Business Of Copy

Hot new “no cure, no pay” repackaging of a service offer

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Long-time reader and customer Rasmus Gullaksen writes in reply to my email yesterday:

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A bit unrelated, but I came up with a new ghostwriting offer for my audience a few weeks ago. And I’ve never experienced so much demand for a service EVER. literally had 25 ish people write to be about this offer after promoting it 2-3 times on LinkedIn.

Most LinkedIn ghostwriters sell 6-8 monthly posts for X amount. But that has all the risk on the clients side (if the posts dont perform, the client still pays) and no big upside for the ghostwriter (if 8 posts do well and make a lot of money, the ghostwriter doesnt get anything more)

So I came up with the offer (a kind of No cure, no pay ghostwriting)

1. I’ll overhaul your LinkedIn profile page for $1k (so it sells better)

2. And then I’ll ghostwrite for you for free until you get a new client from your content, and only once that happen, I get a cut off the amount you make from that deal. If it takes 10 posts to get there, the client wins (10 free posts) and then they also get a new client (win for them, win for me) + I don’t make any commitment to post X times for them, I just post as many as I think are necessary + ramp up if things go well etc. I then get paid only if my content gets them results, and that only gets easier and more lucrative as time goes.

Right now im just trying to figure out what kind of business owner has the best business model for me to do this for. Currently helping a motivational speaker, a legal advisor, and a SaaS founder.

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I think what Rasmus is doing is… absolutely GREAT.

There’s lots of clever stuff going on in Rasmus’s offer above. What I wanna focus on is a super basic thing, which I believe drives this whole thing – that this is a service offer with a guaranteed outcome.

Is that really so hard?

To come up with a specific outcome for the service you provide… and to find a way to guarantee that outcome?

At least for some clients? And to then factor out your risk, by making this offer ONLY to those right kinds of clients?

If you offer services — copywriting, media buying, dog walking — maybe it’s worth thinking about how and for who you could provide a guaranteed, bundled up outcome.

Maybe it can mean you sell more easily… have an easier time with delivery… AND make more money?

Putting the idea out there.

If you already do this, and guarantee an outcome with some of the services you offer, write in and let me know.

I wanna hear your experiences. And who knows, maybe I end up promoting you and your offer, like with Rasmus above.

If you’d like to partner with businesses on the back end…

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A couple weeks ago, I wrote about a new “back end” partnership I was testing out.

A business owner, who spends $700 a day on Facebook ads to generate leads, is converting a minuscule share of these leads to clients, while doing no ongoing followup with the rest.

After 2 minutes of talking to this guy over Zoom, we made a preliminary partnership deal:

1. He’d give me control of his email list.

2. I’d see what I could do.

3. If I could do something, we’d keep working together and split the profits.

4. If I could not, I’d have spent a bit of time writing a few emails for this guy for nothing, and he’d have spent a bit of time to talk to me over Zoom, also for nothing.

After I sent out that email, I got a reply from a Spanish copywriter, who wrote:

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I’m not sure if you’ll read this email, since I assume you’ll receive a lot.

But what you mentioned today really interests me. In my country (Spain), I don’t see the practice of sending a daily email as a very common one. Often, they don’t even use email as a sales channel.

In my niche (trading and finance), I see a lot of people with large social media followers who don’t follow up via email.

And that’s a service I’d like to offer: using other email lists and earning a commission on the sales those emails generate. But the question is…

How do you know for sure how many sales the list owner is making thanks to emails?

How do you know how many of those sales come from emails?

Should we trust the list owner?

Can they somehow give you access so you can see the sales generated yourself?

Thank you. I love your writing and job!

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Maybe I’m projecting here, but the underlying frame I see in this reader’s questions is, “Will I get screwed? Will the owner not pay me for some sales I made him? Will there be INJUSTICE, perpetrated against ME?”

That’s the wrong way to look at it.

If you ask me, the right way to look at it is, does this make good sense for me to do now, and to keep doing?

