The most “dangerous” idea in America?

“I worry that I should be doing something bigger with my life.”

I have this friend. Many years ago, he came to America on a work-and-travel visa. He stayed and he built a little business. Through this little business, he made the 4-hour-workweek a reality in his life.

Ever since, he’s been making good money each month by sending a few emails and making a few phone calls. The rest of the time, he travels the world, has fun, and chases women.

“But I worry I might be wasting my time,” he told me when we spoke. “Maybe I should be working to save the children or make the world a better place.”

My answer to him was that there’s value in thinking small, and that leading a life of modest impact is a virtue. And vice versa. I believe that thinking big is flat-out dangerous.

Maybe you find that thinking perverse or even repugnant. So let me give you a few examples to back up my case:

1. The Soviet Union. From everything I’ve read, the people who laid the groundwork for Bolshevism were the best and brightest and most humane of their generation. They thought they were building a better world. And yet the result was a monstrous machine that took decades to dismantle.

2. Google. Just today I read how the Federal Court in Australia ruled that Google has been willingly misleading consumers. Google continued to track consumers’ locations, even after they had turned location tracking off.

Of course, Google didn’t start out being a power-hungry, inhuman monolith. Not long ago, it was just two PhD students, whose motto was “Do no evil.” They were looking to improve access to information, and make the world a better place — on a big scale.

But maybe you don’t care anything about Bolsheviks or Google’s surveillance. Maybe you just want your own big business that makes big money. So let me tell you why smaller might still be a safer bet.

It’s something I heard Pete Coyne say a few weeks ago.

As you might know, Pete started out as copywriter at Agora. He then became a publisher there, which means he ran an entire division. He built up this division from scratch to over $100m.

In short, Pete is a smart guy, and somebody who knows more about building big businesses than most of us ever will.

And yet Pete said the following:

“A lot of people chase scale. They want to scale their business. And I feel there’s a lot of gross number porn out there. 7 figures… 100 million… 500 million. That’s not really a great thing a lot of times. Usually, your headaches explode with your revenue… your exposure to lawsuits and regulations goes up.”

Instead, Pete said there is a magic number for yearly revenue. Once you get to it, you’re better off spinning up a new business than trying to grow what you’ve got.

Not only will this save you headaches and lawsuits, says Pete, but you might actually net more money in the end.

And this  is not only thing I heard Pete share.

He also talked about three “monetization events.” He calls these “gray labeling,” “demographic jumping,” and “USP flipping.”

​​Each of them is a quick, low-risk way to create revenue bumps in your business. And none of them requires doing anything very different from what you’re already doing. Just make sure you don’t shoot past the magic number.

Maybe you’re getting tired of the teasing. So let me get to the point:

I heard Pete say all these things in this month’s Steal Our Winners.

Once each month, I push you to check out Steal Our Winners. Because in my opinion, it’s the best value out there if you are interested in direct marketing or have a business that uses direct marketing.

In a nutshell:

Each month, Rich Schefren interviews a bunch of high-profile marketers like Pete Coyne. Rich gets these marketers to spill valuable ideas and information. There’s no fluff or self-promotion. Just valuable ideas, most of which you can apply immediately.

And it’s all available for an unthinkable monthly price. Plus you can even get a low-risk trial month, for a $1 entry fee.

So in case you’re curious, you can find the $1 Steal Our Winners offer at the link below. And if you act fast, you can probably still get the Pete Coyne segment. Here’s the link:

https://bejakovic.com/sow

A $30,000 copywriting course?

Today I’ve got a business idea for you, if you’ve got an entrepreneurial mindset:

A few months ago, I speculated on a fanciful idea. What if copywriting education were free upfront, and the only income came from the money that students make thanks to the education?

Back then, I thought it was pretty impossible. It seemed to me that copywriting education can only go to one of two poles: AWAI or Agora.

AWAI is Mark Ford’s direct response business about copywriting. It works like any other direct response business — a never-ending stream of new offers. There’s always another secret to learn.

At the other extreme, there’s Agora. Not Agora the client-facing direct response business. That works just the same as AWAI.

Instead, I’m talking about Agora the copywriter training machine. That’s where Mark Ford (again) and the rest of the Agora folks bring in promising and ambitious people… teach them how to write copy… and then set them to work, capturing most of their productivity.

