Travis Cody: 07:14
And what I love is yeah, what I love is in the beginning of that. Skrob his co-author on that, you know, they had written this book and it was almost 50000 words. It was like everything Perry believes about that, you know, that philosophy. And then Rob’s like, but wait a minute, you’re the 80/20 guy. Shouldn’t we just give the 20? And so they stripped this 50000 word book down into, I think, ended up being like 9800 words. And so that, that actually made me really start looking at my books going like, yeah, but what, what do I really need to get in here to get? Get somebody like 90% of the result without having all the other stuff. And that, that that ended up inspiring what I’m calling it the pocket guide series. I have this little series of books that are four by six, and there’s five of them and they just come out. But Perry and Rob inspired that one.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 08:05
And, and, you know, I want to say something to anyone who’s listening. I love that book so much. And because it’s short, it’s sweet and it gets to the point. So I made Perry do a course on it really. And so this is if you go to Rise25.com and you go to resources, there’s a course page, and if you email me and you want it, I’m going to give you a discount code that’s super inexpensive. I’m not going to say what it is, but it’s going to be super, super inexpensive. And you can see it right here. It’s DETOX, DECLUTTER, DOMINATE with Perry, Marshall and Perry and I recorded a course on it because I like listening to things at like 2 or 3 times speed. And even though the book is short, I’m like, let’s do a course on it. So if it’s something you’re interested in, let me know. But his book is one you can get the book too. It’s phenomenal.
Travis Cody: 08:52
And it’s again, also that came out Pre-AI, right? And you look at it now going like that back then they’re talking about like, you just gotta detox your mind from all the noise. And I was like, boy, you know, there’s few authors that write stuff that actually gets more relevant as time goes by. Perry’s one of them.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 09:10
So we’re going to formally introduce you, but I still have another question, which is like, how many books do you have at this point? You personally.
Travis Cody: 09:19
Yeah, I’ve got 19 that are 19,20. My 20th book has been edited. It’s just in layout and I’ve got, I don’t know, 4 or 5 others that are in various states of disrepair.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 09:30
So you can see if you’re listening, if you’re listening, listening, you could check out the website where TravisCody.com my books. And you can see there’s just a few of them there, the one that stuck out to me. And you know what I’m going to say here because I talked to you about this, which is the Sylvester Stallone book. I’m like, this is so random, you know? And I was watching Tulsa King at the time. So it was like even more. I’m like, oh, I gotta check that out. Why did you choose the inherent genius of Sylvester Stallone?
Travis Cody: 09:58
There’s two reasons. First and foremost, that book was I’ll just say I had a healthy debate with somebody about what a book even actually is these days and what we could use as a book. And so I actually, my master’s thesis was all about the writing of Sylvester Stallone. As far as I know, I’m the only person to write an academic paper on Sylvester Stallone. The writing of Sylvester Stallone. And so that that book was my, my master’s thesis that I edited a little bit and just published one to prove that like almost everything we do today in content can be repurposed as a book. But the thesis itself was really just honing in on the fact that Sylvester Stallone.
Like, you know, because of his voice and because of the characters he’s played, everybody is always like, oh, like the classic 80s meathead. That’s the phrase that goes to, to, to him, right? But he that he’s, he’s brilliant. He is very, very, very philosophical. But, you know, as much as he’s known for his Rocky and Rambo and the movies he’s done, what people don’t realize is that when I wrote that, I think now it’s more something like 29 of the scripts that he’s written have been produced. Wow. Like that, there’s no other writer in the history of Hollywood that has had that many of their movies actually made. Nobody. And it’s just the fact that, like, nobody even realizes that, like he’s the most successful screenwriter in history because everybody’s like, oh, yeah, he’s the action guy. And so I just wanted to kind of dive into that.
And for my thesis, what I did was I went into the macro and the micro of the hero’s journey with the Rambo franchise because he did something and I haven’t had this conversation with him yet. Like, Sly, if you’re listening, I, you know, take you to lunch. I want to talk about this. But for everybody who’s familiar with the hero’s journey, I’m, I’m just going to assume everybody is. If you’re not, it’s a travesty. But so, you know, when you look at Rambo, I’m not just talking about the first four Rambo movies. Each movie is its own hero’s journey, right? But when you take all four Rambo movies, each one of them is a piece of the journey so that the four journey. Because where does he start? Movie one he’s.
He’s drifting. He’s the battle of war. He does everything. And where does he end up? At the very last Rambo movie. What’s the very last shot of Ram before he’s returning home? After all, after, what, 40 years, he’s finally going back, having learned the lessons that he needs to, to finally go back and realize. And to me, it was just mind blowing that over a 30 year period, micro li he had the hero’s journey, but he also had a macro hero’s journey. And I, to me, it’s one of the most, you know, great cheesy action movies. But from a writing standpoint, that was just awesome. And so I like, I just geeked out on that and my thing going like, look at how genius Sylvester Stallone is.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 12:59
So for a second, Travis, for people who don’t know, I may try and encapsulate the hero’s journey. So people kind of know a little bit about what it is. Well, so do you somebody.
Travis Cody: 13:09
Somebody in, in, in their, their ordinary because.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 13:12
This applies to a lot of things like copywriting doesn’t have to be a screenplay. It could be you’re writing an email or you’re writing a book, or you’re copywriting, a web page or whatever it is. Yeah.