When the topic of doing work on commission comes up, people often get hung up on revshare percentages, splits, tiers, contracts, agreements, and the technology of tracking, reporting, and checking whether sales you made were correctly attributed to you or not.

Ultimately none of that matters.

What matters is, are you happy with the money that ends up coming in as a result of the investment that you made?

If that works for you, then my advice is to stop stressing about the possible injustice — that somebody somewhere failed to pay you what you are due.

Travis Sago, who runs a “back end agency” that does exactly these kind of back-end partnerships, once proposed a thought experiment.

Imagine betting $1 on a coin flip. You put in $1, and then flip a coin. If the coin comes up heads, you lose your $1. If it comes up tails, you win $100.

Travis’s point was, keep putting in your $1, and keep flipping the coin. Even if the odds aren’t exactly 50-50, soon enough, you will be more than rich.

So much for a new perspective. Now for the offer.

If you are interested in partnering with businesses on the “back end” and maximizing your chances of success at every step, then Travis has an entire course about this, called BEAMER.

That course sells for $2,900. (It’s actually what I paid for it last year.)

$2,900 is a good deal for BEAMER, because if BEAMER leads you to even one modestly successful, one-time partner deal, it will pay for its $2,900 price tag, and then some.

And maybe you’ll have more than just one modestly successful, one-time partner deal.

Maybe you can take it as far as Travis has taken it, and make a few million dollars each year, simply partnering ongoing with people who aren’t really doing much with their email lists.

Now at this point, I could simply link to the BEAMER sales page, except…

There’s also another way to get BEAMER, at 1/10th (one-tenth) the price that it sells for via Travis’s site.

Travis also gives away BEAMER as a free bonus for those who sign up to his Royalty Ronin community, and who stay signed up past the free 7-day trial.

A month of Royalty Ronin will cost you $290.

That’s not exactly $1. But to me, it’s a reasonable investment — a reasonable wager to stake — to get set up with with inside knowledge on running back-end agency from someone who’s made millions from doing so… and to see if you are happy with the money that ends up coming to you as a result of this knowledge.

If you’d like to start a “back end agency” and you want to learn from an expert who’s done it before:

https://bejakovic.com/ronin

If nobody wants your profit-making offer, give it away

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Yesterday I organized a Zoom call for a few list owners.

One of these, a successful copywriter and marketer, was asking how to price, or how to persuade businesses to take him up on, his newfangled sales machine.

“Is $15k a year a good offer? The sales machine is super valuable, and has produced great results for the businesses who have used it. But it’s been a hard sell.”

I thought it was instructive that a successful copywriter and marketer was asking this question.

My answer was, if this thing produces sales so well, why not package up the results into a nice gift box, and sell that gift box instead?

In other words, instead of persuading business owners to buy a gizmo that costs $15k a year and promises to produce sales… why not persuade them to accept new money in the bank, which they can pay you a finders fee for?

In the words of marketing legend Claude Hopkins, who became the modern equivalent of a billionaire using little more than a typewriter:

“In every business expenses are kept down. I could never be worth more than any other man who could do the work I did. The big salaries were paid to salesmen, to the men who brought in orders, or to the men in the factory who reduced the costs. They showed profits, and they could command a reasonable share of those profits. I saw the difference between the profit-earning and the expense side of a business, and I resolved to graduate from the debit class. “

“Yes,” I hear someone saying in the back, “but business owners should already know that a sales gizmo isn’t really an expense, because it will help them make money. They should be smart enough to see a profit-generating solution when they see one. They should they should they should.”

Yes, they should.

But they don’t, just in the same way that the successful copywriter above should have remembered the century-old lesson that turned Claude Hopkins into a billionaire, but he didn’t.

The fact is, we have limited time and attention and energy, and doing the work of translation — of turning what we have into what we could possibly have, of what we buy into what it could do for us, of what we sell into what people really want — requires time and effort.

You can argue against this aspect of reality. Or you can work with it, and simply translate what you sell into a result that people care about, and that they can take you up on without risk.

