The Science of Email Success: Secrets to Higher Open and Conversion Rates

All opinions expressed by Joshua and by podcast participants are solely their own. Welcome back. I am Joshua Wilson. And today, I have with me Donnie Bryant. Donnie is a direct response copywriter in the financial space. So he's an expert at basically getting people to reply to emails and, getting people's attention. And I'm I'm really thrilled to talk to him today because, a lot of my recent work, especially with working with fintechs has been, getting attention and then converting that attention into an action. People get so many emails nowadays, Donnie, every time. And and I'm one of these folks that I sign up for lists. I'm I'm I'm a easy I'll give you my email address really easy, and then sometimes I'll actually read it and maybe months later. And so I I I give away my email address freely, but, you know, there's a lot, there of getting attention, getting at the right time. How do I distinguish myself in these emails? So I tell you what, this, this topic has been something I've been looking forward to talking to you with Donnie. But first off, welcome to the show. Being here. I love the show. I've well, I have I've watched a handful of episodes and a lot of fun, lots of great conversation, a lot of great topics and and knowledge shared. And so I'm excited to to talk about this as well. Because you're not the only one who opts in for things and doesn't, doesn't read and know, we're all facing the challenge of getting people to pay attention to what we want to share. So I'm happy, excited to talk about this. Absolutely. Well, Donnie, you know, you heard my brief intro of, of, you know, kind of what why I was attracted to get you on the show, but I would love for you to kind of break it down a little slower, of of what exactly it is you do. Give us a more professional version of of of what you do, beyond what I gave. My family doesn't know what a copywriter is. My, well, my wife does. Well, all of the rest of my family, they don't really know. But copywriter is essentially, as you said, someone who well, particularly the direct response style of copywriter. We are professionals that we write stuff that gets attention and moves people to make decisions. That's the main point. So it it takes many shapes from getting someone to click on an ad, open an email, you know, click on the link in the email to sign up for an appointment. So that's what, I really, attempt to do and help advisers with is to primarily getting the people to be interested in what you're offering, interested in what you're saying, and then move them towards an appointment. And you gotta do the rest. Right? But, but that's what a copywriter does. When I'm, when I'm speaking to the general public, I usually say that I write stuff that sells stuff. So that's, that's pretty, pretty simple breakdown. Yeah. I think that a lot of times, Donnie, we, we tend to generalize these things. We, we are generalists on everything and it's like, oh, you're, so you're a writer? Well, writer could mean a thousand different things. Well, what do you write? And what's the purpose of, of the writing? And, you know, one of the things that was a challenge to me in beginning to write more on LinkedIn over the past this past year was I just finished a dissertation, you know, a year and a half ago. So that, that, that's a, that's a very different type of writing than the little brief sorts of things I'm trying to put on, put on LinkedIn than when people are scrolling, you know, and, and that's also very different than writing a client, but a client white paper or something like that, or writing an email to a client. And so, you know, these various professions of the type of writing, I would love for you to kind of explain, to our listeners, Hey, when I'm going into writing this type of copy, that this copy is, you know, just, that's the word for writing, right? This type of copy. What, how is my mindset different in writing an email? That's hoping to number one, number one, get them to open the email. Right? And then, of course, then in the email, you're looking for the next action, but let's start at the beginning. When you're what the tell me about your mindset when you're writing that subject line of the email versus any other type of Well, we can, we can move even further back than that. But let me say it, if you remember old Superman comics or just news newspaper, you know, print and paper, newspapers, New York Times sort of thing. They would call the words on the page copy. So it's a general term for the written word. Although these days, it it can take all kinds of shape. But that's what copy is. I I always say this, but I don't always say it, but this is absolutely true. Your the success of your copy, including the subject line, really begins before you write the subject line, before you send the email. It's way before that. Just like what you say. Right? Your the mind knows before the brain does anything, decides anything. Or the brain knows, sorry, before the before the mind decides. And it really we have to start from a a place of found found from a foundation of being an interesting person. If people are not interested in who we are and how we're related to them, the best subject line in the world is is gonna do not as it's not gonna do as well as it could. On the other hand, when you get, a it can be a mediocre subject line, but from a person who you're intensely interested in, you have no relationship with, or who's over time proven to always deliver great value to you. It it's it's coming from doctor Josh. I wanna read that period. If you said, you know, what I have for lunch today is the subject line. I think I wanna know because you're not just gonna give me the menu. You're gonna have a lesson in there. You're gonna have some some wisdom in there for me. And so you the success of your subject line is rooted in, who you are perceived as by the by the person you're sending it to. So that's why cold email is is difficult. That's one reason cold email is difficult. Because there's no relationship. There's no past experience of benefit or value or connection. You're purely hoping to get attention from someone who doesn't know you. Trust from someone who doesn't know you. We have limited time. So we're not gonna give it to people or emails. It's heavily weighted against that because we don't we don't know you. On the other hand, if you have someone who's opted in to an email list and they and they got on the list for a reason that that is really topically interesting to them, you're you're you're at an at an advantage. And so we had to really start there by positioning ourselves when we begin relationships or pair social relationships with our subscribers starting from a place of intense interest, which is why niching, picking a niche is very helpful. If I'm talking about how plumbers can retire, you know, with you know, starting from a hundred thousand dollars in their, portfolios. Okay. You know, if that if I sign up for that lead magnet from that person, I know you're talking specifically to me. I know that what you're whatever you're gonna share is uniquely talk tailored for me, and so I'm interested. Now, getting to your question. Your subject line really it needs to start from that place of understanding who your reader is. Obviously, we can't know every if we're sending to a