Michael McNish: Alright, Scott Bywater, you're here on Balls Deep, you're a very brave man.
Scott Bywater: Thank you. ⁓
Michael McNish: ⁓ I met Scott, was about a few months ago actually at Ben Simpkins the Mastermind we had a live event and I'd never met Scott before but I gotta tell you he presented this presentation about copywriting and it really inspired me so having him on the show ⁓ I'm just really really excited because copywriting is probably one of the foundational principles about getting results in marketing. So you're kind of the guy that makes it all work.
Scott Bywater: Yeah, the glue that holds it all together, think. Anything, any type of marketing, there's always copy in there somewhere. yeah.
Michael McNish: Actually, when I first started marketing, I really leaned into design. Design was my thing. And because I used to create stuff. I started when I was younger doing little newsletters and because my parents had bought a printing business in the country town. And so I started learning Adobe PageMaker and all these sorts of softwares, CorelDRAW and those days. And I really prided myself on how things looked. And that's what I thought marketing was. I thought it was about how you make it branded and look and make it jazz. little bit anyway, my first ⁓ sort of marketing event, it kind of crushed my dreams and about who I was and the value that I offered to people because I realized that the design really didn't do much. Here I was trying to be really good at that. And I got really offended because They're like, no, it's the copy. It's the words. It's the offer. It's the messaging and how you communicate to your target market. I was crushed.
Scott Bywater: Yeah, well, I mean, the analogy I give, it's like if you walk into a networking event. So design, think, is important ⁓ because if you walk into a networking event, you're in shorts and you're in shorts and thongs and a shirt and everyone else is in a suit and tie or they're in smart casual or whatever. The design automatically makes people place a judgment on the way you design yourself in terms of the way you dress. It's still, it's still important. ⁓ However, if you, if you look really good, you look the part and then you start talking nonsense, ⁓ then that's not going to, that's not going to cut through. If you don't look the part, but you can talk eloquently, you know your stuff, you can still even cut through if you're relevant enough to that particular, that particular audience. So I think they go, they go hand in hand, but And I'm somewhat biased, but I think, you know, it's the copy and the messaging definitely overrides the design in terms of the level of ⁓ importance.
Michael McNish: Yeah, it's the chicken or the egg and trying to work out what I mean, depending on what you're selling or what your goal is kind of determines where you go. I think another example was when I used to sell ovens and kitchen appliances. And the challenge when someone was doing a kitchen was, do they spend more of their budget on the cabinetry and get, you know, the cabinet maker, they want to get the higher percentage of the budget, or does the appliance salesperson get more of the budget, the fridge and the range hood and the, and so they both got their own argument because the, the appliance person would say, look, This is going to improve your food. This is the purpose of the room. Right? But then the appliance guy will go, well, that's not the appliance. The cabinet maker will go, well, no, because you need storage and you need to make, you can always replace the oven, but you can't necessarily quickly replace the bench.
Scott Bywater: Yes. True. Yes. Yes.
Michael McNish: So you get stuck with it. ⁓ And then they'll go with a stainless steel ovens a stainless steel oven Doesn't matter what it is ⁓ and so therefore the game begins and I think the same thing with with with this environment because I Look at Facebook ads for example today 80 % of the result is the creative 80 % of the result is Effectively that image or video
Scott Bywater: Yeah. Yes.
Michael McNish: that you put there and the copy or the primary text as such is being reduced to this little insignificant little line of top.
Scott Bywater: Yep. Yep. Yeah. Yeah. I think it's, you know, and I think with Facebook ads is because that part is the thing that stands out and that people actually, they actually see and they pay attention to. so, so, and, and I think, you know, like, like direct response marketers like to, uh, I guess downplay design, but yeah, like, like I think at that event, Dante, um, showed some examples on the on the screen, Dante Botha, and just what an impact that design can play. So I think it's always hand in hand. I don't ever think it's one thing. It's like a combination. Like when I go into, like we stayed at the, there's a resort on the Gold Coast, the QT ⁓ Resort. And I remember being there and they've sort of prided themselves and positioned themselves on being quite edgy. So they're not like the Sheritans, which are quite...
Michael McNish: ⁓ yeah.
Scott Bywater: you know, formal and like the old school, they're like upmarket, but they've got like a bit edgy. So the way they designed it all is quite funky and everything. I thought if you took the design out of that, when you walked into the reception, then, and it was just, and there was no design and there was no nothing different about it. It would just be like any other hotel. So design does play a place. in marketing, just, you know, but I think for direct response stuff, the copy is what's going to, you know, if you've got, if you're a small business and you've got, you know, 20 grand to spend on marketing, the copy and you want to get 30 grand back or 50 grand back or a hundred grand back, whatever it is, then the copy is what's going to allow you to do that in a scientific way.
Michael McNish: It's like a really good salesperson either wearing a pair of crocs and a singlet or a really good salesperson in a suit and tie.
Scott Bywater: Exactly. think that's really what it boils down to. And salesperson is such a good example because any copywriting is just salesmanship of print. That's what we're talking about. So it's like you need to understand your customer in depth and you need to be able to deliver a very powerful message to that customer is ultimately what you're doing when you're writing copy.
Michael McNish: So when I was, this is going back many years ago, I used to find that my brain would struggle to go where to start with the design or to start with the copy. And so, and I found both approaches could actually work and could work quite well. And for example, lead pages, when they started, started coming onto the scene, replacing optimized press back in the day, optimized press was when you're really making, making coin and lead pages came about and you couldn't edit the template. The template was the
Scott Bywater: Yeah.
Michael McNish: template and you had to really think about the words or the copy that you're going to place within that because you're confined by what was there. There was like three bullet points. All right, you're to have to three bullet points. You've got a headline, you've got a sub headline, and now you've got the constraints. So now it's the words. You don't think about the design, just the words. But then you've got the other side of the camp that would be like, all right, no, don't be limited by a design. say what you need to say and then get a designer or a template that matches what the copy needs to be. And so if you have an experience with sort of both approaches and do you have any thoughts between them?
Scott Bywater: I mean, I always like to, I always think you're better off leading with the copy. So, so let's say you're, let's say you're doing a website, you, you want your, and I see so many people, I did a video about this recently and I've spoken with so many people, like with, with websites, for example, and they're like, this is a third or fourth website I've built and I still haven't got it right. And I, I, one of the things that I say to them, is that's because you're polishing the car when it needs an engine change. And what I mean by that is that the messaging is where it's at. that's because you're polishing the car when it needs an engine change. And what I mean by that is that the messaging is where it's at. So for example, when we do, when we do web copy, we'll invest five hours actually in communication with that client before we write a word, you know, because it's not about, it's not, it's actually people ⁓ copywriting is actually, it's a wrong word because it's so little, ⁓ it's probably less about actual writing. than it is about everything that surrounds the writing. And that's why chat GPT, and I see people who use chat GPT and it's so obvious because it's like so generic. ⁓ Not to say you can't use chat GPT and plaud and whatnot as a professional writer, but it's the strategy that goes around it that's so critical to the messaging. So, and what I mean by strategy is you want to go in like we talked about at... at Ben Simpkins event, I talked about the whole thing of interviewing your clients, which can be extremely valuable. It can be somewhat time consuming. one of the other ways you can do is go in and what we do is we get super clear on the core story, the unique selling proposition. And the core story often leads into the unique selling proposition. So because that's what proves it, right? Like your background proves you can deliver. a certain result that is unique to the client and what the client's looking for. So you're getting clear on the course story and the unique selling proposition, all of the emotional drivers that drive that, you know, that drive the potential client and the avatar or avatars. You can have several avatars, not necessarily just one. So you're getting clear on all that before you even look at even interviewing the client for the copy. So... And that's what I mean. So if you want to do an engine change on any type of copy, go back to the positioning. And this is where most people, almost everyone, ⁓ I would say 90 % of business owners miss the mark and underplay that. And it's like designing a house. It's like building a house without designing it. You might end up with a house, but it probably won't be the house that you want.
Michael McNish: Hmm. think there's, there's challenges in the way people think and the way that people work. Cause some people need to see something in order to know they like it. And
Scott Bywater: Yep.
Michael McNish: I used to be very design centric. So if I had a word document in front of me of the copy, I couldn't picture it on the website. I needed to see it on the website. I needed to know, ⁓ we're going to have bullet points here. ⁓ that's what that copy is for. ⁓ the headline is going to go here. What happened? The imagery for that. are you not a visual person when you're doing copy?
Scott Bywater: I think one of the things I do, like I will often show someone... the copy, because I'll show people when I'm showing them what I do, right? And I'll show them this Word doc and it's like, some of the Word docs we do are over a hundred, like we did one last week, it's over hundred pages. It's quite a long web copy, but it goes, they go deep, right? And some of them are like 40, 50, 60, 80, whatever pages. So they're like mini books that we're creating. So I will show a client. And I'll say, listen, if you look at this, it looks really intimidating. But if you work with a good designer, so if you're working with a good copywriter who knows how to sell, it is important to work with a good designer because if you, if you look at that on a word doc, it looks super intimidating. So, so my thing is I'm not, I wouldn't say I'm, I'm a, I'm not design centric in terms of I'm not, I'm not someone who, you know, who knows how to dress in like a super fashionable way or knows how to, ⁓ who knows, looks, goes into a home and knows how to interior design it. Like that's not my skill set. ⁓ But I work with good people who can do good design. So I tend to stick to my alley and then someone else sticks to their alley. And when you put great copy with great design, you get the best of both worlds.
Michael McNish: Sounds like building a house. And I think I've thought about this metaphor before. You're like the architect of the plans and the drawings. And then you go to a builder and they're like, ⁓ this is how, and that, ⁓ that won't work here, but we'll use this part here and we'll be able to get these supplies and make that sort of how you want. But you've got the two experts in their field kind of doing their thing. Cause the architect has no idea about, I mean, they maybe have some idea, but they're nowhere near as experienced or aware of of the building limitations or supply chain and how they're gonna do it. They just know what they want as opposed to the builder. They'd be like, this is how we're gonna use those plans and this is how I'm gonna make it look and we're gonna do this.
Scott Bywater: Yes. Yeah. Yeah. And I give that analogy quite a bit, you know, in terms of, yeah, in terms of the, you you've got the, you know, you got the, you got to get the plans right first and know what you're creating by getting that messaging sort of clear before you then go and do the next stage. But you've also got your, your two experts, like the, you you've got the builder and the architect. Now, if the builder and the architect, cause I work with a lot of builders and if the builder and the architect aren't talking together in that process, then what happens is the architect goes out there and they do a design, which is what they're paid to do. But let's say the client's got a budget of a million dollars to build a house. So they'll do a design, but the design might be 1.3 million or 1.4 million. Then the builder gets it back and he's like, this isn't going to work. You know, like we need to either cut it back. So then the client's like, I love my design, I love my house, and then they can't afford it and they might end up not doing it. I think there's some statistic, I don't know, I'm not sure of the exact source, but I've heard people say like 75 % of designs never actually go to actually building for that very reason. So it's very important that you get a builder involved early with the designer or the architect in order to make sure it's a reality. I would say it's probably not that mission critical that the writer and the designer are talking as it is with a building. Because with a building, once you do something, it's very expensive to change or it's a lot more clunky to make shifts. But it is important that because I've written copy and then the client would want to use a designer that I didn't know. And then And then it's like three, four, five, six months later, it's still not designed because they're used to designing really simple pages. They want to do a one page design or on the flip side, it just doesn't end up going live at all. that designer puts up what they want to put up. you have these sort of situations, is quite, which is quite similar with, you know, with construction.