Moving on.

I recently got a bunch of feedback from my readers, and I found that a large number of people list, as their #1 goal, getting consistent with emailing daily.

Maybe you too feel you should should should be writing consistent daily emails. But you still don’t do it.

If it’s not happening, and if it’s important to you, maybe it’s time for to take a different tack:

https://bejakovic.com/deh

How I would eat ecom copywriters’ lunch… with some fava beans, and a nice chianti

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Over the past year, I have had an ungodly number of people sign up to my list who bill themselves as ecom copywriters.

Typically, the main service these folks offer is email marketing for ecom brands.

Makes sense to me.

Even though I am currently promoting an offer titled 1-Person Advertorial Agency, and though in the past I made good money writing advertorials for ecom clients, that money pales in comparison to the money I made writing emails, for those same clients, on a profit-share basis.

The thing is, I only got a chance to write those profit-share emails because I was already writing advertorials for these clients, and because their entire customer flow, and the success of their future offers and funnels, depended on the front-end copy I was writing.

Which brings me to the following 7-step plan that I would follow today, blindly and with 100% commitment, if I were bent on eating the lunch of all those email-writing ecom copywriters:

1. I’d find ecom businesses that are running paid traffic (easy enough with Facebook ad library, but more below on how to do this in a smart way). I’d look for a business that’s sending traffic straight from their ads to the product page.

2. I’d write an advertorial (or three) for such a business, and I’d do it for absolutely free. (Why not? It’s an investment of a couple hours that could pay back literally hundreds of thousands of dollars over time.)

3. I’d put the advertorial in a Google Doc, and format it nicely so it can function as a live piece of copy. I’d send this to the biz owner. I’d tell them it’s theirs to use, and there’s nothing to do but simply clone the Google Doc (to make sure I don’t mess with it) and redirect a bit of traffic to it to see how it performs against their base funnel.

4. I’d follow up until I get either a “Leave me alone” or a “Damn this worked great, can you write more like this?”

5. If it’s a “Can you write more like this,” I’d say sure. And then I’d make the business owner the following sociopath offer:

“I will write advertorials for you ongoing, for FREE (bear with me here), IF you will let me write emails for you, for FREE also. Just pay me a share of the profits I generate for you on the back end, after the money’s already in your Stripe account.”

6. If I get the objection that they already pay an ecom copywriter to write their emails, I’d politely say, “Fire them. I will do it for free, for just for a share of the profits I make you, unlike those people who charge you whether you make money or not. Plus, I’ll help you scale your ad spend with my advertorials, so we both profit.”

7. If they’re already working with an ecom copywriter who’s getting paid on a profit-share basis, I’d say, “Fire them, because they aren’t writing advertorials for you for free. I will, plus I’ve already proven that I can write copy that sells your offers on cold traffic, which is way harder than email.”

… and to make all this manageable in just a few hours of work a week, I’d use the AI Advertorial Toaster that Thom Benny and his protege Sam are giving away on their 1-Person Advertorial Agency workshop, which happens this Wednesday.

For reference:

It used to take me 4-5 days to write an advertorial.

Sam’s AI Advertorial Toaster pops up a near-good-enough advertorial waffle pretty much instantly. It’s why Sam can bake up and serve an advertorial, one which will convert on cold traffic, in under an hour now, instead of the 4-5 days it took me back when I worked with clients.

It’s also the reason why Sam has been able to write 20+ such advertorials per month, and why he’s pulled in over $50M for clients over the past year alone.

Last point:

Also on the 1-Person Advertorial Agency training, Sam is giving away his Ad Reanimator process, for identifying and contacting clients who are a perfect fit for advertorials — ecom businesses who had a long-running ads that recently died. (Advertorials make those ads come back to life.)

If you are an ecom copywriter already, and if your livelihood is writing emails for clients, maybe a cold chill passed down your back just now. After all, I’m advertising a recipe for someone to come and take your livelihood away, potentially by the end of this week.