list of people, we can't know every individual person's state of mind at the time. And we can't know everyone's specific situations, what's going on across the board. We can know some of the things which we have determined by who our ideal client is and how we brought them into our world. Like I said, what the niche is, what the thing they've indicated interest, the topic they've indicated interest in, Like plumbing, you know, retirement retirement for for plumbers in Illinois. I'm in Illinois. Even more specific. And when you when you start from that place, then you can talk about topics that you know they're already interested in. I say like this, their pains and their problems, their fears and their frustrations, or their dreams and desires. If you can have those categories mapped out, then those those are topics they're already interested in. And then if it's coming from you as a person who they're interested in hearing from, automatically, you're you're in a place where the subject line will probably perform well. Secondarily, it's great to use words that kind of trigger response from those individuals, which you'll learn from testing, from conversations you've had with them, and just general knowledge of what what makes people respond. So that's a long answer. I'll take a breath and let you let you get It it sounds like you're basically saying that, you know, two things. This is what I hear you saying. Number one is, first off, do you know the person? Have they have they established a relationship with you? And I'm using this term relationship very broadly. Doesn't mean they've ever spoken to you before or shook shook your hand, but they know you and how deep of a relationship do they, how much they feel like they know you, how much are they connected to you? How much have they developed a desire for the knowledge that you bring for the personal connection that they anticipate with a person like you. Right. Cause we're built. That's the really interesting thing about the modern client journey, Donnie, is, you know, I talk to client advisors about this all the time is in the old days. And when I say old days, that's ten years ago. Right? Because technology has moved really, really, really fast. I mean, smartphones really only took off ten years ago. And by the way, you know, I got the internet when I was like fifteen. Okay. Well, I'm forty one now. Okay. So I'm native. I grew up with this and people that are ten years older than me, they grew, you know, they they got this at twenty five. You're still really young. Right? And people that are fifteen years older than me, they got it at thirty. You know? That's no big deal. So now these folks that, you know, I've I've had Internet twenty five years. I've had a smartphone for ten. So everything's changed so much that and that journey is not, okay. I don't know anything. I'm com you know, ten years ago, they were the the most of the people you're talking to were still comfortable saying, I don't know anything, and I'll come into your office and learn everything. And then I'll build rapport with you here in the office. That's when the that's when the relationship really begins. And nowadays, the relationship is beginning way before that. People are building a relationship with you even before you're necessarily building a relationship with them. And so you're trying to that's a lot of things that I've I focus on is how to help people build a relationship with you before they ever sign up for anything to convince them then to sign up for those things. And so that's what that's one of the things that a lot I'm so excited to talk to you is now it's like, okay. Now I got an email. Now I've gotta actually use this again next level. So you're saying, okay. Number one, do you know the person that you built that the the quality of the relationship that you build before is going to presuade this person to click on the email no matter what the what the subject line is. So we're saying, what can we do to set the table in order to make whatever it is we're doing a little better? And then on the other hand, of course, is, okay, cold email. Now we're starting from scratch. So, I'm gonna I'm gonna drill down here for a second before I keep going with the other stuff you said is, okay. Let's assume that we have not developed a relationship and we really are going in cold here, and I don't have this relationship to rely on. Obviously, we've gotta kinda dumb it down a little bit and say, okay. I've I've gotta grab attention. I don't even know what to grab onto. What I hear you saying is, okay. You gotta pretend like you know the person. You gotta you gotta figure out one person you're talking to, Donnie Bryant. Who is Donnie Bryant? Donnie Bryant is a copywriter, and he's he's got, he's he's been married for, was it, twenty two years. He's got four kids or Yep. You're right. You have. These are four. And so and and all these things so I'm trying to get this avatar in my mind. This is Donny Bryant. Donnie Bryant's probably afraid of this. He's probably concerned about this. You gotta get a lot of probably's in mind to where you're building to where I don't I don't actually have a relationship with Donnie, but I gotta kinda convince Donnie that I do know who he is and I do understand his pain. So I'm not writing a general email. I'm writing it to a guy like Donnie because the more general it is, the less likely he's gonna notice this. It's gotta feel like it's written to him, like, well, I don't know this guy, but he seems to know me. That's that's exactly Do I hear what you're saying? And and it has to be about me. Starting from the subject line, if if your subject line is about you, wanna hear about my offer? I do not. What's special from Donnie today? I don't I don't know you. I don't care. I care about me. Update. Yeah. Update on me. It doesn't it doesn't compel anyone. They're not interested. I have my own life to deal with. Four kids and a wife who likes attention. Brightly so. Brightly so. And I like to give it to them. So, you know, I if I gotta pay attention to my limited amount of time, am I gonna read that email? Probably not. But if you one a great subject line has nothing to do with financial advisors. Right? But my friend wrote a book about, being a good husband. It's a great book. And it's almost ten years old ten almost ten years and it sells more and more over time. It's crazy. Anyway, I wanna promote this book and I said, for bone headed husbands like me okay. So it's about me, but it's also about you. If you feel like you're a bone headed husband, yeah. I've had one too many stupid, mistakes as a husband. We're connected. Like, I I'm a bonehead. I'm calling myself one. I'm not calling you one. But if you can relate to that, and I know most of us husbands, we're gonna say, yeah. I've had I've had my share of boneheaded moments. It's about you because because you you feel that experience of having been a boneheaded husband, but but I'm not calling you a boneheaded husband directly. So, you know, that's that sort of thing is is like you said, I feel like you must know me, because how did you know what you know, I'm I'm struggling right now with communication or I'm struggling right now with, intimacy or whatever. We're not talking about that stuff. But, yes, it's my personal problems or my personal reality, and it's something that's important for me to fix with the