SUMMARY

In this interview, Alen Sultanic shares insights on copywriting, buyer psychology, competing on economics, emotional spending, and building sustainable marketing strategies with host Matthew, emphasizing self-conviction and human needs.

STATEMENTS

Copywriters cannot convince anyone; they only help people convince themselves through engineered stories.
Buyers' decisions involve trade-offs beyond the product, including rent, vacations, or other desires competing for their money.
The market spreads into segments: 10% buy the most expensive, 20% the cheapest, and 70% based on monthly affordability.
Four core human needs drive purchases: survival, reproduction, safety and security, and status.
Women prioritize safety and security more than men, who lean toward status due to biological differences.
Sales processes begin with comparison, creating awareness of lack, and end in a feeling of permission through expectation.
The ego learns through differences, not similarities, which is why comparisons spark desire in marketing.
Advertising creates lack by contrasting the ideal life with the buyer's current reality, opening engagement.
Unaware markets need problem agitation before solution awareness; solution-aware buyers are easier to convert but depend on prior conversations.
Natural buyer evolution takes time, up to a year for organic audiences, due to inherent purchase risks.
Engineered evolution accelerates awareness through targeted marketing, but fast-following copies outdated tactics.
Problems are defined as anything preventing the desired outcome, often rooted in time inefficiencies.
All marketing is change work, occurring over time in a dimension of time, focusing on trade-offs.
Emotional spending means buyers pay to keep a feeling experienced during the process, not to acquire it anew.
High emotional states involve choice; low states lack it, so marketing enables or amplifies choice.
Permission to buy stems from expectation, where gained choices must exceed lost ones from the price.
Maximum lifetime value (MLTV) should aim for unlimited potential, like demanding a million dollars for the full funnel.
Story engineering helps buyers justify high prices by building self-convincing narratives.
Ugly pages convert due to permission for imperfection, but they don't outperform polished ones like luxury brands.
CPA networks attract top affiliates with high commissions, up to 300% of offer price, enabling massive scale.
Platforms like Facebook prioritize whoever pays most for the customer, regardless of copy length.
Choice gain versus loss is key: offers like Rolex provide investment value, minimizing perceived loss.
Post-purchase, trust depletes to zero; rebuilding it through fulfillment determines repeat business.
Bizop offers often fail long-term due to 30% refund rates from unmet expectations and poor delivery.
Money over time leverages credit terms for scale, targeting 10% of buyer's income without stress.
Repeat customers enable compounding; one-time buyers require constant acquisition, leading to decay.
Personal brands succeed through contrast and modulation, avoiding overexposure that reduces engagement.
Copywriting is salesmanship in print, evolving to multiplied salesmanship and ultimately change work.
Power lies in causing or preventing change; copywriters wield this by shifting beliefs and motivations.
Trophies from results build credibility; strategic low-fee deals can yield massive long-term gains.

IDEAS

Buyers self-convince via stories, turning copywriters into facilitators of internal justification rather than persuaders.
Human needs hierarchy—survival, reproduction, safety, status—frames all purchases as competitions against innate drives.
Trade-offs in spending create subconscious calculations, where high prices amplify competing desires like vacations or debts.
Sales funnels as temporal processes exploit time's dimension, gradually shifting agreements through layered trade-offs.
Emotional spending flips the script: the close isn't about gaining a feeling but retaining one already ignited.
Market segmentation reveals 70% as the scalable core, buying based on monthly capacity rather than extremes.
Comparison awakens lack, mirroring evolutionary survival instincts where noticing differences ensures caution.
Solution-aware markets form through social proof and gurus, but problem-state buyers require agitation first.
Fast-following in marketing copies past successes, always lagging behind natural market evolution.
Desire originates from lack, but copy can create it indirectly by amplifying contrasts without overt claims.
Invisible forces like background structures in ads subtly generate lack, making overt manipulation unnecessary.
Low emotional states demand connection for safety, enabling choice as the path to higher states.
Permission in buying equates to expectation outweighing losses, tilting decisions toward acquisition.
Post-sale trust reset requires experiential fulfillment to rebuild, turning products into ongoing marketing.
Money over time democratizes high-value sales, aligning with banking models for sustainable magnitude.
Ego attachment to personal brands drains energy, leading to resentment when scalability hits human limits.
Reality as resynthesis means dialogues are monologues, where self-judgment masquerades as external critique.
Buying patterns dictate selling styles; mismatches cause friction in learning and conversion.
Criteria markets emerge from review patterns, revealing subconscious decision triggers for tailored copy.
Trophies from underpriced strategic wins propel careers more than consistent high fees.
Psychological safety blocks talent; resolving self-judgment unlocks bold action in marketing.
Copywriting transcends words to embody change agency, limited only by self-imposed identities.
Offer economics demand multi-dimensional thinking, blending math, psychology, and human needs.
Compounding via repeats builds empires; one-time sales mimic lotteries, exhausting addressable markets.
Modulation in branding—ebb and flow—heightens value, like scarcity enhancing appetite.
AI as a tool amplifies, but core skills lie in pattern-matching human conviction.
Newbies' success signals industry health; lifting all boats sustains collective prosperity.