Travis Cody: 13:22
I mean, in a nutshell, it’s an ordinary person in their ordinary life. And they’re very, you know, just going about the day to day like we all are. And something extraordinary happens to upset the balance and they have to make a choice. Am I going to stay the same, or am I going to make this decision to go somewhere else? And usually the decision is like, oh my God, this is super scary. And they can make it willingly. But if they don’t, then the universe usually pushes them into that anyway. And so they end up going on this journey essentially of self discovery. They’ll usually have a mentor in play. But the crux of it is during that journey, they think they’re getting the upper edge and they’re actually not.
They’re descending into, you know, the rock bottom moment. And at the rock bottom, they have another moment, another decision. And that’s usually where they discover their own power. And through discovering their own power, their own resolve, they start to come back. They overcome their ego, they overcome their, you know, their, their pride. They overcome whatever they have to, to become a more evolved version of themselves. And from that, they have a great realization. They overcome their obstacles, and now they come back to their ordinary life, a changed person. But usually they’ve changed in such a way that they now have something they can give back to the community. It’s you know, Campbell referred to that as coming back with the elixir or the nectar to share with them. And that in a nutshell, that kind of what it is.
And it’s funny because when you look at, you know, we were talking about Tony Horton earlier. What, what, what is it with weight loss? Usually like, oh, I was doing great. Something happened. I gained all this weight. I got super unhealthy. I am diabetic. And then this guy comes along, Tony, and he shows me P90 and I follow this thing and he guides me through it and I lose all the weight. And now I’m like, this kick ass version of myself, right? That’s every weight loss story. But you know, you get the rock bottom and a mentor comes and the direct marketers. I started my business. I got so confused. Nothing was working. I was $1 million in debt. And then Perry Marshall showed up and pointed me the way and I was like, oh my God.
And, and, and, you know, I, all I had was my cell phone and $25 in my bank account. But I launched that webinar, and now I just sold my company for $40 million to Russell Brunson, right? You see it over and over and over. It’s the same thing whether it’s in Hollywood or not. And, you know, if you look at the last ten years of Hollywood and people go, everything’s meh because they’re those, that story isn’t there anymore. It’s like everybody’s kind of like perfectly realized and they have obstacles that are easy for them to overcome, and they overcome everything, and they end this exact same way they started. And you’re like, well, that’s boring. That’s stupid. In my humble but accurate opinion, Dan Doberman, Dan would say.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 16:07
Yeah, I love it. So I’m going to formally introduce you. Travis. But, this episode is brought to you by Rise25. At Rise25, we help businesses connect to their dream relationships and partnerships. We do that in a few ways. One, we’re an easy button for a company to launch and run a podcast. We do the strategy. accountability, the full execution, production. And number two, we’re an easy button for a company’s gifting. So, you know, giving and staying top of mind could be clients, partners, prospects, even staff from a culture perspective, simple, easy, affordable.
Just give us a list of people. We do everything else. And you know, it’s like, I don’t like sending like, I guess you could say Travis branded tchotchkes, but like, I do like sending food. So all of it is typically food related. So think through, you know, sending something 3 to 4 months every 3 to 4 months for 5 to 6 years. Right? And so just to say, hey, I’m here, I appreciate you. So, you know, for me, the number one thing in my life is relationships. I always look at ways to give to my best relationships, and I’ve found no better way to profile the people I admire in the podcast and send them sweet treats in the mail. So check out Rise25.com to learn more.
Travis Cody: 17:22
Still in a playbook out of the Tom Cruise or page out of Tom Cruise playbook. I got a Christmas cake.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 17:28
I don’t know, Tom, Tom Cruise.
Travis Cody: 17:30
You don’t know about Tom Cruise Christmas cake?
Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 17:32
No.
Travis Cody: 17:32
What? I thought that was famous.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 17:33
No I don’t.
Travis Cody: 17:35
Years ago, Tom Cruise came across this. I guess it’s some sort of, like, chocolate coconut cake, and he just. He lost his mind over this cake and he’s made the cake ever. And so now, like, there’s this funny thing in Hollywood where like, everybody’s kind of like, they want to be in the inner circle of Tom Cruise. Because when you get into his inner circle every Christmas, you get the Tom Cruise Christmas cake, the coconut Christmas cake.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 17:58
Gotcha.
Travis Cody: 17:58
And, and there’s some of the younger actors that are in their mid 30s now. They talk about how like when the cake comes, they invite their family over and everybody gets this little slice.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 18:06
Right.
Travis Cody: 18:07
And it’s this huge thing he sent. I think he sends out like 3 or 400 of these. But everybody’s like, I know that’s when I knew I arrived when I got the Tom Cruise Christmas cake.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 18:15
No, I did not know that. It’s good to know. Yeah. I don’t think I’ll ever get one of those, but that sounds cool. Maybe he’ll invite me over when you get one. But I’m going to formally introduce Travis. Travis Cody, if you haven’t noticed, he’s successfully sold his work in four completely different industries. Okay. Hollywood screenplays, sales, copywriting, journalism, and books. And he’s really worked with some of the top marketers. We mentioned Russell Brunson, Brian Kurtz, Jon Benson, Frank Kern, Caleb O’Dowd. Another great person was on the podcast. He’s amazing. Dave Asprey and many, many more. He really helped successful founders, consultants that could be advisors turn their wisdom and experience into a best selling book. Or sometimes he says, your legacy in a book. So, Travis, thanks for being here.
