0

How to Set Yourself Apart from the Competition with Your Brand Voice – 250

There’s been a steady stream of thought that when it comes to getting your brand’s message across, images or video is the future. Today on the AM/PM Podcast, Tim Jordan speaks with a copywriter who says that although written content has a fight on its hands, in many ways, it’s more important than ever!

McClain Warren has been copywriting about e-commerce and selling on Amazon for everyone from individual sellers to large companies. During that time, she’s learned how important it is for a brand to be able to articulate their “voice” and tell their story. According to McClain, it all comes down to making sure that your product (or brand) is memorable to your prospective customers.

In this conversation, McClain speaks passionately about the role of humor and emotion in advertising, and how to make sure that when it comes time to make a purchase, it’ll be your product that comes to mind. If you’re looking for a way to connect the dots between your product and your customers, this is an episode that you want to listen to.

In episode 250 of the AM/PM Podcast, Tim and McClain discuss:

• 04:00 – How McClain Started Writing on Amazon
• 05:30 – Defining a Brand
• 07:45 – The Importance of Brand Voice
• 11:00 – How State Farm Crafted Their Voice
• 12:40 – The Role of Humor in Brand Building
• 14:00 – How Not to Cross the Line  
• 17:00 – Edginess and Connecting with Your Clientele
• 19:00 – A Brand Needs to Be Memorable  
• 22:00 – It All Begins with An Emotional Response
• 26:00 – Is Written Content Dead?
• 29:30 – How to Quickly Connect with Readers
• 31:30 – How to Find Out More About McClain and Copywriting  
• 34:00 – A Trip to McClain’s Bookshelf  

Enjoy this episode? Be sure to check out our previous episodes for even more content to propel you to Amazon FBA Seller success! And don’t forget to “Like” our Facebook page and subscribe to the podcast on iTunes, Google Play or wherever you listen to our podcast.

Want to absolutely start crushing it on e-commerce and make more money? Follow these steps for helpful resources to get started:

1. Get the Ultimate Resource Guide from Tim Jordan for tools and services that he uses every day to dominate on Amazon!
2. New to Selling on Amazon? Freedom Ticket offers the best tips, tricks, and strategies for beginners just starting out! Sign up for Freedom Ticket.
3. Trying to Find a New Product? Get the most powerful Amazon product research tool in Black Box, available only at Helium 10! Start researching with Black Box.
4. Want to Verify Your Product Idea? Use Xray in our Chrome extension to check how lucrative your next product idea is with over a dozen metrics of data! Download the Helium 10 Chrome Extension.
5. The Ultimate Software Tool Suite for Amazon Sellers! Get more Helium 10 tools that can help you to optimize your listings and increase sales for a low price! Sign up today!
6. Protect Your Amazon Brand with a Trademark! Protecting your brand from hijackers is vital. SellerTradmarks.com provides a streamlined process for obtaining a trademark for your business and shielding your products from fraud!
7. Does Amazon Owe YOU Money? Find Out for FREE! If you have been selling for over a year on Amazon, you may be owed money for lost or damaged inventory and not even know it. Get a FREE refund report to see how much you’re owed!

Transcript

Tim Jordan: In this crazy world that we live in of trying to sell products online specifically, or frankly trying to sell anything online, our consumers, our potential buyers, our customers have a shortening attention span. We have to pack a bigger punch and have more pizazz in a shorter period of time. Today, our guest is going to be talking a little bit about copywriting, but largely about creating a brand voice where your brand becomes recognizable and you can set yourself apart from your competition. It can be a great episode. Listen to the end. Here we go.

Tim Jordan: Hi. I’m Tim Jordan. In every corner of the world, entrepreneurship is growing. So, join me as I explore the stories of successes and failures. Listen in as I chat with the risk-takers, the adventurous, and the entrepreneurial veterans. We all have a dream of living a life, fulfilling our passions, and we want a business that doesn’t make us punch a time clock, but instead runs around the clock in the AM and the PM. So get motivated, get inspired. You’re listening to the AM/PM Podcast.

