Business Of Copy

Free advertorial + no bondage

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Lemme tell you about my recent positioning fail, so that we’re on the same page, or so you can maybe avoid the same:

Over the past few weeks, I’ve been talking to a guy who runs a big ecom business.

He had heard of my “free advertorial” offer and was interested.

We got on a call. At the end, he asked if I would sign an NDA.

I figured it’s harmless. I’ve never revealed any insider secrets from businesses I’ve worked with, and I don’t mind signing a paper to say I won’t do it in the future. I said, “Sure, send it over.”

The NDA arrived. Except it turned out it was not just an NDA. Actually, it was a noncompete agreement as well, and how.

First, the contract was asking me to agree I would never work with any of the dude’s competitors.

When I refused that, the dude took the offending clause out. He put in a new clause that said I could never use any knowledge or insights gained via working with him with any other clients.

I politely bowed out.

As with everything else in my life, this is my fault.

I didn’t really make it clear to this guy how I am going into this whole “free advertorial” thing.

I’m not a copywriter looking for work. In fact, I might very likely farm out the work to one of the copywriters I am coaching inside my ongoing advertorial cohort, and simply copy chief them to make sure the result is up to my standard.

Rather, I’m going into this “free advertorial” deal as an investor. I’m looking to partner with business owners, contribute valuable assets, tangible and intangible, which I own and will continue to own and have control of, and take a cut of any profits we generate together.

I am certainly not willing to put myself in a situation of voluntary bondage to anybody.

If you’re a copywriter looking to graduate to a new level, and partner with businesses instead of serving clients, I’m sharing my positioning fail with you because you might somehow benefit from my experience.

And if you are not a copywriter, but own an ecom store yourself, or if you know somebody who owns an ecom store, my low-pressure, low-risk, zero-bondage offer still stands. You can find out more about it here:

https://bejakovic.com/do-you-want-a-free-advertorial-for-your-ecom-brand/

Last call: Save yourself 20+ hours of copywriting work a week

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“An uneasy, necessitous, busy, rich man seems to me more miserable than he that is simply poor.”
– Michel de Montaigne

Consider this my last warning, threat, and statement of opportunity to grab Dawn Apuan’s time-saving offer for copywriters who write for coaches and consultants.

Dawn’s offer is about saving yourself time, and delivering more copy to more clients in less time.

Dawn says her AI gizmo, to which she is selling the blueprints until tonight, has saved her 30-40 hours a week. Other copywriters say Dawn’s system has save them “at least 20 hours per week” and “cut my work time in half.”

Because, as Montaigne says, an uneasy, necessitous, busy copywriter is even more miserable than a copywriter who simply has no clients.

Dawn’s offer can help you stop being uneasy, necessitous, and busy.

This offer ends tonight, I’m presuming at 11:59 PST, since dawn lives around Seattle.

If you want to get this before it disappears, go here for more details before time runs out:

https://bejakovic.com/if-youre-a-copywriter-and-you-write-for-coaches-and-consultants

P.S. I recently recorded a call with Dawn, grilling her about her strategies for becoming the resident copy guru in half a dozen masterminds and communities so she can get clients easily and in bunches. If you buy or have bought Dawn’s time-saving AI offer before the deadline tonight, write me an email and I’ll share the interview with you.

If you think you can smell bad copy…

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Today is the last day to grab Dawn Apuan’s time-saving AI system for copywriters who work with coaches and consultants.

When I first wrote to promote Dawn’s offer and linked to her sales page, I got a reply from a copywriter in my audience who wrote:

“If anything, her sales page is a reason to NOT buy it…”

… presumably meaning, professional copywriters can tell this sales page, which was written with the help of Dawn’s AI gizmo, is 1) not good copy, or 2) sounds like it’s written by AI, or 3) both.

Well about that.

Like I said, Dawn writes for coaches and consultants. It’s a specific style of copy, with a specific structure and tone.

I’m not advising you to get and use Dawn’s system if you write financial copy (go apprentice at Agora) or if you sell bizopp (read and model my emails).

But if, like Dawn, you write or want to write for coaches and consultants, then her AI system can save you time (on the order of 20+ hours per week, as per case studies on her sales page) and produce copy that clients will be happy with and that will get them results.

How do I know clients will be happy with it and get results from it?

I’m taking it on Dawn’s word. I know for a fact that Dawn is more successful than 99% of copywriters out there, and she specializes in this coach and consultant market.

Like I wrote in previous emails, Dawn has been a resident copywriting guru in a half dozen copywriting communities, which is also one way she has been able to get paid (!) to get clients and get them easily.

