Mike Schauer Interview

Editor:

This time we're chatting with a guy who pretty much owns the copywriting space. For over a decade, Mike Schauer has run Swiped.co, which is a real gold mine for anyone interested in copywriting or marketing in general. The site has an amazing amount of valuable info, which is available for free, but if you want to step it up a level, there's also a paid membership area, which is just insane. If your focus is copywriting, which it should be, then I think you're going to love what we have for you today. Mike, welcome. It's a pleasure to chat with you.

Mike Schauer:

Yes, amazing to be here. That was a great intro.

Editor:

Oh, it's great to have you. Now in time honoured tradition I'd love to start by asking just a little bit more about you and your background.

Mike Schauer:

Yeah, definitely. So we can start at right before, or a few years before I started it, because it's all connected. So my first love and initial skill was design. So I was a designer for a while, would help people with logos, with branding, building websites. And then naturally I started doing the writing when I was building people's websites. And I had no idea that that was called copywriting. So just naturally, if you're coming from, because I would come from a conversion perspective of if I'm going to work on this person's stuff, I want it to convert. And in my mind, just naturally I could not see that happening without the writing being good. So eventually, and thankfully not too many projects in, a friend of mine said, okay, that's delivering way more than you're supposed to. That's not web design, that's copywriting and you should be charging extra for it.

Mike Schauer:

So I did, I started doing that, and I realised that I was very much into this just before I knew what copywriting was, because I was into sales and conversions. So after that, I don't know exactly the timeline, but basically imagine as a designer that I'm visiting sites that are inspiration sites, right? And this is so common in the design world where you have these different sites with other examples and you go there for inspiration. So as I'm diving more into the copy world, I'm like, oh, this would be amazing if there was a site but it was for copywriting like that, because we have something called the Swipe File that so many people have been selling Swipe File stuff for a long, long time, but no one had anything like that.

Mike Schauer:

And I had learned how to code at that point. I loved design, right? So I built the whole site. I was just on rocket fuel for a few weeks where I was super excited about it and this was just a side project. It was not a grand plan or anything. And from there, I think because of how I got into it, because of my excitement around it, it just, the momentum was huge and all of a sudden I'm getting unexpected messages from people saying, this is amazing. This is so cool. And I'm just sitting there like, oh, that's great because, I think it's cool and I wanted to do this, but I wasn't thinking about what other people were going to think. And I think that that mindset has actually served me a lot in my life.

Mike Schauer:

There is one approach that you can take of, alright, we've got the problem, we're going to solve it and we're going to go, like, basically that perspective is more if you're just saying, I want to start a business, right? But if you're just going with the flow of things, it's like, wow, I'm so excited about this. Well, why would I be excited about it? It means that there's other people that have to be excited about it because I know that there's other people like me out there and it just worked out that way. And so I just stuck with it and eventually I stopped taking clients and I was just working on it full time.

Editor:

So what is the business model for that? So Swiped.co as you say, is an online repository of great copywriting, great marketing pieces. And then you have the paid level as well for people that maybe want to dive a little bit deeper. And then does that lead into consultancy work as well?

Mike Schauer:

It could. It's funny, the way that I do consulting now, I do not advertise it. I do not seek it. It's only if someone is truly excited to speak to me where they reach out. Dude, I need to hear your perspective because I don't want to write a whole sales letter just because it's time consuming for somebody else. But what I will do, and I'm happy to do is take a look at what they're doing and as a part of it, I would rewrite some things or give my own ideas, but I'm not doing a whole project from scratch just because of time. But if somebody reaches out to me and they're like, oh, [I’ll do it 00:05:10], I love your [inaudible 00:05:11], then just like anything else, just like the interview, I want to work with people that are excited to work with me.

Editor:

Absolutely. Absolutely. No, it makes life so much easier and so much happier doing it that way. For anyone who perhaps is listening who hears us talking about copywriting but doesn't understand what it is, could you maybe just explain your definition of copywriting?