time that I have. Because, again, how much time do I have in the day? I'm dividing in between tasks and and things that could take my attention. Only the highest priority things are gonna get there. So me fixing my my relationship with my wife is one of them. It's a free resource for boneheaded husbands like me, which is kinda long, but it's free and it's for bonehead husbands. At least let me check that out. That worked really well. Yeah. And so, you know, what I, what I hear you saying there is it wasn't like I have a new book out and this book is about X and this is how you will learn X from this. And, you know, it's like, this comes up with advisors all the time is they're selling retirement plans and retirement saving. Like, first off, that's, that's very far in the future. And it's really hard to sell something now, especially to someone, you know, I was talking to some advisors recently about, about email and I said, okay, hold on, get yourself in my perspective for a moment. My perspective is when I'm checking my email, I, I, I hate it. I I've already known that I've, that I've signed up for too many emails. I know I'm trying to get to the stuff that I have to get to first and then that I'm scanning and I'm deciding which of these tons of emails I'm going to open. And my perspective is I don't have time for this. I'm in a hurry. If we can get me to open and scan something and put a mental bookmark, and I'm still probably gonna delete it, but then if you just got me to open it, now you've opened the relationship. And I'll often say to myself, I I don't have time for this right now, but you still got me to open the email. Even though I didn't make the the step that time, it's like you got the you got the mental you got you got in the door. And the next time I'm like, I'm a little more likely to open the next one because of this one. And I liked it even though I didn't have time for it because I didn't plan on it. And then ultimately, you're trying to get to that point where, okay, now I plan on it. Now I'm actually gonna put some time time away. I think that that sometimes is we we tend to think we can do too much with one email. Like, we're gonna take them from one email to scheduling an appointment. And that only happens if something's on fire. You know? I I I had this happen with a client once when I was an advisor. My I I had a specialty, a niche specialty in options and do options very well and set you know, it's it's boom. I've it's I've got some a man passed away, had a lot of options in his account. His widow has no what to do with it. Daughters have no what to do with it. And it's like, ladies, you know, instant yes. Let's sit down. We got a problem right now, and it's odd. You got you can think about it, but your options expire in two weeks. So and I'm just letting you know that in two weeks, the problem is gone. It just may have cost you way more money than you thought. So those things come around, you know, couple of times in a career where something's just on fire and they're just gonna go straight to it. So you're looking for those and, a mindset of many wins. Yes. Absolutely. Absolutely. And every I mean, top of mind awareness is there. So when you're showing up and they see you regularly, it begins somewhat something of a relationship. And it's like a missed call on your phone from someone that you know, I need to call. I need to call Doctor. Josh back. I can't keep ignoring him. There's a little bit of that. Not a ton if there's not commitment, but then each time they do take an action, it's a micro commitment that moves them subtly forward towards taking the next slightly larger commitment. So those those things are are all true. And you're you're a hundred percent correct. It's a it's a gradual a a process of gradualization. You're not gonna probably take someone who's never seen you before to handing you their whole, you know, signing signing the paperwork, and you've now managed every every asset that have. And it doesn't it doesn't rarely I mean, it rarely happens. So you have to step by step build that relationship, build that trust, which is, you know, it's a process. So with, with the, you know, we're, we're building an avatar in our head. We're trying to speak to that person, figure out what that need is. It's not, it's not your solution. It's the problem. You're, you're expecting too much of them for them to know the medication that they need. And that medication probably has no emotional, relevance to them right now. There has to be people typically open emails. Is it fair to say that people typically open emails for emotional reasons, not so much for logical, that, that, that's what I expect, you know, especially when, when I'm busy and I don't have time for things, if something doesn't strike an emotion for me, then I actually doesn't get my attention. And we tend to think of attention as something that is earned and it's not attention is something that I like to say attention is sparked. That's a great, a great distinction there. And that's a chemical reaction. That's a chemical reaction in the brain. What are you doing to spark a chemical reaction in the brain which causes a purse this pursuit little hint of dopamine that says pursue this. That's what you're doing is you're saying, well, how can I with words create a dopamine spike that tells this person to pursue? Because we think of dopamine as a reward. It's not, it's a pursuit chemical. So we're trying to get to put someone to to pursue this just a little bit. You know, in our last conversation, Donnie, something that stuck with me is you said that people misunderstand what email can do. What does that mean? We are I think, as a as a general rule, we underestimate. We think email is like the inner office stuff we get from our, you know, our our compliance department that we don't wanna we really don't wanna deal with this transactional. But in fact, email is a it's kind of an intimate medium. People have told you they've indicated it as long as we're talking about opted in people. They've indicated interest in hearing from you. Actually, raise their hands and say, hey, I I wanna hear from you. At least about a little bit of something that you've you've teased me about providing information about. So they're they've given permission. They've opened the door to let you into their sacred space of their inbox. Now you still have to, you know, maintain your position there. But there's there's intimacy there. There's permission. Like social media, you kinda scroll and everybody's there. With email, there's a there's a higher level of the first micro commitment was made. I want to hear from you. And you know something specific that they're interested in, so you can speak to that. You kind of know something about them probably, like we're talking about, or at least you can assume some things. And so when when you when you come from that place of, first of all, I understand you relatively well, and you've indicated some level of interest in and, respect for my voice and and the, topic I'm gonna talk about, then then you can actually I mean, people are bought in to a certain extent already. And as long as you're willing to show up consistently and deliver unique value, and by unique, I mean, first of all, it's a little different than what they've heard before, probably. Not too different. If it's radically different, they will