Travis Cody: 19:10
Yeah, thanks.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 19:10
For having me. And, you know, we talked a little bit about your books already, but you’re maybe about how you got started and, you know, the influence of direct response marketing.
Travis Cody: 19:22
Sure. Yeah. You know, it’s funny. It’s such a weird way that I wrote my first, I should say, adult book. So I wrote my first book when I was 12. And, my friends are like, oh my God. I was like, calm down. It was a book written by 12 year olds for other 12 year olds. So, you know, it wasn’t like I was writing an epic fantasy. It was a trilogy called Travis a Tricky Tiger. It was very original. Alas, I lost those manuscripts. But I had been in Hollywood for six years, seven years. And I, I had stumbled across direct response marketing, and I sort of became obsessed because on the one hand, I’m getting the letters from Gary Halbert and talking, oh, you spend $1,000 here and we’re able to track it, and we know we got $3,000.
And so now we double down. You know, in the meantime, I’m going into marketing meetings and they’re like, hey, we’re going to drop 5 million on HBO and 5 million on Showmax or Showtime and 5 million over here. And I’m going to raise my hand, okay, but how many movie tickets is that? $5 million HBO getting us? What do you mean? I’m like, how are we tracking like, and they’re like, you dummy, that’s not how this works. We just, we throw 100 million at everything and we do this over the weekend. And if the movie’s number one, we, the marketing department, high fives themselves and says they’re geniuses. If the movie flops or like, it has to be something else, not us.
And so because of that, I ended up, you know, as one would do back in the early 2000, Dan Kennedy was the guy. And so he came to LA and did a huge event. I think there were like 5000 people there. It was crazy. But Dan Kennedy got up and he was like, if you’re a business owner and you don’t have a book, you’re nobody. And, you know, 30 years old, I’m like, I don’t have a book. I don’t want to be a nobody. I got, I gotta have a book, I gotta have a book. And so, and then, you know, everybody’s there. Business owners. I’m a screenwriter and I’m like, I don’t even know how I’m going to monetize this thing, but I gotta have a book. And so my first son Dan Kennedy was inspired.
My first book was called Celebrity Rules. And all it was was a humor book making fun of celebrity culture. They say no, they say write what you know. Right? That’s what I knew. I was making fun of all the famous people who never did figure out how to monetize that, but that that started the journey of, you know, figuring out what to do. And, you know, that first book, it took me a couple of years to get it done because I was just stumbling along in the dark trying to figure out what the heck I was doing.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 21:46
But a lot of like when we talk about copywriting and I think, you know, for me, Travis, I say this when it comes down to two things, it’s relationships and direct response marketing, right? And learning direct response marketing was one of the most important things that I did. And I’m still learning, but a lot of roads go back to Dan Kennedy a lot of times for people. And, but, but Gary Halbert, I agree. Like I went on a path on my podcast to go, okay, I want to have Gary Halbert not around anymore, unfortunately. But like, I went and had tried to have all his proteges on the podcast. So Caleb O’Dowd, Sam Markowitz, John Carlton, Doberman Dan. Because like learning from the, you know, greats of direct response, there’s, there’s a lot of lessons there in, in conversation, in emails and whatever. It bleeds into everything. And especially with what you do, not just books, but selling books. Right?
Travis Cody: 22:49
Yeah. Yeah. It all comes down to being able to, you know, inspiring people with your words to, you know, I like I, Caleb used to share stories with me about Gary and some of the things that he did. And, and I’m going to share some, I don’t even know if this, this, this story is actually public, but it was one of the ones that to me was like that pit of despair of like, oh my God, why am I even trying to do this? Also, how do I do that? And he was talking about how one of Gary’s friends, close friends, got diagnosed with this really rare form of cancer. And there was a hot, like, Miami hospital. I don’t know the correct name, but let’s just say it was Miami. You know, the major hospital in Miami. They actually had this sort of technology that was supposedly good for this thing, but it was, you know, it was experimental and insurance covered it. And it was, you know, millions of dollars. And his friend was like, I’m going to die and I could do this thing, but I, you know, there’s nothing I can do.
And, and Caleb was there and he said, Gary was really shaken up by this. And, Gary sat down and he wrote, I think it was like a two page handwritten letter to the president of the Miami hospital. And three days later, his friend called him back in tears, going, what did you do? And to this day, Caleb says, he’s like, I have no idea what Gary put in that letter. But Gary wrote a letter to the president of the hospital, and three days later they called the guy and said, you’re in our program and we’re going to cover all the costs. And my brain just went, how do I use words to affect that level of impact? I mean, that to me is just like, you know, obviously Gary was a genius marketer, but how do you do that? Like that is yeah, that, that, you know, that’s a, that’s transcendent if you ask me.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 24:35
One of the things, you know, Travis, that fascinates me from your journey is how you’ve coupled direct response with relationship building. And I love for you to talk about this, you know, maybe getting in touch and this doesn’t only include Russell Brunson, but it’s a very interesting story and how you just got in touch with them. Yeah. If you want to share, share that. Sure. There’s actually parts with other people too. But yeah.