Michael McNish: But then the other connection would be, you know, some people want a custom home. and other people are happy to pick up the house and land package. You know, so I'm happy to get the one that you've designed pre-designed already to go compared to I want something bespoke and I want something very specific to my needs and your approach to copy is very customized. It's deep and because I mean, I was so impressed by your method of interviewing customers and clients to go really deep behind the why and the motives and the fears and the desires all that everything to do with how they're thinking so you get a better picture so you can write better copy. But I was just thinking about the usual process that people go through in business when they want to do marketing. I'm going to use a website for example. You go to WordPress or Squarespace or Wix, whichever platform, and that's your house and land package.
Scott Bywater: Yep. Yep. Yeah, exactly.
Michael McNish: And the first question is, what design do you want? That's where you start. That's question one.
Scott Bywater: Yes. Yes, yes.
Michael McNish: Copies later.
Scott Bywater: Yep. Yep.
Michael McNish: And it's like, oh, now I've got to fill it with words. Oh, we'll give you an AI tool and we'll let you just press a button and tell us what business you're in and we'll just fill it in for you and you can press go. And again, it comes back to what I was saying at the beginning where I think we're very much that design first approach where I pick what I'm trying to build and then I work out what I'm going to say.
Scott Bywater: Yes. And that, that, that I would say is that I would say is the way that most people think is they think they think design first. So they'll go, and this is why they built three and four websites. And they're like, I still haven't got it right because not necessarily like I have done it. I have worked with other people and the design got built first. And then we did the copy to fit in with the design. Like that can, that can work. ⁓ but most, most of the time,
Michael McNish: We're at... yeah.
Scott Bywater: People go, want a website, I go to a web designer. The problem is most web designer, I wouldn't say all, but the majority of web designers, like they're two different skills, right? I can't design a website. Like that's not my skill set. On the flip side, most website designers have no idea about copy. So you're going to the electrician and expecting them to do your plumbing. It's not going to end well. And this is sort of what's happening out there is people go, and we're just talking about web copy here as an example, but that's what's happening. We're going to the website designer and expecting it. It's impossible. They can't do it. It's not their skill set. It's like me expecting me to build a house. I mean, I'm sure I could learn. but it would take me five or 10 years to actually learn. But if you asked me to do that today and have that house ready for you in six months, it's going to be an absolute disaster. And that's what's happening out there because people don't understand that you don't go, you don't go to a, if you need a web, a website, step one, you get your positioning right. Step two, you work out the structure, which will be based on the positioning. So in terms of what pages should I create? So where are your customers coming from? Like I speaking with a client earlier today and he's like, he's a builder over in Colorado and he's like, well, 70 % of my clients are interstate. And I'm like, well, we need to have a page specifically for interstate people. Yeah. And your business might be, like, but you got to, you got to actually go through those questions to make sure it's structured in the right way. So. So once you've gone through that phase, then you've got to go through the ⁓ actually working out what the site map is. And then you need to go deep and be deeply interviewed ⁓ or into to actually understand. So you've got the raw materials to create the copy from. Most times the website designer goes, ⁓ build it and they go to the client. now we need some copy. or now they might do it themselves because you've got AI, but then it just sounds like generic slop. And what's the point, right? Like if your website looks exactly like all of your other competitors, I mean, what's the point? Everyone can use AI. Yeah, everyone can create generic slop. So if yours is generic slop, they're generic slop. And I get on there and I'm like, which generic slop do I want? And that's what I'm judging you on.
Michael McNish: I love the word slop has become the thing, hasn't it? I've heard AI slop everywhere at the moment. And I think it comes from professionals, people who know quality. And so they refer to it as slop because they can see it.
Scott Bywater: Yes Yes, yes. Well, you can see it because we sponsor events in the building industry all over the country. So before the event, I will go through and I'll look at all the members who are going and I'll look at their website so I can actually give them feedback on their website when I get there and when I'm talking to them. And it's like. this. It's not often I'm lost for words, but it's like most of the time, it's very hard to find a good one that really stands out. And this is not unique to builders. This is right across the industry. This is right across all businesses. Because the work isn't being done upfront. I think it's a lack of education and a lack of understanding.
Michael McNish: Why do you think that is? From where though? Like who's responsible for that education?
Scott Bywater: Well, like you think of the average person, they get into business. I'm a good, you know, I'm a good baker. I'm a good builder. I'm a good whatever it is. ⁓ Yeah. So you hang out, you go, ⁓ I need a website. So no one's really, unless you're going to events like, you know, Ben's at the mastermind or you're going to educational type events that are on the cutting edge. You're not learning this from your average government business enterprise center or your, do know what I mean? You're not likely to learn this sort of stuff. It's going to be very, ⁓ you need a website. You're not going to get that sort of deep information from, unless you're going to the right sources.
Michael McNish: Hmm. Yeah, yeah, it's, it's fascinating because I think I was with a podcast with Bernard Canavan. He's been in the industry for 30, 40 years in PR and design. Right? Right. And I was talking about like, functional versus something of quality. You know, so like I just needed to do what I needed to do. So I just need a website. Cool. I'll get template. I'll get someone on Fiverr or Upwork or someone from somewhere to put it together for me because I'm not a tech person and I need some copy for it. So I'll go to chat, GPT and Claude. I'll put that in there and I'll have my website done in a day. I need some photos. Cool. I'll just go to, ⁓ nano banana, I'll just type in the photos that I need or might go to get some stock images, I'll put them in there and away I go, I've got a patchwork quilt of my website but it's functional.
Scott Bywater: Yep. Yep.
Michael McNish: And, and even just saying that it reminds me of Dan Kennedy when he talked about the method that people go through to do their marketing. So they'll go, I need to do a sign or I need to do a flyer. I need to do an email. That's the step one. So they decide what they want to do. Then they go, cool. Now, what do I want to say? And so then they'll start to create their messaging and their headlines and what, you know, what they want it to be. And then they'll go now who do I want to target?
Scott Bywater: Yep.
Michael McNish: So they'll do it in that order. And the correct order is actually the complete reverse.
Scott Bywater: Yes. It's a hundred percent. And I think it's like, I don't know how to reverse that because it's a way of thinking, right? And until you get that education, that's the way you think. So you go, need to do marketing. Really, you should be like, and most marketing agencies, I mean, lot of marketing agencies do, but they do it very shallow. And this is one of the things I talked to at... at talked about at Ben's event was that they do it shallow in terms of they do avatar. They're like, but it'll be like, often it's like this Mickey Mouse sort of avatar. doesn't go, it doesn't go deep. And it's like, oh, it's it's a, and I see this within a lot. when I'm talking to people, you know, it's like, oh, my avatar is like a 35 year old soccer mom and she's really busy and she's stressed and it may, it's like, it's like 40 % of the population, right? So it's not, it's not going deep enough. It's not drilling deep enough. Like I talk with a builder based in, they were based in New Zealand and like, like you've got to keep, when you do the avatar, you've got to keep unlocking and unlocking, unlocking and ask those deep questions. you got to go balls deep, 100%. You got to go balls deep. And I like that analogy because it's actually true because one of the things we did, they will position themselves just like a general builder. I'm like, where are your clients coming from? They're like, well, 80 % of our clients are like their mom and dad developers. I'm like,
Michael McNish: You go balls deep. You gotta go deep.
Scott Bywater: I'm like, well, I wouldn't have any idea of that by looking at your website. so, and it turned out that they were developers themselves and they had a really unique offering for developers. I'm like, we need to like, everything you're doing now, we need to like shift it and we need to make you the expert builder for developers. Because that is what, now if they had said only 20 % of their business was that, I wouldn't have said. go all in on development. But it just made so much sense. All of a sudden, they've got a blue ocean rather than trying to sell against everyone else. you've got to go. We've had other examples, similar example, a builder up in the Sunshine Coast. 80 % of their business was from acreage builds. And they'd lived on acreage all their life. So it's like, OK, well, let's zone in. very specifically on that as ⁓ a specific niche because your core story matches it and that's a business you're attracting anyway organically without even trying to attract it. That's what you're attracting. So it's unpacking that to create avatars which really stand out I think is the key. And then if you go into and you start interviewing your clients, then you're going layers and layers and layers and layers deeper. The issue is like 95 % of people, they want to just run Facebook ads. Yeah, everyone's like, I need to do marketing, let's run Facebook ads. Then they run Facebook ads, they haven't done the positioning. They're not clear on the course story, the USP, anything like that in terms of their branding. They don't have a decent landing page to send people to. They start running Facebook ads, it doesn't work. And then they go, oh, Facebook ads doesn't work for my industry.
Michael McNish: a random Facebook ads, the problem must be the copy. And so then they'll, they'll go try and tweak it and fix it and get and they get the copywriting. I think actually Copywriting is the wrong word to determine really the value of I mean what you do. I mean, we call it copywriting, but copywriting sounds very functional. It sounds like very, it's a like just, it's just the words. You know what I mean? It's just the, it's just the headline. Don't worry about it. Like it's just fine. It's almost too blase because effectively we're talking about the foundation of their marketing success, the foundation of everything. Because, you know, if you get, if you have the foundation wrong, doesn't matter what you right, doesn't matter what you bank, it probably won't work and it'll be average. But you know, you can think everything that we have to build from that. You've got your emails, you've got your, ⁓ you got your website, you got your funnels, or your landing pages, you got your ads, you've got your sales scripts, you've got your, your answering machine or whatever, you know, however you're prompting whatever system to answer the phone, that's, that's written, everything's written. And so the writing or the soul of it, I like that, the soul of it has to sort of come from somewhere. And so rather than like going to the website person, then building a website and then working out, know, putting it all together, flipping it on its head and going to someone who can actually create that foundation, understanding the direction, the blueprint, so to speak. That's step one, isn't it?
Scott Bywater: It is. it's one of the reasons I'm actually in the process of rebranding to be like, ⁓ I'll still have copywriting that sells a business, but to be the strategist as ⁓ a front point, because the strategy is what it's all about. Copywriting is how you bring it all together. That's everything. what it's about, see, most people, like I speak with a lot of people and they're not bringing into ⁓ particularly in the building industry, they're not attracting the right quality of projects or there's a process to do that. You you can't complain because people walk past your place of business and it looks like a kebab shop that they, that they're not, that they don't, they're not calling you up and dropping in and saying, Hey, can I have a five star meal? Yeah. Because you've got to, you've got to have all of your positioning and your branding and everything there. so that it attracts the five star meal. I see so many people, they complain they're getting flathead, but they're putting out that bait for flathead, not bait for a marlin, as an example. So you've got to fish very differently depending on how you want to fish. if you're after, I mean, I see a lot of people who are looking to sell high ticket services or stuff like construction or whatever.