Mike Schauer:

So copywriting in the most basic way is you are writing with a certain intent to, you could say, get someone to take a certain action, right? In the most plain and simple words. And this is people that don't understand it or they're like, oh, I need to learn how to write copy. I'm like, all right, have you written something to somebody where you would like them to take a certain action? And so if you did, then in your head you were probably thinking to yourself, even if it was subconsciously, what do I say to get this person to do this? We're all salesmen in our own way, and so this is just in writing, and because it's in writing, it does make a difference because you don't have vocal tonality, you don't have facial expressions, you don't have all of the jazz you get today from video. So you have to approach it in a specific way, and that can make it more challenging. But that's where the art of it comes into play.

Editor:

It's making those words leap out of the page as well, isn't it? And connecting with the audience so that, again, they understand without, and even if they have objections, that you actually still broach those objections and talk about that in the copy to overcome those objections. So copywriting is such a nuanced thing and such a great skill that anybody can have. And again, because it is a skill, people can learn how to do this.

Mike Schauer:

Yeah, definitely. Absolutely. Everyone always has their own opinions on how much you need to naturally know to become really good or whatever. But I just think if you're drawn to it, if you hear about it, if you're listening to me and you're like, oh, that sounds cool, and you just go in that direction, I don't know, I'm simple man. It's like going back to what I was talking about, how I start things. If you just have all of this momentum and energy going into something, that builds momentum and you're going to find the answers that you need. And so my site is one way to find those answers, which I deliver knowledge and teaching in this very specific way that's really based on reverse engineering. And that's how I learn. So I learned best through reverse engineering things.

Mike Schauer:

That's just how my mind works. That's how I learned coding, design, looking at other examples. What are they doing here? What are they doing here? And I applied it to copywriting. So if I look, people say, oh, what courses, what books do you recommend? I'm like, honestly that's not… if you coming to me for advice it's, I'm in this niche, can you find some examples for me? And then I'll do a little… this is part of what I'll do in the membership, is when people need research, they'll mention it to me and I'll do research for them and I'll give my take on it. And then all the content that I create, any reports I create, it's all reverse engineered stuff. Like, here's what I saw, here's what I'm getting from it.

Editor:

Nice, because I have heard Swiped.co called Reverse Marketing, which sounds pretty cool. So in your opinion then, Mike, what makes good copy and also what makes bad copy?

Mike Schauer:

Yeah, well I think if we compare it to just like a presentation, right? What would be a bad presentation? Well, somebody could wing it and they could like, wow, that somehow turned out great, you didn't even know what you were doing. No, I didn't. But that's not going to be common, right? So I think a lot of it has to do with your preparation leading up to it, because once you work on a skill enough and it's ingrained, well now you're naturally like, oh, write something for me. Oh wow, that's good. Yeah, I've been doing it for a while. But I think being on a level playing field, if you're looking at it that way, the research, right, and that's what I'm big into, is putting in that research. So then you know whoever I'm writing to, what makes them tick?

Mike Schauer:

What are their fears? What are their triggers? What is important to them? So that if you take someone that has that preparation that looks into all those things and that really steps into that person's shoes and locks in, then even someone that's pretty good, if you just say, all right, right to this target consumer, they're like, oh, well I've never dealt with them, but I know a lot of formulas and I know I've created good hooks before and stuff like, okay. So I think that that's something that is super and super important. And that's the type of answer that goes with who I am and what my side is about, which is making everything easier by doing the research and knowing about it.

Mike Schauer:

So I would say that if you've done that part and you're like, all right, I know a good amount, then it's like, what's the best you can do with what you know? So we can look at something and say, ah, this isn't the best that I think it could be. But it's like looking at the components. Well, is it ill researched? Does it seem like they don't know what they're talking about? Or is it because they just seem like they're new to writing? Where it’s like long sentences, and think now you're going into copywriting specifics. Is it easy to read? Is it, like people say, write like you talk in a sense. It's got to be edited, but, so yeah, this is the first time I'm answering it in this way, so I'm putting it together, but yeah, it's… .

