Clint Murphy 00:03
Welcome to the pursuit of learning podcast. I’m your host, Clint Murphy. My goal is for each of us to grow personally, professionally, and financially, one conversation at a time. To do that, we will have conversations with subject matter experts across a variety of modalities. My job, as your host, will be to dig out those golden nuggets of wisdom that will facilitate our growth. Join me on this pursuit. Over the last year, writing has become more and more important to me. And one of the greatest lessons that I’ve learned is that when we write, we become a better speaker, we become a better thinker, and we’re able to get across to more people what’s in our mind. Today, I had the pleasure to have a conversation with Ben Putano know about his book, Great Founds Write. And Ben provided us with principles for clear thinking, confident writing, that will allow you to be a better leader, entrepreneur, or founder. If you want to improve your writing, this is a conversation you’re going to want to listen to. I hope you enjoy. Ben, welcome to the podcast. For our listeners who don’t know much about you yet. Can you give us a brief bio rundown on your story?

Ben Putano 01:41
Yeah, great to see you, Clint. I am a writer, and author as of December 6, and book publisher, I’m the founder of Damn Gravity Media. We create books for entrepreneurs along with other forms of branded content, like courses, video, podcasts, and cohorts. And I kind of fell into this world just sort of following my own interests. It started with this love of entrepreneurship, I always wanted to build something. It even goes back a little further than that, I thought I wanted to build buildings first. And I realized pretty quickly, I wasn’t great at math. So I switched gears to trying to build companies. And I’ve always had an affinity for writing. So my first jobs are always, you know, building blogs or freelance writing, etc. And this kind of just built and built and built and turned into a small content marketing agency, which I ran for five years called We Content. And in 2021, or the end of 2020. Like a lot of us, I was sort of, you know, revisiting what mattered, what I wanted to do with work. And I just fell in love with the idea of creating these large, long form complex writing projects, aka books. I, You know, in my opinion, there’s very few mediums that can really create a paradigm shift in someone’s life, and books are at the top of that lists. I know, I have a few books that I know I was a different person after I read them. And I can’t think of a blog post that did that to me, or even a movie that did to that to me, but I think a lot of folks, especially entrepreneurs have that pivotal book they read, and I wanted to create those. So two years in, we have, you know, a few books on our shelf so far. And it’s been awesome. It’s been a great ride.

Clint Murphy 03:43
Excellent. So we’re going to talk about your book, Great Founders Write. And where I want to start with there is Why do you think that Great Founders Write in? Is there any data we have on? What percentage of the might? We know that a lot of the big ones do? And you may be able to highlight some of those, but do we know how many are writers? We know a lot of readers, how many are writers?

Ben Putano 04:09
That’s a great question. I don’t have that data. But here’s what I can tell you at least anecdotally, and I’ve learned a lot recently as well, since since running the Great Founders Write cohort where we’ve worked with like 75, writer, founders, one on one to build their writing habits. So we’ve gotten a lot of information from them about why they write. And it was funny when as I was building the book, you know, I was playing around with a lot of different titles, trying to find that that you know that reason why Great Founders Write and there’s just the entire book ended up being just one reason after another why you should build a writing habit and the benefits of it. The thing I’ve learned as a founder and working directly with founders to build their brands is writing takes you deeper into your expertise further than you ever thought you could go. You know, there’s a I’m sure you’ve heard the question thrown around on Twitter and elsewhere that, you know, people asking what could you share a 20 minute impromptu speech on, which is so sort of like, kind of indicates your expertise? Well, the more you write, especially if you get to the level book, like it’s not a 20 minute speech you’re giving, it’s like a multiple hour speech, 6-8-10 hours that you need to talk in depth about a certain subject. And that level of expertise doesn’t come easily. So you could work in an industry for 20 years. But until you really spend time to codify what you know, it’s almost like you don’t know what you don’t know. So it helps you learn and helps you understand what you learn, which helps you build on that and also share it with others.

Clint Murphy 05:54
It’s a great example, it’s one of the reasons that we have this podcast, is the ability to read a book, write about the book, talk to the author about their book, and then write a thread on Twitter about the conversation about the book. It really cements a lot of that material into your mind. And one of the first places you start is you talk about if we want to write well, we want to be writing with purpose. And to do that we need to, as Stephen Covey says “Begin with the end in mind”, what does that mean to you? And what does that look like in our writing? And for the listeners, what are some prompts we can fire at them to find that purpose in their writing, Ben?

Ben Putano 06:46
Yeah, great question. So this start of the book, writing with purpose came directly from my experience running my content marketing agency, where we worked with founders and their startups to, you know, build their thought leadership authority to build their brands. And one thing I noticed over and over again, having conversations with my clients is that they would go on this long tangent telling me about something in their business, it didn’t matter if they were a tech founder or a, you know, financial advisor, they would go on these long tangents trying to get to the main point, and by the very end of this rant, could could have lasted several minutes. They finally say something like, I say all that to say, or, you know, long story short, or the main point is dot, dot, dot, and then they finally tell me the thing that should have just said, right up front. And we do this a lot in our writing, too, it’s a little more natural in conversation, we can talk in circles in conversation, it doesn’t feel weird. But if you talk, if you do that in your writing, you’re going to lose people immediately. So writing with purpose, or you know, the the first chapter begin with the end of mine simply means, put your main point up front, and understand exactly why you’re writing before you start writing. So what does this look like in practice? You know, if, if every writer tried to get the perfect point, as a very first sentence, every time there won’t be a lot of writing done. So go ahead and write the way you normally write, just write your first draft, talk in circles, talk to yourself, you know, talk to your ancestors, whatever you want to do, just write that first draft. But it’s so important to go back and edit that draft, and put that main point up front. And that main point is probably in the bottom third of your draft. So go find the main point, throw it right back on top. And there’s other ways to others I should say, there’s a lot of ways to, or a lot of reasons why founders, right, you could be writing to simply inform, like to communicate with your team, you could be writing to persuade, you could be writing to sell in a copywriting. You could be writing to teach and train. But the most important step is to know why you’re writing in the first place. So you can then craft everything with purpose after that,

Clint Murphy 09:12
And so when you take that in, you talked a little bit about putting your most important point out first is the concept of the inverted pyramid. And the Air Force has their their bluff method that they use, which, you know, I was thinking about while I was reading the inverted pyramid, and then you had it in the very next chapter. So I was very happy to see that. So that’s usually when we are writing to inform that we’re using those two techniques. Can you differentiate for our listeners? What is writing to inform look like? And how do we use this inverted pyramid and bluff? Is it simply the point up front or is there more to advance?

Ben Putano 09:57
Yeah, great question. So when you’re writing to inform I just like the name of the chapter and what we’ve been talking about implies, you start with the most important point, I think a great example is the, the letter that Jeff Bezos sent to Amazon and, and the world, announcing his stepping down as CEO. That very first line, very first half of the first line gives you the most important information up front, he doesn’t he doesn’t start telling a story about his life as a child, he says, I’m stepping down as CEO, then the second most important point he shares is, what does this mean for me, and he announces that Andy Jassy is taking over as CEO, which implies to me as an Amazon writer, and as a state, if I’m a Amazon stakeholder that Andy has been around for a long time, you’re in good hands. Then after that, Bezos shares, like important details, gives some background information on the decision, etc, etc. And at the very end, he shares a call to action. So the inverted business pyramid, just is a is a simple your mental framework to remind you to say, the most important part up first, then remind your reader what this means for them, then share background information, and then finally, a call to action.

Clint Murphy 11:26
Love it. And would you ever put that call to action up sooner? One of the things I’m finding, often I might make that call to action, the very first thing or if most of our communication is in email, the call to action may actually be right in the subject of the email.

Ben Putano 11:48
Yeah, I love that. And, you know, I think at that point, you’re you’re not just writing to inform you’re writing to persuade or you’re writing to sell.

Clint Murphy 11:57
So you’re more moving, you’re more moving away from informing to alright, we need to get shit done. Subject, action required…, and then you put your bluff. Put your main point up first. Okay, gotcha. And so one thing that I read in that chapter that fascinated me, and I’d love to deep dive it a little with you is, is you had a concept of a product user story, which, and you had a little template? And I’d never I’d never seen that. And it seemed to make so much sense the way you laid the pieces out. And there seemed to be a simple equation, 4 rules. Is that something you can take the listeners through on what it is? How we use it, and why we’re using it that way?