Tim Jordan: Hey everybody, and welcome to the AM/PM Podcast. I’m your host, Tim Jordan. And today, of course, as always, we’re talking about entrepreneurship specifically, e-commerce related things, right? Like most of us that are listening to this podcast, or most of us that have been listening to podcasts, I should say, are involved in e-commerce in some way, whether it’s digital marketing, affiliate marketing, brand creation, whatever it is. And we try to stick to themes that are important, no matter what we do. And this is one of those episodes, whether you’re an e-commerce seller and you have a physical brand, whether you are a service provider, whether you’re an affiliate seller, a digital marketer… you have to worry about branding, right? And we’ve talked in other episodes. And I think that in future episodes in the next couple of weeks, I’ll be talking about branding a lot. We have an expert here now, specifically copywriting, but in general, we’re going to be talking about branding and she’s going to be answering some of the questions that I have, right? Some of those questions, my notes, how do we figure out brand voice, how unique can we get away with being with our branding? When is too much, too much? And I’ll even give some examples of brands that she and I have looked at in probably the past month. We’re going to talk about her personal story as we get started. So if you would welcome our guest, McClain Warren, how are you doing McClain?

McClain: I’m good. How are you?

Tim Jordan: Good. And I understand you just moved into a brand new house, which you said is building on the inside because there are moving boxes everywhere. And you’re out gracing us with your presence. If you’re watching YouTube she’s on her back porch with a beautiful view.

McClain: And this is not a screen or some kind of a zoom filter, it’s actually my backyard.

Tim Jordan: So if anything crazy happens like wildlife fighting on the back porch or a bird poops on her head or something, we’re just going to roll with it. That’s the nature of these recordings and these podcasts is you kind of take–

McClain: Yeah, if I get attacked by a bear, keep going.

Tim Jordan: I promise you if a bear shows up on your back porch behind you, this video will go viral. So, not trying to sacrifice your safety, but I’m kind of keeping my fingers crossed.

McClain: I would like to go viral. Maybe not for that reason.

Tim Jordan: All right. So I’ve seen you in the Amazon space that I kind of meander around doing a lot of, specifically, content writing. Like you’ve done some writing for some friends’ blogs you’ve done right now, you’re doing some content running for another service provider, Molly. You’ve also done a lot of freelance and corporate writing and all of this has to do with branding, right? Like writing specifically about features of products, benefits of products, but also branding a brand and telling that brand story. So can you give us just in five minutes, the history of how you ended up sitting on your back porch, trying to get attacked by a bear for YouTube and doing what you’re doing in this world? Give us the story of how you got here.

McClain: Sure. I’ve always loved writing since I can remember. Essentially, to make a very long story short because everyone’s story is always long. I started a copywriting and position at an Amazon firm like an Amazon marketing firm. I didn’t know anything about Amazon. I barely even bought stuff from them, worked my way up the corporate ladder, decided I want to start my own Amazon-focused company. Then a few years after that I decided that I wanted to branch out from doing Amazon-specific copywriting and marketing and focus on more marketing in all spaces, web content, blogs, et cetera. So that’s what I’m doing now.

Tim Jordan: So you’ve done a little bit of all of it, whether it’s branding and writing for physical brands that are selling online to service-based companies, you’ve done the freelance thing yourself. You’ve worked for larger corporations. You’ve kind of done it all right, which is cool because it gives you a unique perspective because you’ve seen a lot of it. So I want to go ahead and get into some of these questions that I have that I’d like to personally ask you. And of course, our viewers and listeners get to benefit from that. How important is brand voice? And to put that in context, a lot of people in the e-commerce space think that a brand is just the logo. You get a fiver, you get a freelance logo, boom, you have a brand, right. But a brand is much more than that. Or it should be much more than that. It should be a story. It should be recognized. It should be something that represents the product or the person that created this. How would you define what a brand actually is?