Travis Cody: 25:06
Yeah, there’s a, there’s actually parts of that story that I haven’t really shared. I’ll share the whole story. So I was working with Jon Benson at the time, the inventor of the VSL. For people who aren’t familiar with who he is. And of course, ClickFunnels would come out. And, you know, Russell had just gone stratospheric and I was like, oh, I’d love to. I would love to just get on Russell’s radar. But at the time, I’m, you know, I’m, I’m a low level copywriter that’s just working for Jon Benson. Nobody knows who I am. I’m never going to be able to do this right. And so what I started doing because of my relationship with Jon Benson, I’m starting to do, to meet all these people. Dave Asprey, I met Dave Asprey with Jon Benson, mastermind. I ran into Alex Mendoza.
And if you happen to know who he is, and I ran into somebody else and, and I knew that all of these people knew Russell. And so, when I would meet with them and be hanging out with them, I’d say, hey, you know what? I’m going to pull out my phone and like, let’s shoot a quick video for Russell Brunson. And so like, I got a video of me and, and Dave Asprey had just gotten a kite, the one of the cryo tanks that, you know, Knight and Russell had just gotten one. So I’m like, Dave Russell just got a cryotank. You got to give him some advice. And so I shot this video and I would just send him to Russell on his Facebook. Russell’s probably like, who, who is this guy?
Right? So I did it with Alex Mendoza and, and I did it with someone else. And then Russell was doing some sort of writing contest. And so, and he’s like, when he used to do Funnel Fridays, right? Hey, submit your idea. And so I found this company that did like old school, like parchment, like the 1500s, like, you know, official proclamation. And so I wrote a direct response sales letter, like selling my wife’s business, why it needed to be on funnel Friday, funnel Friday. And then I got this customized wooden box and I had them engrave Clickfunnels in it and I sent that to Russell. So that was on his God, I never heard back from him on that one.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 27:12
And really I’m surprised.
Travis Cody: 27:14
And, and then later I, I, I thought, you know, Russell’s got this podcast. I’m like, I’m just going to turn this podcast into a show like I’d seen Tim Ferriss had just released, I believe it was a Tribe Of Mentors. And then first he’s like, hey, this was, this is curated for my podcast. I was like, well, Tim Ferriss just did a New York Times best selling book. So I took Russell’s podcast and I turned it into a bespoke book. It was called The Book of Brunson. And if you know Russell Russell’s Mormon. And so what I did is I found a Book of Mormon. I got the same color blue, I got the same style of gold lettering and put a book by Brunson and subtitles. And then the cover page of the Book of Mormon is all an old English scripture. And I rewrote it in Old English, but it was all like Russell Brunson and direct marketing and, and created this, you know, it looked like the Book of Mormon, but it was the book of Brunson and, and I and I remember like, I got it. And before I mailed it to him, I’m like, you know, this is either going to go fantastically or he’s going to be like, this guy has committed blasphemy by desecrating Holy Scripture.
I’m like, I’m like, there’s no middle ground with this. It’s either going to go big or I’m going to be blacklisted forever. And, and then I got this little box and I found a box that when you open it, there’s a video, a screen in it, and you could have a video. So it’s a video box. And so I created a custom video form and I sent that to, to Russell. And that one Fedex sent me the thing going, oh, the box has been signed for. And 25 minutes later, Russell’s on Facebook and dropping me a video message of like, oh my God, this is amazing. So what’s funny is later when I went to visit Russell in, in up in Boise and went to ClickFunnels headquarters, he has this bookshelf that’s like great direct marketing and, Russell walks me over and he’s like, Travis, I want you to know you’re the only person that’s got two items on the shelf. And he had that wooden box with the scroll, and it was right next to the book of Brunson. And I was like, I didn’t even know you got the thing. You never responded to that one. He’s like, I didn’t know who you were. But he was impressed enough that it made it onto the Hall of Fame for him.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 29:22
Lesson one of direct response, you know, send your information so they can contact you back. No.
Travis Cody: 29:28
Well, I had my information on there, right. Because I wanted but he was like, who’s this Travis Cody guy sent me this weird letter trying to get his wife onto my Funnel Friday show.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 29:36
So it’s amazing.
Travis Cody: 29:37
Yeah. But that was my and, and you know, that that actually has created a lifelong relationship with Russell. Like, you know, we messaged back, it’s like, I would say we’re besties. But you know, a year ago, I was working on a book project called Million Dollar Author. And I was interviewing direct response marketers and business owners that have used books to generate $1 million for their business. And of course, Russell’s the king at that. And, you know, he’s.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 30:03
Almost your book. Travis.
Travis Cody: 30:05
Yeah, it’s my book.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 30:05
Who else is in the book?
Travis Cody: 30:08
See, we got Rich Schefren, Perry Marshall, Jon Benson, Caleb O’Dowd. Brian Kurtz is in it. Doberman is in it. Karen Curry Parker, the Founder of Quantum Human Design. I’m trying. I’m I’m I’m almost done. Brian Delaney if you know Brian Delaney is in it. Brian Delaney was a beast guy . If you don’t know him, you should look him up. He’s just a he’s a he runs at a whole other level of marketing. I’m trying to get Todd Brown and Alex Hormozi. Those are the last two. I want to get in there, but I’m I have I haven’t had any luck with either one of those yet, so but yeah, but but that’s.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 30:50
A great list of names there.
