We sold out a client's product launch 3 months ago.
This month, we did it again.
In one of our earlier editions, we broke down the direct response email we wrote for this client that led to the sold out launch.
For this launch, our talented writer Julia had a hunch.
She'd observed that most product launch sequences run direct response emails. Some examples:
"We're opening 10 new spots."
"This offer closes in 24 hours."
"Last chance to join before we close the doors."
Direct response is a style of email built to make people act now, it works because it creates urgency and removes excuses.
The problem is it's everywhere now.
Every copywriter on LinkedIn runs the same playbook. And because AI was trained on all of it, the output started looking identical. Readers have seen the format so many times their brain skips past it before they've finished the subject line.
This time, we wanted to experiment with 'storyselling' emails, and that's exactly what today's edition is about. By the end of this edition, you'll learn:
what a storyselling email is and why it closes the people urgency can't
the Epiphany Bridge: the framework Russell Brunson built to make readers sell themselves on your product
the 3 writing techniques that turn a raw student story into an email people act on
BONUS: a storyselling email template you can copy-paste into Claude, feed it a testimonial or a Wispr Flow voice note, and it writes the email for you
Let’s dive in!
What is a storyselling email?
A storyselling email takes a student/client transformation story and tells it through a specific structure where the reader doesn't feel sold to. They arrive at the buying decision themselves.
I learned this from Russell Brunson's book Expert Secrets.
(this book is a recommended read inside our writers onboarding)
He calls it the Epiphany Bridge.
There's a reason you got excited about whatever you're now selling.
Something happened, a result you saw, a conversation you had, a problem you kept running into. At some point, you had an experience that caused an epiphany.
You thought “wow, this is so cool.”
Do you remember what that was? Do you remember how you felt?
That first "aha" moment created so much excitement that you went deep. You studied everything you could find. You geeked out, learned the terminology, understood the science behind why it worked.
And then you became logically sold on it too.
But here's where most founders go wrong…
When it's time to sell, they lead with everything they learned after the epiphany.
frameworks
curriculum
research
All the logical stuff that reinforced their belief... and none of the emotional experience that created it. So the reader gets features and details but never feels the thing that would make them want to buy.
Here’s an example:
Someone buys a Ferrari because of how it makes them feel. That's the decision. Then they tell their spouse it gets good gas mileage.
Logic is just what people use to justify what emotion has already decided.
Your reader works the same way.
They won't buy it because you listed the modules. They'll buy because something in your email made them feel what your student felt before everything changed. So before you write a storyselling email, the question isn't "what result did my student get? It is “What was the moment everything shifted for them?”
The specific thing that made staying where they were felt worse than doing something about it.
That's your Epiphany Bridge. Your job is to take the reader there.
Now, here's what the email actually looks like. We can't share the original email due to NDA. But here's what the full email looks like as a template:
You can copy-paste this template into Claude, and use Wispr Flow to dictate your story.
Have Claude fill in the placeholders with the information from your story, your transformation, your product, and the outcomes you can unlock for your audience.
You have a sales email ready in 30 mins.
3 writing rules to keep in mind:
1/ kill the “technobabble”
Technobabble is what happens when you go deep on your subject and then try to explain it to someone who hasn't been on that journey. You start using the language you learned after the epiphany - the methodology, the industry terms, the science behind it.
It made sense to you but it won't make sense to them.
Here's an example:
Before: "Our structured programme uses evidence-based pedagogical frameworks to build iterative communication competencies."
After: "I practiced every Thursday for two years."
Strip the expert language. Show what the person actually did.
2/ write at a third-grade reading level
In the 2016 Republican primaries, all candidate speeches were run through a grade-level test. Trump tested at a third-grade Flesch-Kincaid score. Ted Cruz tested at ninth grade. Trump won.
The simpler the language, the further the story travels.
Every time you hit a term or concept your reader might not know, stop and say "it's kinda like…" then finish with something they already understand.
For example, explaining ketones.
"Ketones are kinda like millions of little motivational speakers running through your body that give you energy and make you feel awesome."
3/ make the emotion physical
Before: "I was terrified to present."
After: "I turned my camera off and said my internet was down."
Every feeling in your story needs a physical anchor.
The reader's brain pictures it and the emotion transfers.
That is how you get them into the same emotional state you were in before the epiphany hit.
That’s all for today!
If there's one thing you take away from this edition, let it be this:
Before you write a single word of your next sales email, find the epiphany. The moment your student/client stopped tolerating their situation and decided to do something about it.
/Nils