In other words, it seemed to me that you can either be an employee and get a great education for free (Agora)… or you can be a freelancer (or freelancer wannabe), and pay thousands or tens of thousands of dollars for your education, delivered in drips and drops of offers and upsells (AWAI).

So that brings us to today.

Because I learned something today that I didn’t know a few months ago, when I first wrote about this. What I didn’t know is that there is a business called Lambda School, which teaches you how to be a computer programmer.

So far, so meh.

The interesting thing is how Lambda School charges its students. It doesn’t charge an upfront tuition (like a regular undegrad education)… and it also doesn’t put you to work, paying you a wage and capturing your productivity (like a PhD, or work at a company).

Instead, Lambda School offers an income share agreement. I’d heard of these before, but only in the context of a traditional university. But things seem to be changing.

So here’s how Lambda School and its income share agreement work:

First, you apply to Lambda School. If you’re accepted, you sign the income share agreement, and you take the course. 6 months later, once you are a hireable programmer, you go out into the world and get a job. And then, you start paying a share of your income to Lambda School, for a total of 24 months, not to exceed $30k.

So there’s my business idea for you.

It works just like Lambda School, except it’s called AIDA School. And it teaches you copywriting and marketing. In a bit more detail:

You ask people to fill out an application to get into AIDA School. You test for basic writing skills… level of dedication… availability to commit to the course. The applicants who pass a certain threshold get in.

​​And then, you really give ’em a great education. You even help them get freelancing clients. And then you reap what you sowed, in the form of a share of their income, not to exceed $30k.

$30k per person. More than you’re likely to make selling ebooks and teasing secrets. And if you do an honest job on the teaching side, more of a positive impact also. Just remember to mention me in the first commencement speech.

And remember also to sign up for my email newsletter — if you want more business, marketing, or copywriting ideas than you would ever believe.

Profitable second-best positioning

BUD: I love you, Miss Kubelik.
FRAN: [cutting a deck of cards] Seven… queen.
BUD: Did you hear what I said, Miss Kubelik? I absolutely adore you.
FRAN: [handing over the cards] Shut up and deal.

That’s the ending of my favorite movie of all time, called The Apartment.

It stars Jack Lemmon as sweet and harmless accountant Bud Baxter… Shirley MacLaine as cute and clever elevator girl Fran Kubelik… and Fred MacMurray as handsome and cruel business executive Jeff Sheldrake.

The setup in a nutshell:

Fran is in love with Sheldrake… Sheldrake uses Bud’s apartment as a place to sleep with Fran on the side away from his wife… and Bud falls in love with Fran.

By the end end of the movie, after Sheldrake breaks Fran’s heart one too many times and Fran tries to commit suicide in Bud’s apartment, things are set right. ​​Sheldrake is left out in the cold and Fran winds up with Bud. Bud might not be powerful and sexy… but at least he’s sweet and he absolutely adores her.

The point being, sometimes you’re not the best, or the first. And that can be ok. You can still get the girl. Or the customer.

And along these lines, I want to propose to you the idea of second-best positioning.

A famous example of this is Avis rent-a-car.

Back in the early 1960s, Avis was the homely mule trotting behind the spry stallion that was Hertz. And rather than trying to pretend otherwise, Avis decided to own their second-best position. The result was the following ad campaign:

“Avis is only No. 2 in rent a cars. So why go with us? We try harder.”

Within a year of launching this campaign, Avis went from a loss of $3.2 million to a profit of $1.2 million. Within 5 years of this campaign running… the difference in market share between Hertz and Avis shrank from 32% to just 13%. It even looked like Avis might overtake Hertz — and need a new ad campaign.

“All right,” you might say, “good for Avis. But why wouldn’t I find a uniquely best position for myself… and instead accept the role of a homely second-best mule?”

Fair point. My only answer is that second-best can get you free promotion. And lots of high-quality leads. And almost certainly more sales than you can handle. At least if you’re selling some kind of service, and can follow the clever program outlined below.

It’s something I found in Glenn Allsop’s article, which I shared in a post a few days ago.

Did you read Glenn’s article? All the way to the end? That’s where the clever second-best biz idea was. From what I understand, it works like this:

1. You are in business offering some kind of service. Say, copywriting.

2. You decide you want to help a charitable cause. Say, the unbeaching of that tanker that’s stuck in the Suez Canal.

3. So you contact 25 of the top level people in your field, who have premier positioning. A-list copywiters, etc. They all agree to provide a free copy critique, which will be sold for top dollar to help the charitable cause.