Travis Cody: 30:52
The book is mostly done. I’m just waiting for those last two to see if I can squeeze them in there before I launch it. But anyway, you know, Russ Russell’s almost impossible to get hold of, but I was able to ping him and say, hey, I’m doing this book. Can we do an interview? And, you know, he hooked me up with his assistant.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 31:06
And we just like, you know, they commit to a 45 minute interview or something.
Travis Cody: 31:11
It’s just 45 minutes of talking. And the whole thing was like, let’s talk about books and how you market books, and how do you use books to actually grow business. And, you know, even Russell’s assistant was like, Russell doesn’t do podcasts anymore. I don’t even know how you got him to get on your thing. And I was like, well, you know, I’m like, it’s been in progress for ten years.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 31:28
Dead sea scroll to him.
Travis Cody: 31:30
Yeah. That’s it. But see, I should have done it on bronze if I wasn’t thinking that’s it. I since I sent it on parchment, Russell was like, this is amateur disintegrated.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 31:41
No, actually Todd Brown’s awesome. And so Todd, if you’re listening to this, Todd was on the podcast actually, so we’ll have to send this to him.
Travis Cody: 31:51
His method is outrageous.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 31:54
I discovered him because my former life was as a chiropractor, and he was very heavy into helping chiropractors with marketing and other things early on. So I actually have been following him for decades. When he had chiropractic, he was focused on the chiropractic market. So we’ll have to get you in touch with Todd. Alex Hormozi I, I don’t have any connection with him, but maybe someone listening could help.
Travis Cody: 32:21
Going into relationships. I met Alex at the Inner Circle with Russell Brunson, you know, and he talks about his story where he’d come through Christmas and he’d almost gone bankrupt, but he figured out how to turn it around. And then six months later, he launched a gym. So I met him when he was like two months out of that and had almost been bankrupt. And he was like, I’m just getting ready to do this thing called gym launch. I, I, we, I connected with him, I got his phone number and then I just didn’t stay in touch with him. I just, at the time, I was just doing what I was one of the few people that I connected with to eventually get to the point. I’m like, I’m never going to do anything in the gym. Like, why do I still have Alex’s number? So I deleted it, you know? Then years later, I was like, oh, maybe I should not have done that.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 33:06
You know, there’s, there’s something, you know, thanks for sharing this. There’s so many lessons, I think, in relationships and direct response in that story. So I really appreciate you sharing it. And, you know, even you go back further, you know, because at that point, people could say, Travis, well, you were working with Jon Benson. He had a lot of connections, but there was a point where you went to an event, and I’ll let you tell the story because you were in the room. But like, it wasn’t like it was maybe more expensive at the time than you would have spent to go to this event to even connect with people in the industry.
Travis Cody: 33:47
Oh, we’re talking about the David Garfinkel event.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 33:49
I don’t know which event it was, but I just know there was. Actually, it was not as affordable for you.
Travis Cody: 33:55
There were two events. Yeah, I. I had gone back in the day, there used to be a thing called the Warrior Forum. And I had basically taken all my money and flown out because I’m trying to figure out how this online marketing, direct marketing work? So I went to a Warrior Forum live event and didn’t really know I was there, I didn’t have a purpose for it. But when I was there, I met three people. I met Kevin Rogers, I met David Garfinkel and I met Charles Kirkland, and I’m still friends with all three of them. And I, I, I asked a million questions to Kevin Rogers about copywriting and how it worked. And he kind of got me started. And David Garfinkel, about three months later, was doing a two day live event called Speed Copywriting, rapid copywriting.
It was basically like, how do you write sales copy ridiculously fast? And he invited me, he called me and said, hey, you should come to my event. And I like, I, we, we just had a project fall through. I wasn’t super great with my money. I was basically dead broke and I couldn’t, I couldn’t afford it. And I just like, hey, I just can’t afford it. And, David gracious enough said, hey, if you can give me a deposit, we’ll figure out the rest. And so I sat down and I looked and I figured out like, how much is it going to cost to, to drive from LA to San Francisco to where he was doing the event? I need a hotel room. I can do this. I didn’t, I had just enough money for a gas round trip and that was it. So no money for food.
There was no way I was going to be able to go to the hotel. And so I’m like, well, I’m like, I guess I’m just going to sleep in my car. And so I drive to this event. The event starts at eight on a, on a, on a Friday. I leave at about two in the morning on a Thursday night. And I drove all night so that I didn’t have to get to the hotel. I just rolled up just as the event was starting. Stopped at the 99 cent store and loaded up on a whole bunch of, you know, very healthy snacks. It’s for my food. And yeah, and I went to that event and was all dressed up because again, Carlton was there. He was teaching Carlton. Lorrie. Oh, why am I forgetting the name redhead?
Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 36:08
Hell. Oh, yes, I know you’re talking about Morgan.