reject it. Right? You have the backfire effect. Or they don't they they're not ready for total revolutionary thoughts usually right away. But if you you can you can, a slight shift in, paradigm, you can now have, like you said, that dopamine says, I need to know more about that. You you can give them an ex I don't wanna say excuse, but you help them understand why they may have ended up in the place they are. They they feel like they know what they've known has gotten to where they are, but it hasn't gotten to where they wanna go. That's why they're seeking still. And now they said to you, I think you can help me get further along the road to where I'm seeking to go. So then when you show them a slight distinction, the world of possibility opens. If I just change this one thing, maybe everything else can change as well. And you're the guide who can show me that. And so emails email allows you to to do that from a position of, like I said, somewhat elevated authority and permission because people have done that. It gets delivered at a higher rate than social media. We all know this. Right? Direct mail gets delivered pretty well. Sometimes people will open it. But social media, people don't see ninety percent of the things that you post. You don't know what they see. But with email, you can control what shows up, when it shows up, the sequence with which it shows up. So you can plan the conversation that you're having. It's it's one way, but you can plan the conversation that you're having with them message by message, emotion by emotion, and build a case for whatever you're trying to lead them to, sequentially, intentionally, and, with a high degree of probability, it's actually gonna be delivered the way that you want it to. And so you can you can do a lot with email. It's but if, you know, again, if you're willing to show up, you can create relationships. I compare social relationships. Right? It's not real, but it feels real. Like, we feel like we know our favorite TV characters. You know, it's you can build a relationship pretty quickly, establish know, like, and trust pretty quickly within days. And, from there, of course, if you're intentional, you can you can take them to closer to I won't say automatically people will sign up for an appointment on day seven. It doesn't work that way. But you put yourself leaps and bounds ahead of everyone else's who's just randomly sharing information or or whatever thoughts, memes, inspirational quotes on social media or wherever else they're doing it. So email is really powerful. And the statistics bear it out as well. When you look at, return on investment statistics, email is far away superior to any other channel just in terms of ROI. So, I mean, that's that's what I mean by Well, I I don't I don't think that that's common knowledge, Donnie. I don't want you to gloss over that. You said that, that email has the highest ROI. Would you, I mean Well, part of that is because it's it's relatively cost efficient to send emails. Right? We don't direct mail is effective, but it's but it costs money. At least a dollar per person, per per cent. In your email, you can you can have a thousand emails out for thirty dollars a month, whatever your CRM is charged. And there are some very inexpensive plan. But because of the ability to communicate consistently and persistently for that low cost and intentionally structure your argument. And, like, again, we're not talking about logic per se. We're talking about building building a connection and connecting ideas. You can you can do that. Take someone from point a to not z, but point h I j, for ninety nine dollars a month or whatever. Again, whatever you're paying. And when you look at these marketing resources and and studies they show, the most recent number that I saw, of course, statistics are liars. But on on average, you're looking at a a forty two percent a forty two times, not forty two percent, forty two times ROI on email. That's the most recent number I saw. You'll get different numbers from different sources. And then if you're better than others, you'll get better results. If you're rarely using it or using it for the re in the way that we're not talking about, like, just sharing updates about yourself, you'll get poorer results. But versus it's social media is free, but highly inefficient in terms of creating, appointment record. It's hard to get started, dude. It it it's with with with social media, there's so much ramp up time. There's so much reputation building and then, you know, people tend to comment and react to things that they see other people commenting and reacting to. And so, you know, building the base is so hard because there's that, people go where other people are, people participate in conversations and, you know, when you've already got a base and then the people are almost in a rush to be the first, the first to comment. If you don't have that rush, then be in the first comment a lot of times is, is not that fun. Right. Which is why if you wanna support your creator friends, be a first commenter. Right. Be the, be someone who actually participates and, and, and gives back in those, in those, in those areas. And on social media, if you share all these fun things or really educational things, you can get tons of distribution and visibility. But then whenever you add commercial intent, sign up for this. I'm having a workshop about this. I mean, you can do all the value you want, but the the algorithms detect commercial intent and deprioritize your post. So you could be used to getting a certain level of engagement. A lot of us, when we then say, okay, it's time for me to sell, there's time for me to promote something, you'll see a sharp decline in engagement because the algorithms just deprioritize that. Email doesn't do that. You're gonna you're gonna get delivered, you know, I won't say regardless, but they don't penalize you for doing something with commercial intent or quote unquote pitching, making a presentation. You know, you might you can go to spam for other reasons, but it's not Yeah. Yeah. It it's it's it's funny about those things because, you know, you're you're training the algorithm on on on who to who you wanna see. If the algorithm knows that you interact with someone, they'll show them to you again. And so are your are your your best viewers, are they gonna see your commercial content? Yeah. Yeah. They will. But the people that are seeing fifty percent of your posts or ten percent of your posts, they're kind of marginally engaged to you. They're not made they're probably not gonna see that. So, you know, it strategically, you've gotta get people close enough to you to where they see those things. Now, you know, obviously, these things work hand in hand. Right? Like, Email works hand in hand with with social media. So because what social media is great for then is, you know, if I get you engaged in an email, you know, for example, a few months ago, I I I I bought something that I'd signed up for an email list, and I was interested this one day. And so I signed up for their list. I read, you know, read an article or something like that. I I was actually on LinkedIn and signed up for, for a list and then forgot about them. And then because I knew that something that I've I I was interested in this, had a little time that day to dig in, but it wasn't a priority, but I signed up. And then