Michael McNish: Hmm.
Scott Bywater: but they're advertising and they're marketing like they're trying to sell a toaster. ⁓ So it's very different right? Like if you want to buy a toaster you go in it's 200 bucks you don't really think about it much bang here's my credit card. Yeah that's true.
Michael McNish: 200 bucks, $15 from Kmart, I reckon that's the one. Actually, I knew a guy, he, you know, well, fairly well off and he had like the, the Miele or the AEG, I think he had AEG, or the very expensive appliances. And the thing that he was most proud of, he took it out of the cupboard was his $15 toaster from Kmart. Like this, this is it, this is where it's at.
Scott Bywater: Yet. Yes. ⁓ really? Yes, but there's such different decisions like if you want to if you want a a you know an expensive Yeah, like if you're spending a million dollars and you're spending fifteen or two hundred dollars totally different decisions So so if you want to sell in yeah, if you want to get high quality leads in those sort of spaces You need to play the game very differently. You need to play the game You know if you want to get mal, and I'm not a fisherman, but I'm I imagine you've got to do quite a bit of You've to know where to go, you've got to go out into the deep seas at certain times and you've got to do a lot more research than just tossing your fishing line off the shore and wheeling in a flathead or whatever. So they're very different games. So on the high ticket thing, a lot of people are like, I get my leads from word of mouth or referrals or all of that sort of thing, which is fine, but not fine if you want scale and not fine if you want peace of mind, right, because it's completely unpredictable. So you need to play a very different game. You need to do the lead magnets. You need to have email sequences going out. You've got to be patient because it takes time to actually build that trust and that relationship with someone. Because if you're, let's say you're looking to build a house and you see someone's ad the first time, you're not going to go, trust that person. But if you receive 50 emails from them over half a year, a year, By that stage, you're like, ⁓ this guy actually knows what he's talking about. If you're retargeted then and you see their videos all over the place, all of a sudden you're like, I can trust this person. And that's the same whether you're a mortgage broker or a real estate agent or anything. ⁓ It's a trust game because more money, more trust, more touches are required and needed. yeah.
Michael McNish: ⁓ I do a lot of ⁓ theatre acting and I've been doing it thoroughly for about since I was 25 so going on going on a few years now and I remember one of the earlier shows that I did it wasn't a great show I didn't like it neither did the other members of the cast we were talking backstage about it wasn't very good and that was when I heard the term that you can't polish a turd
Scott Bywater: Yes.
Michael McNish: that like if the script is bad, it doesn't matter how good your performance is. It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. It's just not good and it's not gonna work. And so you can put all the energy and money and effort, but it's still gonna go the way of the turd, so to speak. Do you think when it comes to copy that...
Scott Bywater: Yes.
Michael McNish: Copy is the reason it works or is it do you think it's more the offer that trumps the copy?
Scott Bywater: I if you've got a bad offer, I had this experience early on, I changed the offer just on a normal sales page, I forexed the response, the results. And that was just the offer, the copy stayed the same. So I think the offer is incredibly important. And I think the positioning really matters a lot as well. I had an experience when I, to give you an idea, I changed to being, and this was when I was about 20,
Michael McNish: Wow.
Scott Bywater: mid 20s. So this is over two decades ago. When I changed to being a copywriter from a marketing consultant, my income admittedly from a low base, but at 10 X literally overnight. You know, like I just went, it just went bang and I hit the market at the right. was, it was the right, like, like the market shifted a lot since then, but back then there was no, I wasn't, I was obviously okay, but I wouldn't say I was nowhere near as good as I am today, certainly not brilliant, but there wasn't a lot of competition, the market needed it, and I was in demand. So it's very, so that's what you're looking for, is you're looking for a market where there's low competition in demand. So you look at the example which I've shown there, which is often a ⁓ positioning. like is a positioning thing. You can be offering exactly the same thing, but you've positioned it differently. So that builder that I was talking about where they position themselves as the specialists in for people building developments, they're doing the same thing that they've always done. They just changed the positioning and that's what I did. So those opportunities are everywhere. It's like with this, right? Like you can't quite see it because we're doing this on riverside, but on zoom, you know, like, like I changed the way I angled my camera. And before it was just me up against the wall and the lighting wasn't right. and I didn't look right. Now it like I look far more my background looks far more expansive and all of that sort of thing. It's the same. I'm in the same place. I just shifted the screen and the way the camera looked. And that's very similar. with the way you position yourself. It's often you're not doing anything different. You're doing exactly the same thing, but you're changing your positioning.
Michael McNish: wearing a polo or wearing a shirt or just some elevation, whether you're a high price, low price, accessible, premium, ⁓ accessible, making those decisions, right?
Scott Bywater: Yeah, yeah, it's just making those decisions on positioning, that those decisions are based on a lot of deep thought. ⁓ So so and that's that's the that's really the key is understanding and being able to join the dots on all of those, you know, all of those pieces so that you're like you're sitting in a blue ocean. You're like, you know, you're like the, you know, the person sometimes it requires competitive research. Like we did this with a
Michael McNish: Hmm.
Scott Bywater: with a buyer's agent and we looked at all of the competitors and what is it, we did like a blue ocean chart and we worked out a niche which wasn't being addressed. So then he could go into that area, still offering the same thing, but positioning so that now people go, ⁓ they can actually do what, and sometimes you might need to change your offering, right? Sometimes you might need to change what you, you know, what you. do, like if you're a builder and you're doing cost plus and all of a sudden you decide that you want to do fixed price, you do need to change your operations to be able to, your operational structure to be able to deliver that. ⁓ But it doesn't need to be, ⁓ you know, and that can actually take you to the next level operationally as well.
Michael McNish: you Marketing strategies being something that I love. I love strategy strategy excites me the most When I did my marketing degree at uni strategic marketing was my favorite ⁓ I just I just loved principles and using SWOT analysis and looking at you know positioning charts and actually like Going deep into that and I feel that like when I when I left that and went into the world of sales and marketing those skills or those ideas were kind of put aside
Scott Bywater: Yes.
Michael McNish: Though it was the most like we don't have time for that We don't have time to do that we need to get out there and hustle and make it happen and get there and sell and put some ads up and and make it happen I don't really hear many people talking about those traditional sort of strategic marketing tools and What excites me is this what kind of excites me and concerns me at the same time that your skill set? in copywriting would be not and you know sound it's functional right copywriting but the secret of why it's worked for you is not about the copy
Scott Bywater: It's, I mean, even, Gary Benz Avenger, who's argued with the world's greatest modern day copywriter, ⁓ he said, it's 40 % research, 40 % writing, 20 % editing. I've always found it's even less in the writing. So, so, you know, it's more in the, in the editing and the research, which is a, which is a critical, which is a critical parts. So yeah, like, like it's, you're, you're looking at In order to get the words right, there's a heck of a lot that needs to happen. It's like the iceberg, right? There's a heck of a lot that's underneath that people don't see. know, like if you see someone's, let's say, I'm just thinking of it like the Nudie brand as an example, right? That Nudie, yeah, and they sort of broke through and they've got this, yeah, and they've got this funky little pictures and cartoon things and all of that sort of thing. It's very simple.
Michael McNish: the juice the juice right
Scott Bywater: Right, you look at it and you go, that's very simple. Now I don't have privy to, yeah, and they got these clever little wording and it's like funky and all that. No, I don't have privy to what they did behind the scenes. But I imagine there was a heck a lot of research that went on behind the scenes that underneath the iceberg. And you're seeing like this tiny to the half a tiny thing above the water. Yeah, that's on their, that's on their. ⁓ you know, on when you buy a bottle of Nudie, that's what you're seeing. But I imagine there was tens of thousands of dollars invested in order to work out that this was the angle and this was a spot and this is how we do it all. And that's the way you want to, that's the way you really want to look at your marketing is go slower. Like if you look at, if you look at anyone who talks about construction, right, and it's very similar to copywriting and to marketing. So if you go to a builder and they're like, yeah, mate, it's going to be about 800 grand. Yeah. And there's all these allowances in there and all that sort of thing. then you get into building, you want to get started quick. You get into building, they go, oh, you know what? We had an allowance for the thing and it's on a bit of a slope. So it's going to cost an extra 40 grand to level it all out. And then there's another allowance and another allowance and another allowance and all of a sudden you're up for 1.2 million or whatever. So that's a fast way ⁓ of where you get started fast. Or you go with a slow methodical builder who does it the right way. And he says, we need to slow down. need to give you a fixed price. He goes through and there's a lot of work in putting, he might even charge you an upfront cost. to put together a quote, because it's not on a piece of paper. There's a lot of work and it's research and brings it in. But then it's like, okay, this is going to cost you a million bucks. And then it just flows because he's done his research up front and you know exactly what you're after. Now marketing isn't quite that predictable, right? Because we're dealing with people and all of that sort of thing. But if you slow down, you get your positioning right, you understand the market, you understand all that. you understand everything and then you start to write your, you know, do your landing pages, do your web copy, all of that sort of thing based on that, then your chances of success are just so much higher. I give the analogy.
Michael McNish: Who should do that though? But who should do that? Because I think that not everyone in business wants to be a marketer and not everyone sees themselves as a marketer or they're busy. It's like research doesn't sound fun. It sounds intensive and it sounds like, ⁓ you you gotta be good at it to know what you're doing and what you're looking for. Should every business be, I mean, What you're saying is that everyone should be doing research. Every business should research their ideal customer and their market and understand and go deep. The question is who should be doing that? Should it be the owner or should they outsource it?
Scott Bywater: Yeah, and not every business, only the businesses that want to be successful. ⁓
Michael McNish: Ha! Only the one- No one else wants to be successful. Everyone else wants to fail.
Scott Bywater: Who should do it? mean, ideally you get an expert in to do it. Having said that, I got massive insights by doing it myself. I called a client once and I said, this is a client, he'd been a client for years. And one of my first clients, I said, what's your biggest gripes with the marketing industry? I couldn't shut him up. He went on for like 15 minutes, and it was a real eye-opener for me because I'd known him forever.
Michael McNish: You
Scott Bywater: Right. So, so, so, and I'm like, this is what people are actually thinking. So it changed the way that I sold as well with that, with that in, you know, with that in mind. So ideally it's not the business owner because, because clients are less likely to be honest with you. And also you're in an echo chamber. Like I'm in an echo chamber. You're in an echo chamber. All of us are in echo chambers and it's hard to see the outside of the bottle when you're Yeah, it's hard to see the label on the outside of the bottle when you're inside the bottle. ⁓ So it's better to have some sort of someone else actually do it. But if you're failing that, like let's say you're a startup, yeah, it's your first year, don't have any money, really do it yourself. Like that's better than not doing anything ⁓ as such. So it's much better than not doing anything. So you've just got to work out where you're at in terms of what the best solution is for you.