Travis Cody: 36:12
Lorrie Morgan, very famous copywriter. David Garfinkel was there. Obviously, Kevin Rogers was there. And I was so paranoid that somebody was going to come out into the parking lot and see me sleeping in my car. And I was like that. I’m like, that would my whole reputation would be wrecked if they figured out that I, I couldn’t couldn’t be there. But what ended up happening is I connected with a copywriter who was too busy and he just, he took on way too much work and he, he, I told him, I’m like, hey, I like John Carlton calls the shameless whore face. You know, you just do work for practically free. And so I’m walking around going like I’m brand new to sales copyright. I’m in my shameless whore phase. What, are you giving $10 for a sales letter? I’ll do it. Let’s go. And this guy, he called me and and and he was just like, hey, so I, I, I took on too much work.
I’m working on this funnel. They’re branding it out. I’ve got a sales letter template, six pages, but I need 25 different versions of this letter. I’m like, okay, how long do we have? He’s like, I’m two weeks old. And I was like, you bet. How much are you gonna pay me $100 for a sales letter? I was like, do that. I’ll do it. So at the time, I was also doing my master’s degree. And it was an in residence. So you would go for two weeks and do just, you know, eight in the morning till 10:00 at night workshops. And so I got this job three days before I was leaving for my residence. And so I would go from 8 to 10 and then from ten until I basically couldn’t stay asleep. I would stay awake. I was working on these letters. Well, I used Garfinkel’s speed writing methods and I didn’t get 26 letters done in two weeks.
I only got 22 done while I was also writing hundreds of pages of academic work. So I, so I pinged I, so I sent David Garfinkel a message and said, hey, this thing that you taught me last month that really works. Look what I just did. And David was like, oh, you did what? And so because of that, we became friends. And he’s like, let me work with you. And, and that kind of started it. You know, David was my, my first, first and only copywriting coach. And about a year later, I was talking to Kevin Rogers and Kevin Rogers used to say, hey, when you get to the point where you’re charging five grand a letter, let me know, because I get so many people from Clickbank wanting. They can only pay $5,000. I’ll just send you the work. And so I got to that point and I said, hey, I’m ready. And he said, I got something better.
There’s this guy named Jon Benson, and he’s actually in Malibu, and I lived in LA and he’s like, he’s doing this event. You should go very similarly. I call Jon, we get on Skype, we’re talking to it and he’s like, perfect. You sound like a great fit. It’s $20,000. And I was like, awesome. That’s so cool. If you ever do videos for five, I’ll still take that in maybe three years. And five days later, Benson called me back and said, you’re in LA, right? I’m like, yeah. And he’s like, okay. And we ended up working out. Same thing. I had to put down a deposit. It was still very significant for me. And then he was just like, I’m going to have you. Right? You know, I was going to be his copy cub, I guess is what Carlton would call it, right? He’s like, I’m going to take this job for $100,000. You’re going to write the letter for me and I’ll edit it.
And that’s how you’ll pay me back for the thing. And so we worked that out and the same thing, right? I went up there and I was still in Hollywood. Still doing screenwriting at the time. And so him doing videos to sell, I was like, oh my God, like videos and direct marketing. Like, what is this crazy space? And, and, and, and so I was going to do a direct response package for Benson. I’m like, I wrote a VSL and I was going to, I just remember the gist of this VSL and I was going to, I was going to mail Benson the VSL on a DVD, but I was going to mail him a £20 dumbbell and I had this whole angle hook, you know, it was my pattern interrupt. Was this guy sending me a dumbbell in the mail?
But before I could mail it, Benson actually called me the day I was getting ready to mail it. And he’s like, I’ve just been thinking about it. You’re really cool. You’re really close to me. He’s like, I need somebody to work with me in my office and nobody else. There’s nobody that lives around here that can do it. Would you like a job? And so I was like, darn it, Jon. I’m like, I was just getting ready to send you this package. I told them about the package and he was like, oh my God, that’s amazing. Now you’re definitely hired. And so I started moonlighting Monday through Thursdays. I would be doing screenwriting for Jonathan Crane. And then Friday, Saturday I would go to Malibu and work with Benson on direct marketing.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 40:54
You know, Travis, what first of all, that I, I love that journey there, but what I, what sticks out to me is humbleness in putting ego aside. Because at this point, you know, people think, well, I’m a, I’m a holly doing Hollywood screenplays, right? And this is beneath me to accept a job as a copywriter for $10 or whatever it is. But it’s a new industry. You, you kind of just put your ego aside and you’re humble about it. And like, I’m trying to learn, break into this new industry. And you, it seemed to me, just came at it from that beginner’s mindset. Even though in a different industry, you were experienced in it, you know what I mean?
Travis Cody: 41:34
So, it’s really interesting because there’s sort of precedent for that version in, in, in television particularly. So like in Hollywood, you know, how do you get started as a screenwriter? It’s very hard unless you know somebody or you’ve got the money right to get started. And there’s not really any rhyme or reason to whose movies get produced. Television, it used to, it’s not so much anymore, but it used to be very much like an apprentice, a pathway. So if you want to become a writer in television, you just have to get in a writer’s room somehow. And the way it would work would be this way. So let’s, let’s say Blue Bloods, they had a writers room. So if I could get into the writers room as an assistant, that’s what just an assistant. You’re fetching coffee. You were a gofer, you’re doing everything the staff was going to treat you like absolute garbage. I mean, they were going to make your life miserable.