INSIGHTS

True persuasion emerges from self-generated conviction, rendering overt selling obsolete in favor of subtle story facilitation.
Purchases are battles among human needs, where offers must eclipse survival imperatives for victory.
Economic competition favors those maximizing lifetime value over time, turning buyers into renewable resources.
Emotional arcs dictate spending: ignition precedes retention, with closes guarding against loss aversion.
Market dynamics reward inclusivity of the 70% middle, fostering organic advocacy absent in elite-only pursuits.
Change work defines copywriting's essence, leveraging time to negotiate trade-offs and enable transformation.
Trust's post-purchase depletion underscores fulfillment as the ultimate converter, beyond initial hype.
Choice amplification neutralizes price resistance, where gains in options silence competing desires.
Personal brands thrive on contrast and restraint, avoiding saturation that erodes engagement.
Self-resynthesized reality reveals judgment as internal monologue, freeing creators from external fears.
Buying patterns synchronize sales efficacy, aligning internal flows for resonant, high-conversion narratives.
Strategic underpricing yields exponential trophies, building credibility that outpaces immediate gains.
Psychological safety's resolution unleashes latent power, bridging divides between execution and ownership.
Multi-dimensional economics integrates psychology and math, enabling claim-free sales through buyer authorship.
Compounding repeats cultivate sustainability, contrasting ephemeral one-time conquests with enduring ecosystems.
Pattern-matching in markets unlocks scientific precision, transforming intuition into scalable replication.
Identity fluidity expands opportunities, dissolving buckets that confine potential to singular roles.
Newbie empowerment metrics gauge systemic vitality, promoting mutual elevation for collective affluence.

QUOTES

"There's this delusion we have as copywriters that we can convince any somebody of something we can't all we can do is get them to convince themselves."
"It's not just about the money that they're buying the product for it's also can't get this for my rent I can't get this for that."
"If you look at the spread of the market right 10% will always buy the most expensive stuff the 20% will buy the cheapest stuff based on what they can afford per month."
"What I found is like it just comes into four human needs first basis human needs is survival so secondary need is reproduction the third one is Safety and Security and the fourth one is status."
"The way we buy paradigm shift in writing copy which is you're not selling the feeling you sell the feeling and then in the close."
"Competing on economics it's a very different world because end of the day you know Facebook Google YouTube like no they don't really care if you have a 10-page sales letter or a short form sales letter they only care who can pay more."
"There's this delusion we have as copywriters that we can convince any somebody of something we can't all we can do is get them to convince themselves right because ultimately we cannot like make them do anything it's choice."
"Ugly pages convert better you know that was the that was the thing and so that gave permission to a lot of these people say oh you know it's okay you can have an ugly page whatever."
"The brain the subconscious is always calculating these tradeoffs right and in the in these trade-offs like we have to um not just focus on what we offer but also like disconnect the other ones."
"Every sales process begins with a comparison right so a lot of the copy openings are right a lot of the ads lot of the emails there's a level of comparison there."
"The ego learns through difference not similarities and what I mean by that is if you look at uh from an evolutionary perspective if you have two people who are um out in the woods and one was more inclined to notice differences."
"What generates a great feeling inside of us um is expectation right is expectation and so if you have ever ordered something um say from Amazon or whatever it doesn't matter something you're looking forward to."
"There's like three stages right there's like the unaware Market problems problem based Market solution State market."
"All problems are lack right and what really defines a problem is it's something is getting in the way or preventing you from getting the outcome you want."
"For us to buy uh anything that's like luxury or whatever we have to lie to ourselves right mhm but so you know if you buy a $255,000 watch you know you can get a watch for 10 bucks."
"You're not paying to get the feeling you're paying to keep the feeling that's the difference that makes a big difference right cuz if you put it down and you leave then you lose it."
"High and low emotional states are all about taking Choice away or giving choice to the person enabling Choice giving choice."
"Whenever you choose something when you ever say yes to one thing you say no to a whole lot of other things right you say no to a whole lot of other things."
"The real magic of marketing when you get when you can get people to make claims for themselves because who do they trust more than anybody else them trust thems the most exactly."
"When somebody buys the product your marketing doesn't work anymore that's that's the crazy part right so for example um most of us we sell information we sell uh things imagined right things imagined."
"The future of the game is like who can lose the most who can be the best at losing money or in the on the front end only to acquire it like you know on the second third fourth fifth sixth transaction."

