What mainstream messaging gets wrong... and what works for brands that give a damn.

You know what the biggest lie mainstream marketing sells to conscious brands and service providers is?

Conversion is all about the numbers. Do this, your numbers go up. Don’t do this, they go down.

And, honestly, for years I was part of spreading it because it was what I was taught too.

Add a countdown timer.

Add a headline on the upsell page that says, “WAIT! This offer will NEVER be available again…”

Or, “WAIT! Your order is not complete yet. Do not click out of this page.”

Add “Free” or “Now” or “Yes!” to your CTA button. Add “only 2 spots left” on a digital product.

Agitate their pain. Remind them what a loser they are right now.

Future cast what could be. Make sure they see, clearly, they could have the life they’ve only ever dreamed of if they choose to say yes.

And the big one. Make sure they know their life will be in total ruin if they don’t buy now. They’ll miss out on the best thing ever… and be left behind while everyone else enjoys the life they deserve. FOMO, anyone?

**Yes, slight sarcasm was added for emphasis. But it’s not any less true.

And you know what… I wish I could say none of that crap works. Just don’t do it because your numbers won’t improve.

I also wish I could say I never wrote copy like that. Never sent sales page audits with these tips and tricks.

But the truth is, I did. I sent those tips. And yes… these tactics work… ish.

When I learned copywriting fourteen years ago, bro-marketing was all the rage. I learned it. I repeated it. I got results. And I did it again… and again… and again.

“I wish I could say none of that works. But it does. And for years, I wrote it… and called it strategy.”

The First Two Years as a Copywriter Were Mainstream. But It Didn’t Last Long

And then after a couple years, I contracted as CMO of a media production company.

Their mission was to bring purpose to production… helping entrepreneurs plan, write, and produce cinematic-style videos for funnels, YouTube channels, social content, and VSLs.

It was the first time a company gave me full range to write these scripts and market services with total transparency. Real scarcity. True urgency. Copy that shed light on the very real pain and the actual potential of the future.

And for the first time, I felt aligned with what I wrote. Connected to our clients. And conversions came naturally.

That was ten years ago.

Since then, I’ve contracted with Fortune 500 companies as Head of Content, writing every word, every script, every offer the CEO and brand produced. One generated $5M in 8 months, and is still profitably running today, years later.

I’ve contracted as Creative Director of an ads agency managing millions in ad spend, writing campaigns that produced 10x ROAS.

And I’ve written for private clients from solopreneurs to Forbes 30 Under 30 CEOs.

Through all of it, I developed connect-first copywriting.

Messaging strategy that isn’t either/or… it’s and.

You don’t have to choose between sales and authentic connection.

Caring about HOW you sell and how much you sell are not mutually exclusive. For brands that give a damn, it’s more important than ever to understand how to sell without selling out.

The Truth About Conversion for Brands Like Yours

Conversion isn’t simply a number that tracks success or failure of your messaging.

It’s a mom who doesn’t live with guilt anymore… because she’s not snapping at her kids during breakfast again. She can’t sleep, feels burned out, doesn’t know why her body is rebelling against her. But that “conversion” on your sales page means she now understands her hormones. What to eat. How to care for herself and sleep better. So her relationship with herself… and the people she loves most… gets better.

It’s parents of autistic children who spent years apologizing for their kid’s meltdowns in grocery stores… whispering “I’m sorry, he doesn’t mean it” to strangers who didn’t bother to understand. Who Googled at midnight, cried in parking lots, and wondered if they were failing their child every single day. But that “conversion” means they finally have a framework that makes sense of their kid’s world. The meltdowns don’t disappear… but the shame and frustration does. And home starts to feel like a safe place again… for everyone in it.

It’s an executive who hasn’t taken a full breath in three years. Who clears their inbox at 11 PM because that’s the only hour nobody needs anything. Who performs confidence in boardrooms while quietly wondering how much longer they can hold it together before something in them just… breaks. But that “conversion” means they finally understand what’s actually happening in their body… and why pushing harder stopped working. They start sleeping. Delegating without guilt. Showing up differently.

It’s someone who had a list of foods they were afraid to eat. Who planned their whole day around proximity to a bathroom. Who turned down dinners, canceled trips, made themselves smaller and smaller to manage something they didn’t understand… and were too embarrassed to explain. But that “conversion” means they finally have answers. Real ones. The kind that give them their life back… not just symptom management. They order off the menu. They book the trip. They stop disappearing.

