If you want to have great ideas, you need to have a great mind.

And the easiest way to have a great mind is to reduce all the clutter, noise and pointless dopamine loops that stop us from coming up with great, unique and memorable ideas in the first place.

Because my philosophy is that most of us already have the knowledge, the creative juice, and the “power” to create exactly the type of genius we want, including new hooks, angles and concepts for our ads.

So what I like to do is reduce all the mindless junk and “prime” myself for coming up with the greatest ideas the market has ever seen. That’s my mindset going into this.

The first thing I do is eliminate YT, Twitter, Reddit, IG, podcasts, all types of short-form content, forums, mindless scrolling and the pointless habit of checking my phone for no good reason.

I either completely uninstall Telegram or tuck away the “channels” and only keep my business contacts at hand. I’ll keep Whatsapp, Slack and similar apps, but I’ll check them on my own time, and not when I get a notification.

Yes, I really do remove all mindless clutter, and I deliberately block these sites on my computer too (with the sudo nano command in Terminal). So to watch a YT video or check Reddit, I have to go into Terminal, run the command, and then remove the site. It’s a MASSIVE pain in the ass, so it stops me from doing it.

After I’ve eliminated the clutter and noise, my mind is rapidly getting more creative, it’s getting smarter, my willpower increases, my thinking is getting clearer, and I start having great ideas at will, they come to me in my sleep, I’ll have an epiphany in the shower, I start connecting things and it’s absolutely magical.

All of this might seem extreme and excessive. And IT IS. That’s the point. It needs to be extreme, because I’m trying to come up with a new angle for a product that already exists, in a market that has probably already existed for years, if not decades.

And I’m trying to do it for someone (DTC brand owner) who’s thinking about their business 24/7. And he’s not alone. He has competitors who are ALSO thinking about their business 24/7. It’s NOT easy, that’s why we get paid to do it. And it’s why we get paid even more when we hit a homerun, a breakthrough, a “winner”.

So the above process of removing all the junk, all the clutter is MANDATORY and absolutely necessary. That’s “step 0.” After I’ve done that, and after I’ve been in this “state” for a week or even just a few days, I will start having an uncontrollable amount of ideas. I’ll be in my notes app, in Google docs, in my physical journals, just writing, plotting, coming up with pure genius.

THEN, and only after I’ve done everything above, I will actually sit down and go through my “process” for coming up with hooks, angles and concepts for ads.

Here it is:

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Step 0 >> Remove all the clutter, junk and noise, as outlined above.

Again, absolutely mandatory if we want to come up with great ideas and new winners.

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Step 1 >> Analyze the current ads of the brand/offer I’m working on.

Here I’ll look at what the brand is running, what kind of creatives (video/statics), are they running straight to the PDP, to an advertorial, a quiz, something else. I’ll look at this to get an idea of the brand, the offer, the target and the market.

But I won’t spend too much time on the full funnel. I just need to get a quick idea of the flow. I’ll spend most of my time looking at the ads, the copy, the primary texts, the headlines, the hooks, the angles, and so on.

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Step 2 >> Identify what’s missing (proof, authority, believable claims, etc.)

Every ad is always missing something. Every ad could ALWAYS be a little better, a little more persuasive.

How is the ad being opened? UGC creator, normal footage with a voiceover, the founder, a doctor, something else? Could we induce more authority in the ad? Could we add any credible sources talking about the mechanism? Has Harvard or Stanford talked about this subject, problem, solution, or mechanism?

I look at all these things. And this is just for the “authority” element. There are countless more, like the “proof” element, which includes testimonials, case studies, using the product in real-time, and more.

Same with the claims. Are they actually believable? Is it the same claim they’ve already heard? Is it something they even WANT to hear? Do we need to change the core promise? Could we open and present the problem in a different way?

Is there an angle I already know would work for this offer or market? Because after being in the game for a while, you kinda get a sixth sense for what’s going to work, not always, of course, but quite frequently.

These are just some of the things I look at. The core idea is to identify what’s missing from the ads, especially the opening and the lead of the ad.

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Step 3 >> Open Google Doc and brainstorm all ideas I can think of myself.