HABITS

Regularly analyze buyer trade-offs by listing competing desires like rent or vacations against the offer.
Engineer self-convincing stories by focusing on internal justifications rather than direct persuasion.
Segment markets into 10%, 70%, and 20% to tailor pricing around monthly affordability.
Start sales processes with subtle comparisons to highlight differences and awaken lack.
Agitate problems as barriers to outcomes, emphasizing time inefficiencies for relatability.
Build emotional spending by igniting feelings early, then guarding them in the close.
Amplify choice in low-emotion audiences through connection and safety validation.
Calculate MLTV by envisioning unlimited funnel potential, demanding high totals like a million dollars.
Modulate personal brand exposure with ebbs and flows to maintain audience hunger.
Resynthesize reality daily to combat self-judgment, viewing interactions as monologues.
Match buying patterns in learning by adapting coaches' styles to personal flows.
Collect trophies strategically with underpriced deals for long-term credibility.
Expand skills beyond copy by auditing offers and consulting on full funnels.
Use AI tools only for basics like conversions, relying on human pattern insight.
Focus on newbie success as an industry health metric, sharing knowledge freely.
Work with business models over isolated clients to justify value through upsells.
Rebuild post-purchase trust via experiential fulfillment and hot seats.
Visualize feelings while writing to ensure emotional resonance before publishing.
License or co-create products to test change work without full ownership risk.
Monitor cash conversion cycles to avoid front-end losses in scaled campaigns.

FACTS

CPA offers once generated $2-300 million annually with minimal copy, just bullets and disclaimers at 10-20% conversions.
Affiliates on CPA networks can earn half a million dollars a day, funding extravagant Vegas parties where they buy tables from celebrities.
Pornhub receives more traffic than Google, highlighting reproduction's primal pull on human behavior.
Facebook's algorithm stimulates solution-state buying by showing related content, boosting ad relevance.
Organic buyer evolution can take up to a year due to natural risk assessment in purchases.
Insurance and credit industries thrive on survival needs, while luxury ads target reproduction via sexual undertones.
Women notice fine details like red shoes in images faster than men, aiding child-rearing vigilance.
Bizop refunds historically hit 30%, contributing to short lifespans of 2-3 years for most offers.
Rolex captures 30-40% of the Swiss watch market by functioning as an appreciating bank account.
SAS companies scale without added costs, explaining their high valuations post-initial build.
Direct mail breaks even on the third mailing, turning subsequent ones into pure profit.
Ferrari and Lamborghini both went bankrupt before acquisitions, revealing luxury brands' fragility.
Agencies now must optimize offers alongside traffic to justify fees like 10% of ad spend.
NHB job board has facilitated hundreds of millions in deals without charging fees.
15,000 agencies are signing onto the upcoming free job board for hiring marketers.
ClickFunnels thrives on funnel hacking, providing models for unaware users to copy.
High-ticket gurus build desire for cheaper alternatives, inadvertently aiding low-end sales.
Emotional weight of money increases for women, tying spending to safety trade-offs.
Men's status pursuits stem from reproductive competition, where women select based on hierarchy.
Amazon reviews seek vicarious experiences, compensating for lack of direct trials.