McClain: A brand should be an extension of who you are, meaning it should represent– well, I shouldn’t say everyone, there are people that just do me too stuff and that’s fine or arbitrage, but there are people that really want to build a natural brand. And usually, that’s an assumption of who they are, what their beliefs are, what they really care about. And it’s funny because whenever I have consultations with clients, the first thing I tend to ask is what is your brand voice? Now, these are people that, like you said, they know their logo, they know their slogans, they know their packaging, they know what they’re selling. They know all the ins and outs of that. But when I asked about their voice, they all just kind of go “ummm”. And as a writer, I find it really important because your voice really is the seed of how your brand will evolve in my opinion. Once you have that personality and voice as part of your brand, then everything from marketing to campaigns, to web content and blogs, will all be an extension of that voice. And as you know, Tim, it’s really important to keep continuity between all of those things. So you really need to establish what is our voice, what are we trying to convey in all of our messages?

Tim Jordan: And does this really matter because you’re talking about the brand voice being an extension of you, and if I’m the brand owner selling a brand on Amazon, does all of that really matter? Like, is this important to have a personal extension of ourselves into our products?

McClain: I think it is especially nowadays, maybe like five years ago when Amazon wasn’t– or 10 years ago when it was kind of like, they always say the wild wild west, and you could sell anything on there. And there was lots of competition. Maybe it didn’t matter so much then. But I think that with the competition and with more focus on images and videos and brand building, it is important to have a voice because all that stuff can’t be conveyed unless you’ll have an integral central voice. I know I keep using the word voice, but that really is what it is.

Tim Jordan: And that brand voice is like an embodiment of everything, whether it’s visual, whether it’s written, whether it’s the experience, the product experience as part of that brand voice. Do you think that the voice of a brand can be different than maybe a direct extension of the brand owner? And I’ll give you an example – like maybe I’m trying to find a product opportunity. I found a great product opportunity to sell crazy cat lady sweaters. Well, that’s not going to be an extension of me personally, because I’m not a crazy cat lady, and I don’t wear sweaters. I’m too fat to wear a sweater.

McClain: We can make you a really large one.

Tim Jordan: Yeah. So is it fair to say that the brand voice can be an extension of whatever it’s designed to be? Whether it’s like it could even be an extension of the ideal client. Right. Okay. So, can you clarify my thoughts a little better about how the brand voice can flex around to different people or things?

McClain: Yeah, I’m not, I guess maybe my wording was a little off. I do think that you don’t necessarily have to embody what your brand represents or is, but you have to own it. So for example, if, I mean, regardless of what you’re selling, you need to be able to at least pretend you are that embodiment of it. You have to be able to look at the videos you’re creating, the content you’re creating. Anything you have to be able to review and think about it from that standpoint. So if it isn’t an extension of yourself, you at least have to be able to fake it till you make it almost.

Tim Jordan: So, what you’re talking about is like creating an identity, that identity for the brand. So if I don’t love cats, right, I could still create a brand for crazy cat ladies and do it well, as long as I was creating an identity for that brand, that focused on crazy cat ladies. Right. And in that case, in that example, I would be focusing on the end consumer. I’ve used brand examples before, like Tom shoes. I love Tom shoes. I don’t actually like the shoes. I like the brand, the shoes, you could buy a $7 version of Walmart, their canvas with little rubber on the bottom. They’re not great, but those are $60 shoes because they created this brand voice, this identity of, Hey, we’re for the people by the people were like, well, that’s FUBU, but you know what I mean? Like we’re part of the community where we’re giving back, buy a pair, give a pair. So, if I had Tom shoes as my personal brand, the identity is not even the person that’s wearing the shoes. The identity is like a generational movement. Like that’s the identity. Right. So, can you give me another example of a well-defined brand identity, just a household name that we would all know that when I asked you like, Hey, who has a really great brand voice? Like, what’s a good example?

McClain: I personally, and it’s so cliche because I feel like everyone’s– but at least everyone can resonate with it. One of my favorite commercial slash brands is State Farm. And I’m specifically referring to the Jake from State Farm commercials. Specifically the first one that came out, they did a really good job of tethering that line between being humorous, making sure that you knew what their brand was the entire time. There was no questioning. I mean, they said Jake from State Farm at least eight times throughout that commercial. So that was like stuck in your brain the whole time they even identified in that commercial, what the guy was wearing, which seems like an inconsequential thing that no one would care about. But as the viewer, you can actually see what the employees look like from State Farm.