months go by, and then I get on their emails, and then I see something again, get back into it. The timing is better. I type in their who they are, go look at all the emails they sent me, and I opened the ones that sounded interesting and followed it to a link, went to social media, and then I ended up probably reading two of the of the emails they sent me of fifty. And then I got to their social media and start looking at who they are, what they're about, and building a relationship with them. And then I go to their funnel page, and then I I I buy. You know? And so these things do work together. And so any any one thing is gonna be email enhanced by social media. Social media is enhanced by email. And that's in the that's probably a good a good, segue into, you know, it's just one thing in the process when you start thinking about, okay, I've got them into an email and they're in this. How do I get them? How do I integrate maybe video, or other resources in the email? Because obviously, the the the intent is not to be on email forever. It's to to do something else. So how do you start integrating those things? There's I mean, it's a great point. But so I talk a lot about email. I I mean, that's my my second love. Oh, ain't my ain't my third love, so I don't know. But, there's, obviously, you had to move people to other things. I I will say this. You may have seen this study. I I can't remember who shared it, but this was a few months ago, maybe earlier in the year. They they were saying that actually YouTube has a higher trust index, like, people people who who consume your financial content on YouTube, that's the the platform that they trust, even above LinkedIn. Now, email wasn't considered, but, you know, Facebook, X, Instagram, TikTok, all these things are cool. And they're great ways to get visibility, but video is and you can do video anywhere, but YouTube was considered or or as in the survey of twelve thousand, fourteen thousand people, was was shown to be the highest trust. People trust that content the most. And so you should be sending people to video. I I will argue this though, in terms of integrating, I love to do this I guess this other people some people will do this differently. Not all email providers can hold, like, a video. So if you if you want to send it, not all not everyone can send one, and not everyone will be able to receive one. And so to to optimize that experience, to make sure nobody misses the opportunity, I oftentimes will take a screenshot of the video or or an image like this, what do you call it? The thumbnail. But I love to do one thing that I do a lot. If if, if I can make you laugh, I'll try to get a screenshot of you Or, you know, us or sometimes you just kind of fake it. Like, I'm laughing and you're laughing if it doesn't happen simultaneously and you put it into one image. So but then you make sure they know it's a video. You click the video, you see laughter. Laughter is it sparks. Like you said, I wanna laugh, especially if we're talking about retirement because it's not funny. I'm behind. You know? I I don't know how to how to get there. But if you Look, these guys are having fun, and it couldn't be that bad. Watch. Why would I watch something that's gonna make me bored to tears? I'd much rather watch a fun conversation with with people that are are having fun talking about a topic that's important to me. And so a thumbnail that links directly to a video, wherever you're hosting your videos. YouTube can be fair. I think the only thing about YouTube is then it's easy to get distracted and go other places. I brought up YouTube because video is important, and it's great to be found on YouTube. I like to host a video on my own website if possible or on a landing page somewhere where you can control again what other people are seeing. Because if they go to YouTube and then they also see the cat video, let me check that out first. Yeah. Plus plus, you know, the other thing about about YouTube is that now you're going to be subject to, the, reengagement and, other target market. The algorithm now knows that you're interested in in financial content. So you're more likely to see, content from other financial creators who, you know, may be more interesting or have more laughter. Yeah. I I try not well, you're a hundred percent correct. I try not to worry about that, but, I mean, just in terms of what the what the experience will be. I want you to be focused on what I'm telling you because there's there's this we're talking about something important. I've got your attention. Attention can't should not be wasted. You know, once you've got it, do do everything you can with it to help that other individual, get closer to their goals. So every time we're talking about self interest, like, I want you to sign up to work with me, of course, but that's because I believe that I can help you get your desired outcome. It's not just self interest. I'm serving you and also benefiting because, you know, the ox had traded the corn. You shouldn't muzzle him. So we're we're talking about self benefit, but also in service of others. But, yeah, I wanna control that to the best of my ability. So YouTube can be a little bit dangerous or Vimeo can be a little dangerous just because there's other options and Oh, no. Distraction. So, you know, you you talked about, we talked about, you know, laughter and the, the place of emotion, and I, I love the topic of emotion and, and, and finance. So, let's talk about that for a moment, you know, emotional topics, you know, obviously, you know, advisors, they, they're very passionate about, you know, the dollars and the cents and the projections and the pie charts and the, you know, all the things that they spent rightly so. We've spent so much time learning all these things and building an expertise in it. But a lot of times, those things may may kind of cause people's, you know, eyes to glaze over. And I I a a large percentage of the population doesn't even really understand what a financial adviser is. I think I think a big portion of the population, when you say financial advisor, they envision a a CPA more than more than really any okay. Money? And so, you know, obviously, you know, you there's different core emotions that tend to trigger us and, you know, fear is one of those, but you don't wanna be a fear monger. You don't wanna be that guy, you know, selling the end of the world. So talk to me about emotion and kind of the proper place for emotion and emotional topics, in, in, in the United States. As you pointed out astutely, we really open emails and decide if we're going to engage with them based on the emotions that they spark. Not because you said your expense ratio is what? No. I don't know what That time out was real quick. Okay. Advisors, if you're disagreeing with this and you probably will. Okay. Some of you are going to disagree with this. That's okay. It's because you're a very special of kind of intelligence and a very special kind of nerd. Okay. So you might open up an email from a wholesaler because they talk about the expense ratio or something like that. Why? Because you're very special type of person. And when you and so it's but, but other things and other domains and other domains, those things are going to make your your eyes glaze over. So just time out real quick. If you're saying, I don't know. I would cut okay. Well, you're