The only thing I can tell you is, if you’re currently not offering advertorials to your email clients, there’s nothing stopping you from doing so, using Sam’s Toaster and the instruction manual he provides for it.

Not only will you protect yourself against competition sneaking in and taking your email clients away from you, but you have a chance to make a lot more money, whether you simply want to charge your clients for your advertorials, or do a revshare deal like I lay out above (again, it’s how I made most of my money).

And if you’re not an “ecom copywriter” yet, it is a legit opportunity right now, even if you have little experience to speak of.

In either case, Thom and Sam’s workshop is happening this Wednesday. For more info, or to sign up before it’s too late:

https://bejakovic.com/advertorial-agency

Your free tip for bombarding clients with extra value

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A couple days ago, I promised to tell you how a Copy Riddles member got more out of Copy Riddles than he paid for it.

It involves a specific client-herding technique, which comes from a copywriter named Nathan, who asked me not to share his last name (for reasons that will be obvious). Says Nathan:

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– I familiarise with the content I’m promoting eg. eBook

– Develop the big idea

– Write as many bullets as I can – as quick as I can

– connect them all to the big idea and edit based on your training

– sprinkle them throughout my copy

Then, as a bonus to my client… I hand them the best bullets and tell them they’re free “Twitter” posts. Sometimes it’s around 30-40 bullets I end up handing over.

Clients love it as they feel like they’ve been bombarded with extra value. And it took no extra effort.

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“Huh?” you might say. “Good for the clients… but how is this any kind of proof that Nathan got more out of Copy Riddles than he paid for it?”

Well consider this:

1. Nathan signed up for Copy Riddles when I first launched it, back in 2021

2. He followed the program from beginning to end, and he participated in the weekly Q&A calls and weekly “Best Bullet” contests

3. When I ran the Copy Riddles cohort the next time, Nathan joined for a second time, and did the weekly contests again

4. At that time, he was working as a freelance copywriter. He then got a job as an in-house copywriter, while continuing to do freelance work (where the tip above about bombarding clients with value comes in)

5. After about a year, as a result of his growing skill, experience, and clear dedication to simply working, Nathan got headhunted for a new job with a nice salary increase. But not just that. As he wrote to tell me:

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But it’s not just the “head hunting” and “pay rise” that is the exciting part…

Is that my old job don’t want to lose me, so they’re going to contract me to keep writing for them… And…

The marketing manager (who also recently moved to another organisation) is contracting me to write for her as well.

All of this means I’m more than doubling my income.

Why this success? I don’t think it’s because I’m better than any other copywriter. Honestly, I think it’s because I read what you, Daniel and Ben say… I trust it… And I put it to practice.

You already know how important your bullet course has been for my journey, but the value you share in every email (just like this one) I treat with as much respect as any piece of information I’ve paid for.

All that to say, thanks… Again. And I’m sure there’ll be plenty more times you’ll hear it from me.

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About that “You already know how important your bullet course has been for my journey” part, Nathan gave me some earlier feedback on Copy Riddles, back before I even had a name for it and simply called it my bullets course. Here’s what Nathan told me then:

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John, this course was incredibly fun, motivating and mind blowing.

The daily emails kept me focused on the goal and also acted as a form of accountability.

But to me, it really wasn’t a “bullets” course… this was much MUCH more. It was so in depth that it felt more like a complete copywriting course.

I know you did talk about that in the sales (ie. being able to apply it to all parts of copy) but I had no idea it would be this in depth and useful to me every day copywriting.

The insights into the mindset of A-list writers, the reasons why they say things a certain way and how I can apply the same thought patterns to my own copy… priceless.

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Right now, I’m running an “Unannounced Bonus” event to promote Copy Riddles. This event is ending tomorrow, Sunday, at 12 midnight PST.