Michael McNish: Because if you're hiring a web person or a designer to do a flyer or you're doing a Facebook advertiser or Google Ads and you're outsourcing all these different things to different people, right? And I think there's this thing where I'm gonna trust them because they're the professional. I'm the client. I don't know what the best way is. So I'm outsourcing it over to you. And then I've got all these different people doing their thing. ⁓ hoping that they're doing what you've just talked about in actually understanding and doing that research and actually understanding like the psychology of their target client.
Scott Bywater: I think trust the experts is one of the stupidest things you can do if you don't verify. And we see that. I see that in the, I see that with health. I don't trust any health experts and for good reason, right? Because there's a lot of, trust the science, exactly. It's like, don't trust anything. I wanna understand what's going on.
Michael McNish: Trust the science, mate.
Scott Bywater: before I put anything in my body or do anything, whether they're medical, whether they're natural, it doesn't matter. Eventually you look into it and you go, I get this and they do know more than me, so I'm gonna trust them, but not without verifying everything first. And the same with marketing, very, very, very similar. You wanna have some base foundational.
Michael McNish: Yeah.
Scott Bywater: knowledge, like go out there and read some Dan Kennedy books or some Jay Abraham books or some Claude Hopkins books or get some base foundational knowledge so you know what the heck you're talking about and just so you know what's good and what's bad. Yeah, what's, you know, like, yeah, because it doesn't matter if it's me or if it's some other agency, it doesn't matter who you hire. There's two things. Number one, they may not know what they're talking about, ⁓ which is, you know, which
Michael McNish: That's actually good advice. That's really good advice.
Scott Bywater: which happens in all industries. But number two, they're not going to, if someone's running an agency, doesn't matter how much they care about you, and they've got 20 clients on the books, they're not gonna be thinking about your business. They just can't, no matter how good their intentions are, as much as you are gonna be thinking about your business. But if you come to them and you say, we're running these ads, what do you think of running those ads? They'll go, hey, that's a great idea. Let's do it. So you can direct them rather than just handing responsibility over and then blaming them when it doesn't work. Yeah. Which is, which is, you know, what can tend to happen. Get, get knowledge so that you can be, you can be a partner among the, yeah, amongst, amongst it. Do you know what I mean? Because marketing is a big area too. And like, there's a lot of skillsets with marketing. Like we're just talking about messaging, but you've got operations, you've got automation, you've got technical. And some marketers are better than at automations and technical, but they might not be good at the copywriting. So you sort of want to know what's going on so that you can guide them.
Michael McNish: Yeah, understand and then outsource. you know what it's like if you don't know how to sell and you hire a salesperson, you don't know what makes a good salesperson, then you're gonna find it very difficult to manage and be in charge. Otherwise, you've lost your power completely. ⁓ I think that foundation of understanding your target market. profile, creating an offer and a message and then working out where you're to place that, whether it's going to be Facebook, Google, LinkedIn, TV, radio, direct mail. Obviously, logically, it makes sense. Right. And, you know, Dan Kennedy 101. And if I think people know, I think massive assumption, I'm assuming that most people in business understand or at least heard, they've got to understand their customer. But I think they've heard it. But there's something that stops them going deep.
Scott Bywater: Yeah, yeah, I would agree. And it's not, it's not the sexiest part. Like people go, ⁓ let's just go and run some ads. Let's just go and do this. Like, like we want the, and I think it's like that shortcut thinking, which we're all guilty of. mean, if you can get the results with less effort, well, why wouldn't, why wouldn't you do it? But in reality, you can't, you know, it's like, yeah, like, yeah, it's fast food.
Michael McNish: fast food. Quick, get it done.
Scott Bywater: fast food. It's a fast food. It's a fast food approach to marketing. Like let's just get it up, whack a website up, do this, do that, do that. ⁓ we're ready to go. Yeah. Yeah. And you see that so often. You know, it's like, it's like that. It's like ticking it off. Yeah, tick it. It's ticking it off the checklist. I need a website. I need some brochures. I need this. I need that. We won't worry about what's in it or whether it's relevant or whether our customers even care about it. But we just want to, we just want to tick that
Michael McNish: Yes. Get it done, press the button, launched. Slop.
Scott Bywater: tick the tick boxes to say that we've got it done. ⁓ And that's the state.
Michael McNish: Yeah. But how do you know you've gone deep? Like, that's a skill. And I don't think everyone knows how to and what that actually means. Because I think that the avatar exercise, even if it's simple with some wants, needs, fears and frustrations, just those four things, and an age and an agenda or something ⁓ geographic, A lot of people go, wow, that was really insightful and that's really cool. And possibly there's a story of going deeper or expanding on that as a waste of time because, you know, I don't see that producing the profit or the ROI or, know, maybe they've tried it before and maybe that's why they don't go deep. I'm curious as your thoughts on that.
Scott Bywater: Yeah, I think one of the reasons people don't go deep, and I think it is often they don't know how. Yeah, like, what am I going to do? Like, imagine, like, I just imagine if I just started business, I didn't know anything about marketing. Like, what do do? What do I ask? How do I do it? ⁓ That's that sort of thing. Like, it's hard. And even if you learn about avatars, how do you actually get in there and actually understand it? But if I was to shortcut that process, like let's say someone doesn't have the budget and they just like to hire a consultant, just talk to people. It's like if you want to know what your team thinks and ⁓ you're an employer. Well, the only way to know is to talk to them and ask them.
Michael McNish: What would you what's what are some foundational questions that you would ask? So if you were doing an interview for a business, what would be some of the absolute must ask questions that you would ask them to sort of go deep?
Scott Bywater: I mean, the first one I ask is, you know, like, like what was going through your mind? Like, like, let's say you went and bought a bed or something and I was interviewing you for the, for the bed shop. I'd say what was going through your mind, which triggered you to, to buy a bed. And you might go, ⁓ I had crippling back pain or I had whatever. To me, there isn't a, there isn't a list of questions. Then it's like, I'm pulling the thread, pulling the thread, pulling the thread, pulling the thread based on what they've said. So you sort of. segueing it. like a boxing match. mean, it's probably not the best analogy because you're not fighting with someone, but you don't know exactly what the next move is going to be. It happens or judo or something like that. You're making the move based on the conversation. But there's things that you're trying to work out. What was the buyer's journey? Did they talk to a friend who recommended you or did they look at 50 blog posts and listen to 100 podcasts before they did it?
Michael McNish: Right.
Scott Bywater: What was the, you know, so what was the decision criteria? What were they basing it on? If it's a bed, you know, was it part and disturbance they were concerned about? Was it the comfort? Was it, you know, was it getting rid of their back pain? Was it the fact that the bed could, you know, go up and down and that way you wouldn't snore and you guys wouldn't bother each other? Yeah, so you're asking these sort of questions to get like really clear. What were the red flags in the buying process? know, maybe a salesperson was too pushy at certain stages and that put you off or what was happening there. So you're digging into all of these in-depth questions to really understand the buyer's journey, not just the avatar, but the buyer's journey and what was going on throughout that. throughout that process so then you can shift the way that you do things and change it. And this gives all sorts of advertising ideas. For instance, that partner disturbance one, you talk with a few clients, you find out that's a big issue, all of a sudden, your ad, does your partner wake you up all night? If so, watch this video. That's a thing that you probably, you may not have thought of if you hadn't have done those interviews. That's where it becomes very powerful in giving you all those advertising ideas that you can then split test and run with your agency and that sort of thing.
Michael McNish: So I think the word is curiosity, but also being that salesperson of like if you're having a conversation with someone, you're going to probe, you're going to go a bit deeper, you're going to ask more about what they've said. So they might say something and you want more clarity on what they've said. So you just ask a little bit more and then they open up. Is that, is that the approach?
Scott Bywater: Yeah, curiosity. think curiosity is so big. And I think as a, you know, as humans, we're not curious enough. You know, we tend to get in and we're all guilty of this. We get in our little ruts and we just do the same thing rather than asking those questions. I really understand my customer. Actually, you don't because you're just talking with them in the sales process. And if you actually get deep and plus you don't have enough quantity. So even doing a survey, like an email survey, will give you amazing quantity of results and then you can tabulate it like a library, right? So you get a hundred responses and you're like, ⁓ 80 % of my clients are worried about this. I had no idea because you can't work that out on day-to-day conversations. Your mind can't tabulate all that data. Do you know what I mean? And work it out and you just think of recency bias and you think this is a problem when when you go into the data, you actually see what the real problem is with that research. If you've got an email list, that's another good research tool is sending out a survey to your list.
Michael McNish: really inspiring dude because you, I mean, the foundations of marketing makes sense to me, simple, understand customer message media, right? But you took it another step deeper. mean, deeper again, like about that ⁓ action of interviewing. the customer, like actually getting on the phone, having real conversations rather than making up stuff. For me is a game changer.
Scott Bywater: Yep. Yeah. No, no, it's, it's, ⁓ it's right. And, and, and Robert Collier said, you know, he wrote the book, the Robert Collier Letter Book, the great big thick blue book. If anyone has a, well, probably most people won't have read it, but it's great book. But he said the secret to advertising is entering the conversation going on in the customer's mind. Well, my question is, how do you enter the conversation going on in someone's mind without actually talking to them?
Michael McNish: Cause no one does it.
Scott Bywater: Because most of us aren't psychic. There's a few people out there who are probably psychic, but most, I'm not. Most of us aren't. ⁓
Michael McNish: You Let me get my tarot deck out and I'll let you know. I think that I think if people can take away number one, ⁓ interview customers, get to know them, the best ones, the people that you want to attract more of understand them. And I think just that and profiling it and getting clear on that will help you brief your website guy, your flyers, whoever's doing the other work for you, your Facebook ads person, your Google ads person, ⁓ all of that together, that information will feed them. So mean, I know as a marketer, if a client gave me that, said, just interviewed three customers. ⁓ Here's the transcriptions of those interviews over to you. I'd be like, that's gold. Thank you so much.
Scott Bywater: Yes, yes. And you can come up, how do you be unique? How do you stand out? That's one of the best ways, because you will get the golden data and you'll have all these angles and hooks that your clients who are punching it into and nothing wrong with doing research with ChachiBT and AI tools, they can be quite useful. But the stuff that you're getting is like, it is direct, it is source, it's exact words that they're using. And what you want them to say, when they read your ad or go to your website or go to your landing page is finally someone gets me. know, finally someone gets me. They're the words you want. And the best way to do that is to understand your customer at a deeper level than anyone else does.
Michael McNish: And that's saying if you can explain their problem to them better than they can, they will naturally and unconsciously believe that you have the solution.
Scott Bywater: Yeah, it's like the doctor who says, ⁓ you're going to the doctor and he says, do you get an itch behind your leg at 3.17 a.m. each morning? ⁓ And you're like, how did you know that? And it builds that instant trust, you know? So, yeah.
Michael McNish: do actually know it's actually itching right now Ha ha. You're genius! Scott, I wanna thank you so much for your time. You're a very talented man and you've just dropped some gold today. And I think if people can take that and implement it, they're gonna see dramatic results in their marketing. So I just wanna thank you so much for your time.
Scott Bywater: Yeah, no, no, you're welcome, Michael. It's been great to be here and thanks for having me.