Tim Jordan: Personable, they’re down to earth folks. Like these are just everyday normal folks.

McClain: Yeah. They are the ones you can relate to. Yeah. So, I think they do a great job with branding. I don’t know if you want any more examples.

Tim Jordan: Well, I could spend all day talking about examples, but we won’t subject everybody to that. So, all right. So, I think it’s safe to say that we would agree that having a well thought out brand identity is important and that identity is portrayed through a brand voice, right? And that brand voice is most easily and accurately portrayed through written content, right? Whether it’s website, copy blogs, social media written content, it’s also portrayed through video, visual audio, even packaging, even reviews like buyer reviews can portray brand voice. Now you mentioned something about State Farm and that’s humor, and we’re starting to see that more and more. I remember growing up watching super bowl commercials and the taco bell dog and all that stuff. Humor is starting to become a big part of branding that stands apart. And you and I have talked specifically about some pretty interesting humorous brands that maybe even cross the line of decency sometimes, right? One of the brands that you and I have talked about recently is bird dog shorts. And if any of you are like, what is he talking about? Just go to the internet, go to the Google type in bird dog shorts, check out their website, and they’ll cookie you. And you’ll start getting the most hilarious, but off-color Facebook ads you’ve ever seen. And it works because like we’re still talking about it, McClain and I right now, because it’s so good. And they’re just short, like it’s interesting. It’s not a revolutionary product, but the branding and the brand voice set it apart also off color. You think about, I can’t believe I’m talking about this in the podcast, but the brand manscaped, which is literally, how do I say this, delicately male grooming accessories for the nether regions. That work? And their marketing is, yeah, we’re not talking about Australia. We think it’s hilarious. Right? It’s funny stuff, but it’s literally just like razors, right. But they’re using their brand identity and their brand voice to market and set themselves apart to start selling. So my question is McClain. Like we have to find this line of appropriate ROI, right? So we have to set ourselves apart by being different, but we can’t just be trashy either. So like how unique can we get away with being in our brand voice without crossing that line?

McClain: I mean, there’s definitely not, I haven’t done the calculations. There’s not a percentage that I’m aware of. Obviously it also depends on what you’re selling and who your audiences are. As a general rule, and maybe it’s partly just because of my personality. I always say– most people will say, err on the side of caution, I am the exact opposite. I feel like in this day and age, people are constantly bombarded with videos, images, whether, I mean, it doesn’t matter if you’re on the TV, on your phone, on your computer, in the car, like you are bombarded with continual content. And even if your brand is super unique, there’s probably another 50 products similar to yours. And if you don’t find a way to stand out and be a scroll stopper, then you’ve lost your– because people in general, the average person spends three to four seconds on a video or a piece of content and they will keep going if you haven’t captured their attention within those seconds. That is a very hard thing to accomplish these days. So I would say don’t be afraid to stand out, be unique. Listen, not, everyone’s going to find your stuff funny. Not everyone’s going to find your stuff unique or edgy or relatable and that’s okay. You need to kind of hone in on your niche and decide what resonates with my audience. What are the things that will make them connect with it? A really good example. I like to say is like, Tim, do you go to comedy shows very often?

Tim Jordan: I’ve been to some.

McClain: Okay. So the very seriously, so one thing that comedy–

Tim Jordan: Well, I’m not answering your question specifically because I go often, but I’ve been to some.

McClain: I don’t have a percentage, but I’ve been to some. Comments can get away with saying a lot more un-PC edgy stuff than the average person can. And the reason they can get away with that is because people go to see a comic so they can just laugh their butts off. And because they know that in that format, people, they know in advance that they’re probably going to be met with some stuff that is a little off colored or a little edge or whatever. But that’s what makes it so funny and relatable because these comedians are talking about stuff that everyone in the audience is like, oh man, I’ve thought that like a hundred times, but I never said it out loud or I’d never noticed someone can relate to me. And I think that is the kind of strategy you should go into when you’re thinking about your brand. I’m not saying it has to be comic related. Like not, everything’s going to be funny, but it is a really good platform for making things relatable, memorable, and something people want to keep seeing over and over again.