Ben Putano 12:46
So as I, as I built my content marketing agency, I ended up working with a lot of technology companies, and I met a lot of super smart people, almost none of whom would describe themselves as good writers. But there was a subset of people in these companies that were just brilliantly clear. And they were the product managers, the lead engineers, and then the engineering team. And as I thought about what makes them such clear communicators is that they do they’ve been trained to use a template to communicate what they want and need. And that’s the product user story. So typically, a product user story looks something like this, you say it from the perspective of the user themselves, you say, you say, as a and then state the user. So as a entrepreneur, I want to, then state what they want to do not what they want as a feature, but what they want to actually accomplish. So we can say like, as an entrepreneur, I want to get paid faster, so that, then you share a definition of success, like what does success look like for your user. So as an entrepreneur, I want to get paid faster, so that I can reinvest that money, and build a business of my dreams. And then the last piece there is the emotional and rational benefits. So just to recap, again, you are talking to a specific user who wants to take a specific action to achieve a certain definition of success, while achieving benefits, both emotional and rational, that sounds like a lot of information, but it’s really only two or three lines of work. And the result is a very clear purpose for your writing. So if we did this, you know, if we create a user story for each one of our pieces, if I was writing a piece for you, Clint as a, let’s say as a podcaster. I know you wear a lot of hats, but as a podcaster, I would say as a podcaster, I want to start video podcasting so that I reach a larger audience, which is the definition of success, and then share emotional rational benefits so that I can earn a better living, and, you know, help more people pursue higher learning. So with that specific purpose in mind, now I can go out and create a piece of content directly for you.

Clint Murphy 15:20
And so what I love about that is, it can inform us who we’re writing for, assuming we do it well, who we’re writing for, what they want, what emotions they want triggered the results they want. Can we also use that format to drive the hooks for the writing piece? Because if you know what that specific user wants the action, the emotion, do you shift your hook to say, to target that?

Ben Putano 15:57
That is such a good point. I love that approach. In fact, I’ve been using this hook a lot lately, of using direct quotes from the person I’m writing to, or the type of person I’m writing to. Like, I had a viral Twitter thread a few months ago that it was just it was in quotes, it said, I want to write a book, but I don’t know where to start. How many people have that had that exact thought, in their mind. So it’s, you know, and then I wanted to share, like some things to get started. So that’s sort of like, clarity of why your writing only comes from a deep pursuit of who you’re right, or who your audience is, which is, you know, the whole second section of the book. But I love the idea of using this user story as a sort of, like, not the hook itself, but like the raw material for a great hook or a great introduction, because you’re talking directly to that person.

Clint Murphy 16:54
Yeah, you could simply reverse the order. In a way you could say you want to do this, so that you can…Yeah, yeah, um, here’s how, here’s how you did.

Ben Putano 17:07
Yeah, one really overlooked way to grab attention to write a good hook that I think a lot of people miss is just specificity. Just saying something directly to the person you want reading this. Like if I say, if we’re in a crowd, right? If you’re in a crowd, you say, you’re at a concert and you hear someone go, Hey, Chris, no matter what else is going on, around you, if your name is curious, you’re going to turn around. And look, that level of specificity is just such a simple way to grab attention. And, you know, that’s what this user story sort of provides you. A level of specificity about what the exact action they want their exact role, the exact emotional benefits and rational benefits that they’re looking for their exact definition of success. And boom, you have them.

Clint Murphy 17:55
Yeah, love it. Alright, so that is a lot of the material that we will use to inform and then we’re going to talk a little bit about what everybody loves: sales. And so you write that copywriting is sales at scale. And one great piece of advice of writing can do the job of 1000 salespeople. Can you tell us more about your thoughts here and why copywriting is so powerful.

Ben Putano 18:25
So it’s so powerful for a founder specifically, because we are working with such limited resources. If you have 1000 salespeople, or the resources for a 1000 salespeople go for it. But most of us don’t. copywriting is that ability to talk to that specific customer, like we just discussed, and move them through your funnel towards a sale. So whether you are the you know, whether you’re a solo founder, or you know, you have a team of 100. A founder’s job is to sell and copywriting is your number one tool to do that, especially now that we all work and, you know, a lot of us work in remote environments and our customers are often worldwide. You know, this is different than going to a a, you know, a large expo or large, you know, business conference and talking directly to your customers. Copywriting lets you do that all over the world at scale.

Clint Murphy 19:29
And for most of us, if we’re a large company, we can have a full copywriting team. But if we’re the founder or the leader of a small organization, a lot of the techniques they use may not work for us. And so I love that throughout, t’s perfect. And one of the ones that you have is the ABC one two threes of copywriting, which is as perfect as it gets for me to be able to remember, what are the ABC one two threes of copywriting that people should be aware of and use when they’re writing their copy?

Ben Putano 20:12
Yeah, it worked out perfectly. ABC 123. A stands for attention. Well, let me back up for a second. Why? You know, I thought we needed yet another copywriting framework because there’s a lot out there, right. There’s a yes, pain agitate solution, there’s AIDA, attention, interest, something, action, decision action, something like that. So there’s a lot out there. So why did we need another one. I have used all these copywriting frameworks in one way or another over the years. And since I was working with startups so much, there always seem to be something missing. And what I realized is that these really famous traditional copywriting frameworks were all created like 50 to 60 years ago, or, or further back, you know, in the 1920s, and 30s, at the start of the Mad Men era. And they were created for massive companies, companies that had brand awareness already, had massive marketing budgets. All they needed to do was address the pain, you know, do a little agitation, you know, get people riled up, and then offer a solution. They didn’t need to talk about why the customer should trust them, specifically, that was secondary. With a startup, you have so many more hurdles to cover, especially today, when the competition is fiercer than ever. You have to not only convince the customer to trust you, but also get them to actually take any sort of action at all. And that that means not just talking about a pain, but talking about a change that’s happening in their world. So anyway, that’s why I thought there was a need for a startup specific copywriting framework. And it goes through ABC 123. So it all starts with attention. We were just talking about grabbing attention. Clint, how do you, how do you get someone attention in such a crowded world? And there’s a few ways to do that. We talked about specificity. That’s a great way to grab attention. You can also talk about a, you know, an emotion that they might be feeling. You can make people laugh, you can make people mad, you can make people just say, Oh, I get it now. Lastly, you could create fonk, which is fear of not knowing.

Clint Murphy 22:23
Okay, I want to I want to get into fonk with you let’s dive in, and then we’ll come back to the other ones. So what is funk?

Ben Putano 22:31
Fonk is it’s similar to fear of missing out. But I think online, it’s more, it’s more appropriate and specific to say, a fear of not knowing. So a great one here is How to Win Friends and Influence People who doesn’t want to win friends and influence people this book, the title promises to teach you, but you won’t know the answer to that until you crack the cover.

Clint Murphy 22:59
So your fear there is, well, if I don’t read that book, I won’t have friends or be able to influence people.

Ben Putano 23:06
Exactly, exactly. You know, Carnegie’s book wouldn’t have worked as well, if it was just called, like, How to Have Better Conversations. That’s the solution. But he’s taught, but instead the title, which was actually written by a brilliant copywriter. It’s focused on the interests that people want to know. So this is like the classic curiosity gap that you’re opening up, there’s a million ways to do it. But it starts with identifying what your customer wants, and then teasing out that they’re going to learn it if they take that next step. If they open that book, read that thread, open your email, etc. Okay, so that’s how you grab attention. And there’s a lot of ways to grab attention, right Clint, like this is this is just a few options for you. But it all starts there. And this is pretty standard across copyrighting frameworks. But where ABC 123 gets a little different is step two, this is where we really start telling a story. So B stands for big change or an idea. Your customers are not going to make a change in their life, big or small, unless they’re really dedicated to it, unless there’s a big change happening in their world. So this idea comes from Andy Raskin who’s like the king have strategic narratives. And he always tells his audience to create a create this dichotomy in a world where things were one way yesterday and completely different today. There has been a big change in the world. And the example Andy always uses is the company is Zora, which is a subscription management platform. And Zora talks about the big change, which is we now live in the subscription economy. So that is the change is happening in the world, and this is where you start sort of setting the scene for your customers about why they should, why they need to make a change, something is shifting under their feet. And if they don’t react, they’re going to miss out an opportunity or lose something that they really care about. And so even in that big change, you’re you’re still using a bit of fonk or FOMO. Something’s so big is happening. And if you don’t take part of it, here’s what you’re going to miss out on. Exactly, here’s what you’re going to miss out on. Or here’s what you could be losing, which is a whole other, you know, psychological dichotomy we can dig into.

Clint Murphy 25:40
Okay, so that’s a and b. In where do we go on C?