She has been delivering copy to many clients for a while now, using the same system she is selling here. She continues to do it, and I’m assuming that means that this copy makes the clients happy.

“Sure sure,” I hear somebody in the back say. “But maybe Dawn is just really good at selling herself as a copywriter and selling her copy to clients. That still doesn’t mean that her copy is actually good or that it gets clients results. Maybe her clients are just too naive to know otherwise.”

For that, all I can really tell you is a little story that Dawn shared with me recently, during a call in which I interviewed her about how she has managed to get a half dozen paid copy guru positions inside business communities.

Speaking about how easy and natural it’s been for her to get clients in this way, Dawn said:

===

And then they hear about your results. I had one lady in that group where we met every week, and she did hire me outside as well. But she was like, “I show up to these calls every single week, because every week I do what Dawn says, and every week I make more money.”

===

My point being, if you think you know good copy, meaning results-getting copy, for coaches and consultants, and if you are sure that what Dawn is producing is not it, then you are frankly wrong.

Again, I’m going on that by Dawn’s experience and the results she has gotten for her own clients, using both her typing fingers and the AI-ified version of that, which she is selling the blueprints to now.

Dawn’s modestly priced, DIY offer disappears tonight, to be replaced with a cohort format that will be 10x more expensive.

If you don’t want to pay 10x more, if you do write or want to write for coaches and consultants, then here’s my full (bizoppy) pitch for Dawn’s system:

​https://bejakovic.com/if-youre-a-copywriter-and-you-write-for-coaches-and-consultants

P.S. I recorded that call I did with Dawn, grilling her about her strategies for becoming the resident copy guru in half a dozen masterminds and communities so she can get clients easily and in bunches. If you buy or have bought Dawn’s time-saving AI offer before the deadline tonight, write me an email and I’ll share the interview with you.

Do you want a sexy newsletter-writing job?

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I have a friend named Will. Will and I were both in Dan Ferrari’s coaching group at the same time back in the late 19th century.

I talked to Will last week to catch up.

For the past couple years, Will has been doing all the email marketing for Polymarket, one of the two big prediction markets.

First he was doing a cool weekly email, which I even read, because it’s interesting.

Then they got him to start doing a daily email as well.

It’s a lot of writing and a lot of work.

Will is looking for help, for a writer to handle either the daily email, or segments of the weekly newsletter, or some combination of both.

I offered to put the word out to people in my audience in order to:

1. Help Will

2. Look cool to people in my audience

There’s a conflict between those two goals.

Will’s first question was, “Will I get inundated with replies?”

I told him that chances are yes. And I offered to act as an intermediary, to vet people before I pass them on to him.

If you are interested in writing for Polymarket:

1. Reply to this email

2. Tell me you specialize in writing Morning-Brew style newsletters

3. Include highly relevant samples to back up your claim in 2 above

I’ve already put this call out inside Daily Email House, my Skool group. I’ve had three people apply. Two frankly could not follow the instructions above. The third did, and I passed his info on to Will. But I’m guessing you still have a really good chance at this sexy job (at least sexy to me) if you really want it.

But what if you don’t have relevant samples? In that case, you have two options.

Option one is to not apply for this job. If you don’t send me highly relevant samples, I will not forward your stuff to Will, and I will not listen to you when you explain to me why I should hear you out.

Option two is to create highly relevant samples on the spot, maybe even a sample Polymarket email or two (their stuff is all online and you can find it and model it).

NB: If I have to parse, read into, or interpret your message or your samples to figure out how they could be relevant to this job… I will just skip your application. The whole point here is to figure out if you are the kind of person I should hand off to Will. A part of that is your writing experience and skill. Another part of that is your ability to make his job easier, rather than harder, and right now I’m the proxy for that.

What about salary? Terms? Stock?

I have no idea.

If that’s your first concern, I’d say, don’t apply for this.

But if you have relevant experience, or if you want experience writing for a big and exciting newsletter, then you know what to do.

How one copywriter gets clients a dozen at a time

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Back in March, I put out a call among the successful copywriters I know, asking if they have some sexy new way to get copywriting clients.

One of the people who replied was Dawn Apuan, the owner of Copy Queens Ink. Dawn wrote:

===

The strategy that’s worked the best for me over the years and brought in multiple six figures is getting paid to get clients by being the resident copy “guru” for a coaching program or mastermind.

The coach pays me monthly to do calls and/or provide feedback for clients (the exact deliverables depend on the coach). The clients get a TON of value and then inevitably some hire me to do it for them or work with them in some capacity.

