# Podcast interview of Sam Parr by David Perell

- Page: https://shared.btbytes.com/p/sam-parr-david-perell-2024
- Date: 2024-08-17
- Tags: books, podcast, writing, copy-writing

The episode of "How I Write" podcast is here - [Sam Parr: Copywriting... What You Need to Know](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CO2ELWa3jsc)

I heard this episode while biking 10.7 miles on my bike.


People mentioned:

- Dharmesh Shah
- Scott Galloway
- Robert Caro
- Felix Dennis
- Gregory David Roberts
- Ben Franklin
- Hunter S. Thompson
- Neil Gaiman
- Neil Armstrong
- James Madison
- Thomas Jefferson
- [Harry Dry](https://x.com/harrydry) -- [Learn Great Copywriting in 76 minutes](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TUMjnmfsPeM)
	- Kaplan's law of words -- any words that aren't working for you, are working against you.

Books mentioned:

- American Kingpin
- How to Get Rich by Felix Dennis
- The Elements of Eloquence by
- [Shantaram](http://web.archive.org/web/20210421230748/http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shantaram_(novel)) by [Gregory David Roberts](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gregory_David_Roberts)
- The Great Gatsby

Websites and Products mentioned:

- [The Hustle](https://thehustle.co/)

Concepts and Ideas:

- AIDA (Attention, Interest, Desire, Action)
- Copy work
- Merism
- Antithesis

Key takeaways:

1. The headline is VERY important. It should be attention grabbing, and the hook should be the beginning of a slope that keeps the attention of the user going down the length of the piece - advert, article, book, ... **If you nail the headline, you will nail the rest of it**.


The following summary was generated by [Clade](https://claude.ai) from the [text transcript of the video](https://tactiq.io/tools/run/youtube_transcript?yt=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DCO2ELWa3jsc)

Key topics discussed:

- Writing viral articles and effective copy
- Building email newsletters and media businesses
- Reading habits and favorite books
- Techniques for memorable writing and phrasing
- Company vision and branding
- The importance of speed and boldness in business

Key insights:

- Focus on email subscribers as a core metric for media businesses
- Use "forgotten text" like thank you pages to enhance branding
- Study early versions of successful company websites for inspiration
- Employ techniques like antithesis and merism for memorable phrasing
- Read history books for entertainment and business books for enrichment
- Define what your company stands for and against in your vision
- Move fast and create stakes to build momentum in new projects
- Written words have power to shape institutions and societies