applied psychology part, applied cognitive psychology. That’s where I learned. And she is more like the therapist type of, like the integrative hypnotherapist type of person. So all these things, plus time, plus, you know, just crawling through the mud and just getting there step by step, not trying to take too many shortcuts, because early on I realized that there are no shortcuts in reality. You do have to do the grunt work. You do have to face rejection. You do have to be scammed by some clients. It’s part of the game, I would say. And I think all these things ultimately made me stronger because I didn’t give up.
Rob Marsh: You mentioned the psychology behind it. You know, as I think about the resume that you shared, Csaba, you almost have like the perfect resume to become a copywriter. You studied business, you studied psychology, you had a job in sales, like all of the things that we do as copywriters, it seems like, you know, nature, the world, whatever was preparing you for that opportunity. Will you talk a little bit about, in particular, the things that you studied in psychology, applied psychology, and how you use that today in your work as a copywriter?
Csaba Borzasi: Yeah, so obviously there were lots of theoretical models that I studied, which 80, 90% of them I don’t really remember, but it still gave me lots of belief shifts when it comes to how the world, including the human mind, works. And I was always curious. I would say one of my biggest goals in life is to get as close as possible to understanding how the world, including the human mind, works. So I constantly learn, even nowadays. I constantly, constantly love learning. And I think eventually if you keep at it, you naturally find analogies between things.
You naturally discover connections between, oh, I learned that about like motivation, intrinsic motivation during my university studies. And I see how if people realize that they are the ones who are making the decisions to buy something, they convert better compared to you trying to force it on them. Or if you want to do a crossroads close, for example, which is a technique I learned later on, in which you give people different options at the end of a sales letter, for example. It made me realize like, oh, OK, so again, it’s tied to intrinsic motivation more. It’s tied to that people feeling like they are in control and they are in power.
Or another example would be, a sense of purpose, like if you tie your offer to making an impact in the world or trying to change the lives of someone or some people, it’s much more powerful compared to not stimulating this deep sense of purpose in people.
Kira Hug: What else can we do to instill that feeling of the prospect making their own choice on a sales page or in our copy. What else have you done specifically to help them feel that way and in control?
Csaba Borzasi: There’s a lot of things there when it comes to the first part of like a campaign or a message. I think the belief shifting part is really important because everybody, especially nowadays, lots of audiences have a really high stage of market sophistication, which means they’ve been exposed to lots of offers before, lots of marketing. And they’ve probably failed many times before. And this is especially true in like the weight loss niche or the biz op space where, you know, people get sold a dream, but they fail constantly. So there’s a lot of baggage. There’s a lot of shame and negative emotions tied to that.
So if you can shift those beliefs and like Dan Kennedy has this thing called the sequence of nine agreements, which is basically sub beliefs that you have to stimulate. It’s like you know, how is this applicable to me? Is this personally attainable? Is this attainable in the first place? Can I actually do it? You know, it’s not your fault. And why is it like a timely manner to do something about this right now? If you can shift those things, And you get to the one buying belief, which is a concept that Mark Ford, I think, was the first one to talk about, and then Todd Brown and people like that. They will really feel like, yes, now I understand why Csaba’s solution is different and superior compared to anything I’ve seen before.
And it’s the key to my number one desire. And then they will feel like there’s no other option. And I realized why I have to do this. It’s not like he’s pushing it on me. He’s just extending an invitation. my way to join him in a program, for example. So obviously, it’s way harder to do in practice than this, but I would say this is something that’s really important, in my opinion, when it comes to giving people more power in this. And that’s also why I think That super high, aggressive, pushy marketing is starting to work less and less nowadays because people are just so sick of it.
And there’s so many fakes out there, especially now in the age of AI, especially now in 2024. I think there’s going to be some really high level and high profile deep fakes this year, especially around the election, maybe even. So people want that authenticity, that human touch more and more. And if you can do that, I think you have a competitive advantage.