a special kind of nerd and that's okay. But your clients are. The people that you're speaking to, they aren't that special kind of nerd. And and that's a it's a great, call out. It's and it's important. That's why it's important to know who you're talking to. Because someone who gets excited about expense ratios, we got a message for you, but it's not, it's not for many people. And you had to know kind of the things that are intriguing to your audience or what their what's top of mind for them. That was their was their felt need, was their current reality and those things. And so anyway, the, the we open emails and engage them for, for emotional reasons. And those, those core emotions, they really drive all of our decisions. Of course, this is what you talk about. So email is a is a place where we can be tempted to get professorial. Right? We can attempt to get really just really focus on education. I'm gonna I'm going to tell you about how to max out your four zero one k contributions, in twenty twenty five because the limit's changing. Okay. That's factual and important. It's not that unique. It doesn't really get me going. But if if you could say something like, now this is a fear based subject line, but but won't but it's not fear mongering. Like, three mistakes that could cause you to miss your four zero one k, limit. I'm interested. I'm I don't wanna come up short on my limit. Well, I'm not sure what that could be. What would I mean, it's it's easy for me to hit that number. I think. I think. Right? So you've got a little curiosity, which I don't know if you consider it an emotion, but I put that in the category of, it's close enough to an emotion. And there's a little bit of fear because I don't wanna miss out, so fear of missing out. But I haven't told you you're going to, be destitute if you don't follow the strategy I'm gonna show you inside of you. But just helping you just to see, there's a potential for me to miss out on, the opportunity that I that I've already decided. I want to max out my four zero one k. I wanna retire comfortably. I don't wanna delay that any longer than I need to. So I wanna make sure I'm doing everything I can. And mistakes were all emotionally, touched. You know, when you see think about mistakes that you made, it tings it there's a tinge. Right? Like, yeah. So we have an emotional reaction to past mistakes, but also, anxiety about call about having future mistakes. And so there's there's a lot of emotions wrapped up in a subject line like that. So we want to use emotions to get people to to respond because the only way we can help them is if they respond. If we wanna help and we do, we need them to see the email to for the email to spark notice. Say, okay. It catches the eye and say, okay. For okay, may or may not, it's probably not a particularly exciting topic, but just using that as an example. But if you're if you're talking about like, one thing that I use a lot, Warren Buffett, it just his name alone gets a lot of attention. And because we respect, we revere, we admire, we want we wanna have results like he's had. If I had to live to be ninety nine to get it, and so be it, I'd be alright. He's pretty old. So, you know, using a term like that, Warren Buffett is an emotional topic because we respect him. We like him and we we wanna have some results like him, or we really disagree with him. You know, we think that value investing is out of out of favor. We shouldn't do it, play it out, but one way or another, you have an emotional reaction to Igor. Yeah. And and I would I would say that, you know, that that emotional reaction, it, it doesn't really matter which one of those it goes because they both are effective. What I mean by that is, is like, do you think Warren buffet, do you think value investing is played out? Well, maybe you click on this because you're like, buffet again. And what's this, what's this, you know, old goon that's out of date. What is he saying? Or you're saying, buffet is, is the Oracle. So I got a list of this guy either way, you know, taking a stand on something. Some people love to hate. People love to hate. It's it's more motivating than love. So, you know, you could you could position that as respect, but you can also position that as, disagreeing with buffet. I would imagine disagreeing with him or he said x, is he right? Is it, you know, it's inserting some intrigue, inserting some controversy. If something is settled, a little less interesting. One of my favorite campaigns that I worked on, I, I used, well, my, my client was doing options. They had a, a options education, cohort that they did twice a year. And and we had a strategy in there which I called cash flow, clockwork clockwork cash flow. So that's pretty fun. But the idea was this is a it's a it's a twist on Warren Buffett's option strategy. You probably didn't even know. Most people don't. Warren Buffett has played some big options. I'm the whole SMT. Right? So so there's there's And I don't know if he still is, but at one point, he was the number one seller of S and P, Correct. A contract. So it's there's curiosity. And also, now you there's potentially indignation. Wait a minute. Wait a minute. Wait a minute. Warren Buffett told me to buy the S and P. Right? That's all I need to do. It's like, if you should just buy buy an index fund and chill out. But that's not what he's necessarily doing. So should I what should I do with that information? So you have that that little bit of indignation. I've been told something that's not congruent with what Buffett is talking about. So, you know, there's options to all these things. And so there you're right. You can you can play it both ways. There's maybe potential respect for Buffett, but there's also we can play it the other way. Maybe he's hiding something from me. And we also have emotional reaction to information that is hidden from what we want. Secret, always compelling. We wanna know what we're not supposed to know. And so, so you can play it both ways. That's that's interesting. Yeah. I think one thing, if, if, if folks are really saying, Hey, I wanna understand this. One thing you can do is try to just be active notice the emails that you open, and then take a second to analyze them and say, okay, why did I open that? And see if you can find an emotional trigger in this, because this is kind of part of the thing is, you know, it's, it's learn learning to detect something. It's like, okay, well, what, what, what we, we all want shortcuts. Right? We we want shortcuts. It's like, okay. What words do I use? Okay. Well, you know, you go Google it. What words to use, you know, secrets and, you know, whatever. At the same time is the the the issue with those things is then then people get, desensitized to to things. So it's it's not a it's not a secret list of words per se. And the art of it, I think, is also finding different ways to say, okay, It's the same emotion, but it's a different path to it, and it's it's it's not the played out emails they're getting about one off products. Because listen, it's the holiday season. We're all getting lots of product emails right now, you know, and a lot of things are leading with price and things like that. And it's price, price, price, price, price, and that that'll get us numbers. Numbers are always very attractive. I mean, anytime you can work numbers into an email, that's gonna, grab some