Meet Tom• 21 years old from Ireland.

• Decided not to go to college after finishing

school. Got a job instead as a door-to-door

salesman and started learning copywriting.

• Now earns $4-5k per month and works with

million dollar businesses.

• Has already lived in several countries around

the world. He was in Berlin at the time of this interview, having spent the

summer in Sweden.

• Get in touch via: officialtommccann@gmail.com

The Interview

• Length: 45:44

• Listen and download here

Book Recommendations

Note that there is no Kindle version of SPIN Selling available on Amazon, but if you

google around you can find a PDF version to download.

Additional Resources• Article: The 4 Legged Stool by Mark Ford (pen name Michael Masterson)

• Frank Kern’s official website

• Jay Abraham links:

• The 100 Greatest Headlines Ever Written

• How To Create A Unique Selling Proposition

• How Good Headlines Can Build Your Business

• A Model Sales Letter For Someone Who’s Never Written One Before!

• 37 Million-Dollar Headlines: A Collection of the Most Powerful, Attention-

Getting and Effective Headlines

• Massive swipe file of classic sales letters

Tom’s Step-By-Step Guide To Earning $5k/Month As A Copywriter

“If you understand copywriting, you can go into any business and add value, because you can go into any business and increase sales, which is every CEO’s number one goal.”

1. Become A Really Good Copywriter

In other words, become adept at writing persuasively, convincing people to take action

via text on a screen.

There are two parts to this…

a) Absorb The Knowledge

Read a lot of copywriting books and learn what makes a good headline, what makes a

good opening paragraph, how do you write an effective call to action?

Best way to build knowledge: be consistent!

For example, Sam from 3M1K reads three copywriting books per month. As Tom says,

“having a system like that, he’s going to get good.” Tom advises starting with one book

per month.

b) Develop The Skill

Even one to two hours per week of “deliberate practice” will put you ahead of the

curve.

Two things Tom recommends for developing your copywriting skill:

• Find a sales letter you like (can be a classic sales letter, a sales email, or a long-

form magazine ad), read it top to bottom, then go away and try write your own

sales letter for the same product. Once finished, he would compare your version

to the original and see what you could have done better. (This is how Tom

learned to write more concisely.)

• Pick a product and write out 50 headlines for it. You’ll likely end up with only a

handful that are good, but by doing this over and over again you’ll get much

better at writing headlines.

2. Find Prospective Clients

Tom takes a patient, long-term approach to finding clients, one that leads to repeat

business and lucrative contracts. This primarily involves prioritizing relationships.

“Business is a social game. The person with the most relationships, with the highest quality relationships, with the best relationships, wins. That’s the whole game.”

Find high level people you would like to work with, and make yourself known to them.

Reach out to a lot of these people and get on their radar. Send them a quick message,

tell them you’re a big fan of their stuff, and let them know that you’d love to buy them a

drink or a meal if they’re ever in your town (or vice versa). Tom recommends sending

at least one email like this every week.

If you keep doing this consistently, eventually one of the people you reach out to is

going to need a copywriter. Then you say: “Would you like to jump on a call? I have a

lot of experience with this. I can really help you out.”

“When you do this, it will feel like nothing’s happening for the longest time, but then at a certain point you’ll have enough relationships that it becomes very very easy to get new clients.”

3. Setup A Call And Use SPIN Selling

First thing on call: shoot the shit, chit chat, get comfortable, build rapport. Spend

about 5 minutes doing this.

If the client starts steering the conversation and asking about your background or

prices, etc., take control and say, “I’m happy to discuss all of that, but first is it okay if I

ask you a couple of questions just to figure out what you’re looking for, see what your

needs are?” The client is almost guaranteed to say yes to this.

Then start into SPIN Selling.

“It is hands down the easiest and most effortless way to close clients.”

Here are the SPIN Selling steps Tom laid out:

a) Figure out their Situation: where are they now?

• How many customers do you have?

• What kind of customers do you have?

• How big is your email list?

• What kind of revenue/profits are you pulling in? (if appropriate)

b) What are their Goals? What are they aiming for?

• “If everything goes perfectly the next 12 months, where would your business be?

What would it look like?”

• You basically want them to tell you all of their desires.

• Ask follow up questions here and dive deeper. For example, if they say they want

to have 2 new products launched in 12 months, ask what those products are

going to be, who are they for, what will the sale price be, etc.

• You’re trying to figure out what their very most important goal is. For example,

why do they want to have those 2 new products? Is there a revenue goal they’re

aiming for? Or to go even further beyond that, why do they want to reach a

certain level of revenue? Is it for security? Freedom? Prestige? What is the

emotional driver behind it all?

c) What are the Problems or obstacles they need to overcome to reach that goal you’ve identified?

• “What might be another problem? Might there be a third thing in your way?”

• Ask questions like: “How do you mean?” “Can you tell me more about that?”

• Try to summarize each problem in your own words and repeat back to the client

for confirmation. This helps ensure that you fully understand the problem.

• Get them to name the three biggest problems that come to mind first, and then

dive into each problem.

• Your goal now, for each of the three, is to “find the problem behind the

problem.”

d) Underscore the Implications

• Very simple step. Relate the problem back to their goal.

• “If you could fix this problem, how would that help you achieve your goal?”

e) Make your Pitch

• Keep it about the other person. Don’t talk about your credentials and experience.

• Start with the magic words: “Let me see if I understand your situation.”

• And then summarize what you’ve talked about thus far:

• “Your current situation is…”

• “Your goals are…” (talk about the deeper goals you uncovered here)

• “The challenges you’re facing are…” (talk about the deeper

challenges/problems you uncovered here)

• “If you could fix those problems, it would mean…” (implications)

• You want to phrase it as: “I can help you achieve your goal” or “I can take away

those problems you told me about.”

• Example: if they told you about their Facebook ads not converting correctly, you

could offer to set up a full campaign that would allow the client to advertise

profitably. “For every dollar you spend on FB ads, you’d receive $2 in return.”

• Essentially you’re saying: “Here’s what I can do for you, to solve that painful

problem, so you can reach your ultimate goal.”

• Example: “So Niall, to create a full, robust campaign for you, that’s going to

allow you to advertise profitably, so you can scale your business, so you can

break the $10m mark, that you really want… it costs $3,000.”

• Very easy once you’ve asked all those questions and figured out what’s important

to the client.

• Then ask if your summary is correct, if you understood everything properly.

• Once you get confirmation, make your pitch: “Let me tell you very briefly what I

might be able to do for you…”

• If you’ve done everything right up until this point, price will usually be a

triviality.

Assuming the client does ask about the price, you name it and shut up!