I haven’t been delivering Copy Riddles as a live cohort course for years, but I will do it now one last time. This means an opportunity to get on weekly calls with me and other Copy Riddles members, to get some accountability and motivation, and to participate in the weekly “Best Bullet” contest for the sake of recognition and fun and even some silly prizes.

That “Bullets With Bejako” live cohort is one part of the special offer during this “Unannounced Bonus” promo. Another is a free lifetime subscription to Lawrence Bernstein’s Ad Money Machine. I paid $997 for this last year, but it’s yours free with Copy Riddles if you get it before the deadline.

As a final inducement, I’m offering a payment plan until Sunday, so you can pay for Copy Riddles over three months.

The payment plan is there to take out the psychological sting of a lump payment. It’s there to allow you to get started today, and maybe do like Nathan — use the training and skills you gain through Copy Riddles to wow some clients, and win yourself some new work, and make your money back from this program before the final payments are even due.

Again, the deadline to join is tomorrow at 12 midnight PST. To get in before this offer disappears:

https://bejakovic.com/cr/

The moat of asking for help

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A few months ago got an email from copywriter Suraj Punjabi. I know Suraj from the PCM community I worked in as a coach last year.

Suraj and I exchanged a couple emails, in one of which Suraj opened up and shared some pretty personal stuff. I’m reprinting it below, with Suraj’s permission. It’s a long message but worth reading in detail if you are looking for clients, copywriting or otherwise. Says Suraj:

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I’ve been on a dry spell since April, but I finally landed a gig thankfully.

It turns out I was busy doing cold outreach that didn’t bother looking at my own data.

So in January, I did just that. Gave cold outreach a break and looked at my own data hard.

And I noticed that literally 100% of my clients for the past 5 years came from referrals through connections I made from Facebook.

I felt pretty dumb for abandoning such a proven strategy in favor of cold emailing.

So, when I went back to leveraging this strategy, I immediately started getting inbound leads.

One of them, a 9-figure powerhouse in the keto space, just became a client.

In fact, I’m starting with them TODAY.

Oh and another gig I got was working under a senior copywriter who currently has his plate full and needed help with emails.

I’ll never forget the lesson life just taught me.

Some coaches swear by cold outreach, others by Upwork, LinkedIn, or X.

They might be right in their own way.

But nothing beats looking at your own past data to see where most of your clients have come from and doubling down on that.

Of course, this is not exactly newbie stuff. You need to have solid data. And I have 5 years worth.

Since PCM until today, I have sent at least 5000 cold outreaches using different strategies.

I have done PCM, I have tried sending conversation starters…

I have tried sending personalized Looms to show them how they can get more subscribers to their list…

I have pitched low risk offers like helping them write a blog just to get my foot in the door.

I made a LinkedIn profile and paid monthly for the premium subscription.

I even went back to Upwork to compete against $10/email copywriters! 🤢🤢🤢🤢

And none of those strategies held a candle to simply reaching out to my Facebook network and asking for help.

Not saying those other strategies don’t work. Perhaps they do work for some people (I know PCM works for A LOT of people), but it didn’t work for me.

Felt like a fish being told to fly. haha.

I felt so stupid when I realized it.

But oh well.

Lesson learned.

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Two things to point out:

The first is the obvious — expert opinion doesn’t mean much compared to your own direct experience.

The second is less obvious, and it’s where Suraj says, “And none of those strategies held a candle to simply reaching out to my Facebook network and asking for help.”

Asking for help.

Most people don’t have a problem asking for the time, or for directions, or for a book to borrow.

But asking for help finding work — something that suggest genuine unokayness on your part — is something that few people are willing to do.

I never really did it when I was a freelance copywriter, and in need of work, except tentatively, with a few previous clients. (Even that rare and hesitant asking for help got me new leads.)

All that’s to say:

Asking for help works. People like feeling helpful, useful, and important.

At the same time, most people won’t ever ask for help, not in things like getting work, because it’s too threatening to the ego.

That just means that, if you can get over your own hesitations about asking for help, then you’ve just created a kind of moat around yourself and your success, which the hordes of others in your industry are not able to swim, jump, or walk across.