Editor:

That’s good. Yeah.

Mike Schauer:

Yeah.

Editor:

No, it's all good because I think as well, copywriting is one of those, everyone hears about building a list is super important, the relationship is in that list and so on and setting up your auto responders. And that is, again, to be able to do that effectively to set up your auto responders, you need to know at least a little bit about copywriting. It's probably the most undervalued skill of any business in many ways.

Mike Schauer:

Once people realise the effect it has, then they take it seriously, they're like, oh wow, I see now how, well now I probably need it.

Editor:

Do you think it's one of those skills that, because really good copywriters make it look effortless that everybody thinks that they can do it, but actually when they sit down to start writing a sales letter or website copy or whatever, that's when they go, oh, actually this is a lot harder than I thought. I need to look at somebody like Mike who's got experience in this area.

Mike Schauer:

Yeah, I definitely think so. Unless you have somebody where they think everything they do is good. No, this is great. Yeah, it's if maybe people, and this is what I'll find actually, is no, no, we got this. And read their copy and say, all right, if you think so. I don't know if you got it, right. But I'm not going to say anything, just send it out, do what you want to do. And then sometimes people often, they have to see the result for themselves in order to become a believer, you could say.

Editor:

Yeah. And, in terms of the people that you've worked with as well, you've seen amazing increases taking their original copy and then refining it with them and casting your critical eye over what it is they've done already. Can you just maybe tell us about some of the things that you spot regularly that people should watch out for when they're writing their copy?

Mike Schauer:

Well, it, yeah, definitely goes back into the categories I was talking before of like on one side, how much does it seem they know about who they're talking to? And on the other side is how much are they familiar with the art of copy where it's, for instance, oftentimes not having clarity, being all over the place trying to, we are jack of all trades, we full service, we do this, this, and that. I just helped somebody out, and this was just not even full consulting, but like I said, in the membership, somebody comes to me, do some research, give some feedback, right? And, I'm not going to give away the app, but it's an app that it's like a fantasy type game and it teaches you business lessons, right?

Mike Schauer:

So when I say that to you, right, what else do you have as a reference for that? I've never heard of that before, which can be cool, right? But now if no one's ever heard of that before, how are you going to market this to them? Because you can't just say that and be like, ah, I know what you're talking about. I just played a fantasy, you know what, like a Game of Thrones type game where I'm learning about, like no. So I was mentioning, I'm like, you have to bridge the gap between what people know and what they know now. So what do they know now? They know about listening to… like where do they get their business knowledge from? It's like book summaries, and then I showed them examples of, look, there's a lot of marketing around this, around people getting stuff like that.

Mike Schauer:

So now how do you bridge? It's like, oh, well we could say, you can learn even faster than this than in book summaries or stuff like that. Now it's like, oh, I do this, I read book summaries and now this is another option and this seems like fun. So man, it's really like an awareness of the market and what the other person, like if somebody was actively taking what they wrote and showing it to people that were going to get it, that are not family or friends, they would get instant feedback like, I don't know what this is.

Mike Schauer:

And when I give this feedback, like just when I'm talking about, these are often smart people that get it, but they just don't see, and I totally understand that as well because I don't care who you are. If you are in the thick of the trees, right, in the forest, you can't see that big picture perspective. Anyway, we all have our blind spots, so none of these people, it's like, ah, I'm never thinking like these idiots, like what? No, they're not used to thinking that way.

Editor:

And when you are explaining about Swiped.co, what kind of tactics would you use to explain why people should come and visit the website? I'm putting your copywriting expertise on the line here, you know what I mean?

Mike Schauer:

So why it would be a good site to visit?

