Jules Dan was a group fitness instructor until Covid eliminated his position and he turned to email copywriting. In this interview, he breaks down his system for using email follow-up to connect with subscribers and turn them into buyers and keep buyers from bailing, and how he was able to make over a million dollars from his clients just since 2020!

Resources mentioned

Jules’s Podcast: Storytelling Secrets Podcast
Jules’s FB group: High Ticket Email Sequences

3 Key Points
Don’t just jump into giving information in your emails without reminding people when they opt in who you are and how they got onto your email list.

There’s no one right amount of emails to send. If you have more case studies and more objections it will be a longer series than if you have less.

Overcome ALL their objections in your emails

Transcript

[0:00] Ellen: Hi and welcome. I’m your host Ellen Violette, and you’re listening to the Books Open Doors Podcast, Episode 104. Today I’m joined by Jules Dan. He’s a group fitness instructor turned email copywriter who has a passion for stories. And today, we’re going to be talking about what goes into an email sequence, so let’s do this.

Music: Welcome to the Books Open Doors Podcast. Are you a mission-driven speaker, coach, consultant, thought leader, creative entrepreneur, or author who wants more credibility, financial abundance, and wants to make a bigger impact in the world and leave a lasting legacy, and who wants to have fun doing it? Then stay tuned for today’s inspiring podcast with your host, Ellen Violette.

[0:48] Ellen: Okay, we’re back. So let me tell you about Jules. So since starting his email copywriting journey in March of 2020, stories have been his secret weapon to help his clients bring in over $1,340,000. His podcast, Storytelling Secrets, is for coaches, consultants, and course creators who want to unlock their core stories and use their stories to sell more online. Storytelling Secrets has been featured in the Top 100 for entrepreneurs in the US, and in the Top 50 for Australia and the UK. So, let’s jump right in. Welcome to the call.

[1:24] Jules: Hello, Ellen. Thanks a lot for having me on the show.

Ellen: I’m so excited to have you on the show. We had such a good time on your podcast, and people might be seeing a pattern here. A lot of times what’s been happening is I go on someone’s podcast and that I invite them on mine. So, that happens a lot because I find out that they’re great and interesting and something that I know my readers are going to learn more about.

Jules: Oh, thank you.

[1:50] Ellen: Yeah. So, why don’t you tell us how you went from instructor to email copywriter.

Jules: Okay, cool. I’ll give you guys the cliff notes backstory because I don’t want to put you guys to sleep with a lot of soundbites, I understand. But basically, prior to COVID, yeah, I was full into the health and fitness space. I was a personal trainer. I’d be getting up doing split shifts, [5:00] AM, and then [6:00] PM, and just doing nothing in between. And I realized I didn’t want to do that, but I was just figuring stuff out. I was doing marketing side hustles like Facebook ads, or I’d started trying doing Amazon FBA, all these different things. Got a little bit of success, but nothing really hit the mark. And it wasn’t until March 2020 when I remember they just called me and they said, “You can’t come into work because you’re basically redundant because of what’s going on right now.”

Ellen: Right.

Jules: And so I had nothing. I had no money coming in. I didn’t have-not many prospects. I started doing Upwork copywriting from about $5 an email, I remember. And the reason why I just chose to email was just because I was sick of Facebook changing so many policies. So, I just said, “Okay, let’s go into email. There’s a few rules, but it doesn’t keep changing all the time, and you own it.” And so that’s what I did.

So during COVID, I just started to really focus on the clients that I did have, which was nothing, but it was something. And I was listening to this podcast called the Pete Godfrey Persuasion Show. He’s another copywriter in Australia. He’s one of the best copywriters around.

Ellen: What is his name?

Jules: Pete Godfrey.

Ellen: Oh, Pete Godfrey. Okay.

Jules: Yeah. And so basically I’d listen to Pete’s podcast, apply the principles to my client’s work and get a result, and then I’d get a testimonial, and then I’d get a slightly better client. And that worked up until a point where I started having these consistent client work coming in. I used that money to reinvest, to actually hire Pete as my coach and my mentor to train me one on one.

Ellen: That’s smart. Uh-huh (affirmative).

Jules: Yeah.

Ellen: Very smart.

