THE DRAMA IS BACK!
Look like I got a rise out of everybody’s favourite copywriting nice-guy today.
Apparently, A-List copywriter Stefan Georgi was just minding his own business … Googling himself 30 search results deep (as you do) … when he came across an article I’d written in January 2021, titled:
“Why Stefan Georgi is wrong about the dangers of AI for copywriters”
And yes, I reiterate:
January … 2021.
But apparently…
I am SUCH a good copywriter that my predictions from nearly THREE years ago still provoked enough of a reaction in Stefan, that today…
He wrote a rant about me
to his ENTIRE email list!
Admittedly, I’m not on Stefan’s email list.
(The dude is a brilliant sales letter copywriter, but man, his emails are a total SNOOZE fest.)
But thankfully, a couple people forwarded it to me.
So…
I thought you might like
to see the email…
…and my response 😇
So grab your popcorn.
Find a comfy chair.
And settle in for some fun.
This is going to be a LONG one, and…
There will
be blood 😈
Ladies and gentlemen!
Today’s spectacle begins in 3…
2…
1…
Stefan Georgi Presents…
“Clout Chasing Copy “Guru” Makes Terrible Prediction About AI”
(Seriously though, how can one guy be so good at sales letters but so BAD at emails? What kind of subject line is THAT?!? 🤦♂️)
Okay, here goes the email…
A few years back, a particularly thirsty copywriter named Daniel Throssell wrote an email to his list about why I was wrong about the dangers of AI.
Ha!
“Thirsty”?
I … kinda like that 😂
I THIRST … FOR BLOOD!
I VAAAANT ZE BLOOD OF ZE A-LIST!
PREPARE TO BECOME MY NYOOVEST SCALP, GEORGI!!!
It was annoying at the time…
Um … okay.
What the actual heck bro.
You find it annoying if people disagree with your opinion?
What kind of narcissist do you have to be to be ANNOYED that someone disagreed with you?
But then I was Googling myself a few days back (not because I’m a narcissist I swear)…
Oh dear gosh.
Never mind, I think we have our answer.
And I saw that he’d also published what he wrote as a blog piece, and it was maybe the 30th result…
The … 30th result.
…
…
…soooo … just how deep do these self-Googling sessions go?
Did you … also read the first 29, as well? 🧐
(Slowly raises Apple watch to mouth and whispers) “Hey Siri … define ‘narcissist’…”
So I decided to re-read what he said…
And, well, I have some thoughts.
Hold me, I can hardly breathe.
Now this was published on January 19th, 2021…
And it’s titled “Why Stefan Georgi is wrong about the dangers of AI for copywriters”…
Early on in his piece, Daniel says:
“The other day, Stefan shared his fears that in as little as 3 years, AI could be a risk to all copywriters..himself included.”
Next, to Daniel’s credit, he says that he thinks I’m “mostly right”…
GUYS.
WHAT THE HECK IS WRONG WITH THIS DUDE.
HE LITERALLY JUST SAID IT WAS ‘TO MY CREDIT’ FOR AGREEING WITH HIM.
THIS GUY SERIOUSLY THINKS IT SHOULD BE AN OFFENCE TO DISAGREE WITH HIM.
STEFAN.
CAN. YOUR. EGO. GET. ANY. BIGGER.
But then he takes a big left-turn, saying:
“Once Copywriting Skynet becomes self-aware, the first casualty of the War Against the (Copywriting) Machines …
… will be the kind of copy Stefan teaches people to write.
Not because Stefan teaches people to write bad copy. (He doesn’t.)
But because his approach — by design! — is formulaic.
And the robots are going to eat that stuff for breakfast.
Those legions of rookies who take his RMBC course and pump out formulaic sales letters?
They might as well have “Sarah Connor” stamped on their forehead.”
Hmm, wish he’d carried the quote on a few more lines:
“Stefan himself literally advertises RMBC as a plug-and-play deal, which is why newbies love it so much.
So … of course AIs may well be able to do it better one day.
Because in theory, you could program RMBC into a machine …
Combine it with data-harvesting AI that can scour the Internet and do years’ worth of market research in microseconds …
And you’d probably eliminate the need for 90% of these copywriters.”
i.e. my point was not that AI will replace copywriters, but that copywriters whose only function is to blindly follow a template will be replaced.
Okay, well now this is getting interesting…
And as Daniel continues his email/blog…
He goes on to make the argument that great copywriters like me and him (since he is great in his estimation) won’t ever be under threat from AI…
Uhhh…
This is … kind of entirely made up.
I did not call either of us ‘great copywriters’, Stefan.