Editor:

Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

Mike Schauer:

Yeah. Well I think especially, I hear a lot from people, like when I go to copywriting events and stuff, oh my God, when I started, your site was just indispensable. I learned. It's very cool to hear people say especially that in the beginning of when they started learning that they found my site. So because it's a novel thing if now you're first discovering copywriting and of course whenever you're learning something, books, courses, but to see something very unique where they're like, wow, I'm looking at the examples and he is telling me about them and that's not common usually like that reverse engineering style, it really, in any industry, it's not very common. But [in this 00:18:04] unique in that way. So 100% if you’re learning copy, especially because I have the free archive, but then there's people, that season copywriters, oh yeah, I was looking for something, I went to your site quickly to look and they check it out still.

Mike Schauer:

And then people that if I post new content, they want to see what I posted. So it all depends on what you're looking for, what stage you're at. And what I was going to mention earlier, but what I built now with the premium membership, which these changes are going to transfer over into the site overall into the free archive, but I built chrome extensions that are Swipe file tools where you can save full sales pages and tag them and label them with, how much is the price of what they're selling here. And you can write a description.

Mike Schauer:

And then, so there's one called Swiping on Steroids, and there's another called Copy Snippets. And with copy snippets you could highlight any part of a page and save it and tag it and say, if you want to save a power word or a power phrase or a whole component, right? So what this has allowed me to do right now, for myself before I launch it out to everyone, is just improve my workflow. Make it super fast for me to do the thing that I hate most, which is to screenshot everything and save it to the site.

Editor:

Yeah, of course.

Mike Schauer:

[Inaudible 00:19:49] has like, I built this and it took a lot of time. I built this around my workflow to make it easy to save so that way I can spend, and other people too can spend more time annotating and breaking it down. So the idea, and this has always been the idea, but it was a big thing, was to allow people to do what I'm doing as well, where they break down copy in their own way. So that's the next level of where I'm going and what was always my dream for the idea. But yeah, that part of it, it doesn't take any value away at all. There's no missing pieces or anything. It's just like these breakdowns are available to you and this other stuff is part of the membership. So…

Editor:

Yeah. Because I know before we started chatting in the interview, you mentioned that you're working on a whole load of other ideas. Does that include the Chrome plug-ins and everything?

Mike Schauer:

Oh yeah. That's a huge part of it. Huge part of it. That just, because I rebuilt the platform based on this new way of saving.

Editor:

Oh, okay.

Mike Schauer:

Yeah. But imagine that you're on a sales page, you click a button, you save the page, it saves the HTML too and then you open it up and you just, I don't know if you’ve seen on the site where there's little dotted boxes, red boxes around the sales page where I put comments, you would be able to do that as well.

Editor:

Great. Yeah. Super, super useful.

Mike Schauer:

Yeah. Yeah. So the idea is going beyond just me now, me being at the helm and of course being the leader of Swiped, being the one that sets the tone. But it's ultimately, if you really are invested in an idea and you want to take it to its max potential, eventually it has to go a little bit beyond.

Editor:

Sure. You are the founder and now you're seeing your baby really grow and start to walk. Yeah. Yeah. Mike, it's fascinating what you've done, what you've achieved so far and also the next stages. For anybody who's listening or reading this and they want to find out more about you, where's the best place to go?

Mike Schauer:

Yeah, so just Swiped.co and it's pretty self-explanatory. Once you go on there, you'll see all these examples. I think there's like over 400 and they're all breakdowns. You could search through them and like I mentioned eventually, I don't even know exactly what it's going to look like on the front end for anybody, but that's going to even upgrade, so.

Editor:

Great. And yeah, you have the newsletter available there as well, don't you?

Mike Schauer:

Yeah, I've taken a little break on that at the moment, but obviously that's because I've been putting so much into the new platform. But yeah, I'll be back on that.

Editor:

Great, great. Mike it’s been an absolute pleasure chatting with you. Thank you for giving us an insight into the background and also why copywriting is such an important skill that anybody who has an online business or even an offline business should really try and master. Been absolutely amazing. So thank you for your time today.

Mike Schauer:

Yes, thank you so much. I enjoyed it thoroughly. Appreciate it man.