[4:03] Jules: So then within a few months, I was starting to get good, but it didn’t come without its sacrifice. I remember I just had this YouTuber on board and he wanted to do lots of content emails and it became my first batch to pay. I’m like, “How are these Pete?” And he’s like, “These are terrible.” And he was literally like, “Start again. These are just shocking.”

And he has never sugar-coated anything. He’s like, “I want you to read this book. Read it, come back to me, tell what it’s all about. I want you to handwrite these sales letters. Handwrite it, tell me what’s going on in these sales letters,” and he was a bit of a hard ass when it came to teaching me stuff, but it really paid off.

And within a few months, I had my first six-figure launch and that was my first ever result. I was super pumped and I was like, “Wow.” From not having a result for five months to that. And then, I kind of understood the principles of what works to get people to buy stuff with emails, without being pushy, without being like a bro marketer. Just being really empathetic, just understanding what’s going on in their day and using stories to sell. And then ever since from there, yeah, I just got a better client, better client, better client, better result, better result. and it’s been a lot of fun, Ellen.

[5:18] Ellen: Wow. That’s amazing. Well, the first thing I want to say, and I just recently did a… I do two kinds of podcasts. One are my interviews and the other ones are something I call Books Open Doors Insights, and it’s basically me doing a short training. And I did one on simplicity and that you don’t have to do a lot of things.

But one of the things that I talked about was that if something is not working, a lot of times people just go, “Okay, well this isn’t working. I’ll try something else.” And they don’t even think to hire a coach because what I say is if it’s something you really want to do, don’t just throw it out. Go get some coaching from somebody who knows how to do what that thing is you want to do-

Jules: Exactly.

[6:16] Ellen: And figure out a way to do that. So, I really want to give you kudos for having gone and found somebody who you thought was the best and learn from them. And I mean, the results speak for themselves. So, what was it that you think made it a six-figure launch?

Jules: For that first client?

Ellen: Yeah.

Jules: Well to start off with, they had no structure. It helps to have a strategy and a structure in place. They were doing all the marketing themselves in the past, so it helps when you bring in someone to take away a lot of that writing for you and they can show up for the sales calls with a lot of energy. I think that’s pretty helpful. But all the principles of building up anticipation before launch, rather than just being like, “Hey guys, we’ve got something for sale now.” It’s all about an event that we’re trying to throw. So for her, it was a webinar she runs every year. So, I made a really big song at dance about it, all this cool transformations, all these great results. You can’t actually buy anything though.

And so, she only had a 2000 person list and it was anticipation. So when we opened the door, that’s a huge spike right at the start. And then obviously, there’s a bit of a lull in between. Most people say that. So, we only had a Facebook group and email list to leverage. So, what did I do? I just used stories to address common objections, how you’re probably feeling like you’ve invested in other coaches like this before, so did James and then we’ll talk about James’s story and how he’s invested in a lot of different coaches, didn’t get a lot of results until he found Rebecca, and then Rebecca was able to do X, Y, Z. It’s been a while since I wrote it, so I can’t remember the exact specifics.

Ellen: Yeah, no, but just the overall thing is important for people to hear. Because I know a lot of times, that is the thing is that people don’t start marketing far enough in advance to build that anticipation.

Jules: Oh, at least five days, at least.

Ellen: Yeah.

Jules: Yeah.

[8:00] Ellen: Okay. So, let’s get into the email part of it. Okay. So how do you do that? What is it that you teach people that is so awesome that we have to know about this?

Jules: Okay. So, I would like to call it my Storytelling Secrets Framework, but I feel like that’s just the name of my podcast, but I feel like there’s just too many people use that name. So, let’s just call it the Jules Dan Framework for emails. But when it comes to writing, when you sit down at the computer, what’s the first thing you think about before you write a piece of content or an email, Ellen? What do you think about?

Ellen: I think about what is it I want them to do at the end of it.

[8:49] Jules: Exactly. What is my objective? That is the first thing you need to ask. And so, whether you are trying to sell a call or you’re trying to get them to opt in for something or you’re trying to get them to buy a course or something, that’s the end objective. And then this is what Pete’s taught me and it’s such simple, valuable principle.