That phrase is completely missing from my post. You literally just fabricated this.
Either it’s your delusional ego stepping in again to paint yourself as great … or your penchant for just making things up in your sales copy whether they’re true or not.
Wouldn’t put either past you 😇
Because, I guess, we’re too original or something, so we’ll be able to pivot.
You ‘guess’?
Stefan — I LITERALLY said that exact thing bro:
“If RMBC AI robots started flooding the market … Stefan would be able to pivot to write non-formulaic copy that stands out.”
You ‘guess’?!?
You aren’t very good at this whole ‘aloof rebuttal’ thing, are you?
Now, what’s really fascinating about this piece…
Is how Daniel is both very right and very wrong at the same time.
He was right to recognize that my prediction from the start of 2021 about AI replacing copywriters was prescient…
Oh dear goodness here we go again.
“He was right … to agree with me” 😂
But he was wrong about three very important things:
#1. AI absolutely can replace good copywriters (more on that in a second)..
Huh?!?
What are you smoking dude?
I think anyone who is ‘replaced’ by AI — a tool that they could have, in the last instance, used to help themselves avoid being replaced — is not a ‘good copywriter’ by definition.
#2. Those who follow formulas are at more of an advantage than ever.
😂
ok
#3. Later in his post he talks about how long-form sales letters will be less important in the future because “this is the kind of copy that AI is most likely to learn how to write.” The exact opposite is true. AI is way better at short-form, but it can be “hacked” using formulas to make writing long-form dramatically faster and easier.
This is an oversimplification of two points I made.
The first was that the long-term trend of dwindling attention spans would make long-form sales letters/VSLs — where you try to go “cold to sold” in one shot with 20+ minutes of copy — relatively less effective. And instead, we would see a rise in the effectiveness of sales cycles made up of multiple shorter touch-points (e.g. someone receiving a lot of emails over time and then deciding to buy).
However:
I said in my post that this was a prediction I made over the span of decades, as market demographics shifted.
As in, I literally wrote:
“And in the next few decades … As market demographics shift away from boomers, and towards millennials … I don’t see super-long copy working as well as it historically has (at least not on its own).”
I’m sure the nuance of that BLATANTLY CLEAR STATEMENT was a little hard for Stefan to grasp, but basically … it’s a bit ridiculous for Stefan to try and review a prediction with a time horizon of several decades … and claim it’s a “Terrible Prediction” after two years.
The second point I made was that the kind of sales letters that will be replaced are formulaic ones, such as Stefan teaches in RMBC.
And what I was saying would NOT be replaced by AI is not “short form” Facebook ads etc. … but email copy.
I argued that relationship-based email copy would become more important as attention spans shorten and AI-generated content proliferates.
And given that Stefan is literally using that kind of email right now to make his argument…
Well … I’ll take the points on that one 😘
Point #2 is especially important…
Since the entire reason AI is so powerful for copywriting is due to the templates and processes you can create.
And we’re already at a place where the machines can write better copy than humans, in a fraction of the time.
Firstly, no, all the ‘copy’ he’s talking about AI generating IS BEING PROMPTED BY GOOD COPYWRITERS.
Like … how can you not realise this?
It’s not the AI. It’s the skilled people using the AI.
Also, one of the things most people who follow Stefan tend to miss is that he represents a very narrow spectrum of what ‘copywriting’ actually is … the very top end (revenue-wise) of direct response.
Most businesses and brands in the world would do well not to use formulas, templates and generic AI prompts to generate their copy.
Keep that in mind. Everything Stefan says … only applies to his part of the copywriting world. And frankly, that is not a part of the copywriting world normal people tend to want to get into unless they have … certain tendencies.
For example…
Let me share a few quick wins that we’ve had on the agency side with FB Ads:
Okay, fair warning, this part is a snooze-fest … but in the interest of fairness to Stefan, I’ll reprint everything he said:
Win #1: A hearing-support ad that we recently wrote using AI just took off for Kriss Bergethon, getting him a 3.92x ROAS with scale. None of their ads from human copywriters had gotten a ROAS that high during a comparable time period.
Win #2: We did a FB Ad for Credit Secrets that crushed a control by one of the very, very best copywriters on the planet. Won’t name the person since I respect them, but most of you have heard of him. Specific stats: Our Ad’s CTR was 2% on the nose, the control ad was 1.79%. Might seem like a “small” difference but when it comes to cold traffic and a lot of scale, that’s a big deal.
Win #3: Heard back from James Klein yesterday that one of the FB Ads we wrote for the pet supplement offer we’re partnered in is at a 3.5x ROAS and is making sales at $35 with AOVs of $180+. That’s pretty okay for a supplement offer lol. And that ROAS is of a magnitude better than the human-written ads the agency we’re working with has produced.