I’ve never heard anyone talk about this strategy? I’m sure others do it and I may just not be aware of it but it’s been fun and extremely lucrative for me.

===

Harumph. That was my initial reaction.

Not that I doubt that being the resident copywriting guru in a mastermind will get you clients. I lucked into one such situation 5 years ago, and I got the easiest, most generous deals with some of the biggest clients I’ve ever had that way.

But still, harrrrumph.

If getting copywriting clients is a hurdle, Dawn’s approach just seemed to replace it with a significantly bigger hurdle, which is to locate business masterminds, somehow connect with the owners, and get those owners to then endorse you to all their members.

I mean, the one time it happened to me, it seemed to be completely random and unrepeatable.

Except…

For Dawn, becoming the resident copywriting guru has been neither random nor unrepeatable.

She has done it consciously, a half dozen times or more, using straightforward strategies that pretty much anyone can replicate.

Dawn and I got on a call. I wanted to grill her about how she became the resident copywriting guru inside a business mastermind a half dozen times.

Dawn obliged.

We recorded the call, with a view to maybe using it in the future in some unspecified way.

Well, the time has come.

I am currently promoting Lawrence Bernstein’s Lead Gen Legend, a giant swipe file of winning lead gen copy.

I asked Dawn if I could share the video we recorded, in which she lays out her secrets, as a bonus for my promo, as long as the people who got it would also get on her list. Dawn agreed.

So that is now the first of three new, additional bonuses I am including with this offer, bonuses which will vanish tomorrow night, Sunday, at 12 midnight PST.

The total offer now stands as:

====>>> Lead Gen Legend <<<====

… which brings together hundreds of winning lead gen ads across 58 industries, plus Lawrence’s expert commentary and context, at $300 off the usual price.

FREE BONUS #1. Emails that did well

I’ll give you access to my “Emails that did well” document, now and in perpetuity. You can see which of my past emails did well and why. And as I update the document, you will see which future emails have done well. In a way, it’s a swipe file of outstanding email copy, from, as former Agora Financial copy chief Joe Schriefer has said, “one of the best email writers out there.”

FREE BONUS #2. Core Promise Workshop and Q&A call recording

I recently sold this workshop recording for $97, along with some bonuses. It’s yours free (minus the bonuses) if you get Lawrence’s Lead Gen Legend.

FREE BONUS #3. “Perfect Lead Gen Offer”

Not my idea. Also not a specific offer template you can swipe. Rather, a simple but counterintuitive process for figuring out what offer to make in your lead gen ads to maximize lifetime value and minimize ad costs.

FREE BONUS #4. “How to get copywriting clients a dozen at a time”

A recording of of the call I did with Dawn Apuan, grilling her on how she has been able to become the resident copywriting guru in multiple business masterminds, and rake in dozens of clients at a time.

FREE BONUS #5. A lazy, ‘mom & pop’ ad template to add 3-4 buyers to your email list every day, at a slight profit”

Nick Bandy’s lazy but effective way of creating ads to get people to buy his low-ticket front-end offer and get on his email list.

This is part of Nick’s $500 training on running a low-ticket funnel, but it’s just as applicable if all you wanna do is run lead gen ads.

It’s yours free as part of this Lead Gen Offer, though you will have to additionally opt in to Nick’s list to get it.

FREE BONUS #6. “The second coming of Gary Bencivenga” ad and landing page

A few months ago, I found a guy who was running an ad on Facebook… telling you he will write an ad to beat your best performing ad… and if he doesn’t succeed in beating it, he’ll give you all your money back.

The offer started at $97 and has been going up each time he sells out the slots he’s got for the month. It currently sells for $247. It was a brilliant, modern application of the classic Gary Bencivenga agency ad.

I’m planning to model this same approach to get advertorial clients. If you’d like the ad and the landing page copy, they are yours as part of this bonus bundle.

Again, these bonuses disappear tomorrow, Sunday, at 12 midnight PST. If you would like to get them before then, and also benefit from the generous $300 discount Lawrence is offering during this promo, here’s where to go:

https://bejakovic.com/leadgen

P.S. To get $300 off the regular $379 price of Lead Gen Legend, put in the coupon code BEJAKO on the cart page. Lawrence has these instructions on the page itself, but it’s a bit hidden, and some people have written me in confusion about it.

Do you want a free advertorial for your ecom brand?

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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.

How one copywriter gets hired without making explicit offers

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It’s 8:52am as I write this, and I’m sitting on the terrace of my AirBnb in Bologna, where I arrived just last night.