Most of the time when I’m working with clients is to book them in for a call. So, to work backward from a call, we need to do three things and that’s for them to view us as a trusted advisor; they need to see your wizardry in action as a problem solver, and you need to address unspoken objections. So, what needs to happen for these three things?

Okay? Well, the first thing is that you need to be viewed as a trusted advisor. When I’m thinking about… we’re talking about this on a podcast as well, it’s an outline.
So the outline’s super important. First, when someone opts in, where are they coming from? I’m just going to use a Facebook ad just for an example because I think that’s something people can conceptualize.

But one of the worst things you can do, I often do so many Facebook ads, Ellen, and some of the emails are just so confusing because they don’t acknowledge where you came from basically. It’s just like, “Let me just get into my pitch because I expect that you know who I am.” For example, I got this one email. I remember it was through a become a high-ticket closer or something like that. And the first email was, I quote, I’m reading it right now, “One offer, one price, one lead, pick up the phone, close. That’s how it works.”

I mean, who are you? Where did this come from? This makes absolutely no sense and you’ve just blown it, basically.

[10:43] So, one of the first things I’ve done, and this is for a sequence that’s brought in over 840,000, it’s still going. It’s just crazy. I’m still pinching myself at that. But the first thing that you need to do is address the reader. Thank them for coming. Let them know what is this? You definitely want to sell against what they normally hate, so it’s like an enemy in common. And then get them excited for what’s to come.

So in the first line of this email sequence that I’m telling you about with this crazy result, the first line is “Hi, Name. Thanks for registering your interest on our Facebook ad. If you’re looking for smart ways to diversify your portfolio, then you’re in the right place.” That’s exactly what you just need to do in that first email. And then you can go into selling against people and then you can go into letting them know what’s happening. But I feel like it’s that first email a lot of people stuff up that is super important. What are your thoughts on that, Ellen?

[11:38] Ellen: Oh, absolutely. Yeah. I mean, I was thinking about this. Well, I’m always going through my emails and unsubscribing from people because a lot of times something will catch my interest, and then I subscribe and then they start sending me stuff and I’m exactly what you just said. I’m like, “Well, who is this person? I don’t remember who this is.” Right? So, what do I do? I unsubscribe.

Jules: Mm, yeah. Okay. And the good ones, what are those key elements? Is there something I’m missing that you are seeing in good emails, in those welcome sequences?

[12:17] Ellen: Yeah. There’s one person that I follow and I absolutely love his emails. His name is Jamie Atkinson. He does podcasting and I’ve actually had him on my show. And he writes the best emails. And so what is it that I love about his emails? One of the things I love about his emails is how honest he is. That’s the first thing I love about his emails. When he did this one email where he was talking about how he had made almost $300,000, and then his net worth had gone down to whatever it was, had gone down to $200,000. He was talking about what it was that caused that.

And I was like, “Oh, thank you.” Because I could totally relate to that because I had been through that. And there’s so many people that will just say, “Oh, it’s just so easy. Oh, just do this. Oh, I’m making millions of dollars. Oh blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.” And they don’t tell you all the pain and the heartache and all the back slides and all that other stuff. So, that was the first thing that I loved. And then the second thing is he’s just a really great storyteller, just the way he tells it is. They’re interesting. They make me want to read them.

Jules: Yeah. I know Jamie. He’s a cool dude.

Ellen: Oh yeah. Yeah.

Jules: Met him in person in life. Yeah. So, he’s doing something well where he tells a story, but usually he’s been through the pain so he can inspire people.

Ellen: Right.

Jules: Rather than just complaining, if that makes sense.

Ellen: Yeah, absolutely.

[13:42] Jules: Which is a key difference when it comes to good. But that’s in the daily email sort of side. That’s, I guess, a little bit different from what we’re talking today.

Ellen: Oh, more than a follow-up sequence, yeah.

Jules: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because with the daily, you’ve got your usual tribe. So, you, yourself, Ellen, you’re reading regularly, so that makes more sense to open up and be vulnerable. But if you just opted in for something like, “Hey, need help,” it might not make sense to really talk about your net worth going down.

Ellen: Right. No, that’s true. The other one who’s really good with a follow-up, I’ve got, let’s see what is it called. I’m always forgetting what this thing is called. It is called Full Focus Planner, and this is from Michael Hyatt, and I love this planner. I had tried to do everything just on Acuity and I just find that sometimes it drops out and that just is a schedule, but this, I can put all my notes in and I can refer back to stuff and it’s really good. I love it.

