How John Carlton *looted* my bank account

Josh Earl
Josh Earl
Jul 25, 2017 · 3 min read

When I handed in my notice that I was leaving my 9–5 programming job for life as a freelance copywriter, I made a vow:

I was going to spend the next several months getting my freelance business sorted out and studiously AVOID making any big ticket purchases until I had a better sense of what my month-to-month earnings would look like.

So how is it that I found myself dropping $1,997 + $29 shipping and handling on a copywriting course — less than a week after making this solemn pledge?

That’s what I was wondering as I clicked the Buy Now button for John Carlton’s Simple Writing System course.

In the process, I got a few flashes of insight about myself and how I make buying decisions that I thought I’d share.

Insight #1 speaks directly to the old “how long should my copy be?” debate.

First some background…

I first heard about this course about a week before I pulled the trigger on a copywriting forum.

SWS, as it’s known, is an intense 8-week home study program based on a seminar that John Carlton did a few years ago.

The part that really caught my attention, though, was that each student gets paired up with an A-list copywriter for 1-on-1 critiques and reviews. The roster of coaches is impressive. You literally can’t even buy time with most of these guys.

I wanted to know more, so I went to the sales page for the course.

The sales page was pretty unusual — it had almost no details about the course, just dozens and dozens of testimonials.

The testimonials were all about John’s abilities as a copywriter. I saw a dozen or so names that I recognized, and I read their testimonials.

To be honest, the sales page didn’t help me all that much. Although it was an impressive list, I didn’t really need any convincing about John’s reputation.

But I was still interested in the course, so I Googled around.

I found a Warrior Forum post by Kevin Rodgers, one of the former instructors in the course. Kevin wrote a lengthy review of the course, then answered every single question that forum members posed to him.

I read that entire thread — probably 3,000 to 5,000 words — TWICE.

Then I found a blog post Kevin had written about the course.

Read that twice as well.

There were comments on the post, and I tried to read those as well, but his blog had a bug and I couldn’t see them. I clicked a bunch of things to try to get them to show up, though.

Went back to the sales page, and clicked through to the checkout page where I discovered more details about the course.

I also read that twice.

Mind you, this was all in the space of about 12 hours.

If I could have found more info, I would have read that as well.

Then I sent Kevin 2 private messages with more questions about the course.

Bottom line: I was STARVING for info about this program.

I probably read 10,000 to 15,000 words about it, and I still had more questions.

So… The takeaway here:

When you’re selling a big ticket item (whatever that means for your customers), you almost can’t have too much copy.

Your most interested customers will devour whatever you give them.

More tomorrow.

Millennials don’t read long sales copy — true or false? Here’s what I’ve found.

Josh Earl

Written by

Josh Earl

I’m a copywriter and email marketing expert. I show entrepreneurs how to tell stories that sell in my daily newsletter: https://joshuaearl.com/newsletter

Welcome to a place where words matter. On Medium, smart voices and original ideas take center stage - with no ads in sight. Watch
Follow all the topics you care about, and we’ll deliver the best stories for you to your homepage and inbox. Explore
Get unlimited access to the best stories on Medium — and support writers while you’re at it. Just $5/month. Upgrade