Tim Jordan: So right now we’re talking about humor, off-colorness, edginess, right? Like kind of crossing that line of like, is this even appropriate? But it’s a small subset of what I would describe as just like extreme marketing. Right. And it can go lots of different ways, going back to the cat ladies, like we could just blow up your Facebook feed with ads of just cats doing stupid stuff. Right. Or cats being incredibly sweet. Like it doesn’t matter. So, would it be safe to say McClain that there’s not necessarily a defined limit of how extreme you can get away with being in your brand voice? Because what you said, everything needs to be a scroll stopper, right? Like you have to stand out a little bit. So whether you’re picking something that’s very like overly conservative to catch that crowd, or it’s overly inappropriate or it’s overly religious or it’s overly extreme, like sports extreme, right. What you’re saying is we need to push the boundaries to stand out. So, we need to take a little bit more intentional aggressiveness with our brand voice, especially for selling products and digital platforms. Would that be a safe assumption to say that you’re kind of position on that?

McClain: Yeah, that would be my position and like preface is I don’t mean like, everything has to be funny, like again, a little–

Tim Jordan: Yeah. You’re just using humor as an example, but we have to do what we’re doing more so than the other people are doing.

McClain: Right. But I will say this and it’s my only prerequisite to all of those statements is that another mistake people make that kind of goes on the opposite spectrum, is that they try so hard to make something unique or funny or stand out that people forget the actual brand. So there’ll be like, oh man, I saw this really funny commercial and there’ll be like out having drinks with your buddies and someone brings up, oh man, I saw this really funny commercial. This happened, this happened. And then someone will say, well, what was the brand? What was the product? And a lot of the time, people don’t know. And then you’ve missed the whole point of having a commercial or having any kind of content because you have to make sure first and foremost that people will remember your brand.

Tim Jordan: So the way that people that remember our brands are for a lot of different reasons. Right. And I know there’s this concept of having people remember your brand and portraying your brand voice that is split between active and passive. Right. Like I think that’s the word. Yeah. I’d look at my notes active versus passive. So can you explain the difference in intentionally using an active versus passive voice?

McClain: Yeah. So this is actually to give credit to like my seventh grade grammar teacher. He taught me this and this still resonated with me and I find it very significant to what I do now. And this is more strategic for actual copywriting as opposed to videos and images. I’ll back up for a second and say that nowadays most content is image based and video based. People like to see images and videos. A lot of people will, you know, if you have an Amazon listing, they’ll kind of scroll through the features and stuff, but the first thing they check is the images, right? So, the reason people do that is because they can picture themselves in that situation. And the example I always give is say, you are selling a couch, right? Or a chair. And you’re writing about this chair and you’re trying to tell people, oh, this chair is very comfortable and soft. So that would be using an adjective, a passive voice. You’re just using adjectives to describe the chair. The better strategy would be to say, when you come home after a hard day’s work and you sink into this chair, you don’t want to get out of it for the rest of the night. Like that’s something people can actually relate to. They can picture themselves flopping on this nice cushiony couch and just laying it and not wanting to get up. That will sell your product 10 times more than just naming the features. And so I think people really need to get out of the habit of just describing stuff when they can use actionable things to make people relate to it better.

Tim Jordan: And I think that a lot of what we’re talking about is going back to emotion, right? Whether we’re talking about edgy or humorous marketing to the way that we describe the products that we’re trying to sell. We need that to make some sort of emotional, what’s the name– for emotional suggestion or create some sort of emotional response, right? Because I think that as humans, our attention span is getting shorter and we’re starting to think more about experiences than stuff. If I’m buying an iPhone. No, as an example yesterday, I ordered a smartwatch, my first smartwatch, right. And I’ll be honest. I never read any reviews about the durability and the build and the materials. I read everything about the experience, how easy it is to get these notifications or turn them off or scroll between this and this and this. Like, we want that experience. And if I think back to the marketing, a lot of it was not, Hey, you can quickly scroll to this as it’s, Hey, be less distracted because you can filter out stuff, Hey, you don’t have to carry your phone with you anymore. And you go running, you carry your watch or your earbuds. Like it’s very experience based. Do you think that this is a temporary trend for marketing to start focusing more on emotional responses? Or do you think that it’s always been that way? Just the type of responses and the ways that we insight those responses are changing with the times and the media.