4. You then create a page to promote this event. “The greatest copy critique event of all time! Featuring A-list copywriters! In support of the beached Suez canal tanker!”

5. With some hand-waving, this offer goes viral. Not impossible — considering the premier positioning of the 25 A-list copywriters at the heart of it.

6. The 25 premier slots sell out in minutes after the event goes live.

7. You then update your page to say, “Missed out this time, or want another critique option? Check out our $40 sales copy critique and get feedback in the next 72 hours.”

And there you go. All the opportunity a sweet, second-best copywriter can handle. At that point, you’ve just got to shut up and deal.

Do you want a copy critique? It’s something I offer from time to time. But the offer only ever goes out to subscribers of my email newsletter. If you’re interested, you can join it here.

An inspiring case study plus Dan Kennedy’s best stuff for cheap

Today I want to share an inspiring business case study with you, plus how you can get Dan Kennedy’s best teachings for cheap.

First the case study:

I’ve followed the writing of a guy named Glenn Allsop for years. Glenn writes about SEO and business opportunities. He’s very smart and very dedicated and very willing to share just about everything on his blog.

And Glenn just came out with a big new post titled, Generating Six-Figure Profits from $40 SEO Audits.

It’s just what the title says — amazing when you consider that an SEO audit is something most people can’t give away, much less make a business out of.

There’s a ton of valuable ideas in Glenn’s post, and if you’re offering any kind of service (copywriting, design, video…) it’s worth reading in full. But today, I want to share just one thing that I found most striking out of the whole case study.

Because really, why would a highly successful guy like Glenn waste his time doing tiny $40 jobs, even if it did result in decent profits? He has other business ventures that could earn him much more.

But here, from Glenn’s article, are a few things that came out of all this $40 work:

I’ve advised CMOs at billion dollar brands. Audited the official site of a major European football league (one of the big five). Directly connected with the owners of multi-million dollar per month affiliate sites, and spoken with the founders of dozens of TechCrunch-featured companies.

A $40 audit started our interaction, but then so many more things came as a result of these. Especially when people see how I look at their websites and point out things they just hadn’t thought of.

This brought to mind something I heard Rich Schefren say he heard Dan Kennedy say:

“Put your best stuff in your lowest-priced stuff.”

Glenn took this to an extreme, by actually doing per-hour, custom work for people. You may or may not want to do that. If you don’t, you can still create some kind of low-priced offer — a book, a course, a 10-minute sample of what you do — and make it absolutely amazing.

You never know who will take you up on your bargain-basement offer… or how much money they will be willing to spend with you after. That’s how Dan Kennedy got a lot of his clients, according to a recording I heard of him recently. And that’s why, if you want the best stuff that Dan has to offer… you will find much of it available for a few bucks a piece, right on Amazon.

Perhaps that’s not what you were hoping to hear. In that case, I can tell you you won’t like my email newsletter, because it’s filled with obvious value, rather than “secrets” or urgent opportunities.

However, if you are a reader, and you’re patient, then my email newsletter might suit you better. If you’d like to give it a try, here’s where to join.

Casino Royale positioning

Last night, I finished rewatching Casino Royale, the first Bond film starring Daniel Craig. As you might know, this movie came out surrounded with controversy.

There was a lot of opposition to casting Craig in the Bond role. Fans complained that Craig — short, blonde, and blessed with “large, fleshy ears” — was a complete mismatch to the required Bond look and feel.

And yet, Craig has grown on Bond audiences. Casino Royale was a big part of that. On Rotten Tomatoes, the movie gets a 94% approval rating, and the summary says:

“Casino Royale disposes of the silliness and gadgetry that plagued recent James Bond outings, and Daniel Craig delivers what fans and critics have been waiting for: a caustic, haunted, intense reinvention of 007.”

So I’d like to propose to you the idea of Casino Royale positioning.

Strip away the silliness and the gadgetry of the current offers in your market. Instead, offer a short, blonde, large-eared alternative that nobody in his proper mind should want.

Here’s a famous example:

Back in the late 1950s, the American car market was dominated by beasts. Each year, American car models became larger, with more chrome and more tailfin. When that game went to its extreme, the unlikely winner turned out to be Volkswagen, with its promise of a small, ugly, practical car.