Crickets are chirping in nearby trees, swallows are circling overhead, and the sun is rising in the cloudless sky.

It’s very pleasant on the terrace at the moment, though that will change soon. It’s supposed to get up to 36 degrees today, or 97 if you do Fahrenheit.

I’m trying to take advantage of the bit of day before the city turns into a furnace, so let me just share with you a reader experience with client-getting.

A while back, in my Daily Email House group, long-time reader Carlo Gargiulo, who works as a senior copywriter at Metodo Merenda, wrote about how he had moved his newsletter to Substack. I asked Carlo why he did that and how it went. He replied:

===

I also chose Substack because I want to write purely informative emails. They’re actual articles designed to help readers apply what I’ve taught them.

At the core of these articles (emails) are always the principles you shared with me in Most Valuable Email.

Readers love learning and putting into practice tips to improve offers, copy, etc.

And the interesting thing is that—without making explicit offers—I receive emails from entrepreneurs who want to hire me to write emails, Facebook ads, and landing pages.

===

Is it the magic of Most Valuable Email that gets entrepreneurs reaching out to hire Carlo without him even offering?

Is it the magic of Substack?

Is it some combination of the two?

I don’t know.

But if you are looking to get copywriting clients, and if you don’t like the dynamic of you pitching yourself, and the world ignoring you, then hearken to what Carlo says. It’s worked for him, and it might work for you, if you only put it to use.

Substack as far as I know is free.

Most Valuable Email I know for sure is not free.

But at the moment, you can effectively get Most Valuable Email for free, as part of my Hogwarts of Influence event.

I’m bundling together a bunch of my offers, at various levels of craziness, meant to turn you into a persuasion wizard of greater and greater power.

Most Valuable Email is available at the “Snape” and “Dumbledore” levels, along with so many other bonuses to make any of the individual items effectively free.

If you’d like to find out more before this offer vanishes in a puff of magical smoke:

https://bejakovic.com/core-promise-pwyw/

How I’d get advertorial clients without Upwork, cold outreach, or a network

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A couple months ago, I got back on Facebook in a BIG way. What I mean by that is that I started spending a few minutes there every couple days or so.

I was lurking, and trying to see what offers I would get pitched by the Facebook ad algorithm. (I was and am planning on launching my own cold traffic funnel, and wiser heads than mine say that you gotta do your research ahead of time.)

That’s how I came across a pretty, pretty brilliant offer.

It’s a dude who is running an ad… telling you he will write an ad to beat your best performing ad… and if he doesn’t succeed in beating it, he’ll give you all your money back.

(The offer started at $97 and has been going up each time he sells out the slots he’s got for the month. It currently sells for $247.)

From what I can tell, the dude has been running this since last November.

He has had 67 people take him up on it so far.

Out of those, he’s been able to beat their best ad 61 times, while refunding people 6 times.

In true Gary Bencivenga fashion, his landing page is FULL of social proof resulting from this challenge, including the refund requests from the 6 refunders, all of whom were complementary to his skill and business model.

Do you think that, out of any of the remaining 61 people whose best ads he beat, he got any long-term clients who are now paying him thousands of dollars a month?

My guess is yes.

I’m telling you this because right now, I’m promoting a cohort iI will run, starting next Monday, May 1st. The cohort will involve writing advertorials and getting clients who will happily pay for those advertorials.

So far, a few dozen people have expressed interest in this. I’ve been talking to them, or rather, emailing with them. I asked them for more information about where they’re currently at.

A few people have told me that they are either sick of looking for copywriting clients on Upwork or via cold outreach… or that they don’t have time or interest in looking for clients at all, and would rather outsource that to me.

I’m sorry to say, in that case, this cohort is not for you.

For one thing, I’m offering to help and advise with getting clients, not do it in your stead.

For another, the client-getting methods we will be using are the ones outlined inside the 1-Person Advertorial Agency course, which are (gulp) Upwork and cold outreach.

(The good news is, Upwork is where I got my biggest advertorial clients, and the way of cold outreach that 1PAA teaches is likely to be more effective and efficient than your usual kind.)

Still, if you hate the idea of Upwork and cold outreach for getting advertorial clients, then I just gave you a working alternative above. Spelled out, it goes like this:

1. Create a landing page with a headline that says something like, “FREE advertorial for your ecom brand”

2. On that landing page, explain your deal, which is basically that you will write them a free advertorial if they will pay you a commission in case of success

3. Explain who it’s for and not for (eg. must have a working cold traffic funnel, must be making at least X sales per day, must not be currently under investigation by the FTC, etc.)