McClain: I think it’s always been that way. I think people always have– they might be interested in a product because of the features, but they purchased because of the benefits. I mean, at the end of the day you buy, you purchase products because they make your life easier. Right. I mean, or yeah, better– easier, better. That’s the only reason you purchased products. And so if you can make people feel that you are going to make their life better or easier, then you’ve won the battle. For example, when you, well, you probably don’t think about lipstick very often, Tim.

Tim Jordan: I know it’s shocking, but I did not want lipstick.

McClain: But when most females or I won’t, maybe some men think about lipstick, you can highlight things like, oh, it comes with a glossy look or it has all these colors. Or I don’t know, I’m just throwing out some features for lipstick. But at the end of the day, the reason you wear lipstick is to be an attention grabber. You want to walk into a room and have everyone look at you and think, she looks good, or have your boyfriend think, man, that’s my woman. Like that is what women want for the purpose of using lipstick or any kind of beauty accessory to make themselves feel good to get attention from other people. And so if you can stop using stereotypical or common things to describe lipstick and instead use verbiage, like attention grabbing, conversation starter, flirt worthy stuff that people can actually be like, okay, this is going to make my life better if I get this.

Tim Jordan: Yeah. They can relate to that. And they can picture how this is going to create some sort of positive effect in their life. So let me ask you this. We’re talking about a lot of emotional stuff. We’re talking about digital media, we’re talking about cutting edge e-commerce. You even yourself have talked a lot about imagery, videos, but is copywriting becoming less relevant in 2021?

McClain: Yes and no. I do think that as I discussed earlier, I do think people are way more driven to video and images, but we will always need content. Even within images, even infographics and stuff like that. Like even slogans or taglines, stuff like that. Like it’s really important to have really strong content for those things because people will still read that stuff. And if you focus too much on the visual aspects of it, then you’re missing a whole other aspect of it. And in a lot of ways, like I said, with images having infographics and stuff and storefronts having slogans and taglines and stuff, you do want to come up with really creative stuff that grabs people’s attention.

Tim Jordan: Yeah. I completely get that. Where do you see actual written copy, long form copy still being one of the most relevant or effective marketing tools? Is it when people get deep into a brand story and read blogs, is it like really well-written long form copy the most relevant in today’s marketing space?

McClain: I think logs and websites.

Tim Jordan: Do you think on websites, people are actually trying to find more written information. They’re trying to dig deeper, whereas like a social media ad needs to be more entertaining and quick and fast. Do you think that once they hit the websites, they’re really trying to do more research. So long form writing is more relevant?

McClain: Yeah. I mean, look with most written, it’s kind of hard to make this an all encompassing comment because obviously there’s different situations in different types.

Tim Jordan: Yeah. There’s going to be exceptions.

McClain: There’s definitely a service, for example, then content on websites is really important because people want to know what you’re about, what your services are, why you’re better than everyone else, et cetera. If you are selling a product and you’re advertising it on, say Instagram or Facebook or name the options, if you’re having people directed for your website, more than likely, you’re going to have them directed toward your shop now or purchase now landing page, right? Like that’s exactly where it’s going to be directed to. So they probably won’t spend a lot of time going through your website. But maybe they will, maybe your ad didn’t provide enough information in the creative that you gave on Instagram or Facebook. So, they actually want to go to your website and learn more. But I think it’s always better to have content there for those that really want to understand your products. That being said, I wouldn’t spend tons of time writing a lot of stuff because that could turn off a potential client really fast. You don’t want people weeding through a bunch of content because again, people’s attention span is so short. You just want it to be okay, here is the product. Here’s why you want it. Here’s how it’s going to make your life easier. And here’s the features of why it’s going to make your life easier.