That’s my message for you today.

My offer to you today is my new 10 Commandments book, because this asking for help is actually Commandment I in the book.

It’s easy to read this book and think, “Oh these are interesting ideas, maybe I could use one of them in an email or a headline.”

But the fact is, each of the commandments in this book deals with the fundamentals of effective communication, and each is applicable to pretty much any problem you might be facing, whether personal or business. If you haven’t yet gotten your copy:

https://bejakovic.com/new10commandments

Copywriting client wants case studies you ain’t got?

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An ongoing customer (not sure he wants me to share his name) replied to my email yesterday with a “business of copywriting” question:

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Bought [your new 10 Commandments book] just now.

Great email. Keep ripping John.

And if can ask a question…

Im about to close an email marketing brand for a 4k a month deal. (They’ve done so bad in Klaviyo lol)

And the VP is IN. But the brand owner wants to see examples of prior work in supplements…. ugh.

I don’t have any atm. I’ve done mostly saas/tech cold email copywriting. And some small projects in DTC.

You got any “how a genius copywriter handles show us your case studies objection” in your store of knowledge? 😂

===

It’s been a long time since I looked for copywriting clients, and even longer before I applied for copywriting jobs where I wasn’t 100% qualified.

But I gave my thoughts to this customer. Maybe they can be useful to you too.

The standard response when a question like this pops up is to tell the copywriter to go write some custom samples, and send the prospective client that.

Of course, that’s really a stab in the dark. What’s going on in the owner’s mind? It might be:

1. Maybe the owner iss not convinced that the copywriter can write compliant or effective copy for supplements, even though he’s written copy in other niches

2. Maybe the owner is not convinced that the style of copy he’s seen from the copywriter is the right way to go (eg. maybe he just wants standard image-heavy ecom emails instead of text-heavy emails)

3. Maybe the owner is not convinced that $4k a month is really a smart expense for his company right now

Custom samples can help in situation 1, but they won’t do anything in situations 2 and 3, or in the dozen other possible situations that might really be underlying the request for prior work. The copywriter would just be wasting his time, and driving the prospective client further away.

Ideally, the copywriter above would already know (or could find out) what the owner is really concerned about, and he could address that directly using completely different approaches in each case, rather than by taking a stab in the dark.

Which brings me back to my 10 Commandments book, specifically to Commandment VIII.

That commandment lays out a little change I made in how I talked to prospective copywriting clients, back when I was hunting after such.

I estimate this little change doubled my closing rate, meaning that for every three or four sales calls I had to get on with prospects, I closed two new clients, instead of just one.

This same stuff, which I discuss in detail in Commandment VIII, could be relevant to the copywriter above, even though it sounds like he’s already dug himself into a bit of a hole.

Maybe the same advice could be useful to you too? If you haven’t yet gotten a copy of my new book, only one way to find out:

https://bejakovic.com/new10commandments

How to handle phone interviews with prospective clients

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Earlier today, while chipping away at my upcoming book, I remembered an important client-getting lesson from my days of getting on calls with prospective clients.

From 2015-2019 or so, I worked with dozens of copywriting clients, mainly via Upwork.

To get those dozens of clients, I had to get on hundreds of sales calls or job interviews, depending on how you look at it.

A typical call would go like this:

The prospective client and I would get on Zoom — or maybe it was Skype then — and we’d exchange some pleasantries.

Then the potential client would say, “Ok John, why don’t you tell me a little bit about your background?”

I’d take a deep breath. And then I’d launch in, telling the client all about the projects I’ve worked on… the results I’d gotten for previous clients… my methodology and philosophy of writing sales copy. Plus if I had the opportunity to do so, I’d slip in a few hints about being smart and reliable and easy to work with.

When I thought I’d covered all the most important and impressive stuff about myself, with my face a little red and my lungs empty of air, I’d finally pause to see if the client had any other questions I could answer.

I used this strategy for a long time.