Michael McNish: My pleasure.
Scott Bywater: Thank you. ⁓
Michael McNish: ⁓ I met Scott, was about a few months ago actually at Ben Simpkins the Mastermind we had a live event and I'd never met Scott before but I gotta tell you he presented this presentation about copywriting and it really inspired me so having him on the show ⁓ I'm just really really excited because copywriting is probably one of the foundational principles about getting results in marketing. So you're kind of the guy that makes it all work.
Scott Bywater: Yeah, the glue that holds it all together, think. Anything, any type of marketing, there's always copy in there somewhere. yeah.
Michael McNish: Actually, when I first started marketing, I really leaned into design. Design was my thing. And because I used to create stuff. I started when I was younger doing little newsletters and because my parents had bought a printing business in the country town. And so I started learning Adobe PageMaker and all these sorts of softwares, CorelDRAW and those days. And I really prided myself on how things looked. And that's what I thought marketing was. I thought it was about how you make it branded and look and make it jazz. little bit anyway, my first ⁓ sort of marketing event, it kind of crushed my dreams and about who I was and the value that I offered to people because I realized that the design really didn't do much. Here I was trying to be really good at that. And I got really offended because They're like, no, it's the copy. It's the words. It's the offer. It's the messaging and how you communicate to your target market. I was crushed.
Scott Bywater: Yeah, well, I mean, the analogy I give, it's like if you walk into a networking event. So design, think, is important ⁓ because if you walk into a networking event, you're in shorts and you're in shorts and thongs and a shirt and everyone else is in a suit and tie or they're in smart casual or whatever. The design automatically makes people place a judgment on the way you design yourself in terms of the way you dress. It's still, it's still important. ⁓ However, if you, if you look really good, you look the part and then you start talking nonsense, ⁓ then that's not going to, that's not going to cut through. If you don't look the part, but you can talk eloquently, you know your stuff, you can still even cut through if you're relevant enough to that particular, that particular audience. So I think they go, they go hand in hand, but And I'm somewhat biased, but I think, you know, it's the copy and the messaging definitely overrides the design in terms of the level of ⁓ importance.
Michael McNish: Yeah, it's the chicken or the egg and trying to work out what I mean, depending on what you're selling or what your goal is kind of determines where you go. I think another example was when I used to sell ovens and kitchen appliances. And the challenge when someone was doing a kitchen was, do they spend more of their budget on the cabinetry and get, you know, the cabinet maker, they want to get the higher percentage of the budget, or does the appliance salesperson get more of the budget, the fridge and the range hood and the, and so they both got their own argument because the, the appliance person would say, look, This is going to improve your food. This is the purpose of the room. Right? But then the appliance guy will go, well, that's not the appliance. The cabinet maker will go, well, no, because you need storage and you need to make, you can always replace the oven, but you can't necessarily quickly replace the bench.
Scott Bywater: Yes. True. Yes. Yes.
Michael McNish: So you get stuck with it. ⁓ And then they'll go with a stainless steel ovens a stainless steel oven Doesn't matter what it is ⁓ and so therefore the game begins and I think the same thing with with with this environment because I Look at Facebook ads for example today 80 % of the result is the creative 80 % of the result is Effectively that image or video
Scott Bywater: Yeah. Yes.
Michael McNish: that you put there and the copy or the primary text as such is being reduced to this little insignificant little line of top.
Scott Bywater: Yep. Yep. Yeah. Yeah. I think it's, you know, and I think with Facebook ads is because that part is the thing that stands out and that people actually, they actually see and they pay attention to. so, so, and, and I think, you know, like, like direct response marketers like to, uh, I guess downplay design, but yeah, like, like I think at that event, Dante, um, showed some examples on the on the screen, Dante Botha, and just what an impact that design can play. So I think it's always hand in hand. I don't ever think it's one thing. It's like a combination. Like when I go into, like we stayed at the, there's a resort on the Gold Coast, the QT ⁓ Resort. And I remember being there and they've sort of prided themselves and positioned themselves on being quite edgy. So they're not like the Sheritans, which are quite...
Michael McNish: ⁓ yeah.
Scott Bywater: you know, formal and like the old school, they're like upmarket, but they've got like a bit edgy. So the way they designed it all is quite funky and everything. I thought if you took the design out of that, when you walked into the reception, then, and it was just, and there was no design and there was no nothing different about it. It would just be like any other hotel. So design does play a place. in marketing, just, you know, but I think for direct response stuff, the copy is what's going to, you know, if you've got, if you're a small business and you've got, you know, 20 grand to spend on marketing, the copy and you want to get 30 grand back or 50 grand back or a hundred grand back, whatever it is, then the copy is what's going to allow you to do that in a scientific way.
Michael McNish: It's like a really good salesperson either wearing a pair of crocs and a singlet or a really good salesperson in a suit and tie.
Scott Bywater: Exactly. think that's really what it boils down to. And salesperson is such a good example because any copywriting is just salesmanship of print. That's what we're talking about. So it's like you need to understand your customer in depth and you need to be able to deliver a very powerful message to that customer is ultimately what you're doing when you're writing copy.
Michael McNish: So when I was, this is going back many years ago, I used to find that my brain would struggle to go where to start with the design or to start with the copy. And so, and I found both approaches could actually work and could work quite well. And for example, lead pages, when they started, started coming onto the scene, replacing optimized press back in the day, optimized press was when you're really making, making coin and lead pages came about and you couldn't edit the template. The template was the
Scott Bywater: Yeah.
Michael McNish: template and you had to really think about the words or the copy that you're going to place within that because you're confined by what was there. There was like three bullet points. All right, you're to have to three bullet points. You've got a headline, you've got a sub headline, and now you've got the constraints. So now it's the words. You don't think about the design, just the words. But then you've got the other side of the camp that would be like, all right, no, don't be limited by a design. say what you need to say and then get a designer or a template that matches what the copy needs to be. And so if you have an experience with sort of both approaches and do you have any thoughts between them?
Scott Bywater: I mean, I always like to, I always think you're better off leading with the copy. So, so let's say you're, let's say you're doing a website, you, you want your, and I see so many people, I did a video about this recently and I've spoken with so many people, like with, with websites, for example, and they're like, this is a third or fourth website I've built and I still haven't got it right. And I, I, one of the things that I say to them, is that's because you're polishing the car when it needs an engine change. And what I mean by that is that the messaging is where it's at. that's because you're polishing the car when it needs an engine change. And what I mean by that is that the messaging is where it's at. So for example, when we do, when we do web copy, we'll invest five hours actually in communication with that client before we write a word, you know, because it's not about, it's not, it's actually people ⁓ copywriting is actually, it's a wrong word because it's so little, ⁓ it's probably less about actual writing. than it is about everything that surrounds the writing. And that's why chat GPT, and I see people who use chat GPT and it's so obvious because it's like so generic. ⁓ Not to say you can't use chat GPT and plaud and whatnot as a professional writer, but it's the strategy that goes around it that's so critical to the messaging. So, and what I mean by strategy is you want to go in like we talked about at... at Ben Simpkins event, I talked about the whole thing of interviewing your clients, which can be extremely valuable. It can be somewhat time consuming. one of the other ways you can do is go in and what we do is we get super clear on the core story, the unique selling proposition. And the core story often leads into the unique selling proposition. So because that's what proves it, right? Like your background proves you can deliver. a certain result that is unique to the client and what the client's looking for. So you're getting clear on the course story and the unique selling proposition, all of the emotional drivers that drive that, you know, that drive the potential client and the avatar or avatars. You can have several avatars, not necessarily just one. So you're getting clear on all that before you even look at even interviewing the client for the copy. So... And that's what I mean. So if you want to do an engine change on any type of copy, go back to the positioning. And this is where most people, almost everyone, ⁓ I would say 90 % of business owners miss the mark and underplay that. And it's like designing a house. It's like building a house without designing it. You might end up with a house, but it probably won't be the house that you want.
Michael McNish: Hmm. think there's, there's challenges in the way people think and the way that people work. Cause some people need to see something in order to know they like it. And
Scott Bywater: Yep.
Michael McNish: I used to be very design centric. So if I had a word document in front of me of the copy, I couldn't picture it on the website. I needed to see it on the website. I needed to know, ⁓ we're going to have bullet points here. ⁓ that's what that copy is for. ⁓ the headline is going to go here. What happened? The imagery for that. are you not a visual person when you're doing copy?
Scott Bywater: I think one of the things I do, like I will often show someone... the copy, because I'll show people when I'm showing them what I do, right? And I'll show them this Word doc and it's like, some of the Word docs we do are over a hundred, like we did one last week, it's over hundred pages. It's quite a long web copy, but it goes, they go deep, right? And some of them are like 40, 50, 60, 80, whatever pages. So they're like mini books that we're creating. So I will show a client. And I'll say, listen, if you look at this, it looks really intimidating. But if you work with a good designer, so if you're working with a good copywriter who knows how to sell, it is important to work with a good designer because if you, if you look at that on a word doc, it looks super intimidating. So, so my thing is I'm not, I wouldn't say I'm, I'm a, I'm not design centric in terms of I'm not, I'm not someone who, you know, who knows how to dress in like a super fashionable way or knows how to, ⁓ who knows, looks, goes into a home and knows how to interior design it. Like that's not my skill set. ⁓ But I work with good people who can do good design. So I tend to stick to my alley and then someone else sticks to their alley. And when you put great copy with great design, you get the best of both worlds.
Michael McNish: Sounds like building a house. And I think I've thought about this metaphor before. You're like the architect of the plans and the drawings. And then you go to a builder and they're like, ⁓ this is how, and that, ⁓ that won't work here, but we'll use this part here and we'll be able to get these supplies and make that sort of how you want. But you've got the two experts in their field kind of doing their thing. Cause the architect has no idea about, I mean, they maybe have some idea, but they're nowhere near as experienced or aware of of the building limitations or supply chain and how they're gonna do it. They just know what they want as opposed to the builder. They'd be like, this is how we're gonna use those plans and this is how I'm gonna make it look and we're gonna do this.
Scott Bywater: Yes. Yeah. Yeah. And I give that analogy quite a bit, you know, in terms of, yeah, in terms of the, you you've got the, you know, you got the, you got to get the plans right first and know what you're creating by getting that messaging sort of clear before you then go and do the next stage. But you've also got your, your two experts, like the, you you've got the builder and the architect. Now, if the builder and the architect, cause I work with a lot of builders and if the builder and the architect aren't talking together in that process, then what happens is the architect goes out there and they do a design, which is what they're paid to do. But let's say the client's got a budget of a million dollars to build a house. So they'll do a design, but the design might be 1.3 million or 1.4 million. Then the builder gets it back and he's like, this isn't going to work. You know, like we need to either cut it back. So then the client's like, I love my design, I love my house, and then they can't afford it and they might end up not doing it. I think there's some statistic, I don't know, I'm not sure of the exact source, but I've heard people say like 75 % of designs never actually go to actually building for that very reason. So it's very important that you get a builder involved early with the designer or the architect in order to make sure it's a reality. I would say it's probably not that mission critical that the writer and the designer are talking as it is with a building. Because with a building, once you do something, it's very expensive to change or it's a lot more clunky to make shifts. But it is important that because I've written copy and then the client would want to use a designer that I didn't know. And then And then it's like three, four, five, six months later, it's still not designed because they're used to designing really simple pages. They want to do a one page design or on the flip side, it just doesn't end up going live at all. that designer puts up what they want to put up. you have these sort of situations, is quite, which is quite similar with, you know, with construction.