Win #4: Just heard back yesterday that a handful of ads we wrote for a very sophisticated Media Buying Agency are beating their controls and allowing their clients to acquire customers at 6-7% lower CPAs. One is in the fitness niche and one is in the golf niche. And they still haven’t tested all the ads we provided yet – so it’s likely more wins will be forthcoming (especially since in that email, they asked to order another batch of ads from us).
And frankly, the list goes on-and-on…
Oh whew it’s over, thank goodness—
Like the Ad we did for Robert Eaton and his client – which became their new control and generated multiple six-figures in sales for a high ticket offer within like a month of launching.
And guess what?
We wrote all of those ads using our “formulaic” templates and AI.
Whew. THAT was boring. As I was sayin—
Plus, in the past 10 days…
We’ve delivered 7 VSLs to clients in a variety of niches…
All of which are extremely strong…
Oh for Pete’s sake will you just shut up now about—
And I’ll be writing at least two more VSLs between now and Sunday…
Then I have like 5x VSLs or so to do next week…
MATE!
WHO CARES!!!
SHUT UP AND MOVE ON TO THE NEXT PART OF THE EMAIL ALREADY!!!
THIS IS WHY YOUR EMAILS ARE SO BORING! YOU JUST WAFFLE ON FOR SO… FREAKING … LONG!!!
And I have zero anxiety about any of this…
Narcissists tend not to — just saying 🤭
Because it turns out that when you Combine RMBC + Templates + Prompts + GPT4…
Your life becomes a whole lot easier.
Really?
I feel like I would want to kill myself if my job as a “copywriter” was to prompt AI with your formulas all day.
So anyways, I share all of this for two reasons:
First off, I don’t particularly care for Daniel.
Stefan: “I feel bad for you.”
Daniel: “I don’t think about you at all.”
I have no idea if he’s actually a good copywriter…
This is coming from a guy who pulled out of an affiliate promo in 2022 when he heard I was participating … because he knew I would wipe the floor with him 🥲
…but I’m not a fan of people who chase-clout and try to stir up controversy to elevate themselves. And of course it’s not just me who has experienced this, he’s done it with other people too.
…
…
…soooooo…
…are we all just ignoring the fact that YOU were the one who just came out of the blue with an email stirring up controversy about something I wrote 3 years ago … or…?
How stupid is your average reader, exactly, that you think they would miss this?
Second off, be careful who you listen to. Lots of “gurus” out there will tell you the cold hard “truth,” but it’s a much smaller percentage who have the experience and front-line knowledge to be right.
Because who needs the truth when you can have what Stefan considers to be right 😉
Even if what Stefan considers to be right conveniently changes with whatever he’s selling, as we’ll see in a moment…
Okay, that’s it for now…
Except I’ll put a nice little P.S. at the bottom of this email too.
-SPG
P.S. To the fanboys. Assuming Daniel does try and leverage this (which I wouldn’t blame him for), don’t forward me anything because I just do not give a f**k.
Uhhhhh…
Yes.
Stefan gives so little of a f**k about all this that he does not Google himself … definitely does not trawl to the 30th result to find a blog post from years ago … DEFINITELY does not click and read the whole thing … and DEFINITELY does not sit there and write a long email to his email list about it!!! 🤪
But, he’s right, people.
There clearly is no need to forward this email to him…
I’ll just post it on my blog and I’m sure he’ll Google it soon enough 😂
P.P.S. Related to the above point…
For those hoping this turns into a big “beef,” don’t hold your breath. I”m aware that this email is like red meat for Daniel, but I literally don’t have the time because I’m too busy producing copious amounts of copy, scaling businesses, and crushing it for our clients.
🤦♂️
Is ANYONE else out there cringing just a little at how hard this guy is trying to project the “I DON’T CARE” vibe?
Like … dude.
It would be way more convincing if you dialled down the intensity by like … 50%.
Literally REPEATING YOUR P.S. to reiterate ‘HOW LITTLE I CARE!!!’ is … not exactly a convincing look.
And let’s not forget that…
YOU STARTED THIS ONE, MATE!!!
YOU CAN’T BE THAT BUSY IF YOU HAVE THE TIME TO WRITE EMAILS LIKE THIS 😂
Okay.
There you go. Stefan had his say.
But that’s enough playing defence…
Now it’s
my turn.
And since Stefan’s whole premise here was digging up an old article of mine to call it a “Terrible Prediction” (even though the article has actually aged pretty darn well IMO)…
Why don’t I return the favour?