Anyway, he is great at his follow-up sequence. And I don’t remember exactly what he said the first time or the second time or that kind of thing, but what I can tell you is that one of the things that he did, and maybe part of that is because of what the product is, but I mean, it’s certainly a lesson that a lot of people could use with other things, is that he actually sells a course to teach you how to use the planner. So, that’s the first thing.

Jules: He’s smart.

Ellen: Right?

Jules: What is it like-

Ellen: Huh?

Jules: Under a hundred-dollar course?

Ellen: I don’t know. I can look. Let’s see. So, let’s see if I go all the way.

Jules: That’s the perfect upsell. You buy the book and then here’s how you use the book.

Ellen: Right, right. And you don’t have to buy it. I mean, you can do whatever you want, but that was the first thing that I remember. But right away, he just goes talking about how to move the needle on your goals because that’s what it’s about, the path of achievement, one piece of encouragement for you, have you done a weekly preview before? I mean he just talks-

Jules: Yeah, sometimes.

Ellen: But he’s talking about how things that pertain to what you would use the book for. Right?

Jules: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Ellen: And he’s, like you said, trying to inspire you, but he is also teaching you in a way. So again, he’s then trying to upsell you to this course, but even if you don’t take the course, he’s still giving you information on how to use it for free.

Jules: Yep.

[16:26] Ellen: So, that’s how that worked. And then it’s how to bring in other people. And then certain gifts and then of course, then the regular stuff like a flash sale, that kind of thing.

And then he’ll have sales like Black Friday. You could buy, what was it? I don’t remember how much was off, but then these only go for ninety days, but you could get the whole year and save a whole lot more, that kind of thing. But he was really good, basically, at showing you how to use it, inspiring you to use it and having an upsell and he didn’t do that right away. First he just gave, I think, it was five emails that were just more on-

Jules: Content. Yeah.

Ellen: Yeah. Yeah.

Jules: Okay.

Ellen: So is that a good amount, five emails?

[19:19] Jules: I have got in this sequence… So here’s the thing that I like to do, Ellen, and that is I list out every single objection why someone will not buy. And then I will some of the same, but generally it’s into three different categories and that’s one, do they believe that your thing actually works? The mechanism, does it actually work? So for you, it might this book publishing on Amazon for a bestseller, does that actually work?

Ellen: Right.

Jules: And the second thing, this is a huge one, that’s do people believe that they themselves can do it? And this is the part where you need to get on the phone with people because you just won’t find this stuff in Facebook groups. So, I’ve spoken to people in the past. Here’s an example. His name’s Wes McDowell. He’s a YouTuber. He sells something called The Profitable Website Launchpad. I go on the phone with people and they’ll tell me the craziest stuff. I’ve bought seven different website products and failed. If I bought an eighth, my wife would question me, basically.

Ellen: Will kill me, right?

[18:21] Jules: Yes. Other stuff like I didn’t have a web. My website was infected with malware from some other freelancer who tried to build it. She didn’t touch it for a full year because she didn’t have time, because she was working ten, twelve hours a day and she lost nearly a hundred K in opportunities because it was down, she estimates until she finally got off her butt and did Wes’ course because she bought it and she waited for a full year. So, can you see how these stories can really just relate to people and empathize instead of just being like, buy, buy, buy.

Ellen: Oh yeah.

[18:59] Jules: And so I bet that your listeners have got so many different objections and if you’ve helped a few people out, then you want to try and match these stories that match these objections.

Ellen: I’ve helped hundreds of people out, yeah.

Jules: Exactly. So, you’ve got a longer sequence there. It doesn’t have to be five. It doesn’t it be some arbitrary number. If you can give value while… service is selling. If you can help people out by making them shift and like, “Oh, this is actually possible,” and they buy your thing and it helps them, I think that’s really valuable.

[19:30] Ellen: So this one that we’re talking about right now is a sales sequence in email, right? That’s what we’re talking about right now.

Jules: Yeah. So this is the same sequence that would be, like I was saying, after a Facebook ad, they opt in for something, but they haven’t quite taken up the offer. Yeah.