Rob Marsh: Yeah, I agree 100%. Let’s go back to your job journey or your career journey. You had a bunch of clients. How have you gone from experimenting with a bunch of clients to what you’re doing today?
Csaba Borzasi: So I think I’ve worked with more than 70 clients over a course of five, six years, all sorts of people in all sorts of niches. For a while, I specialized in launch copy for people who were launching courses. And then I landed. I landed a YouTuber client with like a huge following. He had like 2 million subscribers and we actually partnered on a course once.
And then I realized, so I was basically the one writing all the copy, sorry, and creating the promotions for it. I even wrote, created a webinar, everything. And it didn’t really perform that super well because later on I realized that we were selling to lots of freebie seekers and everything was angled towards like super beginners. But still, it was pretty cool, and that’s when I realized writing for clients is good, but as Gary Halbert had a famous hat, all clients suck. And eventually, You get tired of writing.
I think when you write really impactful copy, you have to sacrifice a part of your soul. And it’s really like you’re trying to manifest a new life in the world, and you have to sacrifice something for that. And it takes a lot of… you know, out of you, if you really get into it and come up with the big idea and everything.
So to me, it feels like it’s my baby, like when it comes to a big promotion. So I started feeling like, what if I started doing this for myself? And that’s when I started, I think it was 2020. Maybe when I started my email list and then I started experimenting with my own products and I had some mixed results because then I realized, well, problem is I have to learn more things about business. I have to learn things about like business strategy and traffic and building stuff, which is in a sense, way more comprehensive than just being a copywriter and handing people a Google Doc. And here you go.
But still, I think it’s a different journey. It’s an integral part of a lot of copywriters’ life, I would say. And I have lots of copywriter friends who go through the same journey eventually.
Kira Hug: What does it look like today? So is it solely focused on your own products, or is it a combination of working with clients here and there, and then your products? Does it change from quarter to quarter?
Csaba Borzasi: It’s mostly a combination. So primarily it’s focused on around my email list. So I really, I kind of have like the Ben Settle model in a sense. So it’s an info publishing business and I have my own products, which is either, it either serves copywriters or business owners. These are the two big segments, smaller business owners, coaches, consultants, experts who sell some sort of transformational information product. But I also work with clients, just not in a done-for-you way. So I consult with clients, I do done with you, or I coach others, like copywriters or, you know, people, different people. So I would say it’s a hybrid and it’s evolving, of course, all the time. But yeah, I think that’s how it is.
Kira Hug: Could you talk a little bit more about the consulting and the done with you? Maybe less about the copy coaching just because we’ve covered that on the show, but especially for writers who are ready to make a shift in their business and stop doing done for you copy, how can they approach consulting and think about it and sell it? Yeah, sure.
Csaba Borzasi: I think if you want to do them for you, that’s very lucrative. But again, after a while, you get capped, like how many projects you can take on and you get burned out. You can easily burn out. But what I like to do is I have something called a Rapid Lead Activation Assessment, which is It’s basically a 20 minute get to know each other call in a sense, but it has a deliverable. And the deliverable is that, hey, I asked you a bunch of questions and I’m going to diagnose your business. We’re going to discover the biggest potential leaks that you have. and how to potentially fix them and if it makes sense for us to and if I can actually help you like it doesn’t even have to make sense for us to work together but if I can help you then we’ll schedule another call one hour call which is a game plan call and this is basically, I just strategize some things for them.
There’s something called the Rapid Lead Activation Scorecard, which I go with them through the scorecard. It has nine different dimensions based on how well their business is doing in the first 30 days of their welcome sequence, their email nurture, their landing pages, their lead generation, stuff like that. And based on that, I put together a customized game plan for that. And at the end of that, it’s a very natural transition to an offer, which is like, hey, would you like me to help you implement this? And most people usually say yes because like nobody else does something like, I mean, not nobody, but not many people do something like this.
A lot of people want to like high ticket close them aggressively. But this is like more hands off. This is like, hey, I genuinely want to give you value. And I actually got testimonials like video testimonials from people which are basically sales calls technically. because they’ve gotten so much value out of it. So that’s how I structure it. And then currently, I engage in one-on-one work with them.