It was a very instinctive and natural thing for me to do. It probably went back to elementary school days, and being quizzed and tested by the teacher to see if I knew the right answer.

And yes, this approach did work on occasion — if I delivered a great pitch and all the stars lined up.

The typical response would be something like, “Sounds great, John. We really like what we hear. We’re still talking to a few freelancers but you’re definitely at the top of the list. We’ll get back to you in a few days once we make the decision.”

Sometimes that meant I got the job. More often, it meant I didn’t.

Fortunately, I soon discovered a much better response to “Tell me a little bit about your background.”

I don’t have concrete stats to back it up, but I estimate this much better response doubled my closing rate, meaning that for every three or four sales calls I had to get on, I closed two new clients, instead of just one.

Plus, this new way of responding made the whole sales call dramatically easier to do.

Perhaps you know what my new response was, either because you know enough about sales, or because you’ve heard me talk about this before.

But in case you don’t know, and you’d like to know, then I have an offer for you.

This offer is only good for the next 24 hours or so, until tomorrow, Thursday Mar 20, at 12 midnight PST.

The offer is a guide I’ve written about the mysterious, unfamiliar, and sometimes dangerous business side of copywriting, the side of managing clients and making a name for yourself.

This guide is called Copy Zone.

I’ve only made Copy Zone available a few times in the past, and only for a day or so, like today.

On page 94 of Copy Zone, you can find the strategy I started using on sales calls with prospective clients instead of trying to wow them with my credentials.

On the other 175 pages of Copy Zone, you can find my best advice on how to make a good living as a copywriter, all the way from getting started, even if you have no clients and no experience, to becoming seen as an A-list copywriter, if that’s your ambition.

Warning:

Copy Zone sell for $197 right now.

That’s very expensive, considering it’s just a PDF of 175 pages.

All I can say to defend that very expensive $197 is this:

If I could go back 10 years, and talk to myself in the first days when I had the idea to start working as freelance copywriter, then this would be the most condensed and practical info to shortcut those first few days, few months, and few years of working. It would also be my best advice about moving forward, as far forward as your ambition will drive you.

I believe this information would have been worth tens of thousands of dollars to me over the years, or maybe more.

Maybe it can be the same for you.

In any case, if you are a copywriter or you want to become one, then just one small copywriting job, which you win thanks to the ideas inside Copy Zone, could completely cover your $197 investment, and then some.

Of course, it’s your decision. But the clock is ticking. If you’d like to grab a copy of Copy Zone before it goes back into the cave again:

Copy Zone

Writing formulaic copy month after month

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A couple weeks ago, I got on a call with a long-time reader, who works as an in-house copywriter.

This is part of an illuminating practice I’ve taken up, of actually interacting with people who read my emails and buy my courses.

Anyways, this reader, who has been working as a copywriter at the same company for four years, said the following:

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The main problem is, each month, the offers don’t really change so I’m writing the same stuff repeatedly.

The only difference is when they have a product launch, I get to write different stuff and set up more flows.

Other than that, it’s quite routine. There’s not much growth for my skill set.

To be honest, I don’t write a lot of copy there, because the copy I write there is quite formulaic and it’s also, not much variation. I don’t get to experiment much with ideas.

===

About that:

Gary Bencivenga, widely called the world’s best living copywriter before he retired, liked to quote Al Davis, the coach for the infamously tough, mean, aggressive 1965 Oakland Raiders team.

One time, during a press conference before a game, a reporter asked Davis, “So I guess you’ll just have to take what the defense gives you?”

Davis glared. “We don’t take what the defense gives us. We take what we want.”

Gary Bencivenga, who seems to be as sweet and nice of a man as you can put a hat on, recommended Davis’s tough-guy attitude for copywriters also.

Gary didn’t just take the offer the client gave him to promote. Instead, he took what he wanted — he switched the offer altogether, or reworked it, or added to it — until it was as close to his ideal as he could get it, and many miles ahead of where it had started.