Ben Putano 25:44
So C is where, in my opinion, this is like the crux of the entire framework. C stands for care. In other words, “why should I care?” And I had this in quotes, because this is the question that your customer is asking every time they come across any piece of content, let alone yours. Why should I care about this? There’s a million things trying to grab my attention, million things I think I should care about, things in my control and things not in my control. Why should I care about this? Generally speaking, people care about like, four things, right? They care about their health, they care about their wealth, they care about time, and they care about their happiness or contentedness, whatever that looks like. So, when you talk about why a customer should care about your product or service, it’s really helpful to tie it back to one of those four core things, health, wealth, time and happiness. Now, I mentioned that people care about losing things, as well as gaining them. People actually care way more about losing their health, wealth and happiness, and they actually care about gaining them. My friend, Justin Moore, who’s a coach for creators and folks trying to build brands and attract sponsorships does such a good job of making you care. He says, I will help you negotiate your dream sponsorship so that you stop leaving money on the table. You stop leaving money on the table, not so you make more money. That’s, that’s, that’s a gain, which is powerful. But he says, I’m going to help you stop leaving money on the table, I’m going to help you stop losing money. So he’s invoking multiple things that we care about here. First, Dream sponsorships, things that make me happy, things that make me wealthy. And then lastly, he’s, he’s, he’s creating a loss, a feeling of loss, if I don’t work with Justin, by telling me that I am leaving money on the table.

Clint Murphy 27:43
A couple of couple. So that’s our loss aversion theory that we’re trying to try to invoke there. And then you talked about the four primary needs that people are trying to meet. And then you also, you list, hey, here’s some secondary ones, seven or eight. And one of the things that became clear when you gave the example of the car company, was that we want to be very careful to make sure we’re moving our copy up the chain, and we’re not targeting the lower needs that won’t sell. Does that make sense? Ben? And do you want to chime in a little on that one?

Ben Putano 28:29
Yeah, you know, the number one mistake in copywriting that we all make, I’ve made this mistake too, Clint. Because it’s such low hanging fruit literally, we go directly to offering a discount, or giving a bargain deal to our customers because we think that’s what they need. In reality, this is the lowest level motivator in like, in known humanity. So there’s a great copywriter named Drew Eric Whitman, who wrote a book called Cashvertising, which is a funny name, but it’s a great book and he discusses this list of needs and motivations that he calls the life force eight and I’ll just run through real quick and you’ll notice something kind of funny that discounts aren’t even on this list, but he talks about you know survival, sustenance, freedom, companionship, comfortable living, achievement, you know, caring for loved ones, social acceptance. These are like the things that motivate us, which I again like sort of just kind of lumped under those big four the health, wealth, time and happiness. Then he has he offers nine more motivations which he calls learned motivations, things that society teaches us we should quote unquote want. The very bottom of that list is bargains and this is the place we go first when trying to copyright. If we give you a deal, we give you 20% off you’re gonna buy this. No I won’t. Well, that is that that moves the needle, but it doesn’t move the needle enough to make me care. It’ll move the needle enough to perhaps generate some urgency, which we can which we can talk about at the end of the ABC 123. framework. But it’s not enough to make me care long. I don’t care about saving $10 on something I don’t want. You have to make them want it, which means appealing to your customers health, wealth, time and happiness.

Clint Murphy 30:21
And that was the key right there. The 20% may make a difference. If I created the desire by appealing to your lifeforce eight and then I added a sense of urgency: 20% off for the next four customers. But I’ve already laid the framework above that, here’s how it’s going to meet your desires, your wants and desires.

Ben Putano 30:55
So that actually brings us to like the second half of ABC 123 framework, and I’ll move through it real quick, because at this point, now, you’re just sort of, to me, this is like dotting the i’s, and crossing the t’s, ABC is all about really making your customer care about you. You grab their attention, you you shared the big change in their world, and now they care. 123 is all about just closing the deal. One is solution, what are your features and your benefits? You need both, right? Number two, why you? So now you are answering the question, Why should I trust you, which is a huge hurdle for most startups. So you need that social proof, you need three things, actually, you need to share your experience, you need to share that you’re trustworthy, which is like testimonials and social proof. Like no one wants to be your very first customer, you know what I mean? And then three, customers want to know, especially with startups, they want to know that you’re in this for the long haul. So what is your mission? Why do you do what you do? You may be brand new, you may be six months in or a few years in, but like, if you have a strong enough long term enough vision, people are going to buy into that and they’re going to trust you. So one is solution. Two is why you and then three, which we just hinted at is urgency. How do you get someone to take action now? Sure, they might care about it a lot. But we’re busy, right? Like, you know, my dog needs to go to the vet. There’s things that come up. So why should I do this now? And there’s three ways to generate urgency right now. First, is scarcity. So we talked about discounts just now, even better when that discount is for a limited time. Actually, there’s a great real life example of this. Remember a few years ago when, this is actually probably more five or 10 years ago now. But JC Penney got a brand new CEO, I think he was like the head of like Johnson or something? Y id of all of JC Penney’s discounts. And he just said, everything is low price all the time. And JC Penney’s sales plummeted, went through the floor. Because now about the low prices, it’s about the scarcity. People want that deal. They want something that’s rare. They wanted that limited time deal now, so what’s driving sales? Anyway, so that, you know, scarcity is a really powerful urgency, creator, scarcity of deal scarcity of time. If you’re running a course, or something and scarcity of space. There’s a lot of ways to do the scarcity of your specific time. And then you can, the second way to generate urgency is oh, sorry, I’m totally blanking here. Just pulling up my notes. Hold on one second. Clint. Sorry.

Clint Murphy 33:43
No worries.

Ben Putano 33:46
So the second way to generate urgency is just using action oriented language. So people, there’s a great there’s another great story from psychology, I believe this was first talked about or made famous, at least by Robert Cialdini and the book Influence. It’s when you give somebody directive, a direct action, they’re more likely to take that action. So if you’re in the middle of an emergency, someone fainted on the sidewalk, and you were, you needed help. If you shout it out, someone grab an ambulance, they’re not gonna, you know, there are people are not going to actually take action. But if you look at the person in the in the blue coat and say, Hey, you in the blue coat, go call an ambulance, that person is going to do it. That’s an example of action oriented language. So you can use this really easily on your website, or when you’re building writing call to action on social media. So instead of saying request a demo or learn more, say something very simple exceed an action or start blank, start writing start building start something right to imply that when they hit that button, they’re going to start taking action immediately. That generates urgency. And then the last way to generate urgency is to create an offer that’s so like stupidly good, that it’s just easier to take action now than to wait. So this could be just a crazy good pricing offer, like, you know, I think Mastermind a lot of companies do like $1 for the first six months, which is crazy. I can’t speak to the efficacy of the business model there, but it works for sure. Otherwise, they wouldn’t be using it. Another great way to make a no brainer offer is to use something like Google one click Sign Up, or Twitter one click sign up. When I see those buttons on a website, I know it’s going to take me 15 seconds to sign up. And I might as well just do it now. Otherwise, I’ll forget, I want to do this thing. So I’m just going to get it done right away. So you’re kind of like so moving the friction through Yeah, signup process.

Clint Murphy 35:44
Yeah, that’s where I was going there. And the one thing you talked about as well is, is why is a guarantee so important on that offer, especially when we’re starting out and we don’t have the track record? And what if you’re running a cohort as an example for founders and writing? What what sort of guarantee will you throw on there that people should be thinking about them?

Ben Putano 36:12
Yeah, great question. So guarantees, just make us feel safe. It’s always a risk to spend money on something. And it’s even more of a risk when you are spending money on a less proven commodity, like a startup or a new cohort or something like that. So a guarantee just tells the customer like, hey, there is a backdoor here, like you can get out of this, if something goes haywire. So a really simple guarantee, one that I offer for our Great Founders Write cohort is you sign up today, and you have seven days, you have one whole week after the cohort starts to decide if this is right for you or not. And if it’s not, you get your money back guarantee, no matter what. We’ve had multiple people sign up just on that guarantee alone because they’re like on the fence, they don’t know if they have time, they don’t know if they’re, you know, they don’t know if they’re in the right position to write or to take this cohort, or they don’t know if it’s the right thing for them. But at least they will try it out because they know they can get their money back. And that alone will get people through the door, the people who are on the fence.

Clint Murphy 37:14
So seven days into the course if you want out no questions asked.

Ben Putano 37:18
So that yeah, that’s worked for me. And it’s a five week cohort. So like one week represents a full cycle of the cohort. Right? Like you will attend a meeting, you will write something and then like, before you attend that, that next meeting, if you go through that entire cycle and realize you don’t have time, or it’s not for you, you can get your money back so they can experience. I think maybe the principle here is like, let customers experience the full thing of your product or service. And then decide whether or not it’s the right thing for them

Clint Murphy 37:48
And so how would you contrast that, a lot of times you’ll see as an example, an outcome based guarantee, if you take the full course you do the work… end you’re unsatisfied, you can get up you can get a refund

Ben Putano 38:06
Those are great if you have a way to quantify the outcome, I say go for it, I was just talking to a friend of mine who is considering you’re starting up a cohort or a paid community and his product is can be quantified, like you there is like monetary outcome if you do the work. So we are talking about the efficacy of creating a guarantee like that, you know, like you spend this money and by the end of the cohort, I guarantee you will make your money back if you do these things. Not every product or service is set up like tha,t you can’t always, like for me, it’s really hard to quantify. I’m not teaching professional writers, right? I’m teaching founders who are writing to grow their business and become their best selves. So it’s hard to quantify that number. But if you’re able to quantify the outcome, I say go for it. And if you if you don’t go for it, I sometimes wonder like, what you’re worried about? Like, are you know, are you confident that you can deliver what you’re saying you’re delivering without, you know, if you’re not giving me that guarantee? But again, you know, there’s a lot of different guarantees that work. You don’t necessarily need it, but I know for a fact that would get more people through the door.