REFERENCES

Gary Halbert: Legendary copywriter influencing long-form sales techniques.
Keith Wellman: Inventor of the Video Sales Letter (VSL) in 2009.
Double promo technique: Sultanic's method for offer optimization.
Automatic Clients page: Example of short-form CPA offer with high conversions.
ClickBank: Affiliate network paying percentage commissions up to 70%.
CPA networks: Platforms like those for cost-per-action deals attracting super affiliates.
Pornhub vs. Google: Traffic comparison illustrating reproductive content dominance.
Carnivore diet, intermittent fasting, ketogenic diet: Examples of solution-aware trends via gurus.
Ozempic: Fat-loss drug gaining massive sales through word-of-mouth awareness.
Rolex GMT Master: Luxury watch story for pilots, secondary market at $20-25k.
Goruck bags: Durable travel bags built for extreme conditions, inspired by military use.
Range Rover: Off-road capability videos driving emotional spending on test drives.
Hunter S. Thompson, Hemingway: Influences for experimental drunk writing attempts.
NHB Plus Pro, Fast Forward: Sultanic's programs for copywriters and marketers.
Copy Hinge: Sultanic's concept adding processes to boost conversions.
Nothing Held Back Newsletter: Free resource aggregating marketing insights.
NHB Facebook Group: 45,000-member community for jobs and discussions.
NHB Job Board: Active platform generating millions in deals.
Clayton Makepeace, Gary Bencivenga: Copywriters with distinct buying pattern styles.
John Carlton, Scott Haines: Protégés of Halbert sharing similar patterns.
Agora: Financial copywriting style and market archetype.
Wealth Dynamics: Mechanics vs. creatives in business visualization.

HOW TO APPLY

Identify core human needs in your offer: Map survival, reproduction, safety, and status to buyer motivations.
Segment your audience: Divide into 10% high-end, 70% middle monthly payers, and 20% low-end to customize pricing.
Start copy with comparisons: Highlight differences between current state and ideal to awaken lack subtly.
Engineer stories for self-conviction: Craft narratives that let buyers justify purchases internally without direct claims.
Calculate trade-offs: List competing desires (e.g., rent, vacations) and disconnect them from your offer's value.
Ignite feelings early: Use ads and openings to create emotional experiences, then guard them in closes.
Target solution-aware stages: Research gurus discussing your solution to join existing conversations.
Agitate problems temporally: Frame issues as time barriers, proposing efficiency as the fix.
Amplify choice: For low-emotion buyers, emphasize safety and options to elevate states.
Design for MLTV: Build funnels aiming for unlimited back-end, spreading costs over 12-24 months.
Modulate brand exposure: Alternate high-output periods with breaks to build anticipation.
Resynthesize judgments: View critiques as self-monologues, resolving internal blocks before external action.
Match buying patterns: Adapt coach teachings to your style by requesting modifications for flow.
Collect trophies strategically: Take low-fee deals for big results, using stats for future credibility.
Audit full offers: In client roles, suggest optimizations beyond copy to gain broader impact.
Use AI minimally: Query basics like conversions, but rely on human insight for core work.
Monitor newbies: Share free resources to gauge and boost industry health signals.
Partner with models: Choose clients whose economics justify your value, like high-margin ones.
Rebuild trust post-sale: Deliver hot seats and fulfillment exceeding expectations immediately.
Visualize emotions: Generate personal feelings while drafting to ensure resonance.
License products: Test ideas without creation by partnering for quick market entry.
Analyze cash cycles: Factor front-end losses into scaling plans for break-even timing.
Hide sales processes: Use podcasts or content to delay price awareness and reduce resistance.
Focus on repeats: Build catalogs for ongoing engagement after initial buys.
Expand identities: Avoid copywriter-only labels; pursue consulting and ownership simultaneously.
Research criteria: Scan Amazon reviews for recurring decision triggers in your niche.
Align patterns to markets: Study competitors' rhythms to synchronize with audience flows.
Give ebbs: Withhold content periodically to heighten value upon return.
Offer functionally free: Structure deals where your impact covers fees via upsells.
Launch free tools: Like job boards, to foster ecosystem growth and indirect returns.

ONE-SENTENCE TAKEAWAY

Master copywriting by engineering self-conviction through emotional economics and human needs.

RECOMMENDATIONS

Prioritize story engineering to let buyers self-justify high prices without forceful claims.
Compete on multi-dimensional economics, blending math and psychology for sustainable scaling.
Target the 70% middle market with monthly pricing to capture scalable volume over extremes.
Begin every sales process with subtle comparisons to ignite desire via evolutionary differences.
Focus closes on retaining ignited feelings, leveraging loss aversion for emotional spending.
Enable choice in low-emotion audiences by validating safety and expanding options.
Aim for MLTV infinity by designing funnels with unlimited back-end potential.
Modulate personal branding with scarcity to avoid engagement fatigue.
Resolve psychological safety issues by reframing judgments as internal monologues.
Adapt learning to your buying pattern for seamless style integration and results.
Collect underpriced trophies for credibility that unlocks higher future deals.
Expand beyond copy into full-funnel consulting for skill growth and value.
Use AI only for trivia, preserving human pattern-matching for authentic persuasion.
Track newbie success as your north star for industry-wide prosperity.
Align with high-magnitude models like credit terms for money over time.
Rebuild trust via experiential delivery post-sale to fuel repeats.
Work business models holistically, justifying fees through shared upsell wins.
Visualize personal emotions in drafts to guarantee audience resonance.
License or co-create to experiment with change work at low risk.
Analyze resistance roots to eliminate force in sales, aligning with buyer wants.
Build catalogs for compounding via ongoing, non-intrusive promotions.
Avoid ego fusion in brands; scale through systems over personal energy.
Research market criteria via reviews for pattern-locked, high-conversion copy.
Give the gift of absence in content to sharpen audience appetite.
Position as functionally free by exceeding client ROI in every deal.
Synchronize selling patterns to audience flows for effortless conversions.
Launch free ecosystem tools to elevate collective opportunity and returns.
Caution against mismatched mentors; seek pattern-aligned guidance for breakthroughs.