people's attention, right, in a in a in a good or or bad way. But that's the thing is it doesn't you don't have to think about good or bad because it's attention. It's about getting that attention, to it, which is why I think I think it's so interesting that you you point out the, you know, the indignation. Because that's that's one I haven't really put a lot of thought into lately is, okay, in indignation. That makes that makes a lot of sense. However you feel about the election that we just had, there's there's feelings on both side, both sides. And both, both positive and negative emotions will work in terms of getting attention. If you if you're strongly for or against either political party or or maybe both, you're against both, or you love them both, I don't know if anybody loves both, but you. Yeah. That's right. And I've I just said, man, why are we having families dissolve over politics? It's crazy. But as as polarizing as it is, you know, just mentioning the name of a particular candidate, we see an increase in response because people have an emotional attachment to the name itself and it catches your eye. Although, of course, there's some burnout over time. You don't wanna keep hearing stories about the same thing over and over again. But, you know, having that indignation, like, I can't believe they're doing this to my beloved country. Right? Whoever they is, then you can how you had to figure out, obviously, how to how to turn that into a message that helps you help your reader. But you can use that as a way to grab their attention. Yeah. I would, I would add to that is one of the things I discuss a lot is, is worldview and worldview is, you know, and, and politics is one way because politics is, tends to be a, a, a proxy for, for so much in worldview. And then, or at least we assume it is because the news just focuses so much on the extremes. And, you know, the typical person is, you know, on a scale of zero, let's say zero is is hardcore left wing and a hundred is hardcore right wing. And, you know, average people is, like, I'm a forty five talking to a fifty five, you know. And it's, like, you know, a lot of people's that depending on who you're talk to, you know, it's who who whether what's your purpose, conceived of. And so, you know, worldview is one of those filters and there can be and it's a challenge to kind of think beyond just this left and right and understand that there's these micro kind of worldviews of how I think about money, what what what do I come from, what is my attitude about the government, what is my attitude about taxes, what is my attitude about businesses and large businesses, and all these different worldview things. And so when you're designing a mess, anytime you're divide by the when you're thinking about how do I get someone to receive this message? Well, I challenge people to say, how much time do you want them to process it? Because brains are lazy and our brain wants to spend the least amount of time processing, which is why so many advisors screw up because they forced me into my cortex. They forced me to analyze things really fast before I'm interested. I need to be and a lot of people can relate to this. Think about this. The amount of times, especially millennials, where everybody's millennial and below is definitely ADHD in some way about some topic you if you've not been diagnosed, you feel like you are at something. And so there's certain things it's like, I I read this, and I'm just, like, engrossed. And I read this, and I'm like, my eyes just keep just keep glazing over. And I've I've I've I've had this in romantic relationships. You're so smart. I'm like, I just for some reason, this I can't pay attention to. I'm a dummy in this. I just I can't seem to keep my attention on it. Right? And so and that's because one of the reasons, that is is, obviously personal dynamics. But when you're looking at a marketing message is, does this match my worldview? Because if it if it's consistent with my worldview, then you get the easy to process. Because if something matches my worldview, I will process it emotionally because it matches, because it is consistent, because it is familiar, familiar and consistent, recognizable, something I'm comfortable with. I don't analyze it. But if it's something that is not according to my worldview, then I wanna ask questions. It's amazing. I can I can watch someone watch an ad or look at a short on YouTube or something like that and watch their reaction and and tell you who they voted for? It's that easy. And they can even be something that's kind of innocuous, you know, because it's like, okay. I watch you. It's like, oh, I I see that emotion. I was like, okay, that's a Democrat. Why? Because that that was kind of pro, pro small government, that message, you know? And then there's other messages, oh, it's probably Republican. Why? Because because of this. So you see and then and if they're asking they're watching something, they're not yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That makes sense. Feels right. But if they're asking questions immediately, that means they're processing. They're saying, okay, I need to raise my defenses. I'm uncomfortable. What are the things that I can put up that I know that I can stand between me and having to actually think this through. So when you think about these things, it's also that that worldview is, okay, I'm thinking about this not just about their need. That's one thing. But if you get excellent at this, you're taking this and saying, okay, what's the worldview that's coming behind this? And again, not just politics, but the way that they view the world in different things. Is this a consistent with how they think about money, with how they think about whatever. Yeah. I mean, I to that, on that, I talk about it as identity as well. Like who do you perceive yourself to be? Yeah. Because obviously, we we want to make choices and consume information. You you you've heard, especially during election cycles, in the, the echo chamber. But that's what we seek. If it'll if it aligns with my worldview and validates who I believe myself to be in my place in the world, like you said, well, I don't need to analyze it. It I know it fits. I know it fits. And so you understanding the identity and appealing to that. Not only, like, if you if you know who someone Clark Kent identity is, like, let's let's push you towards your Superman because that's in you. You get the Superman with a little bit of additional assistance from an expert who who's gone a little further down the road than you. And so you're, you're a hundred percent correct. Obviously, you probably that's what your dissertation was probably about. Right? Donnie, this has been great. I, I know we're running out of time here, but I got one more question I want to get in, get in before we get in. How do you think about prospects different than clients? Cause you're, you know, people creating, emails for their clients for, to advance other prospects, more business, things like that. How do you think about prospects different than clients? Prospects are for all the things that we've been talking about today, really, really apply to everyone, but you had to pay most attention to them when you're talking about prospects. Once someone has given you, their business, they've trusted you to guide their portfolio or to help them with