Ellen: Right. Okay. And then what about after they bought something? What do you do with people after they bought something? What kind of email sequence?

Jules: Okay. So I’m going to refer back to the same sequence.

Ellen: Okay.

Jules: Especially if someone closes people on the phone, it’s not over. If they’ve booked in for an appointment, it’s not over. We need to resell them on why they should turn up for the call. I mean, how many times have you booked in a sales call and they just didn’t show up Ellen, and then they ghosted you?

Ellen: Not that many, actually.

Jules: Okay. Well, it’s happened to me.

Ellen: But some. It happens to everybody, of course.

Jules: It happens to everybody. And you just don’t know why. Life gets in the way, they’re distracted. I don’t know. But you have to resell them on the benefit of coming on the call, and that’s huge. So, one of the ways that I’ve done it inside of that sequence is you got to really know who you’re selling to. And these people who are on the phone for this email sequence, they were affluent buyers. They were investing 50,000 to a hundred thousand dollars, so it made sense to appeal to their ego just a little bit, just a little bit.

So, instead of bragging about this high-level networking community on the front end, which would just attract all these people trying to suck all the energy of these really not high-level people, we would tell them about this exclusive networking group after they’ve booked a call and let them know on the other side, should you go through, this is what you’re going to get access to. So, getting them pumped up like, “Okay, I can see myself doing this.” Does that make sense?

Ellen: Yeah. So you don’t tell them about that before the call. They don’t even know about that piece of it.

Jules: Well, it’s like a special surprise. I’ll think of some special things to reveal once they’ve booked a call to let them know, “Hey, once you come on a call and you join the program, this is what’s something special for you, I didn’t quite announce.”

[21:38] Ellen: Okay. Sounds good. So what else do people need to know?

Jules: What else do people know? Another one is well, some ideas for-instead of just bringing up customer stories, and this is an easy one because you can just Google it, and it’s a horror story. I love doing horror stories. So different, “Don’t be the next blank victim” is the perfect subject line because you can just type in niche horror story into Google and you’ll find heaps of different things, bathroom slips, people losing money on investments, whatever. There’s so many.

And the reason why they’re awesome is because you can bring it up. It’s a conversation going on ahead that maybe you’re aware of this, and then you explain how you guys are different, how you know this is a problem in the industry and segue way into your product. So, there are a few different examples of what you might want to include in these follow-ups.

[22:44] Ellen: Yeah, this isn’t exactly the same thing, but there is a thing if you go and you Google the worst book titles ever, there are just some horror titles.

Jules: Let’s do that now. I’m interested.

Ellen: Yeah. It’s funny too. So, it’s kind of the same thing.

Jules: Worst book titles.

Ellen: Yeah.

Jules: Forty worst book titles and covers ever from the Bored Panda. Still stripping after twenty-five years, and it’s a woman throwing up her napkin in the air and she’s kind of old. I think that’s the complete disconnect, right? Okay, but moving on, back to you. You’re the host.

Ellen: Yes. So yeah, but I mean, it’s true. You can just go and find those, so those are really good. Okay. So the way that I found you, I’m not sure if it was an ad or it was just a post.

Jules: It was a post.

Ellen: It was a post?

Jules: Yeah.

Ellen: Okay. And you were offering a free template, right? It’s a free template on how to-

Jules: It was basically breaking down how a Facebook-ad email sequence brought in over 140,000 for a client.

Ellen: Okay. So can my listeners get that too?

[24:00] Jules: Oh yeah, sure. It’s in a Google Doc, but what you can do is if you come join my Facebook group, I drop a free training every single week. I don’t ask for your email, so don’t worry, there’s no opt-in. But it’s inside of there. There’s heaps of trainings that are going down. So, if they’re interested, it’s called High Ticket Email Sequences and I’m happy to give you the link after the show.

Ellen: Awesome. Yeah, definitely. Everybody go and get that. It’s really good. Yeah. I haven’t been through the whole thing, but I have been through too part of it, so I thought it was worth it.

Jules: It’s good to know I wasn’t in the get-out-of-my-face category.

Ellen: Yeah. No, you were not in the get out of my face category. I mean, there’s nothing more annoying than when somebody asks if you want something and you raise your hand and you say yes, and then they get you to opt into something and they give you some piece of rubbish.