Example two:

This one comes from closer to home, namely, the financial newsletter market. In that market, the typical promise goes something like,

“How to double or even you triple your investment — as soon as next month!”

In other words, the typical promise is to get rich quick. And then get richer, quicker! And then even richer, as of yesterday!

So into this market came Gary Bencivenga, often called the world’s greatest living copywriter. And rather than coming up with creative new ways to promise millions of dollars in the next 14 minutes, Gary did a Casino Royale. The promise in his headline?

“Get rich slowly”

And yet, this short, flat-faced, large-eared promise turned out to be one of the bigger successes in Gary’s very successful career.

So if your market is outdoing itself in silly promises and gimmicky mechanisms, Casino Royale might be the thing to try.

Strip everything away… look into your customer’s eyes with an icy cold stare… and say, like Craig does when asked whether he wants his martini shaken or stirred…

“Do I look like I give a damn?”

I’m planning on putting out a book in the next few months with more positioning ideas. If you’d like advance notice when that book comes out, along with more free positioning ideas before then, you might like to sign up to my secret service MI6 email newsletter.

Dan Kennedy’s grungy ghostwriting gig

In 1933, Don Dwyer published an interesting self-promotional book. The title of the book was, “Target Success: How You Can Become a Successful Entrepreneur, Regardless of Your Background.”

There are two curious things about this book:

1) It was ghost-written by Dan Kennedy.

2) It was really a sales tool for Dwyer.

A bit of background:

Don Dwyer owned Rainbow International Carpet Dyeing & Cleaning Company. This was a franchise carpet cleaning opportunity. For something on the order of $10k, you could buy into the franchise and get set up with your own carpet cleaning biz in your own town.

So Dwyer’s Target Success book was there to give him credibility and positioning… and to pitch the business opportunity of buying into Rainbow Carpet Cleaning.

And here’s the clever bit:

Dwyer could have published a self-promotional book like, How To Be Successful In Carpet Cleaning. But as Dan Kennedy said, Dwyer was too smart for that.

Because such a book would not elevate Dwyer’s status. Quite the opposite. It might diminish his status.

So instead, Dwyer had Dan write a generic success book. Lessons from a self-made millionaire… how to set goals… what really makes successful people tick. And once you’re well into that story, well, then you find out about this carpet cleaning opportunity. It might not have sounded great right in the headline… but it sounds pretty good 150 pages into the book.

That opportunity might have sounded almost as good as the following simple rule:

When writing copy, it’s always better to get more specific. Always.

Except when it’s not. Sometimes, when you get specific, you turn off potential customers and clients… you narrow your market too much… you can’t get attention because you’re talking about something too fringe, cringe, or grunge.

In that case, it makes sense to go up a level or two or three, and make your appeal more ethereal. This is true whether you’re positioning an offer… or writing a sales letter… or just a sales bullet.

Maybe you didn’t find that useful at all.

Maybe you did. In that case, you should know I write an email newsletter on similar topics… quick and grungy. In case you’d like to join the newsletter, here’s where to go.

Taking over abandoned but rich online oil wells

Jay Abraham likes to tell a sexy story about two marketers. The story is true and it goes something like this:

Two marketers started selling fake diamonds through ads in the same local newspaper.

One marketer wrote a brilliant ad, got a high response, and made a bunch of sales. After ad costs and fulfillment, he was left with a profit of a few thousand dollars.

​​”What a waste of time,” this marketer said. And he moved on to bigger and better opportunities… ones where he could make tens of thousands or maybe even a hundred thousand dollars, using the same approach.

Then there was marketer two. He only wrote a passable ad, and got a lower response than marketer one. He was left in the red after ad costs and fulfillment.

But when marketer two sent his customers the fake diamond, he also included a letter. The letter said something like,

“Behold your beautiful fake diamond! See how it shines and sparkles! And if you by chance find it sparkles a bit less than you expected, perhaps it’s the modest size. But worry not. Send back your beautiful but modest-sized fake diamond… and we will credit it to your next purchase of a magnificent and ginormous fake diamond. Just enclose a check for an extra xyz dollars to…”

In other words, marketer two created a back-end of upsells and followup offers. Result? A business that made something like $25 million in its first year.

(By the way, I only found out later that marketer one, the brilliant but short-sighted copywriter, was Gary Halbert.)

I thought of this story today because I’m seeing something similar right in front of me.

