Build a Swipe File to Steal Like an Artist and Sell More

Top-of-funnel content must be 100 % about the prospect.

Only after trust is earned can you introduce yourself; conversion stage is where you explicitly pitch your solution.

Why: Premature self-promotion triggers resistance; value-first builds reciprocity.

"the top of the funnel and top of your like got-got funnel needs to be about them"

Use free tools as Trojan horses for lead capture.

Automated audits, calculators, or bonus chapters trade immediate utility for email addresses and upsell opportunities.

Why: Show-don’t-tell outperforms long sales pages and scales with AI automation.

"show, don't tell, without hitting people over the head with a long website"

Great marketers remix, not steal.

Take the underlying principle (e.g., pattern interrupt, contrast, novelty) and re-express it in your own context.

Why: Direct copying decays fast; remixing keeps the psychological trigger while staying original.

"great marketers, great builders remix"

Combine two unrelated things to create scroll-stopping novelty.

Fried-chicken-flavored ice cream, VR thumbnails, or pay-what-you-want SaaS pricing all fuse unexpected elements.

Why: The brain flags incongruity as important, boosting recall and shareability.

"what are two things that don't normally go together?"

Study how you got sold to learn how to sell.

Every ad, email, or landing page that makes you click, subscribe, or buy is a free master-class in persuasion; capture and dissect it.

Why: You are the perfect avatar for your own product, so reverse-engineering what worked on you shortcuts the learning curve.

"the best way to learn how to sell is studying how you got sold"

Consumption without curation is wasted attention.

Bookmarking or liking content buries inspiration; instead tag and annotate each piece so it becomes searchable future fuel.

Why: Attention is finite; converting it into a reusable asset compounds creative leverage over time.

"turning your consumption into like curation, and then ultimately creation"

Segment during opt-in to personalize downstream offers.

Ask one qualifying question (paper vs digital notes, Shopify vs WooCommerce) and bucket users for tailored pitches.

Why: Relevance lifts conversion; 5 targeted emails to 2 k people each beats one blast to 10 k.

"segmenting their audience so they can give them offers that people want"

Innovate on pricing model, not just product.

Move beyond subscriptions to per-task, credit, or pay-what-you-want models to stand out.

Why: As products commoditize, novel pricing becomes the differentiator.

"people are saying, okay, products are basically commoditized. Now people are thinking, how do I innovate on marketing? ... the ability to innovate on pricing model"