They would expect you to work 18 hours a day, and then they would call you two hours later when you were asleep, just to make you go do stuff. And they were purposely trying to break you. And if you could survive 18 months and you’re working for 12 bucks an hour to do that, but you’re in the room listening to these guys. And if you can, if you can withstand the hazing for 18 months, they’ll say, okay, come be a junior writer. And so now you’re going to be on the couch listening, and there’s going to be a head writer that’s working with a senior writer working with you. And it’s very much the same as a coffee cup. The senior writer is going to plot the things. He’s going to do it. You’re going to go write the script, the script, he’s going to edit it. He’s going to take credit for it.
He’s going to get the credit on the episode for it. And you’re going to do that for a year or two, and then you’ll become the head writer, and now you’re working with somebody and you’re editing. And if you do that for a year or two, then you could become a senior writer. And then eventually you can become the head writer. And when you’re a head writer, you can work with an executive producer to, to go pitch shows. And if the executive producer likes it. He’ll go pitch it. It’ll be your idea. He’s going to take co-creator credit with it. But then if that show gets picked up, he’s going to work with you for an episode, and then you’re going to take over as the showrunner. And when you get to the showrunner phase, writers call that God mode because you, like, can do almost anything that you want. That’s the reason why, you know, you see Taylor Sheridan and you turn around. T
aylor Sheridan’s got like 15 shows going on right now because you can’t get a show off the ground unless you’re a showrunner. And that’s how you do it. Now that path takes about ten years, 12 years to get through. And most people won’t survive it. But it’s very much a, you know, start at the bottom working for nothing and you work your way up and you look at the way it is with copywriting, like especially the way John Carlton would teach it. Like you just, however you can get your foot in the door. And for me, right, it was $100 a letter. And eventually you do that. And eventually I was like getting $5,000 a letter, eventually 15,000, eventually 30,000. And I’m working with Benson, who’s charging you one, 25 and 10% of profits, right? So it’s like, he’s the showrunner. He’s the copywriting showrunner.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 44:43
So you eventually obviously broke into books, right? And so I don’t know which one you want to start with. It’s Sally or, you know, one of them that sticks out, which I thought was a good story was Pamela. So I don’t know which would make sense.
Travis Cody: 44:59
Yeah. So that’s how I got broke, I guess you broke into book publishing, being a book publishing consultant. So I had a couple of books published. You know, Dan Kennedy got my first book done and then my second book, I actually ended up getting a real publisher and had a real publishing deal and kind of, you know, was a real author. And at the same time I was moonlighting doing sales copy. And Pamela was a client that we were, we were doing sales copy for. And we were looking at her industry and she was in a very competitive industry and tutoring in LA. Excuse me. She had a tutoring agency. And when we did the research like her, her next nearest competitor up the rung was spending more. Yeah. Was spending more on Google ads in a month than like her agency was making in a year at the time. Right. So that’s how competitive it was. But I looked around and I was like, nobody has nobody has a book in your industry. Like, what’s the thing?
Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 45:58
It’s competitive because everyone I mean, a lot of kids like getting your teen into college, right? If you’re a parent, this is what parents are.
Travis Cody: 46:07
And not just getting into college, getting them into the college that they want. Right? And so I told Pamela she needed to have a book and she’s like, well, how does that work? And so I took her through the process that I had used with my books. We got her published. It went live, hit number one on Amazon for a while. And I, you know, I’m like, the first thing I made her do was double her rates. Like you’re immediately doubling your rates. And there were, oh, I’m having a hard time right now. I can’t double. No, you’re doubling your rates. And she also had a couple of A-list celebrities that had met with the agency but hadn’t signed up. And I’m like, we’re going to send them a copy of the book with a note and say, oh, by the way, my new rates are this and double the rates. And those two ended up becoming clients just from the back of the book.
And the fact she doubled the rates, she eventually went on to raise over $2 million in fundraising for an education app that she had been developing. And that sort of that’s how I ended up in this space, because her book did well and her friends say, hey, how did you do that? Oh, that Travis guy helped me. And so a couple people found me and, and they did well. And then a couple of people found me. And, you know, my first six years in this business, I had no online presence, no website around book publishing. I didn’t promote it. It wasn’t on LinkedIn. It was all word of mouth. And after about 40 or 50 people had paid me a decent amount of money, I was like, oh, I guess there’s this, this thing here being the brilliant, the brilliant, direct marketing genius that I am. I said, maybe there’s a business here. And so that’s that. That’s how, you know, I, I like to say it kind of found me. Right.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 47:39
Travis. One of the things we are chatting about before we hit record, you know, obviously AI is big in this world and we are just talking about the ethical use of AI in writing.
Travis Cody: 47:50
Yeah, I, I’m just I’m so fascinated right now with what is going on with the world, sort of, I shouldn’t say the world writers and the writing industry’s reaction to AI on all fronts. I belong to the Authors Guild, which is like the largest, you know, membership for professional authors. And thus far, their response to everything has been don’t use it. And they’re suing everybody. And I just, I kind of look back at that going, well, we already saw somebody try this playbook. It was the music industry in the late 90s and early 2000 trying to sue Napster out of existence. You know, in the 90s and early 2000, the music industry was doing $40 billion a year. And I think by 2010, they were doing $10 billion a year.