Clint Murphy 39:18
Oh, I perfect. Yeah, it’s definitely a hack that I’ve heard a lot of people in the community talk about. So I’m aligned with you on that one. We’re gonna switch direction. So you talked about we connect, and you talked about scaling the business. And then one of the biggest problems you ran into was you realized shit, like, I’m not training people well and it was a bit of a disaster for you. And so you created a bit of a framework for people that they can use in order to train their people as they scale because a lot of people that will be reading this book, whether they’re founders, maybe they’re founding an agency, and they want to go down your path and they want to hire writers and get them writing for them. But all of a sudden, their clients aren’t receiving what they want. Can you share with the listeners what happened to you and what you now do differently in your new training plan?

Ben Putano 40:19
Yeah, absolutely. Because this was, honestly, Clint, this was like the lowest point of my entrepreneurial life. When shit the fan here, this was like back in 2018. And I was growing We Content, I had just I finally figured out my positioning, right. Like, before, I was writing content for kind of everybody. And then I realized that like, half of my clients were tech companies. So we repositioned as, and, we tooled up as a content marketing agency for tech startups. And it worked like gangbusters. Like I literally, you know, we doubled our client, our client list overnight, which means we had twice as much work on hand. And so I needed to go higher. And this was where the problem started. Now, a lot of people say that hiring is like, the most important skill for any CEO. And I’m not disagreeing with that. But it’s more of like a statement here, like hiring is important. And also, training your team is just as important because you can hire the best people in the world. And they’re going to fail miserably if you don’t give them some sort of guide rails. And it’s different for every person, I’m not, you know, it’s different for different situations. If you hire a senior person, they need some sort of direction, but maybe not a, you know, a step by step training guide. In my case, though, I needed more training. So I wish I had met, I don’t know if you’re familiar with Andrew Berry, but he runs a, he runs a corporate training development company called Curious Lion. And I wish that I had known him back when I was going through this back in 2018 because he would have saved me a lot of time and money, like his company specializes in training folks. What I was doing instead was hiring people that I still am convinced were the right hires. I was hiring freelance writers and freelance editors at the time, and their portfolios look great, and they had experience in the industry. So I thought things were going to go great. Where I failed to support them was helping them realize the unique perspective of our clients, I failed to train them on our clients voice, which is a pretty big thing in the Content Marketing World. And I also failed to train them on the standard of editing and clarity that our cut our clients had come to expect. So after doubling our client list, I had about 30 articles in the pipeline, which if I was writing them, myself would take me at least an entire month, if not a couple of months to create. So we had 30 articles in our pipeline and I send the first few articles off to our oldest client, our oldest and best client. And I didn’t really do a thorough check of these pieces. I just assumed they’re good to go. And I get this email back a day later from the CEO. And long story short, it says, the first articles were great, the first articles you sent me the ones I wrote myself, were awesome. But I wanted to tell you this, because I wish someone would tell me, the quality has dropped off significantly. And then he goes on to list like three or four things that were terrible, like really, like, really painful language for me to hear. He says, I spent more time editing these last three or four articles than all the other art of articles combined. The lack of understanding of our product and platform, in our company in general is so frustrating. And there’s zero conversational tone and our voice from the first level articles is completely gone. These feel worse than reading a research paper. And at this point, I had so many articles in the pipeline, I couldn’t I couldn’t course correct fast enough, I had to pay all my freelancers, because, you know, it wasn’t their fault. They they just did what they were, you know, I told them to do. But then I had to go back and rewrite all of these articles, which put me in a hole for about three months. And in that time, I wasn’t bringing income because I told my clients not to pay me until you know, they got their their articles back. And it was a huge mess. And it was a massive wake up call. And that’s when you know when I when I met Andrew Berry last year, I was like where were you in 2018 When? When I was going through all this?

Clint Murphy 44:37
What did that look like you for next steps and and how did you change that to allow yourself to scale?

Ben Putano 44:44
Yeah, it took time to figure it out. Andrew would have Andrew Berry would have cut my learning curve in half probably but here’s what I did. Here’s what I recommend in the book. This framework actually comes directly from Andrew but it happens the same process that I went threw myself that I sort of like, blindly figured out on the way. Andrew offers a five step framework for writing training material, which by the way, like I was, I was hesitant to put this so far up into the book because like people, you know, you want to put your most important information at the top of the book, right, you know, say the most important thing first. And I was hesitant to put this chapter in the first in the first section. But I’ve actually come back to use this chapter myself more than any other part of the book. Anytime I am, whether that’s, you know, writing a style guide, I’m creating a lot of courses and cohort material right now. So anytime I’m doing that, even when I’m writing an educational blog post or Twitter thread, I come back and use this chapter and use this framework. So there’s five steps here. First is building blocks. So you need to know what resources you have available. Really importantly, you need to know what principles your readers or your students need to remember. Andrew says, like if, you know, your customers, or your learners are only gonna remember like a handful of things. So identify like the top three to five things that you need them to remember. And then finally, a really important piece here, this was a big wake up call for me when I realized this, you need to identify your readers or your learners level of prior knowledge. So what type of knowledge are they coming into this project or into this course with? So going back to We Content, what I realized that, yes, the writers I hired, had writing experience, and even technical experience. So that’s their level of prior knowledge, but they knew nothing about my actual clients, they didn’t know about their points of view, their content, they know where they think the industry is heading. And that is absolutely crucial in the content marketing world. So that something doesn’t feel like a research paper, or something that you know, an AI tool just spit out. So those are the building blocks, resources, principles, prior learning outcomes, prior knowledge, excuse me. Step two, is, before you write down any piece of training material, you need to identify the key learning outcomes, which is simply a fancy way of saying like, what do you want them to do differently after reading this training material or taking this course. So again, to tie back to We Content, what I needed my writers to do, was, understand my clients, I call it the Golden Circle, their why how and what. I needed them to have all the research available to write a good article, and I needed them to know, what was an acceptable level of editorial excellence for them. So those are the key learning outcomes for me. So now, when I create training material, I, you know, you can use a SMART framework, or you can just sort of, you can just develop this, you know, on your own. But when I’m creating training material, now, I identify the change that I want my readers or my learners, or my, or my new employees to make, after taking this material, like, how is their work going to be different after doing this? That’s just a really key question. And it takes things from like really abstract, to very, very, very actionable,

Clint Murphy 48:33
Which you can also use in marketing the course. You’ll go from here to here.

Ben Putano 48:40
Exactly. Here’s exactly what you’ll learn. That’s what people want to let you know, it’s funny I, you know, when I developed the Great Founds Write cohort, that that was another step that took me deeper into learning this material, like I’d already written the book, but developing cohort material forced me to get very, very actionable. And I had to go back to this chapter, again, to make sure I was identifying those key learning outcomes.

Clint Murphy 49:07
And zoning in on it with you, I may be in the process of creating a cohort right now Ben, so this section, I was like, Oh, this is a perfect section for creating a cohort. It doesn’t have to be training my people at work, it can simply be, I want to train people on how to grow on Twitter. Let’s talk about how to do that. Let’s create the storyboard. Understand the delivery format, etc.

Ben Putano 49:38
You know, that does exactly right. And so the last few steps, you’re, you’re now getting into creating the material. So you start with delivery format. What – is this going to be a written only course? Is this gonna be a chapter in a book, this is going to be a video course or is this going to be a cohort, then the delivery format is almost just as important as the material itself. I, I remember. So like I’m like a, a wealth of useless knowledge. But my crowning piece of useless knowledge is knowing the animal classifications or the classifications of living things. Because kingdom, phylum, class, order, family, genus, species, kingdom, phylum, class, order, family, genus, species. I remember that forever, because when I was like in seventh grade, my science teacher drilled this information into us, she made us repeat these classifications of living things over and over and over again, and all these like funny voices. First we set it like, we were like, you know, having tea with the Queen of England, so it’d be like kingdom, phylum, class, order, family, genus, species. And then we say it like a mouse, and then we say, like a lion. And we say, like we’re singing, you know, you know, at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, we just went through all these, all these different like, recitations of these classifications, and it’s just completely lodged into my brain, which, when I was writing the chapter like this kept coming back to me as a just a great example of the importance of delivery format. I’m not saying that is the format you go through, but figuring out what is going to make your material most sticky. And and go for it. Like when I’ve run this cohort, for example, I’ve actually found the stickiest delivery format is not really the lessons I give. But when we get the lessons and then have people talk about those lessons in one on one breakouts. So I go through. So like actually, when when we do the hook writing framework, or the hook writing lesson in the Great Gounders Write cohort, we will start with the lesson and go through the steps. I will go through like some strategies for writing good hooks. And then we’ll go into one on one breakouts, the cohort members will pull out their most recent pieces that they’ve written. And then they will critique and improve their their hooks. So you’re not just learning but you’re then immediately implementing that learning. That has worked for the Great Founders Write cohort.