For the past two years, I’ve been writing copy for a client in the ecommerce space. Over the past year alone, they have abandoned about a dozen hot funnels. Yes, including fake diamonds.

Each funnel had an in-demand product… copy that was working… a large, hungry, accessible audience eager to hand over their money.

So why abandon ship? Because fulfillment got tricky… or shipping got expensive… or ad costs went up and made the funnel unprofitable. So on to the next opportunity, the next oil well that can be exploited with just a bucket and a rope, for as long as it lasts.

I had the idea this morning of taking over some of these abandoned but rich funnels. But my first thought was, how could I possibly succeed where my client had failed? After all, they have a gaggle of ad buyers, a herd of ad production people, and money and resources and connections I can only dream of.

So how could I succeed? Perhaps, by having a back-end of upsells and followup offers. By tapping this oil well a bit deeper… and using strategies that go beyond a bucket and a rope.

Maybe that’s doable… but it also sounds like a lot of work. Which brings me to the point.

Last autumn I wrote about my idea of a “cash buyers list.” In a nutshell, I am looking for people who are willing to partner with me in some way on investing in online properties, whether that’s product funnels or blogs or sudoku solver software.

And if you have interest in partnering with me on some tried-and-proven ecommerce funnels… and you either have money, or relevant skills to contribute, then get in touch. Maybe we can create a new case study together for Jay Abraham to talk about for years to come.

Near miss: 100-0 in business and private

A tense and awkward situation today:

I was walking on a large, wide, empty road. Down the road, I saw a guy walking toward me.

I recognized him. I see him every time I go to the gym. I’ve never spoken to him, but I bet he recognized me, too.

So we were walking toward each other. There were no other people around, and no other distractions.

He saw me coming nearer.

I saw him coming nearer.

Would we say hello, even though we’d never spoken before?

Or would we ignore each other, even though we’d spent hours in close proximity?

At about 10 yards to impact, the guy dropped his gaze and started studying the pavement. I kept my eyes in the middle of his chest — a safe place in case he decided to look up at the last minute, but also not accusatory.

He didn’t look up. I kept quietly staring at the middle of his chest, without making any sudden movement. We passed by each other, as David Ogilvy says, like ships in the night.

Thank God. A near miss.

This brought to mind a post written by Brian Kurtz. You might know Brian as the former VP at direct response giant Boardroom.

Back in the 80s and 90s and 00s, Brian was the guy who hired all those copywriting legends like Gary Bencinvenga and Parris Lampropoulos and Jim Rutz. And today, Brian is still a very successful and well-connected guy in the direct response industry.

Anyways, Brian once shared an idea he called 100-0. 100-0 means you put in the extra effort to build and keep up your relationships. And you don’t grumble about it. Because it will be worth it.

It’s something I clearly need to work on, because it doesn’t come natural. I’m passing on Brian’s idea to you because maybe you are the same.

You can draw your own conclusions. But if, like me and like my nameless gym buddy, you keep waiting for others to make the first move… perhaps try 100-0 and see what it can do for you. In your private and your business life.

And maybe you’d like to start a modest relationship with me today.

Just by email. At least for now. In case you’re interested, here’s where to start.

UpCopy: Open for business

I was leafing through the newspaper and I read that LinkedIn is launching a freelance marketplace. This could be interesting to you, whether or not you’re offering services for sale.

But let me give you a bit of background first:

LinkedIn got started by buying assets of UpCounsel. This was once a marketplace that connected freelance lawyers to clients.

So the first planned step for LinkedIn is to start its own marketplace by offering legal services. It could happen as soon as September.

Step two will be to repeat the same model across “100 different industries.” That’s according to Matt Faustman, who founded UpCounsel and is now heading the LinkedIn marketplace effort.

Of course, there’s already UpWork and Fiverr for finding freelancers. But if you ask me, LinkedIn could grab a position for itself. Perhaps higher up than UpWork, which is itself higher up than Fiverr.

I bring up this up for two reasons:

1. Maybe you’re a copywriter (or other service provider) looking for clients. If you haven’t done so yet, it might be high time to get on LinkedIn. Start posting articles or videos of yourself. Tap into this marketplace thing before others do.

If you need more motivation:

A LinkedIn spokeswoman said there’s been a surge in people hiring LinkedIn users who list they are “open for business.” Maybe that’s mere puffery. But maybe there’s something to it.

