Let me take you inside a private dining room (the Sancho Panza dining room to be exact), in a famous restaurant in Tampa’s Ybor City called, The Columbia Restaurant, that opened in 1905.
The historic room, and the restaurant itself, is worthy of several emails, but today we’ll focus on what was discussed in that room, by whom, and the one throughline that emerged.
I can’t divulge everything, of course, as this was a private dinner. However, to give you a sense of the level of marketing minds in attendance, here’s a quick snapshot I took of the placards at my end of the table…
(The hands you see there have directly produced untold fortunes in Direct Response)
I can tell you that this dinner was hosted by my great friend, Brian Kurtz—one of his famous “Boardroom Dinners.” A way of gathering leaders of industry to meet, mingle, discuss, and debate the topics of the time.
Brian’s mentor, Marty Edelston, the founder of Boardroom Publishing and a Direct Response pioneer, created and hosted many of these dinners going back decades. (Brian has written often about these legendary dinners on his blog and excellent Sunday messages.)
The thing about Boardroom Dinners is that they are “intentional,” meaning Brian carefully chooses the guest list and seats them together strategically based on their “zone of genius.”
It’s easy to see the logic of why he would put writers like myself, Matt Furey, and Doberman Dan in proximity, but Brian’s “intentions” are never as obvious as they seem.
To my right, sitting across from Doberman Dan, was a filmmaker who produces B movies, sometimes with Mark Ford as the producer. He, Dan, and Brian (between them) went deep into the topic of film history.
To my left was an up-and-coming copywriter who’d never met any of us and jumped at the chance to fly in from New Jersey just to be in the room. To his left was the brilliant, veteran copywriter, and passionate music-lover, Kristen Driscoll.
At the other end of the table was Troy Broussard, a marketing tech innovator who recently created the Berzerker Email platform with Ben Settle. Across from him was Gabe Arnold, another marketing tech leader who I personally worked with developing software in Copy Chief.
You get the picture. Not a bad seat in the room.
I was especially thrilled to sit across from Matt Furey because, despite my 20 years in DR marketing, being known as “the most connected guy in copywriting,” and Matt living 20 minutes away from me in Tampa… I’d never sat down with him before.
Matt, if you don’t know, has been a guru in DR copy since before we used the term. Through his newsletters, he’s taught and/or inspired everyone from Dan Kennedy to Rich Schefren to Ben Settle and on and on.
So, what did Matt and I discuss? Hooks, headlines, big ideas? No. As parents of adult children, we discussed the U.S. education system and the crumbling worthiness of a college education.
(Quick reality check: if you ever form a friendship with a high-level copywriter, it will not be because you bonded over copywriting.)
Ok, so now that I’ve served up the proper amount of FOMO, let me get to the main course…
During the dinner, Brian goes through the room introducing everyone individually, then invites them to share something they’re seeing, thinking, pondering, learning, or looking to solve, in their life or business.
Needless to say, this session alone is worth flying across the globe (as some did) to be part of. Just one idea could earn or save you millions—not to mention the new connection to the person who said it.
The coolest part though, is that there is always a theme, like a throughline, that emerges in what the guests share.
The theme Wednesday night in the Sancho Panza dining room, you ask?
Transition.
The majority of the shares were rooted in the idea of eliminating the hustle of… growing a business, keeping up with trends, adapting new technology… and all the other stuff people love to clog up your newsfeed with…
And, instead, doing FOCUSED, MEANINGFUL WORK.
In essence, these dozen or so business owners, who’d all earned an extreme level of mastery in their fields, had all but unanimously come to the conclusion that…
The greatest wealth comes from focusing solely on the thing that you find the most meaningful.
In other words, for people who have “done it all,” their driving motivation is to start fresh and focus on what feels best.
To simplify it even more, they had all decided to…
Start getting paid for the thing you would do for free.
Not what will “crush” the hardest, or totally dominate the market, or earn them another plaque to show off behind them on Zoom calls.
Making money? They got that part. It’s the “what you’re making money to deliver” part they are inspired to do now.
Here’s what struck me about this on the drive home and in the days since…
I work with so many freelancers who already know what they “would love to do” if they were doing their own thing.
Yet, they have this belief that they have to go through some kind of hellish hazing phase of development before they can do their own thing.
You know, “once I’ve climbed the ranks of copywriting and worked with big names, and seen how they run their business, and master AOV and LTV and EPC and yada, yada, yada…
THEN… then… I’ll build my own list and start my own thing.”
Yes, there’s solid logic in learning on your client’s dime… but it’s also a convenient excuse to not start doing it right now.
If you’ve been studying marketing and copywriting, which, if you’re reading this, you have and you are…
What is stopping you from starting to build your own list right now?
Because you’re waiting for someone to hire you to do it for them instead?
Because you’re waiting until you learn enough to avoid making any mistakes?
Because you don’t think the thing you love most is something people will join a list to learn more about?
Here’s the great irony in those excuses…
None of the people who could afford to hire you allowed those excuses to stop them from trying.
They tried, they made mistakes, they learned, they got better, they made bigger mistakes, they made bigger corrections…
They did the work that earns the money and now they have what you want to achieve someday.
Now listen, I’m the last person to tell you you’re wasting your time freelancing. I was fortunate to learn from really amazing people, and often get paid well to do it (I’ve also paid a lot to learn from them)…
But, there just isn’t any reason you can’t be learning and growing your own thing right now.
It’s the same process: try, fail, learn, adjust, grow, repeat, repeat, repeat.
If you’re ready to skip the line and get going, your best next step is to join Chris Orzechoski’s Write Yourself Rich coaching program.
I added SIX Bonuses specifically for freelance copywriters!
If you’re in, make sure to get it through my link on this page so you get all my extras.
Why wait?