Clint Murphy 52:08
That makes sense. Okay, yeah. And so a direction shift. Again, one of the things that a lot of founders have a challenge with sometimes, because you, when you start your business, you have to be dealing with a lot of stress. And that will often lead to individuals, like we picture Steve Jobs, or individuals who seem to be lacking in empathy. And so in our writing, that’s very important, so that we can get to know our customers and our target audience, and we can find their voice is to be able to put ourselves in their shoes and empathize with them. What are some questions that you would throw at people to say, hey, just ask yourself these questions. And you should start to be able to develop that empathy, or at least find the voice of that person you’re trying to write for.

Ben Putano 53:08
Yeah, that’s a great question, Clint. I am such a strong believer in writing with empathy, which sounds rather hot, like who isn’t? Who doesn’t want to write with empathy, right? So many of us forget to actually consider what our reader wants and needs. So you know, there’s a lot of examples of this gone wrong, like, you know, the, there’s a, there’s a story about, you know, the Tata Nano, which is a, this little car that was supposed to revolutionize the automotive industry in India that completely bombed because of four stupid little words, that they added up to their slogan, which was the world’s cheapest car. And it’s just so utterly lacking in empathy. It’s almost comical, in hindsight, and would be if, you know, hundreds of people, you know, didn’t lose their jobs over this. And, you know, the company, you know, faltered mightily, but they lacked all sort of understanding of what their readers, not just what they wanted, but what they needed. So that, you know, hearing that story, and you know, thinking back on the work I’ve done with founders, and in my own writing, I kind of have like, six questions I go through these days to make sure that I’m hitting the mark. The first most important question is who I’m writing to, it’s funny, you know, if, if you’re if you’re a, if you write a lot like this, I think this question is so obvious, but like, for a lot of founders I meet who are just getting started. This alone is a revelation. Who am I writing to? You don’t you know, so many of us just default to trying to write to everybody. But if you can get back to that specific person, it’s going to help you a lot. Just picturing that person alone can do wonders for you. And I like to pick an actual person in my life, or an actual customer that I’m writing to. I will say like I’m writing this for Clint, who is a podcaster who is building a cohort, right? That alone goes a long way. But then the second question I asked is what they want. So what are they telling me that they want? That’s really important to know. Because that will actually grab their attention, going back to specificity of your hooks, like telling them what they want, repeating that back to them will, will get their attention. But more important than what they want, is what they actually need. So this actually goes back to the Tata Nano story, the company thought that, you know, their customers wanted a cheap car. So if that was, that was the only thing that was true, then the slogan world’s cheapest car should have worked beautifully. But what they actually needed was a safe way to transfer their families, and also a way to move up in society, they needed a status symbol in their lives. And nobody wants to be seen driving the world’s cheapest car. So that is what your customer needs. And this is where, you know, this, if you have a unique insight on what your customers need, you’re going to make, you know, you’re going to build a large audience and make a lot of money. But that’s really important what they want, versus what they need. And then what stands in their way, like, you know, if, if what they want and need is so important to them, Why haven’t they gotten it yet? There’s obstacles, there’s mountains that we have to climb. There’s villains, there’s, you know, internal and external people stopping us from getting, you know, what we want and need. So what are those things? And really digging into that will help you develop solutions. And then fifth question I asked myself is, how can I help? What’s my unique capability to help them get through this? And then last, but not least, I told you, I use this question all the time. I asked myself again, like, why should they care about this? Yeah. So like, how is this going to relate back to their health, wealth, time and happiness?

Clint Murphy 56:48
The And how have you found that changes the way you approach writing? How long have you been using these prompts for yourself? And are your students using them and saying, Wow, this is really changing how I approach my writing.

Ben Putano 57:05
Yeah, so I developed these questions back in 2018, when my business almost fell apart, when I realized that training my writers properly and you know, along with not understanding the client, they didn’t understand the the specific customer that my clients were writing to. So that’s when I really started to dig into who the reader was, what they want, what they need, what’s standing in their way. How can the client help them? And then why should they? Why should they care? Yeah, we go through these questions all the time. In the cohort. It’s honestly, when I’m reviewing someone’s writing. The first two questions I asked myself are one, why are you writing this and two, who is this for? And that tends to unlock a lot of the issues that I see.

Clint Murphy 57:55
I love that and the next thing I wanted to talk to you about is the power of persuasion, and the four steps that we can use to persuade people and then also tie into that, how do we what are some of the things we can do to make sure that the persuasion we’re using is ethical, if you will?

Ben Putano 58:23
Sure. So I separated persuasion from copywriting. Because if you treat everything, like a sale, you’re not gonna get very far, that means there’s like, you’re gonna win, you’re gonna win a sale, you’re gonna close a sale. And that’s not always the case. Persuasion is more of like, building Win Win opportunities, it’s getting someone on your side in a negotiation or someone on your team, you know, as an employee, or even just like getting your team aligned on a certain direction, these are all persuasion, these aren’t sales. Because a sale implies like you can either win or lose it. Persuasion takes longer. It’s a little more subtle. And there’s typically not like a literal money transaction. But the problem with persuasion is that most people think it’s very, very, like, gross, a lot of people believe that persuasion is inherently unethical. And that’s just not true. There’s a lot, just like any powerful means of communication or any powerful tool, you can use it for good or ill. So I wanted to make that distinction that there is a way to persuade ethically. And the first step is knowing that if you don’t think you can persuade ethically, you’re never going to be persuasive. But there is ways to do it. So step one is being really having a lot of conviction in your position. So do I believe deeply and say, like my business or my services, or do I believe deeply in a direction we should go? I developed this idea after reading Sunil Gupta’s book called Bankable which is a study on why certain founders get funded and others don’t, which is a great book highly recommended for any entrepreneur, whether you’re raising money or not, frankly, and the key distinction he found between the founders who raise money and the founder who didn’t was conviction. So that’s step one, you need to truly believe. So basically, if you can’t convince yourself of a direction, like you have no chance of convincing others. Of course, this could backfire. Right? Like a lot of people have conviction and bad things. We just saw this with, you know, SPF and Sam Franklin freedom FTX. He certainly had conviction in what he was doing, building a Ponzi scheme. But that’s not enough to be ethical. So the second step is honesty. And I treat this like the court treats, many like kind of gray area things where they say, if an objective third party looked at my position, would they conclude that I’m being honest and transparent? That’s a great question. This is actually the question they ask in, in trademark, or copyright infringements. You know, if I, if I created a logo that looks a lot like the Nike swoosh, they will ask the question, you know, the question they’re basing their their ruling on is like, Will an objective third party look at these and could they confuse them, basically. So it’s a similar question, like, if I brought you into our negotiations, Clint, would you tell me that I’m being honest and transparent, and it’s just really helpful for me at least to to put myself in someone else’s shoes in that position, and try to see both sides from a completely other person’s angle. And if you can’t do that, literally bring someone in to serve as an objective third party, find a trusted, non biased person to to help you get some perspective on it.

Clint Murphy 1:01:42
And so once you’ve once you’ve delivered on the on the Win Win, and the conviction, honesty, how do you go about doing the persuasion?

Ben Putano 1:01:54
Yeah, so, you know, like you just mentioned, you want to make sure that this is a win win opportunity that both parties are getting something out of this? And then finally, like, does the other party still have a choice? Like, it’s not persuasion if you say, like, if you talk to, you know, someone on your team and say, like, Hey, we’re gonna go this direction. And if you don’t comply, you’re fired.

Clint Murphy 1:02:16
Although, although although I heard a certain someone, someone I mean, I don’t want to get in trouble on the platform that feeds me. Someone, someone, someone may have said, Hey, by Thursday, you have to decide, okay, are you on or off? Your choice?