So it’s like, hey, for three or six months, let’s work together. This is how the program looks like. And it’s mostly customizable, because based on what I diagnose for them, I can put together a modular thing for their situation specifically. Um, but I’m, I also like working in a sense on like a higher end group program as well, because, uh, again, it’s, it’s, it’s, uh, it’s a flawed business model in the sense that you have to cap the number of clients you can realistically work with.
Rob Marsh: Yeah. I want to go deeper into your scorecard. I’d love to see or even watch one of those calls because I want to see what are the things that you’re diagnosing people doing and how that works. I’m curious, as you go through that process, what’s the biggest challenge for you in either reaching out to more clients or on those calls with those clients so that it turns into work in some fashion.
Csaba Borzasi: To be fair, 99% of these people are inbound leads because what I do is that I try to get everybody on my email list and then there’s lots of conversational invites to these types of things. So I like to do something similar to what Dean Jackson does with the Ten Word Emails and with like PSs and sometimes like Some people call this, I think Kevin Rogers calls it the wanted poster, which is like, hey, next month I’m looking to work with three more people who want to get this primary promise. Here’s what I’m looking for. If that’s you, hit reply and let me know.
And then. I qualify them later on, so I ask a bunch of questions because, of course, especially when it comes to creating copywriting-specific content, obviously you’re going to get lots of newbies and wannabe copywriters who are very eager to reply to everything, but they obviously don’t meet the criteria for this. So I specify that you have to have a validated offer, you have to have at least 700 people on your email list, you have to have some sort of revenue already, you have to be willing to start a conversation and continue a conversation, and you have to be willing to start now if it makes sense.
So if they qualify, that’s when we get on the first call and then the second call. And the conversion rate on these calls is really, really high because they really have to qualify before they get on this. And I think it also shifts the whole frame of the conversation. It’s not like, oh, dear client, I’m trying to close you here. But instead of like, they’re grateful because they can get 20 minutes of my time to focus on their specific business. and then one hour of my time as well so one and a half hours of time so the challenges with this are like the number of people so obviously this way your You’re disqualifying lots of people who you might be able to close later on. But my philosophy is that less, but higher quality, because those clients will give you less headaches and they are going to implement way more. So it’s definitely something I’m looking for. And even this way, it’s super hard to actually get them to implement everything.
Rob Marsh: Yeah, no doubt. Maybe a follow-up question or a better question would be, what are you doing to grow your list so you’re getting the right people so that when you make those offers, you know, it’s hitting them in the right place?
Csaba Borzasi: So that has been a big challenge for me for a while because I’ve always considered myself a conversion guy. My whole brand is called Game of Conversions. And I was like the guy that does stuff after people, after you have the leads. But I had to learn that, you know, traffic is also super important. So right now I’m experimenting with multiple things. Obviously, I have the content library on YouTube and on my blog, which is relatively evergreen, very evergreen, I would say, but it attracts mostly copywriters.
So that’s why I recently wrote a book, The Rapid Lead Activator, which is basically a short practical book aimed at business owners who want to create like a kick-ass follow-up campaign to new email subscribers. And it’s specifically details like how to build know, like, and trust, how to identify the so-called five-star prospects without burning out others, how to maximize the chances of them converting later on. So it’s not about like buy now, but instead persuading them. And one of the strategies I’m doing right now is JV partnerships with people. So I’m looking at others who have similar lists and we either do a freebie swap or we do some sort of JV engagement. Well, obviously, podcasts like this also help. I’m also doing ads now, Facebook ads, very low touch. So it’s not like I don’t want to act as like a media buyer, but it’s kind of like a fire and forget type of like $20 per day ad. And I also plan on doing more content, more email specific content too, because I still think that content is the best traffic source.