Let’s start with a sales letter Stefan wrote to promote his live event in late 2021.
I quote:
It’s the “perfect storm.” The biggest opportunity we’ve seen… in over a DECADE. Because a rare “Triple Swan Sequence” of events… Has opened a window for copywriters, media buyers, and direct response business owners… To make a boatload of money.
And this:
A Rare “Triple Swan Sequence” Of Events Has Blown Open The Doors Of MASSIVE Opportunity For Marketers, Copywriters, And Media Buyers!
And this:
Being A Copywriter In 2021… Is Like Getting Into Bitcoin Back In 2011… Right before it started minting all these new millionaires. Because as more and more businesses “adjust” to this new advertising environment… And they realize that “good copy” isn’t just a luxury… but a necessity for keeping their businesses alive… There’s going to be MORE high-paying copywriting work available… than we’ve ever seen.
And this:
Over The Next Few Months… We’re Expecting To See A “Copywriter Hiring Spree” For The Ages.
I could go on…
But you get the point, right?
Yay! Optimism! Hiring boom! Best time EVER to be a copywriter — as long as you pay us to come to OUR event!!! 🤑
Now let me turn your attention to exhibit B.
Here’s Stefan again,
ONE year later…
🥁
🥁
🥁
“If I had to guess, I would say 80% of copywriters will be out of a job within 12 months.”
–Stefan Georgi, daily email, 11 Dec 2022
*record scratch*
Um…
Hold up there.
In the space of a year … we went from more copywriting work than any time in history … to 4 in 5 copywriters being in imminent danger of losing their jobs?
That’s, uh … one heck of a flip-flop, Stefan!
(Funnily enough, this also seemed to coincide with Stefan starting to sell AI copywriting training… 🤔)
Oh, and just to be clear:
Neither extreme scenario
has played out.
There was not a “copywriting hiring spree for the ages” in 2022.
Nor have 80% of copywriters lost their jobs in 2023.
(How did it go, Stefan? “LoTs oF “GuRuS” WiLL TeLL yOu tHe TrUtH bUt oNLy i hAvE tHe ExPeRiEnCe tO Be RiGhT!!!”)
It’s almost as if … Stefan just … makes stuff up according to what’s convenient for his sales letters 🤡
It’s crazy that this guy has the nerve to try and criticise my good-faith predictions (which he didn’t even read correctly) … when his OWN predictions suck 10x harder — and are made entirely for his self-interest 😅
But there’s something
even MORE disturbing at play here…
And it’s on display throughout Stefan’s email:
He genuinely seems to believe his own aura.
Here’s the thing:
Most of what I do with my brand is
to build up a caricature of myself.
Those who meet me in person are often shocked at “IRL Daniel”. Those who know me from real life are equally shocked when they read my emails.
I mean … I literally use a cartoon avatar in my business, for goodness’ sake.
Yes, sincerity underpins it all — but it is played through a caricatured version of myself.
Stefan, on the other hand,
is really who he projects.
He’ll tell you this himself. His whole schtick is about being “genuine” and “vulnerable”. And so he really, truly identifies himself and his ego with the things he’s saying.
And disturbingly … this email genuinely reads like the insecure ranting of a narcissist whose ego has been bruised, and who needs to prove he’s the smarter man.
I mean…
Why the heck else would you dig up a blog post from three years ago … write an angry rant to your whole list about it … then close by pretending you “don’t give a f**k” and “you’re too busy” for a fight?!?
It’s just … bizarre.
Normal, secure people don’t do that.
And you know what, Stefan?
It’s all you, buddy.
You can have the trophy.
You can be the big billion-dollar man.
Personally, everything I’ve done in my career is not just legitimately far more impactful in the real world than anything you have ever achieved (seriously — who on EARTH besides your own ego actually cares that you “crushed it” on some guy’s Facebook ad and made some DR company more money?)…
But more importantly … it’s something I can be proud of.
I can look back on the free, independent financial education programs we rolled out across schools across Australia … at the three #1 nationally bestselling books we launched, which have literally become Australian cultural icons for the number of lives they’ve impacted … at the copywriting training I’ve sold without using fearmongering or overhyped promises … and I can feel truly good about my work.
Here’s my question to you, Stefan:
Can you?
I really wonder.
Because here’s the truth…
In 20 years, millions of people I helped sell to will say, “I had my life changed by something Daniel directly had a hand in.”
In 20 years, many of the people you sold to will be…
…dead.
Because … the Alzheimer’s cures you sold them were fake.
RIP sucker ☠️
Daniel Throssell
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