Michael McNish: But then the other connection would be, you know, some people want a custom home. and other people are happy to pick up the house and land package. You know, so I'm happy to get the one that you've designed pre-designed already to go compared to I want something bespoke and I want something very specific to my needs and your approach to copy is very customized. It's deep and because I mean, I was so impressed by your method of interviewing customers and clients to go really deep behind the why and the motives and the fears and the desires all that everything to do with how they're thinking so you get a better picture so you can write better copy. But I was just thinking about the usual process that people go through in business when they want to do marketing. I'm going to use a website for example. You go to WordPress or Squarespace or Wix, whichever platform, and that's your house and land package.
Scott Bywater: Yep. Yep. Yeah, exactly.
Michael McNish: And the first question is, what design do you want? That's where you start. That's question one.
Scott Bywater: Yes. Yes, yes.
Michael McNish: Copies later.
Scott Bywater: Yep. Yep.
Michael McNish: And it's like, oh, now I've got to fill it with words. Oh, we'll give you an AI tool and we'll let you just press a button and tell us what business you're in and we'll just fill it in for you and you can press go. And again, it comes back to what I was saying at the beginning where I think we're very much that design first approach where I pick what I'm trying to build and then I work out what I'm going to say.
Scott Bywater: Yes. And that, that, that I would say is that I would say is the way that most people think is they think they think design first. So they'll go, and this is why they built three and four websites. And they're like, I still haven't got it right because not necessarily like I have done it. I have worked with other people and the design got built first. And then we did the copy to fit in with the design. Like that can, that can work. ⁓ but most, most of the time,
Michael McNish: We're at... yeah.
Scott Bywater: People go, want a website, I go to a web designer. The problem is most web designer, I wouldn't say all, but the majority of web designers, like they're two different skills, right? I can't design a website. Like that's not my skill set. On the flip side, most website designers have no idea about copy. So you're going to the electrician and expecting them to do your plumbing. It's not going to end well. And this is sort of what's happening out there is people go, and we're just talking about web copy here as an example, but that's what's happening. We're going to the website designer and expecting it. It's impossible. They can't do it. It's not their skill set. It's like me expecting me to build a house. I mean, I'm sure I could learn. but it would take me five or 10 years to actually learn. But if you asked me to do that today and have that house ready for you in six months, it's going to be an absolute disaster. And that's what's happening out there because people don't understand that you don't go, you don't go to a, if you need a web, a website, step one, you get your positioning right. Step two, you work out the structure, which will be based on the positioning. So in terms of what pages should I create? So where are your customers coming from? Like I speaking with a client earlier today and he's like, he's a builder over in Colorado and he's like, well, 70 % of my clients are interstate. And I'm like, well, we need to have a page specifically for interstate people. Yeah. And your business might be, like, but you got to, you got to actually go through those questions to make sure it's structured in the right way. So. So once you've gone through that phase, then you've got to go through the ⁓ actually working out what the site map is. And then you need to go deep and be deeply interviewed ⁓ or into to actually understand. So you've got the raw materials to create the copy from. Most times the website designer goes, ⁓ build it and they go to the client. now we need some copy. or now they might do it themselves because you've got AI, but then it just sounds like generic slop. And what's the point, right? Like if your website looks exactly like all of your other competitors, I mean, what's the point? Everyone can use AI. Yeah, everyone can create generic slop. So if yours is generic slop, they're generic slop. And I get on there and I'm like, which generic slop do I want? And that's what I'm judging you on.
Michael McNish: I love the word slop has become the thing, hasn't it? I've heard AI slop everywhere at the moment. And I think it comes from professionals, people who know quality. And so they refer to it as slop because they can see it.
Scott Bywater: Yes Yes, yes. Well, you can see it because we sponsor events in the building industry all over the country. So before the event, I will go through and I'll look at all the members who are going and I'll look at their website so I can actually give them feedback on their website when I get there and when I'm talking to them. And it's like. this. It's not often I'm lost for words, but it's like most of the time, it's very hard to find a good one that really stands out. And this is not unique to builders. This is right across the industry. This is right across all businesses. Because the work isn't being done upfront. I think it's a lack of education and a lack of understanding.
Michael McNish: Why do you think that is? From where though? Like who's responsible for that education?
Scott Bywater: Well, like you think of the average person, they get into business. I'm a good, you know, I'm a good baker. I'm a good builder. I'm a good whatever it is. ⁓ Yeah. So you hang out, you go, ⁓ I need a website. So no one's really, unless you're going to events like, you know, Ben's at the mastermind or you're going to educational type events that are on the cutting edge. You're not learning this from your average government business enterprise center or your, do know what I mean? You're not likely to learn this sort of stuff. It's going to be very, ⁓ you need a website. You're not going to get that sort of deep information from, unless you're going to the right sources.
Michael McNish: Hmm. Yeah, yeah, it's, it's fascinating because I think I was with a podcast with Bernard Canavan. He's been in the industry for 30, 40 years in PR and design. Right? Right. And I was talking about like, functional versus something of quality. You know, so like I just needed to do what I needed to do. So I just need a website. Cool. I'll get template. I'll get someone on Fiverr or Upwork or someone from somewhere to put it together for me because I'm not a tech person and I need some copy for it. So I'll go to chat, GPT and Claude. I'll put that in there and I'll have my website done in a day. I need some photos. Cool. I'll just go to, ⁓ nano banana, I'll just type in the photos that I need or might go to get some stock images, I'll put them in there and away I go, I've got a patchwork quilt of my website but it's functional.
Scott Bywater: Yep. Yep.
Michael McNish: And, and even just saying that it reminds me of Dan Kennedy when he talked about the method that people go through to do their marketing. So they'll go, I need to do a sign or I need to do a flyer. I need to do an email. That's the step one. So they decide what they want to do. Then they go, cool. Now, what do I want to say? And so then they'll start to create their messaging and their headlines and what, you know, what they want it to be. And then they'll go now who do I want to target?
Scott Bywater: Yep.
Michael McNish: So they'll do it in that order. And the correct order is actually the complete reverse.
Scott Bywater: Yes. It's a hundred percent. And I think it's like, I don't know how to reverse that because it's a way of thinking, right? And until you get that education, that's the way you think. So you go, need to do marketing. Really, you should be like, and most marketing agencies, I mean, lot of marketing agencies do, but they do it very shallow. And this is one of the things I talked to at... at talked about at Ben's event was that they do it shallow in terms of they do avatar. They're like, but it'll be like, often it's like this Mickey Mouse sort of avatar. doesn't go, it doesn't go deep. And it's like, oh, it's it's a, and I see this within a lot. when I'm talking to people, you know, it's like, oh, my avatar is like a 35 year old soccer mom and she's really busy and she's stressed and it may, it's like, it's like 40 % of the population, right? So it's not, it's not going deep enough. It's not drilling deep enough. Like I talk with a builder based in, they were based in New Zealand and like, like you've got to keep, when you do the avatar, you've got to keep unlocking and unlocking, unlocking and ask those deep questions. you got to go balls deep, 100%. You got to go balls deep. And I like that analogy because it's actually true because one of the things we did, they will position themselves just like a general builder. I'm like, where are your clients coming from? They're like, well, 80 % of our clients are like their mom and dad developers. I'm like,
Michael McNish: You go balls deep. You gotta go deep.
Scott Bywater: I'm like, well, I wouldn't have any idea of that by looking at your website. so, and it turned out that they were developers themselves and they had a really unique offering for developers. I'm like, we need to like, everything you're doing now, we need to like shift it and we need to make you the expert builder for developers. Because that is what, now if they had said only 20 % of their business was that, I wouldn't have said. go all in on development. But it just made so much sense. All of a sudden, they've got a blue ocean rather than trying to sell against everyone else. you've got to go. We've had other examples, similar example, a builder up in the Sunshine Coast. 80 % of their business was from acreage builds. And they'd lived on acreage all their life. So it's like, OK, well, let's zone in. very specifically on that as ⁓ a specific niche because your core story matches it and that's a business you're attracting anyway organically without even trying to attract it. That's what you're attracting. So it's unpacking that to create avatars which really stand out I think is the key. And then if you go into and you start interviewing your clients, then you're going layers and layers and layers and layers deeper. The issue is like 95 % of people, they want to just run Facebook ads. Yeah, everyone's like, I need to do marketing, let's run Facebook ads. Then they run Facebook ads, they haven't done the positioning. They're not clear on the course story, the USP, anything like that in terms of their branding. They don't have a decent landing page to send people to. They start running Facebook ads, it doesn't work. And then they go, oh, Facebook ads doesn't work for my industry.
Michael McNish: a random Facebook ads, the problem must be the copy. And so then they'll, they'll go try and tweak it and fix it and get and they get the copywriting. I think actually Copywriting is the wrong word to determine really the value of I mean what you do. I mean, we call it copywriting, but copywriting sounds very functional. It sounds like very, it's a like just, it's just the words. You know what I mean? It's just the, it's just the headline. Don't worry about it. Like it's just fine. It's almost too blase because effectively we're talking about the foundation of their marketing success, the foundation of everything. Because, you know, if you get, if you have the foundation wrong, doesn't matter what you right, doesn't matter what you bank, it probably won't work and it'll be average. But you know, you can think everything that we have to build from that. You've got your emails, you've got your, ⁓ you got your website, you got your funnels, or your landing pages, you got your ads, you've got your sales scripts, you've got your, your answering machine or whatever, you know, however you're prompting whatever system to answer the phone, that's, that's written, everything's written. And so the writing or the soul of it, I like that, the soul of it has to sort of come from somewhere. And so rather than like going to the website person, then building a website and then working out, know, putting it all together, flipping it on its head and going to someone who can actually create that foundation, understanding the direction, the blueprint, so to speak. That's step one, isn't it?
Scott Bywater: It is. it's one of the reasons I'm actually in the process of rebranding to be like, ⁓ I'll still have copywriting that sells a business, but to be the strategist as ⁓ a front point, because the strategy is what it's all about. Copywriting is how you bring it all together. That's everything. what it's about, see, most people, like I speak with a lot of people and they're not bringing into ⁓ particularly in the building industry, they're not attracting the right quality of projects or there's a process to do that. You you can't complain because people walk past your place of business and it looks like a kebab shop that they, that they're not, that they don't, they're not calling you up and dropping in and saying, Hey, can I have a five star meal? Yeah. Because you've got to, you've got to have all of your positioning and your branding and everything there. so that it attracts the five star meal. I see so many people, they complain they're getting flathead, but they're putting out that bait for flathead, not bait for a marlin, as an example. So you've got to fish very differently depending on how you want to fish. if you're after, I mean, I see a lot of people who are looking to sell high ticket services or stuff like construction or whatever.