This is key. I want to let my brain, my experience, my knowledge, everything I have done up until this point, to do the work for me.

By immersing myself in the offer, in the current ads, by seeing what’s missing, all I need is a blank page, and great ideas will follow. I know it, it’s absolutely inevitable, because I am a creative person with great ideas, it’s my talent, my greatest power, and I’ve done the work beforehand that enables me to tap into the inner genius (by reducing the clutter for weeks and months ahead of time).

I will have a bunch of new ideas for hooks, angles and concepts just with this step alone. Why? Because I am an IDEA MACHINE, I might be sheer flesh and blood, but when it comes to ideas, I spit out magic, so does my mind, my fingers, my entire soul.

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Step 4 >> Read about the market (forums, articles, competitor ads, wherever my curiosity leads me)

Only after I’ve immersed myself in the brand, the offer and market, and only AFTER I’ve written all new ideas myself, will I go into the actual market and start researching. Most people start here (with the research). Which is a big mistake.

Instead, you always want to start “blank” when you’re going into an offer or to a market. That will help you see the obvious missing element(s). And you’ll usually go straight to the core driver, the core problem, the core solution, and you’ll usually go straight for what the market wants.

At this point, though, I’m reading Facebook groups (yes I do have an account without any friends on it, just for research), I’ll read forums, I’ll definitely check competitors ads, I’ll search for key words on Google, Yandex (secret hack) and Meta Ad Library, I’ll use spy tools, wherever my curiosity leads me.

This is where you will get even more ideas, because you start connecting things. Steve Jobs has a great quote on how the creative person creates something. In essence, they just “see” something and connect things. That is how my mind works, and it’s how most “creative” people’s minds work.

This style of thinking is the total opposite of how a process-driven mind works, which is what most DTC owners are. They like processes, step-by-steps, SOPs, repeatable “systems”. All of those things are great, if you want to be a phenomenal entrepreneur. But IMO, it doesn’t breed for great and unique ideas the market hasn’t heard of yet, or that any competitors have ran yet.

The reason for that is because the best ideas, the memorable ones, that stick to your mind for days, weeks and months, are not the result of your typical “process.” No. What makes great ideas come to life is the person, the mind, the brain behind it. That’s where it all comes from. It’s always been like that, and it’s going to continue being like that, no matter what the “AI hype” tells ya.

The core idea here is to immerse yourself even further in the market, because you will start connecting things, which will get better ideas, which will lead you to better ads, hooks, and angles.

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Step 5 >> Go back to the same Google Doc and brainstorm new ideas.

This step is self-explanatory. Go back and repeat step 3. Same Google Doc, and think of all the new fresh ideas you now have.

There is a GREAT chance you’ll have written your new winner in this step. I know I have, many many times. There is just something magical that happens after immersing yourself in the market, connecting things, and then having those great ideas come to you.

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Step 6 >> If all else fails, hit the Swipe File.

By now I will have a TON of new ad angles, hooks, and concepts. But if I don’t? Then I’ll go to my personal swipe file and there WILL be a new angle in there.

This is my collection of not just ads, VSLs, emails, landing pages and advertorials, but everything that is related to compelling ideas or that got my attention, in some way or form. It’s nearly a decade of resources and screenshots that “spoke” to me.

Here, I will find YT titles and thumbnails, book covers, text messages I’ve gotten, photos I’ve taken, billboards, restaurant menus, forum comments, old TV commercials from the 2000s, direct mail letters, the greatest promotions of all time, and more. So much more. A lot of the stuff here is not necessarily “ads” or “marketing”, but a collection of great, creative ideas and concepts.

My personal swipe file will make zero sense to anyone on the outside, but it makes perfect sense to me, to my brain and to how my mind works, which is why I can always count on finding a new idea, hook, angle and winner there.

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That’s my personal process for how I come up with new hooks, angles and concepts. It can take anywhere from a few hours to a week. It depends on the project and how long I’ve been working with the brand, or in that specific market.

It’s quite unconventional, it’s all over the place, and it might be difficult to “replicate” but it 100% works (for me). And if you have a creative brain like myself, I recommend giving it a go, but as always, the choice is yours. Namaste.