Ben Putano 1:02:34
I can see that that’s persuasive. But is it ethical? I’m not sure. Yeah. So so yeah. So that’s how I think of ethical persuasion. And there’s a few tools you can use to to build your case, per se. First, is establishing credibility, you know, are you an expert in this space? And if not, how can you bring expert voices in to, to strengthen your case. Two is to find common ground. So this goes back to that this is why I talked about persuasion in the section in my book about empathy, because you need to understand the other person’s point of view and what’s going to be a win win for them. So you find common ground. Third, using vivid examples is actually a great way to be persuasive. I think the default for a lot of founders, especially if you’re like of the analytical persuasion, or persuasion. If you’re the analytical mind, you think numbers are what moves people. And it’s really the opposite. It’s stories and narratives and vivid examples that really persuade and then it’s the numbers that sort of turn around and allow a rational person to justify why they want to make one move or another. Like my favorite example of this is from Sara Blakely, the founder of Spanx and she’s the ultimate hustler, like sold fax machines door to door. You know, she when she started Spanx, she literally went from department store store to department store trying to get these on shelves, and she was talking with the senior buyer of Macy’s and this person, another she was another woman too. So like she was a potential customer of Spanx. She just the senior buyer didn’t get why anyone would want to use Spanx. So Sara literally took and showed the senior buyer the difference in the way her dress fell in boom, that was all the senior buyer needed to see like a see a vivid example of this product in action. And then finally is connecting emotionally again, this is where this is this is a another act of empathy. This is not just you know, you’re not just, you know, threatening someone’s job or offering them more money. You need to really understand what they want and what they need, you know and help them connect this decision to you know, an emotion

Clint Murphy 1:04:58
And which are also ways that you can use you know, you talked about having a session on writing hooks with the founders, these are some of the things that you want to do when you’re laying out a hook to persuade your audience, hey, come in and read what I’m about to write. So if you’re connecting emotionally, are you using vivid examples? Are you using personal credibility or are you borrowing credibility for from others. These are all techniques, we can also use to persuade someone to simply read what we write. Is that accurate?

Ben Putano 1:05:38
Absolutely. And, you know, you mentioned, you know, borrowing credibility, the four the four pieces, you know, the four steps to build becoming more persuasive, I borrowed from a USC professor named Jay Conger, who has done a lot of research on his, he wrote a whole book on persuasion. And he lists out these four steps, establishing credibility, finding common ground, using vivid examples, and connecting emotionally. And Clint, by the way, I’m really glad that you, you see these tools, as flexible as I do. It’s actually really hard to write this book at times, because every piece of it, I thought, oh, that could also be used for writing hooks, this copywriting framework could also be used, you know, to build your audience, it’s not just sales, like all these tools are so flexible, which I think is one of the powers of writing for founders, you’re building, not just a tool set, but like a tool set of these, like these ultra multi function tools. And you can mix and match them as you need. As you get more experience, you can use them, you can wield them and more unique ways. All these things from this persuasion framework to like ABC 123 copyrighting framework are really, really flexible, so don’t get mired into, you know, using just one of these frameworks for the prescribed function, you know, that I have in the book. They’re really, really flexible.

Clint Murphy 1:07:02
And I think, Ben, because because of the number of things you’re doing and touching, I think that’s part of it, the more you write content online, and the more you create, the more I think you start to see that things aren’t stuck in a single lane. So if I take this paradigm, and I apply it here, this could work with this, A can help me with B. Oh, hey, we can tie this from psychology into this with copywriting. And that’s how ultimately, we become better at everything we do is if I talk to 50 authors a year, across a wide arena of subjects. But then I start to say, well, how can I take little pieces of what Ben said, and tie that into what Steve Magness said, tie that into… and just start putting the pieces together, you start to come up with your own frameworks that no one’s even seen yet. And that’s, that’s where the fun and the magic happens is making all of that tie together.

Ben Putano 1:08:12
Absolutely. I like to think of all these tools as frameworks, like you mentioned, as opposed to say, like templates, or templates is like is like mad is like cut and paste like it’s it’s painting by numbers where these frameworks are techniques you can use to paint a masterpiece.

Clint Murphy 1:08:28
You know, when I looked at the next one, it’s less a less a template, less a framework, it’s more well, how do we fix things? Because when you look at, one of the biggest problems I see with people who start writing online and start creating content, is it’s too complex, ambiguous, verbose. It’s, like so many ideas in one sentence, and they’re like, oh, what am I reading? Like what are you actually trying to tell me? And so you, you laid out some really good ideas to simplify our writing? And you have 8 you know, you don’t have to go through all eight. I mean, people should go read that read the book to get some of this great material that you’re throwing down. But what are some of your favorite ones in the in the eight that you think people should be using to simplify their writing and have more clarity?

Ben Putano 1:09:30
Yeah, I’ll give you a few. And these are the these are the ones the that I share directly with the cohort as well, because we also don’t have time to go through all eight, although they’re all very, very useful. The first very simple rule, quote unquote rule I like to follow is KISS keep it short and straightforward. In other words, if there is a shorter way to say something, figure that out and say it. It could be an entire phrase or it could be a single it could be a single word. So instead of saying, “in order to”, all you have to do is actually just say “to”, to do this, instead of saying “in order to do this”, this might be a little maniacal, but like when I write, I literally count the syllables. When I’m editing, I should say, not when I’m writing. But when I, when I’m editing, I literally count the syllable and if there’s a shorter syllable way to say something, I will default to that. Because I want, I want to give people as much meat on the bone as possible. And the way you do that is to keep it short and straightforward. The other one I love is the power of one. So just say one thing, in each sentence, make one point in each paragraph, and even it just works on the level of books. Every great book has one big idea. Atomic Habits has one big idea. And that is build these small habits to create transformational results, the entire book is built on that one idea. So it’s almost like a Russian nesting doll situation, like, you know, every level, every unit of your writing should have one thing that you’re focused on. Every sentence, every paragraph, every chapter, and then even every book, power one. The third piece in this, this is an odd real eye opener for a lot of founders, especially if you have like an academic background. It’s making it personal. So making your writing more personal, if you are, if the last time you wrote significantly was in college, you’re terrible at this. Because in college, we’re taught to write very formally, and when we write formally, it’s typically means we’re using third party language. So you know, instead of saying, you know, you and I are going to the store, it’s saying like, the friends are going to the store, or worse off, say like when one goes to the store. Third party language is very impersonal, you’re literally referring to someone else, not in this little room between the writer and the reader. So instead, you can make your writing personal, just by using first and second person language. So saying “you and I”, saying “we”, saying “I”. I love putting the reader and I in like the same boat, and saying like, we are going to go do something because it sort of feels like that when you’re reading something compelling, right? So it feels like that you and the writer on this journey together. So making it personal, it’s it’s one of the simplest changes and one of the most powerful. And if you went into higher ed, like if you if you went to like undergrad school or higher like this is this, this is, you know, writing informal or writing in personally is even more ingrained. But it’s even more important to break that habit.

Clint Murphy 1:12:48
And then the last one, use a word you sorry,The more you can use the word you with your with your reader, the happier they are. So like, this is for me,

Ben Putano 1:12:59
Again, this goes back to the law of specificity. If you’re talking directly to your reader, they’re going to you’re going to be able to keep their attention better. You know, that’s how flexible these frameworks are. So the last one I’ll share is something that it took me a long time to learn. And, gosh, you know, when I first started writing professionally, I basically fired myself after a year because I was so bad at it, it would take me weeks to write a blog post. And I would just sit and stare at a blank page for days on end trying to figure out what to write. And it was miserable. And I honestly don’t remember when the shift happened. But after that, I decided to start with a content marketing agency. And I found I just had to figure it out. The last lesson I’ll share here is to write fast and edit slow. The biggest mistake I see if if you are someone who feels like they’re a slow writer, you’re probably making this issue, you’re probably making this mistake, which is your writing and editing at the same time. Like you write a sentence and you go oh, right like that. So you literally hit the backspace, backspace, backspace, delete it, and then rewrite it. Then you go on, you write a paragraph, you’re like, oh, I actually don’t like the way these sentences are ordered. So I’m gonna move this over here. You keep writing like, oh, actually, there’s a better word for this. So you go back, then you, so you’re writing and editing. And then you might even like, realize that, you know, the idea itself isn’t great. So you kind of delete everything and start over, all over again, at the top. This is the worst way to write because you are, you’re just killing your productivity. A much faster, much easier way to write is to break up the process. So the first thing you’re doing is you’re researching your material. So this is a very, like curiosity driven process. So your mindset is in like in this curiosity state, so you do that first, then you take a break, then you come back and you actually create an outline. This is where you’re structuring. This is more of a strategic mindset that you’re in. So you outline your piece. Third, you write and when you write, you’re just writing and literally put a timer on so that you generate the sense of urgency. So you write as quickly as you can, which is a very creative process, and you don’t, for the love of God, touch that backspace button. If you have, If you figure out a better way to say something, just literally write it again, just read, just just stay right in the flow and write that piece again, then take a break. It can be, it can be 20 minutes, if it’s a pretty short piece, it could be an entire day, I took weeks off from my, between drafts of my book, take a break, and then come back and edit with a new state of mind. And now when you’re editing, it’s going to go much faster, you’re gonna have a lot more clarity. And you’re when you’re doing this, you’re basically like giving yourself the raw material to turn a first draft into a great piece of writing. So write fast, edit slow.

Clint Murphy 1:15:49
When you look at that process that you just talked about, you talked about the four mindset shifts. Are there some ways that you use, like, do you have a different room? Do you have a different setting? Do you light a candle? Like what what are you doing, Ben, to shift the mindset from research equals curiosity? Outline equals strategic, writing equals creative, editing equals attention to detail, what’s your technique to go from each one?