So that’s point 1.

Point 2 is that you’re not Gary Bencivenga. You don’t have his authority, and you don’t command the same deference and respect from clients. That’s normal. Gary, again, was the world’s best, and he had a reputation to match.

The situation is even trickier if you’re an in-house copywriter, working with one company full-time. In this case, the power dynamic shifts even more to your client/employer.

And maybe, when you try to “take what you want” — to rework an offer, or to experiment with copywriting ideas, or to simply do something that will stretch and increase your skills — your client/employer gives you a look and just says, “No.”

What then?

It’s up to you. But one thing you can do is say, “Fine. I’ll do my own thing.”

I’m not saying to quit your job. You can “take what you want” on your own time, with nobody controlling what you do or how you do it. It can give you new skills, experience, extra authority.

And who knows?

If you come to your client/employer next time, and cite a personal success story, instead of just pulling a good idea out of the air, maybe you’ll get a better hearing.

If not, you will still feel more fulfilled, skilled, and stimulated. And you’ll have options, because you’re building your own thing on the side, and taking what you want there.

On the call I had with the in-house copywriter I mentioned above, I heard that this is exactly what he’s doing. He’s hunting and working with freelance clients as well. Plus, he’s started his own email list, and he’s writing to it daily.

Who’s got time for all that?

I don’t know. You almost certainly don’t. Or maybe you do. And maybe, if you want some help with the last part, starting and sticking to writing a daily email, you will like my Daily Email Habit service.

Every day, Daily Email Habit prompts you to write something different.

At the end of 7 days, you already have a bunch of little experiments you wouldn’t have had before. And at the end of 30 days, you can experience a transformation.

If you’d like to experience that transformation as soon as possible, it makes sense to get started today:

https://bejakovic.com/deh

Sign up to Author Stack because it might be interesting or valuable to you

by

Today I would like to get you to sign up to Author Stack. it’s free, though you can also pay if you want.

Author Stack is a Substack newsletter by Russell Nohelty.

It’s a newsletter for writers. It covers the mysterious business side of writing, as opposed to the familiar technical side that everybody else yaps about, telling you to tack on an ‘s’ to the the verbs in your headline (“TRIPLES your response!”).

As I wrote a few times over the past week, Russell reached out to me when he read that I’m going down the paid traffic route.

He offered to do a recorded interview, and share his experiences spending $30k to grow his own audience, which now stands at over 70,000 subscribers across his different newsletters.

I was grateful to Russell for the offer and for the info he shared with me.

I asked if there was something I could do in turn to make this worthwhile for him as well.

But Russell said he’s not worried about it. “If you put out good and do things with cool people,” he said, “things usually work out like they’re supposed to.”

Outwardly I smiled. Inwardly I cursed. I hate it when people are relaxed, generous, and non-needy around me.

Fortunately, Russell does write Author Stack, and I would like to get you to sign up for it.

Not because Russell asked me to (he didn’t) or because he was nice to me (he was).

Sure, maybe everything I’ve told you so far can be a bit of proof, or a bit of context to help ease you through the link at the bottom.

But really, I would like to get you to sign up to Author Stack because it might be interesting or valuable to you.

Author Stack can be interesting to you if you’re into things like Substack gossip… newsletter growth… or newsletter monetization strategies.

Author Stack can be valuable to you if you write or you want to write — newsletters, books, comics — but more than that, if you want to make money writing, and you’re looking for practical guidance on how to do that in the current moment.

Like I said, Author Stack is a Substack newsletter.

Like many Substack newsletters, there’s a free version and a paid version.

You can get the paid version if you like… or you can choose to not get it. The advice and info that Russell provides in the free version is already copious, and interesting and valuable without any add-ons.

Final point:

I’m not an affiliate for Author Stack. I am personally signed up to get it.

If you would also like to sign up for it, try it out, read Russel’s articles and see if they can benefit you, or open up your mind about what’s possible in the business of writing today:

​https://www.theauthorstack.com/​