It’s a pet parent who sat on the bathroom floor with their dog at 2 AM, searching symptoms on their phone, terrified and not knowing if it was serious or if they were overreacting… again. Who felt the weight of being someone’s whole world and not knowing if they were doing it right. But that “conversion” means they understand their animal in a way they didn’t before. They catch things earlier. They stop second-guessing. And those late-night moments of fear turn into something quieter… confidence that they’re getting it right.

It’s a couple who used to lie on opposite sides of the bed in the dark, each one waiting for the other to say something. Who had the same argument so many times they stopped having it… and started just living around each other instead. But that “conversion” means they finally had a language for what was happening between them. Not therapy-speak. Just… words that bridge the gap. And somewhere in those words, they found their way back to each other. Not the beginning… something better. A version of their relationship they’d given up on without realizing it.

“Conversion isn’t a metric. It’s a mom who finally sleeps. A couple who finally connects. A client who finally feels seen.”

And that’s just one side of it.

That conversion—the one that actually helps people—is also your sale.

Your chance to make more money, give more back, expand and grow, and fully show up in your work because you’re not worried about your runway anymore.

Not wondering how much longer you can keep investing in funnels, and apps, and programs before you have to close up shop.

Conversion is SO MUCH MORE than a number.

It’s change, freedom, and healing for your clients. And it’s peace and impact for you.

The Real Cost of Playing Their Conversion Game

This is what makes the lie so volatile.

Brands like yours feel they have to set aside their authentic selves to make the sale… justified by the belief that once someone says yes, you’ll help them. So whatever gets them there is fine. Plus, guru XYZ (won’t use names, but let’s just say one rhymes with Plant Fardone 😉) says to do it.

So you do.

“Doors closing in 48 hours” on an evergreen offer.

“2 spots left” on an unlimited digital program.

Inflated value stacks and guarantees that read more like loopholes than security statements.

And it works. Sort of.

Sales came through. Discovery calls get booked. Money comes in. At first.

But 30 days later… 25% of those sales have requested a refund. Impulse buys. Another 25% are past the refund window and quietly resentful of their investment. And about 40% have never taken action on what they bought.

90% of those sales were never truly aligned with you or your work. The real impact of your offer reaches maybe 10%.

What happens to referrals? To your brand’s reputation? To your bottom line?

“90% of your sales misaligned means 90% of the impact you could have had… didn’t.”

All because nobody told you there’s a better way.

A Better Way. The ABCs of Connect-First Copy

A way that has resulted in an 80% reduction in refund requests and cancellations for my clients.

A way that produces an average of 60% email open rates (three times the industry standard).

A way that has increased conversions (aka: sales AND impact) by an average of 4x in the first 90 days of revising messaging together.

It’s connect-first copywriting.

Although I can’t share ten years of frameworks in one newsletter, I’ll give you the backbone of it. And I’ve made it as simple to remember as the ABCs.

A: Attract through recognition.

In just three seconds, your messaging has to answer one question… “Does this matter to me?” The best way to do that is to write your messaging as a mirror, reflecting your readers back to themselves. Their brain bypasses the initial moment of resistance when they see themselves in it.

B: Build trust through the three stories.

Most copywriting focuses on one story—yours. But that’s only a third of the power of storytelling in marketing. The three stories are theirs, yours, and the transformation. No story is more important than the others. But if you miss one, you lose the sale.

C: Convert through connection.

Connection is what makes copy appreciate every day. The difference between messaging that sells once and messaging that sells for years. No more feast or famine. No more sales followed by refunds. No more running out of runway.

How to Structure Your Connect-First Landing Page for Impact

So how does this work in real life on your opt-in landing page?

The framework goes a little something like this.

SECTION ONE

Headline: Start with recognition. Know your client so intimately that you can call out their throughlines—the thing that unites them all.

Subheadline: Share what the offer is in a way that matters to them.

CTA: Tell them what to do next.

SECTION TWO

Trust indicators. Credentials, social proof, logos, data… whatever establishes that you’re the real thing.

SECTION THREE

Lead with their story, written in a way that reflects themselves back to them. This is where the 3 AM language lives. Go deep.

SECTION FOUR

Testimonials, social proof, and their transformation story. Show the before and after—not just praise, but evidence of actual change. Add another CTA.

SECTION FIVE

Your story—written as an about or bio, but still leading with recognition. This isn’t about you. Not really. It’s about why your brand is the right one to help them.

SECTION SIX

More social proof and final CTA. End where you started—with them.

And, yes. Some best practices remain best practices.

Use a CTA color that contrasts your branding (red tends to convert highest).

Use a countdown timer if you’re authentically pulling something off market.

Use scarcity if there really are limited spots available.

The difference? When the foundation is connection… those tools, when used authentically, amplify what’s already there. They don’t have to push a sale that wasn’t ready to close.