4. Get people to fill out some kind of a form with whatever details you want from them in order to decide if you want to work with them, or to invite them on a screening call

5. Run super basic ads on Facebook for $20 a day to advertise this landing page

6. Update your landing page with proof as you get it

I’ve kick-started my own advertorial agency by reaching out to my list and network. Maybe that will be enough to get me all the advertorial clients I will ever want. Or maybe i will eventually tap out that demand, in which case I will do exactly what I wrote above, with that Facebook advertising strategy.

But if you like, you can beat me to it, and get your name out there in the world, and get clients who pay you for advertorials in the process, by doing what I just told you I would do.

In any case, the countdown to my advertorial cohort continues. Here are the high-level details:

I’ve made an agreement to write an advertorial for a client.

I’m inviting copywriters to join me and work alongside me as I do this.

You get my help with writing an advertorial following the 1-Person Advertorial Agency system.

You get my help tracking down, vetting, and closing a client (or partner business) using the two client-getting methods in 1-Person Advertorial Agency.

Plus, I’m promising to keep working with you and giving you my support and input until you get to $10k from advertorial work.

We start next week. In case you’re interested, reply now.

Free advertorial for your ecom brand?

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As I wrote a couple days ago, with the current situation what it is, the Sun being in Gemini and the Moon in Scorpio, I’ve decided to get back into client work.

I already got one client last week for a DFY newsletter service.

But there’s another thing I know a lot about, and that’s copy for cold traffic ecom funnels, specifically advertorials that make unprofitable funnels profitable and allow profitable funnels to scale.

I’ve charged a lot of money in the past to write an advertorial. But I’ve since learned the value of investing up front in order to find the right clients, or rather, the right partners.

So lemme ask you:

Do you have an ecom brand?

Or do you work with an ecom brand in some capacity?

Would you like a FREE advertorial you can drop into your (or your client’s) existing funnel, and test, to see if it increases conversions, increases AOV, allows you to scale, and makes you more money?

If you’re interested, hit reply and let’s talk.

Two tracks, client and student

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A couple weeks ago I talked to a dude, a successful marketer.

On the one hoof, he sells courses and coaching via his email list. On the other, he does bespoke done-for-you work for clients.

I asked him how he gets his done-for-you clients. Are these people who are part of his audience, and just kept ascending from course buyer to coaching student to DFY client?

Turns out no. In the dude’s words:

===

It’s funny because the bespoke clients that I’ve worked for or have on retainer, they always come by referral.

They always have. I’ve been in business since 2010 and the big whale clients, they come by way of some sort of referral.

Whether that’s a past client of mine referred them, a vendor referred them, a colleague, somebody like that.

===

I’m telling you this because I’m finishing up my first-ever Most Valuable Offer cohort.

I’ve been helping nine people plan, market, and deliver a paid live workshop.

As the first step, I asked them, what’s the next step? In other words, who do they want to attract to this workshop, and what do they want to sell to them afterwards?

One of the participants replied:

“Get more high-quality DTC clients who will implement the work I do for them.”

Well, about that. I’d like to suggest to you, going back to the experience of the successful marketer above, that there are two separate tracks:

A client track and a student track.

Like I said, the two tracks are separate.

At the same time, that doesn’t mean that they are independent.

The two tracks are mutually reinforcing, the same way that train tracks have those wooden sleepers in between them to keep each one in place by connecting it to the other.

Here’s how that works:

DFY client work gives you content, expertise, and standing and with your student audience.

It makes it easier to sell to students and gives you something worthwhile to sell.

The teaching you do via courses and coaching, in turn, gives you reach (including referrals), star glow, and non-neediness when dealing with clients.

It makes it easier to have clients find you instead of you having to prospect… to work with better clients, ones that you like… and to charge more with zero pushback on your rates.

My back-of-the-napkin math is that by having both a client and a student track, you get 500% of the benefit for 75% of the work, compared to having each one alone.

At the moment, I still haven’t finished the current Most Valuable Offer cohort. I am not sure when I will be running the next one.

If you’re interested in creating a Most Valuable Offer yourself, both to monetize your current audience and to make your client work easier, then reply to this email and I’ll put you on the priority list.

At the moment, I’m also not doing any client work.

If you are interested in having me completely handle some projects for you — whether that’s handling daily emails or a weekly newsletter for your business, or advertorials for your cold traffic funnel, or something else you need but I’m not thinking of — then reply to this email and we can talk.