Kira Hug: So if I want to become a better consultant or just get into consulting, To begin with, you shared a little bit about your process, but it sounds like the structure is diagnosing, giving them a scorecard, identifying the problem. They pay for that. Then you sell them on, okay, I can solve this problem with you. And then is that a six month container? And how can you give us more information as far as like, is it meeting twice a month and you’re giving them the next homework assignment? I know some of this you’re customizing. And also, I’m just wondering about pricing, rough pricing too.
Csaba Borzasi: So to be clear, the first call and the second call are free. The price for them is to actually qualify for it. So they don’t have to pay anything at all. What happens after it? What happens after it? It’s really unique for each person so far and it’s constantly evolving. For a while, I did three-month engagements. And it was like a series of 12 calls, so one call per week. And there’s something I call the implementation cycle, which is kind of like a built-in accountability mechanism that I was doing for them. But basically, we met on calls weekly, they gained assignments. If I felt like they need access to some of my courses or certain modules in my courses, they also got access to that without overwhelming them with other stuff. So it’s kind of like a hybrid type of thing.
But what I realized is that not that many people actually do everything in just three months. Three months is not a lot of time for business owners, especially when sometimes we’re talking about a total makeover. So when it comes to the scorecard, Rob was asking about the scorecard. One of the things that I ask about is like the target market, like how confident you are that you are targeting the exact, you have a deep understanding of your market, including their deepest pains, fears, hopes, and dreams. That’s like a 12 on this scale. A one would be you cater to everyone. It’s like, oh, my target market is males and females aged 18 to 65. Thank you. So that’s that’s not a market. Then we talk like the other one is like your core offers, your messaging, your lead flow, your lead activation, your short term sales process, long term sales process. So I think if we go through this process together on the second call, the one hour call, and I also show them this visually, people are so blown away by it and they get the game plan right there. My job after that is to just help them implement it and say, hey, go look at this training or this module and here are some potential swipes that you can use and try it. And then next week we look at it and we propose ways on improving it, for example. All in all, long story short, for a while I was doing three months, but now I’m experimenting with six months. And then we meet two times a month because I discovered that many times people need at least two weeks to actually do that and implement.
Rob Marsh: That makes sense. And as a quick follow-up, what are you charging for that engagement?
Csaba Borzasi: That’s also very malleable. So I try to charge based on value. And one of the qualifying questions I ask before the first call even is how many people you have on your email list and like what stage of growth are you in with this company? Is it like under 50K, under 100K, under 500K, under a million, more than a million? And based on that, there is some slight variation. And I’m also thinking of doing like more risk reversal type offers where it’s like you only pay this much, but then there’s a bonus component and like all sorts of other things. So it’s malleable. But I would say in general, it’s between like $5,000 to $10,000.
Rob Marsh: You mentioned, Csaba, that content is the best traffic source. I love that idea. I think you’re 100% right. Besides your email list, where are you producing content that starts to generate traffic for your business?
Csaba Borzasi: Unfortunately, right now, I’m not. My email list, I actually have some sequences which are half a year long. sending out emails two or three times per week. So I really need to start repurposing this on my blog. And I also start to repurpose my long form videos on YouTube into shorter videos. It’s one of my weaknesses. It’s still hard for me to properly delegate. That’s the problem. And this also comes from my upbringing, which is like, Nobody ever delegates anything because, like, who does that in that culture? So, you know, I’ve made some progress.
There was a time during which I hired an SEO agency, for example, or like people helping with my videos, editing it and stuff like that. But I need someone, something more specific for that. But I would say YouTube is my primary source source still. The cool thing about my content is that it’s evergreen. And that’s definitely a tip I would give to copywriters or people who want to start being authority building content is I know that the current fads are super exciting, but do something evergreen. And you can’t really get more evergreen than, you know, reverse breaking down copy from the old school titans of direct response copywriting.
Kira Hug: So who is on your team right now? Is it just you right now on your team?
Csaba Borzasi: As like a salary people? Yes. I do have a few freelancers that I work with from time to time. Uh, but, but my philosophy is try to automate as many things as possible and creating systems, uh, that actually cut back a lot of time that I would have to spend on that. But this is something that I definitely have to work more, more on.