Michael McNish: Hmm.
Scott Bywater: but they're advertising and they're marketing like they're trying to sell a toaster. ⁓ So it's very different right? Like if you want to buy a toaster you go in it's 200 bucks you don't really think about it much bang here's my credit card. Yeah that's true.
Michael McNish: 200 bucks, $15 from Kmart, I reckon that's the one. Actually, I knew a guy, he, you know, well, fairly well off and he had like the, the Miele or the AEG, I think he had AEG, or the very expensive appliances. And the thing that he was most proud of, he took it out of the cupboard was his $15 toaster from Kmart. Like this, this is it, this is where it's at.
Scott Bywater: Yet. Yes. ⁓ really? Yes, but there's such different decisions like if you want to if you want a a you know an expensive Yeah, like if you're spending a million dollars and you're spending fifteen or two hundred dollars totally different decisions So so if you want to sell in yeah, if you want to get high quality leads in those sort of spaces You need to play the game very differently. You need to play the game You know if you want to get mal, and I'm not a fisherman, but I'm I imagine you've got to do quite a bit of You've to know where to go, you've got to go out into the deep seas at certain times and you've got to do a lot more research than just tossing your fishing line off the shore and wheeling in a flathead or whatever. So they're very different games. So on the high ticket thing, a lot of people are like, I get my leads from word of mouth or referrals or all of that sort of thing, which is fine, but not fine if you want scale and not fine if you want peace of mind, right, because it's completely unpredictable. So you need to play a very different game. You need to do the lead magnets. You need to have email sequences going out. You've got to be patient because it takes time to actually build that trust and that relationship with someone. Because if you're, let's say you're looking to build a house and you see someone's ad the first time, you're not going to go, trust that person. But if you receive 50 emails from them over half a year, a year, By that stage, you're like, ⁓ this guy actually knows what he's talking about. If you're retargeted then and you see their videos all over the place, all of a sudden you're like, I can trust this person. And that's the same whether you're a mortgage broker or a real estate agent or anything. ⁓ It's a trust game because more money, more trust, more touches are required and needed. yeah.
Michael McNish: ⁓ I do a lot of ⁓ theatre acting and I've been doing it thoroughly for about since I was 25 so going on going on a few years now and I remember one of the earlier shows that I did it wasn't a great show I didn't like it neither did the other members of the cast we were talking backstage about it wasn't very good and that was when I heard the term that you can't polish a turd
Scott Bywater: Yes.
Michael McNish: that like if the script is bad, it doesn't matter how good your performance is. It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. It's just not good and it's not gonna work. And so you can put all the energy and money and effort, but it's still gonna go the way of the turd, so to speak. Do you think when it comes to copy that...
Scott Bywater: Yes.
Michael McNish: Copy is the reason it works or is it do you think it's more the offer that trumps the copy?
Scott Bywater: I if you've got a bad offer, I had this experience early on, I changed the offer just on a normal sales page, I forexed the response, the results. And that was just the offer, the copy stayed the same. So I think the offer is incredibly important. And I think the positioning really matters a lot as well. I had an experience when I, to give you an idea, I changed to being, and this was when I was about 20,
Michael McNish: Wow.
Scott Bywater: mid 20s. So this is over two decades ago. When I changed to being a copywriter from a marketing consultant, my income admittedly from a low base, but at 10 X literally overnight. You know, like I just went, it just went bang and I hit the market at the right. was, it was the right, like, like the market shifted a lot since then, but back then there was no, I wasn't, I was obviously okay, but I wouldn't say I was nowhere near as good as I am today, certainly not brilliant, but there wasn't a lot of competition, the market needed it, and I was in demand. So it's very, so that's what you're looking for, is you're looking for a market where there's low competition in demand. So you look at the example which I've shown there, which is often a ⁓ positioning. like is a positioning thing. You can be offering exactly the same thing, but you've positioned it differently. So that builder that I was talking about where they position themselves as the specialists in for people building developments, they're doing the same thing that they've always done. They just changed the positioning and that's what I did. So those opportunities are everywhere. It's like with this, right? Like you can't quite see it because we're doing this on riverside, but on zoom, you know, like, like I changed the way I angled my camera. And before it was just me up against the wall and the lighting wasn't right. and I didn't look right. Now it like I look far more my background looks far more expansive and all of that sort of thing. It's the same. I'm in the same place. I just shifted the screen and the way the camera looked. And that's very similar. with the way you position yourself. It's often you're not doing anything different. You're doing exactly the same thing, but you're changing your positioning.
Michael McNish: wearing a polo or wearing a shirt or just some elevation, whether you're a high price, low price, accessible, premium, ⁓ accessible, making those decisions, right?
Scott Bywater: Yeah, yeah, it's just making those decisions on positioning, that those decisions are based on a lot of deep thought. ⁓ So so and that's that's the that's really the key is understanding and being able to join the dots on all of those, you know, all of those pieces so that you're like you're sitting in a blue ocean. You're like, you know, you're like the, you know, the person sometimes it requires competitive research. Like we did this with a
Michael McNish: Hmm.
Scott Bywater: with a buyer's agent and we looked at all of the competitors and what is it, we did like a blue ocean chart and we worked out a niche which wasn't being addressed. So then he could go into that area, still offering the same thing, but positioning so that now people go, ⁓ they can actually do what, and sometimes you might need to change your offering, right? Sometimes you might need to change what you, you know, what you. do, like if you're a builder and you're doing cost plus and all of a sudden you decide that you want to do fixed price, you do need to change your operations to be able to, your operational structure to be able to deliver that. ⁓ But it doesn't need to be, ⁓ you know, and that can actually take you to the next level operationally as well.
Michael McNish: you Marketing strategies being something that I love. I love strategy strategy excites me the most When I did my marketing degree at uni strategic marketing was my favorite ⁓ I just I just loved principles and using SWOT analysis and looking at you know positioning charts and actually like Going deep into that and I feel that like when I when I left that and went into the world of sales and marketing those skills or those ideas were kind of put aside
Scott Bywater: Yes.
Michael McNish: Though it was the most like we don't have time for that We don't have time to do that we need to get out there and hustle and make it happen and get there and sell and put some ads up and and make it happen I don't really hear many people talking about those traditional sort of strategic marketing tools and What excites me is this what kind of excites me and concerns me at the same time that your skill set? in copywriting would be not and you know sound it's functional right copywriting but the secret of why it's worked for you is not about the copy
Scott Bywater: It's, I mean, even, Gary Benz Avenger, who's argued with the world's greatest modern day copywriter, ⁓ he said, it's 40 % research, 40 % writing, 20 % editing. I've always found it's even less in the writing. So, so, you know, it's more in the, in the editing and the research, which is a, which is a critical, which is a critical parts. So yeah, like, like it's, you're, you're looking at In order to get the words right, there's a heck of a lot that needs to happen. It's like the iceberg, right? There's a heck of a lot that's underneath that people don't see. know, like if you see someone's, let's say, I'm just thinking of it like the Nudie brand as an example, right? That Nudie, yeah, and they sort of broke through and they've got this, yeah, and they've got this funky little pictures and cartoon things and all of that sort of thing. It's very simple.
Michael McNish: the juice the juice right
Scott Bywater: Right, you look at it and you go, that's very simple. Now I don't have privy to, yeah, and they got these clever little wording and it's like funky and all that. No, I don't have privy to what they did behind the scenes. But I imagine there was a heck a lot of research that went on behind the scenes that underneath the iceberg. And you're seeing like this tiny to the half a tiny thing above the water. Yeah, that's on their, that's on their. ⁓ you know, on when you buy a bottle of Nudie, that's what you're seeing. But I imagine there was tens of thousands of dollars invested in order to work out that this was the angle and this was a spot and this is how we do it all. And that's the way you want to, that's the way you really want to look at your marketing is go slower. Like if you look at, if you look at anyone who talks about construction, right, and it's very similar to copywriting and to marketing. So if you go to a builder and they're like, yeah, mate, it's going to be about 800 grand. Yeah. And there's all these allowances in there and all that sort of thing. then you get into building, you want to get started quick. You get into building, they go, oh, you know what? We had an allowance for the thing and it's on a bit of a slope. So it's going to cost an extra 40 grand to level it all out. And then there's another allowance and another allowance and another allowance and all of a sudden you're up for 1.2 million or whatever. So that's a fast way ⁓ of where you get started fast. Or you go with a slow methodical builder who does it the right way. And he says, we need to slow down. need to give you a fixed price. He goes through and there's a lot of work in putting, he might even charge you an upfront cost. to put together a quote, because it's not on a piece of paper. There's a lot of work and it's research and brings it in. But then it's like, okay, this is going to cost you a million bucks. And then it just flows because he's done his research up front and you know exactly what you're after. Now marketing isn't quite that predictable, right? Because we're dealing with people and all of that sort of thing. But if you slow down, you get your positioning right, you understand the market, you understand all that. you understand everything and then you start to write your, you know, do your landing pages, do your web copy, all of that sort of thing based on that, then your chances of success are just so much higher. I give the analogy.
Michael McNish: Who should do that though? But who should do that? Because I think that not everyone in business wants to be a marketer and not everyone sees themselves as a marketer or they're busy. It's like research doesn't sound fun. It sounds intensive and it sounds like, ⁓ you you gotta be good at it to know what you're doing and what you're looking for. Should every business be, I mean, What you're saying is that everyone should be doing research. Every business should research their ideal customer and their market and understand and go deep. The question is who should be doing that? Should it be the owner or should they outsource it?
Scott Bywater: Yeah, and not every business, only the businesses that want to be successful. ⁓
Michael McNish: Ha! Only the one- No one else wants to be successful. Everyone else wants to fail.
Scott Bywater: Who should do it? mean, ideally you get an expert in to do it. Having said that, I got massive insights by doing it myself. I called a client once and I said, this is a client, he'd been a client for years. And one of my first clients, I said, what's your biggest gripes with the marketing industry? I couldn't shut him up. He went on for like 15 minutes, and it was a real eye-opener for me because I'd known him forever.
Michael McNish: You
Scott Bywater: Right. So, so, so, and I'm like, this is what people are actually thinking. So it changed the way that I sold as well with that, with that in, you know, with that in mind. So ideally it's not the business owner because, because clients are less likely to be honest with you. And also you're in an echo chamber. Like I'm in an echo chamber. You're in an echo chamber. All of us are in echo chambers and it's hard to see the outside of the bottle when you're Yeah, it's hard to see the label on the outside of the bottle when you're inside the bottle. ⁓ So it's better to have some sort of someone else actually do it. But if you're failing that, like let's say you're a startup, yeah, it's your first year, don't have any money, really do it yourself. Like that's better than not doing anything ⁓ as such. So it's much better than not doing anything. So you've just got to work out where you're at in terms of what the best solution is for you.