Tim Jordan: It sounds like the importance of written copy is still as important as ever, but because attention spans are reducing. We better get it right. Like we only have so much time to grab their attention. This better not be some haphazard, halfway done, unintentional thing. We can’t just throw out a whole bunch of crap and hope somebody reads it. And we see that if we’re from e-commerce platform listings like Walmart and Amazon, all the way to the blog, people used to read 3000 word blogs. Now they want to send the same information to 1500 words because they just have less time. So it makes complete sense.

McClain: Get your point across immediately. People can decide if they want to read through the rest of your Amazon listing or your blog or your website, but make sure within the first few sentences you’ve captured their attention. They know what they’re getting themselves into. They get the gist of it because then at least the entire point hasn’t been lost, if they decide to not read the rest.

Tim Jordan: Makes a whole lot of sense. This is all a lot to think about because a lot of times people as sellers, as e-commerce sellers, we have short attention spans too. Like when we’re thinking about branding, we want to go get our cool logo and stick it on a business card. And that’s it. We’re not thinking deeper about actually generating a brand voice, thinking about how to set ourselves aside, thinking from the competitors, thinking about how to push our limits a little bit in one direction or another to stand out, this is all super valuable and super important. I appreciate you sharing that with us. I know that you have a freelance copywriting agency. If someone finds out more about what you do in this space, what website would they go to?

McClain: It’s called The Write Buzz. That’s the name of the company. Unfortunately, the domain was already taken. So, you can find me on Facebook under my own name, McClain Warren, or on my Facebook page, which is The Write Buzz. If you want to find me on the website, it is www.yourwritebuzz.

Tim Jordan: yourwritebuzz. Okay. So you started off as a corporate copywriter and since then you’ve started dealing with all of us crazy entrepreneurs and you’ve become an entrepreneur yourself. You’ve started your own business or multiple businesses. I’ve been ending all of the episodes lately, basically framing that scenario and saying, Hey, we all have to learn, like we can’t do this ourselves. We have to get wisdom advice from others. And a lot of times we do that once an analyst, since you’re a writer through books. So, that’s the suggestion I always ask. If you had to go to your bookshelf right now and pull off a recommendation for this audience that has had a profound difference in your ability to succeed in life or in business, what would that book be?

McClain: So, well funny stories. So the first time I was on Danny McMillan’s podcast, he asked me the same thing and I barely knew him. And I said, 50 Shades of Gray, just like dead pan. Just totally dead pan. And I could see Cassandra was on there and Melissa was on there. It was like, all these people. And Danny looks like he was about to kill me. And I was like, it’s just such good writing. My point in all that is I brought up the same book. I’ll bring up now. And it’s not actually an entrepreneurial book or about how to succeed. The book is called Shantaram and it is, I’m an avid reader and it’s still the best book I’ve ever read. It’s about this– based on a true story, it’s about this guy that escapes president Australia, and he moves to India and he learns of the cult. He essentially becomes a refugee in India. And the reason I love that book so much is it talks so much about mind over matter and how you can be going through the worst stuff of your life. I know I can’t cuss on her. But it’s all about your perception toward it and your mindset toward it. And so not only is it a good book based on just like it’s exciting. It has all the stuff you want in a book is about war, cultures, sex, trading, like all this cool stuff about India. It also is just so profound in terms of getting through hardships in life and just keep going, just don’t give up. So again, it’s called Shantaram and I highly highly recommend it.

Tim Jordan: Well, good recommendation. A lot of people are talking specifically about business books. This is a little something different. So appreciate that. Well, thank you McClain for being on. We appreciate you taking time out of your busy day and your busy life to come share some of this stuff with us. We appreciate everything you’re doing in the community. We see you popping up and putting out good content out there, just free content for this crazy entrepreneurial world that we all live in. If any of you like this episode, make sure to leave a review on whatever podcast platform you’re listening to. Give us a like, or a thumbs up or subscribe on the YouTube channel. You can also go to ampmpodcast.com to see written versions. There we go, of all of these podcasts and show notes and all that good stuff. So, thank you McClain again for being on. Thank you all for listening and we’ll see you next week on the next episode.