This morning, I woke up, got onto terrace of my Airbnb in Bologna, and amid the sounds of chirping crickets and a rare scooter on the street, I opened up WhatsApp for the first time in 16 hours.
I had a message from a guy named Brandon, who owns an ecom company, which sells a very specific and niche product via very direct response advertising.
A few days ago, I sent Brandon some new ads, which I had written for him for free. That’s what Brandon’s message this morning was about:
“Very nice. The page is built, those ads have just been pushed into production”
The page Brandon is referring to is the advertorial page. That’s because last week, right before going on vacation, I also delivered Brandon a free advertorial, to bolt onto his existing funnel.
The deal is, I do the advertorial and the ads for free. If the resulting funnel succeeds in beating what he was doing before, Brandon pays me a small fraction of the revenue this new funnel will generate.
I made this offer last month to my list.
After I made that offer, I had a genuine A-list copywriter challenge me on offering sales copy for free.
“You don’t need to do anything for free,” the A-list copywriter said. “You have the experience and the skill and you can charge for it.”
That’s definitely true.
At the same time, I’ve done a lot of charging for copy in the past, aka “client” work. I was never crazy about it.
That’s why I’m testing out “investments” or “partnerships” like I’m doing with Brandon.
We both put up a small wager. If our shared bet pays off, we split the winnings in some way. If it doesn’t, we’ve both lost just our small and manageable wager.
It’s a different dynamic to client work, and so far I like it better.
That’s why my offer still stands.
If you have an ecom business, if you run ads, and if you are comfortable with direct-response copy, then I am offering to write you an advertorial. For free. I’ll do the ads too. Also very free. You just pay me a small share of the resulting revenue in case the funnel makes you money, after it makes you money.
If you are interested, reply to this email and we can talk more.
And if you know somebody who might be interested, forward them this email. They might be grateful to you, and I will be for sure. Thanks in advance.