Bad news for my AIDA School

“If I would’ve known their real job-placement rate — not to mention how hard it was to actually learn at the school — I never would have signed up.”
— Jonathan Stickrod, one of the students involved in arbitration with Lambda School

Almost exactly a year ago, I proposed something I later called AIDA School. A new way of teaching people copywriting… for free… modeled on Lambda School.

As you might know, Lambda School is a startup. It provides an education to folks, like the young Stickrod above. And it then places them into paying jobs as programmers and designers.

And Lambda School does it all for free. Well, at least upfront.

Because Lambda School gives you the free education. Then it finds you the job. And once you have the job, it takes a cut of your salary, for a few years, up to $30k in total.

Interesting. At least I thought so.

Only, it doesn’t seem to be working. I read about it today in a Business Insider article.

The article makes it sounds like Austen Allred, the CEO and co-founder of Lambda School, is a conman. Cutting back on instructors to make money… defending a crappy, inadequate curriculum… lying about the percentage of students Lambda School places in paying jobs.

But knowing what I know, I doubt Allred is a conman. I think he’s probably just a dolt.

I’m not saying that from any kind of smarter-than-thou place. After all, I also thought the Lambda School model smelled interesting.

But with a bit more sniffing… it now reeks to me of a flawed setup. Regardless of how good or bad the management or the education might be. Because check it:

From direct marketing, we know two fundamental appeals sell.

The first is FREE.

The second is done-for-you.

These appeals tap into some monkey brain, lizard brain, whatever. Not a brain that’s likely to be successful in the 21st-century economy.

And yet, these appeals still stick around inside of us, in spite of being unhelpful. That just shows how powerful they are. Which is why direct marketers use these two appeals so much.

The thing is, direct marketers know not to put those two appeals together.

Not just because it’s unnecessary. But because when you combine FREE and done-for-you, who exactly are you selecting as a market?

I’ll leave that question hanging. And I’ll just say that, seen from the powerful lens of direct response psychology… it’s clear to me that Lambda School, and by extension, my AIDA school, are doomed to failure. Allred, I’ll meet you at the bar for a drink.

Maybe you find all this depressing. So let me give you the good news.

Direct response fundamentals like FREE and done-for-you still continue to work.

You can use them, starting today, to make money for yourself. Just don’t combine them in one offer. Because you’ll attract the wrong kind of business.

Buuut…

What if you don’t want to just cautiously avoid bad business? What if you want to actively attract the best business?

In that case, you might want to go beyond direct response fundamentals… and to my Influential Emails training.

Influential Emails is not about abolishing direct response law. Rather, it’s about fulfilling it with new ideas that transform how you make sales and how your market sees you.

I won’t give you the full pitch here. All I’ll say is that Influential Emails is neither free… nor done-for-you. If that doesn’t trigger your lizard brain too badly, then take a look here for more information:

https://influentialemails.com/

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.

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