Ben Putano 1:16:20
The number one thing I think about is, when am I best at each one of these things? When am I the most creative? When am I the most curious? When am I most like strategic? Or when do I have the most focus to pay attention to details. So for me, I’m most curious, like when I’m a little tired, honestly, it’s really easy for me to kind of bounce around, like that’s when my you know, ADHD is like in full, full display. Like when I’m tired, I don’t have the the mental discipline to stay focused. So that’s a great time for me to do research because I can just pass around and find a million different things. But when it comes to like, editing, I need to be fully alert. And like that means grabbing coffee, that means, you know, maybe an hour after I wake up, I’m in a coffee shop, and I’m editing. Now writing, it sort of depends on the draft I like I sometimes like writing early in the morning, like when I first wake up, but that tends to be like a lot looser, a lot more called experimental, you know, style. And when I really need to buckle down again, like, I go to a coffee shop and I play my smooth piano playlist on Spotify, and I get into the flow. So there’s these little things I figured out that that get me into each one of these mindset shifts each one into these specific mindsets.

Clint Murphy 1:17:39
I love that. And one of the mindsets is editing. And most of us like to think of editing as just fix my spelling mistakes and my grammar, but for you, it’s so much more than that. It’s substance, style, voice, proofreading. So So why why did most of us just treat it so cursory? And for you, it seems like such a meaty part of this process.

Ben Putano 1:18:07
I don’t know why, maybe it has something to do with how we were schooled, you know, and editing seemed to be so mundane. Editing seems like someone else’s job. Like I want to hear it even I still think of editing as like the editors job even though I’m a writer, but most of us don’t have editors like we need to edit ourselves. And it is essential to creating good writing. I think it was Earnest Hemingway, or allegedly it was Earnest Hemingway who said the first draft of anything is shit. Unfortunately, that’s where most people stop. They write that first draft, hit the publish button, go about their day. And you know, the results speak for themselves. Like not most people, I have struggle struggle to build an audience they struggle to, to speak and write clearly. And it’s because they’re not going through this editing process. This feels like overkill to a lot of people. But I really do recommend going through editing at least four times because similar to the writing process, when you break up the editing, it actually goes faster. It’s like slow, smooth and smooth is fast. Like by breaking out the process you’re gonna get through each step faster. So first, you’re editing for substance, you’re basically saying like, is this idea Good? And is my argument sound? Do I have all the pieces in place? Do I have a hook? Am I telling the right story, etc. Right? You’re kind of like looking at the structure of the piece. And then next is style like does this sound like me? Am I using you know the right? Am I writing for skimmers? Am I Is my language personal? So we talked about like using “we knew” as opposed to, you know, third party language? So am I doing that? Am I keeping it short and straightforward? This, These are all style questions. And then the third edit, which actually goes the fastest, but maybe the most important is the voice edit. I had this conversation a lot when talking about AI like how do we how do writers like compete with AI? And the answer is voice AI tools don’t really have voice yet, but writers still do and the voice edit makes sure that your writing sounds like you, and only you. And the very, very, very simple way to accomplish this is to read your writing out loud. When you do this, you’re going to hear the weird tics that you say, you’re going to find the passages where you’re writing in a way that you would never speak, because it’s just gonna be clunky coming out of your mouth. And when that happens, you need to go back and fix that. And basically, write that piece, just like you’re saying it, you can take out the ums and the ahs and stuff, but like your formatting your writing, the way you talk, that’s going to make it really, really personal that’s going to capture your unique voice and make your writing stand out. And then the last step of editing, which is the one that most of us think of when we think of editing is the proofread. So this is like the grammatical and punctuation and stuff, which I’m actually terrible at. I have errors all the time. And that’s where tools like Grammarly and Hemingway and like apps are so valuable, they’re great to use, and I recommend everybody use it. But that alone is not enough. You need to make sure that your idea is good, the substance, your style is on point that you are saying, you know that you’re speaking, you know, personally and you know, keeping it simple and straightforward. You’re writing for skimmers, etc. You need to make sure that your voice is yours and yours alone, and then you proofread.

Clint Murphy 1:21:19
When we go back to that voice one, have you found over time, Ben, two things here. One, that your public speaking and your articulation is much stronger, the more you write. And not only take it even a step further your thinking is improved. And that the more you write changes, your public speaking changes how you write like, do you see a bit of a continuum there?

Ben Putano 1:21:53
Absolutely. It’s a little virtuous cycle, right. And I could start wandering, I mean, most of my ideas, my half baked ideas start on Twitter, I’ll just like say something into the ether and see what happens. And then I’ll talk about it, or vice versa, I’ll have a conversation and I’ll go tweet about it. You know, I wrote this book and now we’re talking about it, I have such clarity on these ideas, after talking through them, not only with you, but like on other podcasts. And also like with my cohort, we’re talking about this all the time. And then the conversations go and inform my next round of writing. It’s just like exactly. It’s like two different prot like we have this is this is so unscientifically Back to this how I kind of think of it like It’s almost like we have two separate processors going on, we have the the odd the audible processor, the you know, our talking processor, then we have our writing processor, and they sort of like can work in unison, or, you know, kind of work in tandem to really generate interesting ideas and help you articulate them.

Clint Murphy 1:22:51
And so where I’d love to finish with the last question for you. It’s been a great conversation on writing, which is, it’s probably my favorite thing to do. That’s hot. Candidly, I love it is. A lot of our listeners want to know, well, how do I use the writing to build a big audience? I want a big audience. So what are some of the what are some of the principles you throw at them for building that audience?

Ben Putano 1:23:22
Great question. The first question I would ask in return is, will a big audience serve your business needs. Bigger isn’t always better and for most entrepreneurs, size is basically irrelevant. What’s more important is building the right audience of customers, of fans, of potential employees, of potential business partners. Instead of building a large general audience, it’s about the thickness of that audience instead of like the breadth. So that’s the first question. are you building? You know, Jay Kenzo, a friend of mine, and another great speaker and writer, speaking of, you know, dual threats? He has this idea of, you know, asking yourself, are you building a Toyota audience or a Tesla audience, Toyota is a car for everybody, literally, I think, the most common car on the road worldwide or close to it. But nobody really nobody, like no one gets a tattoo of Toyota, the Toyota logo on their arm or says that they are a Toyota driver. They declared themselves a Toyota driver in their Twitter thread, whereas a Tesla audience now this is the perception might be changing with everything Elon’s doing, I don’t know. But still a Tesla audience is highly, highly passionate, a much smaller audience, but folks who would literally get tattoos of the brand on their arm and show up to Tesla meetings, follow every step of the company because they’re so passionate. about it. And this is a critical question need to ask before you decide to, you know, pursue audience building, what type of audience do you need to build your company, if you’re selling attention, like if you’re an influencer, or a creator, you kind of do need a larger audience because you’re selling, you know, lower cost products, you’re doing a lot of advertising, etc. But if you’re selling services or products, you want to tend towards building a Tesla audience, smaller, more right size, more passionate, and the folks that are more likely to, you know, become customers and support your business.

Clint Murphy 1:25:35
That makes sense. And so they, once they have the right goals, what do they do?

Ben Putano 1:25:43
So once so once you know what type of audience you want to build, I, again, this goes back to building and writing with empathy. I’m a huge believer in making your customer, the hero of their own story, of your story. So there’s a there’s a something we go through in the Great Founders Write cohort that I just love, because like it, people light up. And it’s actually such a great source of content ideas also. It’s called the heroic customer framework. It’s really similar to the hero’s journey that we’re all familiar with, but just sort of tweaked a little bit to, to serve businesses, startups and their audiences. But you need to place your customer as the hero of the story. And again, going back to our empathy questions, what do they want? What do they need? What are their aspirations and what obstacles stand in their way. And if your customer is the hero, a lot of a lot of people ask them, Where does that leave me as the brand or as the founder, if your customer is the hero, you are their guide, you are helping them reach that pinnacle, that that they’re, you’re helping them along their journey. So you offer a plan, which is like your unique perspective on the industry, your, your education, your cohort, right, your, your, your book, that’s your plan. And then you also offer them tools or weapons to help them along their journey to overcome those obstacles, to help climb those mountains and fight those villains. You’re offering them tools, which could be, you know, your products and your services. And, you know, you need to identify why they should trust you, of course. So, you know, again, like, all these pieces sort of work together. You know, this is sort of harkening back to the ABC 123 framework here. But long story short, you are helping your customer along their journey. And if you can position yourself as a guide for a certain set of customers, you are going to build that right type of audience that wants to hear from you and learn from you and transform with you.