Kira Hug: Yeah. And so what else, you know, at this stage that you’re at now where you have consulting offers, you’ve built a good reputation, you have your own products, like what, what else are you struggling with now? And what is, what is the next level look like for you? What are you working towards and what are you struggling with beyond a little bit of what you shared around just needing more support?
Csaba Borzasi: So, um, So as I said, I want to launch more like a higher ticket group thing because I think I can deliver much more value that way to more people. And it’s a better deal for everyone. But my mental limitation in this is that Oh yeah, but what if I launch it first and then, you know, I get three people and then there’s a lot of work that goes into properly delivering stuff for that. So that’s something that eventually I have to break through anyways. The other thing is this delegation part. So I’m sometimes, I often feel like I can do everything myself and I enjoy it. Like I really enjoy building out stuff and geeking on like advanced email automations and stuff like that. Although it might not be the best use of my time, to be honest, in pure business growth perspective. But I do enjoy it.
So it’s something cool for me. And the other third big thing is that I recently became a father. So I have an eight-year-old daughter. She was born in May, so at the end of May in 2023. And that has been quite the challenge to properly switch between all these roles of like a father, a husband, someone who tries to grow a business, copywriter, someone who’s genuinely curious about the world. And I want to understand what are things that are happening in the world in terms of like geopolitics and everything. As an introvert, that’s also difficult because there’s always like sounds everywhere. And, uh, and, you know, obviously the baby is crying many times and just- These are so loud.
Kira Hug: They’re so loud. We forget all these roles that we, you know, embody and it’s just a lot. And so how, how do you, how are you adapting to all these new hats that you’re wearing?
Csaba Borzasi: Yeah, I mean, it is difficult. I just have to say it up front. I started implementing deep work sessions. So before that, life was easy because my wife went away. During the day, I had eight, 10 hours of uninterrupted time to work. I was working from home. I still am, but in a different area. So it’s a relatively well-isolated area. So I don’t really hear noises during now. even if I just go out, you know, in the kitchen or to the bathroom or something, and I still have my thoughts with me, my deep thoughts, but it’s like, oh, could you please pick her, pick up Helena, my daughter, or just change diaper or something, which I then obviously want to help, but it totally gets me out of that flow state.
So all these little, could you help me for one minute type of things, which again, I understand because my wife is, you know, doing a lot of work during the day. So this is definitely difficult. One thing that I am doing that helps is I’m spending more time trying to actively rest before I get burned out. So especially after reading a few books from Dan Sullivan, especially 10x is easier than 2x. It really shifted my thoughts about this. And I realized that you have to preemptively rest both mentally, or at least try to mentally, physically and emotionally, because otherwise, when the time comes that you feel that now I have to rest, it’s too late. So that’s one thing.
The other thing is I implemented almost uninterruptible times throughout the day. Usually it’s between like 10 a.m. to 12. So it’s like noon in which I do Pomodoros, like three Pomodoros, and nobody can interrupt me. That’s the time in which I write my emails or do some really high, high impact stuff. And that’s the other thing. The third thing is just adapting. I would say time heals everything. And also, weirdly enough, it made me more productive overall, because now I know, I feel like, okay, I only have this much time to get things done. And And I have to do it.
And also I joined like a higher level coaching program myself, which really helps a lot because there’s lots of accountability there. And we’re working in six week sprints in six week projects. And there’s a very specific thing that I’m working on every six weeks when it comes to like the traffic part or the conversion part or the offer part. And I don’t have to spend a lot of time trying to figure out, trying to strategize what to do next. My coach basically does that for me and that’s really helpful.
Rob Marsh: Yeah, having a mentor is a game changer, for sure. Before we finish up, I want to make sure we talk about your book. And I also want to mention, you said that you have this lead magnet sequence that’s a year long. I went through my inbox and just was looking at it. So I got on your list, maybe it was a year and a half or so ago, a little less than that. And I was just counting up the number of emails in that sequence. It took, I think, from January to July to get through the 50 sales page reviews. And then there’s some other ones I think you’ve added since then. It’s like a nine-month sequence, which I think a lot of people would be, that’s kind of nuts in some ways.