their planning or set their family up with the you know, what you're building the legacy, you've you've got their trust. You've, you've built a true relationship to some extent. And, and so you you're, you're there. You're kinda where you wanna be, where you're in a position of influence. With prospects, you may be influencing their thinking a little bit, but you're not at the place of ultimate influence, which is okay. I mean, we're not none of us are gonna convert a hundred percent of people who enter our our sphere. But we really wanna try to move to a place of as much influence as we can have for their benefit. Again, we really I really believe that if now also, we know we're not for everybody, you know, but the people who are right for me, my ideal client, I know I can help them. And I know that they have to trust in me to get the help that they need. And so I'm gonna do everything I can to bring them to that place of trust. And so we need to work, intentionally to get attention or as you said to spark attention, but to maintain that relationship and build it where they know, like, and trust you. They feel that you have authority that's beneficial to them. And there's authorities that you don't recognize. Right? Or it's like you're an authority on something, but I really I don't take what you say into into advisement for myself. So we wanna position ourselves in a way that we can have that influence. And so that that primarily when I say that I primarily primarily am talking about the frequency of communication with email. When you have a client, someone's your client, you don't have to email them every day. They probably don't want you to. But but maybe, but you but you're in a position where they've they're you're you're able to guide them actively. And so you can do that with weekly, you know, semi monthly, monthly emails or you touch base with them, but still you want to communicate with them regularly to maintain the relationship, to not feel like I'm just checking in with you to do the bare minimum. And I think especially when times are difficult, you wanna communicate even more. They can stay hold hand holding is great. We all wanna feel secure. And to know that the person who's looking out for us is really looking out for us, and they know what they're doing. They're not abdicating that position of responsibility. For prospects, we we need to communicate more frequently because we need to maintain top of mind awareness. We don't need to, but we want to maintain top of mind awareness. We want to establish that level of perceived authority and expertise, which the so I say you really need to communicate more frequently, because the longer you have in between messages or touch points, people begin to forget. They forget why they signed up for your email. They lose that emotional energy that they felt when they first signed up. They signed up because they were excited about something, or they're worried about something, or there's an urgent need about something. But they may have signed up for two or three different lists, made a few phone calls. Right? They asked ChatGPT what Chatty thinks about it. And so when you now take a week or a month to to send that first email to them, you should have something automated. But if it takes a month, they they may have they've likely moved on or they found another solution or they just don't have that, that same level of urgency. So for prospects, you want to communicate quickly. I'll say I'm gonna get to my point quickly. I usually say this. When someone comes into your world, you need to have at least three touch points in the first seven days. I really advocate for more than that. But because someone has is in that place of emotional, height heightened emotion, they've given permission and remember why, and they're they're still in that place in life likely, you you can't really afford to just fumble that. You wanna show up for them and you wanna give them the, information, but that's just the information to help them feel the emotions that move them into move them closer to taking action that will help them. And that really requires multiple touch points while they're still in that position. So I liked three or five or as as much as seven emails in the first week because that's when they're feeling those feelings and when they're in that place. And then after that, you really still wanna maintain at least once per week emails, sharing worldview stuff, not just education, but you wanna help them to see the world rightly, to see their position in the world rightly, and to understand the things that that they need to understand to get the outcome that they want. And ultimately, of course, they probably can't do it all on their own. So to see you as a person who can help them. You're placing it in a world that's familiar to them. You can't place the solution in a different world. And, and an example I give to the, of this is if I believe that you're talking, you know, for example, if I'm, if I'm, you're talking about college, going to college to high school kids, and I feel like that, yeah, this guy talks to a bunch of rich kids from the nice suburbs and I'm a kid that's on a farm. You know, I'm a kid that's in, you know, the struggling inner city school. It's like, he's not talking to me. You know, it's like, it has to exist. You have to show me that you understand where I'm coming from the world that I'm coming from. Cause I don't, if I don't feel like you're coming from my world, then it's not a path for me. It's a path from suburbia to this school. It's not a path from, rural Alabama to this school. That's a wholly different idea. Right? So you gotta place yourself in a world that makes okay. This guy understands where I'm coming from, and then you're paying the vision for where you're going. Starting where they're at and then where they're going. You can't start where they're going, and then they're not gonna work themselves backwards of this is where you came from. Donnie, this is this has been fantastic. I've I've I've really enjoyed this call. And, you know, for those of you who wanna learn more about Donnie, I tell you the first place to start is go follow the guy on LinkedIn. There we'll put it in the show notes, for you, but it's, it's just LinkedIn. It's d o n n I e, Bryant Junior, j r. But you can look him up, Donnie Bryant. You'll find him on LinkedIn. I think he's got a free training course there for financial advisors as well, as he has a book that just came out. I don't think it's directed specifically to financial advisors, but it's the same stuff whether you're, in any service industry, essentially the same principle. So you're the new book, is, I believe, it's subject line science that you just got come out. So I'm gonna have to Yeah. Actually, the book is is a year old. So when we were talking about it, it it doesn't seem like it's that old. But, yeah, we just go a little deeper into the, into the things we've been talking about here to death. I I've gotten really great, reviews and and feedback on the book. So if you're sending emails and you wanna get attention, I think, it's a resource that could be helpful, for you. And I I I appreciate you mentioning it. But, yeah, LinkedIn is where I'm spending most of my time these days. Awesome. Well, Donnie, it has been a pleasure to have you here. I've learned a lot, and, thank you for being a guest.