Clint Murphy 1:27:43
I love it. And I’ll shortcut to your last one, because it’s it’s one of my favorite is just you have to show up consistently, every, every single day you create. And, you know, people often asked me, How do you grow on Twitter? And how can I do what you did on it then they never liked the first answer is well, I wrote on the platform every single day for a year, and during a three month period wrote a thread a day for 75 days, it’s just you show up, you do the work day in and day out. You use all these techniques you and I are talking about. And then you do them daily. Yeah, a thread will just get better.

Ben Putano 1:28:34
And the thing that people miss about consistency on the session with this, like, it’s not just you show up right to create content to you know, feed the algorithm as they say. But also being consistent is a signal to other high profile people in your industry or in your world. And that is a signal to them, that you’re serious, like we both know how important it is to build great relationships when building an audience. You support one another to promote one another. Nobody’s promoting anybody else who you know, tweets a lot for two weeks and doesn’t show up for three more months. That’s not how you build good relationships, just like building audience, building relationships requires consistency. It requires building trust. So, you know, show up every day, not just for your audience, but also for those promoters, those people who are going to support you on your journey.

Clint Murphy 1:29:29
And you just nailed it. Because that actually comes up in conversation in circles. Like you have a group and you share each other’s content and you’re, you know, you help each other grow. And someone will say, hey, what do you think about adding TeD or Tina into the mix? And someone may say, well, they’re not really consistent. And they don’t show up. Because you need to know hey, if I’m going to share your stuff when you are here, you’re going to share my stuff when I am here, and I’m here every day. Hopefully you are too. So that’s, it’s a huge one. And do you have time for something we call the Final Four?

Ben Putano 1:30:11
Oh, I love the sound of that. Yeah, let’s do it. All right.

Clint Murphy 1:30:14
So the first one is, you started the conversation off with this, so it was perfect. I wanted to go straight to it. But I couldn’t. You mentioned that everybody has that book in their life that has changed their life. What’s that book for you?

Ben Putano 1:30:33
I’m gonna cheat and give you two, first is The Four Hour Workweek, I read that book. I remember exactly where I was, I was on a plane traveling to visit my sister. And I was reading it. And then I was like, yeah, this is it, I’m gonna quit my job and start a business. So that was the, that was the call to action. As I talked about, to become an entrepreneur, finally, I wanted to do and that was the final push. And then the the next book is The Obstacles Away by Ryan Holiday, which I reread every year. I’ve done it for like five years now. And it’s just a really good reminder, as an entrepreneur, like, shit is hard. And it doesn’t really get easier. And that’s not the point. The point isn’t to get to a place where life is easy. It’s to get to a point where you can handle the challenges that are thrown your way.

Clint Murphy 1:31:20
Two great books, and even stories to share with the so what’s on the shelf right now, Ben, what are you reading today?

Ben Putano 1:31:26
Oh, man, I am a notorious multi book reader. I read like whatever I need to learn about in the moment. So like last night, I just picked up, read just picked up the book Agency, which is like how to start a creative business in the digital world. I’m listening to Range right now by David Epstein. And I actually just bought the hardcover or the physical copy as well, because there’s a passage in this book that was just like, brilliant to me. They talk about hooks, he goes on probably 3000 words, almost 10 pages, telling the story about an artist and he doesn’t mention the name of the artist at all. So this whole time you’re guessing like who’s he talking about? Who’s he talking about? Are they going to be successful? I don’t know. And it ends up being Van Gogh. I’m like, That was brilliant. I knew nothing about Van Gogh here. And that was so cool in the way he set it up. So I literally bought the book to highlight it and to study that passage. Yeah, I, what else am I reading , I just reread the book Small Giant as well, which is sort of like my my business philosophy. It’s like you don’t need to be huge to be impactful. So that’s a really good book. And that’s sitting on my shelf right now.

Clint Murphy 1:32:35
You’re giving me so many ideas, that one of the challenges that I have now been is is other than really reading for the podcast, I have very little opportunity to read. So whenever anyone has good ideas, it gets a little challenging cause I am ackling about 50 books a year already.

Ben Putano 1:32:56
Speaking of challenges, kind of give you one more that I just read. It’s About Damn Time by Arlan Hamilton. She’s a VC who supports underrepresented , and her book talks about like, you know, resilience and challenges, like you can read about the dead stoics all you want, but like she’s a real life example of someone who just you know, carries on persists through a lot. And it’s really inspiring.

Clint Murphy 1:33:22
Yeah, I’ll I’ll reach out to her to see if I can all have a chat with her about it. That would be fun. If you if you know her, feel free to put a plug.

Ben Putano 1:33:34
I’ll vouch for you on Twitter.

Clint Murphy 1:33:37
Thanks for that. Andthen what’s something you bought over the last year that cost under 1000 bucks that you think wow, I really wish I bought this sooner.

Ben Putano 1:33:49
Hmm. I don’t buy a lot of things besides books. Um, You know, one thing that we just bought, that I’m so excited about is our first like real piece of art. My wife and I went to Mexico City a few weeks ago and we were just walking through this like, honestly, the most impressive like little art show I’ve ever been to like just mind blowing talent and we found this piece that’s like really bright and colorful and almost like the castaway just like really a lot going on. But we were both just like instantly in love with it. And it’s like the actual print. So it’s like, it’s the canvas is like actually painted on, you know, this is not printed. Sorry. It’s like the original and we just got it framed. And I’m like now I need like how many how much space do I have in my apartment for art like I’m counting the panels that I can get more art, I just love it. So that’s that’s really fun. I’ve think I’m becoming a an art collector maybe.

Clint Murphy 1:34:49
That’s a great one. And then because the show is about growth and learning. Is there one behavior, mindset shift or habit that you’ve adopted in the last year, that’s been life changing for you.

Ben Putano 1:35:04
A lot has changed actually, this year, I, for the longest time, I was like doing some little workout every day, which was really, really, really valuable. And now like, I play ultimate frisbee, so like, I’m kind of in between workouts at the moment. But the thing that really changed my life, at the very least changed my relationship with alcohol, I did this thing that I dubbed the dry 100, back in January, from January to end of January to like, whatever that is, like mid May, is basically like an extended dry January, right, like, so I didn’t drink for 100 days. And my thought process was, one I want to get healthier. Two, like I want to see like what life is like without drinking. And 30 days just isn’t enough, you don’t experience enough in 30 days. And then the third part was like, habits take hard habits take a long time to form and drinking alcohol, something that I’ve done for, you know, a decade or more. And so that’s a hard habit to break. So it’s gonna take time to break it. So 100 days was the perfect time. I went through my birthday, I went to concerts, I did all these things that would normally require me to have a drink in my hand. And I realized I didn’t need it. I had fun, my life changed, I got some would say I got boring a little bit. But you know, I’ve I’ve slept better since then. And, and even though I drink now, again, like we were just at a wedding. And you know, I had some beers, but my entire relationship with alcohol has changed. Like I can go to anything, any event and go weeks at a time without something I don’t need a drink anymore on Friday afternoon after work. I go to the gym. And I figure out other ways to de stress. It just taught me a lot about myself and a lot about how to deal with things. Without alcohol.

Clint Murphy 1:36:53
It’s a great habit. That’s a great habit to adopt. And I made that shift.

Ben Putano 1:36:57
I am going to do it again too this January starting January 1.

Clint Murphy 1:37:00
If you do it every year, it’s it’s huge. And you may find you just at some point, hey, I’m not going to do this. So that’s wonderful. So we’ve had a very wide ranging conversation as we worked our way through Great Founders Write. Is there anything that we left on the table that you want to make sure the listeners understand?

Ben Putano 1:37:19
Well, the publisher in me would be mad if I didn’t say to pick up the books, you can preorder it now on Amazon, Great Founders Write. It launches December 6 2022. And if you go to GreatFoundersWrite.com You can actually sign up for a free seven day QuickStart Guide, which will take you through like some main principles of the book and, and sort of onboard you to the whole great founders Write Experience.

Clint Murphy 1:37:47
Perfect. And where can people find you?

Ben Putano 1:37:52
Look me up on Twitter. My handle is Benjamin Putano, that’s my, that’s my main spot. Again, follow my newsletter, GreatFoundersWrite.com If you want to make my LinkedIn experience better, you can add me on LinkedIn. And say that you heard me on this podcast, and I’ll be happy to connect. I need to I need to restart my my audience there and, and follow fewer, I think, you know, STRS and stuff. So would love to connect with you on Twitter, on LinkedIn, and via email.

Clint Murphy 1:38:26
Perfect. So we’ll get all of that in the show notes. And Ben, thank you for joining us. This was fabulous. Thanks.

Ben Putano 1:38:31
God. This is awesome. This is really, really fun. I appreciate you.

Clint Murphy 1:38:35
Thank you for joining us on the pursuit of learning. Make sure to hit the subscribe button and head over to our website, the pursuit of learning.com where you will find our show notes, transcripts and more. If you like what you see, sign up for our mailing list. Until next time, your host in learning Clint Murphy