Kira Hug: Nuts in a good way.
Rob Marsh: Yeah. I mean, it’s nuts in a good way. What do you see the results as people make it through that sequence? How many people drop off early on? How many people make it through like I did, where I see, at least I think I made it through, I see the end. And then I want to ask you about your book.
Csaba Borzasi: Sure. That’s a good question. I should do a better job tracking stuff, but I just opened up my ConvertKit and And I’m gonna check out, you know, open rates and stuff like that for the sequence. Honestly, I don’t know, but I’m gonna know in a sense. So in the beginning, I would say average open rates are like 50%, 50, 40-ish, something like that. And click-through rates are around five to six, maybe seven. At around the halfway mark, so this is after like, three months, and they are getting two emails per week in this sequence. I also send them other emails, but this is just a specific extra sequence. So after that, I see that things stabilize at around 33, 35% open rates and about 1.5% click-through rate, 1.52% click-through rate.
Rob Marsh: Okay, so from above average to average. Yeah, something like that. And if I’m not mistaken, is it 80 issues long?
Csaba Borzasi: Well, it’s not finished exactly, so there are like 55 plus like eight more after it, but You know, it’s only like until 55, you have one issue for every single one. After that, there are some some pauses in that. So between like 55 and 67, there’s nothing. And the reason why is because I originally wrote these emails in real time when I was doing it was part of my ritual when I was doing the hundred day proven sales that are breakdown challenge. So I just repackaged these emails into this sequence.
Rob Marsh: Anybody who wants to understand what we’re talking about needs to get on your list and sign up for it, which we’ll link to in the show notes. But yeah, go ahead and finish what you were saying.
Csaba Borzasi: So I just wanted to say that there were some days originally when I did the challenge in which I didn’t have time to actually write an email about it to promote the videos themselves. I still did the videos and uploaded them on YouTube, but I never really feel those missing emails even since then. I know I should, but I think if somebody watches or reads like 50-ish emails from me in this sequence alone, they might not going to mind missing five emails later on or something. And it’s everything there on YouTube anyway. So these are just basically like call to actions to, hey, go and watch the video.
Rob Marsh: My only other question is I just want to mention the book because you generously shared it with, I think with your list, or at least you shared it with me. And as I was going through it, I had a couple of ideas, things I wanted to change on my welcome sequence. So, you know, tell us a little bit about why you wrote the Rapid Lead Activator book And you kind of already talked about what was in it, but tell us just sort of the why behind it and how you’re using it in your business.
Csaba Borzasi: Sure. So I wanted the new Lead Mammoth, which is aimed more at business owners and which is super evergreen. I’m a big fan of the principle fundamentals and evergreen stuff. And early on, when working with clients, I realized that many of them didn’t really have properly optimized welcome sequences, which is like, it’s the first sequence you should create. And I think a lot of copywriters have the curse of knowledge when it comes to this, because they feel like, oh, everybody should have that, right? But surprise, surprise, a lot of businesses don’t really have this, or they created something five years ago, but they never really updated it. And it doesn’t have proper offers. And it’s just like, a lot of people look at it like, oh, I’m going to send them four content emails and one sales email, and that’s it. And if nobody buys, but in reality, it doesn’t work like that. So there’s a lot of other stuff that you can optimize. And the whole book is about this. It’s like, how can you imprint someone onto yourself as if you are a little duckling, and the first thing you see is the mama duck, and you kind of start following them cutely in the water. That’s what I wanted to do with this book.
And actually, I created a course before the book. It’s called the Profitable Imprinting Sequence, which is like the first 10 emails. And it’s like a more comprehensive thing. And this is originally based on an idea that I got from reading something from Gary Halbert, like imprinting people onto you. which again shows that there aren’t that many new things under the sun. People, even modern day gurus, they’re just rehashing and they’re just repackaging old school stuff. Sometimes they’ve done it down because they have to, but it’s a good example of why it’s still worth studying the old school masters. So when it comes to the book, I wanted to design it from the onset as like a lead generation book.