So instead of embracing the technology, they tried to use it out of existence, and they lost 75% of their business. Now, you know, the music industry has recovered. They’re back up to $20 billion a year 25 years later. And so I have a playbook that has already tried that and it didn’t work. And so and what’s interesting too is now there are a lot of book awards for new authors. Like they have a no AI policy at all, where like, if you use AI at all. Now, look, I need to clarify what I mean by ethical use of AI, right? I’m not talking about here’s my outline, ChatGPT, go write me a 5000 word article. Okay, that or a 5000 word chapter that. Yeah, I don’t think that’s stupid. I would never do that. I don’t encourage anyone to do that.
But if I plot out my story and now I’m going to ChatGPT and going, here’s my story, here’s the genre. We point out my gaps. What am I not seeing here? Where is it weak? Where’s it going to fall apart? Where is it not following the hero’s journey the way that it should. And now I’m using it as an advisor, right? Okay. That I think is great. And it’s and so it’s interesting. I have a friend who’s still in Hollywood as a screenwriter and he just got invited to this really high level workshop. And, and everybody there is almost hostile towards AI. And it’s interesting because, you know, he’s very kind of that way and, oh, listen, this is what you do, you don’t use AI, do you? And I was like, man, I use AI this way. I use it this way, I use it this way. He’s like, oh my God, I can’t believe you do that. And I started laughing and he’s like, why are you laughing? I’m like, when I was in the writers room with Jonathan Crane.
Like there would be eight of us, and we would go in at 9 a.m. in the morning and be like, how did you do with your writing yesterday? Here’s my scene. Tear my scene apart. Tell me what’s not working. Tell me where it’s falling apart. Hey. And they all these guys go, here’s what. Here’s how to make it stronger. Here’s what you do. Here’s that. Oh, hey, you know what? Your dialogue really sucks. We need to work on your dialogue. I’m really struggling with this scene. And another writer would be like, oh, you know what? Here’s a line of dialogue. And there would be like, oh my God, that’s brilliant. And I would take that guy’s dialogue and put it in my script and I would take credit for it. I’m like, how? How is this different than if I’m going to AI going like, hey, my dialogue sucks. Help me figure out how to make it better.
Right now, I’m not going again, right? I’ve already got something that I’ve created, and then I’m using AI to help me analyze it. And I think for me, that’s what I’m considering. Ethical use of AI, brainstorming, plotting, development, world building, you know, like my, one of my partners here in Vegas, we have a writers room just for fiction writers called the Writers room.us, and he is the only fiction writer teacher to ever be invited back to Comic-Con San Diego. This will be his 19th year, and he writes epic fantasy, so he’ll write a book series that’s six 700,000 words long, but his world building, he’ll write 1 million to 1 million and a half words before he ever starts writing the series. And this million and a half words no one will ever see that it’s never going to be in the books. What should I do? What’s the world building? It’s the geography. It’s the architecture, it’s the religions. It’s the magic system. It’s the races.
It’s, it’s the culture. It’s the animals, it’s the food, right? It’s all of that. That used to take him about nine months to worldbuild and write a million and a half words of world building. He recently did all of the world building for his newest series in three days. Now again, none of that writing is going to be seen in the thing. It’s just going to. That’s what he’s going to use as the reference point for when he’s building. Right? So I look at that and right now on Amazon, if you when you go to publish a book on Amazon, there’s a little button that says, did you use generative AI to publish this or to do the cover or to do the images? Right? So when you click on learn More, it they, they come right out and say, this is generative. If you use AI to edit, outline or brainstorm, that is not we don’t consider that generative AI. But if you have an outline and you say, go, write me a 5000 word chapter that’s generative AI.
So what I do with my clients is my clients. We follow a process to get our outlines done, and then we’ll stress test it with AI to see where the gaps are. We’ll create rough drafts of manuscripts using a process to get them done super fast. Most of my clients are getting their drafts done in 10 to 12 hours. Non-Fiction book. I should clarify non-fiction. But now we have a rough draft, and now we can use AI to go in there and start taking what used to be a couple of phases of editing, and we can use AI to move faster for those edits, to then take it to a human editor to do a final polish for us, right? So something that used to cost 6 or $7000 in editing fees and take 4 or 5 months, we can do in, you know, a few days to a week now, right? So we’re shortening that down.
And again, it’s, that’s 100% within Amazon’s terms and conditions of what they consider doing? So that’s what I, I, for me, I feel like ethical use of AI is how to use AI to enhance what we’re doing to move, to maybe move faster to actually spot gaps. Right? I love AI because it’s great at pattern recognition. So anybody who’s running Facebook ads or doing marketing or crunching numbers, right. I’m really good at it. Well, you can do the same thing from a story structure if I have my own template of stories I follow and I create my outline, now I can take it and say, hey, according to my own template, here’s my outline. How did I do on a scale of 1 to 10? Right. And it’ll give me a score and it’s like, oh, you did a seven because you missed these three steps. I probably wouldn’t have seen that if I didn’t have that otherwise.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 54:31
Travis. First of all, I want to thank you. You know, thanks for sharing the stories, the journey, the lessons I want to encourage people to check out. You can check out TravisCody.com to learn more. You could check out BestSellerByDesign.com to learn more. And Travis, thanks so much. We’ll see everyone next time.
Travis Cody: 54:50
Thanks.