Michael McNish: Because if you're hiring a web person or a designer to do a flyer or you're doing a Facebook advertiser or Google Ads and you're outsourcing all these different things to different people, right? And I think there's this thing where I'm gonna trust them because they're the professional. I'm the client. I don't know what the best way is. So I'm outsourcing it over to you. And then I've got all these different people doing their thing. ⁓ hoping that they're doing what you've just talked about in actually understanding and doing that research and actually understanding like the psychology of their target client.
Scott Bywater: I think trust the experts is one of the stupidest things you can do if you don't verify. And we see that. I see that in the, I see that with health. I don't trust any health experts and for good reason, right? Because there's a lot of, trust the science, exactly. It's like, don't trust anything. I wanna understand what's going on.
Michael McNish: Trust the science, mate.
Scott Bywater: before I put anything in my body or do anything, whether they're medical, whether they're natural, it doesn't matter. Eventually you look into it and you go, I get this and they do know more than me, so I'm gonna trust them, but not without verifying everything first. And the same with marketing, very, very, very similar. You wanna have some base foundational.
Michael McNish: Yeah.
Scott Bywater: knowledge, like go out there and read some Dan Kennedy books or some Jay Abraham books or some Claude Hopkins books or get some base foundational knowledge so you know what the heck you're talking about and just so you know what's good and what's bad. Yeah, what's, you know, like, yeah, because it doesn't matter if it's me or if it's some other agency, it doesn't matter who you hire. There's two things. Number one, they may not know what they're talking about, ⁓ which is, you know, which
Michael McNish: That's actually good advice. That's really good advice.
Scott Bywater: which happens in all industries. But number two, they're not going to, if someone's running an agency, doesn't matter how much they care about you, and they've got 20 clients on the books, they're not gonna be thinking about your business. They just can't, no matter how good their intentions are, as much as you are gonna be thinking about your business. But if you come to them and you say, we're running these ads, what do you think of running those ads? They'll go, hey, that's a great idea. Let's do it. So you can direct them rather than just handing responsibility over and then blaming them when it doesn't work. Yeah. Which is, which is, you know, what can tend to happen. Get, get knowledge so that you can be, you can be a partner among the, yeah, amongst, amongst it. Do you know what I mean? Because marketing is a big area too. And like, there's a lot of skillsets with marketing. Like we're just talking about messaging, but you've got operations, you've got automation, you've got technical. And some marketers are better than at automations and technical, but they might not be good at the copywriting. So you sort of want to know what's going on so that you can guide them.
Michael McNish: Yeah, understand and then outsource. you know what it's like if you don't know how to sell and you hire a salesperson, you don't know what makes a good salesperson, then you're gonna find it very difficult to manage and be in charge. Otherwise, you've lost your power completely. ⁓ I think that foundation of understanding your target market. profile, creating an offer and a message and then working out where you're to place that, whether it's going to be Facebook, Google, LinkedIn, TV, radio, direct mail. Obviously, logically, it makes sense. Right. And, you know, Dan Kennedy 101. And if I think people know, I think massive assumption, I'm assuming that most people in business understand or at least heard, they've got to understand their customer. But I think they've heard it. But there's something that stops them going deep.
Scott Bywater: Yeah, yeah, I would agree. And it's not, it's not the sexiest part. Like people go, ⁓ let's just go and run some ads. Let's just go and do this. Like, like we want the, and I think it's like that shortcut thinking, which we're all guilty of. mean, if you can get the results with less effort, well, why wouldn't, why wouldn't you do it? But in reality, you can't, you know, it's like, yeah, like, yeah, it's fast food.
Michael McNish: fast food. Quick, get it done.
Scott Bywater: fast food. It's a fast food. It's a fast food approach to marketing. Like let's just get it up, whack a website up, do this, do that, do that. ⁓ we're ready to go. Yeah. Yeah. And you see that so often. You know, it's like, it's like that. It's like ticking it off. Yeah, tick it. It's ticking it off the checklist. I need a website. I need some brochures. I need this. I need that. We won't worry about what's in it or whether it's relevant or whether our customers even care about it. But we just want to, we just want to tick that
Michael McNish: Yes. Get it done, press the button, launched. Slop.
Scott Bywater: tick the tick boxes to say that we've got it done. ⁓ And that's the state.
Michael McNish: Yeah. But how do you know you've gone deep? Like, that's a skill. And I don't think everyone knows how to and what that actually means. Because I think that the avatar exercise, even if it's simple with some wants, needs, fears and frustrations, just those four things, and an age and an agenda or something ⁓ geographic, A lot of people go, wow, that was really insightful and that's really cool. And possibly there's a story of going deeper or expanding on that as a waste of time because, you know, I don't see that producing the profit or the ROI or, know, maybe they've tried it before and maybe that's why they don't go deep. I'm curious as your thoughts on that.
Scott Bywater: Yeah, I think one of the reasons people don't go deep, and I think it is often they don't know how. Yeah, like, what am I going to do? Like, imagine, like, I just imagine if I just started business, I didn't know anything about marketing. Like, what do do? What do I ask? How do I do it? ⁓ That's that sort of thing. Like, it's hard. And even if you learn about avatars, how do you actually get in there and actually understand it? But if I was to shortcut that process, like let's say someone doesn't have the budget and they just like to hire a consultant, just talk to people. It's like if you want to know what your team thinks and ⁓ you're an employer. Well, the only way to know is to talk to them and ask them.
Michael McNish: What would you what's what are some foundational questions that you would ask? So if you were doing an interview for a business, what would be some of the absolute must ask questions that you would ask them to sort of go deep?
Scott Bywater: I mean, the first one I ask is, you know, like, like what was going through your mind? Like, like, let's say you went and bought a bed or something and I was interviewing you for the, for the bed shop. I'd say what was going through your mind, which triggered you to, to buy a bed. And you might go, ⁓ I had crippling back pain or I had whatever. To me, there isn't a, there isn't a list of questions. Then it's like, I'm pulling the thread, pulling the thread, pulling the thread, pulling the thread based on what they've said. So you sort of. segueing it. like a boxing match. mean, it's probably not the best analogy because you're not fighting with someone, but you don't know exactly what the next move is going to be. It happens or judo or something like that. You're making the move based on the conversation. But there's things that you're trying to work out. What was the buyer's journey? Did they talk to a friend who recommended you or did they look at 50 blog posts and listen to 100 podcasts before they did it?
Michael McNish: Right.
Scott Bywater: What was the, you know, so what was the decision criteria? What were they basing it on? If it's a bed, you know, was it part and disturbance they were concerned about? Was it the comfort? Was it, you know, was it getting rid of their back pain? Was it the fact that the bed could, you know, go up and down and that way you wouldn't snore and you guys wouldn't bother each other? Yeah, so you're asking these sort of questions to get like really clear. What were the red flags in the buying process? know, maybe a salesperson was too pushy at certain stages and that put you off or what was happening there. So you're digging into all of these in-depth questions to really understand the buyer's journey, not just the avatar, but the buyer's journey and what was going on throughout that. throughout that process so then you can shift the way that you do things and change it. And this gives all sorts of advertising ideas. For instance, that partner disturbance one, you talk with a few clients, you find out that's a big issue, all of a sudden, your ad, does your partner wake you up all night? If so, watch this video. That's a thing that you probably, you may not have thought of if you hadn't have done those interviews. That's where it becomes very powerful in giving you all those advertising ideas that you can then split test and run with your agency and that sort of thing.
Michael McNish: So I think the word is curiosity, but also being that salesperson of like if you're having a conversation with someone, you're going to probe, you're going to go a bit deeper, you're going to ask more about what they've said. So they might say something and you want more clarity on what they've said. So you just ask a little bit more and then they open up. Is that, is that the approach?
Scott Bywater: Yeah, curiosity. think curiosity is so big. And I think as a, you know, as humans, we're not curious enough. You know, we tend to get in and we're all guilty of this. We get in our little ruts and we just do the same thing rather than asking those questions. I really understand my customer. Actually, you don't because you're just talking with them in the sales process. And if you actually get deep and plus you don't have enough quantity. So even doing a survey, like an email survey, will give you amazing quantity of results and then you can tabulate it like a library, right? So you get a hundred responses and you're like, ⁓ 80 % of my clients are worried about this. I had no idea because you can't work that out on day-to-day conversations. Your mind can't tabulate all that data. Do you know what I mean? And work it out and you just think of recency bias and you think this is a problem when when you go into the data, you actually see what the real problem is with that research. If you've got an email list, that's another good research tool is sending out a survey to your list.
Michael McNish: really inspiring dude because you, I mean, the foundations of marketing makes sense to me, simple, understand customer message media, right? But you took it another step deeper. mean, deeper again, like about that ⁓ action of interviewing. the customer, like actually getting on the phone, having real conversations rather than making up stuff. For me is a game changer.
Scott Bywater: Yep. Yeah. No, no, it's, it's, ⁓ it's right. And, and, and Robert Collier said, you know, he wrote the book, the Robert Collier Letter Book, the great big thick blue book. If anyone has a, well, probably most people won't have read it, but it's great book. But he said the secret to advertising is entering the conversation going on in the customer's mind. Well, my question is, how do you enter the conversation going on in someone's mind without actually talking to them?
Michael McNish: Cause no one does it.
Scott Bywater: Because most of us aren't psychic. There's a few people out there who are probably psychic, but most, I'm not. Most of us aren't. ⁓
Michael McNish: You Let me get my tarot deck out and I'll let you know. I think that I think if people can take away number one, ⁓ interview customers, get to know them, the best ones, the people that you want to attract more of understand them. And I think just that and profiling it and getting clear on that will help you brief your website guy, your flyers, whoever's doing the other work for you, your Facebook ads person, your Google ads person, ⁓ all of that together, that information will feed them. So mean, I know as a marketer, if a client gave me that, said, just interviewed three customers. ⁓ Here's the transcriptions of those interviews over to you. I'd be like, that's gold. Thank you so much.
Scott Bywater: Yes, yes. And you can come up, how do you be unique? How do you stand out? That's one of the best ways, because you will get the golden data and you'll have all these angles and hooks that your clients who are punching it into and nothing wrong with doing research with ChachiBT and AI tools, they can be quite useful. But the stuff that you're getting is like, it is direct, it is source, it's exact words that they're using. And what you want them to say, when they read your ad or go to your website or go to your landing page is finally someone gets me. know, finally someone gets me. They're the words you want. And the best way to do that is to understand your customer at a deeper level than anyone else does.
Michael McNish: And that's saying if you can explain their problem to them better than they can, they will naturally and unconsciously believe that you have the solution.
Scott Bywater: Yeah, it's like the doctor who says, ⁓ you're going to the doctor and he says, do you get an itch behind your leg at 3.17 a.m. each morning? ⁓ And you're like, how did you know that? And it builds that instant trust, you know? So, yeah.
Michael McNish: do actually know it's actually itching right now Ha ha. You're genius! Scott, I wanna thank you so much for your time. You're a very talented man and you've just dropped some gold today. And I think if people can take that and implement it, they're gonna see dramatic results in their marketing. So I just wanna thank you so much for your time.
Scott Bywater: Yeah, no, no, you're welcome, Michael. It's been great to be here and thanks for having me.
Michael McNish: My pleasure.