MEMO

In a candid two-hour masterclass, copywriting veteran Alen Sultanic demystifies the art of persuasion, revealing it as less about eloquent words and more about unlocking buyers' self-conviction. Joined by host Matthew, who credits Sultanic's techniques for his own quarter-million-dollar windfall, the discussion dissects how markets operate through economic tug-of-wars. Sultanic warns against the copywriter's delusion of control: "We can't convince anybody; we can only get them to convince themselves." Instead, success hinges on engineering stories that align with innate human needs—survival, reproduction, safety, security, and status—framing purchases as triumphs over competing desires like rent or fleeting luxuries.

Sultanic's career arc underscores this philosophy. Returning to an industry he'd once shunned as unsexy, he found copywriting elevated from drudgery to allure, yet trapped in one-dimensional conversion chases. Drawing from legends like Gary Halbert, he navigated the rise of CPA offers—those postcard-like pages raking in hundreds of millions with scant copy—by shifting focus to economics. Platforms like Facebook reward the highest bidder, not the longest letter, so Sultanic advocates competing on maximum lifetime value: envision your funnel capping at a million dollars, then parcel it over time. This "money over time" paradigm mirrors banking, targeting 10% of buyers' income to avoid stress, while nurturing the 70% middle segment for scalable, organic growth.

At the heart lies buyer psychology's subtle machinery. Sales processes unfold temporally, starting with comparisons that spotlight lacks—evolutionary holdovers where noticing differences ensured survival. Women, wired for detail, weigh money's emotional heft against security; men chase status for reproductive edge. Sultanic introduces "emotional spending," a paradigm shift: buyers don't pay for feelings but to retain them, ignited in trials like slipping on a Rolex or test-driving a Range Rover. High prices amplify trade-offs, so offers must tilt choice gains—like Rolex as an appreciating asset—over losses, granting permission through expectation.

Yet pitfalls abound in mismatched executions. Sultanic critiques ugly-page myths and high-ticket gurus who ignite desire only to funnel buyers toward cheaper rivals. Post-purchase, trust plummets to zero; fulfillment, not hype, rebuilds it for repeats. Bizop refunds at 30% stem from this gap, dooming short-lived offers. He urges copywriters to transcend wordsmithing, embracing "change work"—shifting beliefs, motivations, and choices across mediums. Personal brands demand modulation: contrast via posts amid video floods, ebbs to heighten hunger. Ego attachment burns out; systems scale.

Sultanic's toolkit includes pattern-matching: align your buying style—story, facts, authority—with markets via Amazon reviews or competitor rhythms. In his programs like NHB Plus Pro, coaches specialize in ads, CRO, and more, fostering full-stack expertise. He shares war stories, like undercharging $15,000 to catapult a podcast VSL from $100K to $3 million monthly, yielding trophies that propel careers. AI? A mere tool for basics; human insight rules.

For aspiring copywriters, Sultanic preaches fluidity: shed rigid identities, audit offers beyond briefs, collect results as currency. His free Nothing Held Back Newsletter and job board exemplify lifting the industry—15,000 agencies onboarding to hire talent, signaling newbie success as prosperity's barometer. In a noise-saturated world, this ethos restores magic: make the unknown known, banish fear, and wield change fearlessly.

The interview closes on optimism. Copywriting, once a lottery-like grind, now thrives on accessibility—no coding woes, one-click upsells. Yet discernment matters: choose mentors whose patterns resonate, lest mismatches stall progress. Sultanic's vision? A vibrant ecosystem where shared elevation compounds wins, turning individual hustles into collective fortunes.