So it’s not like 300 pages long, it’s 80-ish and there’s big types. So you can read it in one hour. And I wanted to optimize for people actually consuming it and to give them the biggest chance of actually implementing it and them seeing results. Because then they realize that, oh, okay, if I got so much value from this Csaba’s stuff, then it might be worth answering his call to action and scheduling an assessment call with him. And the call to action at the end of the book, which is ultimately like an education-based long-form sales letter, Gary Bencivenga style. But it’s really powerful because if people consume it, they’re pre-framed, their belief shards are shifted, they’re going to show up on calls, they’re not going to ghost after that. And I think this is more powerful than just trying to convert them in like a sophisticated high-pressure funnel.
Kira Hug: So if we want access to that, will we drop a link in the show notes? Do we have a link to share with listeners?
Csaba Borzasi: So just go to gameofconversions.com rapid-lead-activator. So it’s like Game of Thrones, but gameofconversions.com-rapid-lead-activator. And again, it’s a highly, highly practical book. give you an elegant new way to get better clients faster and just start, you know, building more know, like and trust with them. And the cool thing about it is that I really like I’m eating my own dog food with this book because I also included my own welcome emails in the book. It’s like, hey, this is how I’m doing it. And check out email number one. And this is what’s happening here. And here’s the example. So people actually have an opportunity to read my welcome flow in the book. or in the emails themselves. There are two ways there, which is a little bit kind of like a parallel welcome sequence that Daniel Throssell uses, for example. And there’s also some copy-paste templates as well.
Kira Hug: Awesome. All right, well, my last question for you is, you know, with your black sheet perspective, I love your opinion on the future of copywriting for us all as copywriters. Like, what does it look like to you? Are you optimistic about the future? How do you feel about what’s possible for all of us as writers over the next, not decade, let’s not go that far out, over the next three to three years?
Csaba Borzasi: I love the question, but it has so many layers and I want to keep it short. So obviously the big elephant in the room here is AI, like what happens with AI, because it’s almost impossible to figure out what’s going to happen in five years, especially when it comes to generative AI. Primarily, I think that copywriters who can use AI to boost their productivity, to generate better ideas quicker, and just use it as kind of like an assistant, like an employee, in a sense, they’re going to see more success. People who don’t engage with AI at all, and they’re not willing to learn copy really well, they are just out of the game. I think they could take it.
There are other make money opportunities, but I don’t really like to look at copywriting as a biz op. A lot of people, especially people who subscribe to my list, they feel like, oh, I want to, you know, make so much money with copywriting, but it’s like, Slow down there, buddy, because it doesn’t work like that. You can’t expect to become a good doctor in two weeks. It takes years. And the same thing with copywriting. So I think what’s definitely going to be very important is to is to know what’s good copy and what’s not good copy and how to architect a campaign. And for that, you still have to put in the work and you still have to go through the courses or the coaching programs or the books. You still have to study Eugene Schwartz. You still have to read Breakthrough Advertising. You have to understand this because without that, what do you have? You have some prompts and that’s it. And you’re going to sound just like every other agency or every other robotic copy out there. But an interesting trend that I started noticing is that there’s already a lot of backlash against AI. And Ben Settle, for example, Daniel Throssell, Ross O’Locklin, these people who have email-based businesses, they kind of they’re forming like the resistance when it comes to AI, um, which I also see a lot of opportunity in because, uh, as with everything else, technological, especially when the world is very chaotic and where like, there are so many potential dangerous things happening in 2024. what happens in these times, in problematic times.
