🎤 The SWIPES Email (Friday, April 11th, 2025)

​SwipeFile.com​: Inspiration & Ideas for Marketers.
​CopywritingCourse.com​: Turning those ideas into profitable marketing.

Swipe:

Published in 1956, this awesome Ogilvy Ad is called ​"The Man From Schweppes Is Here”​ shows the sharply dressed CEO of Schweppes (Commander Edward Whitehead) getting off a plane onto a red carpet.

This guy was like a lifestyle influencer back then!

They created a whole brand around him as an intriguing character, much like the recent Dos Equis "Most Interesting Man In The World" guy.

Wisdom:

Here's a cool book list Sam Parr compiled from his Hampton community on different types of topics:

I've read 5 books off this list so far.

Interesting:

In high school I picked my death date as my 85th birthday: November 17th, 2067

That means right now I've lived HALF my life!

I'm currently 42, and have 42 years left to live:

This also means as a 42 year old man, there's a 0.414% chance I will die in one year, 93.21% of people my same age are still alive, and by most statistics I have approximately 34.86 years left to live, with an approximate death age of 76.86.

You can enter your own info ​here​ to see your own stats:

Picture:

I had a fun last few days....I wish I could do a better job at documenting this stuff, but here's some fun highlights:

Saturday I interviewed ​Matt Gray​ on my podcast (he sold BitMaker for $410m, founded Herb, now runs FounderOS):

I went to the FounderOS conference on Tuesday:

Wednesday was Day 2 of the FounderOS conference:

Then right after that I went to a talk given by Peter Thiel at the brand new University of Austin:

It was a talk followed by some discussion with the students, and those kids were SMART.

Me and some buddies there:

Essay:

I saw this random cool ​piece of advice on Reddit​ on how to give a solid podcast introduction, and it ended up being a cool piece of overall copywriting advice:

It reads:

Podcasters need to start introducing their guests the same way they’d introduce a friend at a cocktail party.

If you can do that, your podcast instantly becomes more engaging.

I work primarily with business-to-business podcasts, but this applies to any genre. Unless you’re welcoming the President of the United States or Taylor Swift to your show, there’s no reason to lead with a guest’s credentials or even their name.

At a party, you don’t walk up to your friends and say, “Hey everyone, this is Jerry. He went to Syracuse, grew up down the street from my grandmother, almost became a priest, acted in 26 college plays, won 11 industry awards, and has written two books.”

No.

You say, “You know how we were just talking about the landscaping at Augusta National? Jerry is actually the guy who formulates the fertilizer they use. He spends 11 months a year working on it. It’s this insanely specific science.”

And boom! Now I want to hear from Jerry.

Your podcast audience is no different.

Start with the value. Tell us why this person matters in the context of the conversation you’re about to have.

Unless your guest is instantly recognizable to the majority of your audience, most people don’t care who they are. They care what they’re going to learn.

If the first minute of your show is just small talk and a laundry list of credentials, you’re doing your listeners a disservice. You need to sell the value this guest brings. You need to clearly explain why this conversation is worth their time.

You can always sprinkle in personal stories, achievements, or funny trivia later in the episode, after your guest has delivered some real value and earned the listener’s attention.

Introduce your guest like you’re bringing someone fascinating into a conversation your audience already cares about.

Splurge:

​This chart​ shows the five ways Codie Sanchez turns her newsletter into income:

It breaks down to something like this:
1.) Selling a book: $29
2.) Offering courses: $1,000 --> $5,000
3.) Running a fund: Raising money, taking a cut of the carry.
4.) Holding company: They buy a bunch of small businesses.
5.) Growing a community: Community people join for $10,000

This reminds me of a graphic I made about the 8 different sources of income CopywritingCourse has:

Cool to see this all mapped out!

Have a great Friday!
Sincerely,
Neville Medhora

P.S. Checkout some wins from Copywriting Course ​members​:

Thanks for making copywriting and digital marketing actually fun to learn about and really useful for promoting my small business." -DN

"All the lessons here are goldmines! I'm already getting better engagement on social media!" -HM

"I've been wanting to start a blog for years. Thanks for the tips and guidance finally getting it off the ground!" -KR

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