Still, LinkedIn client hunting might not be your thing. In that case…

2. I’ve got a business idea for whoever wants it.

The world of copywriters is notoriously disconnected from the world of business owners. For a long time, I only knew one half of this equation. But as I wrote a while ago, I’ve now seen the other side too. There really are many business owners who want to hire a good copywriter — and even pay him well. But they don’t know where to look or what to look for.

So my business idea for you is to create UpCopy, a freelance marketplace specifically for copywriters.

You’ll probably need to be well connected in the industry or at least good at networking. And even so, there’s a chance that may top copywriters will never want to be listed on your marketplace. It would be contrary to the kind of positioning they want to cultivate.

But who needs to know that?

If you can get a bunch of good-enough copywriters to sign up, getting business owners might be easy. And even if not, the end goal here is not to really create a thriving marketplace.

The goal is​​ just to build something that 5 months down the line, LinkedIn will be happy to pay for. Like they did with UpCounsel. I don’t know how much that was… but my guess is it’s more than anybody can make in several lifetimes of writing copy.

For more free ideas:

You might like to sign up to my email newsletter. It’s like a newspaper, in that it arrives each day. To get your trial one-day subscription, fill in the order card here.

How to get hired without trouble or questions asked

“Do you have some samples you could send me?”

A few years back, copywriter Dan Ferrari wrote a sales letter for supplement company Green Valley. The sales letter was so successful it sold out the entire stock of Genesis, the supplement Dan was promoting.

But before Dan got hired to do this job, he had to send a few samples to Lee Euler, the owner of Green Valley.

I thought this was interesting. Because Dan was already a very successful copywriter. He had a long list of controls for several financial publishers. I guess Lee, who is an A-list copywriter himself, wanted one final, personal check of Dan’s skills.

Yesterday, I talked about Ogilvy’s famous ad for Rolls Royce.

Well, in the world of direct response copywriting, Dan has Rolls Royce positioning. There are few copywriters out there with his skills and his level of results. That’s why Dan was referred to Lee, who is always looking to hire top new copywriters.

Now here’s how this is relevant to you, in case you’re ever sending over samples to a potential client:

Dan had never written a supplement promo before Green Valley. So he sent Lee some of his earlier financial sales letters. Lee probably looked over these sales letters with his copywriting eagle eye, and he saw what he needed to see. “Looks good. Let’s get to work.”

But that’s Lee Euler, a copywriter with decades of experience, and the guy who wrote The Plague of the Black Debt… and that’s Dan Ferrari, who already had a string of controls at big DR publishers.

Maybe you see where I’m going with this.

A lot of newbie copywriters obsess over creating a portfolio. “What should I put in there? Which niche to write for? What formats do I need to include?”

My personal opinion is this is waste of time and mental energy. Because when you are new, or just not at Rolls Royce level yet, then your samples should be exactly what the client is hiring for right now. And if you ain’t got that, then write it, then and there.

For example, a couple years back I wanted to get a job writing VSLs in the real estate investing space. I knew a company that was hiring, and for this exact type of copy. So I wrote two new leads for their existing VSLs, and I sent that in. I got hired without trouble, with practically no questions asked.

Thing is, I had already written VSLs at this point, and some were successful. But they weren’t for real estate. I had even written a lot in the real estate space, just not VSLs, and not about investing.

Would those square-peg-in-round-hole samples have gotten me the job? I don’t think so.

​​Maybe this will drive the point home:

“At 60 miles an hour the loudest noise in the new Rimac comes from the electric engine”

Never heard of Rimac? They are an up-and-coming electric sportscar maker from Croatia.

Maybe one day Rimac will be as recognizable as Lamborghini or Rolls Royce. But today, a headline like that would make most people just say, “So what?”

Because until you become a known brand that people lust after, you have to spell everything out for your potential client or customer. ​​You have to speak to his exact problems… and make the exact promises he wants to hear… in terms that require minimal, or better yet, no thinking from him.

This applies to selling products, and it applies to selling yourself. Don’t expect you will have an understanding and eager Lee Euler evaluating your copy samples.

Instead, g​ive new potential clients no scope to think you are not the person to hire for this job. Even if they know little to nothing about copywriting. Do this, and you will get hired, without trouble, with practically no questions asked.

Finally:

I write an email newsletter about copywriting and, occasionally, about the business of copywriting. In case you’d like to try it out and see if it fits you, you can sign up here.