Roast my email copy (webinar invite) · Copywriting Launchpad

Roast my email copy (webinar invite)

Hi everyone,

I’d love your honest take on an email I just wrote. Please roast it.

The context: This is a promo email for a client who is a Consultant Clinical Psychologist. He’s been invited by NWG to speak at a one-hour webinar next week. The email teaches one practical idea through a real conversation he had with a 16-year-old, then invites readers to the webinar. I kept his industry terminology on purpose (like “stress response,” “dysregulated,” “down-regulate,” and “validation”), so please flag anything that feels unclear for the reader, but don’t worry about the terms themselves.

The goal: Get readers to click and join the NWG webinar. Thank you!

The webinar topic: Therapeutic ideas and skills for workers with a relational role.

This session gives practitioners a set of practical, evidence-based therapeutic ideas and techniques to add to their toolbox.

---

Subject line: Can you help without being a therapist?

Preview line: One practical therapeutic idea you can use tomorrow.

What if I told you that you don’t need to be a therapist to make a therapeutic impact?

Well, you don’t.

You just need a few simple, practical therapeutic ideas and skills that you can start using the very next day.

I’ve taught these ideas to people who aren’t therapists and received 100% satisfaction ratings for how easy they were to understand and apply.

Let me give you a real example of how this works in practice.

I was meeting a 16-year-old for the first time. Here’s how our conversation went (WL is me, and YP is the young person).

WL: “So I’m going to make some notes as we go along today, so I can remember what we covered next time. I’ll give you a copy too, so you can remember as well.”

YP (standing up and pointing aggressively): “You think I’m daft and won’t remember anything. You think I’m an idiot.”

WL: “Wow, you seem pretty angry! Are you worried that I’ve got low expectations of you?”

YP: “Yeah, everyone talks down to me because I’m struggling and I can’t fit in.”

WL: “So you feel angry and upset about how people speak to you, and you want to feel respected?”

YP: “I deserve respect like anyone. I’m clever. I’m not a bad person.”

WL: “I agree that you do deserve respect. It sounds like you don’t trust that I’ll treat you respectfully or recognise your qualities. Is that right?”

YP: “No one else does. Why should you be any different?”

WL: “Would you be willing to give me a chance to show you that I’ll treat you respectfully? As we get to know each other, you can decide if I’m someone you can trust.”

—

Here’s what I want you to notice.

He wasn’t reacting to the notes themselves. He was reacting to what he thought they meant about him.

He felt judged and talked down to, something he’d clearly experienced before.

His stress response was activated, and trying to reason with him in that state was unlikely to help.

My response wasn’t word-perfect in the moment. But rather than correcting him or explaining myself, I managed to convey empathy by listening well and focusing on his feelings and his need to be treated with respect.

Before I could do that, though, I had to manage my own stress response.

A dysregulated person can’t effectively help another dysregulated person.

And that’s the practical therapeutic idea I want you to take away.

Calm your own stress response first. Then offer empathy and validation.

That’s because empathy and validation promote connection and help people feel safe.

When people feel safe, their stress response can down-regulate, allowing them to engage their thinking brain.

Of course, I’m not suggesting you should approach every emotionally charged situation in this way. If there’s a risk, safety comes first. Always trust your instincts and professional judgement.

But when it’s safe to do so, you don’t always need to rush in with an explanation, a correction, or a solution.

Simply listening, acknowledging someone’s feelings, and recognising their needs can be more helpful than trying to fix the situation.

There’s a phrase about empathy that I like:

“Don’t just do something, stand there.”

Sometimes, that’s exactly what’s needed.

Going back to the young person, we went on to have an excellent working relationship over the next six months. He made some wonderful progress.

If I’d told him his behaviour was unacceptable and asked him to leave, things would have gone very differently.

That said, these skills take practice. Most people are trained to try to ‘fix’ the problem in front of them, so you need to build these skills before you find yourself in an emotionally charged situation.

That’s just one example of how a small change in your response to heightened emotion can have a positive impact.

If you’d like to hear more, NWG has invited me to speak at a one-hour webinar.

It’s a short introduction to these ideas, with practical examples you can use at work the very next day.

You can join me here.[Link]

You’ll leave with a clearer idea of what to say, what to ask, and how to respond when things get difficult.

And you don’t need to be a therapist to do that.

-WL

9 comments

Roast my email copy (webinar invite)