Jules: Well, it’s been the mantra, perfectionism is the enemy of great. I don’t know. It was like, just get it done. Done is better than perfect or something like that.

Ellen: Yeah.

Jules: But then there’s the extreme of rubbish.

Ellen: Right. Exactly. There’s a difference between getting it done and getting it done and giving value versus getting it done to just throw something out there because people aren’t stupid. I mean, you do that once or twice and you’re never going to get them again, usually.

[25:19] Jules: Well, to be frank, this didn’t take me long to put together, but it’s the content and the experience behind the person.

Ellen: Right, exactly. Exactly. When you have the experience, it’s not about how long it takes you. It’s just like the same thing when you do a coaching call. Somebody’s not paying me for the coaching call because of how much time I’m giving them. They’re paying me for seventeen years of experience doing this with hundreds of clients and having the results- so that’s what they’re paying for is to get that shortcut to what you did with hiring that coach.

Jules: Oh yeah, a hundred percent.

[25:52] Ellen: Exactly. Okay. So any final tips before we go?

Jules: There’s so many tips with emails we could talk,but the conversion side of getting people onto a booked call, I’ll recap on what we said before. So, what’s the objective? Okay? Is it to book them into a call? Is it to send them to a sales page? Is it to get them to opt into something? Then you got to work backward from there. And then what do you need to do?

First, you need to be viewed as a trusted advisor. You need to show your wizardry in action by being a problem solver and we do that by telling stories, overcoming objections, using social proof. And then the last thing [inaudible] the second thing, which is you need to answer unspoken objections inside the emails. So, hope that recaps everything for your listeners.

Ellen: Yes. Okay. And tell them, one more time, how to get into your group.

Jules: Okay. It’s called High Ticket Email Sequences. There is no opt-in so you can relax. I’m going to leave the link with Ellen, so you can access that, and there’s a free training. I go in there every week. It’s not just what we were saying before. It’s not fluff. These are stuff that I’m working with clients, just results. So, I’m a service provider. I’ve got no paywall. I’m just giving you all these secrets for free.

[27:11] Ellen: Okay, awesome. Well, thank you so much for coming on. I really appreciate it.

Jules: Thanks, Ellen. I really liked being here with you.

Ellen: Okay. So, I forgot to ask you… I loved doing your podcast. It was one of my favorite podcasts that I’ve ever done because you really pushed me to show you the process of how I do what I do. And so, what I would really love to do before we go is can you tell people how they can find that podcast?

[27:42] Jules: Oh, of course. Okay. So if you just type in Storytelling Secrets, it will not come up in Google, but if you type in Storytelling Secrets Podcast, I’m going to show up. So, that’s the best place to find me. It’s on all the-

Ellen: Oh. And then they just go there and they can find the one that we did. Do you know what it’s going to be called yet? Because I know as we’re doing this, it hasn’t dropped yet.

Jules: It hasn’t dropped yet. Something to do with Publish Your Best Selling Amazon in Three Days or Less, because I know that’s your hook.

Ellen: Yeah. Okay, great. Okay, thanks. Yeah. So everybody, please go and check that out. He was a great interviewer and I think you’ll learn a lot from that. So that’s it for today.

[28:23] If you’re new to a show or you haven’t had a chance yet, be sure to grab your copy of The Rockstar Author’s Tool Kit with Checklist for Writing Your Book in Three Days or Less, Writing a Bestselling Title, Simple Strategies to Jump Start Your Marketing Online and the Kindle Planner at www.booksopendoors.com. That’s booksopendoors.com.

And if you’re a coach, content creator, speaker or founder, who’s ready to write your high-impact book and want to learn how we can help you, go to booksopendoors.com/apply. And if you’re a fit, we can set up the time to chat and I would love to help you write your book in three days or less.

Jules: Cool.

Ellen: So til next time, bye-bye.

Music: You’ve been listening to the Books Open Doors podcast, with your host, Ellen Violette. If you’d like to connect with other mission-driven speakers, coaches, consultants, thought leaders, founders, creative entrepreneurs, and authors who are changing the world one book at a time, join us in the Books Open Doors community at facebook.com/groups/booksopendoors. Let’s rock your business with books.

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