• As promised, meet Sean MacIntyre – the first teacher-turned-copywriter I ever met. 
• He’s one of my biggest inspirations in this crazy copy journey I’m on, and I’m so glad I finally got to interview him.
• This was such a fun conversation that we ended up chatting for more than an hour… 
• So I’ve decided to break the episode into 2 parts.
• Here’s part 1:
• [00:00] Why meeting Sean was the first time I realized there’s a lot more I can do with my teaching and creative background…
• [01:25] How I first learned copywriting in 6 hours from a friend of Sean’s (Hi Alex Myers!)…
• [02:00] Follow Sean’s journey from teaching English to college students… to becoming one of Agora’s top financial copywriters… and running his MANY other businesses and YouTube projects…
• [07:00] Why the most painful aspects of teaching made it an “unsustainable lifestyle” for him even though he loves teaching…
• [10:26] Quote: “I don’t want to do that. That sounds silly and dishonest and I have a horrible chronic disease called integrity.” – Sean
• [12:15] Check out the crazy route he carved from doing odd jobs and freelance writing… to becoming a proofreader, copywriter, and then publisher* at Agora – within 13 months!
• (*Which is kind of like the CEO in this universe)
• [15:06] Can you guess the copywriting/business/entrepreneurship pioneer who first mentored Sean as a copywriter?
• [17:45] Quote: “The first copy that I ever sent to him in 2016 – he responded, and I quote, ‘This copy sounds like copy. Fucking stop it. Rewrite this so that your copy doesn’t sound like copy.’” – Sean
• [18:52] The #1 misconception people have about copywriting mentors – and how to tell when you ACTUALLY need one during your copywriting journey…
• [25:00] The top mentee qualities that mentors and experienced people respond well to (plus a mini-rant from yours truly about online communication)
• [27:13] Sean reveals all the best secrets he shared in our copywriting community about getting good at copy… Plus: why you need to STOP browsing the internet with AdBlock on…
• [31:44] At this point, we start nerding out about financial copy and what on EARTH a Big Idea really is…
• [34:56] How often do you REALLY find a Big Idea? And how important are they, really? 
• [38:00] The surprising thing Sean believes sells even BETTER than Big Idea copy…
• [38:50] How the pioneer of Big Idea copy “co-opted” the term from David Ogilvy… and why most people misuse the term…
• [41:02] The BIGGEST skill Sean transferred from his teaching career that best prepared him to think deeply about copy…
• [42:42] Quote: “Really good copywriting is… almost conversational in nature. It’s very friendly, it’s very supportive, and learning how to speak in that register and how to write words and sentences that cut out the fluff and very succinctly deliver messages in that register… requires a lot of deep reading, a lot of thinking, a lot of practice.” – Sean
• …This episode is to be continued.

If you want to check out more of Sean’s work… He’s the chief editor and analyst at diywealth.com (which I used to write for back in the day), which also has a very entertaining YouTube channel. Also, check out his copy YouTube channel, Copy That! You’ll find lots of fantastic free tutorials to get you started in copywriting there.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.