One of the books I’m reading right now is Atomic Habits, by James Clear.
I’d heard of it for a while, but just finally started on it…
And so far, I’m really enjoying it.
One of the things James talks about in the book…
Is the difference between systems and goals.
A goal is your endpoint – where you want to go…
A system is an operating framework you follow, something that can allow you to get to the goal.
It’s important to note that:
- Different goals require different systems…
- Systems don’t just exist in service of your goals – if anything, they are more important than your goals.
Anyone can set a goal…
“I want to make a million dollars”…
“I want to lose 20 lbs”…
“I want to be a great parent”…
But, just setting a goal doesn’t do a whole lot for you.
The real art-form, and the real challenge, is how you go about achieving those goals.
That’s where having systems and processes come into play.
—
Now, this might all sound kind of obvious…
But the reason I’m writing about it…
It is because as I was reading Atomic Habits this morning…
It helped me to realize that, while I have some systems in my life that work well…
In other areas, I still don’t have clearly defined systems.
And, predictably…
In the places where I have clearly defined, well-tested systems…
I thrive…
While in the places where I don’t have clearly defined systems, things are more ambiguous.
To take a concrete example…
Look at my RMBC Method.
As many of you know, RMBC is my copywriting system.
It stands for Research, Mechanism, Brief, and Copy…
And it’s a process that, when followed, allows anyone to write predictably better copy in significantly less time.
I developed RMBC out of necessity when I was writing 8-12 sales letters a month for Lion’s Publishing, back in 2014…
Then, I taught it to the first copy team I ever built…
Along with every copy cub I've hired since.
It’s one of the biggest things we focus on and teach in Copy Accelerator.
Over time, RMBC has gone through modifications, revisions, and tweaks…
And today…
It’s an amazing system that, when followed, produces predictable results.
In Copy Accelerator, which is the copywriting mastermind I run with Justin Goff…
We review dozen of pieces of sales copy each week…
And, we can always tell immediately if the writer followed RMBC or not.
When they did, the copy is never bad. It may need tweaks or revisions, but foundationally, everything is there and it’s easy to make it even better.
When they didn’t, there are glaring issues. Our feedback becomes focused less on the copy, and more on big picture stuff:
Messaging, language and pain points are off – because the writer didn’t do their Research…
The copy doesn’t identify the surprising culprit behind the prospects’ problem, or present their product as a unique solution to that problem – because the writer didn’t develop a unique Mechanism…
The copy about the product is bland, or the background story is boring – because the writer didn’t do their Brief…
Or, the sales letter itself is logically incoherent and confusing – because the writer didn’t follow the sales letter outline, which is an integral part of writing the actual Copy.
In the case of Copy Accelerator…
The vast majority of our members have now bought into RMBC…
And, the result has been that their writing has improved dramatically, their offers are converting better, and their careers and businesses are skyrocketing.
But it doesn’t always happen overnight.
Sometimes, we’ll have a more seasoned writer join…
And they’ll attend every one of our weekly training calls…
Be active in our Facebook Group…
And be good about asking us for copy critiques…
Then still ignore the RMBC Method for MONTHS!
It’s crazy to see…
Especially because on several occasions…
I’ve had these writers come to me and be like:
“I don’t get it, why am I not improving? Why am I still struggling to get clients? What can I do?”
The answer is simple:
You can upgrade your system!
You see, in cases like the ones I just described…
What’s happening is that these writers are continuing to use their old copywriting system, even though that system has obvious limitations:
It got them to where they are but then they stalled… and one of the reasons they joined Copy Accelerator was to break through to that next level, which requires them to adapt new processes.
And usually, once I point this out to the writers (sometimes it takes a few times)…
They finally get it, they upgrade to RMBC…
And lo-and-behold…
“Wow — this new letter/ad/email crushed it!”
“I’m writing 5 promos a month now when I used to be able to only write one”
“I made 5x more this month than I did in all of last year as a freelancer” (A real comment from a freelancer writer in Copy Accelerator).
“Our business doubled in two months” (A real comment from an 8 figure business owner in Copy Accelerator).
—
And, believe it or not…
The point of everything I just wrote is NOT just to sneakily sell you on Copy Accelerator…
I’m simply using CA as an example, because it’s where I put my copywriting system into practice…
And I see it repeatedly leads to predictable results when people use it…
Which makes sense…
Because of the system flat-out works.
And, as I was reading Atomic Habits this morning and thinking about systems and processes…
It made me wonder, where else in my life I can either develop or optimize, my systems?
I’ve created a great one for copywriting…
But what about everything else?
I’ve got a pretty decent one for time management and productivity…
A pretty good one for my health…
And some good frameworks around mindset, management, entrepreneurship, etc.
I’ve already shared a few of those frameworks with you…
[For example, I shared my time management one a few blog posts back. If you’re new to my blog and want to see it, you can find it here.]
And I’ll share more of them in future blog posts…
Since you may find them helpful…
But still…
I’m pretty sure that for most of these other systems I have…
They could be dialed in DRAMATICALLY.
Because if I’m being honest with myself…
None of them are as optimized as RMBC.
So that’s going to be one of my focuses for the first quarter of 2020:
Picking a few additional areas in my life that could benefit from systemization…
Then developing strong, replicable, and easily implementable systems for those things.
I’ll report back what I discover.
And I’d also encourage you to consider applying this same approach to some areas in your life, too…
Consider asking yourself:
“What are some things that I do regularly, but that I feel could be further optimized?”
It could be copywriting…
Leading a team…
Interfacing with clients…
Building funnels…
Raising your kid(s)…
Leading a church group…
Really, anything you do could likely benefit from having a foundational framework.
So, it may be worth building out systems for at least one of these things…
Then following it faithfully (aka making it a habit)…
Because if you do…
I’m pretty sure it will lead to some pretty outsized results.
—
Okay, that’s it on systems for now.
I promise to share more on the systems I use in future blog posts…
Plus, I’ll report back on the new systems I’m creating, and how they’re going.
I’m also aware that I teased RMBC a lot in this blog post…
And you may not fully understand what it is, or how it works.
So if you want to find out more about how it works, you can check out this page that’s all about RMBC.
This page is several-thousand-words long…
And provides a very strong overview of the system…
So it might be worth it to check that out.
– SPG
P.S. This post originally came from an email I sent to my private list. If you want to see more stuff like this from me, you can apply to join my list using this link.