People choose a side. They’re going to be like, I’m either progressive or I’m either anti-AI. It’s like with religion, right? The most hardcore, the most Hardcore beliefs in religions happen when there are lots of wars, there are lots of potential problems in the world. And I think there’s going to be a huge population, a huge segment of the population, who by principle are going to hate things generated by AI. And they’re going to say like, I want a copywriter who doesn’t use AI. I want human-centric only. So I think there’s going to be multiple niches when it comes to this. Obviously, the biggest thing is going to be the ability to adapt. If you can adapt to whatever happens and you keep an open mind and you try to improve by 1% every week, you’re still going to have a competitive advantage over everybody else. So that’s, that’s my advice.
Kira Hug: I feel like that last answer opened up. We could have a go for another hour talking about and unpacking that answer, but we won’t, we won’t do that to you. I know. That was a great response. I just have, like, now 100 questions I want to ask you about that.
Rob Marsh: That was a lot going on with AI. Yeah, we’ll have you come back and we can talk about how people are using it effectively in their business. Thank you, Csaba, for sharing so much about your business. We appreciate it. Thank you.
Csaba Borzasi: It was my pleasure.
Rob Marsh: That’s the end of this interview. Now, I usually like to mention two or three things from the interview that really stuck out to me, and I’m not going to make an exception today. First, what Csaba shared about psychology is really important. As a copywriter, you need to do more than write words. You need to understand the mindset of the people that you’re writing to. Obviously, this takes a lot of research. You need to understand what motivates them and what spurs them to action. You need to understand the dominant emotions that your product and your copy makes them feel. or the dominant emotions that they feel before reading and how you’re going to shift their buying beliefs. This goes way beyond persuasion tactics like urgency or consistency that most of the so-called experts talk about. Yes, those things are important, but really understanding your reader takes a lot more than that. We have some resources to help you get started with that in the Copywriting Mastery Program, as well as in the Copywriter Underground when you’re ready for them. But applied psychology is truly a game changer when it comes to writing compelling copy that converts. So don’t ignore this part of your business.
Second, Csaba mentioned a few resources that he found as he started out as a copywriter, things like the Bencivenga Bullets and the Boron Letters. We’ve linked to a lot of these resources on a page on our website. It’s actually the most popular page on The Copywriter Club website. We have more visitors to this page than any other. You can find it if you Google the Copywriter Club and then Ultimate Resources, or you can just visit thecopywriterclub.com and click on the resources link in the menu. Many of those resources are free and they’ll get you started thinking about many of the ideas that Csaba shared today.
And finally, Csaba talked about his scorecard. This is something that very few copywriters do. Obviously, we talked about this with Csaba during the interview. Yes, we do have questions that we ask on prospecting calls, but we rarely share the completed scorecard or the diagnostic with our clients. And you should. It’s a game changer. It does a couple of things for you as a copywriter, as a professional, as a freelancer, as a consultant. It demonstrates that you know exactly what you’re doing because not only are you asking questions, but you’re using the answers to dial in on a solution.
Clients don’t need to wonder how you came to your conclusions. It’s all spelled out on that scorecard that you’re going to share with them. And that leads to an easier sales call close if your solution lines up with the problems that you’ve identified, especially if your diagnosis goes deep. Rather than proposing, say, a homepage copy or an email sequence, your proposal should talk about the larger business problems that these deliverables help fix. This is what takes you beyond that beginner copywriter stage and demonstrates that you are a true professional and you know what you’re doing. I think that’s enough for me today.
Thanks to Csaba for joining us to chat about his business, about psychology and more. You can find his Game of Conversions channel on YouTube where he shares breakdowns of nearly a hundred different proven sales letters. and you can get his copyright and cheat sheet at gameofconversions.com forward slash copywriting dash secrets which should get you on his email list. Csaba also shared the link as we were talking to get his book so make sure that you rewind if you need to get that link again. But be warned, Csaba’s welcome sequence is long. It really does run almost nine months, but it’s worth being there. And his book is excellent as he shares the five different emails in his sequence that he uses to land clients.
And while you’re checking that out, you should also check out The Copywriter Underground. Go to thecopyrighterclub.com/TCU to join the best community for copywriters who want to improve their business and writing skills. The resources there are truly a great value.
